An impact on the flow of time has scatered ponies throughout history and Celestia and Luna are nowhere to be found.
Fluttershy, her friends, and several other ponies have all been scattered throughout time. That in and of itself would be bad enough but what has done this is still raging though time with them. As Equestria and the stream of time are turned to ruin a new intruder that had followed the ruin will attempt to fix what it hardly understand.
The gray skull, equine in shape and split along its top and snout, lay discarded inside a clearing of listless sun light. The surrounding canopies of withered tree leaves block the sun in all directions but for this one spot. A hole had been cut open towards the sky by one tree that toppled over and come to a rest just behind the lone skull.
Crying snaps and sharp splinters fly free from the moss covered log under a sudden weight that crawls over it. Two sets of four sharp glistening red claws peel into the bark, digging in as a beast resembling a crimson skinned salamander of titanic size rises up. Its long neck leads an equally long body and fin-tipped tail as it shifts itself up over the log. With undulating movements it lowers down; exposing half-crescent copper bands arching along its back, onto a bed of clawing weeds and rotting leaves that surrounds the opening in the dull light. Eyes that glow with a brilliant awareness and a burning red heat turn down at the sight of the skull.
Blinking at the gray piece of bone before its hardened claws the creature's eyes quickly lift up to scan outside the small clearing in the light; dead greens and old hollow trees littered everything that was still visible. Lowering its wide head down to stare into the empty and old sockets, a measure of its awareness finds something within.
Filling its lungs with air from around the skull. Bent, broken, and anguished thoughts mingle and flow with the sent of stale weeds. A sigh of heated air through thin slitted nostrils proceeds a plume of warm red ash that covers bone and plant alike.
Bubbles grow and pop out from the ash as it begins pooling into a viscous mass; collecting and staining itself into the gray skull. The air that hung above both the skull and the watching creature shivers for some moments until the red skull jumps suddenly.
It clatters in place as it screams to life. “Run, run, we all must flee, this is no natural beast that has come to our Ever Free!” The voice echos both inside its skull and from the mouth of the creature that stood over it. A haze of images flash from inside the empty sockets and inside the red eyes above them.
Burning trees. Animals running by. Colossal things moving in the distance.
Glowing in silver, the first giant rears its form and dances behind the flames. Trees around it bend and break as dark shadows form its companion. The duo move with thunderous steps, each of their encounters sending sparks into the air and flames blazing around them into larger bursts.
A shadowy limb raises over the silver form, suddenly and violently sticking at its glowing counterpart. The air above the long gone eyes ripples as a silver body collides into the side of a tree that stood just beyond its sight. The memories looked on in fear as wood and ground snap and tilt.
Images fade away, leaving only the cracked tree behind the skull to complete the idea of what had happened. “What power is this that ends my dreams, are you the one that causes my screams?” the skull asked as its lower jaw rattles against the top.
The wide mouth turned back and slightly up to show several spaced teeth; a smile from a lizard if you could call it anything. The creature felt a chance conversation was a welcomed endeavor. “I am just another oddity, come to the forest,” the red beast said with a smooth bellow. “I'm looking for what did this to you and your home?”
Its way of talking felt too calm. The life inside the skull sat in silents for a time, the dream of life inside trying to look at everything and anything around itself. But for its be-spelled eyes, the creature before it was all that could be made out.
The copper crescents that lined the flexing spine of the beasts back shimmer a bright red and roll as one band on top of the collar stretches into a supple membrane. It thickens out with nobs like a half-liquid coated bone before bending toward the skull.
As the bones in the old skull began to shake- “A time before the tree met me? A month, a year, I can not say when thoughts are unknown of this centur...” -The chattering stops as the jaw of the skull splinters in two.
Both broken pieces were bleaching as they settle on the ground, the red tones seep across the soil until the bone has turned back to their gray tones. The unseen eyes inside the empty sockets try to widen with shock at seeing this happen, the small life inside the remaining piece of red skull welds up with a terrified wanting urge to keep what it had been given; it felt too long since it even had the strength to draw breath to want to let it go.
