A Question Of Reality
In the middle of a dark forest, a light blue pegasus jerked awake. Her eyes darted around in search of something vitally important.
“Buck!” the pegasus shouted to no one in particular before proceeded to grab a nearby stick and hurl it as hard as she could at the closest tree. Her anger and frustration contorted her face into a look of pure contempt, her body crouched in an almost predatory fashion, while her nostrils flared and pushed air back and forth forcefully.
After her outburst, the pegasus slowly calmed down, standing up straight and slowing her breathing. When she was no longer in an enraged state, she sat back onto her haunches and leaned against a tree and recited what she knew.
“My name’s Moonlight, but most of the ponies I know just call me Little Tigress. I earned the nickname because of my self-confident, self-reliant attitude, as well as almost always wearing my tiger-print hoodie. I came here looking for treasure, or anything else that might have been lost in here. I never earned my cutie mark and I don't care.”
Moonlight felt stupid for having to say this. In what scenario would telling yourself things you already know, things that were self-evident to you, be considered a sane thing to do? But this forest wasn’t a regular forest. Ever since she had come into it, reality seemed to no longer work properly. She was already questioning if several of her memories were real. This forest had a strange ability to slowly shift reality in completely random ways. Every so often, when she was in the middle of doing something, she would wake up. She could never recall going to sleep, and every time this would happen she would be in a different part of the forest she couldn’t recall seeing before.
Moonlight looked up to what should have been a canopy of leaves interspersed with glimpses of a beautiful blue sky, only to see a black expanse of tightly interwoven leaves and branches, so thick that not a single ounce of light from the sun could shine through. The only light that existed in the forest and the canopy came from glowing insects and fungi, with the occasional flower and plant. She had no way of knowing how long she had been in here, whether it had been only a few hours or for several days.
Looking down at her forelegs, Moonlight was reminded of her attempt to force her way through the canopy. She had flown up to it and had scratched and tore at the branches, only to have her forelimbs torn to shreds by several branches she had broken. She had had to stop her attempts at forcing her way out and bandage her forelegs. Not long after finishing her bandaging, she had woken up and discovered that the canopy had healed itself, and the branches she had broken off had disappeared. When she had removed the bandages, she found her forelegs had mostly healed, but the wounds were still raw.
Sighing, Moonlight stood up and brushed off all of the dirt and decaying leaves that had started to cling to her hoody. She had long since abandoned trying to go deeper into the woods after having awoken perhaps a dozen times already not knowing what was going on. All she wanted now was to make it out of the forest as fast as possable. After traveling Equestria for as long as she had, she had picked up a few tricks to finding her way around. Unfortunately, most of them had failed her.
She meandered slowly forward, scanning the ground to find any clues as to which direction the town might be in. While she would have preferred to use the sun or perhaps a breeze to get her bearings, the forest prevented both from being used. For hours, she had been aimlessly wandering through the woods, hoping to find something that could point her back in the right direction. She had first tried following her tracks back through the forest, but eventually, she discovered that the forest had contorted her path, curving and twisting it in ways she would have never done herself. Moonlight deduced that she had no way of knowing if she could trust her tracks, and with that, the last viable method of returning to town had been lost to her.
She had been in the middle of devising a plan not too long ago to tie several vines she had discovered together to form a rope, and with that, a method of figuring out where she had been. Unfortunately, as soon as she had torn down one of the vines, she awoke from a sleep she had been put in. The reason she had cursed and become so aggressive was that she realized that both the vines she had found were gone and that she was in a new location. She now needed to figure out a new method of finding her way back to town.
Looking around at the trees, Moonlight noticed that they seemed to be leaning slightly away from the direction she was facing. Not all of the trees were doing it, but it seemed to be a pattern. A smile developed on her muzzle, she now had an idea of where she needed to go.
The town she had come from had been at the southeast side of the forest she was now in, and along its western edge, there was a fairly sizeable hill. It wasn't quite a mountain, but it was tall enough that it was able to shroud the forest in its shadow, preventing the last hour or so of light from reaching the forest. It wasn't much to go on, but Moonlight was willing to bet that that hill had caused most of the trees to grow angled away from it in an attempt to absorb every last bit of light that they could. If that was the case, then all she would need to do would be to follow the direction the trees were leaning. With that, Moonlight began to walk towards what she figured was the east.
Now that her mind wasn’t running a mile a minute, Moonlight could go back to taking in her surroundings and learning just how odd the forest was. The forest was known as the Deadwoods, a name it had been given because of two of its aspects. The first reason was that no animal calls had ever been heard coming from within its borders, and the second being that every single attempt by ponies to find out what was within the forest had been met with total failure.
Every pony that had ever gone into the woods had failed to return.
It was when she was looking at a map of the town that she first saw the name of the forest next to it. When she asked one pony working there why it was called the Deadwoods, the pony pointed her towards the town’s library. The librarian, an ancient stallion with a face practically made of leather and a scowl permanently affixed, told her the history of the forest and why it had earned its name. She had been enthralled by the tale, and hearing that no one had ever come back to describe the woods brought out a deep desire in her. She just had to go into them to find out what was in there.
The fact that a forest of its size still remained almost entirely unknown got the wheels turning in her head. If she were to go into the woods and come out, she would be famous as the first pony to report back what was in there. And with so little being known about the Deadwoods, there could be anything in there, perhaps even the ruins of an ancient civilization or culture. It was entirely possible that she could become a real-life Daring Do by going to explore the forest.
That last thought had pushed her over the edge and guaranteed that she would go into the woods to explore them and, hopefully, find something interesting. She had run out of the library after the librarian had finished talking and had galloped over to a nearby general store to acquire some supplies she would need for her trip. She had purchased several liters of water and some rations, and before the cashier had finished telling her the price of the items, she had tossed more than enough bits to pay for what she wanted and told them to keep the change before taking off out the store and towards the forest.
