Divine Equine

Chapter 0: Prelude

A dark night. Moonlight upon the ridge of every hill, splashed across the trees of a land unknown. Such a night was quiet, save for the soft hoots of an owl, or the gentle ‘shashing’ of the leaves in the trees as the occasional slight breeze washed over and through them. Now and again, a limb groaned from the weight of a hundred years of extending towards the heavens above.

Peaceful.

A noise from below the canopy, lashing out against the quiet rest of the forest floor. Hooves against hard ground underneath crunchy leaves and the softness of earth. Those hooves belonged to a pony, a young female, horn poking out from beneath her robes as she ran, ran deeper into the wood. Her breath was ragged as she pushed herself as fast and as far as she could. Clouds rolled over the moonlight, forcing the Unicorn to remove her hood as a soft, red glow sparked from her horn, then ignited the world immediately around her with a bright red blaze of light.

Her breath remained ragged as the moon was revealed from behind the clouds as they moved on. The Unicorn mare, white as snow, with a soft red and blue mane climbed to the top of a steep embankment, and tumbled, down into the frigid water of a stream. She was tired, and pulled herself back onto her hooves with significant labor. Panic forced her to shoot a glance around before she once more took off, hooves splashing as she reached for the opposite bank and rose, with great effort, to the top.

The mare’s chest heaved as she slid down on wet leaves, tearing her cloak at the bottom on a branch that had almost gutted her. She cursed, wishing that she had carried with her a change of clothes, but continued on, running in a weakened state that was propelled only by the sheer panic of being chased. If she stopped, it would be over. She knew that. It was the only thing she could think of right then. The only thing she was sure she remembered.

Do not. Stop.

Ever.

Further into the darkened wood, where even the moonlight failed to follow, the mare moved, crashing through underbrush when she could afford the stamina, and creeping as quiet as she could when she was unable to do the former. Occasionally, the mare would trip, cutting herself on a briar or rock. Dust and dirt slowly built up on her form from consecutive falls and injuries. She did not stop, despite it. No amount of stinging would stop her. When she could no longer see because her light spell was failing and she had not the strength to maintain a new one, she pulled out a torch and held it in her mouth, stepping more carefully to avoid running into or off of something more dangerous than an embankment or a pile of brambles.

The mare slowed to a trot. She had arrived at the stone gate of a long-forgotten sanctuary. Long forgotten to all but her and a few others, as it were. The gate marked the last safe place she could go. It was the only one such as it left, as all the others had long since fallen. Such horrible memories filled her mind, swelling her chest with sorrow and regret at the visions of her lost family, consumed by a corruptive mist. In spite of those memories, the snow-colored mare cantered forward, having caught her breath in a moment of rest. She approached a ground-level basin which sat amidst the pillars of millenia-old stone. Around her, in a circle, they stood at the center of the Everfree Forest. Nothing could get her there. The mare peered into the basin, as if she searched for something. She sighed once more in relief as her purple eyes reflected back at her from the clear water, and she tossed her torch off to the side.

“Good…” she moaned, as she fell backwards to a sitting position on the ruined, cobbled floor. “Everything... is…”

Her attention was averted from resting towards a small light. A ghostly, green light.

She stood, and shook with exhaustion, “No…” she almost whined before she said once more in desperation, “Nooo~!”

Panic filled her purple eyes, as she searched for the exit. All the while, the ghostly form grew and began to fill the room. It only took a few seconds for her to bolt to where she had come from, but it had taken a minute for her to find the entrance from whence she had come again. The exhausted mare had been so tired that she had forgotten where she had entered! Finally, she found it, but she was not alone as she left in haste. The incorporeal mist followed her. She looked back, rounding a tree, and fired a bolt of energy into the greenish mist, but it was unaffected. So she took off running again, passing under low-hanging branches and swatting vines from her face as they wrapped around her in her passing. The Unicorn mare grunted and growled as she fought the natural barriers of the forest, they being unmoving but still seeming to be so willing to snare her and sacrifice her to whatever formless creature or spirit which was pursuing her. It was a vain hope indeed, that the underbrush would halt her aggressor, and she gave everything she had to try and escape. She even went so far as to bite at the vines that blocked her movement more than once, and fired off a few more ineffective spells to try and dispel the ghost-like mist.

The mare broke out of the forest at last, and into a clearing, though it was still dark. She re-lit her light spell and started again running a mad dash. Her lungs were ablaze with exertion, and she was nearing her limit. She knew that. But she had to keep going, or her life was forfeit!

Despite the urgings in the white mare’s mind, however, she was unable to keep going once she crested another hill. She stopped, cramping and hyperventilating as she fell over, rolling down the other side of the hill and coming to a stop at its base. The mist wafted down the slope and surrounded her, and she choked on its pungent fumes. Her journey was over, and the mare closed her violet eyes for the last time, just as the moon came out once more from behind the passing clouds.