The stretching membrane from the salamanders back finishes growing crossing the distance between the two figures; it'd taken the appearance of a thin-muscled tendril. Pressing into the shaking bone brings a burst of thoughts that both calms and excites the frightened life. New images cloud over the empty sockets, expanses of bright trees that surround a warm and familiar hut, swirling colors reflecting off the windows, while genital voices flow through them. The word “Home” echoes through the vision.
Its wide-toothed grin turns flat as it had been before. Even when the creature had crossed the log the feeling left inside the bone was little more then a whisper, it knew now just how little of its memories were left. The old skull held onto that moment of destruction, it was what the beast had stopped to find and it was enough to make it want to ease what was going to happen next.
Through the contact a new idea grew and came to be shared between both souls. An image of sipping tea washed over them as the unseen eyes held a contented smile. The life felt itself slow and slip into the dreams it was pulled out from as warm jasmine flows. Its old bones and the languid limb shutter until the crack over the top of the bone snaps wide in three new directions and the red ash fades gray.
At the moment of one final snap, the dreaming life was simply gone.
For a moment, the red eyes deepen; ready to morn the small loss, then, as the appendage on from its spine retracts smoothly back into copper flesh, it turns towards the direction where the long-gone eyes saw the silver and shadow monsters had fought and trudges on.
There were more fallen and rotted trees and many spots of burnt-dead wood as it moved on. Its course through was easy to traverse, with a strong winding gate the creature manages crawling and clawing weeds that grab and hold effortlessly, however, navigation of where it was heading in the forest was a taxing effort. Packs of the trees would be growing with thick canopies but then die off or fall over at imposable intervals. And the smell of rot grew pungent to its thinly slitted nostrils, but it still moved on with a distinctive aim.
A smell of what it had come looking for in this dieing forest came. The rot of death was joined and pushed together with the odor of fresh dust and living fur. With a swift eastern breeze pushing and out weighing the old smells of the forest the salamander turns into the wind. As its trail through the trees winds farther on, the sent comes stronger until the tree line finally brakes.
The sight of a murky river slowly cutting at the edges of the forest was of little concern; the girth of the water, though some lengths wider then the creature's body, offered a simple hurdle. Building up tension and energy in its legs, the red beast bounds into the air and over the running river. The wide fanned tip of its tail slaps at the water upon landing, below the sound it makes a distant cry rang out.
Its eyes dart up from the river bank towards the cry, catching sight of the darkened run-down remains of a small cottage laying bundled up just inside the drooping branches of a large willow tree. A radiance grew inside the salamanders' eyes that the short memories between it and the skull wouldn't compare to, a chance to speak with something already living; with wide steps and a widening grin it weaved its way up the river bank and towards the house.
“I won't open the door!” A voice inside screams as one red claw was going to push at the rot riddled door. “So, p-please just go away! I just want- to-to be alone.” The raw sound of the voice and musky animal smell came through the door. The creatures smile drops but a thought strikes it to push on and it taps on the door.
The door does not move from the light touch of the beasts clawed foot, so with a heave of its body, both of its clawed feet are placed at either side of the door frame. The wood groans under the creatures weight as it stretches its position to bring both eyes level to several rotted holes in the door. Weeds had sprouted through the floor boards and mosses of several forms and colors were growing across the walls as well as hanging from the ceiling. A continued glance about the floor stops on the small shape of a pony curled into a far corner.
Its yellow body with a pink mane and tail lay still, the colors of its body were stained by dirt and moss, and though the pony's teal eyes were looking back; wide with shock, they were also nearly empty of life. A sharp snarled snap cracks in the air as the two watch each other, the wood groans and the old rusted hinges snap as a prequel to the door braking and falling in.
Without intention the salamanders weight brought the door down with a squealing thud. Small clouds of dust and mold were kicked up by the fall only to swirl unabated up and into the thin red nostrils. Taking a deep breath the creature hardly notices and does not react to the irritants, it turns from the door to catch only a glimpse of the ponies eyes before they're hidden again; the small figure of the pony shrank farther into its corner, hiding behind what bit of its dirt caked mane that it could. A sent of fear coming from the corner was giving off a smell stronger then the mold wafting in the air.
