Losing it. Third draft

Chapters

Start
Bridge
Ritual
Feathers
Features
Elucidation
Bad Apples

Start

My first recollection of my visit was the sensation of something cold and horribly smelling. That is, I woke up in a pile of my half dried vomit, parts of it sticking to my face.

"Ugh..." After a long time of simply sitting there in the pile of regurgitated food I wised up and tried to sit away from it. "Wha...?" I asked nobody, my face feeling sun burnt and pieces of my skin peeling off. I rubbed the vomit out of my eyes, the horrible twang of whatever I had eaten still in my mouth. A long piece of dead skin clung to the mess and as I rubbed my head more came off, followed by extreme pain. From what I could tell, this tiny patch of forest was open to the sun and I had been lying there half dead for a long time. A long time.

My voice was partially cracked from disuse and I wondered how I was still alive. It occurred to me that maybe the vomit had driven away any predators who could have gone after my half dead carcass. I slowly stood up to get a better look at the woodsy area I was in. "Where am I?" I asked myself, feeling off on my feet. I slowly sat back down, feeling it best to not pass out again. Darkness and odd off colors of the forest around me swam in front of my vision and I tried to piece together what had happened. Detroit. A car. Fast food. A package. These few words slowly blurred past my mind and I quit after the last one brought forth an unusual flare of pain. A nice burning sensation, complete with a song billowing forth.

"I don't want to set the world... on... fire..." Bubbled from my lips and I stood up again in an effort to keep from going idle. My vision swam and I ignored it this time, taking a step forward. As they say, hind sight is 20/20. I took a step in the vomit, slipping in a bit of inner slickness. I fell on my side and looked around as if anyone would care that I was stranded out here and fell. I glared at the pile of yellow and green vomit, my one and only companion so far that I could recognize. My foot had flattened it out. I tried to will it on fire and was slightly sad as I revealed that waking up here had not bless me with pyrokinetic capabilities. I continued staring at half dried pile, intrigued with how fresh and how old it seemed at the same time.

After a long while I managed to tear my gaze away to look at the woods, still singing. (I have but only one... de...sire...) I figured I was mangling the words, but I didn't really care. I didn't recognize a single tree. Not a leaf on these trees seemed in the very least familiar and the odd bright colored leaves may have been hinting that it was fall or nearing so, the pinks and the reds and the lack of vibrant green hinting as such. My head ached trying to figure this out. It had been spring last time I checked and a few days before my birthday at that. I suddenly wanted cake.

I looked back at the vomit and for a brief moment my eyes traced an outline of something buried in it. I looked away, craning my head up as I did so to observe how far the sun was up above the horizon. I couldn't see the blasted orb and I knew that it was only a time besides noon. I looked back at the vomit in frustration, my eyes tracing the outline yet again. In anger and in the hopelessness that was starting to sink in, I kicked the pile and the tip of the pair of tennis shoes I was wearing split open and the tip of my toe cut itself upon a rather large knife.

As you can imagine I started screaming in pain, though I suppose the sight was rather comical as I hopped around on one foot trying to reach the knife stuck in my shoe with the other. I pulled the knife out, though not without trouble. I looked at the knife, my confusion and headache not getting in the way of my attempt to commit it to memory.

The knife was about a foot with a few inches to spare and when I finally got over my squeamishness and wiped off the blood and the vomit from it I observed an odd lightning bolt engraved on the center of it's nine inch long, inch wide obsidian blade. The hilt itself was brown and leather based. I stared at it uncomprehendingly for a long time before a few memories drifted through my head.

"Merry Christmas!" A festive chorus from faces of family and friends. Their happy overjoyed faces matched the atmosphere to the point that I had to comment on it.

"What is this, a Hallmark card?" I joked, then my smile slid a little as I caught the faintest trace of unhappiness within my dad's face. My mom thought it was a good joke and tugged me into a hug, my 17 year old self still happy that his mom liked him. After a long moment of seeing if anybody else would laugh I decided to give it up, turning my gaze towards the tree ornamentally filled to the brim. My face broke into a big smile at everyone.

"Now Mark, you know the drill here." My dad said, nodding. "As the youngest here you get to open your presents first." And of course this thrilled me despite my knowledge of how the system was governed.

My memory slowly faded to the next week when I received my present from one of my friends a week late. It had conveniently arrived at a time where nobody as home but myself and having knowledge of who it came from I supposed that perhaps this was how my friend intended for me to receive it. It was the knife that I held in my hand, sharp as ever.

