“Do you really have to go?” Apple Bloom spoke, her voice shrinking to a whisper. “This year?”
I tried to remember myself when I sounded like that too.
Scared and skittish to when it came to fulfilling the Great Tradition. Apple Bloom talked as if this was something to be put off. Something that could be bartered or pushed onto another soul. I think she's just shaken to the core.
I wondered what she's scared for the most.
Me? Our home? Our fields? Our family? Herself should all be taken away?
I knew that it was hard for her to understand. The truth behind all of Granny's tall tales and the fact that our duty and our devoted was not far yonder into some different time or realm but residing merely beyond our farm fields.
As a child, I saw proof of the monsters that are entwined to our history line. I had the privilege to see praying parties of the old Apple Guard head into the woods and return victorious. Of the feasts we held. Of the festivals we held. Of course, the details are little fuzzy... I was a youngin' back then but I always knew that I would one day have to head into the wood myself. If anything, all this time working the land and learning the ropes was a kinda waiting game until it felt right to go.
Not that Sweet Apple Acres isn't important to me.
I prayed and burned pledges to the farm every fortnight. But the land we sow is owed by the oath we serve. If don't do right by the oath, then it's for nothing. Other folk have it differently than we do. They can have their contracts and paperwork and deeds to keep their land tied to the family name. We can't. Paper isn't strong enough. We are a charmed folk and sometimes, we need to renew and dedicate ourselves to the oath once more.
'This year?' my little sis said. I wanted to pull her aside and tell her exactly why, 'this year' but she's too young to understand. She doesn't know the signs and she doesn't need any trouble in her for when she starts going to school later this month. But this year with the crops and trees bearing the least of their fruit, the sweet milk going sour, the wool going coarse and all manners of signs of the sin perverting the good earth from reaching its zenith... It was time for me to do my duty. Apple Bloom had to understand that and she would eventually.
“We need to start pulling our weight.” True and honest words. “Like the ones before us.” I said distractedly, yanking hard with my teeth another strap to tighten the knapsack coming along for the journey out.
Heavens, if I know if any of the things I packed would come in handy.
Granny wasn't being exactly being specific when I tried to pick her head for ideas. She had it stuck in her mind that I should go bare without any provisions. Which sounded sorta like from the stories I heard long ago... But then she kept talking I should strip myself to the bone and part the flesh before the beast... And I tuned her out.
Granny goes in and out of her senility these days so I think I'm in the right to pick and choose what to listen from her. And it is a different time now. Food can be stored and canned. Water can be bottled. Why not go as prepared as I can afford? I wanted to do my duty but I don't want to die trying. I guessed that I didn't have the good faith struck down into my bones yet.
Apple Bloom was standing so close, begging me with her continued silence. She took more and more after Big Mac these days. Big ole babies the both of them. My limbs trembled as I tried to stuff more and more apples into the side flap. I hoped she didn't notice. I have to go. If I don't, who will?
“But... But...” Apple Bloom stuttered, wet words hitting my fur and giving me the strength to look her in the face. My little sis was red, wet and dripping pain from her six year old soul. Her snot was really nasty on top of it. Reaching past her, I pulled a towel hanging off the shelf and wiped her clean. She squealed and I tickled her for good measure.
“Applejack...” She giggled. “Stop! You're being unfair!”
I pulled the towel from her and gently, I embraced her. Apple Bloom with her moods ever-changing became a sobbing case once more, sniffling muffled cries as I nuzzled all her little fears away. After enough time passed, I released and Apple Bloom stepped back. A sign that she had given up trying to talk me out of it. Just like Big Mac. Why she did do it? I haven't a clue but I hoped she found a peace for when we were together. Heavens knows, I didn't get that with Big Mac.
I swung the knapsack onto my back and gave her a smile.
Apple Bloom frowned at first but gave a bright, two tooth missing, wonder of a grin. I gave her my best shit-eating grin that I could muster on the spot and we laughed and laughed.
And then I was gone, crossing into the wild.
---000---
Course, the wild isn't really called the wild. That would be disrespectful. It is a wilderness alright. Don't mistake it for anything different. The beasts and weirder things within are wild enough to earn that name but it ain't called that. According to the highest court in the land, the wood is formally referred as the Everfree Forest. Which is real cute of them. Me and my folk like to call it something different.