The first step off the door was timid, a soft movement that splinters and cracks the aged floor, at the sounds the centers of its red eyes roll downward to study its step; seeing that any chance of crossing silently was unlikely, the second step fell heavily and the red claws dug some inches into the floor. There was no sense leading the beast to think it would fall though the floor as it presses on, closing the distance to the shivering yellow mass.
“I'm sorry,” The pony said with a small and listless tone. The tension that held the small animal in place slowly begins to release as the heavy steps of the intruder came closer. When sounds of its breathing come from above the ponies head a feeling of air pressure moved in swirls through every stiff hair with a bright warmth. The breath over the ponies body didn't feel like the breathing of a hungry monster, but more a purposeful breath. And as one teal eye peers out from behind the pink mane to look up, it sees a growing brightness coming from inside the eyes that were looking down; they were smoldering down at the pony with a kindred heat.
The air above them shutters thickly as the creatures mouth comes open to reveal the rows of short pointed teeth; before the pony can react to the sight a red ash flows out from deep within its wide mouth.
Screaming dreams from the lost memories of and old skull were kept alive and strong by their final fear, but as the towering salamander watched the trail of ash fall from its own mouth and into the open face of the pony; it felt an absolute, tangible terror explode from the yellow body below that shook even its own body. As the ash coated the pony and rising puffs of smoke melded with the shaking air above both of them, the pony felt the ash boiling with a vital energy that snaps its wings open. Dim teal eyes widen as bright images flow up from the back of the ponies mind and fill the space inside the shuttering air.
The beat and crack of small hooves over dry leaves and a heavily thudding heart inside her chest framed the beginning of the growing images. Her hooves skid across dark and blackened leaves as she stops before a clearing in the forest. A figure approaches across the same leaves and brings with it a sense of friendship as the name Zecora grows inside the ponies mind. They both struggle to catch their breaths after running trough the depths of the forest and as their eyes quickly lock onto each other, hope grew. It grew with the desire that the sight inside the clearing was not what it seemed to be.
The black leaves blew in a silent wind as the two turn from each other, before them was what could only have been an aftermath of something large and powerful. Broken and blown down trees radiate out and away from a burning crater that left a narrow angle in the ground. A new brief image. Her memory of the first shock wave that rolled through her home. It rattled furniture. And a sense of a dragon landing in the forest came through. When the shaking ground stopped for a moment, it came booming even stronger. She jumped at the second rumble and started running. The thoughts of the shock wave bled back to the sight of what caused her to run herself ragged.
An almost redoubling of the fear she felt from before ran along her spine while looking into the hole, it stretches out several times the size of even a large dragon and the trees unlucky enough to have stood where the hole was now were nothing but crushed and smoldering remains. Turning to her friend, Zecora, she speaks with high concern “Dragons don't smash craters into the ground like this, do they?”
The burned branches and leaves of a willow tree laid scattered from the rim of the crater to where they stood, at seeing them her thin yellow wings came open to begin beating at the air. She climbs cautiously up over the center of the pit to look for either what caused this or for any injured animals that might have been resting in the ruined trees.
From her rising position in the air there were signs of deeper pits among the smoldering fires. They steamed white smoke and sizzled with what looked to be nearly molten rock. Circular marks also show themselves as she moves closer to the center of the pit. They've stamps down a heavy trail that leads out from the depths and head towards the far end of the crater, following them, she finds the dirt they stamp down wasn't deep but it was boiling hot. The last one she sees didn't seem to leave the rest of the clearing of fallen trees however.
When she looks back and below herself for signs of any animals in the area, a twitch of movement caught the corner of her eyes; her ears swivel back then quickly towards the craters rim. Her friend was running along the edge in a frantic state. The sight of her friend sends a painful chill across her back. A second sense of movement came from above and behind, it came with bursts of cold breath rolling past her body as she turns her head-
The image between the red and teal eyes crumbles in that instant, leaving both the salamander and the pony looking into the fading shutter of air. Red eyes see the sudden wetness in the eyes of the small pony, they also watch as the ash covering her yellow fur begins to dissolve. The pony snaps out of her memories and blinks back the tears, her heart felt tight and there was still the empty and distant look inside her teal rings but as her disorientation from what she had just experienced wanes a glimmer returns. She felt a sense of melting, as the warm ash came off her it brought a calm feeling.