My mind drifted back to the unfortunate present and I looked down at my shoe and my toe, one revealing the other. I pushed the rubber in my shoe back together as best I could. I was happy, or at least experiencing an emotion close to happiness over knowing where the knife had come from. I decided to ignore how the knife got into the vomit.

I gingerly rubbed my hand down my sides to get off whatever blood I had missed when I had first cleaned the blade. My hands found my pockets, or more specifically a rather large bulge in one of them. "Now what's this?" My voice cracked and I coughed a little. I pulled out a long piece of leather and something clicked in my head. The knife slid into the leather and stopped it from cutting anything. I smiled, glad to have figured something out.

Deep in a ruined castle, the entrance blocked by heavy rocks and only a tiny side entrance available for the few who dwelled there, a silver pegasus began to give a report. She began with a salute and a swallow of water from a nearby pitcher to calm her nerves. "Sir!" She saluted again, nervous.

A shadowy figure, nodded at her slowly, a bemused smirk dwelling on his equine face. "I trust that he was there as I described?" He lounged on a throne of quartz, the one light in the room shining from directly behind him. He licked his lips.

She gulped again and tried her best to school her features. "Yes Sir. He is heading this way as of my last sighting of him." She looked around, the room suddenly devoid of any others besides her and the shadowed one.

His dark purple eyes glinted almost gem like, his horn glowing a faint lavender and his eyes seemingly multifaceted. "Good. I trust that he will find the ruins and be in place for our little... ritual?" Inwardly he laughed at the terrified pegasus.

She nodded. "I don't understand... sir. What part does he have?" She kept her eyes off of him.

He drew in a long breath, the hiss echoing through the room. "That is not of your concern, Silverstream." He spoke the name like half of an insult, the hiss of promised pain clear.

Silverstream shook her head slightly. "And what do you want me to do when it starts?" She saw a table half hidden in the dim lighting. She traced a long sharp surgical tool and shivered slightly.

He followed her gaze. He grinned, and his teeth were an odd shade of yellow. "I want you to watch what happens here. If anything goes wrong you know what to do."

She tore her gaze from his bad hygiene, and nodded at the ground. Run like mad and don't let anything catch you was what she had been instructed to do. Hang back and observe what happens. "Yes sir."

I had been walking for a long time. I knew this because my body was soaked in sweat and my legs felt like they had melted in the forest humidity. My bloodied hands from the many times I had slipped whilst marking trees were just another strong piece of supporting evidence for a claim that I had been walking for a long time.

But despite this, or maybe even because of this, I was making no progress. The road that I had been on and had been leading to Detroit was still not there. And back tracking would only lead me back to the vomit that I had woken up in, the bitter chunks. I needed to get to the road to find Detroit. I drive a red car. My name is Mark. My medicine is not on me. I have a large slowly bleeding lump on my head and I have a knife. It subtly occurred to me that perhaps my thoughts were decaying in complexity.

My stomach ached. This was how I knew I was hungry, and I knew that feeling to not be a foreign concept though trying to figure out how I knew that brought only nausea and a brain splitting headache. I was also thirsty, though that was more of a supposition than anything I could come up with any recognizable proof for. My arms hurt from carrying around the small weight of the knife. My heart pounded and I felt like I was the last living thing on the planet.

At no time did I feel like I was alone. There was a cold terrible certainty that not only was I being followed and being watched, the things following me were not human and were capable of flitting out of sight with as much ease as it took me to curse them. They were mocking me, I was sure of it. If they were even there, that is. I was almost certain that I was dreaming up the gremlins that I would occasionally see on the side of my path and that there was nobody there when I stopped to carve a long scratch in a tree with the knife.

My vision was swimming enough that it didn't matter and my headache had decided to go and upgrade itself to a category five tornado. The migraine made everything hurt and every step became a labor of forced love and not so forced hatred. I still wished I was a pyrokinetic, the foliage the new face of evil and an agent of my demise.

On my first night I realized that I wasn't on earth anymore. That, or someone had carved a massive face on the moon since the last time I had checked. Which, as I had been in spring and it was now fall might be possible. At any rate I was either on another planet or I had time traveled to a time where the moon was carved up. Neither of these possibilities made me feel any better of my chances of getting out of this forsaken forest.

The griffon lazed about, smirking at nothing in particular. Her gaze was trained on another griffon, this one maybe decidedly handsome in terms of avian based races. The male griffon nodded at her.

The female spoke. "It is time?" She clacked her front talons in a patternless manner on the floor.

