Chapter 1

The Filly in the Forest

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The mist left by the humidity wafted on the leafy forest, confounding the marshy birds that nested on the highest branches of the forest or in-between the cracks of ruins long forgotten by the minds of most ponies.

As soon as the wind from the sea blew through, the mist was blown away, revealing what once was hidden.

In-between the trees and the ruins, an old structure stood out: it was an abandoned castle, with its walls ground by the elements and the creeping plants, the moat long filled with dry twigs and molded corpses of ill or unfortunate animals.

The drawbridge was eternally down due to the lack of chains, and the chambers full of rubble and stagnate water, inhabited by animals that haunt and get haunted daily in those walls.

Going up the stairs, it was possible to reach what was once the throne room of the castle, once place where the sister princesses ruled together, now a room with broken windows and pieces of the roof missing due hundreds of years of exposure to elements.

The floor used to contain traces of rotten flowers and an equally-rotten red carpet, going from the remnants of the throne to the unhinged doors. Puddles of water had also once dotted the stone floor.

However, the recent cleanings by the Bearers of the Elements had left it in far better condition than it had been for centuries, though it was still nowhere near as grand as it had been long ago. The tapestries were repaired, the thrones polished, the floors clean, though still holding traces from the many animals that now called the castle their home.

Several rooms away, in what once was a tower, what stuck out the most in the a particular room was a star-shaped burn mark near the platform of which the purpose was lost to time.

Said burn mark would be believed to be fairly recent, for it still warded off any animal, none wishing to come within range of the mark, however it had been a long time since it had been placed there.

Naturally, none of the animals wandering in the room particularly paid attention to it. They paid more attention to the large form of the red centaur that was destroying the forest around the castle as it went on a rampage.

Suddenly, there was a wave of magical energy that seemed to come from beneath the castle and a rainbow seemed to explode across the skies and the giant centaur seemed to shrink and disappear from sight.

Still, the animals paid no mind to the star shaped burn, their focus on the rainbow in the sky. That is, until something strange happened. As the rainbow energies flowed throughout the castle, without warning or explanation, the day seemed to turn into night.

The animals became alarmed by the strange occurrence: the birds within the room flew away and sang the call of peril, the timber wolves nearby barked and howled in the vain attempt to bring back the sun and the various herbivores ran around in fear.

From the floor of the tower room, tendrils of sparkling dark smoke ascended into the air and consolidated on the scorch mark, the mass shrinking inward, forming the shape of a little pony. The sparkling of the smoke became softer and softer, until it disappeared, leaving behind a strange smoke that kept the image.

Then a lightning bolt, the origins of which were unknown, struck the form with all its might, followed by a thunder clap, scaring off any remaining living begin of the range.

The smoke became solid, then it cracked and shattered in hundreds of pieces of burned ceramic, revealing the living flesh of a filly.

Its coat was ink black and had a mane of very dark-blue. Its wings looked onyx. Its eyes were a pale blue, the pupils more dragonic-looking than pony. Protruding from its forehead was a small horn.

A cockatrice, the only creature that had dared to remain behind, seeing it was a pony and remembering its last encounter with a yellow winged one, hurried after the other animals, not wanting to repeat that incident with this one.

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The filly slowly opened her eyes and shrugged off the last remnants of the burned ceramic.

Smirking, she called out triumphantly, “I have awakened.” She blinked, frowning. “Wait. Why did I say that?”

Shrugging it off, the filly looked at the disarrayed room around her. She could vaguely remember her surroundings, but she was not sure if she had seen them always like this or if she knew the place she was in before its desertion.

“Curious. I… know this place,” she said, looking around. “Still, I don’t think that I’m here to stare at ruins: I should go… but where?”

She put a hoof under her chin in thought, as she surveyed her suroundings.

“Concentrate, uh... um...” Her dragonic eyes widened in horror. “I don’t remember my name!”

She looked around frantically for something, anything that could tell her who she was, but nothing in the ruins of wherever she was seemed to tell her any clues. If anything, they just brought more questions. What was this place? Where was this place? Why was it in ruins? Why had she awoken here? Why couldn’t she remember anything?

She shut her eyes. “Concentrate. Just concentrate! Where should you go?”