Coming back to the present, Moonlight looked around at her surroundings. The one thing she could recall as being consistent throughout her time in the woods were the glowing plants, mushrooms, and the occasional insect. While they didn't make walking through the woods the most visible experience, they allowed her to at least see her surroundings without having to resort to using the flashlight she had tucked away in her hoody.
Soft blues, whites, greens, reds, purples—nearly every color was represented by at least one organism. Though with how dim each of the lights were, no matter how close something was to something glowing, it was always mostly covered in shadows. This resulted in the forest permanently looking not quite real. Like a surrealist painting of a dream some pony had had.
The only thing that was keeping her from fully appreciating what was surrounding her was the perfect silence that enveloped everything. Since she had entered the forest, the only sounds she had heard had been her own hoofsteps and breathing, as well as the occasional insect that would lazily fly past her ear. It was so quiet she had actually heard her heartbeat on one or two occasions. She was starting to figure out just how right the Deadwood’s name was.
After walking for what she felt was a good few kilometers, Moonlight heard something. It was extremely faint, but given the level of background noise, any sound seemed to be far more audible than they should have been. Moonlight stopped her walking and held her breath, doing everything she could to make as little noise as possible. After standing still like this and swiveling her ears around, Moonlight finally figured out the direction the sound was coming from. It almost sounded like a small fountain towards what she was considering the southeast.
A wide smile worked its way across her muzzle, becoming a face of pure elation as she began to make her way towards the source of the sound. If she was right, she had found her way back to town just by following the trees. If she hadn't made it to the town, hopefully, she was right and the sound she was hearing was a fountain belonging to a pony that lived out here. She just wished that if the latter was the case, the pony would know the way back to town.
As she walked, the sound progressively became louder, but never more than one would expect from a fountain. When she finally passed around a tree with bark almost completely covered in a glowing blue moss, the smile that had formed on her muzzle gave way to a look of defeat. She hadn't been totally wrong about the sound she was hearing though. In front of her was what appeared to be a freshwater spring that fed into a decent-sized inky black pond that reflected the many glowing sources of light that surrounded it.
Moonlight closed her eyes and did her best to collect herself. No, it hadn’t been a fountain. No, she still had no idea where she was or what she needed to do to get out of here. But, she had found something in the forest other than trees and insects, and this just so happened to be something she needed to find.
She had brought along enough water for a several hour excursion and had already gone through most of it. If this spring was indeed clean freshwater, she could use it to replace what she had already consumed. She brought out a canister she had finished off not too long ago from her saddlebag and dipped it into the moving section of the spring, making sure she stayed away from any standing sections of water. When she took a sip from the canister, she found the water was fresh, if a bit too mineral-filled for her liking. She filled her two empty canisters with the spring water, but wanting to be safe, she brought out a bottle of iodine tablets from her bags and dropped the last one, half a tablet per canister, into them.
As she was putting her newly filled canisters back in her saddlebag and reorganizing things so they would fit again, she noticed a flat stone lying next to where the spring started. A slight grin formed on her muzzle as she had an idea. Picking up the stone with her right wing, Moonlight walked over to the side of the pond and got into position. When she was happy with her stance, Moonlight used her wing to propel the stone across the pond.
The stone skipped three times across the surface before finally hitting the surface wrong and sinking into the pond. Every time that the stone collided with the water, however, a brilliant display of blue formed in the water and would follow the ripples caused by the impacts. Moonlight was glad she didn't drink from the pond now, who knows what was causing the water to glow. Before she turned back around though, one of the ripples that looked like it was about to collide with the side of the pond simply didn't, instead, continuing on and causing a previously unseen stream to light up in a vivid display of blues, greens, and whites.
Unlike the pond, however, the stream stayed illuminated. The ecstatic grin she had had when she thought the sound of the spring to be a fountain had returned. She had inadvertently found the way out of the woods. Water flowed downhill, and the only elevated area she knew of was to the west of the forest. If she just followed the stream, she would end up at the eastern edge of the forest, and just a short trot away from the town.
Moonlight quickly grabbed her saddlebags and tossed them onto her back before galloping along the edge of the pond and towards the glowing stream. As she arrived at the stream, she was amazed by the amount of light it was giving off. Absolutely everything that was living in the stream was glowing in a way that was far brighter than anything else in the forest. Moonlight began walking along the side of the stream but only looked at where she was going from the corner of her vision, keeping her eyes trained on the spectacle of lights that was the stream.
She saw that most of the bottom of the stream was coated in some kind of grass like algae, with the occasional seaweed-like plant, or patches of moss-like algae breaking up the uniformity. Scampering along the bottom of the stream and between the rocks were dozens of different types of crabs, small lobsters, and what she could swear were tiny manatees no bigger than one of her feathers. Finally, swimming through the stream lazily was an odd mix of fish, almost all of which looked completely new to her, even when you didn't count the fact that they glowed.
As Moonlight followed the stream she couldn't help but notice a bright light in the direction the stream was heading. Thinking she had been able to follow the stream to the border of the woods, the small smile she had from observing the pleasant sight of the stream quickly became wide and euphoric. As she was about to dash away from the stream and towards her escape from this awful forest, she hesitated.
She knew where the exit to the forest was now, and the stream was headed in that same direction. While she was still in the woods, she might as well appreciate the glowing stream, there really wasn't a need to rush anyways. So Moonlight simply returned to slowly following the banks of the stream and watching the strange life that called it home.
As the light of the sun became brighter, Moonlight figured that she had seen enough of the stream for now and she should probably get her bearings and start heading to the town she had left. But when she looked up from the stream, she wasn't greeted to the sight of a clear sunny day, but instead the sight of a lake that took up about the same space as Canterlot. Every part of which was glowing, creating enough light that Moonlight could actually make out fine details in the ground that she was walking on.
