A Journey Into Darkness

Dear reader.

I, August Tome, write this text as an exorcism both of my soul and the soul of all of pony kind, for whether we know it or not all our hearts are tainted and all our hooves are steeped in sin and sinew. I know not what will become of me. I may rot in a Canterlot dungeon, I may be burned by Celestia herself, my body may be claimed by the beasts which have already stolen my soul and perhaps my sanity, I may descend into an artificial madness born of hallucinogens and drink in order to stave off the much colder, more terrible insanity that untermperd reality may thrust upon me. I may end my life by my own hoof, or I may die of old age surrounded by those I hold dear. No matter what my fate however, it has no bearing on the veracity of this tale.

This is a story truer than any I have ever written. Those familiar with me and my work my recall my learned thesis on the descendancy of the royal family, my account of the fall of our beloved princess Luna and her transition into Nightmare Moon, or my comprehensive study of the relationship between pony and griffon. I am an historian by profession, but this tale cannot be properly represented in a history book. Perhaps, one day, the greater truth may be confined to the stuffy pages of a text book in the same way I once abbreviated the founding of Canterlot for fillies and foals attending school. But knowing what I now know I do not believe the true majesty and horror of what has occurred will ever be done justice through the written word, or indeed through any medium other than the one through which I experienced it.

I scarcely know how to proceed. I sit here, in the small room I have rented in the equally small town of Ponyville. The rough wooden boards under hoof creak almost as much as my sanity does. The heavy wallpaper, which would have been velvety to the touch when new, is now damp and sodden, pealing gently away at the edges. The whole room is heavy with the smell of dank rot and the ceiling hangs low, if I gaze upon it for long enough it starts to swell and fall like the rib cage of a great panting beast. Not so long ago I had found this room quaint, and charming, I remember thinking that. But now, looking about me I see only a claustrophobic, decaying room custom made to agitate my every fear into frenzied life.

By far the worst feature however, are the curtains. Day or night I must have my curtains closed, now I live purely by the light of my dim and sputtering candle. I cannot bear to stare out across the world, for fear of what I might see, or what might be gazing back. The thin curtains only barely keep out the light during the heat of day, every passing thing casts a shadow through the threadbare cloth. These shades are twisted by the world around them, and perhaps my mind, into disturbing and grotesque shapes. Some shapes serve to stir memories that I would sooner lie forgotten, but most provoke a fear in me that seems so primitive and ancient as one might believe it no longer existed in today’s civilized pony.

But though I must now have my meals left outside of my door by the kindly old pony who owns this building and who lives in blissful ignorance, and though I fear I may never be able to leave this room again, such a cloistered life is infinitely preferable to even drawing back the blinds. I would rather live in fear of every trick of the light than look upon what I know lies in plain view of my room, the Everfree Forest.

That wretched place, devoid of pony guidance since the dawn of our history. Even writing its name causes my unicorn magic to falter and my quill to shake. It turns my stomach to even know such a place is so close but I cannot yet muster the strength to leave this room, and so flight is quite impossible. That place is the cause of my current distress and strangely enough the reason why I had visited the small town of Ponyville in the first place. As I have already explained I am an historian, unravelling the secrets and mysteries of our past is my trade. I have often done this safe in the warm confines of a library or in those of my office in the royal city of Canterlot which sits in one of the towers perched perilously on the overhang of that magical city. On those occasions where my studies demand archaeological digs I rarely attended the sites myself. Instead I would commission the dig and entrust the running of it to one of my assistants or understudies whilst I would reserve my efforts for the more cerebral task of analysing the artefacts and findings as they were sent to me.

However, the Everfree Forest expedition was always going to be a different animal. Its sheer distance from the refined air of Canterlot meant that long distance coordination would have been difficult even under ideal circumstances and in those twisted woods the circumstances are never ideal. Also disappointingly few ponies stepped forward to take part in my little venture, though in hindsight they were the wise ones. I had thought the tales of the Everfree Forest to be exaggerated, wild animals a plenty to be sure but nothing more sinister than that. This opinion however, turned out to be sadly misguided and the truth was infinitely worse than the most chilling tale of that dark place ever whispered in the streets of Canterlot. So, with so few ponies I was forced to lead the expedition personally, in order to ensure everything was done correctly and that my workers would not flee.

As much as I disliked the idea of having to set hoof in that filthy and wild place the objective of my dig excited both me and my imagination. The Everfree Forest has forever been a mystery. No one quite knows why it has remained wild when all around it has been tamed, or those few who did know had either long since died or remained eternally silent. Even the ponies of Ponyville, who live with the looming threat of that place every day, have no idea how it came to be or why it stays like that, they only know to fear it. My plan was to march the team through the woods and to the old Royal Palace, in the ruins of which Nightmare Moon had made her last defiant stand. We would then attempt to salvage any historical records left there, wall carvings, tapestries and the like to see if some form of a history could be put together. We would also dig around the ancient ruins to see if the palace had a town around it, just as Canterlot does today. If we could find such ruins perhaps they might hold some clue as to the why of the Everfree Forest.

