explicitly stupid adventures of orange OC in the kingdom of darkness

Chapters

One
Two
Chapter the third, in which the darkness begins to manifest, albeit arrogantly resisting the development of the plot
chapter the fourth, which was very much delayed in an attempt to make the story make sense
fifth
six
sevin

One

Everypony was gathered at the town hall and I was completely ignoring what they were saying. Rainbow Dash had joined the meeting a few minutes ago and was standing to my right.

"You want something?" she asked, as she noticed that I was staring at her creepily.

"It's fine, carry on." I said, turning my attention back to the meeting.

She edged away a few steps. I silently wondered to myself if I legitimately liked her or just thought she was hot. No, I probably did like her. Out of her reasonably attractive friends, Pinkie Pie was probably the only one I could see myself with. Twilight wouldn't be bad, either, but she liked books a little too much, I might end up reading something if I go down that road. In fact, all of the princesses were pretty nice. Cadence already had Shining Armor, but Luna and Celestia... Celestia was really hot. They were both too old for me, though.

I drifted back to reality and realized that Dash probably thought I was a creep at this point. I looked at her again and let a string of drool slide out of my mouth for added effect. She trotted away to her friends, who had arrived to the meeting just then. I giggled like a little girl inside the whole time, but not enough for it to spill over into my facial expression.

No, with Rainbow Dash around I wasn't thinking clearly. I had to bide my time until the future. In the future I would do something so amazing that all the mares would want me. I consulted my gut feeling to tell me what that something would be.

"Walk more in the forest." it said.

It always said that. I already knew the Everfree up and down at this point. I'm sure Zecora knew the place better, but I could certainly find my way around. Maybe it was time to look for a bigger forest. In fact, I'd barely done anything with my life besides walking in the forest. Even my cutie mark wasn't helping. It was a single yellow horse shoe, tilted to the side a little, square in the middle of my rump. What did that even mean? Was I supposed to leave foot prints everywhere? Was I lucky? I certainly didn't have any smithing inclinations. I think it was a week before anyone even noticed I got my mark, which made it hard to pin point what caused it exactly.

I tried to pay attention to the meeting, but my attention immediately drifted off in the direction of Rainbow Dash's friends. I made a quick mental note of how hot they were. Yep, I'd probably hit any one of them. I think I really did have some feelings for Rainbow after all, why else would she seem so special among a group of reasonably hot ponies? Maybe there was some spell that made Rainbow Dash attractive to young geeky colts, maybe I wasn't special. No, I was pretty sure I was. Sure, she'd do better with an athletic type, but I wasn't going to compromise my libido with mere logical improbabilities. I could be pretty athletic myself, walking in the woods all day isn't that easy, you know. My only concern was that she might have been slightly taller than me. Oh, and also I didn't have any wings.

That wouldn't be a problem for long, though. Occasionaly ponies went from one type to another throughout their life time, it was some sort of thing that the magic of friendship did to preserve the balance between the three pony races, or something. Parents were often informed about such a connection at birth, and my father was told that I had a particularly strong one. He immediately sent me off to magic school to get me an early start on life, assuming I'd be a unicorn like he wanted, but I was quite sure I was going to turn into a pegasus. As soon as he died I made sure to get the magic books as far away from me as possible and was left living in my mother's attic like a typical loser. I had to admit I'd pretty much wasted the initial part of my life trying to learn magic, but there was more there than met the eye. I just had to make sure I didn't get into any relationships before I could score a legitimately impressive female.

I slipped out of the meeting through the back of the crowd and trotted off over the bridge. All that thinking reminded me that I hadn't taken my walk in several days and I had plenty of walking energy stored up.

Two

That morning the Everfree had an unusually foggy atmosphere. If I didn't know the dark neck of the woods as well as the back of my hoof I wouldn't have even bothered going that day. Still, the damp, depressing atmosphere made an impression that left me wondering what I was living for.

After a while I found myself sitting in the bushes and hugging a tree trunk, contemplating the meaning of everything. I realised I wanted permanency, but that was probably because all the little stages of my life were short-lived. My dad would drag me around from city to city, probably telling himself that it was for my benefit, but I had a sneaking suspicion that he didn't give a damn about what I think. Somewhere between doing everything I was told in magic school and doing whatever I wanted afterwards I found that nothing was particularly satisfying. If I found some place I could stick around forever would it really change anything?

My excessive introspection was interrupted with muted voices coming from the other side of the bushes.

"The orb, do you have it?"
"Yes! How many times are you going to ask about your bloody orb?"
"You slip this up, the whole ritual is ruined."
"I'd be more worried about the incantation if I were you."
"Soon, Blackhoof, I'll be promoted beyond the ranks of back-talking assistants. Pray you never run into me then."

The exchange was followed by a series of strange noises accompanied with abvious digging sounds. I lowered myself to the wet ground, listening intently. It wasn't much more comfortable on the moss, but one of my arms was starting to fall asleep and I needed a little movement.

"All right, now let it charge for a few minutes." said Blackhoof's boss and the duo went away somewhere.

I peeked out from the bushes and saw a little makeshift ritual setup. There was a pattern of upturned dirt with a scepter and orb sticking out of the ground in the middle. I couldn't quite tell the purpose of the magic, but I had enough background in that sort of stuff to know it was something dark. Well, they wouldn't get very far with it while I was around.

I hopped over to the scepter, stuck it in my mane, took the orb and ran off. The faster this was done the better. Close to the clearing there was a familiar route that ran along the side of a cliff, which I could probably put to good use in case something went sour.

Only a few moments later I noticed that the orb was remarkably heavy, and judging by the sounds of pursuit I'd already managed to pick up a couple of friends. Unfortunately me and evil sorcerer types didn't get along very well. I tossed the orb over the edge and jumped through a series of bushes, picking up the pace. The scepter was still with me.

"Halt, in the name of the king!" Blackhoof called out.

Looks like the assistant was still following me.