The decaying room sat mostly silent with only the dull popping sound of the ash as it dissolves and falls onto the floor to interrupt the quiet. Every time the ponies eyes cross over the creature's face it's mouth turns up in a smile, then she would look away. When she did that, its head would lower slightly to watch the ash fade away from her coat.
The fear from her memories swam in its mind and blinking heavily it finally moves a long toe to scratch at its neck before rising up and quickly towering over the pony. “So much fear, without seeing anything?” It questions, the boom of its voice was low but still strong enough to shake the silents from the room. “To this, I am not accustomed...”
She looks up at it again. There is no smile upon its face this time but instead it looks down and reaches one leg out towards her. The movement isn't fast and when the forward most claw taps lightly against her chest it elicits a small squeak from her and she cowers farther into the corner. The claw is pulled back as the salamander clears its throat. “Introductions are proper, yes?” -Bowing its flat head making the top of it visible.- “I am called Memoir Baan Textile.”
Quietly, the pony states with a demur replay. “I'm – My name is Fluttershy, I am sorry for locking the door on you.” She shuttered slightly before lifting herself up from the corner, the movement dislodging more of the ash. “And I was afraid of it, I was afraid of you too. I was treating you poorly though.” Slowly stretching herself causes a spat of sizzling red muck to slid off her and land on the ground; she jumps back from it, her eyes going wide at the sight of brown and green muck attached to the substance.
The shine of her coat was coming through, though to Memoir's eyes it was still lacking in the volume it had in her memories. “I looked back at it,” Fluttershy said while trying to get her own memories out. “I felt you watching what I remembered and where it stopped... when I turned around, I think I might have wanted to be looking at a dragon. But even though it had black scales over its head, its muzzle was covered in fur and it had flat teeth. The only other thing I can remember before I flew away from the thing was that the first time it moved looked like – like,” Fluttershy said, the sound of hesitation in her voice raises Memoir's attention. “Like it teleported.”
“When I tried to find my friend Zecora, I was thrown into the air by it.” A shutter ran down her thin frame at her own memory of what that felt like. “I was all alone here when I came to. My – all of my friends are gone and even my house is in shambles.” She sniffed back a sense of flowing emotions before looking up. “What happened?”
The small question put a resolute grin on Memoir's wide face. Smiling and standing at attention, ideas of what must have happened to her ran rampant through his head before faltering. His red eyes swiveled around as if trying to look for something inside their own sockets. “Not accustomed-” apprehension rang in Memoir's voice once his eyes came back into view. “You were... The smells here are wrong, too pungent; too old.” His thin nostrils flaring to try and emphasis the point. “I tried going somewhere that had wariness and fear, but not forgotten or hunted. I can try again.”
Memoir's eyes focused on Fluttershy, His voice growing concerned as he sniffs the air. “Memories of old thoughts, the smells they make, things come out in colors and feelings to me. Black and white, your friend from in the memory or those monsters; terrorized and lost.” -another sniff,- “There's hope, pink and purples. More white with blue and hunted. A swirl of blue and pink and pink and blue...” Memoir's voice tapered off for a moment and his wide head nearly hits the ground, letting his nose continue to hoover now at the air and ground. “The smells are still all going in the wrong directions.”
“With the colors, can you tell where my friends are?” Fluttershy asked, the light in her eyes growing even stronger. “If you can smell them then could you take me with you to find them?” She stepped farther out from the rooms corner and up to Memoir, hoping that her desperation to see her friends would be felt through her proximity. To the thin nostrils before her she still held a fearful sent, but Memoir's smile grew. He lifts his head high before slamming the ground hard enough to send out the sound of dull wooden cracks. Fluttershy jumps back from the sudden shock but otherwise doesn't move as Memoir swings his head back and forth; collecting all the smells he can.
Several turns of his large body churns colors and memories into the air. Trying to find any stronger sent, the pink and blue ones seemed close and safe, as did the hunted white color. There were more dimly glowing colors, one a mix of brown and strife, another of orange and green, the orange was bright and lingered heavily in the floor with a profound lost; a fake memory.
