> Into the Forest I Go
>  by saarni
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I. To Lose My Mind and Find My Soul
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

All was still.

The mirror-smooth river meandered on its gently coursing way, splashing daintily against the few wide ashen rocks which dared to impede its path. The only sound which had the bad grace to puncture the otherwise all-encompassing silence was that of the water’s incessant spatter. On the largest of these stone slabs sat an unusual, vibrantly-coloured creature curled up in a foetal position. Well, perhaps sat was the wrong word. It lay there, inert, silent, as still as death. If it hadn’t been for the slow, rhythmic undulations of its breast you would have been forgiven for thinking that it was bereft of life.

Even in slumber, the expression set into the pronounced muzzle which marked the tip of its refined face was curious; not curious in the sense of being strange, but curious in the sense of being puzzled by something and attempting to figure out what it was, as if even its dreams were merely another mystery needing to be solved. Its body was supple and lean, and four long, thin legs protruded from it. The fine coat which covered it was picked out in a startling lavender hue, and the locks of exquisite hair which masked one side of its sleeping face seemed to shift from a striking indigo to an arresting cobalt depending on how the light from the overhead sun hit it. Two stripes, one pink and one purple, neatly bisected its length.

By following the sinewy curves of its frame, one’s exploratory eye might be drawn in the direction of its flanks and the flowing tail which followed a similar pattern to the hair atop its head; depicted on the flesh there, however, showing even through the coat, was a strange symbol of some kind: a bright, six-pointed star with five smaller white stars surrounding it. Was it a clue as to this creature’s origin? Or did it mean something entirely else?

Ever so slowly, the cascading babble of the nearby stream punctured the cloying fog which had taken a hold of the creature’s mind and refused to release it; its ears fluttered, its muzzle twitched in what might have been the ghost of a smile, its legs moved of their own accord as if searching for something. A pair of bright, inquisitive mulberry eyes were soon revealed from where they’d previously been sequestered under tightly shut lids. They took in their environment, but as was the case with most newborns they did not immediately understand it.

No words, no discernible noises of any kind, issued forth from its throat when it experimentally worked its muzzle; when it tried to move its limbs of its own accord, though, it finally uttered a loud, keening cry of pain when it discovered that they were stiff and unyielding. Almost as if the muscles controlling them had never been used before. Exerting a tremendous effort of will, the creature managed to stagger its way – shakily, it must be said – on to all four of its jittery limbs. Sweat dripped from its brow, it wobbled slightly, but it adamantly refused to fall back down.

The creature opened its mouth in surprise when a pair of majestic wings sprouted of their own accord from the sides of its body; they seemed to have unfurled instinctively to act as a counterbalance, and the creature had to admit that it was standing with a bit more stability now. It studied the wings as though they were some strange object that had been attached to them without their knowledge or permission. Tentatively, it manipulated them as best it could – opening and closing them, feeling the cold, damp rock below and finding that the feathered tips could sense feedback from the environment just as well as the hooves which capped its legs did – until they no longer felt quite as … alien. Casting its eyes upward, the creature studied the cloudless sky and asked, “Can I fly?”

“Oh. I can talk. Hello!” As with its legs, the creature soon observed that its throat wore out quickly having not been used very much or at all; those few words spoken in a lilting, almost musical cadence were enough to inform it that, whatever it was, it was female. It, she, took a short, precarious step to the edge of the rock and peered into the river below and got her first good look at herself. “Okay, the horn is a surprise,” she said, the tip of a hoof suddenly reaching out to touch the hard, spiralling nodule of flesh growing out of the middle of her forehead. A word suddenly flitted through her mind, “Alicorn.”

“Alicorn,” she said out loud. “I am an alicorn pony.” As far as clues to identity went it wasn’t much, but it was something to go on at the very least.

A sense of resolve flooded through the pony; she shifted her gaze to the landscape around her, hoping to see something, anything, that might be familiar to her. While it was a pleasant enough locale, with its unpolluted stream and seemingly endless rows of leafy green trees branching out in every direction, something inside told her that this wasn’t where she was meant to be. When she found that nothing about this place rang any kind of a bell in her mind, she felt a peculiar sense of energy fill her body. She wasn’t scared about the challenge of learning more about this place, she was enthused by it. Beyond her own small clearing, she spied a gap in the trees and what seemed to be a little dirt path leading away from here. “What’s beyond this point?” she asked, knowing that the only clues would be the ones she’d find herself.

It soon registered with her that there was something faintly odd underpinning the tranquillity of this place; beyond the stream, there was no other source of sound whatsoever. There wasn’t any birdsong, and more to the point, there weren’t any birds in the sky at all. No fish leapt out of that sparkling river, no woodland critters lurked in or amongst the trees. There wasn’t even the buzzing of insects. Surely a place like this would be teeming with bees and wasps at the very least? 