King? I hadn't heard of a king in Equestria before. He probably just wanted to confuse me. I glanced back for a second and saw a dark spot hovering between the trees in the thick fog. Goddamn pegasi. I had to run him into a cave or something, assuming I could even outrun him there. Somewhere with thick tree branch cover was the best option. The sound of pegasus wings was already close behind when we ran into a thicket of pine trees. Blackhoof yelled some exploitives as he scraped some of the branches and took to the ground. I would've tossed the scepter away right there if he didn't; instead I weaved as fast as I could through the tree trunks going straight ahead, not giving him any chances to cut the distance.

Maybe he got a good scrape, or maybe I was that good at running through pine trees, but after a while I couldn't hear any signs of the pursuer. It wasn't clear how far I'd run. The only things I could tell for sure were that I'd never been to this part of the forest before and that I was over due for catching my breath. Was it a good idea to toss the scepter now? I didn't have a clue of how safe it would be to dispose of it randomly or how much of a mess I'd gotten myself into. The scepter had an air of malevolence about it. Could they use it to track me? The best thing to do would be to break it, but that wasn't safe either. There could be some violent magical discharge when the object could no longer hold it inside.

The pressure of trying to make a momentary decision made my head hurt, but then I noticed that the scepter was buzzing with power, so much so that I could feel the weight of it. I then decided that I had no business messing with these ponies, dropped the scepter into a hollow tree, and made to run off somewhere far away from that place. The fog was starting to lift and I had no intention of getting caught after that much work put into escaping.

Surprisingly, I made my way out of the forest and back into Ponyville safe and sound. Maybe my horse shoe really was a luck mark. How could it have been, though? I never had a girlfriend and my daddy never played with me when I was little. What kind of luck was that? I guessed it would somewhat make sense if Rainbow Dash was actually saving herself for me, not knowing that it was actually me. I didn't want to be the one to break the news to her. "Come on, luck mark." I muttered, rubbing my butt in an attempt to invoke the power of the horse shoe.

A mare from across the street looked at me questioningly. I stared back at her and continued rubbing, just to see what she would do. She looked away. I didn't really care what Ponyville thought about me anymore.

Chapter the third, in which the darkness begins to manifest, albeit arrogantly resisting the development of the plot

I woke up in the middle of the night. The previous day had been unremarkable, but for some reason my sleep evaded me.

I opened the window to get a smell of the spring air. The only noises outside came from the birds chirping in the shrubs across the river. Even the dogs seemed to be asleep, though it wasn't uncommon for them to be barking at some foals who were out after dark and had wandered into the other side of town.

A couple clouds illuminated by the moon covered the starry sky, with a little cool wind breaking the night heat. In the distant there seemed to be a faint, low rumbling noise. That was unusual. I didn't feel like going back to sleep, so I decided to go outside and maybe catch a glimpse of what was causing it. My guess would have been a pegasus out doing flying tricks after dark.

I stepped outside and headed toward the market square, only a few blocks away from my house. The fruit and vegetable stands still had their fruits and vegetables out, since no one in Ponyville ever bothered to steal anything.

As I walked across the square the rumbling became a little bit louder. The almost full moon illuminated the square clearly. There was a large open space in the middle, with all the little market stands dotted around along the sides of it. The empty square had an air of space and security about it at night that I liked. A large cloud was quickly moving in to cover the sky overhead. Were the pegasi still on weather duty? I watched the dark blob eat up the stars, trying to catch a glimpse of somepony flying nearby.

In the middle of the square I noticed that the noise was moving. Blocks of buildings obscured its location, but it sounded as if it had crossed the bridge over the river and was now heading into town. It gave me a slight feeling of terrified excitement, to know that I had no idea what this thing was, but I could hear it slowly making its way through the streets. It felt evil. I didn't want to feel for it, though. I just wanted to hide somewhere and watch it pass, hoping that it wouldn't see me.

My feet carried me towards the source of the noise, while an inner conflict between running away and the desire to witness the scary object intensified. There was a clear feeling of destiny, though. Like I was about to be handed a big black box with a question mark and had the opportunity to choose what I did with it. Would I open it or run away from it? Would it even be there the next time?

My feet stopped just short of the corner of a narrow alley formed by two houses. The noise had also stopped on the other side of the buildings. It would have been visible through the opening. It didn't move. I froze. Was it toying with me? Was it waiting for me to make eye contact so it could strike? It sounded like a very unique experience, being eaten by a strange otherworldly rumbling thing. Buzzing with scared excitement, and with a possibly insane expression I looked around the corner.

Drenched in moonlight, in the middle of the street stood a unicorn in a weathered dark brown cloak, resembling that of a magic student. He carried a scepter and some small books attached to a detailed black belt; one of which he was paging through quickly. His coat was a faded purple that had some sort of intensity about it. The word "sorcerer" came to mind. The scepter itself seemed much heavier, much more real than the sorcerer and all of the everyday surroundings, although the sorcerer had visibly begun to inherit some of the scepter's qualities.

He took his hood off and perked up one of his ears. Briefly realizing that I was staring a rattlesnake in the rattle, I pulled my head out of the alley. The noise continued to move down the street. He seemed to be headed towards the market. I trotted quietly along the line of buildings back to one of the fruit stands and hid in the shadow.

It wasn't long before the sorcerer came down the street. The buzz of the scepter made my spine tingle from prolonged exposure and the sorcerer walked so slow that I began to wonder if I should have moved two fruit stands together before he got there to be more comfortable. He slowly made his way through the market. To my relief he pulled out one of his books and started paging through it again. In the center of the square he stopped. The same scene of the cloaked moonlit wizard paging through a mysterious spell book played out once more.

He looked up at he sky and examined the clouds for an extended amount of time. The eyes of the scepter seemed to flicker for a moment and I watched him all the more closely for it.

"How curious that I would have company on a night like this." He said.

His image in the middle of the square melted away into thin air and reappeared a couple dozen feet away from me, next to another fruit stand. I flinched. Some sort of charge shot out of the scepter and I could see from the flash that there was a pegasus mare hiding in the shadow. She sounded like she was struggling to breathe when he came up to her and picked her up. He held the struggling pony up by the wings as the eyes of the scepter in his hoof glowed red and a dark magic cloud began to form around her.

