The full moon shone down in patches and fragments, interrupted by the tree cover and the clouds that passed over its face. The tree branches above rattled together in a blabbering cacophony on the occasional night wind, bringing to mind chats you’d had with ponies earlier today. They’d all gone wide eyed and terrified when you mentioned that you were going for a walk in the Everfree this evening. The warnings you’d gotten were all in the same vein. Cautionary tales of ponies that had gone in without ever returning, hushed and hurried accounts of heart stopping beasts seen in the folds of shadows and perhaps just in the folds of their overactive minds. Sure, there were faces in the trees, spooky sounds of branches cracking all around, hooting owls and every now and then you heard a long and raspy wolf howl in the distance. But you just shook your head and smiled, these were the sorts of things children would be spooked by. You knew the ponies were a little naïve and childlike, but this was just silly. The Everfree forest was the same as any other forest you’d travelled in at night, excluding the more fantastic elements. One thing that did set you ill at ease though, walking through, was the mist. The ankles of the trees were covered in it, and the mist came up about halfway to your knees, roiling gently around you. It urged you to contemplation: Where was it coming from?
Half-baked mental images of a titanic beast residing somewhere deep within the darkest hollow of the Everfree flashed across your mind’s eye, with every breath the beast would shake trees and send up colossal flows of mist and fog to flood the forest around it. That seemed far more comforting than the other possibilities you imagined, deathly voids of abyssal magics long forgotten that roved among the trees, the remnants of violent ages long forgotten by the innocent ponies of the modern day. Non Euclidian abominations of incomparable and incompatible size lurking about the mist, wearing it as a fashionista would wear a cloak or a murderer the skins of their prizes. Perhaps it was something even your most twisted machination did not coincide with, an abyss that would drive you mad just from the sight of it, unfeeling and unseemly. Silence and mist so utterly void of conscious affectations that no one could understand it.
You shook your head and stopped walking, turning your focus back to the actual forest, rather than the imagined one. Looking down, you saw that you’d strayed from the dirt path you’d been travelling on. You sighed and returned to it, turning up your coat collar as though to ward off further wandering from your whirring mind.
If anything the gathering and ponderous bouts of silence here were relaxing, especially with the ample moonlight and the canopy of stars you could see shimmering up above. You breathed in deep, taking in the clear, crisp air. Then out, smiling as you murmured.
“Nice.”
It was right then that you heard something new, something quiet and just on the edge of your hearing. You stopped, staring around trying to find the source. A few seconds passed… and again you heard it, like a faint whisper. The sound was just barely echoing out from your right side, through the gnarled trees and brush. You took a few tentative steps towards the noise, pushing aside branches and leaves. Once more the whisper sounded out, eerie half heard words you couldn’t quite make out. A nervous jolt shot through your brain when you realized you were letting this whisper lead you away from the path. You turned around and checked for it, finding the turned up gravel and dirt through holes in the solid layer of mist. You frowned.
Going for a walk in the Everfree at night was one thing, not sticking to the path was another. You weren’t under any illusions after all, there were dangerous beasts here, real and most certainly not imagined. But that whisper egged you on, just loud enough to captivate and just vague enough to mystify. So, you strode further off of the path, making your way around trees and rocks towards your mysterious whisper. Every now and then you had to pause and listen to make sure you were still headed the right way, and every time you paused, the whisper got louder and louder.
Hours seemed to pass you by as you chased your enigmatic aural prey, interspersed with time spent trying to conceive of what might be producing it. Chance noises made by aspects of the Everfree? One of the many imaginings you’d thought up as the source of the mist around your legs? Mayhap it was a dark ritual you were about to intrude upon, any moment you’d round a tree to be met with a jarring scene: Ponies cloaked in shadowy garments around a flame, chanting long unheard incantations to some thought to be absent god of vestigial descent from the living gods Celestia and Luna that were borne witness to today by many. You laughed. Or maybe it would be something inane and innocuous, a pair of fillies whispering childhood secrets to each other: They kissed who!?
That innocent scene carried on your mind for a while, reassuring among your other thoughts as a life raft is on the open sea. You had to leave it behind though, fragments of words were becoming audible now and the trees around you were thinning noticeably.
“So… done… went quickly…”
Murmured a female voice, cold and regal.
“...no…sold…world.”
Spoke a male voice, fiery yet hushed.
The mist around your legs completely dissipated as you reached the crest of a birch pocked hillock. Below you the forest cleared completely, making way for a broad and perfectly circular lake. Here the moon was out doubly in full force, upon the sky above and upon the sky below, reflected superbly on the lake’s surface. Each star had a double as well, twinkling back at itself. Most beautiful of all though, was the mare standing out on the water. She had a coat to match the night sky, deep blue with a cornflower blue spackling on her flanks interrupted only by her crescent moon cutie mark. You knew this mare well. The night mare Princess Luna.
Luna’s hooves touched the surface of the lake, her wings were spread and unmoving, but she did not sink. Somehow Luna left the water utterly undisturbed, no wake, no ripple, not even a dimple where her hooves made contact. You almost made to hide, but you realized that Princess Luna was too focused on the lake to notice your arrival. The whole scene had a beauty to it, but also a prevailing sense of peril, like you were bearing witness to some ancient secret. Despite your rising trepidation, you watched Luna closely.