"It is indeed time for you to go, Gilda. Remember, act as if nothing is changed and stay in Ponyville. It is imperative that you intervene if necessary." He nodded at her, his beak twisting in an odd attempt at a smile.

Gilda grimaced at the other griffon. "Keep trying with the smile, Dweeb." She smiled lightly, her insult in good nature.

The other griffon frowned and almost pouted, his face not quite designed for that action. "Are you still going to call me that? My name is Ivan and I thought you swore to me..."

She cut him off, her lack of respect clear. "Yeah yeah, oath of loyalty. Doesn't mean respect, moron."

He huffed at her. "Fine... just don't make..." He fumbled with his word choice. "Just go do your job." He clutched his head.

Gilda raised an eye brow at him, shaking her head and turning to walk away. "Good luck with your part of the deal."

Ivan nodded. "Get out of my office." He said in goodnatured humor.

She walked out without another word.

I jerked back the knife and swung it at the tree, my means of meaning the mark as that action. The knife bounced off, the inertia of it forcing it to cut into my left arm. "I hate trees." I decided, clutching my arm with my other arm and dropping the knife. The blood trickled out despite my efforts and I gulped, looking around for anything to help. I looked up to the sky to appeal to the golden orb that hung there. Nothing happened, it's inanimate form just going on with it's purpose and and scattering sunshine and maybe a little happiness across the land. I looked at my sweat streaked shirt, the blue fabric making a sacrifice at the blade of my knife and leaving me bare chested.

I looked almost skeletal and I stopped to observe myself. Every breath was visible and my ribs poked out, leaving me to wonder just how long I had sat there baking in the sun. I sighed, taking the shirt and trying to slice it up for bandages. I went through about three quarters of the shirt before I finally had the length and the width just right for making a bandage.

I was light headed again and every motion brought back a swarm of nausea. In idle thought I wondered just how I had lived this long without water and I looked to the horizon in earnest awe at nothing. My eyes were unfocused and for a long time all I saw was a haze of green and blue and red. I remained there, struggling to stay awake.

After a long time my vision cleared up and I caught what was unmistakeably stone. And hewed stone, crafted and carefully placed to form the foundation for something. In my addled state I believed that water must be there and my logic as I look back on it still seems sound. They wouldn't build something somewhere that didn't have a steady source of water.

"Water." I rasped, pushing myself forward despite the ache and complain of my muscles and the odd flaming feeling from my toe. After I had cut myself by kicking the knife it had decided to swell up. And turn green. Which wasn't a good color like blue or yellow. I shook my head and wished I hadn't; my brain felt like it had rattled around in my skull. I took a step forward, and then another. I pushed myself to walk, going far past empty on my energy. I managed a slow trudge. If I had adequate water in my body I would've started crying when I realized the crumbling ruin I saw was uphill. As it was, I sniffled at the thought of it.

"Sir. It has appeared to have stopped moving. Should I fetch it?" Silverstream asked, her form streaked with a bit of sweat from the effort it took to evade the paranoid human's gaze. She shook slightly, realizing that she hadn't landed before going into the chamber. She froze in fear and hit the ground.

The shadowed pony stood up slowly, glowering at the pegasus. "I did not give you permission to fly in my presence." He floated more than he walked over to her with his hooves not making a sound on the cold rough hewn floors.

She gulped down a sob and hung her head, shaking slightly. "I'm sorry sir."

The shadow pony brought up his left front hoof and sent it whistling through the air to meet the silver pegasus's face. She flinched away by reflex and it caught the tip of her nose.

The air filled with an awkward crunch and her head filled with it as well. She fell to the ground, her wings wrapped over her head protectively as was first instinct. Blood slowly trickled through her wings and with the path checked as a course for the flow, her wings became sticky with the stuff. And then it started dripping. Every drip for a single instance seemed to slowly bubble against the ground for her and she stopped clutching just to watch, enthralled in the sight. She didn't care that she was feeling light headed or that her lack of respect was a great risk for her continued survival, she just stared at the phenomenon. The crimson tide slowly stretched out from the tiny drops to a small puddle about the diameter of a hoof. She slowly blinked, her eyes dull.

Another hoof smashing into her face shook her from her contemplation. "Idiot." The shadow pony huffed. "Don't stare at the blood or you'll get entranced again." He shook his head at her and cast a quick spell to heal her. Naturally, he made it as excruciating as possible.

She screamed in pain at her bones knitting at an accelerated rate. Her echoing scream brought a smile to his face. He enveloped her wing in his magic and forced her to mop it up. "The others soon come to behold the ritual. If the sacrifice does not come then of course you should go after him." He snorted at her. "Honestly, if you want to save the world you should use a little more common sense."