"I think you'll be unpleasantly surprised to find out how much more competent I have become since my last visit." He said.

"Get your hooves off her!" I called, and threw an orange that landed on the side of his face.

"Who threw that?" He growled through clenched teeth, turning his attention in my direction.

I hid behind the stand, hoping he didn't see me. Hiding in the shadows, I peeked out to see what he was up to, just in time to notice him waving his scepter. The scepter launched an extremely slow-moving projectile into the fruit. The charge rivaled the speed of a javelin and pierced the orange stand clean through. I was momentarily covered in sticky orange ooze.

Good thing I held up a hoof to save my eyes, because the next three charges were a little harder to dodge. I jumped backwards, nearly tripped over myself, and ran for the nearest alley. It happened to be the same alley I looked at the wizard through. There wasn't much else I could do, considering my pile of ammunition was splattered across my face.

There were some trees and a lawn nearby with an open space leading to a shadow covered line of houses with the alley in the middle. I thought about using the trees for cover, but glanced over my shoulder as I ran to see what the sorcerer would do. He was walking towards me, twirling the scepter in his hoof with shadows buildings up around him. There was nowhere suitable for cover, so I went straight for the alley.

The sorcerer was still in the middle of the square when I last looked at him before running full speed into the narrow opening. The next moment he was right in front of me. I jumped over him instinctively, but hit his head with my hoof and almost stumbled over. The head was gone and there were little tendrils of darkness crawling up my arm. The same sort of tendrils were wriggling around on the neck of the headless body. It was just a clone. I shook them off and kept running.

To the other side of the houses was an open street. I followed the line of houses away from the market square. I planned to glance back when I was passing the next alley and decide if I should take it, but when I got there several dozen roaches darted out and tried to run up my arms and legs. I stomped one of them and it exploded into more shadowy tendrils. The sorcerer was still nowhere to be found. Ignoring the roaches, I decided to run to a narrow street that started a couple houses over. Before turning the corner I saw the sorcerer pony running after me, closing the distance at alarming speed.

The alley to the left had a gigantic maggot coming out of it. The openings to right had swarms of insects pouring out. Some of them were flying in over the roof tops. I knew the maggot was fake so I ran right through it. It split into strands of oozing darkness that felt like a million like insect feelers brushing against my skin. The dark blob had some pressure to it that resisted my movement. I felt a lump rising in my throat, but continued to push through it. A moment later it split to my sides, with thin ribbons trailing away after me that re-formed into a swarm of cockroaches.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I made my way to the end of the alley. The bug swarms were catching up to me. I pushed up against the walls in the corner, looking for some ledge or window sill or door knob I could use to climb higher, but there weren't any. The walls weren't close enough to prop myself up against and go up, even with my full height they'd be just out of reach.

The insects bunched up into a wave that slammed me against the corner. There was no sound. I would've been screaming, but nothing was coming out. My entire body was frozen. None of my limbs would move in the slightest, even with great effort. I could feel the world fading away as it grabbed at my consciousness and tried to drag me away somewhere else entirely. Somewhere where there was nothing. I searched desprerately for anything that would give me a foothold to justify remaining in this world. "Pony Jesus", was the only thing I could think of. I clung to the thought and looped it in my mind over and over.

Something pulled me out of the darkness. I watched a magical charge fly down the alley and slam into the wall under my feet, dissipating quietly into little purple electric waves. The hooves and wings took me up to the roof and let me down. It was the pegasus mare from the market. From up close I could see that she had a reddish purple coat that made me think of yummy raspberries. Drops of rain were falling on my face.

She glanced at me for a second, then walked up to the edge of the roof and leaned over. I followed her to see what she was looking at. The sorcerer was staring directly at me when I peeked over the edge. The air around him was bent into a dark bubble that sizzled quietly as rain drops fell on top of it. The eyes of the scepter were glowing red again. He threw a hood over his head and put the scepter away, then walked off down the street as if nothing had happened. The bubble around him faded slowly.

The mare turned towards me.

"What did you see? Tell me everything."

I told her everything I saw the sorcerer do starting at the alley and ending at the roof top. She listened intently and nodded every once in a while the whole way through.

"Sounds like some typical dark magic attacks." She said at the end.

"You know about this?" I asked.

"You stay the fuck out of this." She said, putting a hoof under my chin, "Now, tell me why you were out in the market late at night."

"I heard a rumbling."

"A rumbling?" She stepped back, "What sort of rumbling?"

"Just this weird low noise coming out of the scepter."

She stepped to the side to look at my cutie mark, then seemed to be lost in thought for a little while. My curiosity was starting to well up, but I held it back. Was it worth asking about the sorcerer? How was she involved in this? Would my questions have started drama? It's not that she was intimidating, I just didn't want any drama. OK, maybe she was intimidating. If the darkness hadn't removed the orange ooze it would have been a lot more uncomfortable. After a while I couldn't hold it back any longer.

"So...why did the sorcerer guy just leave?" I asked.

She ignored me.

The tension in the air rose a bit, but I tried to be polite and not annoy the lady. I felt as if this was some sort of test to determine how much of a moron I was. I decided that it would be best to pass it for various reasons, some of which involved the comforts of not having to live up to other ponies' expectations.

"Uh...how do I get down?" I asked after a while. That seemed to do the trick. She came up to the side of the roof and looked at the three story drop.

"If we ever need you, we'll find you." She said and took off.

"You think I'm just gonna let this slide and never try to find out about it? Ask around town for a raspberry coat pegasus, perhaps?"

She flew away. She did glance back uneasily for a moment, though.

I walked around on the moistening roof, halfheartedly trying to comprehend what had just transpired; while the realization that I was on a roof, under the rain, far away from my comfy bed, slowly seeped into my bones.

The roof was hard to get down from, but I found a series of ledges on one side of the wall that were not yet slippery and went home. It seemed rather silly to spend the rest of the night up there.

I promised myself to do as much research as I could bring myself to handle tomorrow about the mysterious scepter with the glowing eyes and the strange orb ritual in the woods. My lust for the raspberry mare and/or Rainbow dash would serve as fuel. Even so, I soberly doubted my ability to discover anything.