Stopping at another sent, his nose widened. A strong intake of air made his red pupils began to glow. “There's sick, old and sick; and wrong.” Memoir’s eyes deepen. His mouth opens with a rabid growl as he turns his head toward the broken doorway. “It smells like rotting life, a decayed spirit.”
Lifeless stone eyes watched them. They were perched on top of a cracked stone animal. A golem of a fat bull frog.
It was wider then the door, its eyes, tapping into the rotted top as it pressed its large body against the frame, trying to get a better look inside. Fluttershy, once she saw what it was, felt lost for how to react. The golem was just bigger then herself and the eyes on top had just enough detail for her to notice that it was looking at her. Memoir's body moved farther in front of her, just enough between the two of them that she only barely saw the golem shrink back from the door.
The stone eyes roll as its body shutters. A smoldering heat ignites, rising in its depths, swelling its already massive stomach and pushing a blast of steam out from the gravely opening of its mouth. As the heat grows, cracks in its body form. A molten red light touches its lips as the steam shuttered out any hole it could find.
Memoir held on to the molded floor, lowering himself down as far as he could get, and swung his tail around Fluttershy; blocking her completely behind him.
The dampness of life that grew unchecked along the walls and floor resisted catching fire, moss and mold smolder with the molten remains. Many flying pieces had done their purpose by blasting chunks from the front of the house and punching holes throughout most of the inner walls of the cottage. And though the force of the explosion had made the walls groan and snap with brittleness, the missiles of molten stones riddle them near to collapse.
Heat from the glowing stones that did not make their way through the walls and instead came to rest on blackening floor broads began filling the room. One red shard that had lodged in the ceiling, burned itself loose after a time and fell onto a patch of mold and dirt with a sizzling splat. The stone's fall catapults some of the muck into the air to land on Fluttershy's back with a sudden warm sting.
A shocked scream fills the room as Fluttershy tries to scamper away from the hot muck, however, Memoir's tail was still curled around her, holding her to where she was. Memoir's tail flexes with a slight twitch near its end as Fluttershy tries to unravel herself enough to flare her wings and try to brush off the heat.
Her struggle stops with the sudden snap of wood. The sound came from in front of her and brought her teal eyes to look at Memoir's back legs. His feet were clinched tight; claws digging deep into the floor. But when a sound of pained breathing reaches Fluttershy a chill crosses her heart and her eyes grew wide.
The soft copper scales along Memoir's back and tail shift as tendons beneath them loosen and roll and he raises back up. When he opens his eyes, they're affronted by the blunt of the heat. One of the golems stone eyes rolled into few; staring up at him. Seeing it, Memoir tilts his head, takes a deep burning and painful breath; feeling all the heat radiate around him, and lets out a gout of thick crimson ash. The eye shutters, trying to move, but when the red mass reaches the stone eye, it cracks and sizzles.
Memoir flexes his tail. Feeling Fluttershy squirm from the movement he maneuvers the tip, tightly gripping Fluttershy around her chest and between her shoulders. He rears back; making his own pains grow, when the tight contact brings memories of quickly flying then falling on cold earth. Thoughts of being lost and things looking too old began to flood into him until the top of his head catches parts of the ceiling broads, pulling some free.
The images waver at the blow to his head, the gap in them allows Memoir to hoists his tail and Fluttershy almost as high as his own head. His eyes roll back, sight catching on the dark substance that marks Fluttershy's back. It was the only thing to mar what she had looked like from before and he quickly flicked the fanning end of his tail, scrapping most of it off. Behind her, the corner of the room that she had been in was nothing more then an old wall that had been riddled by stones.
A thought that it shouldn't stand up to him at all crossed his mind. Spinning, he angles himself towards it hoping that if his weight could brake an old door-
Fluttershy cringes in the grip of the thick tail as Memoir leaned himself towards the wall and brought his front legs onto it. The snap was sudden. Their fall, quick and jarring. And outside there where several small pillars of steam and smoke that could be seen littering a downward slopping hill back to the river.