She nodded limply at him. "Yes sir..." Her voice was as dull and flat as she imagined the rest of her life being.

I sat in the roots of a tree fulfilling a fantasy I had had for the past few days. Never mind the fact that the plant I was chewing on was bright toxic blue, it was filled with juicy succulent rich water. I had the oddest feeling that I had seen this plant before but I also had the feeling that I really didn't care because it was water. I breathed out a long sigh of relief and for the first time since I had awakened I felt that my life wasn't hanging in the balance.

And on my contentment my guard slipped and I willingly gave over to my temptation to sleep. After all, it's not like there was someone after me.

The first thing I heard was the sound of flesh tearing. The first thing I smelled was ash and burning flesh. The acrid taint filled my lungs with every gasping breath and with every exhale I craved fresh air. I opened my eyes and a tiny gust of wind buried hot ash into my eyes and I furiously blinked them, tears falling from the new found pain. All I could feel was a low cold, just about the same feeling you get if you sleep on a room with the fan on for too long. And all I could hear was the disconsolating sound of crunching snow.

I opened my eyes again and tried to stand up. My eyes shot wide as my center of balance lurched forward and planted my arms firmly in the soft powder ahead of me. It crunched like snow. I looked straight ahead of me and took in the odd sight. A single ragged and torn white flag flapped in a non existent breeze. I ignored my balance issues to continue stating. For a long moment I thought the red spatter wrapping across it was a stylistic choice, perhaps made to display military superiority or some other idea. After that thought I took in the sheer irregularity of the red and how it did not cover the single emblem in the center that consisted of three circles. It was a tattered bloodstained flag.

The battlefield, and that was what it appeared to me as being, was coated in equal parts of ash and snow. Thousands of feathers littered the valley. I did not recognize any of the plumages but i still felt profound sorrow pver how many great birds had lost their lives. I turned my head and caught a similarly tattered and mutilated flag hanging above what I identified as my side of the valley. Three bloody triangle emblazoned in what almost felt like a mockery.

A large snow flake fell down in front of me and melted in a pile of ash. I staggered to my feet, immensely curious as to the origin of all of the ash. I slowly crawled to the edge of the hill and looked down. Moving blurs filled the bottom of the ash coated crevasse. Armor coated the forms and with each slam against each other an agonizing scraping of metal on metal screamed into the sky like an unwilling baby and at the same time sounded like nails on a chalk board.

I watched them battle it out for another long while before an eerie presence filled the air. Every hair on my body filled with an electric charge and by an alien reflex I stared to the sky. A massive energy ball, the sheer force of it contorting and twisting the air with its slow spiral flew through the air like a specter of death. All combat below the flags stopped to look up at it. The forces parted like a zipper, frenzied screams giving me the idea that whatever that was it was not nice. A few broken bodies could only stare up at it. I could only stare as it flew below me towards the doomed souls. There was a massive explosion and a reverse shock wave almost tore me off of my feet. Where once broken and battered soldiers lay injured there was only an ash cloud slowly rising above the valley. It settled around me.

Silverstream swallowed back her fear and continued watching the slumbering human. Its face was far too eerily similar to her own for comfort. She brought a wing tip up to the side of its face. It didn't stir. She nodded and grabbed on to its tattered mockery of a short. The cloth tore as she pulled at it. She let out a frustrated growl under her breath and grabbed a near bye rock. Hoping against hope that she wasn't about to kill the necessary sacrifice, she brought the stone down on his head. He stopped moving and fell still. Her eyes shot wide at this reaction and she hurriedly pressed her ear to his chest.

For a fraction of a second she thought she couldn't hear a heart beat. Profound sadness and fear welled up in her. This was only temporary and soon she caught a low slow heart beat. She sighed in relief and straining with her wings she barely managed to bring the thing on her back. A distinct feeling of humiliation filled her at being forced to be a simple carrying pony. Her wings felt crushed beneath its surprisingly light weight.

"Well. I guess you aren't going to hear me. But if you can, I just want to offer an apology for delivering you to your murder." She shook her head and looked at the ground to where, chewed to a fine pulp, a recognizable blue plant rested. Her eyes shot wide again and she stepped around it. She looked back at the biped on her back and caught a fine blue drool coming from its mouth. "Idiot."

She began walking back up to the crumbling keep.
.

