A Fated Venture

Venture’s 6th Letter

I can't find the path. We've gone straight for days. Or weeks, or months or hours or I don't know. I don't know! But we've never hit the road.

It's gone. Gone, or must be. I didn't want to use it, but it's not like we were getting anywhere wandering through the forest. It couldn't have been an hour after we left the village that we circled right back to it. I poked my head out of the foliage, but nopony saw me. Us. It was us at the time.

Frederick's missing. We'd been sleeping, lightly, in shifts. He was supposed to wake me up if there was trouble. He must have abandoned me. No, he wouldn't, would he? Leave me alone out here. Hunted and haunted. He left me. Or he was captured. That's even worse! My friend in the mouths of those monsters.

He ran away. Rightly so. It's my fault we're stuck here. It's my fault he's so sick and in such danger. I'm sorry, Frederick. I'll forgive you for leaving. Please come ba-

Sorry, friend. Starswirl. With Frederick gone, I've had to keep watch by myself. I can't sleep, the rustling in the forest keeps getting louder and louder. It used to be so gentle, a branch blowing or and animal howling. Now it's constant clawing and gnashing and scratching and hissing and it's wet and it's everywhere and it's terrifying but I haven't seen anything. It hasn't attacked me. Yet. Maybe it's as scared of me as I am of it.

It's so hard to keep my wits about me. I've been practicing magic to keep myself grounded, thinking rationally. Just little teleportations, far too tiny to do any good, or moving objects around with my horn. I feel much more calm after writing, as well. This letter itself has been very therapeutic. Most of what I've been writing is nonsense poems bordering on children's rhymes; free-verse of course, knowing my inability to master meter. I'll duplicate one here:

Sunny Spoon stepped on a sliver

When the wooden raft washed down the river

Named her daughter River Silver (I apologize for this line not rhyming)

Because Sunny Spoon should never spell

But River Silver said "Oh well"

A unicorn of awesome power

Though with disposition, often dower

She liked not being named for wood

And spelled better than her mother could.*

* Starswirl's note: Several pieces of paper were included with the journal, seemingly containing Venture's poems. The pages have characters placed in a similar structure to this poem, however, most of the characters are either written in a language unknown to me, or are simply completely illegible. The few poems written in Equestrian have had their contents harshly scribbled out with a very dark ink, though some basic words such as "the" and "a," as well as any mentions of "Equestria," are still visible. Suffice to say, possibly because it was reproduced separate to the others, this is the only surviving poem.

I came to a realization while bastardizing both words and magic, I had seen the village! So, were I to cast my finding spell, surely it would guide me to some new adventure outside of this nightmare. Not that I want a new adventure. I want to go home. But all would have to do is have magic guide me out of here. Trust the spell.

Fat lot of good that did me. It still pointed to the village. Brought me back there again. Again! I'm so sick of this place. I started running away, opposite the direction my horn pointed. But somehow I still circled back here. There has to be magic at work. The forest. It has some kind of force, or will, or something. It's evil. I think. But I'm not thinking. Not clearly. I'm so tired.

Maybe it's not the forest. Maybe its that puddle in the center. Swelling, in and out. In and out. Like my breath. Getting slower.
I need to sleep, now. I'm not safe but I need to sleep now. I need