Duskrunner Chronicles

by Gigglebrony

Ch5 The Hearalth

The next two days seemed to drag by as Pagette counting the days until the weekend so she could go with Descoleigh to search the Everfree Forest. But whether she would get to or not was still in question. She had asked Zecora to see if Descoleigh would come to Ponyville and meet her mother, but he had yet to show up. If he didn’t show soon, then there was no way her mother would let her go.

Finally, on Friday afternoon, just as she was giving up hope, he came. As she saw him coming up the road, she ran to get her mom. By the time he reached the front door, Page was waiting, doing a sort of happy tap-dance on the spot.

When he finally came in, Ribbon did a double take. It was rare to see such a tall pony, even a stallion. Descoleigh was the tallest pony that she had ever seen apart from the princess. He was nearly a head taller than her, and looked very powerfully built. She could see how he was able to manage living in the depths of the Everfree Forest.

“Sorry to show up so late, but I haven’t been to Ponyville in so long I forgot how to get here. And then when I did, some pink pony dragged me on a tour of the whole place before I could stop her. Strange little filly; she seemed to be breaking all kinds of laws of physics when she did it. I think she actually dragged me through a brick wall.”

Ribbon and Page laughed, both saying “Pinkie Pie” in unison. Ribbon offered Desco a chance to stay for lunch, which he accepted graciously. She had to admit that she was starting to like this pony. After lunch, which consisted of a large salad and hay sandwiches, Ribbon finally got to the point of the matter. She and Desco had a long discussion about him bringing her daughter into such a dangerous place. She was reassured when he explained that he had been living in the forest for most of his life, and knew almost every inch of it. When she asked how he would be able to protect Page, he told her about how he knew every kind of danger in the forest, and how to get past or avoid all of them with no harm done.

After the lengthy discussion, Ribbon was finally willing to let Page go with him. If nothing else, he would be able to protect her from most of the dangers by sheer size alone. Very few creatures would mess with a pony his size. And if he knew even half as much as he said he did, Page would be in excellent care. When she finally said that she could go, Page almost fell out of her chair with excitement.

=+=+=+=

An hour later, Page was following Descoleigh into the entrance to the Everfree Forest. She was so excited that she was running circles around him as she patiently walked down the trail. She had expected to have to wait until the next day to go. But Desco had merely said, “I’ve always maintained that the weekend starts as soon as the school day ends.”

So, with little complaint from Ribbon, the two of them set off. Once they were in the forest, Page started to calm down some. Now that she was actually here, she was starting to become aware of just how dangerous this idea might have been. With every step they took, the forest seemed to grow denser and darker. She started to jump slightly at every sound she heard, until finally a thunderously loud crash made her dive for cover beneath the only cover she was sure was safe; Desco.

After calming down enough for her to come crawling out from under him, Page was blushing so hard she looked as red as her mother’s mane. As they started walking again, she asked, “How can you walk through this creepy place without being scared?”

Desco chuckled. “It’s easy for me. I’ve been here so long it doesn’t feel creepy to me anymore. And as for all those sounds that are making you jump all over the place…” The loud crash from before sounded, making Page dive for cover again. “It’s easy to be scared when sounds are new. But I know every noise this forest can make; and it is easy not to be scared when you know what the sound is. Here I’ll show you.”

Tugging her along by her tail, he pulled her to the source of the loud crashing noise. Page covered her eyes, shaking at the thought of what might be making such a racket. “Okay, take a look.” She opened her eye a crack, looking around for the monster that could have made the crashing sound.

When she didn’t see anything, she opened her eyes properly and looked around. All she saw was a fallen tree. “So… it was just the tree falling down?”

“Yes, that was the crash. But I think you might want to ask why we heard two trees falling so close together.”

Page looked around but couldn’t see what could have knocked down the tree. Then she looked more closely at the tree itself. It seemed to have lost a few branches in the short time she had been there. She looked closer and realized that there were thousands of small insects running around all over it, eating it at an alarming rate.

“What are these things?” she asked, pulling back when she saw one of them jump at her, trying to get at her glasses.

“They’re called Tillmites. They eat dead trees by chewing at their roots until they fall over. Then they get to work eating it down branch by branch. They can reduce a tree to nothing in minutes. Look, they’re already done.”