Rather than being disappointed or angry at what she was seeing, Moonlight was transfixed. Slowly, she stepped forward, towards the lake, and began to see why it was so bright. This lake was like an enlarged version of the stream, only far more diverse.
While the stream contained fish which were not too much bigger than one of her feathers, here, however, she saw several fish slowly weaving among the large growths of glowing kelp that were actually bigger than she was. Looking along the bottom of the lake, Moonlight lost count of how many different types of plants and animals were calling this lake their home.
It was such an entrancing sight that Moonlight couldn't help but feel drawn into it. She asked herself if doing this was actually safe, especially when she considered the enormous fish and the fact she had no idea how clean the water was and what else was living down there. But the exotic display before her was just too enticing. Removing her saddlebags and hoodie and placing them against a tree, Moonlight made her way into the lake.
In contrast to what she had been expecting, the water was slightly warm, if the feeling of it on her skin and fur wasn’t so distinct, she would not have even thought that it was even there. When she was no longer able to feel the bottom of the lake beneath her hooves, she began to slowly swim towards the center of the lake. When she felt she was in deep enough waters, she took a deep breath and dove down.
When the bubbles from her dive cleared, Moonlight was able to see a whole new world. Despite not having any goggles, Moonlight could see her surroundings just as well as she could see things above the surface. The sight of the lake from the surface hardly did its splendor justice.
The fish that she could see swimming around had scales that absolutely pulsed with light, creating a dazzling display that looked like ripples of light crossing over their bodies. Moonlight wanted so desperately to reach out to touch one of them to see if they were real. Along the bottom of the lake, she could make out dozens of other creatures ranging from eels to clams, even some shrimps, all of which were veritable rainbows of shifting light.
When looking around at the plants that were surrounding her, several of them looked to have veins of light coursing through them. Grasses and densely intertwined mats of an unknown plant wove between the rocks and kelp that dotted the bottom. The lack of currents in the lake turned the tall kelps into strange illuminated columns, unmoving save for when the occasional fish would gently brush past one.
As Moonlight was gently floating there, suspended in the middle of what could only be described as a pool of light, she felt something traveling up along her left thigh. When she turned around to look at what was touching her, she saw one of the strangest things she could imagine. Moving along her flank and thigh was one of the many glowing kelps, but contrary to what she understood normal kelps to be like, this one seemed to be able to think, moving along her body of its own volition.
As she watched it snake along her rear, she felt another member of the lakes flora begin to snake its way up her right foreleg. Looking back over to her front hooves, Moonlight was indeed greeted to the sight of what she had originally assumed to be regular plants moving towards her and moving to make contact. When she moved her hoof slightly the seaweed that had moved to her leg gently slipped off of her.
Curious as to what was happening, Moonlight elected to remain mostly still, allowing the strange plants to do what they wanted. They hardly seemed like a threat as they didn’t seem to be attempting to hold onto her or keep her here, only examining the strange creature that had found its way down here. Slowly, the seaweed began to creep back around her foreleg and travel up it and towards the rest of her body, while the kelp behind her was joined by a second one as it continued to examine her back half.
As she was floating there and allowing the lakes' plants to examine her, Moonlight's lungs began to protest. Though, she did her best to ignore them, using all of her willpower to remain in the beautiful world she had just found. Of course, her body continued to demand she surface, but Moonlight held firm, eking out as much time as she could. When the agony was becoming too great, and Moonlight was finally about to relent and swim back to the surface, the pain began to quickly subside, and the sentient plants began to retreat from her body.
Looking down, Moonlight was greeted to the most astonishing sight: her hooves were now glowing a soft bluish-white, and her bandages had disappeared, leaving behind fully healed forelegs. Before she could start to come to grips with this, Moonlight began to feel a sensation, not unlike breathing, in her throat. Panicking, Moonlight instantly closed her mouth as tight as she could and began to hold her breath, only for the breathing sensation to continue, this time though, more subdued. Confused, Moonlight reached up to the side of her neck where part of the feeling seemed to be coming from.
When her hoof came in contact with the side of her neck she felt something there that should not have been there. It was like a flap of skin, only far more sensitive than it should have been, and whenever one of the strange feelings in her throat happened it was accompanied by a current of water hitting her hoof. Wanting to test a risky idea, Moonlight opened her mouth and inhaled as she would normally.
Just as she had expected, she did not feel like she had taken water into her lungs and begun to drown. She had grown gills. Surprised by this development and her now glowing hooves, Moonlight turned around to see what else had changed, only to be greeted by a muzzle full of glowing purple hair. Moonlight was enamored by how alien, yet nice her now glowing mane looked to be. With a quick pass of her hoof through her hair, Moonlight finally saw the extent of the changes that had been done to her.
Her fur looked to have changed color to resemble her hoodie, making it appear to be a permanent part of her. Her usually blue fur was now a brightly glowing orange with black stripes that sat precisely where they would have been on her hoodie. Her wings too seemed to have been given the same treatment as her hooves, but instead of glowing a blueish white, they were a veritable rainbow, constantly shifting colors in a manner that made them look like they were attempting to emulate one of the many scrolling signs in Baltimare.
Looking back further, Moonlight saw that where her normal tail should have been, was now the tail of a shark, with the same tiger-like pattern as her torso and forelegs. Moonlight gave it a small flick to confirm it was hers. When it moved and she could feel each inch of it as it passed through the water, she knew it was hers. But of all of these new developments, the most significant to Moonlight was the appearance of a cutie mark.