The Den of the Wicked.
Deep, deep in the wood, they plotted and plundered the sweet earth with their sins. Nobody important knew about their doings because nobody is found again. You don't talk about the Den. You don't talk about the Wicked.
They'll hear. They'll come. They'll eat all to the bone.
That's why they are wicked. That's why they sin. Before anything they've done, they'll prey on the good people and gobbled them right down. They don't know any better. They aren't from here. They eat wrong things, do the wrong things and thus are corrupted.
And if someone doesn't go out now and then, they'll never know better.
---000---
Further and further I walked, passing the old trees that stood as guardians over the farm, bravely protecting the farm from the creatures afar. The knapsack was heavy on my shoulder. The staff weighed heavier.
I took one good look at the farm, lingering long after my hooves went numb. Early morning light spilled over the tills and shingles, over the barns and crannies and over the main house where my family slept.
This was the threshold. This is where I stood, basking in the sunlight and the magicks of the old trees. I felt their questions and their good wills towards me. They hoped I would come back through them victorious. They hoped I would come back at all.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I still heard Apple Bloom, “This year?”
I finally turned away from the world of gold and family and crossed into the unknown. Crossed into uncertain oblivion. I felt a chill and the presence of her, oh Death. I was in their land. The wicked land.
She wanted a child back. Someone take home to her heavenly world. It honestly didn't matter who.
I ducked my head, bowing to the invisible spectator.
Would she bless me? Would she give me the good faith?
I continued onward, my steps uncertain.
---000---
Unlike Apple Bloom who was born after everything had come to a head...
What happened was entirely unrelated to this but Pa had a second sister who had an incurable case of wanderlust in her blood.
By all rights, she should have been the one to take the land and watch over the Den. Pa was the one who was sent into the world to find his fortune. And he did, our mother and his second wife. But his sister was born with the gift and in their generation, the young folk with the gift was getting scare. But she wouldn't have any of it. She fought Granny so fierce, wanting both her freedom to travel and to do the vow where she pleased.
She told me stories of the Wicked. Stories that I kept to this very day.
Of the Lamia.
Of the Empusa.
Of the creeping thing ever deeper within the ground.
---000---
I tred deeper into the darkness, heeding the sound of my steps and the stillness of the air. Birds circled overhead and occasionally, I saw a single timberwolf eye me and fled. On any other day, those mongrels wouldn't risk the chance to tear through some pony flesh but they wouldn't dare come closer today. I wondered if they were checking up on me? I would often see the same timberwolf twice. What if they were hunting me?
I stopped and walked over to a large, tilted tree bending itself to kiss the ground. Its long branches and green hair scratched my hooves as I tried to part them to sit properly against the trunk. I sat down against the tree, thinking of the possibility of being attacked. There was a searing, slitting sound behind me and I saw the blood pool below me before I felt the pain. I leapt up and stood on my hind hooves to attack. There was only the tree and the blood it stole from my back.
I heard howling and flipped around to catch even more timberwolves eyeing me. Our eyes met and my heart went cold as I counted their numbers. It was a full pack. I couldn't fight all of them and the farm... The farm was too far away...
The timberwolves stared at me and all at once, blinked. I flinched. Together, they all turned to look the way I came and at a loss, I looked with them. The way I came, it was full of light. Animals from the smallest rat to the biggest bear went about as if the part hadn't been deserted only a minute ago.
What were the timberwolves trying to tell me?
I stared at them as long as I could stand it and when I had enough, I walked by them.
The timberwolves barked and howled among themselves. I took quick glimpses behind me as I went ahead. After enough snarling between them, a young juvenile was nipped by the heads of the pack. He paraded out with his tail high to his fellow pups before taking a paw from the alpha. Humbled, he submitted and ran from his pack and up to me, sniffing my cutie mark and staring at my face.
I stared at him as he gave me a friendly bark and then he was gone.
'Is this right?' I wondered, my thoughts giving little peace.
I do not know how far I will need to go. I do not know what I will meet at the end. I do not know when I will meet at the end.
The staff is heavy and thus, I went forward.
---000---
At times, I tried to rest upon trees. Knelled against bushes. And attempted slumber in the tempting pastures of endless green. I only spilled blood for all my trying. Sometimes, I saw the young timberwolf again. Whenever my knees felt sore and I just needed to sit down, he would come and push right back onto my hooves.
