Dark Tales of Equestria

Forest Shadow

Stars and bright constellations glowed brightly in the dark blue of the night, they were not alone. The full yellow moon was also out tonight, walking with the stars across the darkness.

Twilight couldn’t help but smile as she and her friends shared the beautiful night together. Clouds were few and far between tonight, thanks to an earlier storm, and the temperature wasn’t too cold.The ponies were all sitting on a picnic blanket, the rolling hills around them smelled fresh and clean. Even Rarity, who normally disliked the outdoors, was enjoying herself.

Spike stared up into the night with a small smile. “We haven’t done this in a long time, we should come again.” He reached into a picnic basket for his favorite treat; gems, only to have his claw slapped away.

“Nice try Spike, but you ain’t gettin’ any.” Applejack smirked as Spike grumbled a little to himself. She was given the job by Twilight to keep an eye on their late dinner and that included watching the sneaky baby dragon. The farm pony turned to Twilight and asked with a frown on her face, “When are ya gonna finish that Twi.”

Twilight was standing next to a telescope; using her magic, she was twisting various dials, angles and so forth. She wanted her telescope to be ready for the event she and her friends wanted to witness. Finishing her final adjustments, she turned around and replied gleefully. “I’m done. We can witness the event closer up now, I just hope all of the meteorites get burned up.”

The alicorn had convinced her friends earlier to come with her to this night time picnic. This was the night of the legendary Crux Comet; it only appeared once every 3 millenia. According to her studies in ancient tomes, this comet is the biggest comet to ever come by her world. She had prepared for this event months ago; she knew this was her one chance to see it.

Stretching her legs and wings, Rainbow Dash groaned, “This is boring, when do we eat?”

Pinkie bounced next to her friend and answered the rhetorical question, “Twilight said we eat after the comet.” Looking up, Pinkie saw a light moving in the sky, “Ooh, ooh Twilight is that it?”

All the ponies turned up, excited to see the comet. Twilight look up and shook her head. “It’s another firefly Pinkie.” The rest slumped back down at Twilight’s response, this was the tenth glowing bug of the night and it was getting annoying.

Fluttershy, however, wasn’t excited to begin with. Working with animals taught her to know a firefly when she saw one. This firefly in particular flew towards her, landed on her forehead, and began snuggling into her mane. The Element of Kindness smiled as she whispered to it. “Hello to you too, Night Flash.” Her kindness was known throughout Ponyville, especially when she talked down a large red dragon.

Pinkie Pie’s eyes widened and dilated at the sight in front of her. “Are you guys seeing this?”

All the members of the picnic looked up and saw the sky above change. An enormous golden asteroid passed through the outer atmosphere; its huge outer body partially disintegrated. The initial entry left behind a cloud of rock that followed its parent across the sky. The asteroid looked about a tenth the width of the moon; it released so much light that the land below partially turned a golden hue.

Fluttershy stared in awe at the spectacle. Twilight clopped her hooves together with obvious delight. She didn’t expect it to be like this; the tomes did no justice describing the event. She ran over to her telescope and looked through it, still smiling. Using magic, Twilight summoned a notepad, pencils, and erasers, she was sketching the comet, writing a description of the event and writing a report all at incredible speed.

After ten minutes of light and beauty, the enormous rock was again out of sight. Shooting past the planet and continuing its journey through the dark void of space. However, the ponies didn’t stop looking up, with the main comet now gone, what came afterwards was just as amazing. Even the firefly in Fluttershy’s mane was looking in awe.

Up in the night sky, smaller fragments of dust, stone and metal broke off their larger parent and began falling onto the planet below. The atmosphere above Equestria began to burn up the space debris through friction, from land the view above was spectacular. From below it looked like the stars themselves where falling from the sky, the light veiled the land with a variety of colors. Blue, green, red and dominantly yellow.

The ponies couldn’t look away, the sight was almost hypnotic.

Rarity gasped at the colors that adorned the air. “This is wonderful.”