Bridge

Silverstream finally placed the unconscious alien on the final step of her long climb. Her mane was frazzled from her exertions and her wings were soaked with sweat. It had taken her a good two hours, if not closer to three, to get up the hill without the human falling and bashing his head. He had fallen once, and her heart had stopped beating again in that brief moment, but she had narrowly caught him despite the fact that she almost broke her wings doing so. Since that almost cataclysmic event she kept her wings up high in the air around him so he didn't take a tumble.

She looked around to see if anypony was watching her. Seeing no one, she spat on the stone. She stared at it and shook her head, trotting inside.

This crumbling castle of chaos used to be one of the bigger outposts of the entire movement, at least, it had been a few thousand years or so ago. Now it was an almost abandoned outpost in the middle of the forest of chaos which was far more commonly known as the Everfree. The entire skeleton crew that ran this outpost, that happened to sit directly in the center of more than a few ley lines, consisted of about fifteen members.

Her wings twitched; a few heart beats later they began to ache. "Wing cramp." She muttered to herself, relaxing them back down. For a few brief moment he remained on her back before the inevitable happened; gravity took over and forced the alien to the ground with a loud thud.

She sighed and turned around to stare at him. "Look..." She tried to find words to tell him that he should be okay with dying horribly. "Why am I even trying to talk to you? I don't even know if you are smart enough to understand me." She growled under her breath.

He shifted slightly in his comatose state. Her eyes looked at his misshapen excuse for ears and rolled her eyes. "Doubt he speaks common equestrian." She nodded at her logic and grabbed one of his legs in her mouth. Biting down around it lightly, she began to drag the surprisingly light necessary ingredient down the rough halls.

She tried not to show her general exasperation with the entire building when she walked into the shadowy pony's gaze. She was pretty sure that the pony on the throne had checked her out when she had walked in dragging the body behind her. Suppressing the shivers and the urge to run and hide from the disgusting filth that his gaze left one her, she turned to face him. "I brought him." She spoke in a blank tone.

The shadow pony leaped from the throne and landed in front of her. "It's about time. You've been gone for more than a few hours, pegasus." He spoke the proper term for her race like an insult.

She blinked. "Can I leave now?" Her nose still stung from where he had struck her. She looked at the few smears of mostly dried blood on the floor.

The shadow pony prodded the body. "Why isn't he awake? Or at least bound? He will need to be awake for the ritual, you know."

She didn't actually know that. She forced her rising panic back down her throat. "I was not informed of this. It was gorging itself on poison joke when I found it." She nodded at the blue stain from where it had drooled all across it's face.

The shadow growled at her. "Great." He shuffled around in an agitated fashion. "This will delay the ritual for more than a few days. And I am holding you responsible when the priests arrive." He turned and smirked, his masterful word choice placing all responsible on her.

Silverstream nodded at him. "As you are the pony in direct charge of my group and I, the blame still rests on you." She pointed out a flaw in his logic.

He groaned and walked over to his throne. "Leave me. I will think on how best to present this to my superiors."

The silver pegasus turned away from him before her face contorted in a face of extreme frustration. The abrupt personality change of her local leader was something that had never failed to raise her ire. She walked away and out the doors, her alien cargo remaining on the floor.

The shadow pony shut the doors behind her with a single wave of his hooves and galloped over to the body. A few small beads of sweat trickled off of his brow. "Now what do we have here?" He swayed a little on his feet and shook his head.

"I have the worst headache..." He muttered.

The second the doors closed Silverstream found herself tackled to the ground and a pair of very familiar lips pressed to her face. For a few briefs second before she figured out who it was her body went into full blown panic mode and she bucked the pony in the chest. The unicorn fell off of her and groaned with his hooves clutched to his chest. "Why'd you do that for?"

"Sorry Sunburst." She replied after a few moments of heavy breathing. "You scared me and that pony-" She pointed at the door. "Makes my skin crawl."

The other pony stood up and rubbed his horn. "I completely understand. It's such a shame that he was promoted instead of you. His head has swelled up like a balloon since then. Did you at least like my little surprise?" He kissed her again and giggled. “Let me clean you up.” His horn glowed and cleaned his orange coat clean of the dust from the ground. Her shining silver coat quickly followed in the removal of dust. His bright red mane was pressed against her face when he hugged her.

"Thanks... and of course I loved your surprise! I always love your surprises!" She took a deep breath in his mane, content to just be with him. She knew it couldn’t last and decided to keep talking. "So how has your part gone?" She asked.

"Do we really need to talk about work right now?" Sunburst said with a tiny edge to his voice. "Why don't we talk about other things?"