It was a simple one, a glowing piece of seaweed connected to a rock with a starfish. Of all the changes that had happened to her, the most important to her was this. She looked at it in wonder. She had never thought she would obtain her cutie mark, but there it was. As she was pondering what the mark signified, she felt an emotional tug towards the center of the lake. Curious, Moonlight used her new tail to propel herself towards where she was feeling the tug.
Moonlight felt so right swimming through the lake this way, as if she had always been meant to. When she arrived at where she was being drawn to, she noticed that a crab had somehow managed to end up on its back and was now kicking its legs every which way to flip back over. Moonlight instantly approached the flailing crab and gently flipped it back onto its legs.
As the crab began to scuttle away, back to a crevice between two rocks, Moonlight was filled with an immense feeling of satisfaction. While helping others brought her joy, this felt different, it felt more filling, it felt more significant, it felt… like she had fulfilled a purpose. Moonlight finally understood what her cutie mark represented, she was the caretaker and guardian of this lake. She had finally found her purpose, she was part of something now.
She was… awake.
In under a second, Moonlight went from a lake made of light back to the side of the pond she had found, and with this change came a feeling of emptiness. Moonlight slowly got up off of the ground, sitting on her butt before looking back at herself, only to see the same body she had had for years now. A tear began to form at the corner of her eye. She had found her purpose in that lake, and the forest had seen fit to taunt her by taking it all away.
Moonlight stood up and began looking around for her things, finally seeing something that shouldn't be. In front of her were her two water canisters, their lids off, and the empty bottle of iodine tablets. Looking to her side, Moonlight saw her saddlebags exactly as she remembered them being before she began packing them up. The forest was taunting her even more by making it so that all the progress she had made on leaving the forest had gone to waste.
Angered by what she was having to deal with, Moonlight quickly grabbed her water canisters and aggressively began to tighten the lids before shoving them back into her bag. Seeing the empty bottle of iodine tablets still on the ground, Moonlight decided she was going to hurl it into the pond. As she grabbed the bottle in her hoof and was winding up to throw it as hard as she could, a noise from within the bottle made her pause.
Confused, Moonlight gave the bottle a light shake, and sure enough, there was the distinct sound of a tablet knocking around the inside of the bottle. As she looked at the bottle in astonishment that the last tablet had been returned, out of the corner of her eye Moonlight noticed the rock she had skipped across the lake. The forest had returned everything back to the way it had been before she had finished sterilizing her waters.
Slightly frightened by what she was seeing, Moonlight took her water canisters out again, hastily breaking the tablet from the bottle in half again and repeating what she had done last time. When she had finished repacking her bags, Moonlight picked up the stone she had previously thrown. Not knowing entirely why. Perhaps it was because she felt it gave her some control over the forest, or perhaps it was due to her frustration at what she was going through. Whatever the reason, Moonlight hurled the stone as hard as she could into the middle of the pond.
When the stone collided with the inky black surface of the pond, a small splash was seen and several large ripples broke up the reflective surface. Moonlight didn't know what she was expecting, but not seeing the brilliant display of light she had seen previously only seemed to make the feeling of loss worse. Moonlight sat down and calmly began to say the phrase she had repeated upon waking up the last… perhaps ten times.
“My name’s Moonlight, but most ponies I know just call me Little Tigress. I earned the nickname due to my self-confident, self-reliant attitude, as well as almost always wearing my tiger-print hoodie. I came here looking for treasure or anything else that might have been lost in here. I… never earned my cutie mark… and… and I don't care.”
That last line didn’t have her usual confidence behind it. That last thing she had experienced in these woods had shaken something in her. She always told herself and everyone around her that she was happy with being a blank flank, that it didn’t bother her. While she would occasionally ask herself what it would be like to have a cutie mark, she would always remind herself that she had been doing fine so far. But that feeling of purpose she had gotten from being in that lake and having a cutie mark had done something to her.
Looking around at her surroundings, Moonlight reoriented herself back towards where she believed east was and began her trek again. The forest remained relatively dull on her walk after leaving the pond. The silence was still putting her on edge, but after all of the time she had spent in the woods so far, the lack of sound was becoming less unsettling. Other than that, the lack of variety in the trees and the almost unnatural flatness of the forest floor was causing her mind to wander.
Moonlight could hardly believe that the only animals in the forest were insects. She at least thought that there would have been some birds or perhaps bats given how dense the insect population was, but no matter how hard she strained to hear another animal, all she was met with was silence and the soft sound of insects flying. On the bright side, she wouldn't have to be worried about any timberwolves.
She had accidentally run into a pack of them one time during the mating season and that was an event she never wished to repeat. She had been flying through the Tall Forest, a forest entirely composed of a single species of tree with smooth white bark that could reach upwards of one hundred meters, when it had happened. She didn't want to think too much about what had happened, she still had the scars from the experience.
Suddenly, a strange beetle flew in front of her muzzle and began to hover there. Looking at the beetle, Moonlight couldn't help but notice how odd it looked. It didn't seem to really have an exoskeleton, and what little of one there was seemed to be an eerie white that allowed its dull green glow to shine through. The beetle seemed to quickly lose interest in examining her and instead began to fly in the direction she was heading.
Before Moonlight could start to reflect on what she had just seen, all around her, dozens, if not hundreds of insects began to light up and fly in the same direction as the first one. Confused as to why they were all heading in the same direction an idea came to her.
They were migrating.
Moonlight remembered seeing fireflies dancing around the town when she had first arrived at the town a few nights ago. Perhaps some of the insects migrated out of the forest at night and she just needed to follow them to escape the woods. She didn't know how likely it was to be true but she desperately hoped that the ponies had been wrong about nothing ever coming out of the woods. Moonlight began to quickly follow after the glowing insects, and hopefully towards the border of the woods.