Page looked back at where the tree was and was astonished to see that there was nothing left but a giant pile of tillmites. Now that their work was done, they seemed to be just waiting around for something. “What are they doing now?”

Desco pointed his nose up and she looked too. Up in the trees, a small furry creature with huge glowing eyes was staring down at them. It’s mouth was hanging open and it looked as though it was trying to eat its own paws. When she was about to ask what it was, the thing popped its paws out and start tossing down acorns and nuts. One of them landed right in the pile of mites and they started to move exaggeratedly.

“That little guy up there is a Willow Wisp. They feed on nuts and acorns, but only rotten ones. They can’t see very well despite their large eyes, so they gather nuts but the dozens and store them in their cheeks like a hamster. After that, they find a tree near a dead one and start sorting through the nuts in their cheeks. After they find the healthy ones, they toss them to the ground, where tillmites come along and find them. The mites then burry the fresh nuts in the soil of the tree they just devoured and it help to start a new tree growing.”

Page stared down at the mites, who were running around gathering the nuts and acorns and then diving into the ground. “So they all work together to keep the forest healthy?”

“Exactly.” Desco lead her back to the path they had been following. “You see, even if the Everfree Forest is scary, it’s still a forest. And en ecosystem, especially one as unusual as this forest, has to work hard to keep itself healthy. So all the creatures here have evolved habits and survival techniques that help in that endeavor. Even the scarier creatures here play some part in it, including the dragons.”

Page swallowed audible. “There are dragons here?”

Desco chuckled. “Yes, but they tend to ignore most creatures smaller than them. That includes ponies, so we’ll be fine. The only dragon we have to fear is a young one that hasn’t reached full size yet. They would look at us as light snacks. But there aren’t a whole lot of young dragons here, and you can always hear them a mile off. Oh, we’re here.”

Page looked ahead and was started to see the clearing that held Desco’s house. She hadn’t been aware that they had traveled so far. The way time and distance were so messed up in the forest made it so hard to judge travel. She guessed she would just have to get used to it the way Desco had.

They both went inside and Desco pulled out a large map that looked very old. On it was the Everfree forest, drawn with very little detail except for a few key places. One of these was the clearing they were in; another was the area where Zecora’s house now stood. And, in the exact center of the map, there was a large black spot. It was much larger than any of the other clearly labeled areas, and was given the strange name “The Sorrow” in bold red ink that stood out against the blackness. The only other labeled part was a large tree that was labeled “Hearalth.”

Page looked at the large tree and the black spot. Those seemed to be the only places in the forest that had been given names. She pointed to the tree. “Hearalth? What’s that?”

Desco looked at the picture of the large tree. “Hearalth was the name that was given to that tree when this map was first made. It is ancient Equestrian for the word Heart. It was given that mane because it seems to be the liveliest place in the forest, as well as the safest. No creature, however fierce, will do another harm while near that tree. I’ve never found out why, but I know it’s true. The last time a dragon came after me, it stopped the moment it came within sight of that tree.”

Feeling a bit nervous, Page pointed to t big black spot. She didn't even have to ask; Descoleigh frowned, looking sad, and explained. "That is The Sorrow. It's called that because of the overwhelming feeling of sadness that comes over anything that crosses its border. The moment you step inside, the sadness starts to drain you of all feeling until you don't even have the will to go on. Nothing living can survive there, even plants and insects. The last time a pony went in there, he never came out. I went to look for him, but I was too late. I hate talking about that place."

Page shuddered as she imagined what it must been like to have that kind of sadness hitting you all at once. She seriously did not want to go there, even if the book made it sound like a good place to look for Duskrunner. If he was thee, would he even want to come back? Would there even be anything left to find? Duskrunner was immortal, but would even he die if he stayed in a place where you lost the will to live?

She gulped, then pointed to the huge tree again. "How long would it take to get to Hearalth?"

"About 3 hours; but it should seem much shorter if we keep our minds off the trip. We can leave in just a minute. There are a lot of fruits and stuff at that tree, and I want to get some fruit while we're there." He grabbed a pair of saddlebags and slung them over his back, then grabbed a smaller set and plopped them onto Page before she could react.