On her wings you could see droplets of water sparkling and slowly dripping down her feathers, punctuated by rivulets of shadow running down that never seemed to touch the lake. Staring at the shadows, you felt waves of fear threatening to overtake your sense. Bit by bit the shadows receded however, taking your fear with it and making space for more droplets to congregate. Luna simply watched them, holding as still as ever. Eventually all of the shadows disappeared, leaving Princess Luna’s wings practically glowing with the reflected light of her water droplets. Gracefully, she extended both of her wings, pointing the very tips at the surface of the water. Luna’s feathers must have been a hand’s breadth from the lake, with not even the slightest movement. There was no breeze on the air, the wind was silenced and the forest seemed to hold its breath.
A single water droplet fell from Princess Luna’s outermost feather and into the lake.
Instantly your ears were bombarded with the sound of it making contact, echoed and repeated and magnified hundreds of thousands of times. You fell to your knees, clutching your head and shutting your eyes tight. But no matter what you did, you couldn’t block out the noise. Every drip threatened to tear you from yourself, every drop was a maddening ordeal. Time became a trifling thing just then, had you been hearing this for seconds, or years? Up was right and down was left.
Then it all stopped.
The noises, quit.
Utter and disgusting silence reigned, thick and dripping on your mind, dragging your thoughts down and making everything seem slow. After a moment, you opened your eyes. The undulating and terrifying shadows on Luna’s wings from before had multiplied and grown immense. Now they spread wide and tall, hanging all about the lake in thick impenetrable clouds. You could see smaller shadows flitting between larger ones in that wild and eldritch wheel of dark fortune. Your mind reeled at the sight, panicked breaths hardly made their way out of your chest. You felt physically and spiritually oppressed in the presence of such insanity, in the presence of so stark a void. Princess Luna herself was bathing deep in the darkness, you could see her dipping her head into that cursed lake, which had become shadows as well. Luna drank deep of the shadow lake, raising her gullet high to take that ever darkness into herself. When she breathed again, snorting mist from her nostrils, you swore you heard some mockery of singing that passed better as the wailing screams of millions of dead and damned lashed with whips across ancient and forgotten black wastes of the night. A keening call came, and at first you knew not where from, but then your eyes flicked back to Princess Luna. She stared madly at the moon, eyes bulging and leaking shadows. Luna’s jaw was unhinged, leaving her mouth horrifically open to let loose that ear piercing, deathly rattle. You looked into those eyes of hers, usually so placid and beautiful. All you saw was madness, utter and complete insanity. So much so that you could feel it gnawing away on your own senses, Luna’s mind bit down on yours to baptise it in the cold, reeking lake of chaos and insanity.
You screamed, and screamed. Called for help, called for your mother, your father, you called for relatives and friends long forgotten. You even called for Princess Luna, begging her between shuddering bouts of tears to stop whatever daemonical ritual she was performing. There came no response and no assistance. Luna never stopped screeching. Your screaming hit a fever pitch when the shadows around you latched onto your legs and started to pull. The darkness dragged you kicking and screaming down your hillock and towards the abyssal lake and Luna. She was watching you now, her head was turned to you and her eyes rolled and sputtered more darkness. Princess Luna’s wail turned into a sickening cackle, her lower jaw hanging, repulsive.
Your feet had sunk deep into the shadow lake now, and you could feel the darkness creeping up your legs. It was deathly cold and it sent every muscle of yours into impossible convulsions as you were dragged down deeper and deeper into that true emptiness. Princess Luna screeched and cackled and wheezed, moving slowly towards you. Every step she took, every inch further that you sank into the abyssal lake, you felt your mind bend and bend and bend…
A grin spread across your face, your thoughts just up and flew off like carrier pigeons to their cages. Reason was for the birds, coherence was for the morning lark. Now was the time to laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh you did. High and booming, a voice not like your own came from you in a powerful satanic echoing white noise like tortured thunder as you sunk almost completely into the darkness of the lake, leaving only your head. Luna laughed with you, high and piercing. She was upon you now, her fore hooves were pressed against your temples, holding your head up out of the tide of sublime and irrational blackness. Luna’s jaw shook and quivered with each laugh, with each bobbing motion of her head. The shadows oozing from her eyes dribbled onto your face and into your mouth, soaking your entire soul as they travelled down your throat and into the depths of your already abyssal and eldritch bowels. You choked not, your eyes became tainted with all of that filth and reality degeneration, turning utterly black. Stars failed to twinkle upon your ebon globes before you were submerged completely in that Lake of Whispers.
Never to waakkkkkkaaashaggshaggshagg/am..b aa.kj jj’jjjjjjjjjjjjjjdf’nnnnshagg
Naeavergari’ann to o o to o to phlegeth phlegeth ood fred dreamn aaf aaankaan
SHOGG
SHOGG
R’LUH R’LUH R’LUH R’LUH
R’LUH R’LUH R’LUH R’LUH
R’LUH R’LUH R’LUH R’LUH
R’LUH R’LUH R’LUH R’LUH
R’LUH R’LUH R’LUH R’LUH