Moonlight was going at a fairly quick pace, not galloping, but doing a sort of quick jog to keep pace with the insects. As she was jogging along, the insects seemed to get closer and closer to her. Rather than staying away from her and its brethren, they began to fly closer to her and each other, creating a sort of tunnel of light. As Moonlight was trying to figure out what they were doing this for, her front hooves failed to find purchase along the ground.
By the time Moonlight realized what was happening, she was already plummeting down a ledge. She flared out her wings, attempting to catch herself before she and the ground met. Unfortunately for her, she had begun to flip when she had run off the ledge, so when she flared her wings, all she accomplished was slowing her fall slightly. She attempted to spin around and correct her fall. This, however, proved to be a terrible mistake.
When the ground rose up to meet her, it did so when she was at an angle, the consequence of which was her landing on her right wing. The pain that resulted from the impact was one of the most intense she had ever felt.
For what felt like an hour, Moonlight remained laying on the ground, wracked in pain from her fall. When she finally felt like she was ready to move, she carefully began to roll to her left and onto her stomach. Her entire back hurt, but the obvious problem area was centered around the base of her right wing. As she attempted to rise to her hooves, a problem immediately presented itself.
Every time her right wing subconsciously moved to help re-establish her balance, searing pain shot up her spine, almost making her cry. When she finally managed to stand up straight, Moonlight began to assess the damage the fall had done to her.
Looking over to her right wing, nothing looked to be broken, but judging by the pain and the strange angle it was at, she figured she had torn a ligament. Moonlight removed her hoodie, being careful when removing her right wing from its hole, to take a look at her back. There were a few spots that had already started to bruise, but it didn’t look like any major damage had been done so she put her hoodie back on. Looking down at her forehooves, Moonlight checked to see if her bandages had been damaged and would need to be replaced. They looked fine, if a little dirty, so she figured she could hold off on replacing them for the time being. She was really regretting trying to force her way through that bush that had blocked her path when she was still trying to find out what was in here.
Wait, that didn't seem right.
Moonlight began running through her memories of how she had injured her forelegs. She had thought that she had cut them when she was trying to break through the canopy of trees here, but she could also distinctly remember trying to push her way through a dense bush while she was here. She could also remember times in her life where both of these things had happened.
Now that she thought about it, in each of her memories she had tried to get through the trees and bushes the same way. Was she actually remembering them right? Had her memories of the woods started to mix with her earlier memories? This uncertainty, this confusion of what her actual past was was the reason she had begun to remind herself who she was. She wanted to do just that now in an attempt to calm down and sort out her thoughts, but first, she wanted to finish assessing the damage she had sustained.
Looking at the rest of her body, Moonlight couldn't find anything off about it. She did have some leaves and bits of dirt clinging to her but nothing that had created any wounds or pierced her skin. As she was cleaning herself up, she found a leaf had managed to stick onto her rear. As she tried to brush it off, nothing seemed to happen. Trying harder, Moonlight scraped her hoof across the leaf as hard as she could to peel it off, but again nothing happened. As she was about to make another pass at removing her cutie mark she froze.
Her cutie mark. She shouldn’t have one. She distinctly remembered not having one when she had come into the forest. But when she thought about it, she could clearly remember earning it when she was a filly. She had been on a trip through the woods with her family and had begun exploring the surroundings. She was so enamored with the trees and how they grew that she asked her father to get her a book on the forest. She had studied that book front and back and when she returned to the woods she had been a veritable expert on the topic, earning her cutie mark.
She could remember coming to the woods because she wanted to study the trees here as no one knew anything about them. The memories were so clear, like they had always been there, but their existence alongside the memories that contradicted them was causing Moonlight to panic. Her grasp on reality was slipping, and her memories were becoming more unreliable. She needed to get out of these woods quickly and figure out what was real.
As Moonlight was calming down and trying to collect her thoughts, a deep rumble resonated behind her. She froze and slowly began to turn around. When she was finally facing the thing that had announced its presence, she was staring at a timberwolf several times her size, and seemingly composed of vines. Its mass seemed to be bound together by the plants, while dozens of vines flicked behind it and along it's back, giving it the appearance of being part octopus.
Moonlight didn't need to be told twice to book it. Once she realized how dangerous this thing probably was, she instantly began to gallop as fast as she could away from the beast. The timberwolf wasted no time in giving chase. Moonlight did her best to get away from it, weaving between the trees and trying to head through parts of the woods where the trees were closer together. But in the end, nothing she did was allowing her to put any distance between her and the thing hunting her.
Moonlight was frantically trying to figure out what was happening. Since she had arrived in the forest, she hadn’t seen anything that would suggest that any timberwolves lived in here. It was like the timberwolf had been conjured from the aether. Adding this to everything else that happened, falling off a ledge, having a wing crippled, and now being chased by said enormous timberwolf, this all felt more like a nightmare than anything else. The only thing that stood out and called that idea into question was the fact Luna was nowhere to be found.
She eventually ran between two trees that had actually grown towards one another, creating what looked like a terrible arch. She figured that the hole made by the trees would be small enough that the timberwolf wouldn't be able to make it though. When she cleared the arch and had run about ten meters, Moonlight looked back to see if her plan had worked, only to be met with a massive, tooth-filled mouth lunging at her, waking her.
Moonlight was sweating and her breathing was labored. She looked around her frantically, trying to find the timberwolf that had attacked her, only to be met with the same trees she had been seeing since she had entered. Listening for anything off, all she could hear was her own breathing and accelerated heart rate.
Dozens of questions began to buzz around in her head as she began to question just how she had been able to survive. Had the timberwolf gone to kill her and simply lost interest? Had the timberwolf not wanted to kill her and just intended to drag her deeper into the woods? Nothing around her looked familiar, so the thought of her being dragged back into the deeper parts of the woods was not out of the question.