She dropped the subject almost instantly but made a mental note to press it later. "What do you want to talk about then, love?" She brought herself out of his hug and nuzzled his side.

He smiled at her. "Why don't we talk about our family? Have you converted your mother yet? The clock is ticking!" He said cheerily, and he thought it was too happy of a tone for that remark. His face dropped to a frown.

She frowned. "She still thinks this is just some odd cult that isn't going to go anywhere. Can you believe it? She won't believe her own daughter when she tells her that this is the only way to keep her safe. Still believes that Celestia personally cares for EVERY being in the whole of the world."

He frowned as well and shook his head. "Such a shame that she is so misguided. She will die..." He sighed mid sentence. "And we should make a memorial to her mistake later." He nodded and dropped the subject.

She groaned. "All this talk of death and despair is annoying. Can we focus on the good parts? The end of days is soon to be here! We, and everyone else in the cult will become settlers for a new world order! Though order is not the right term." She hugged him again.

He smiled at her. "You mean the part where we get to pick what land we want to settle? I think the ruins of Canterlot would be an interesting place to make our home." His eyes widened and he nuzzled her again. "Imagine... our children could be alicorns!"

Her face brightened. "Do you really think so? Such a shame that all of our family have to die." Her sentence left a bitter sweet taste to the conversation.

He shook his head at her. "Don't look at it that way. The world is going to end if we don't do this ritual. They would die regardless.” He looked down again at the floor before righting his gaze back on her. A big smile graced his face. “But just picture us together on Canterlot's castle, sitting in the thrones of the sisters and doing whatever we feel like! No more being caught in the restraints of order. We would be leaders, no GODS!” He rose up on his hind legs like he was embracing victory and glory. “Gods of the citizens that will come after us! We will make a glorious nation that will prosper and we will refuse to let it stagnate!" He hugged her tightly to him.

She blushed slightly. "I could teach our kids how to fly and you could teach them magic." She twirled him around, her exhaustion fading. "Maybe this isn't so bad."

"And our new country will be fertile in knowledge to discover! And the ones who had to die? Earth ponies burn their fields every so often so that their crop grows better." He nodded at her and kissed her again.

She let it linger and locked eyes with him. Her nose was slightly crusted with blood.

His eyes narrowed at her nose. "Did he hit you?" He asked. "Did that over inflated idiot hit you?" He got out of her face and paced the halls.

She nodded. "I flew into his chambers to tell him that the human had stopped moving." She looked down slightly, not wanting to meet his gaze.

He growled. "That..." He cut himself off. "Well... I really can't do anything about it. You did break one of his rules... But... I guess I can't do anything about it besides report it to the elders as a abuse of authority." He paused and smiled. "Did you hear? Mindsplit himself is coming to observe the ritual!"

She smiled widely. "Really? That's great!" Her mood changed back to being happy.

He nodded at her and grinned. "Maybe I'll even take the case to him?" He smiled.

She shook her head rapidly. "We shouldn't bother him with issues of that nature. I imagine that he is a very busy pony. Besides, we only have to put up with Shadow for a week at most." She snickered.

He blinked. "Seriously, I have no idea what his parents were thinking. Name the completely black and purple pony Shadow. That is so cliche. What are we, some badly written adventure piece?" He burst out into laughter at the very thought.

She giggled along with him. "Maybe we shouldn't be talking about how bad his name is when we are by his door?" She asked, her brain finally deciding that it wasn't such a great idea to mock the pony while he could still easily hear them.

"That is probably true." He admitted and walked away.

"I am so glad you agree." She followed after him with a large smile on her face. The halls were filled in with hasty repairs from where sections of the walls had collapsed. At one moment they both had to jump over a large crack in the floor. There was a long silence filled with their happiness with each others company. She sighed, a few feet from their shared room. The door was a newer wooden door and fit into the frame snugly enough that they didn't need to worry about the sounds of anything they talked about or did slipping out. "What happened with your part of the preparations?"

He tensed and his gaze dropped to the floor. "I messed up..." He mumbled and opened the door for her.

She looked at him oddly. "It's not like you to mumble. I couldn't hear what you said." She walked in after a moment of waiting for him to continue.

He tore his gaze from the floor. "The two spell crackers with me died because I misread a spell rune." He let out a depressed sigh.

She narrowed her gaze. "What happened to them?" She sniffed the air around him. The faintest whiff of char and ash came from his form.

He licked his lips. "You know how the torches here are powered by a rune array, correct?"

She looked at him blankly. "Rune array...?"