With this objective in mind our small band had gathered in Ponyville. In addition to myself there were a number of other ponies. Drill Bit was an old colleague of mine, and though he lacked the academic mind necessary for the study of history this deficiency was more than made up for by his natural understanding of all things mechanical. He had often worked on my digs before, supervising the tools and machinery. He was a distinctive earth pony, his granite grey body and his snow white mane made him stand out, even from a distance. His cutie mark, as is so often the case that it would give a pony cause to believe in a deterministic universe, aptly matched his name. He also possessed a sallow look, inflicted upon him by long years of hard work, for much of which he had only himself to blame. The man worked hard to invent new and brilliant machines in the work yards of Canterlot, almost all of which went unappreciated. The magic of unicorns, such as I, has been his greatest misfortune. Every device he crafts, with a skill and ingenuity that baffles and perplexes me, is almost instantly made redundant or inefficient by a unicorn discovering a spell to perform the same task. Had Drill Bit dwelt in any place other than the Royal City of Canterlot he may well have prospered, but there his creativity is almost instantaneously crushed, along with his spirit. This had resulted in him becoming something of a melancholy fellow, a portion too attached to his whisky flask for comfort. But he always preformed his tasks and at a reasonable price which were my only concerns.

Another frequent co-worker of mine was also present, the unicorn Dusty Parchment. She was an understudy of mine and had worked alongside me for several years. I would have sent her to lead this expedition alone and saved me the trouble of having to come to this primitive place. However, both selfish needs and selfless concern prevented me from doing so. I could not properly preform my tasks and duties without the aid of Dusty. Not only is she a talented historian and gifted thinker in her own right, but she has been an invaluable assistant and secretary in my service. I have come to rely on her utterly, her skill and dedication have allowed me to free myself from the more mundane tasks of day to day life, and reserve my mind for the pursuit of my studies. If I were to send her away my work would suffer tremendously, I doubt I could even properly catalogue the finds sent back to me from the excavation. But I also wished to spare her the distress of entering the Everfree Forest without me. Even when I believed that place to be simple wild land I wished to shield her from its rigours. She was still a Canterlot pony and whilst she was a dedicated academic, rather than any upper class socialite who does nothing but leech off of the society they squat atop of, she was still somewhat refined and most certainly sheltered. I was loath to cast her into the wider world without some familiar constant to cling to. As such I endeavoured to keep her at my side at all times, both for my good and for hers.

She was a plain creature, her charm was in her intellect not her appearance, poise or speech. Her body was the shade of mustard and her mane was a flecked grey, giving her the appearance of a mare much father advanced in years than Dusty actually was. Her brown eyes were framed with a pair of stern spectacles which granted her a look of intensity which accurately portrayed the sharpness of her intellect but which suggested a sharpness of character that was not befitting of the mare.

There was also a pegasus pony amongst our crew, a mare named Quick Wing, whom I had hired as a local guide. Whilst she was no expert on the Everfree Forest, no one I could contact was, she still possessed formidable local knowledge and gave me assurances that she would be able to scout ahead and find the best routes to the long deserted royal palace. Whilst I doubted the veracity of this claim I could find no other local pony willing to strike out into that twisted landscape of roots and shrubs and so was forced to accept her services. She was an interesting mare, with eyes and wits as fast as her flight speed. However, she was a tad unrefined in her attitudes. Then again, what could you expect from a self styled explorer? Though again I doubted the truth of her tales she claimed to have explored far off jungles, high mountains, remote deserts and blasted tundra, when a mare is exposed to those conditions one can hardly be surprised when she loses some of the common graces and mores.

Her body was the colour of rust and her mane was black as pitch. Her emerald eyes lent her something of an exotic look and the wry smile, which seemed engraved on her face, conveyed a sense of knowing and slightly cruel humour. Her cutie mark, a single silver wing swept back as if by great speed, was entirely concealed by her practical and durable clothing. The colour of stone her clothing was littered with pockets, in which lay an array of no doubt essential tools.

I had also hired as much extra labour as I could obtain, though as I have already explained volunteers were sadly lacking. I could barely manage to raise a further two dozen ponies to aid me in my endeavours. My pleas in the name of history fell on deaf ears, at the time I despaired at their lack of curiosity and appreciation for the advancement of knowledge, now I simply envy them.

Despite the slight sense of unease, and the great sense of distaste, that I felt as I made the final preparations to venture out into the Everfree Forest I was still in high spirits. I have always found the study of our past to be an engaging and entertaining way to spend a life and this contentedness turns to joy and even elation when I am not simply reinterpreting established facts but when the venture promises fresh and genuine discovery. As such a strange smile graced my face when I held my final conference with Drill Bit, Quick Wing and Dusty before setting out into the foreboding trees. We checked our inventory, loaded the wagons, called the roll and set off towards that dark, foreboding mess of trees which seemed to glow for me with the prospect of discovery.

Several of the good ponies of Ponyville turned out to see us leave. But they did not crowd up to us, to bid us good bye and good luck with warm smiles and kind words as you might have expected. Instead they stood some distance off and bid us farewell only with brief, worried glances and a cold silence which seemed to quiet even the birds in the air and the wind in the trees. A silence which was only broken by the loud, clear ringing of the Ponyville Tower bell which far from lifting the mood served only to accentuate the quiet. So, with only cold silence behind us we ventured into the Everfree Forest to uncover the secrets of history.