She felt something lurch in her stomach as a cold knot of apprehension tightened within her. It was strange how quickly a place could go from welcoming to terrifying once you’d joined a few dots. Even the sun hanging high in the sky struck her as unfriendly all of a sudden, though she couldn’t immediately say why.

Catching sight of her panic-stricken face in the river once more, the pony strove for a sense of calm; she placed a hoof to her chest, took a deep breath, then released it at the same time as pushing her hoof away as if she were also discarding her troubles with it. It helped, a little. The air here was crisp and refreshing, and so far, it was the only part of the experience which didn’t seem to have something awful lurking in its undercurrents. She realised that she needed … something. What it was, she couldn’t say exactly. A comforting voice of wisdom with all the answers? “Answers, that’s it!” she said in a tone of voice that was bratty, almost sullen. The pony realised that she was becoming angry with the forest itself, as if it was alone responsible for toying with her like this. She shook her head. “I need answers.”

Answers weren’t just going to announce themselves to her, she knew, so that meant … braving whatever dangers lay beyond the treeline.

Unless …

	The pony flexed her wings, still finding the sensations associated with them odd, to warm them up; once that was done, she beat them as hard as she could, but quickly found that for whatever reason she she could not achieve any kind of lift. “Either these things are purely decorative,” she said frostily, “or there’s some trick to this that I need to figure out.” Folding her wings back by her sides, she let out a soft sigh. It was always worthwhile to investigate new things, of course, but the wasted effort involved made her feel irritated all the same. Using up energy when you’re not entirely certain of your situation was a sure path to running into trouble further along the line.

Only one path to finding a way out of here was left open to her now: cutting through the forest itself.

She was not yet accustomed to walking on four legs, and so she swayed and faltered somewhat as she made her way across the rocks to where the gap in the treeline was; what she’d initially taken for a dirt path, she could see now was merely a rut that had slightly fewer trees growing on it. Nonetheless, with no other options immediately available, she followed it and silently prayed that it would lead to somewhere eventually. Almost immediately, the sun was blotted out save for a few shards of light that punctured through gaps in the thick canopy above.

To some, the flowers in bloom, the stench of fungi, and the mighty trees which reached high into the heavens might’ve been pretty, but the pony merely took all this in with a calculating look. Aware of a noise from her stomach, she realised that she’d probably have to test the viability of the mushrooms as a food source if she didn’t find anything else soon. She just knew there was some kind of rule to tell which ones were poisoned that she was forgetting about at the moment.

Despite the empty loveliness, she felt an ominousness building up within her; just as the clearing had turned out to have a sinister air once you’d started thinking about it, so, too, did this place. She stopped and sniffed, recoiling almost immediately when a pungent odour hit her nostrils.

She couldn’t identify it, but her mind told her that it was all wrong somehow. It set her teeth on edge to think about.

Something moved just up ahead; she got the impression of a hefty bulk, but it was able to move swiftly between the tree trunks like it was some kind of forest spirit or nymph. Her body flooded with adrenaline, preparing her to either fight or flee, and she caught a quick flash of glowing yellow orbs staring back at her. Before she knew what was happening, two massive oaks were uprooted and went sailing close enough to her head to tug her indigo locks into their slipstream. She let out a breath she didn’t even realise she was holding.

An outstretched tail came swinging in her direction and she dove to the ground, becoming mired in dirt and dust as she rolled under it; the tail was thick and leathery, festooned with spikes of varying lengths and sharpness. A single glancing blow from it, she realised, eyes wide, would have shattered every single bone in her body. With a speed that was all down to her body’s attempts to stay alive and completely divorced from any rational thought, the pony contorted herself around it as it tried once more to impale her. Her alert eyes followed it, trying to track it back to its source somewhere in the gloom beyond.

She saw a bulbous knob of flesh that could probably take down even the sturdiest of trees – to say nothing of prey – all by itself capping the end of the tail; again, driven purely by instinct, her hooves latched on to a slight groove in the rough flesh and she held on for dear life, a mad idea beginning to form in her mind. Whatever this creature was, it was becoming aware of her presence as it dragged her along in its wake as something other than just another easy meal to crush and devour. It was the dominant force in this part of the woods, and now it was faced with a challenger.

Unable to match the creature in terms of pure physicality, she knew that she would have to be sneaky if she wanted to get out of this alive. It lumbered about, crashing into trees as it did so, in an attempt to shake her off, but the pony gritted her teeth – hoping that the hundreds of splinters wouldn’t injure her too much – and persisted in her slow crawl along the creature’s tail until she reached its scaly body. From there, she climbed up its back until she reached a throbbing, pulsating, thickly-veined neck.

