The Wight Chronicles - Summer: Pathfinder and the Wight of the Waters

by Sqoad

PROLOGUE - Five Days

"Sister, what is happening?!" Princess Luna cried in the distant shadows.

"Luna, can you hear me?" Princess Celestia pleaded.

The quaking earth beneath the princess shifted the stone walls, causing loud cracks and fissures to form, and making almost all communication inaudible. Harder still, Princess Luna was sinking and in her panic could not register anything. No matter how much she tried, there was nothing Celestia could do to reach her sister, for the fog kept them apart.

Then the apparition spoke again, this time to Celestia. "Five rises, five descents. The hunger consumes it."

"Who are you? What are you doing to my sister?!" Celestia demanded.

"You would not heed my warnings, so I give you a sign."

"What do you want!?"

The apparition laughed and opened its large, golden eyes, shining like starlight. "I bring you a warning - it was not heeded - I bring you a sign - it is not heeded - I shall then bring you a prophecy - and you shall heed it!"

Princess Celestia could make out a crude shape of an equine standing by a cracked altar, facing her with its side and grinning like a wolf. Behind the equine, a unicorn judging from its disturbingly long horn, was a colossal opalescent window, letting in the only faint light from a crescent moon.

"Who are you?"

The unicorn turned its head to the window. The previously featureless window began to inscribe with black lines to form a figure. At first it looked like a horse jumping for the heavens, then it grew a horn, and then it grew wings. But the unicorn would not give words to the meaning. The opalescent glass, first white, began to ornate itself with colours, colouring the winged horse golden and its mane a fiery colour. The other glass outside darkened to a deep blue.

"Now heed my prophecy, alicorn, or your subjects - your sworn duty - shall perish to the hunger of a great being without sate."

"What being?" Celestia pleaded, "tell me!"

"Sister!" Luna cried again.

"To east it harboured, to east it set sail,
to north it fled, from north a new will hail.
To east it harbours, from east it shall ride,
through forests it prowls; none hides from Hyde," the unicorn riddled.

"What does that mean?" Celestia growled impatiently.

"Five days to count, will come and go,
Five days of hunger, anger and throe,
Five days of travel, through high and low,
Five days to count, and then to you it will show," the unicorn continued.

Celestia tried to make sense of the words, but realised there were many things in the riddles she was not privy to. Hyde, who was that? What harboured to the east, and when? To make sense of these words, the princess would need others to be her eyes.

Luna cried out again, but this time it was muffled. She had sunken under the cobblestone floor. Celestia tried to find her sister, but to no avail.

"But should it be met, and not be first to approach,
then count your stars, for surely the meeter will be taken.
Awake not it from its slumber, for only there will it not hunger.
And let it come to you, or your sister shall never again awaken," the unicorn finished.

"What will come!?" Celestia demanded, but the unicorn disappeared in a flash of light, and suddenly the building collapsed. The window shattered and shot its glass wildly about as stone debris rained down from above. Celestia tried to fly out through the window, but felt a sharp tug at her mane pull her back. She struggled to break lose, even considering fighting the fog that held her back, but as she turned, there was the terrified face of her sister - moments ago disappearing under the floor.

"Wake up."

--- A Faraway Land, Long Ago ---

Horse in tow and the long steps up the slant stairs ahead was not a pleasing position to be in. The horse was bickering unrelentingly and the sun was already on its way up the mountain edge. The luminance was approaching fast and the towing masked child was not even half way to its destination.

The child was met with another similarly masked child who placed a palm over its chest and raised the other hand to its side, levelled with its head. This was a formal greeting for those you had great respect for.

"You make a long journey, enforcer," the other child said, "I ask of where you are headed." The other child tilted its head forward and looked slightly to the side - a reinforced politeness akin to 'I hope I am not disturbing.'

"I am taking this stallion to the Culling Grounds. It is an appeasement to the pride court after an executed trouble maker made enemies with them," the enforcer replied.

"Would it not suit to take the stallion oneself?" the other child asked.

The enforcer leaned in on the other child and scanned its eyes intently for hints of colour other than grey before replying: "The pride court is the dominant force within the veil, even I must recognise them. I have no choice but comply."

"I assure you I am no wer, enforcer, but from Yiao Valley," the other man said gestured around his face.

"Your dialect made me wary. Here we do not use the question form."