They both set off soon after, chatting the entire way there. Descoleigh showed Page all the different types of plants and animals they passed, telling her which were dangerous, which were safe, and which were a little bit of both. The first was a type of berry that, when you ate it, made you sparkle in the sun so brilliantly that it was blinding. Page stored a few of them in her bag to give to Rarity later. The second thing he showed her was a large yellow flower that eat anything that went inside its mouth, which let out a sweet smell meant to pull things ot it. Page had nearly put her head in the large yellow mouth before Desco pulled her out of the way, the petals slamming shut like the flower had bloomed in reverse.

The most fascinating thing, at least to Page, was a bush about as tall as she was that had apple-sized fruits growing from it. The fruit was a perfect sphere, each one a different color from the rest, though they all changed colors every few minutes. What made them interesting, though, was that when you pulled one off the bush, it started to change colors rapidly, finally topping on a random one, which gave it a flavor. The only problem was that you could never tell what flavor it was going to be by color alone. Desco said they were called Bertie Berries, named after the pony that had discovered them. The flavors literally could have been anything, including things like tar and sunshine. When Page tried the shimmering white berry she had picked, it tasted like Zap Apple Jam. when she tried another berry, which was orange, she almost threw up as she tasted what she knew to be the stuffing in her mother's old office chair.

"I told you," Desco chuckled as he watched her splutter and spit for over a minute, "They can taste like ANYTING. I once got one that tasted just like hair."

After the trip was over, which seemed to take no time at all, they stood at the foot of what looked like a huge wooden wall. When Desco picked up Page and navigated his way up the bark, she saw that it was actually a root that came off a tree that was so large it could have passed for a mountain. She wondered out loud how nopony could see this huge tree from Ponyville.

"You know, I've often wondered that myself. Everfree is a very strange place, with its own set of rules. And one of those seems to be that the only way to see this tree is to walk up to it. If you fly over it, it blends in with the rest of the forest so perfectly that it's like it isn't even there. Same thing if you climb a tree somewhere else and look at it. Despite its size, it's not the highest tree in the forest, though it is the tallest, so it can be easy to overlook from a distance."

As they walked along the root, which was large enough be used as a line of houses, they found that it was possible 6to walk right up to the top of the tree trunk by way of a spiraling vine. As they traveled along, Page was astonished to see dozens of dangerous looking creatures wandering all over the tree, including the vine they were walking on. Once, they even passed by a large Manticore, who simply nodded as it passed them.

As they reached the top of the tree trunk, Page was astonished to see that something like a crude house had been made there. The branches had somehow been pulled into a shape that made a strange little house. They walked inside and Page saw that there were signs of a pony having lived there. It looked like they hadn't been there for a very long time, though. There was no real evidence that the pony who had lived there had been Duskrunner though; and she couldn't really see how this helped.

As they searched through it, they didn’t find anything of any interest except for a wall that had 2 large hoof prints on it, like somepony had kicked it when they were angry. Other than that, all signs of life having been there were gone. Page was so certain this was the place that she even checked under the bed and all the bookshelves, looking for secret doors. But it turned out to be a bust.

Still the trip wasn’t a total loss. Even though the house had been deserted, the rest of the large treetop wasn’t. There were all sorts of creatures, from cute little bunnies to vicious dragons. All of them seemed to be completely at peace, simply enjoying each other’s company and dining on all the fruits that grew on the branches.

Looking at a tree this size, one would expect the fruit it grew to be the size of houses. Instead, the fruits hanging from the tree’s smallest branches were normal sized, but extremely varied. Page saw apples sitting on the same branch as oranges and bananas. Then she spotted a pineapple that was hanging right next to what looked like whole strawberry bush that also had blueberries and raspberries growing on it. But what she found most impressive was what looked like an upside down cherry tree hanging from a branch, with what had to be millions of berries hanging off it.

As they wandered around, gathering anything that struck them as looking tasty, Desco introduced her to several types of fruits that only grew in the confines of the forest. These were things like the Zap Apples, which only bloomed every few years or when specific conditions were met. There was a type of berry that Desco said only came into fruit when it rained, and tasted like a blend of every sweet berry there was. There was also a kind of melon that grew suddenly every Friday the thirteenth and tasted sour if you picked it on a day with an odd number but salty if you picked it on an even one.