Fluttershy couldn’t help but wear a wide smile. She always had an eye for art, but this was beyond anything she had ever seen before. “Twilight, thank you. This i-”

The pegasus pony heard a voice, but it wasn’t any of her friends. The voice she heard was different, distant yet beautiful. Like a distant bubbling stream, comforting and releasing almost no sound. Yet the singing had something to it, something that made it sound important.

But just as quick as the voice was heard, the voice was gone. She couldn’t determine what direction the voice had come from. Looking around her provided no hints to the voice’s origin.

Pinkie Pie uttered a sentence, her eyes still admiring the sky. “Is it me or does it look like the color is going away.”

Fluttershy blinked her attention back to the sky. The colors were beginning to fade as the last of the space dust burned away. The dark blue of the night returned, along with its distant and bright yellow moon. There was no evidence of the comet to be seen.

Twilight bounced up and down, her excitement refusing to die down. “That was incredible! Did you see the size of it, it must have been as large as Aard’s minor moons, and those colors...”

The alicorn kept rambling as a cyan hoof pushed itself against Twilight’s muzzle. After a few minutes, the purple pony noticed her situation, pushed the hoof away and smiled awkwardly.

“Sorry.”

Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but grin at her comrades apology. “Hey you’re just being your egghead self.”

“What the hay, Twilight, just how many pages did you write?” Exclaimed the orange earth pony of the group.

Twilight turned her head to her notes and noticed that almost all of the 400 pages she brought were filled with sketches and doodles. Turning back to her friend, Twilight couldn’t help but shrug.“Let’s just say, I have enough.”

Applejack shook her head before looking at the picnic basket. “Well girls, time to eat.” The pony opened the basket and saw an assortment of foods. But something seemed out of place.

“Spike?”

Spike remained still.

“...Spike?” Applejack’s voice turned more threatening. Spike bounced up and began running home, dropping a few rubies and onyx gems along the way.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash began giggling at the situation, at which point Applejack decided to let the dragon go. Thinking there was no sense in chasing Spike down, since that would simply ruin a perfect evening.

Rarity smiled at her friends. “Knowing Spike, he likely left the rest of the food. Shall we eat?”

2 hours had passed since the late night dinner. Fluttershy had already said goodbye to her friends and was now walking through the night. With no sun, the air turned colder. Normally she would have been too shy to walk in the darkness. However, this wasn’t a normal road, or a normal night.

Fluttershy had a small smile on her face, as she remembered the lovely afternoon. It was on night’s like this Fluttershy’s confidence increased. A breeze began to blow past the yellow pegasus. The mare felt a chill down her spine and shivered, but she shook it off.

‘I need to get home quickly, Angel is probably waiting for me.’

Fluttershy began to quicken her step, until she reached a gallop. She ran past streetlights, parks, and a number of buildings. She slowed to a walk when she came near the Everfree Forest, but she didn’t slow down because of fear, she slowed down because of a sound.

A beautiful voice, humming into the cold night air, the melody sounded elegant, yet hauntingly so. Fluttershy recognized the voice. She heard it before, when she was with her friends. She couldn’t help but take a few steps toward it. Fluttershy squinted into the darkness of the Everfree, trying to make out who or what was singing.

Fluttershy’s eyes shifted and increased in sensitivity. She could only make out vague shapes, one of which looked unlike a tree. “H-Hello? Is there...Is anyone in there?”

Silence.

The voice was gone, leaving an unnerving feeling in the pit of the pegasus’s stomach. The mare refused to remain so close to the Everfree and opened her wings. After a few flaps, Fluttershy was soaring above the Everfree and on her way home.

High up, over the sound of the wind and her own wings, Fluttershy was unable to hear a particular sound.

The flapping of a second, larger pair of wings.

Twenty minutes later, Fluttershy arrived at her cottage. The mare flapped her wings a few more times, allowing her to stabilize as she landed on her front lawn. She then took a few quick steps to her front door and stepped through after opening it.

“Hello? Angel?”

