Once upon a time, in a cozy cottage on a small farm on the outskirts of a wild wood, there lived a small family of Earth Ponies.
The father was young, strong, and big, with an orange coat and a long golden mane that his daughter secretly wanted to tie into braids.
The mother was young as well, and the most beautiful mare in the whole countryside. Her coat was deep red like an apple, and her mane was golden as well.
Their daughter was golden all the way through, from her mane to her tail and everything in between. Her name was Goldie Delicious.
Goldie Delicious was too young to have a Cutie Mark of her own, but not quite young enough to get out of helping her parents with chores around the farm. There was no school for her to go to, and the nearest foals her age lived on the other side of the valley. To Goldie, life on the family farm seemed an awful bore.
Her very favorite thing to do was sneaking off of the farm to explore. At first, when she was very small, she had thought it great fun to hide in a copse of small trees and listen for her parents to come looking for her. When they came near, she would jump out of her hiding place and shout, “Here I am!”
Her parents never liked that game as much as she did. One day, after her daddy walked straight up to her last good hiding spot and didn’t so much as blink when she jumped out at him, she got a new chore: helping him to build a fence to keep her in.
That was Goldie’s least favorite chore of all, but at least it didn’t keep going like her other chores. And once the fence was done, things got even better than they had been before. Her mom and dad stopped checking on her as often, and since she had helped to build the fence, she knew all the best places to get past it. She never told her father about the slat that one of the cows had kicked loose, because she was the only one that saw it happen. And she always made sure neither of her parents were around when she climbed the tree that grew over the fence on the north side. As far as she knew, they didn’t know she could get over that way.
But now that she couldn’t hide for her parents to find her, she had to find other ways to have fun away from the farm.
The grassy hills around the farm were boring to explore. There were only four interesting places that she could find, and that only took her two days of looking. So, when she finally got bored enough, she decided to go somewhere she had never gone before: the Wild Wood.
Staying out of the Wild Wood had always been one of Daddy’s Big Rules, which were even more important than Mommy’s Big Rules. Goldie Delicious didn’t want to think of what might happen if either of them ever found out she had snuck off to see what was in there. But when you’re a little filly trapped on a boring old farm, sometimes doing something fun is more important than the most important Big Rule.
So, one day after her chores were done, with a saddlebag full of snacks and some of her favorite toys over her back, Goldie set off into the Wood.
When she left the farm she had been quite sure it was still light out. In fact, she was fairly certain she had just had her lunch. But when Goldie entered the trees, there was no denying the day got much darker.
Goldie wasn’t afraid of the dark any more. Back when she was just a little filly she wouldn’t close her eyes at night unless there were at least two candles burning in her room. But that was then, and Daddy had talked to her a lot about being brave, and what sort of things you didn’t need to be scared of. So even when she could no longer see the sun through the treetops in the Wild Wood, Goldie knew there was nothing to be afraid of in the dark.
Goldie followed a trail. She wasn’t sure why it was there, or where it had come from. She had just pushed past the first few trees and stumbled onto it. But no one built trails unless they had somewhere worth going to, so if Goldie wanted to find something interesting, she knew following a trail was a good place to start.
Goldie wasn’t completely sure which way she was facing anymore, but it felt like she was still heading away from the farm, in the direction of the big rocky hills she could see in the Wild Wood from her bedroom window. Sure enough, after jumping over a big stream and waving around some big boulders, Goldie found herself at the foot of a mountain.
Here, the trail split off into two directions, but neither of them went up the hill. The path on her left looked like the more fun of the two, so Goldie followed it, and remembered to watch out for this fork on her way back.
It wasn’t long before Goldie found something worth making a trail to get to: a door in the side of the mountain. It was a plain door, though rather large, and was painted red with no windows. There was no doormat or mailbox, or anything else to suggest who might live behind such a door. Goldie thought the polite thing to do would be to knock and ask whoever answered who lived there. But now that she was up against the steep slope of the mountain and not under the trees of the forest, she could see that it had gotten dark, and whoever lived behind the door might be trying to sleep.