Moonlight figured it was probably best to see what kind of damage had been added to her between her last memory and now. Looking down at her forelegs, the bandages looked to be holding up, seeing as her wounds hadn’t opened up and began to soak them. When she looked back she was shocked to see nothing out of place.
Her right wing wasn't hurting and wasn’t in the strange position it had been in when she had last seen it. Hesitantly, she began to move it, expecting for searing pain to shoot up her back. Only, there was no pain. Her wing felt the same as it had when she first came into the woods. Her mind began to buzz with all new questions at what was happening. Why had the forest tricked her into falling off a ledge, crippling her, only to heal her and make it as if nothing had happened?
She frantically began to examine the rest of her body, searching for anything that would prove she had fallen off that ledge, but there was nothing. She couldn't find any damage on herself, even her hoodie wasn't any dirtier than it had been when she had started her treck from the pond. As she was looking along her side she failed to find her cutie mark.
This revelation caused Moonlight to panic again. How was the forest able to take away her cutie mark? What force in this world had the power to remove a pony’s cutie mark? But almost as soon as she had begun to panic, she started to calm down. She could remember seeing a cutie mark on her rear when she had fallen off of the ledge, but she couldn't recall ever earning it. She could remember remembering how she had earned it, but all of the details were foggy and just out of her reach. Like the memories were only half-formed thoughts, sent back to her subconscious to be discarded.
“My name’s Moonlight, but most ponies I know just call me Little Tigress. I earned the nickname due to my self-confident, self-reliant attitude, as well as almost always wearing my tiger-print hoodie. I came here looking for treasure or anything else that might have been lost in here. I… never earned my cutie mark.”
The forest seemed to be affecting more of her memories the longer she stayed in here, its ability to change reality only making things worse. If she couldn't escape soon, she wasn't quite sure how much of herself would be left. Nothing was making sense anymore, it was all just blending together and becoming fuzzy around the edges.
Moonlight began to lift herself off the ground and gather herself. Her saddlebag was still on her back, apparently, the forest didn't think it should deprive her of her things just yet, instead choosing to continue toying with her. Looking around, Moonlight saw that she was still oriented in what she was assuming was the right direction. So after only a small amount of hesitation due to her still trying to get her thoughts on what she had experienced together, Moonlight set off.
Again, the walk through the forest was uninteresting. The trees stayed fairly consistent in their orientation, and the silence was still heavy in the air. After everything she had experienced, Moonlight was desperate for another creature to be with her. She would always put on an act of being a social butterfly, but at heart, she preferred to be alone. Well, preferred was probably not the right word. She loved to hang out with ponies and other creatures she met on her travels, but she would always feel drained after talking with them.
But this was different. This wasn't her being alone. This wasn't her being isolated. What she was experiencing could only be described as solitary confinement. There was no one she could talk to besides herself, and she didn’t think she was that crazy just yet. What she wouldn't give to have someone she could talk with right now. But sadly, the only company Moonlight had were the quiet, glowing insects and the soundless trees.
Continuing on with her trek, Moonlight traveled for what felt like fifteen minutes. She was just passing a small patch of raised dirt when she heard something. Moonlight froze at hearing this, so far the only sounds she had heard had been the spring and the timberwolf, and this sound hadn't been from a spring. Stopping and listening more closely, Moonlight eventually heard the distinct sound of another creature, a creature calling her name.
“I’m here!” Her shout sounded wrong, and far louder than she had intended it to. This was perhaps due to her not using her voice in what felt like hours, wrapped in silence.
Moonlight heard running coming from ahead of her after calling out. She tensed up at first, remembering the timberwolf that had attacked her, but she convinced herself that what was approaching her was almost certainly another pony. When the pony finally came into view about two dozen meters in front of her, her brain seemed to stop for a minute.
Running towards her was a dark blue pegasus she had met and become friends with when she had gone to Paso Fino, Starcatcher. She had met the stallion when she was hiking one of the nature trails at night and had gotten lost. She found him on top of the largest hill in the area with a telescope. When she left the town, she didn't think she would ever see him again, but here he was.
Starcatcher ran to her, wrapping her in a hug when he reached her and almost crushing her with it. “Thank Celestia I found you. I was getting worried you would never show up.”
“Catcher… breathing… needed… please,” Moonlight managed to choke out from between the vice-like grip of the stallions forelegs.
“Oh, sorry about that.” Starcatcher released her from his grip and dropped back onto all fours, turning his head down and to the side slightly, blushing all the while.
Moonlight approached him and wrapped him in a gentle hug, which he reciprocated. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Moonlight and Starcatcher broke off the hug soon after. “Thanks. But don't be thanking me so soon. We still need to get out of here.” Moonlight nodded with a grin. Starcatcher nodded back and motioned her to follow him back the way he had been running from.
The two walked in silence for a little while, neither of them feeling like speaking. When Moonlight would occasionally catch a glimpse of Catcher out of the corner of her eye she could tell from his posture he desperately wanted to start a conversation with her. But knowing him, he was even worse than she was at engaging in conversation, always extremely awkward and uncomfortable when she heard him talk. Moonlight figured she might as well save him the uncomfortable privilege of starting the conversation.
“I… I would have never thought you would have dropped everything to come out here to help find me. Not after what I did.”
“Well, we are friends, aren’t we? I assume you would do the same if I was in trouble, especially if I was lost for several months. I must say you’re looking good for being lost in here for two months. Not that you didn’t look good before, just… you know.” Catcher’s speech began to devolve into one-word sentences and random words just being spouted as his speech began to increase in pace before he suddenly stopped and began hanging his head. “I’ll stop now.”
Moonlight smiled at her friend. She found it kind of adorable that he was getting so flustered talking to her, trying to hit on her while also doing his best not to. She reached out with her right wing and pulled him into a hug. She watched as his usually dark blue coat turned a shade of purple around his face as she did this. Moonlight couldn't help but start to laugh at the stallion’s embarrassment, causing his face to become an even darker shade of purple.