As I lay in bed the events of the night caught up with me and tormented me. The raspberry mare. I never checked what her cutie mark was.

chapter the fourth, which was very much delayed in an attempt to make the story make sense

The next afternoon I went to the library. I knew I needed to find information about a spell that uses an orb, a scepter, and some sort of circle dug in the ground, as well as anything of use about summoning spells that use a magic which manifests as blackness...or something. The library clerk was happy to help, although I didn't tell him about the latter part. He looked like one of those ponies that are so obsessed with positivism that they attract lightning without a thunderstorm.

After a couple of minutes of browsing through the records on spells with a plastic grin on his face he told me that any knowledge pertaining to spells with a scepter was stored exclusively in the royal Canterlot magic library. I thanked him and went and hid between the library shelves, trying to gather my thoughts together. Was I going to go to the Canterlot library, just out of this small snippet of information? Perhaps it would be wise to see if I could find any books on darkness or blackness, first. A couple of hours of sifting through books on primarily orb magic and struggling with my potential future proved fruitless, so I decided to go up to the clerk and ask to see the records. Sure enough, there were just a couple sentences under the "scepters" entry that assured me Canterlot library was the only option.

Next, I went home and fried up a couple eggs while I thought about what I was going to pack for my journey. At length I remembered that I can eat grass, so the only object I deemed of value was a large water flask I could tie to my neck.

I opted out of taking the train, deciding to walk the dirt roads all the way to Canterlot myself. Little did I realize that I had nothing to think about.

At length the sun started to reinforce its presence by beaming at me with its ugly face. Legend said that the sun's face was so ugly that staring directly at it for more than a few moments could turn one blind. It settled itself in between the forest trees to either side of the road and always managed to make an area void of shadows that I had to walk through as the road snaked along. I had long since passed the confines of any landscape that looked familiar. Soon I started to worry about not bringing enough water to the trip. Previously I'd assumed that I'd just stop by a house or fill it up at a well somewhere. Now I questioned my ability to be able to walk far enough without the water running out.

A few hours and a couple rest stops later I finished off the flask and sat on a mossy log crying about how hard life is. I said sorry to my father because now I knew how much everything sucks, but I still made sure he knew how much of a dick he was. I promised myself it was the last time I'd talk about it. At this point I decided I was closer to getting some water in the direction I was going, as opposed to going back all the way to Ponyville for it.

Shortly afterwards the road led out of the forest into a landscape of tall, grassy hills and run down farm buildings. Some of them were still in use. The area had an unfamiliar and yet still somehow cozy air of some kind of simplicity about it.

A unicorn struggling on some sort of two-wheeled contraption with a tiny saddle slowly struggled past me. He had a reddish-brown cowboy-looking hat and a dark blue wizard's cloak with little many-sided white stars dotted over it. When he passed the cloak waved behind him in the breeze, followed by the faintest stench of magic. It may also have been cum, I couldn't quite tell for sure. I jogged after him.

"Excuse me, sir. Do you know anywhere where I can fill my flask?" I called.

"Why certainly, there's a well not too far from here."

He kept riding.

"Well, where is it?"

"Why, it's just down the road."

I jogged next to him for a while.

"So what's the wheely thing?" I asked, trying to initiate conversation.

"A bicycle! I've seen it many times in my inter dimensional travels and I suspect it has magical properties. This one has been reconstructed purely from memory."

"And where are you going on such a fine day?" asked the cowboy wizard. He seemed to be more interested in me after my show of curiosity.

"Just...walking to Canterlot."

"To Canterlot? For what?"

"Some magic books." I mumbled.

"Magic books? What kind of magic books? Speak up, son. I can barely hear you over the wailing of this wad of refuse from the nether world."

The bicycle indeed made a lot of metallic moaning noises.

"Just something to do with some stuff I saw recently."

"Some stuff, eh?" The wizard grunted. "In that case...you simply must have a cup of tea. This is my farm right here."

He turned off the road and rode towards a slightly weathered dull orange wooden building. At the entrance he got off the bicycle and threw it across the yard into a pile of hay in a fit of frustration. He stood in the doorway momentarily, until I followed him, and then disappeared inside.

Past the entrance the building immediately presented a dining room with a wooden table and an ornate chandelier that made the medium sized room feel a little cramped. The dining room had a piece of the wall missing where it joined the living room. I sat down on a chair next to the table with my back to the wall-less opening. One of the chairs at the table was a couch. I wasn't in the mood for looking around and absorbing unnecessary information about the livelihood of other ponies, so I just stared at the table. I heard the wizard put a kettle on the stove and make his way back through the house.

After some short introductions he started pestering me about my future plans, which I was still in the process of coming up with.

"Now what the blazes do you need to go to the Canterlot library for?" He demanded. "What spell are you looking for that the Ponyville library didn't have it?"

"Well, it's more of an object that I need some information on."

"What object? Have you asked princess Twilight about this?"

"No." I answered, realizing that I may have been able to save myself a lot of walking.

"Shouldn't you go back and ask her about it, then? Instead of walking all the way to Canterlot and troubling the royalty? You think they're gonna let you into the library just like that?... Why didn't you take the train?" The wizard mused out loud to himself while I sat in silence trying to figure out why I hadn't thought any of this through and then attempted to make up the distance on the fly.

"I guess I just want to see what Canterlot looks like."

"Then why not take the train?"

"I could use a walk, I think; just to relax."

"Relax from what?"

"I don't know, there's just some really weird stuff going on lately." I mumbled.

"STUFF? Speak up, boy. What kind of STUFF? What the blazes are you going to the ROYAL, MAGIC, library for, DAMNIT?!" The unicorn yelled, pounding the table.

"There's some magic scepters I wanted to find out about."

"SCEPTERS!" Exclaimed the wizard. The tea pot had begun to whistle in the kitchen.

"Scepters." He said, more calmly. "The tea's ready. One moment."