A fraction of a second after calling out the name, a small white bunny sped out from from the kitchen and tackled Fluttershy. The pegasus was sent flying out the same door she just entered. Looking at her belly, the white rabbit was hugging her and happily chattering.

Fluttershy simply hugged Angel, a large smile on both owner and pet. “I missed you too Angel. I hope you saw the comet.”

The pony stood back up, Angel now sitting on her back. Feeling comforted, the mare stepped through her front door a second time and closed the door behind her.

“Come on Angel, I need to have a bath before bedtime.”

The rabbit smiled and chattered in response, the action only made Fluttershy giggle.

An hour later, a yellow pegasus found herself clean and lying in bed. It was 1am, way past bedtime, and Fluttershy felt exhausted. A full night’s rest was what she needed.

The mare closed her eyes and began to doze into the realms of dreams.

A yellow pony with a pair of wide blue eyes quickly opened them and immediately sat up, gasping for air, sweating and shaking.

Oh thank goodness, it was just a nightmare.

Fluttershy sat there for a few minutes, breathing, trying to calm herself.

A glass of water should help me.

The pegasus got out of bed. Intent on allowing Angel to sleep, she silently walked into her kitchen. She grabbed a glass of water from the cupboard and used a wing to open a tap. Mid-drink, Fluttershy froze the second she began drinking her water.

‘Oh dear.’

The mare flipped around to look outside her kitchen window. She had glimpsed it a few seconds earlier, but never really noticed it until now. What stood outside her window was odd, one part of her wanted to scream and run to her bed. However, another side to her wanted to stay and help the poor creature.

Not too far away from Fluttershy’s kitchen window stood a pony, a mare to be precise. From what Fluttershy could see, the mare was standing mostly in the shadows of the Everfree Forest. The only part of the pony that could be seen was her head and chest. The mare looked very young, only a teenager, yet her appearance was amazing. She lacked a horn, her coat was colored gold, but her mane was something entirely different. Her mane was so long and thick it ended in the shadows, looking like it was long enough to touch the floor, it consisted of six colors: blue, red, blond, white, purple, and lime green.

Fluttershy stood there, shaking, unsure of what to do.

The mare outside began to sing. Her voice was not how Fluttershy remembered it, it was much more beautiful. Her music was sad, haunting and sounded of loss, yet remained elegant and she sounded in need of help. She was also crying, the tears flowing down her face, fast and heavy.

Fluttershy couldn’t help but notice her bloodshot eyes. The side of her that wanted to help the pony won.

‘I can’t just leave her out there, what kind of pony would I be if I left her out in the cold, alone and in the dark.’

Fluttershy ran to her front door and opened it, but instantly regretted not wearing a scarf. The pony felt a chill run down her spine as she adapted to the cold outside.

‘If the weather is this cold, we might have snow later. Oh! I really shouldn’t leave her out here. She’ll freeze and get hypothermia.’

The mare began taking her first steps outside of her cottage and shut the door behind her, not noticing she woke up Angel. After walking a distance around her cottage until the she finally saw the gold pony.

“H-hello! Excuse me!”

The mare of the woods saw Fluttershy and went deeper into the shadows. Fluttershy instantly recognized the look, the other mare was terrified, a feeling she was all too familiar with.

“Wait, don’t be scared, I want to help you!” The pegasus took to the air and began flying after the crying female. “I-if you don’t mind.”

After 5 minutes of flying Fluttershy arrived at the edge of the forest. Deeper within she could hear the mare still crying, her wails piercing the air.

‘The Everfree Forest, I...I should really not. I should head to Ponyville and get my friends, so we can help her.’

The pegasus turned around and froze again.

‘But, that’s going to take too much time, she’ll be long gone by then and she needs help... Oh feather sticks.’

Fluttershy turned around again and took a deep breath. She took her first steps into the darkness of the Everfree Forest and even though her intentions were pure, she was visibly shaking.

‘Oh I hope i can help her.’

The yellow, pink maned pegasus walked deeper into the forest and out of sight. That was when she learned something.

She could never leave.