“Glad you're happy about this.” Catcher pulled out from beneath her wing and did his best to keep his eyes off of her and conceal what was likely his growing arousal. “You had everyone worried about you. It took forever to finally track you down.”
“I’m sorry. I never figured looking… wait, did you say I’ve been gone for two months?”
“Yeah. When the ponies you tend to talk to regularly didn't hear anything from you for a while they got worried. They reached out to everypony you told them about to ask us if we knew anything about you.” Catcher ears were folded back as he told her this, his posture slightly slumped as he walked. “When nopony had any information on you, we figured you had died. It wasn’t until a month later that we finally heard news of a pony in a tiger-print hoodie running into the Deadwoods by herself. Obviously, only one pony fits that description.” Catcher lightly punched Moonlight on the shoulder, trying to make the situation a little more casual.
“Yeah,” Moonlight absentmindedly said. She didn't sound depressed, but the news she had been out here for months had really taken the wind out of her sails. “So… um…are you the only one that came, or are there others looking for me?”
Catcher tilted his head to the right and looked up. “Well… including me, there’s nine of us.”
Nine ponies? Moonlight could hardly believe how many friends had come out to find her. It was even more shocking considering she only talked to about two to three of them regularly. It humbled her to know so many ponies that she barely knew had dropped everything to help find her.
The two of them lapsed into silence again. However, despite the lack of any noise besides their hoofsteps, the silence didn't bother Moonlight anymore. It no longer felt like she had been confined to her own world, a world of utter isolation. Even though nothing needed to be said, both her and Catcher seemed content to just enjoy the quiet time they were having, Moonlight thought it would be polite to at least check on how he was doing.
“So… uh, how have you been doing? Last time I saw you, you were preparing for that stargazing party.” Moonlight looked almost like a dog that had been caught doing something it knew it wasn’t supposed to as she said that. The shame she felt over what had happened almost made her wish that she was alone again in the woods.
“Fine. I’m fairly certain you heard about me from your friend. It hurt you know, you just up and leaving, but she helped explain what happened and I was able to get over it.”
The way he said it though made it clear that there was still something eating away at him. She had been invited to the party but she didn't see the invitation until it was too late. She realized after reading it that he had likely poured his soul into the invitation in his own awkward way in an attempt to flirt with her.
“So how was the party? I saw the Kisser Comets from the train, but it must have looked better through a telescope.”
“If was fun. We had some nice desserts and I got to tell my family what I’ve been up to since I left home. It was especially fun for my parents, my brother, and his marefriend. It’s said that seeing the comets passing each other is one of the most romantic sights there are.” Catcher chuckled to himself before sighing. “I don't think the ponies that say that are wrong. When the comets were passing each other, there wasn't a single pony with a partner that wasn't holding them close or making out.”
While Moonlight was a little irritated that Catcher was attempting to shame her, she could hardly blame him. Even if she hadn’t intended to, her not showing up after he had possibly gone out of his way to make the night special for her had likely crushed him.
“So… uh… on a different topic, have you been working on anything new?”
“Not much. I’ve been doing my best at improving the optics on telescopes to increase their resolution and magnification.” Starcatcher had switched his tone to sounding very calm and cordial. He seemed to want to put the stargazing incident behind him. “But I still haven't figured out how to prevent pegasi from switching the labels on the lenses.”
Moonlight blushed at that. She had carefully switched the labels on his day and night lenses once when he wanted to show her the moon through the telescope, making it impossible to see anything at night. She had watched him spend ten minutes trying to figure out why he wasn't seeing anything through the telescope before her bursting into laughter clued him into the fact that she had done something. He was a good sport when it came to pranks, never taking any of them seriously and always willing to let her have her fun.
“Still, it’s nice to see you again. I’m pretty sure I should be surprised that you decided to run into a forest known for never having a pony that’s gone in come out again, but after talking to your other friends, I’m not sure if this would even break the top five worst decisions you’ve made.”
“To be fair, almost all of those were when I first started to travel on my own. Lately, I’ve been taking it easy, only making mostly ill-advised decisions.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you’ve managed to grow up a little. I was half expecting you to start hiding behind some trees when I wasn't looking and jump out to startle me, especially since you’ve been in here for so long. I wouldn’t put it past you to have most of the forest mapped out by now.”
Moonlight looked down and became slightly melancholic. “This forest isn’t right, Catcher, it’s why I haven't left. I… I’ve seen things I just can't explain. Nothing feels right in here.”
Catcher did his best to put on a friendly smile and gently shoulder bumped her. “Come on, where’s that pegasus I met on that hill that couldn't wait to mess with her friends and wasn't scared of anything?”
“I’m still here… it’s just… I can't remember what I know.”
“Ok, you’re going to need to explain what you just said, because that made no sense.”
“Ever since I came in here, the forest keeps changing things, and not just like the positions of the trees, but… reality.”
“I’m still lost.”
“I was transformed into some type of shark hybrid when I went into a lake, I’ve been injured dozens of times, but almost nothing stays, I even had a cutie mark and vivid memories of how I earned it.” Moonlight was becoming frantic as she explained this, talking faster as her voice grew louder, only for her to stop before quietly continuing, her voice barely above a whisper. “My memories are blending together, I can’t tell if any of them are real or if it's just the forest affecting me.”
Catcher quickly walked in front of her, and without warning, he gently wrapped her in a hug. Shocked at first, Moonlight froze, not knowing what was happening. But when she came back to her senses, she proceeded to hug him back, welcoming the physical contact.
“You aren’t alone. You have friends who are more than happy to drop everything to help you. If you need help remembering we’ll all be there for you. You’re like family to us.”