An image of the high and immaculate spirals of Canterlot appeared in her mind.

“Canterlot? No, that would be insane. Celestia would desire my severed head on a spike for what happened with her sister; maybe she’d even issued a reward for my capture or death. I will have to wait...”

She blinked. Who was Celestia? And why would she desire her capture or something as horrible as putting her head on a spike? How did she even know what that meant?

And what had happened to this Celestia’s sister that would have her wanting the filly in any form? What could a mere filly have done?

Then again… was she a filly?

A quick look over herself gave her that impression, but… something felt off. Her mind felt like she was a filly… but also not.

Her word choices and thought patterns definitely didn’t match that of normal fillies and colts, she knew that. Even knowing she knew that told her something was off, but she just couldn’t put her hoof on why.

Another image appeared in her mind, the tall and lush Mount Taigeto, where Cloudsale used to take its water… and where it used to throw away criminals and malformed foals.

How she knew this she did not know, nor, glancing at her wings, did she really want to if that was what pegasi did to malformed foals.

“The Taigeto, huh? But, why I would go there? I have no business there... do I? Oh, I wish I could remember.”

The filly groaned.

“Just what I am going to do? I have nowhere to go, I have no idea why I’m here and I don’t know if I will be able to find shelter.” She looked around the ruined room. “I certainly can’t stay in this place... wherever it is.’ Sighing, the filly started to walk towards the destroyed door. “But if I don’t even try to find somewhere, I never will. Maybe things will be clearer once I have my barings.”

That said, the filly walked out the ruined room, went down the wet and slimy stairs and walked past the rooms that once showed the glory and wealth of its owners.

After a long walk between the devastated halls, the filly reached the outside and saw the forest around her. The tall trees seemed taller to the apparent filly than she felt they should, and the vegetation was so thick, that the only visible path was a paved one full of weeds.

“Alright,” she said. “I see only one path around here. I guess that is the only one leading to civilization.”

With no other options, she walked down the path carved in the dark woods.

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Time passed, how much, she did not know and the filly was still walking the path.

She heaved a huge, frustrated sigh as she stopped to catch her breath. “Just how long is this path? I’m been walking for, what, hours? How have I yet to see anything even barely resembling a doing of a sapient species?”

But after a moment’s rest, she kept walking, determined to find a roof to sleep under and some food before the sunset.

Finally, after what felt like forever, she saw a pinnacle looming over the trees, a sign that there was a village near. The filly, despite her tiredness and hoof pains, ran towards the pinnacle at full speed. As she ran, more and more buildings came in her field of vision, and contentness grew in her heart… until she saw what looked like a tall crystal tree standing near the end of the path.

The filly had failed to notice it at first, but, when she saw the treehouse?, something clicked in her mind and she stopped.

“I... remember… this place…” she said with a mumble, while standing at the very edge of the forest, some nervousness building in her.” But, I can't put my hoof on it...”

She started to slowly walk into the town.

Suddenly she saw a purple shape going out the crystal treehouse. At this point, irrational fear she could not explain filled her heart, and she ran away, back in the dark forest.

She ran and ran, not caring where she was going, as long as she got away from that purple thing. Whatever it was, it filled her with a fear she could not begin to fathom, nor explain.

Her hoof caught on a tree root and she fell forward, hitting her head on a tree and blacked out.

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There was something warm around her. If she remembered correctly, it was call a... blanket?

She slowly opened her eyes. She was inside what looked like a tree. For a second, she worried she was in the crystal treehouse that purple thing had come from, but quickly realized this was a normal tree.

“I see you have awoken from you fall during trot.”

The filly looked around and saw an animal that looked like a pony, but had black and white stripes. It was a... zebra, if she remembered right? The zebra held out a bowl of some green liquid.

The filly eyed it, but the zebra’s smile was kind and gentle, so she accept it and took a gulp. She yelped as her tongue and throat snared with pain.

“Be careful. This brew is very hot,” the zebra said, chuckling a little.

The filly coughed a few more times, then looked at the zebra.

“Who... who are you?” she asked, her voice a little raspy from the hot liquid that had poured down her throat.