He shook his head. "Turns out one of the chests of powdered moon stone that I was sent to get from the locked basement storehouse was keyed to a torch array. When they opened the first chest..." His horn glowed and light poured from it. He stepped into their room.

She looked at him. "Isn't moonstone that mineral the increases the power of a spell?"

He nodded at her. "The torch array set the entire chest off. They were vaporized on the spot. I don't even have bodies to give their families..." He trailed off and sat on the bed.

She winced. "Anyone we know? And it's not your fault." She shooed him off the bed. "Go take a bath before you get in this bed. We have hot water privileges for the night and you should make fair use of them."

He sighed. "They were both loaned from another outpost. A griffon and a unicorn. And how is this not my fault?" He started for the bathroom and paused at the door for her response.

She walked over to him and nuzzled him. "They wouldn't have been loaned if they weren't both good at spell cracking. If they died because you didn't see something than they had to have missed the same thing. Did you at least get a chest of moon stone for the ritual?"

He nuzzled back and smiled faintly. "I guess you might be right... They did run ahead of me. And I got a chest for the ritual. Actually..." He licked his lips again. "Would you like to join me in the bath?"

She grinned at him and lightly kissed his cheek. "That's the Sunburst I know and love." She walked into the bathroom, the walls cold stone and adorned with a single torch. "And of course I will take a bath with you."

He walked in after her and all signs of sadness seeped from his being. "And I love you, my silver gem." He shut the ill fitting door and went to spend some personal time with Silverstream.

Ritual

A purple mare sat in a large library in Canterlot's castle tearing through yet another overly large book for answers. Her eyes were slightly dried out, her mane was frazzled from lack of care. She was barely going through the motions of reading through another history book regarding Equestria when she finally collapsed. It was for this reason that when her dragon companion popped into the room shrieking her name, she didn't respond at first.

"TWILIGHT!" The baby dragon cried, running towards her. He went a bit too fast and stepped on an overturned paperback and slid out of control, the scroll in his hands flying through the air and whacking Twilight in the back of the head.

As you can imagine, she woke up immediately. She turned around and rubbed the injured area of her head slowly, still more than half asleep. “Spike...?” She grumbled out.

“Uh... Twilight? You don’t look so good. Did you decide to stay up all night again?”

Twilight’s head dropping down to hit the desk was more than enough of an answer for the dragon.

“I’ll take that as a yes. And wake up! I got a message from Celestia!”

Twilight’s ears perked up and she slowly cracked her eyes open again. “Celestia? The Princess?” She paused for a moment, the information brewing like fine coffee. Speaking of coffee, she could use some. “The Princess!” She stood and turned to face him.

Spike nodded. “That’s right. The Princess wanted you to have this scroll.” He pointed at Twilight.

Twilight walked over to him. “A scroll?” Her hoof managed to step on the scroll case and she slipped on it, landing on her side. “Oh. A scroll.” She heaved herself upright.

Spike ran over to her. “Are you ok?” He picked up the dropped object and handed it to her.

The purple unicorn looked at it and popped the end of the scroll case. The scroll fell until she caught it with her magic. She unfurled it. “Dear Twilight, thought I’d send you some extra paper. Sadly, in regards to your question about why we moved to Canterlot, I can only tell you that the old castle had far too many memories attached to it for me to remain there.” Twilight growled and tilted the case over again. Fifty or so sheets of paper fell out and slid through the air in an almost imitation of a waterfall over Spike's head.

Spike parted the waterfall then shrugged. “I guess she thought we were out of paper?”

Twilight frowned. “That’s not an actual reason to switch entire capitals.” She gritted her teeth and grabbed the history book that she had been reading with her magic and threw it against the nonfiction section. The entirety of the E section fell out.

Spike ran over to it. “I’ll get that!”

Twilight followed her assistant. “I’ll help, I knocked them off.” She smiled faintly. “I guess I just have more books to read if I want that answer.” Her horn glowed and she began to sort out the books and reshelve them.

The dragon groaned. “Twilight, I think that if you read anymore you’ll turn into a book. And where would I shelf you at?”

Twilight laughed. “Oh Spike, you’d put me with the encyclopedias in that case.” She nudged him. “Did you mail her my other request?”

Spike looked at her confusedly. “There was another one?”

She looked him in the eye. “You know... about the summer solstice? About how the mare in the MOON IS GOING TO BE RELEASED?” Her sleep deprived eyes twitched in their fatigue.