Getting her first good look at the creature, the pony was lost for words. Really, what could adequately do justice to such untempered ferocity given physical expression? The pronounced snout was sharp and bat-like, and the nostrils flared wildly every time it breathed out its noxious fumes. The jaw was powerful and reptilian, the mouth filled with the kind of inward-facing fangs that the largest of sharks would feel envious of. A blood-red mane sprouted in every conceivable direction from the top of its bloated, hardened head, and the scent was that of large desert cats. It was as if all the elements of the world’s greatest apex predators had been brought together in one animal.

And she didn’t doubt for a moment that it frequently won encounters against smaller opponents such as herself.

With all of her strength, finding a vast wellspring of untapped reserves deep within herself, the pony let loose with a cry of defiance as she hammered both her hooves down at the same time on the hollow nub where the creature’s neck met its spine. It staggered about once more, the blow having temporarily stunned it; it unleashed a howl of agony, then started clawing at itself in a desperate attempt to dislodge the pony.

Or it was simply trying to reach its wound and soothe it. To be honest, the pony had jumped out of the way as soon as she’d seen the massive incoming paw about to crush her regardless of what its original intent had been.

Landing somewhat unsteadily on her hindlegs, her wings akimbo to steady herself, the pony turned in order to face the creature, certain that it would be preparing a counter-attack; while the shock of its injury had caused it to slow down some, it was no less vicious, and it was now angry in addition to all that. From its ugly, distended mouth, it let rip with a savage growl that shook the ground.

Anything with a prudent bone in its body would have taken flight at this stage, fleeing into the scrub and hoping to elude it amongst the tangle of bracken.

The creature charged at the pony.

A fierce sneering look flitted across her muzzle as she held her ground.

Its impressive weight was made up of pure muscle, she could see; it moved swiftly, with virtually no fat slowing it down. Every time one of its enormous feet pounded the ground, the nearest trees convulsed in sympathy. Even the pony was having a hard time maintaining an erect posture as it closed the gap at a frightening pace.

Its foot hit the spot where the pony had been standing.

When it turned to look, she was gone.

For the briefest of moments, an expression of satisfaction lit up the creature’s repugnant countenance; as it had done so many times in the past, it had conquered a foe who’d sought to claim its territory for its own. Belatedly, a realisation hit it: wait, there aren’t any ground-up remnants of the intruder either.

It cast about for several confused seconds, searching for where the pony had gone.

Then, it felt something sharp being driven into the back of its left ankle; stumbling about, the creature fell over, its claws going to its abused talus. Somehow, the pony had divined that the flesh there was weak and tender, and thus susceptible to an attack. Or it had just been a lucky guess. As it lay prone, nursing its wound like a newborn, the creature saw her wiping blood and gristle from the end of her horn with a disgusted look darkening her muzzle. The injured muscle would take several days to heal, and during that time, it would be vulnerable.

It hoped that the pony would be merciful and end things quickly.

She leapt on to the monster’s stomach, regarding it with a look it couldn’t immediately identify for it had never seen such an expression before. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It didn’t have to be this way.”

The pony’s horn lit up; the indentations that defined its spiral shape were aglow as some strange energy filled it, and she pointed it at the creature’s face. From the look on her face, the creature got the impression that this development was new to her as well.

Its xanthous eyes regarded her steadily, never once wavering from her mesmerising amethyst gaze; it would not cower away in its final moments, knowing that to do so would be even more shameful than having lost a contest to such a weak and inferior prey to begin with. Silently, it sent an invocation in the direction of its ancestors in the hopes that they would eventually find it in their old, rotting bones to forgive its failure.

Naturally, they did not deign to reply.

With a weary sigh, the pony allowed her horn to go dark. She jumped down from the creature’s chest daintily – if nothing else, the fight had given her a chance to get used to her legs – and stalked off in the direction that she’d originally chosen to pursue. “Just remember,” she said, flicking her head back at the creature as it stared incredulously after her, “that I decided to show you mercy today. If you want to continue this tomorrow, well, that will be a whole different story.”

It took everything that she had left not to faint; the entire encounter had been draining – spiritually as well as physically – and now this, whatever it was, that lurked inside her presented her with yet another mystery to solve. Breathing heavily, she idly wondered if it had been a mistake to let the creature live. “I might not be able to fly,” she said, “I may not have my memories, my magic might be on the fritz, but Twilight Sparkle does not kill under any circumstances.”

Twilight Sparkle? She shrugged. As good a name as any, she reasoned. It sounded about right, anyway.

The priority now was to find food and somewhere safe to shelter; there were plenty of tall trees and, with luck, she could find one with some easily ascended branches. A retreat off the ground that would allow her to see the way ahead would be ideal under the circumstances. Potentially, the forest was filled with creatures like this, and now Twilight needed to rest and regain her flagging strength before facing up to those challenges.

For just the briefest of moments, she looked back at where she’d come from; she could return to the clearing she’d woken up in, but something deep inside of her said, “No. To go back now would be to admit defeat. It would be failure. And I do not fail ever!”

There was more to this world than the forest.

Right?