Moonlight felt her heart ache a little at hearing this. What had she done to deserve these kinds of friends? Friends that didn't think twice about risking their safety to come to help her. A content smile crossed over her face as she sank into the hug, burying her muzzle into Catcher’s neck. She hadn’t noticed until now how cold she was, the warmth of her friend's fur was so comforting. It had been so long since she had last been comforted like this, she couldn't help but begin to close her eyes and sinking further into the embrace, causing her to wake up.
Standing up and looking around, searching for her friend, Moonlight began to recognize the trees surrounding her, causing her entire world to come crashing down around her. What she was seeing was the last place she had woken up in before she had decided to head back to town. Not only was she lost, but she had also almost certainly managed to walk right back to one of the deepest portions of the woods. Moonlight couldn't hold back her emotions anymore, tears began to well up in her eyes as she slumped up against the nearest tree, pulled her hood up over her head, and began to release all of her pent up emotion.
Moonlight began to cry to herself and curse the decisions she had made. She had been so desperate to find her purpose that she had not only managed to place herself in harm's way, but for all she knew, she had just lead ponies that she considered to be her their friend to the same fate. If she wasn't so desperate to find out what her calling was she wouldn't be here now. All this for a stupid mark on her haunches.
She would always tell other ponies that she could care less that she had never earned her cutie mark. She had repeated that line so many times that even she had begun to buy into it. But on the inside, there was always a part of her that knew it was a lie, that she wanted nothing more than to earn that stupid mark. Why couldn't she have just been a normal pony and gotten her cutie mark when she was a filly instead of being a fully grown mare still looking for her purpose?
What felt worse though was what this desire had done to her social life. Her desire for a mark had driven her to constantly wander the country, never settling down, and never able to truly form many lasting friendships. It seemed almost fitting that her desire for that mark had dragged her friends into this nightmare, and was more than likely going to be the death of them. She had taken her friends for granted, had barely put forth the effort to treat them as actual friends, instead chasing after her selfish desire to find the thing in this world she was good at. Something which ultimately meant nothing. No matter what her talent was, it would never be able to replace the friends she had made.
Moonlight sobbed pathetically into her forelegs and mane. She didn't have the emotional strength to wail or cry out. Instead, her cries were nothing more than whimpers. Her muzzle was cold and wet from the combination of tears and mucus brought forth by her sorrow. She had unintentionally burned just about every bridge she had ever formed due to her blind desire for a stupid figure on her haunches.
Moonlight had reached her breaking point and had just kept going. She was done. Done with her search for her purpose, done with friends, done with trying to find her way out. The forest had won, it had broken her. Moonlight just wanted to stop hurting, she just wanted all of this pain to stop, it was just too much. All she wanted to do now was curl up into a ball and allow the woods to consume her, perhaps then her heart wouldn’t feel like it had been eviscerated by a flight of starving dragons.
As Moonlight was lamenting her current situation, a soft, ghostly chirp resonated from in front of her. Moonlight thought her mind was playing tricks on her, that she had become entirely crazy and was now hearing things. That was, until the sound came again, this time closer.
Moonlight lifted her soaked muzzle off of her forelegs and squinted out with two bloodshot, tear-filled eyes. She could see a strange mass of glowing blue hovering in front of her, but couldn't make out the fine details. After rubbing her eyes to clear the tears from them, Moonlight looked out at a strange glow in front of her.
The strange glow appeared to be a small, but densely packed patch of glowing mist. Moonlight was going to question whether the mass had made the noise when the question was answered by the mass coming closer to her as it released it's strange sound. Moonlight was confused at what she was looking at and cocked her head to the side. This seemed to be something the thing wanted, because as soon as she did this, the glowing mass did what she could only assume was a flip before darting over between two trees and calling out to her.
While Moonlight would have happily done nothing after everything she had experienced in the forest, she had abandoned the idea of trying to fight the forest. If the forest felt like it wanted to toy with her for longer, she wouldn't fight it. Moonlight slowly got to her hooves and proceeded to follow the blue mist. When she had gotten within a meter of the strange creature, it darted off further and chirped at her to follow.
Moonlight wearily followed the mist as it led her Celestia knows where. For what felt like half an hour, the mist continued to dart ahead of her and call back at her. Moonlight was becoming irritated at this sentient little cloud of mist as it had done nothing other than chirp at her and dart away whenever she would get close. It could have at least tried to hurt her or lead her into a trap, but all this thing seemed to want to do was get her to walk thought the most uninteresting parts of the forest she had seen so far. Her eyes almost glazing over as the strange mist was the only thing of interest she could see. She was about to abandon the little blue mist when she saw a light up ahead. It was the unmistakable glow of the evening sun as it sets when viewed through a tangle of leaves and branches.
Picking up her pace, Moonlight practically ran towards the light with a desperate and crazy look plastered onto her muzzle and in her eyes. She forced her way through the underbrush that got in her way, not caring about the scrapes and injuries that were resulting from her mad dash. After she passed a tree that had gotten in the way of the light, Moonlight saw for the second time the two interwoven trees that formed the only entrance and exit to the woods next to the town. Seeing that archway of light, Moonlight made a mad dash towards the exit to this awful forest. When she cleared the border, she practically dove into the grass that lay between the town and the forest. The smell of grass and the evening breeze was an indescribable pleasure when compared to the stagnant, decaying, moldy air that existed in the woods. Moonlight was so elated to finally be free of the forest that she nearly forgot about the thing that had saved her.
When she turned around to properly display her gratitude towards the thing that had helped her, she was only greeted to the black void that was the interior of the forest. The glowing blue mass was nowhere to be seen. Moonlight didn't know what it was that had saved her, but whatever it had been had saved her life. She would never forget it, nor would she not attribute every day after this to the mysterious thing that had rescued her.