The wizard walked out of the room while I wondered briefly why I was going to Canterlot to find out about scepters on foot, other than the fact that it felt necessary. The wizard came back with a tea tray and put his cowboy hat on the table.

"Now, tell me everything you know about magic scepters." He said.

I skipped the part about the ritual and started describing the sorcerer I ran into the night before. The wizard stopped me half way through the story.

"I don't think you ought to be bothering yourself with going to Canterlot." He said.

"Why not?"

"Hm..." He stopped, contemplating closely to how I had several minutes before. "How can I explain this without giving away anything...harmful...give me a moment." He got up and paced the room for a couple minutes, then sat back down in the chair to my left.

"Listen here. Equestria is more than it appears at first sight. A deep power struggle goes on behind the scenes while the commoners go about and enjoy their lives. The strong often suffer to protect the weak, is this a world you want to become a part of?" He asked ominously.

"Nope." I said, folding my arms.

The unicorn facehoofed himself.

"I'm saying there's no other choice. There's evil forces out there that hunt ponies like you just for their potential to learn something. You're either part of the battle or you aren't, and I fear you've pulled yourself in too deeply already."

"You make it sound all black and white, if there's forces that go around and hunt, why aren't there forces that go around and protect? Do they spend all their time on maintaining the scenery? Maybe I'm just looking for a passive observer role."

"Step outside." Said the unicorn. He led the way out of the dining room, through the living room and out the back door. I followed reluctantly.

Outside it was still a bright summer day. There was a large, well kept lawn with some farm buildings to the side. The unicorn had teleported to the edge of a fence in the distance. He motioned me to come. I jogged over slowly.

Out in the field you could see a forest to either side of the farm, with open grassland running over the edge of a couple of long, low hills. The unicorn was looking down at the uncut grass behind the sparse wooden fencing. I followed his gaze, wondering if there might be something interesting.

"What do you see?" He asked.

"Bunch of...wild grass." I said.

"Watch closer."

He summoned a ball of fine mist that spread in every direction and slowly settled over the lawn. At that moment I decided that I could forego showering at the end of the day.

"Now, what do you see?" He asked.

"Bunch of wet grass."

"What are the little white things all around?"

There were indeed small patches of white cocoon-looking things littered all over the hill where the moisture had highlighted them.

"Spider webs." I said.

"Look how many there are. Are there any this side of the fence?"

I looked back at the lawn.

"Almost none."

"Good." He said, gazing at me. "If you go to that library, you're like a fly flying off to see what's over this hill. You can go as far into the field as you want. We mow as far as we can manage. Sometimes I fear I haven't done enough. Sometimes I see ponies fall because they've done too much. Think about that."

The gazing continued.

"All right." I said after a while. "I think I understand now."

I didn't want to tell him that everything he said sounded like rubbish. Now that I thought about it, the sanity of a pony who rode around on a bicycle was somewhat questionable. If anything, he was massively lacking a little drama in his life. His countenance quickly brightened at my response, however, so I thought I'd go along with it.

We then went inside, had some tea, chatted about some things I'd seen in the Everfree and one thing led to another, which led me to spending the night there. I opted to sleep on the couch.

fifth

I woke up in the dark covered in liquid and immediately became self-conscious of having sweated all over the couch. If the farmer knew any climate control spells he certainly failed to use them that night. I rolled off of it (almost banging my head on the table) and straightened the pillows drowsily, trying to assure myself that the couch had not been permanently soiled. Really, I was just trying to dry it off a bit to make it more comfortable to go back to sleep on. It was one of those 'too tired to sleep' feelings. In the process of fiddling with the couch I realized the primary cause of my discontent was extreme thirst. I grabbed my flask and found it inexplicably empty. Had I been sleep drinking? That may very well had been one of the less ridiculous questions of the past few days. I still wasn't entirely sure if I wandered into a patch of mushrooms in the forest by accident and it was all a weird dream of some sort, although I'd never heard of mushroom episodes lasting more than several hours. Water! I had to get water.

I got up and walked through the shifting, shadowy shapes of unfamiliar furniture, with my head spinning from the sudden change like it sometimes does, and made my way towards the back door. It wasn't hard to find with a small bit of moonlight that made it into the house.

Outside was a clear, starry night with a little wind. The moon was almost full again and I could just barely make out the colors of most objects. Somewhere near the barn there was a well. I'd heard the unmistakable convoluted bucket splash the day before when I was sitting on the couch and the farmer was getting tea. After wandering aimlessly around the barn for a while and getting my feet wet in the dew I noticed an angular shadow inside the building that looked like the handle of an old-fashioned well spool. Sure enough, the well was inside.

I walked into the shadowy room through a door-shaped hole in the wall and noticed a cloak hanging on a nail near the entrance over a tool bench. The well was in the middle, with piles of hay in the corners. Dust particles floated in the rays of moonlight that came through the openings in the wall boards. The well was a hollow stone wall shaft with a spool of rope at the top. Attached to the end of the rope was a bucket. I threw the bucket in, let it fill, pulled it up, and took a long drink. When I was done I put the remainder of the bucket on the side of the wall just so I could sit back a bit and let the atmosphere catch up to me, but it slid off the edge and fell down the well, hitting the wall several times. I facehoofed myself for making noise.

Moments later only the wind was whistling through the wall boards.

In the distance there was the sound of several runners approaching. I got up and walked over to one of gaps in the boards to see if I could catch a glimpse. Four ponies of varying sizes in hoods were running down the road, the second of them considerably larger than the others. They looked like they would pass by before they turned toward the farm unexpectedly. The first pony broke down the door and the other three ran inside, then the first pony followed. White-orange flashes of light erupted from the top floor window. Screeching wraith-like creatures could be made out.

At that point the idea of running away presented itself, but was quickly replaced by the desire to climb down the well and put the bucket on my head. I could feel something similar to the sorcerer in the market coming from the four; nothing nearly as strong, but similar. No time was lost in descending the cold stone shaft down to the water. I used the rope to steady myself, but only a little, fearing that I would break the flimsy construction.