Goldie didn’t want to wake up somepony without a good reason, so she decided not to knock on the door. She decided to open it and see who lived there herself instead.
It was a simple plan: open the door quietly, go inside and see who was inside without waking them, and come back during the day when she could talk to them properly. Her mom and dad would surely be delighted to meet a new neighbor.
For being a door built over the entrance to a cave, the hinges were surprisingly quiet. Of course, Goldie Delicious didn’t think much of it, as she was concentrating on being very quiet so as not to wake the owner of the house, for house it was. It was a cave made into a house, for somepony or someponies much bigger than she was. It was as dark as any other cave, too. There were no candles, no lamps, and no fireplace.
Goldie Delicious thought the darkness of the house must mean the owner really was asleep. And she was right, though she was wrong about that being the reason for the darkness. That was simply because the owner of the house had no means to start a fire, not even to light a candle.
While the darkness confirmed, at least to her, her guesses about the mysterious owner, it did little to help her in her efforts to find them. Goldie could see just well enough from the open door to find the bedroom, but couldn’t see well enough to tell who was in bed. She tried to lean in closer to see who it was, but didn’t see the nightstand in front of her.
CLUNK!
Goldie winced at the noise and quickly righted the nightstand she had knocked over, but she was not the only one who had heard it.
From the bed rose the silhouette of a shaggy-haired, gnarly-horned head. The head was still very sleepy and quite grouchy at being woken, but luckily for Goldie Delicious, the head was also wearing a sleep mask over its eyes.
“Huh?” the head asked drearily. “Whoozat?”
“Sorry,” Goldie whispered back, trying her hardest not to bother the strange pony any more than she already had. “I knocked over the nightstand. I’ll let you get back to sleep now.”
The head rose up a little higher. “Hmm. No, I don’t think I can. Now that I’m awake, I’m hungry. I don’t think I can go back to sleep until I have something to eat.” The head turned towards Goldie Delicious, and sniffed the air in her direction. “Something smells good. Do you have food?”
Goldie was feeling very bad about waking the poor pony up, so she wanted to be as helpful as possible. “Um, yes, actually, I do have some snacks here. Do you like cheese and apples?” Goldie held up her strange snack to show the head (that she didn’t know was wearing a mask and couldn’t see her).
The eyebrows belonging to the head raised up happily. “Of course I do! Anything with cheese on it is my favorite!” And, quick enough to make Goldie pull her hoof back in surprise, the head snapped up the apples and cheese and swallowed it with a few quick chews.
“Wow,” Goldie said in surprise. “I’ve never met anypony but my granny who likes apples and cheese.”
But the head didn’t hear her; it was already fast asleep, happy with a full belly.
But it wasn’t the only one to smell food.
Before Goldie could sneak back out of the bedroom, another head rose from the pillows on the bed. This one was sleek and slender, and just a little bit shiny.
“Oh dear, is that cheessssse I sssssmell?” asked the head sleepily, flicking a forked tongue in and out of its mouth. “Cursssse my ssssissster and her late-night sssssssnacking.”
Goldie felt horrible. Now she had woken up somepony else! “I’m sorry, I accidentally woke her up, and she said she couldn’t go back to sleep without some food.”
“It’ssss jussst asss well,” the head commented. “Better the lingering ssssmell of cheesssse than having her keep usssss up with her complaining.”
“Sorry,” Goldie said again. “I hope you sleep well.”
“We shall ssssssssee,” the head said, lying back down on the pillow. Goldie started to creep back out of the bedroom, but the second head’s voice stopped her again. “It’sssss no usssse. I can’t get back to ssssssleep.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Goldie asked, feeling that this whole mess was her fault.
“I wish,” the head said, giving a long and sibilant sigh. “What I wouldn’t give to have sssome nicccce, relaxing mussssic to fall asssleep to.”
