I. Birch
Warning: The following has been dictated from a tape recording. In many places, the audio quality was poor, so some of the words and phrases represent my best, educated guesses. Background noises such as scuffling, shouting, and hitting have either been removed or explained with additional, carefully chosen prose. Because of this, I can make no claims as to the accuracy or the authenticity of the transcript.
Thank you for your patience and understanding!
- Half Dime
My ears perk with the rustling in the woods. Leaves crunch, twigs snap, and grasses thrash together. About twenty yards away, where the forest breaks into tall grass, three shadows materialize. They pause to collect their bearings, make a beeline for the heart of the valley, and station themselves at three different points inside the reeds - one at eleven o’clock, one at eight o’clock, and one at five thirty.
The tall grass that surrounds the edge of the clearing shrouds my view, but the first two seem to be hiding beneath identical cloaks. Both are built powerfully, with the same sharp, well defined features, and structurally similar faces. Matching satchels are slung gently across their shoulders, but the resemblance stops there. One is the size of an ox. The other must be a pegasus, with their sleek, athletic build, and a cloak that juts at odd angles where their right shoulder should be. A pegasus with a broken wing, perhaps?
The last is clearly the leader. The others look to them for instructions; they motion the group forward. Unlike their cohorts, who simply look ready to charge, a fiery smile plays at their lips. I wish I could be certain of something beyond that. A helmet with a blue horsehair plume hides what are sure to be empty slits of eyes; their body armor is positioned just so I can’t tell if the insignias match those of his cohort’s. His face shifts as though his eyebrows are being upturned cockily, and the shuffling in the grass is quickly replaced by silence.
I have to blink back my surprise when it is. I am suddenly aware of every sound - my own heavy breathing, crusaders paddling across the adjacent lake, the distant firing of rifles. Dropping the wood I had been carrying, I draw the pocketknife concealed in my saddlebag, flick the blade open, and look around.
To my left, empty amphitheater seats are built into the side of a hill, facing a stone fire pit. To my right, the sun lingers just above the miniature beach that falls into Copneconic Lake. Director Bloom is standing on the shore, paused mid bend, raking her eyes through the foliage with the sharpness of a dagger.
“What do you think?” I demand in a papery whisper. “Troop 127 trying to scare us?”
“Shhhh…”
I immediately shut up. Maybe it’s her expression: the quick, clever way she takes note of the most minute detail, or maybe it’s because this is the second time in the last thirty seconds she’s had to silence me, but somehow I can tell that Director Bloom’s worried.
The rustling in the grass soon returns, this time from three different directions. They’re moving now. Like a pack of starved timber wolves, they move together in formation, trapping us in the valley.
I look back to Director Bloom. Without prying her gaze from one of the figures, she cranes her neck towards me, mouthing something. “Ah need . . . Ah need . . .”
“What?”
“Pocketknife!” Her hiss brooks no contradiction. “Give meh yer pocketknife.”
She doesn’t give a chance to respond. I’m fumbling with the blade when, in one swift motion, Director Bloom has her wood in the fire pit; my knife in its place. She’s holding the knife vertically with one of her front hooves, handling it as I imagine she would a sword.
“Birch. Run.”
“No,” I say flatly.
A shadow crosses Director Bloom’s face. “Seariously? Run.”
“No,” I insist.
“Birch, now!”
“No!”
As though waiting for my cue, something’s fired from the underbrush behind me. My head whips around as a long stick enters my body - the shaft of a wooden arrow. A searing pain roots where the weapon pierces my shoulder. Stumbling forward, I fall to my knees.
One of the cloaked figures breaks through the foliage where the arrow was shot. It hurdles into the air, landing on a single hoof before me. Using their momentum to pivot around, he lashes out with the opposite leg. I catch a glimpse of something metallic catching in the light, something dislodging from the archer’s neck and making an arc across the sky, as the kick lands squarely on my forehead. I’m thrown several feet back, and with a faint groan, smash into the ground.
The forest starts to spin around. Faster and faster, it feels as though the earth is being swept from beneath my hooves. The clearing blends into an indistinguishable mass of colors, and the world plunges into darkness.
I’m blind. My eyes flutter open and closed, but the world remains an icy black abyss.
Some pony screams.
Some pony falls.
Director Bloom.
I almost call her name, but something stops me. A sense I can’t identify. I imagine Archer looming over Director Bloom, who must have been tackled to the ground. He probably has an arrow fitted into the string of his bow, the readied weapon less than an inch from Director Bloom’s neck.
“Where did Apple Bloom and I first meet?” Archer demands in a surprisingly feminine voice. So Archer is a girl . . .
“Miss Cheerilee’s thurd grade class,” Director Bloom answers between breaths.
There’s a few moments pause before Archer responds.
“Apple Bloom,” she panics. “Canterlot has been threatened. Princess Luna has disappeared. And Princess Twilight Sparkle personally requests your presence at Canterlot Castle. Tonight.”
I half expect Director Bloom to come over and check on me, but she never does. Instead there comes another short pause, followed by the sound of galloping hooves and a loud rustling in the grass. Director Bloom must have nodded and stood, and would now be retreating with Archer and her cohorts into the forest.
Forcing myself to dig deep for air, I stand. Somehow I have the sense to realize the fading sound of Director Bloom and company is my only compass back to main camp. I take a cautious step. The ground ripples; my knees buckle. Again. I hoist myself up, and almost immediately fall. One more time. Staggering over what I assume is a rock, I manage a few steps, and stop. The rustling in the grass intensifies, some pony must be returning, so I focus my attention on not collapsing. At least not until they’re close enough to guide me safely back to the health lodge.
Suddenly I feel the quick, sharp pain of another arrow burrowing into my back. My jaw is practically dislocated from my skull, my mouth fills with the metallic taste of blood, and I realize I’m back on the ground, fading from consciousness.