Then he showed her a type of fruit that could only be found on this tree. It was at the very highest branch of the tree, hanging off a tiny little stem that looked like a mean look would sever it. It was a perfectly square fruit, about the size of a basketball. It was a pale yellow in color and seemed to be pulsing slightly every few seconds, almost like it was breathing. Desco lead her up the branch, right next to the large fruit and she saw that the stem was even smaller than she had thought. It was no thicker than one of the hairs in her mane.

“This,” Desco said, giving the fruit a gentle pat with his hoof, “Is the rarest fruit in the world. I myself discovered it and have since named it a Moon Melon. It’s a very strange fruit that only grows mere minutes after it is picked. But it’s not as easy to get ahold of as it sounds. Go ahead, try it.”

Page raised an eyebrow at him. Pick this thing? It looked like as she would need to do was blow on it and it would fall right off the tree. But she stepped up and grabbed it, tugging on it lightly. When it didn’t come off, she tried pulling harder, and harder. When that didn’t work, she used her horn to try and pull it down, putting all the magic she had into it. Finally, the jumped up and hung off the fruit, tugging with her entire weight. She only stopped when she turned her head and saw Desco laughing his flank off.

“You see,” he said after she had gotten down and blushed herself silly, “the Moon Melon can only be picked once a month when the moon is full. Any time before, and that little piece of string that holds it won’t come off for anything. I’ve seen a fully grown dragon try to pull that thing off by biting it and hanging off the tree. It stayed like that for 3 days before it gave up and left. Funnily enough, if he had held onto until night time, he would have gotten it.”

Page looked at the huge fruit with wonder. “What does it taste like?” she asked, quickly trying to remember when the next full moon was.

“Well, that is rather hard to describe. You see, the fruit tastes different depending on a number of factors. It will taste differently if it was picked on a cloudy or clear night, if it was picked by a colt of filly, and even based on the your mood when you eat it. But there is one thing I have always noticed: it always tastes best when you share it, and worst when you eat it when angry.”

Page had a sudden thought. “So, if it grows back minutes after being picked, does that mean you can get more than one during a full moon?”

“Yes, it does. I’ve managed to get 10 in a night before, but only because I couldn’t carry more than that. And I’ve noticed that, since the fruit tastes best when shared, the creatures here tend to split it among themselves after they get ahold of one.”

Page was fascinated by this fruit. Imagine something that was specifically designed to bring people together like that. Maybe she should try bringing one to her mom. Or better yet, to Pinkie Pie, who would be able to make extremely tasty goodies with it. She would have to see about getting one to bring home.

“You’re actually in luck,” Desco interrupted her thoughts as he lead her back down the tree; it was growing dark. “The next full moon is actually tomorrow night, so we’ll be able to gather a few.”

=+=+=+=

Before they got ready for bed, Desco having pulled an extra mattress from under his bed, Page sat at her table and got out her notebook. In it, she had written down the few clues she had gathered before coming to the forest.

• Duskrunner in love with Luna.
• Duskrunner ran away from Celestia after Nightmare Moon was imprisoned.
• Large explosion happens soon after Duskrunner disappears.
• Everfree Forest springs up soon after explosion.
• Duskrunner most likely in Everfree Forest.

Under these she wrote out the new clues she had come up with.

• 2 places Duskrunner could be hiding
o Hearalth: Large tree that grows lots of fruit and makes creatures friendly.
o The Sorrow: Dangerous place, makes you so sad you don’t want to go on.

She shuddered as she thought of that place. If Duskrunner hadn’t been at the Hearalth, then the Sorrow was the only place left to look. But she REALLY didn’t want to go there. But she had to if she wanted to solve this particular mystery. She starts writing again, making her last note.

• Explored Hearalth. Found old house but no sign that Duskrunner was the pony lived there. Large hoof prints show that very large pony must have made them. Just how tall was Duskrunner?

She closed her notebook and put it back in her bag, then went to the mattress Desco had made her. She was exhausted after all that walking.