I tried to hit him every time. The timberwolf would snicker and then returned to wherever he went to follow me at a distance.
---000---
At times, I tried to eat and drink. I waited to the very peak of my thirst to start drinking from my bottle. When I opened the knapsack, my reserves were empty. I checked my food. It had rotten with mold and moss eating the rest. I threw the knapsack at a nearby tree and shouted my rage.
I was so exhausted and thirsty and hungry and I prepared...
I dropped to the ground, so desperate to close my eyes and take a nice nap where I wouldn't be bothered by all the barking. Barking? The timberwolf stuck his head against my forehead and heaved with all his might. He wasn't moving me a wink. He was too small and skinny to move me when I didn't want to be touched.
With him so close, breathing his stank breath into my face and fur... I pushed him away and trotted in circles to get the smell off. The timberwolf followed along, his tail wagging as he kept breathing on me. I had just about enough and took off, leaving him in my dust.
I heard him laughing behind me. I didn't care.
After I got a safe distance away, I looked behind me. A pair of foxes were digging into my knapsack and despite as far away as I was, I could hear the sloshing of water.
---000---
Nights and days passed overhead. I didn't bother keep a count of the days and didn't bother now. The gloom of the forest only grew deeper. I don't even dare to be quiet anymore. My hooves echoed and shook the ground as I continued. I walked blind. The mist and darkness tugged on my eyelids that I didn't bother keeping them open.
I didn't know why I kept going any more.
But with every step I took, there was always another step after that. Who could resist to keep going? I could not. At times, my hooves would stumbled over cold things, hard thing and things that bite and fled.
The timberwolf barks and because I have nothing better to do, I followed it.
My body feels swollen and my limbs creak. It's harder to breath. I inhale and exhale.
The staff was still heavy, I kept going forward.
---000---
Out of the dark realm of the wood, I reached a strange land sprinkled in rock and shaped wood. There are homes here. There are spirits here. The stone houses, their roofs and doors reached far from the earth swaddling them and the great green climbing them looked to plunge them further.
The spirits go about their business, hardly sparing me me any concern. I wondered what I must have looked to them. Limping, bleeding and smelling high to Heavens, I felt that I was intruding on their merry land. Dressed in worn sheets, patched-cloaks, flowers and glowing gems, they are a wondrous sight. The world is alive with the smell of their cooking, of their shouts and pleasures. Some of the smaller spirits, looking no different from Apple Bloom, reached out to me.
I wished I could've spoke with them but my mouth no longer opens.
One spirit cantered up to me, her beautiful pink hair fluttered in the breeze. She dug through her bags and pulled out a pendant for me to wear. It was a strange green and brown stone attached to thick-looking string. She placed it upon me and spoke some words that I couldn't understand. The spirits had given me their blessing. They must've wished me well.
The sound of the spirits and the swaying of the fairy world they lived in soothed my heart.
The staff is still heavy, I must move forward.
---000---
The staff I carried has no name. It needed no name. Great weapons needed names and so we were born with names. For you see, we do not wield the staff. It wielded us.
When the staff is ready to use me, I will know.
---000---
In the eve of the night where I've come across the foot of a mountain, my hooves wavered. I had trouble breathing, body-racking coughs announced my presence long before I arrived. Before I used to spit blood but now none came from my lips. My sight blurred as I struggled to stand. I coughed some more and I am aware that I will die.
The Wicked came behind me, speaking in a fairy tongue. I could not tell if it was female or male. My sight weakened and I dry heaved onto the dirt. A pair of claws tore through my back hide before knocking me over. I was on my back, face twisted as the soil wormed into my wounds. The staff is near my side, still in my grasp.
I looked up into my Death. It was a Lamia but my eyes failed me. All was fuzzy but I could see its golden eyes and the scales that decorated its equine form. Words failed me.
The Lamia leaned over my body and plunges forward.
The staff is no longer heavy.
---000---
I headed home with the stars as my guide. The staff is brightly lit, illuminating my path. My wounds have turned to runes, green glittery words that adorn my form. I am whole. I have done.
The timberwolf barked and snicked by my side.
I headed home. I headed home.
