Element of the Spirit

I landed on the forest floor almost like a pony falling from a two story house. I had used my wings to help turn me to my backside to protect Lily from being flattened by me. I then heard a loud crack and instantly felt a sharp pain in my left wing when I hit the ground. I turned my head and looked to see my wing bent back at an unnatural angle. The way it was turned made getting up without damaging my wing further made things even more difficult. I placed Lily in my hat so she wouldn't inhibit my already limited movement.

I couldn't sit up with the way my wing was, so I opted to try and roll over to my right side.  My right wing had folded nicely behind me before the fall, so it was fine and didn't cause me any pain while I repositioned myself. Now, being on my stomach, I tried to get to the point that I could kneel. Pushing my torso up with my arms, I quickly tried to bring my knees to being directly under me. Keeping my left hand on the ground, I probed my wing with my right hand, trying to get a better understanding of what I would be dealing with. Thankfully the wound was not a compound fracture, nor was it jutting out of my wing in any place. But boy did it hurt. I don't know what magic that that spriggan had used that made him knock me back as far as he did with just a shove, but I never want to have it happen again.

After gently checking the wing over one more time with my hand, I tried to stand. Getting halfway up, I took a second to take in my immediate surroundings. This was a small forest grove with four large hallowed trees laying down like the one I saw before being forced into the forest. Nothing was around me in the thick tree line, although I felt like I was being watched. Ignoring that feeling for the time being, I stood straight up.

I immediately felt my side for my sword. It was thankfully still at my side, but it felt lighter for some weird reason. I drew it out of its scabbard and was shocked to see a sword about two feet long in place of my four and a half foot longsword. Sadly it seemed I was missing a great deal of the things I had made at Applejack's. My homemade slingshot and tinderbox were missing, along with four of my six glass bottles and bit bag was gone as well. I had my lantern, a compass, and a small wooden shield though. At least I could hold both the sword and my shield at the same time now.

As I was figuring out how many things were missing, Lily flew out from out of my hat and landed on my shoulder. She let out a small yawn and began looking around as well.

"Well, who are you? What happened to that spriggan with the black hair and pointy ears?" She asked me, still paying me very little attention while she looked around.

"My name is Jonathan. That spriggan that your referring to just handed you to me and launched me into these woods."

"Nice to meet you Jonathan," She replied with a smile. "My name is..." Her eyes widened and she started to panic over not being able to recall her name. Just like I had when I met Applejack at her farm.

"Is your name Lily?"I asked her, wondering how I was going to explain to her how I knew her name as this was the first time we had officially met.

She looked back at me with an incredulous look, almost as if the name had unlocked a part of her memories. "How did you know that? Have we met before?"

"No, when John, that was the spriggan you had met, gave you to me, I was told I had to give you a name, and because your clothing was made of white flower petals, I called you Lily." I said, trying to help clear up the confusion.

She fluttered beside my head for a moment and just shrugged. Lily looked around us and froze in place. She quickly flew into my hat and I gripped my sword tightly.

"What's going on?" I whispered to Lily, trying to be as quiet as possible.

'Your being followed by large wooden creatures from the south. They're accompanied by multiple smaller creatures similar to you. They number just over fifty in total,' came Lily's voice inside my head.

I grimaced at the thought of fighting fifty of these creatures with a handicap. Quickly pulling out my compass, I found which way was north, and then ran through the eastern hallow tree. I don't know why, nor do I care, but I felt drawn to the eastern tree; it was almost as if I could hear something or somepony playing mysterious melody.

In the next clearing there was a picket fence that acted as a railing so nopony would fall off the side of the small cliff into a glade below. I just ran north, not caring about what was in that clearing. I could visit it some other time, like maybe when I'm not being chased by a pack of Celestia knows what.

A large stone archway was in the next clearing. It was attached to a cobblestone path that seemed like it hadn't been used in a few centuries. A large castle loomed in the distance, maybe about a quarter mile down the path. I wanted to go down that path, but the clear road would have allowed my predators to easily catch up to me. I turned to the west and kept going.

The area that I walked into this time was a dead end. Well, that was not entirely true; there was a hole in the north rock face of a marble cliff. Seeing no better option, I dove headfirst into the hole and began to crawl toward the light at the end of the long hole.

I was greeted by a large spring of water in the large lawn that stumbled out into after running through that hole in the wall. A large marble semi-circle with six pillars encircled the back portion of the natural fountain. A pure white  pure white slab of rock lay at the base of the fountain. I ran to the large slab with my second empty bottle in hand and plunged it quickly into the crystal clear depths of the fountain.

A cry of laughter erupted from the cleared area and a large mare of a white coat and emerald green mane and tail burst out of the water. She had wings and a horn, and a cheerful smile was on her face. That is until she saw my broken wing. She looked at me in the eyes and began to fly toward my spot next to her little spring.

"Child, why fore art thou injured so?" She cooed earnestly.

"I fell and landed on my wing ma'am." I replied shyly, nervous about what would happen if I didn't start moving quickly again.

"There art no reason for thou to worry; none of thy pursuers shall follow thee into our sacred fountain." The kind mare said, as if reading my very thoughts. "We are the Great Fairy of Magic, Farore protector of the Forsaken Wood, Guardian of the forest colts and fillies of the Solar Grove. Might we ask thy name, young hero?"

"My lady, I am no hero; my name is Jonathan."

"Jonathan, thy name is uncommon, yet we find it quite charming." Farore giggled, but changed to a serious tone after a few seconds.

"Thou hast much to learn before thou might fulfill thy role in this world, but I, Farore, shall help guide thy path. Thy wing is broken, we think it would please greatly if, with your consent, thou would allow us to heal thy injury." Her voice pleaded.

I simply nodded and tuned around to allow her to check my wing. She gently touched the wing and I immediately felt relief, the pain just seemed to vanish entirely. She let out a hearty laugh when I gasped when I felt her firmly grasp my wing not a second later. A nice and gentle warmth began to corse through my wing after a minute or so. Farore removed her hand from my wing and placed a gentle kiss on my longest primary feather. I gently flapped my wing and was happy to see both working in perfect sync again. I turned back around to thank Farore but was disappointed to see she had vanished. But her voice rang clear as fine crystal through the clearing.

"When Battle hath made thee weary, our child, please visit us to heal thy wounds."

"You can bet I'll be back!" I said with a grin, and with that I exited the hole again.

The clearing from before had changed a little, there were glowing yellow eyes everywhere. I drew my sword and flew up a few feet. Several large wooden beasts that resembled wolves began to appear. Each had a small rider that was about the size of a seven year old colt or filly; they too seemed to be made of wood.

"Hey! What do you think your doing in the Forsaken Woods!" Cried out one of the wooden fillies.

"Yeah, its dangerous for normal ponies to enter these deep woods." Yelled a colt.

One of the fillies jumped of her timberwolf, and just walked right ip to me. We almost stood eye to eye, myself being ever so slightly taller.

"Hey mister, we're sorry if our doggies scared you, they're normally not as loud. Could you please come with us, you seem lonely and lost here." She said with an adorable smile.

"Uh... sure, I don't see why not. I'm looking for the Solar Grove; maybe you all could help me find it."

They filly giggled and just looked back at me. "That's funny, we were going to take you there anyway, thats where we live silly head."

"Oh... well thank you miss..."

"Leafy Breeze," she replied with mirth.

"Well then, thank you Leafy Breeze, and I would be thrilled to follow you and your friends to the Solar Grove."

"Wait, what's your name?" Leafy asked, getting a bunch of nods and the phrase 'What's your name' was repeated numerous time over.

"My name is Jonathan." I stated simply.