Just as I was descending into the water my foot slipped, or rather went through the wall. I managed to keep the splash to a minimum. There was an opening in the wall under the water. Sticking an arm through it verified that there was a small air pocket above it. I heard the company stumbling out of the back door of the house overhead. Whoever they were they had yet to learn the benfits of stealth.

It was a relief to find the the tiny opening led to a small dark chamber or water unlike the massive underground aquafur or network of little tunnels filled with rivulets I immediately imagined. It was actually quite cozy, aside from the fact that it was pitch black and you had to hold one ear in the water because the air pocket was so small. Still, it was better than the 'sitting duck in a well with a bucket on it's head' position that I struggled to dismiss when I was climbing down the opening. Only an uneasy feeling of concern that something unfortunate had overtaken the farmer pricked my meditations.

Meanwhile, two of my hooded friends stumbled over to the well. They were arguing about something. I couldn't make out all of the words. They pulled up the bucket and threw something down. A flare. It hit the water and burst into a bright orange flash. I could only hope the little underwater room wasn't visible. One of them took a drink and they threw the bucket back in the well.

The third guy stomped over and told them to quit wasting flares. They argued quiently and angrily about something, ending with number three (or probably number two) barking out some orders. I heard enough to know that they were going to continue down the road. They left shortly. As they did I could feel the "something" depart with them. The "something", whatever it was, appeared to be hindered by the ground and less perceptible from the well.

I thought about climbing out. The sooner I did, the better it would probably turn out as far as running away was concerned. Still, number one was still around somewhere nearby, probably digging through the house. An image of getting hit with an axe at the last second, just as I was about to climb out of the shaft flashed through my head, followed by several pictures of one of the shadows in the dusty barn suddenly getting up and slicing me with a katana. My limbs were shaking. I tried to plan out what might happen when I climbed out without much progress. The anxiety was becoming crippling, on top of which I was getting a little claustrophobic. I knew I didn't have that fear, but there was something unnerving about that whole situation. I filled my flask up just for the sake of doing something. I also knew I wouldn't manage to sit in the well through the night.

The climb began as quickly and quietly as trembling limbs allowed. I comforted myself over and over by saying that the hood pony would show up any minute now, kill me, and I wouldn't have to worry about anything ever again. Then I was at the top. To some relief the "something" was coming from the direction of the house with two walls dampening it, but I didn't trust my senses enough to know for sure.

When I got out I realized that I was leaving a giant puddle of water on the floor. I made my way out of the barn and grabbed the cloak off of the nail near the entrance. There was already a pile of muddy hoof prints near the well, so I decided it no longer mattered if I took something. It was better to be a little warmer and drier on a cool night.

I ran out into the tall grass and eventually made it to the edge of the forest. The forest was a pain to get through in the dark. Every snapping twig made me feel uneasy, even though I couldn't feel the malevolent presence coming from the barn anymore. Eventually I made it out of the thicket into the fields again. Then I continued into the fields until I was too tired to think and hid under a hill. The cloak was just long enough to be awkwardly uncomfortable as a blanket.

six

Hooded ponies with strange black patterns on their faces stood in a circle inside the dimly lit cavern with a small fire in the center and several candles on the walls. Two of the big guys held me by the arms as I struggled vainly with my mind and body numbed by some sort of powerful magic. The pony in the center had his staff pointed at me and the tip was glowing white and dissipating into a sphere of dark blue around the edges.

"You are hereby banished from the King's domain and sentenced to death by 'the hunt'," the thunderous voice echoed throughout the cavern. The blob of white-blue light collided with my head and I braced my mind one last time against the memory blocking magic. The dream faded.

It was afternoon inside the little ditch in the plains. I woke up to find myself partially rested and immediately remembered the shadow realm. A parallel plain to Equestria covered in blackness (they called it) where the "king" had chosen to set up his domain, but now he had grown tired of his creation and wanted control of the real world for himself.

The banishment was a ritual where a member of the realm was disowned, memory wiped, and was now open to be hunted by anypony of the dark realm, whosoever desired. In history victims of such a banishment had rarely survived more than a couple days and never more than a few weeks.

I searched my memory for any more clues, but all I could remember was that I'd cheated somehow. The realization that searching my tattered scraps of memory was only a waste of energy dawned quickly enough.

Already breaking a sweat from the sun, I climbed the hill to look over the plains. The wind swiftly carried the clouds overhead and sent ripples into the fields of wild grass. On the horizon the faintest outlines of the mountains near Canterlot were already visible. For now the only thing I had left was to follow my instincts and get to the library as quickly as possible. On foot, though...not on train.

My mind quickly skimmed over what I thought I remembered of the last few days. The unicorn on the farm. I glanced over my shoulder to find that the farm was already well out of view. Had there been casualties already? Did that even mean anything to me? I decided it didn't. The raspberry mare... She said they'd find me if they needed me, what did that mean? Or was that even it? I could barely remember what happened that night, let alone understand it in such a time. Out of the days before I recounted a few moments in a forest, and beyond that everything was a blank. Except for...something rainbowy. I shook my head, the remembering was useless.

Ahead lay a couple days of travel by plains and at the end the flask could be refilled in the river just before facing the city. I looked forward to travelling through the hills, but it wasn't uncommon for pegasi to fly over this area once in a while (or any area for that matter). It dawned on me that travel by night was a safer choice to reduce the chances of unwated attention. The cloak on my back was the same color as the grass, though it got very hot under the sun, and a small moving dot was still fairly noticeable during the day. On the other hand, it's not like it was all that unusual for a random pony to be walking through the plains, was it? As I thought about it I understood that the hoof that put this cloak on that nail may very well have been my own. It was too short for a blanket, so the final decision was to suffer through the day's heat and keep walking.

Gusts of warm wind blew at my hood and made me tigten it around the edge of my face uncomfortably. It was a necessary sacrifice.