"The tyrant's tongue, then."

"As you hear it," the enforcer said and crossed its arms.

"How did the executed make enemies with the pride court?"

The enforcer looked at the horse. "Grave digging in the Culling Grounds."

"You jest."

"I do not jest," the enforcer snapped, "the execution was on basis of crimes against our enclave."

"What were they?"

"Deception, debauchery and murder."

"A just execution then?"

"A foul one. Rarely does a convicted struggle as much as this one."

"Who was it?"

"A dressmaker from the Patriarchal Circle. I will say no more than that."

The enforcer resumed its climb, noticing soon it had a partner. "You changed your course," the enforcer remarked to the other child.

"I have never seen the Culling Grounds."

"Then you have never seen a culler."

"True."

"Keep to that."

The other child stopped and looked up to the cliff's edge. "That cliff, and all above it, is the Culling Grounds?"

"The second largest cell in this city, after the Commons District, true," the enforcer replied.

The other child looked to the ocean and the mountain range in the horizon.

"There is naught but dragons there," the enforcer said.

"I have heard rumours that dragons are being raised in hatcheries in the Culling Grounds."

"Rumours that are merely lies to be exposed."

A loud yawp boomed from the cliff top as debris rained down. The enforcer shoved the stallion against the cliff wall and took shelter under it, and beckoned the other child to join under, just before the rain of rubble smashed the ground around them. As the dust cleared the enforcer looked up and spotted a large silhouette being thrown over the edge. It landed without bounce before them and cracked with the breaking of bones. A young dragon; a dead dragon.

"The rumours are true!" the other child clamoured.

The enforcer looked up again and saw a figure peering over the edge. A differently masked figure holding a dragon's head.

"This dragon is missing a head! Enforcer, what is the meaning of this?"

The enforcer tapped the other child on its shoulder and pointed up. Upon noticing the figure, the other child withheld a gasp.

"Is that a culler?"

"A culler has a much larger head. It is a loather."

"That loather must have killed this dragon. How reckless to just throw it down like this."

The masked figure at the top of the cliff was no doubt a loather, a Culling Grounds fanatic huntsman. They did not take kindly to strangers.

"Tell me where you are from," the enforcer ordered.

"Yiao Valley, the Cloud Marshes," the other child informed.

The enforcer turned to the other child and took a deep breath.

Forget what you have seen here and return to Yiao Valley.

The other child flinched before sluggishly turning to walk down the stairs. It then adjusted its posture before taking to a jog as it descended the stairs. Before long the other child was out of sight.

The enforcer looked up the cliff again and the loather was no longer visible. By sending the stranger away, the enforcer had appeased the onlooker. The loathers were fierce, and a lone dragon or two would not give them a moment's pause to strike. But how the dragon had come there was a mystery. There were likely to be consequences to follow. But they would be the Culling Grounds' problems, and no one else's.

--- Canterlot Castle ---

"Five days?"

"That is what I was told," Princess Celestia confirmed.

"Who... what told you this?" Princess Luna asked.

"A unicorn by what I saw. But I will not discount the possibility of another creature."

"What will come... Hyde?"

"I do not know what that is, sister," Celestia said and sighed. "I feel we must be extra careful. But I dread to worry our subjects with the news."

"They may try to face the problem on their own," Luna suggested.

"Yes, sister, as the prophecy speaks against it. I fear the consequences may even be deathly so."

"Hmh, it is a lot to swallow, sister," Luna said and hummed, "I will not think on this lightly. You rest, and I shall patrol to the east."

"Luna, you cannot -..."

"I will seek no trouble, dear sister, I will merely keep an eye out. Even if only to see nothing."

"Stay safe."

"Rest, sister, the night is young."

Comments

[Sqoad]

The revised version of 'Pathfinder' is now gold. A few days later than I'd hoped, so I apologise for that.

You will notice the major change in title, now called 'The Wight Chronicles - Summer: Pathfinder and the Wight of the Waters,' and deals with a very specific event. Rather than trying to tell a story spanning over 100's and 100's of chapters, I've opted instead to split them into parts so that any could be read without the other, and to make the prospect of approaching the story less tedious. As much as I like to write, I sure as heck was NOT doing a very good job about it before.

I hope you will enjoy reading the new 'Pathfinder!'

Edit: Hm... I didn't know removing chapters would also remove previous comments -_- , darn...