A Fated Venture

Starswirl’s note: The remaining letters lack dates, or any sort of heading. I’ve taken the liberty of adding titles to separate the letters. However, at times it is difficult to tell whether Venture intended to start a new letter, or simply was continuing the same letter on a separate page. Therefore, it’s possible that my numbering is inaccurate.

Venture’s 5th Letter

Starswirl, I hope this makes it to you. Frederick and I have fled deep within the Spiral Forest. We can’t find the path, but that’s okay. It’s a spiral, all we have to do is go straight from the center and we’ll be out of this horrible place forever. Go straight out of the spiral. That’s a good plan.

Forget diplomacy. Forget cultural understanding. Forget the Spiral ponies. Those things. Monsters. Evil, vile creatures.

I walked out the hut. They were all out there, gathered around the body like flies. I could barely see through the crowd. I wish I hadn’t.

They ate him. Each and every one, trotted up and chewed, ripping away chunks of the body. Chunks of their brother, or father or friend or whatever. They ate him. You could see chewed mass of pony flesh sliding down their throats. Then, one by one, they slowly walked away, the corpse’s blood dripping from their mouths, staining their coats. The ones who left went back to farming.

I watched the whole scene in shock. The leader went last. He clamped down on the poor pony’s muzzle, tore off half its face. Something had already eaten its eyes. He finished chewing, swallowed, then picked up the bloody skeleton by the neck, using his teeth. The leader jerked his head, hard, sending the remains flying into the pool at the center of town. The body sank in, completely consumed by the liquid.

I finally moved, just a twitch of my back hoof. The entire village snapped their heads toward me. Hundreds of glowing eyes and bloody mouths, focused on me. I screamed. They ran at me. I managed to jump back into the hut, grab Frederick, and rush away before they could get there. No other option, we had to run into the forest. I never looked back, never saw anypony pursuing us, but I could hear rustling in the branches behind us for a long time. I stopped running long after the rustling stopped.

They might still be looking for us, though. I stopped to write this letter and give my hooves a rest. I didn’t have time to grab our supplies. Frederick’s terrified and sick, but otherwise alright. We’re okay right now. But we may start running low on food soon.
I’m so scared. We could be ambushed at any moment. They could kill us. Then eat us. They could drag us back there. I can’t go back. So we’ve got to keep going forward. We’ll run into the path eventually.

No, no path. Straight out of the spiral. That’s the plan. I’ll write again when we’re out of here. I wish I could send this to you, friend. I wish you could come help us. But that’s out of your power, just like this whole thing seems out of ours. Don’t worry. We’ll be safe soon.

“Don’t worry,” I wrote. Why on earth would you be worried? If you got these, then everything turned out alright. You never have any reason to worry. I’m the one who’s supposed to be worried. And I am. But I shouldn’t be. I’m not sure I’m truly addressing these to you anymore, friend.

Something’s moving in the forest. I don’t know what it is, but we have got get going. I’ll write again when we’re safe.