The hours passed uneasily while I snaked through the terrain, trying to pick out the lower points without making it look like I was doing it on purpose. Once in a while there was a solitary flier passing overhead. I still didn't know what to expect of my pursuers. Were they afraid of the sun? Could they hire a pegasus to fly around looking for me specifically? I couldn't remember. They probably wouldn't know where the chance fliers were going unless they flew through these parts on regular occasion. Waves of thoughts like these occasionally surfaced in my head in between long stretches of trance. Meanwhile I waited for the cover of night to take off my hood and be at ease in the cold breezes, but the more I walked and the more the sun turned its arc in the sky, the more it dawned on me that maybe the night was the proper time to be careful. The king's servants, after all, excelled in the shadows.

Hours dragged on and on, but at length the sky began to emit the softer shades of an eerily beautiful sunset. I hadn't counted the fliers. I knew there'd been several, possibly some I hadn't noticed. Memories of the farm unicorn telling me about spiders slowly resurfaced while the sun started to set somewhere behind me to the left, pink tones lingering on the sparse clouds left ahead of me. The words weren't all there. The only thing left was the unicorn's emotion echoing on the heat waves. It was a cryptic warning of some sort.

If it was anything more than the 'you're going to break your neck climbing on that thing' deal that I got growing up it wasn't of any use at this point. Somehow the plains had to be covered.

Whatever it was there was something just a little bit magical about it, and I didn't have spellhurling in mind.

I took my hood off and chugged half the water flask watching the sunset. There was nopony in the sky. When the disk disappeared I started at a slow run towards the mountains, expecting to go a long distance. The plan was to run the night, sleep the day, finish the water and then the river would be well within reach on the night following. I dove anxiously into the lengthening shadows, trying to measure the pace carefully to go the whole distance.

Just before tuning out I noticed a skeleton on the side of one of the little valleys. The pony skeleton rested on his back over a black cloak that had not yet decomposed with distantly familiar embroidery along the edges. Next to the skeleton lay an equally curious small book. I read through it quickly in the fading light, but immediately found that all the pages were blank except the first one. The only text was a hastily written diary entry about resting in the forest and continuing through the plains during the night.

I glanced at the skeleton. This stallion had made much faster progress than me on his exile. Perhaps it was incompetence and sheer luck that had kept me alive thus far. The facts noted, I suddenly found it rather unnerving that somepony had followed a plan similar to mine and gone much further, and was dead.

No, the night run wasn't the way to go. I quickly turned the skeleton over and dug my hooves into the ground underneath. A shallow grave was all that I needed.

With the hole dug and the night taking over I lay down inside, pulled the dirt back over me, and covered myself with the remains of my cloaked skeleton friend. Napping with the dead never killed anyone.

The dirt soaked up my sweat. The cloak and skeleton over top made my breathing uneasy. I wiggled in the dirt for lack of space to toss and turn, expecting a sleepless night ahead of me. A feeling of swirling clouds, sparkling stars, and swords stained with black blood in the night seemed like it was just about to catch up with me. Deeper still, there was a recurring notion that I still had some unfinished business here before moving on to the next life.

sevin

I woke up at noon with the cape and skeleton still on top of me and I didn't want to go anywhere. This whole hunt thing seemed a little surreal anyway. Apparently all the resistance I put up against the memory spell only served to turn it into a mental episode. Rubbing the sunlight out of my eyes, I had a hard time believing these so-called hunters hadn't caught up with me in the middle of it.

So I had to go to Canterlot library or something. Why? I couldn't remember. I had to admit it was better than any other plans I could come up with, but I wouldn't get inside just like that. I needed contacts to get inside and that whole mess was completely out of my depth on an empty head.

How did one approach such a situation?

"Hello, I don't know who I am, but I'd like to become acquaintances in order to use your influence for the sake of gaining uncommon arcane knowledge so I could hopefully remember what the fuck is going on...maybe?"

Even as it was I could see that that wasn't a very weighty position to be coming from. In any case, the first step was getting there. Later on I could worry about fancy details, like having a name. What was my name, anyway?

For the first time since my recovery I realized that I had some weird scars on me. One of the ribs was out of shape, my teeth were a bit sideways, like someone smashed the side of my face with something at one point. Several others that weren't worth mentioning.

When the brightness became tolerable after a quarter hour of sitting around I looked over my best skeleton pal's belongings, hoping to find something to call myself that I wouldn't forget. Aside from the plain journal there was only the fancy cloak. The cloak had a small lightning bolt sewn into it in the middle with shiny threads, such that the pattern flashed when you turned it into the light just right.

Black bolt...

It sounded good to me. I had a feeling it might not sound legitimate to some of the Canterlot snobbery, but I knew I wouldn't forget it.

I downed the rest of the water flask and looked at the horizon towards the mountains and then I really didn't want to go anywhere. Instead, I turned diagonally towards the edge of the plains towards what looked like the edge of a forest with possibly a river running beside it. It was the only direction where I could hobble along out of the plains before nightfall this late in the day.

Brief similitude of forests with grey and brown stone cut temple ruins seeping with slabs of moss passed through my head. The mood of the ancient temples and the plains around me that stretched in every direction had little in common. I wasn't sure what to make of the occurrence, but I didn't want to delve deeper into it. Meanwhile the edge of the forest and the misty hills beyond it edged closer. I walked along slowly, ignoring the obvious threatening feeling coming from my pursuers. They were like a useless unlistenable noise trying to get into the back of my head. Like beacons of infernal buzzing that waited until nightfall and then would close in on my location from every direction.

Time was taking large bites out of my consciousness. One moment the forest was a haze of hills in the distance, the next I could start to make out the outlines of the edge of it. The day was starting to draw to a close. At the bottom of it all there was a heavy feeling of misery that I wasn't sure I could carry, and it all of it sounded a little too poetic for my liking.

I could make out a wide river or lake in the distance with trees on the other side when the shadows began to fall. By the time I set foot in the lake water the twilight was well on its way.

The first thing I did was find out if I could swim. Indeed, the strokes resembling something between a kicking frog and a floating log came the most naturally. I figured I could swim across the lake as a first test of my recovery, so I went for it. The progress was slow and tedious. I managed to shrug it off by floating on my back to catch my breath as much as possible. As the far shore got closer I swallowed a bit of water in my eagerness to get out of the ordeal. The sand on this edge of the water had lots of disgusting slimy seaweed in it. At the end of it all I emerged strangely exhausted on the other side, now knowing that I wasn't a very good swimmer, and sat down several trees into the forest trying to regain my stamina. Night had fallen.