Memoir took the first steps into the cooler air with new images leeching into the back of his glowing eyes. Butterflies and a calming green field clouded his sight as dirt shifted from around a piece of hot stone, the red skin of his front right foot quickly burned. His body twists and strays over and away from the heat, sending all four legs into a disordered skid as the two barrel down to the rivers bank.
The cool water brakes, sending churned waves rolling and hissing steam raises as Memoir's bulk, neck, and head slide in. Half sunk and dropping fast, Memoir saw images of himself; he was lumbering around a dead tree in the distance and slowly came walking closer to his own perspective. His mouth hung open with rows of too big teeth as he moved, while down his back were rows of sharp copper spines rather then his flat scales. An edge of red ash and fire licked at the corners of his lips and when he reached the river back -
A frantic pulling and flailing pulls desperately at the end of his tail, causing another brake in the images. The cold water clung all around him and was nearly at the tip of his tail, he could feel Fluttershy's wet fur scratching against his skin.
All she could do as Memoir; a creature she didn't know anything about, dragged her lower into the river was to weakly paddle her hooves against the water and stretch her neck up. When flowing waters passed her eyes and came up to her lifted chin she stops. The rise back up happened quick, her body being pushed back up by Memoir's tail.
Fluttershy's head comes back up at the same time as Memoir's. His wide flat head and eyes brake the surface bent at an angle towards her. A sudden jerk brings her around the rest of the way into view where she was given a close look at his glowing eye. “It followed me here,” he said with a flat tone before lowering his head almost completely back under water. A shudder ran down his body, shaking hard enough to churn the water again and make Fluttershy's teeth clack together.
A silent breath escapes from Fluttershy as the hold on her is unraveled. She feels herself nearly dropped into the water as Memoir's tail shifts and loosens, and while the thicker parts slide away several thin and flexible spines slowly stretch themselves out from either side of the fanned tip; right under Fluttershy's chest. Their touch brought a blush to her cheeks as they gripped around her small frame and reached up to the base of her wing joints. This new hold was much more gentle on her, unlike the bulk of his tail had been, and with a soft tug Memoir's body and herself were pointed upstream.
Riding along, Fluttershy watched how awkwardly he swam, it was strange for her to see something twist and turn like he did, he would be undulating like a lizard or snakes when they swim, but then roll and jerk sideways, or he would start grabbing onto stones at the river bed with his front legs as the rest of his body hitched up. His tail was another oddity, with it stretching up from the the bottom of the stream and holding her up somewhat uncomfortably.
White bubbles rose around his mouth, making her also wonder about how long he was going to stay under.
For Memoir, spikes of images continued to run throw his red eyes. It was stupid, all it could do was think about was hurting, and its eyes only say grays and black as it watched Memoir speaking to the old bones. It had watched as he touched the bone and it broke. When he turned from the bone and started to move away the stone vision started to follow again, it burned with hateful emotions in its stupidity and made some effort to move.
Pressure grew around Memoir, cutting into the vision, while Fluttershy watched as the waterfall came closer. She flinched back from the falling water as he passed into it without slowing. Memoir's face had pressed into a stone wall hard; snapping the darker memories apart. He rights himself at coming to, climbing up through the falls one stone hold at a time.
Spraying water caught Fluttershy in the face as it bounced off Memoir, as he moved up the waterfall with her. Doing her best to not drown in the spray, she looks down against it.
Her breath catches tightly, painfully, as a red glowing stone drops to the river bellow. Searching over him, she sees that his eyes were dimmed by cold falls, but the molten fragments lodged into the base of his neck and under his right shoulder brightly shown threw the water. White steam bubbled from the heat as the cool waterfall battered down on them.
A sharp point slid out from between fresh cracked scales on his shoulder. When it came free it tumbled over itself again and again, until it hit the bottom of the river. Fluttershy watched all the while as it rolled before looking back to Memoir's neck and the other glowing light.
Relief was all he wanted now, there was flowing relief at having just one of the hot stone spikes come out. The physical pain and damage wasn't too concerning, the burning hole and cracked scales were already healing, but the memories - the memories of the golem exploding and of the ponies constantly growing terror, he didn't like feeling either of them, but at least the golems thoughts were fading with each fallen stone.