Goldie had an idea. “How about a flute?” she asked, pulling the instrument out of her bag of toys.
The head rose off the bed to look in her direction. “Sssssince when do you play the flute?”
“I’ve been learning it for two years now,” Goldie answered, getting ready to play. “Mommy always said music is just as useful a skill as any other, and more than most.” She began to play the most soothing piece she knew, a lullaby her mother taught her.
“Did she?” the head asked sleepily, lying back down. “I can’t ssssseem to remember…”
Goldie kept playing until she was sure the second head was asleep as well, and then turned to leave with a smile.
“Ugh, finally,” grumbled a third voice.
Goldie Delicious stopped in her tracks and slapped a hoof to her face in frustration. Another one?
She turned back around to face the bed, and saw a new head. This one was larger than the others, with long whiskers and a powerful-looking neck.
“What, did she bribe you with cheese to play her to sleep? And where did you even get…” The third head stopped. Unlike the others, this head had taken off its sleeping mask, and had eyes that could see in the dark. “FILLY!” the head shrieked, its eyes lighting up with rage.
In the dark, a huge, four-pawed figure jumped out of the bed, yanking two sleeping heads into wakefulness. There was a moment of confusion as the two heads tried to figure out just what was going on. Goldie just sat and watched the creature with fascination.
“GIRLS!” the big head shouted. “Wake up! We have an intruder! A midnight snack for the three of us!”
“Snack?” the horned head asked in confusion. “No thanks, you already gave me that cheese, remember? With the apples?”
“Yessss,” the sleek, shiny head agreed. “And then you played the flute for me.”
The big head looked back and forth between the heads on either side of it. “What? What are you talking about? I didn’t do either of those things!”
“Oh…” the horned head said slowly. “Then it must have been you… oh hey, look, a little pony!”
Goldie meekly waved a hoof. “Hi. It was me that did those things for you. I didn’t mean to wake any of you up.”
The horned head smiled. “Oh don’t worry about it, dearie. You more than made up for it with that snack of yours.”
The sleek head nodded. “Ssssame goess for me about your musssic. That wasssss beautiful.”
The big head looked at her sisters in disgust. “What’s the matter with you? This pony broke into our home in the middle of the night! All alone! Remember? Filly filet?”
The other two shook their heads vigorously. “Oh no, not thissss filly,” the sleek head said.
“Definitely not,” the horned head agreed. “She’s too nice.”
The large head slapped her face with a massive paw. “Ugh. Fine.” She crouched down on all fours. “More for me!”
“What? No!” said the sleek head.
“Little pony! Watch out!” warned the horned head.
By now, Goldie Delicious had figured out that this big third head wasn’t as friendly as the other two. When the beast pounced for her, she dived and rolled out of the way. She hadn’t been scared of the Wild Wood and she hadn’t been scared of the dark, but she was definitely scared now.
It looked like her two friends couldn’t help stop their sister, but that didn’t mean they didn’t try to help. “Pony!” the horned head yelled. “Use the nightstand!”
Goldie, backed up against a wall, looked to her left and saw the three-legged nightstand she had knocked over earlier. As the creature dove for her, jaws of the big head wide, she swept up the nightstand and held it up.
It worked! The big head closed her mouth around the nightstand, and couldn’t move her jaws.
“Run, pony, run!” the sleek head yelled.
“We’ll try to talk her out of chasing you. Now run home!” the horned head yelled as well.
Goldie didn’t need any more telling than that. “Sorry for waking you all up!”
Her two friends smiled and yelled for her to run again.
Goldie ran out of the bedroom, out the big red door, and back to the fork in the road. The moon was bright that night, so she could see just well enough to keep running. There was no sound of a three-headed beast following her, but she kept running just the same. She had found something in the dark to be afraid of.
When she finally came home to the farmhouse, her parents cried and hugged her tight. Then they grounded her for a month for running away to the Wild Wood. But that was okay with her, because the farm suddenly didn’t seem quite so boring.
THE END