The zebra smiled. “My name is Zecora, young filly. What is your name? Can you tell me?”

The filly looked down, tears forming in her eyes. “I... I don’t know my name. I don’t remember anything.”

The zebra named Zecora nodded. “A lost child, with no memories to feel warmed. A good thing the princess I have informed.”

The filly’s heart stopped. “P-p-p-princess?” she quivered, staring up at Zecora.

She nodded. “Princess Celestia, raiser of the sun. She has agreed to visit and—”

The filly didn’t even let her finish. She leaped from the bed, her horn flaring, startling the zebra. Taking this chance, the filly shot out the door of what she now saw was a hut and bound down the path, ignoring the voice of the zebra as she called after her.

“Stop! Do not run off with such haste! The Everfree Forest is not a safe place!”

But she ignored the warning and ran further and further in, weaving around trees and bushes and vines.

By the time she stopped and took notice of her surroundings, the sky showed night had fallen. Something about the night calmed her somewhat. However, her calm didn’t last long.

She realized she had no clue where she was or where to go. Every tree looked the same as the other in this forest and the sounds of the animals all around her filled the small alicorn with fear, unable to tell friend from foe.

She quickly scanned the area, before she walked over to a small indent in the ground and crawled in. She was sure it would be safe to sleep here for the night and maybe she could find her way to wherever it was she belonged tomorrow. With those thoughts in her mind, she drifted off into a restless sleep.

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For the next days, the nameless filly wandered around the woods, eating roots and leafs (heaving up half of them, for they were poisonous) and drinking from a stream, sleeping under the open sky, and avoiding predators as best she could, the latter of which seemed easier than she’d have expected.

The few times a predator did find her, one look at her eyes suddenly made their faces turn pale and they’d ran off, making cries she could somehow tell were warnings to others of their kind.

This felt strange… but also right, to the filly. Something she felt proud of, knowing they feared her.

However, her eyes were the only thing keeping her safe from such beasts. With each passing day, the filly grew weaker and weaker due to malnutrition, her body becoming horribly thin. More than once, she thought about whether she should have risked staying with that zebra and facing Princess Celestia. However, these thoughts were fleeting when she remembered what Celestia would be likely to do should they ever meet and she would push on, putting more distance between herself and that zebra.

Every night she cried herself to sleep, wanting to feel the warmth of somepony holding her.

She wanted to be loved, cared for. She could not remember where this desperation for companionship came from; all she knew was that she so, so desperately wanted somepony to love her. To care for her. To be with her.

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When the night fell once again on the fifteenth day, the filly found a cave.

At first, her only thought was to use it as shelter for the night and then move on when morning came. However, she stopped when she heard a sound. It was the sound of crying, of wails.

Cautiously, the filly tiphoofed towards the mouth of the cave and looked into its interior, where a bug-like pony shaped figure was mourning for its child, which lay limp in its forehooves.

Realizing her opportunity, a spell coming to her mind that she neither remembered where she’d learned it from or why, but not caring, she pretended to be more of amnesiac than she actually was and spoke.

Author's Note

And it's here! Chapter 1 is finally out.

a big thanks to daxn, for, without his help, this chapter mightn't have ever existed.

i decided to set this story after season four, since that would make it easier for me than trying to work it into season's 3 and then 4.

now, i may have taken the On Hiatus off and returned this to Incomplete, but don't expect a new chapter anytime in the too near future.

however, i hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Edit 1/11/2024: So, I decided to go through this chapter on a whim and BOY did I realized I hadn't done a good editing job with it. Yikes.

Just spend a good while fixing it up as best I could.

I hadn't realized Daxn accidentally wrote The Nameless Filly speaking and thinking far to eloquently for a mere filly, so reworked it a bit and added some lines to show she too didn't understand why she was speaking more eloquently than a filly her apparent age should.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to updating this fic sometime next year.

I can't this year, as i'll need to get my head back into where I was going with it, plus, I've at least 2 more chapters I intend to write of Twilight's Twinlight before the end of the year, the latter of them hopefully dropping before Christmas Day due to reasons I will explain in that chapter's Author's Note.

please comment, like or dislike, depending on how you feel about the story and, until next time, later, everypony