~ Chapter 1: The Beginning ~
I began walking through a dense forest, the scent of muskie grass and spring leaves had surrounded my nose, along with the crispy cold wind that made my entire body shiver. But not to the point that I couldn’t withstand.
Keeping a slow pace, I enjoyed the scenery. Looking at trees always calmed myself. Just the fact of being outside calmed myself, but these weren’t normal trees, they seemed too rounded to be a tree. What was supposed to be dark, brown bark, had a lighter tint, and the leaves were more of a purple-ish color rather than a dark green.
It was odd, yet satisfying to see something strange, I always loved discovering new things. Just the fact of a new plant or organism to find satisfied me to the point that I wanted to learn more about them.
After walking a few hundred yards in the silent, strange forest I came across a sound, a blood boiling screech that came from the bushes behind myself. Then finding a loud, rumbling sound, it almost sounded like a stampede of elephants, but the climate here wouldn’t suit the large, gray beasts. I was extremely curious of what animal had found me, but the noises it made told me to not stick around to find out.
My whole body tensed and adrenaline coursed through my veins. My muscles started moving rapidly, not paying much attention to the vines and roots on the ground. I didn’t dare look behind myself for the fear of tripping over something and becoming prey of the large beast following me.
I was desperately gasping air, but it became more difficult the longer I ran. I hoped for a safe spot to hide but all I came across was an end to the hard ground I stood on. My mind was racing for decisions. Do I stop and face the wild beast? Or do I make a dash off the side of the ridge, and hope for the best.
My best choice was to jump, thinking of what this beast could do to me or even what it looked like was too much for my brain to comprehend with such a short distance between me and the large cliff in front of me. I made a leap of faith and down I went. The gravity pulled me faster and faster toward the center of this planet. I’m not sure if this wild animal had jumped after me but my vision was too blurred for me to even know what I was about to hit. but I knew I was bound to hit some sort of surface eventually. and I saw it, barely though. Before I could even see what I was about to land on, I woke up.
I felt light headed, I tried standing up to walk over to the bathroom but it didn’t quite work out as expected, I tripped over books and my bag and overall just random things, I never bothered to clean up. I slowly walked over to the bathroom and stared at myself through the mirror.
My mane was medium length and had highlights of red around the edges that made sort of an outline. My actual color of hair was black, and my body had a grayish tint to it. The cutie mark I have is a star set to flames.
My name is Nova, I live in Canterlot. Not many ponies talk to me, but I don’t mind because they seem too royal for my status. But at least I can act posh enough to prevent weird looks from everypony else. My best, and only friend is Raven Quill. He loves to write, but a lot of the things he writes, he keeps to himself. He works in mysterious ways like that.
I like reading instead. Books about anything fascinates me. even if it’s just boring history. I spend most of my days in the Canterlot Archives, studying old books and the recent ones that people publish. I love to discover things, mostly plants and such things like that. seeing a new book about a rare plant like Hearts Desire always made me excited.
I try to keep in touch with Zecora, but she lives all the way down in Ponyville, so it’s hard to talk to her. But whenever I get the chance, I send a pheonix her way to carry out a message. She’s a very nice zebra, even if it is hard to decode her silly rhymes. We normally share new things that we’ve learned and she sends me tonics when i need them.
I guess you could consider myself an alchemist but that seems too over rated. although I do can take good care of myself fairly well with potions and tonics I make.
I was on my way to the Archives but before I arrive at my destination, I went to Raven’s house. It’s a little beat up from neglection, but I don’t mind too much. He’s still asleep I assume, I don’t know why, but he spends most of his nights, “walking around town” but I guess that’s just one of the mysterious things he does.
I knock on the door, no answer. I ring the bell, no answer. I finally decide to throw a small rock at his window on the upper level. cliche, I know, but it’s quite effective. I hear him fall off his bed and groan. then slowly making his way down the tattered stairs and to his front door. As normal, he has bags under his eyes.
I stare at those neon blue eyes as he starts to process who he’s looking at. He has spiked, bright, red hair with yellow highlights at the tip. his body has a dark blue color, but he normally wears a black hoodie that covers most of his torso. He blinked a couple times and it must have been at least ten seconds before he responded to who he was looking at.
“ Morning Nova ” He said slowly.
“ Hey Raven ” I responded.
“ What are you doing up so early? ” He moaned back.
I paused and looked at his serious, tired face.
“ it’s one in the afternoon, ”
Raven just looked at me, and then turned around and looked at the old battered up clock and said, “Right you are, come on in.”
Nova walked into his house. The floor boards creaked as he pressed his hoof against them. which is odd because the outside of Raven’s house didn’t look bad at all, just a typical Canterlot home.
“ Hey, need anything? ” Raven said, pretending to act more awake then what he really was.
“ Oh no thanks, I already ate ” I politely replied.
“ Ok, well I’m going to go take a shower then. ”
Raven tripped while walking up the stairs, not realizing that the steps had ended. Nova smiled and walked over to the cabinet where Raven kept all of his books, at least the ones he didn’t write himself.
He scanned through the books, Most of them Nova had already read and the others didn’t seem too fascinating at the moment. After about three rows down and four books to the right, Nova came across a book with a strange name in gold font.
T H E E N D E R W O R L D
Nova picked up the book and looked at it. there was no picture on the front to resemble what it was, just an old leather cover to protect it from weather. There weren’t a lot of pages but it seemed to be packed full of information just on the few sets of pages.
It spoke of a strange land, everything about the place just seemed, different. The animals, the plants, the sky, even the laws of physics. Everything about the place fascinated Nova. Why had Raven never spoken about this book? Is there something he tried to hide from me? Maybe I’m just overthinking this. But it’s still weird how he never spoke of this book.
Just then steam came from upstairs and Raven had walked down the steps to meet Nova.
“ Hey dude, ready to go? ” Raven said, rubbing the wet and tiredness out of his hair with a towel.
“ Yeah, but before we go I wanted to ask, what is this book? ” Nova lifted the book up with his horn and showed it to Raven.
“ Oh, that’s an old book my great uncle wrote and gave to my family a couple centuries ago. Ponies around town said he was crazy, and then one night. He just vanished. no one ever knew where he went. ”