When I caught my breath I turned around and looked at the far bank. There was plenty of moonlight yet again that night. On the beach I noticed the tiny shadowy figures of several ponies. One of them was running away, but then the head slipped off and the body collapsed into the sand, accompanied by a brief distant yell that broke off into a gurgling sound. The others followed after it in a bunch and closed around the corpse in a circular formation. I dropped lower into the grass and watched them closely, wondering if I could trust my eyes from this far away, or even my memory of what just happened.

I felt a strange feeling of disgust. Similar to the one of squashing a spider in your home, only a thousand times stronger, and a thousand times further away, across the lake on the beach somewhere. The evil buzzing of a scepter was strangely absent, however. I reasoned that it could be the water that absorbed its energy.

The ponies on the beach were discussing something. I could make out the shape of hoods on their heads. One of them separated from the group and trotted into the water, making for a swim. At that point I knew that I no longer had time to question the events that just happened and my fatigue slipped into the lower priorities.

I ducked deeper into the shrubs and ran as quickly into the dark trees as I could manage. As luck would have it, the forest was sparse and mossy, with patches of ferns and only an occasional set of gnarled roots to trip over. I kept closely to the occasional patches of moonlight, trying to make my way into the less dense forest areas so I could run faster. I didn't care if i got lost at that point, there was always a valley that turned into a stream that turned into a river leading out of the woods.

As I ran I found myself wanting to know if I was an assassin. If I was gonna die soon I wanted to do it with the satisfaction of knowing that I was somepony cool.

A good way of testing it was probably trying one of those fancy flipping skills. When there was a clear patch of moon-lit moss up ahead I went for a front flip. I closed my eyes, spun low, and slammed my feet painfully into the ground.

Whatever assassin blood I had in my veins hadn't quite manifested that time.

At length the moon became covered by midnight clouds and the path became difficult. From then on I tried to look up at the sky while feeling the ground with my feet and moving slowly due to the darkness. Thunder cracked far away at first, and then closer as the night watch went along. A crane sounded somewhere behind me, sounding oddly similar to a pony shriek. I tried to quicken my pace.

Soon some lightning flashes began to appear and I stopped to rest from the tension for a few minutes before a boulder. More than once I'd slipped over a sudden hill or bumped my head into a tree trunk in the dark and my eyes were getting tired of the strain.

I stared back into the darkness between two trees when a flash of lightning lit up the sky, with the trees casting deep shadows over the forest floor. For a second I thought I saw a dark spot resembling a cloaked figure moving towards me. The next flash the spot became a silhouette with a sword, and a third quick lightning blink revealed a grin on his face.

I dashed into the forest, setting something between a 'there's a psychopath after me' and an 'I'm gonna crack my skull on a tree and kill myself in this dark' pace. In a moment I got my cloak caught in some bushes and slid over some roots. I landed on my side, and before I could get up I felt a sharp pain in my wrist.

The next flash there was a sword stabbed through my arm with the pursuer standing next to me, his cultist hood brushed to his shoulders by the wind. The grin was gone.

He drew the sword out slowly. I pulled my wrist back and put it under my arm pit, afraid to say anything or even move from where I was. The pain was already dulled by the trauma, but my heart was pumping fast and forcing a lot of blood out. I cringed at the wet gathering under my arm.

He circled around with his sword pointed at me to look at my face, completely unamused.

The lightning stopped for a second and I made one last desperate attempt to escape. Running as quickly through the pitch black woods as three limbs would carry me. I soon tripped over some elevated roots, taking a few more awkward steps before landing in a gnarled pile of them.

One more flash of lightning revealed the cultist falling down next to me. It seemed he hadn't been so lucky and ran face first into a branch in the dark, small gash over his nose. In his fall he still tried to stab at me, the sword going just over my head.

Instinctively, I grabbed at his wrist that was holding the sword and twisted as hard and fast as I could. The thunder and lightning crashed and flashed brightly.

He tried to jump over me, but I gave the sword one final push and managed to connect with the side of his chest. His weight pushed it into his ribs as he landed. I kicked at him and rolled away. The sword was now in my hooves.

The cultist put a hoof to his lung wound and looked at the blood.

"Fucking bullshit!" he exclaimed with a tone of frustration and disbelief as he looked at me.

He ripped a piece off his cloak, stuffed it into the wound, and charged back at me. I gripped the bloody sword tighter anticipating the attack. At the last moment he grabbed something off of the ground and flicked it at me. The rock passed close to my right eye and scratched the side of my face when I tried to dodge it, swinging awkwardly in defense. I opened a cut on his shoulder, but not before he landed a heavy punch on mine and leaped away with a clap of thunder following.

"Just leave! I don't care anymore!" I called to him, limping backwards into the trees.

"You're nothing." the stallion wheezed, streak of blood leaking out his mouth as the lightning flashed, "It's death or scorn for me losing to someone like you."

He charged again, attempting to vault off of a tree, but slipped against the mossy bark and went into a sideways flight. Seizing my opportunity, I closed the distance and drove the sword into his neck. We collapsed on the ground. The cultist tried to let loose a berserker yell that only ended with a bunch of blood sputtering into my face. He punched at my shoulder again, painfully at first, but growing weaker and weaker until I rolled him off and got away.

The voices all spoke to me at once. The disgust. The pain in the shoulder, with the slightly more horrifying 'there's nothing there' message from the stabbed wrist. The blood crying out from the sword with the growing fear of my pursuers, a faint buzzing of scepters in the distance. Some kind of strange fascination with the blood splatter over my face on top of that.

I went back to the cultist and rolled him over, his face was frozen in an agonized plea of injustice. I ripped a piece off his cloak and quickly wrapped my wound tight, then wiped the blood from the sword on the remaining cloth and took the scabbard. I felt nauseous, but there was no time to waste. Large drops of rain began to fall.