Several small spurs fell out of his sides and neck by the time he reached the top of the falls. His face gnarls with effort as he crosses the white cascading top of the fall. Fluttershy was, for her part, still breathing; though she felt completely waterlogged.
Memoir's tail leaned over, putting her down over the edge and onto the dry ground; the thin spines releasing her. Scratching frantically at the smooth wet stones that border the top of the river he pulls himself over. Soft weeds and dead grass litter the ground around them.
Shock had already taken hold of Fluttershy, even from before leaving her own home she could feel her own body trying to come apart, but through the cold from the water and her terror she remembered that Memoir said he would help her, and then he protected her; when the spines under her chest curl away she darted over to his side without hesitation.
His body heaved for each breath as she caught sight of thin scales that were covering his neck in areas that didn't use to have them. She was quickly trying to order her thoughts, how to remove the remaining stone shards, to treat any burns he'd have, to help with - his back legs buckled, drop to his back knees while his front claws skidded out in front of him. Shrinking back, Fluttershy's eyes became pinpricks as he hit the ground with a light thud; panic grew to an extreme understatement for her.
She looks him over again for any larger stones. There were pulsing rings surrounding the edges between his skin and scales, they were in the same spots where she had seen the stones that had fallen out, but there were no other signs of what it was that happened to him. His head rolled numbly, tilting to the side, and one dim pupil stared back at her. “Not accustomed,” he said while taking a deep breath and stretching his mouth; red liquids clung to his lower jaw and dripped off his tongue. “Still feel so hot. Anger, enough to burn down everything, raise it all-”
With a tentative hoof, Fluttershy slowly pressed down on the outside of his jaw. A molten shard of stone was imbedded into the back of his mouth; the fissure it made was oozing the red liquid. With a pained expression on her face, Fluttershy released Memoir's jaw.
The rot was good. It's spread made the forest beautiful in death. It's stink turned the air delicious with decay. The rot was good, but the thing that lived in the rot was bad. A small thing that moved too fast and smelled of blood and sweat and breath was keeping the forest ugly.
Their cold eyes could see the small thing for what it was, wrong. And as they watched it move and disturb their forest, they followed. It took from the ground the roots of their dead flowers and shrubs; it took from their trees the honeycombs of the quiet bees that once stung them. The too fast thing stole what was theirs while they were powerless to stop it, and their cold eyes turned warm.
A heat that could turn their bodies soft burned in them when the wrong thing would hide itself from their eyes inside of their forests' rot. It came and went, stealing and hiding.
They hated what it was. And when one of them came close to it, the small thing would fly. It was like the birds but not like the birds; the birds left when they came but the small thing would just go and hide. They hated it.
Something new moved, it was big. It smashed down their weeds, and tore at their trees, but it did not take. The small thing that took was hiding so the new thing was watched. It moved too fast to, but it also stopped a lot. It breathed their air like the small thing, but it did not smell of blood and sweat: it smelled empty.
Warm eyes turned as the big thing looked down on something dead. It breathed again with its empty breath and the dead thing moved. Warmth turned to a blistering heat. Their dead forest was to stay dead but this big thing made some of it come alive.
One moved forward. “Make the big thing dead,” It thought in its slow way. “Make the dead thing dead again.” It came closer and the dead thing broke.
One continued to move towards the big thing – hating it for trying to bring the forest back – but when the big thing began to move too it had to stop. The big thing moved around one, but did not see it.
It breathed deep again and they watched.
When the big thing had gone to hide. It went to where the small thing would go when it hid. But they could still see it. It had broken their rot, but one was able to see where the two things were.
Burning eyes found the two things hiding spot and one felt rage for being evaded. So much rage that – when the small thing looked at one – it did not hold still. It wanted to burn the two.
“Make them dead.”
They watched one die, consumed by ones punishment, and hatred burned bright in them as they watched the things live. The big one kept hold of the small thing and moved fast from the rot they hid in. The big one swam in the sinking-grinding stuff without sinking or grinding. It even went up into the brightest place.
Their eyes could not see up in the brightest place, but they would make sure that the big one and the small thing could not come down. When the brightness fell they would follow it. They would find it, they would hate it, and they would-