Spike winced and tried not to look at her face. He kept his gaze on the floor and began to admire the quality carpeting the library had. "Woah. That's creepy." He scuffed the floor with a clawed foot.“That one. Yeah, I sent it Twilight. Don’t you think that’s kinda silly? It’s just an old mare's tale.” His stomach growled.

Twilight smiled. “I’m sure that that is her reply."

Spike seized up, his eyes and stomach widening until he released his pressure in a tongue of green flame. The expected letter fell at her hooves. She cancelled her magic spell on a particularly large edition of 'Equestrian history, a complete edition' and the multiple myriads of pages hit the ground with an audible thump.

Spike jumped straight in the air and whirled about. "Don't do that!" He landed unevenly on his feet and swayed a bit.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Don't be such a drama dragon." She lifted a gem from her previous study area and dropped it at his feet.

The purple dragon immediately perked up and chowed down on the garnet. "Thanks Twilight!"

She smiled slightly. "Now back to more important things..." She lifted the letter into the air with her magic and shut her eyes for a moment. Doing too much magic before she was all the way awake sapped her concentration. The envelope slit itself under her careful application of magic and she lifted the response out of it.

Spike watched with more than a little excitement.

Twilight read through the letter, her face starting out as highly excited and happy and ending with more eye twitching and a look of abandonment and dejection. "Wha... Bu..." She released her grip of the paper and Spike picked it up.

"Princess Celestia thinks you should stop reading so many books?" He snickered under his breath. "Gee, that sounds familiar." He kept reading on. "Wants you to go help with the summer solstice celebration? Where in Equestria is Ponyville at?" He looked at Twilight's sad face. "Cheer up! This would be a great time to try and get some friends!"

Twilight was understandably, at least from her perspective, less than enthusiastic. "But... I... She..."

"She told you to make friends and not worry about stuffy old books. Please Twilight? Will you at least try for me?" He smiled at her and walked over to her side.

She glared at him for a second until her eyes softened. "Fine... I'll try to make a friend."

Spike jumped in the air and cheered.

"But only one. And if I don't make it I'm not going to try again."

Spike sighed. "But Twilight..."

"Just once." She finished, throwing the letter away from her and shoving the last of the books back onto the shelf like an angry book warrior.

"Fine..." He grumbled.

My eyelids felt like they were full of the sands of time, taking ages upon ages to release their hold upon one another to allow me to see the world. I groaned at the release from sleeping and felt how stiff and sore everything was.

"Doused with sleeping drought." A voice said to me, echoing faintly through the walls and somehow winding to my ears. "It's a wonder you are awake right now. They've had to feed you by hand for almost a week. Getting you to take fluids was a bigger problem..." The voice had a rasp to it, like whoever had it hadn't used it in a long time for anything but high pitched silly voices or the like.

I twitched an arm experimentally in an attempt to try and work out the kinks in my muscles. Clearly, not a good idea. Or rather, it was made clear after the chains clanked loudly and a sharp stab of pain echoed through my being from around my arms.

My eyes finally adjusted, allowing me to see what I had not previously. I was bound like someone bound to be killed in a movie. Looking up, I half expected to see a laser of some sort about to split my down the center. No suck luck.

The chains around my legs seemed cushioned by bandages. I had probably cut myself open on the metal shackles while sleeping; something sticky broke around my legs in a manner that I recognized as being of blood. I wanted to go back to sleep.

In my dreams, once all of the death and war had been long gone and almost forgotten, there was only me and the sky flying high over everything else. Occasionally, though infrequently, there was another welcoming presence with me, a mere blur, the form not actualizing. With a voice like slick sliver, and a feeling of warmth that sank into every pore. The flying... was beyond anything else. Like pure freedom in my soul unleashed upon the world.

Chained here, beneath stone mortar with my only company being the strange alien voice, my dreams seemed far away. The air was filled with the musty smell of decay and the smell of old things. There had been something of history here.

It frustrated me. I had spent days in the dream just savoring the taste of the wind and feeling at ease. But now I was here, imprisoned in these chains, imprisoned in a mortal shell.

Suddenly, Chicago seemed a far harder concept to grasp. The memories of what had happened were clear as crystal.

I had eaten a little bit of food at a road stop. It must've been spoiled. I woke up in a forest miles away from anything I had known... and it probably wasn't on earth.

Oddly, that didn't worry me. Of all the things that bothered me the most, the voice was it.

"Who are you?" My voice was raspy as well, but I had an excuse. If the other voice had been correct, that excuse was a valid one as well.

"I'm your savior. They took you in here against your will, correct?" He spoke from a different angle, with a different voice.

Admittedly, I had no idea if they had or not. Memories were a funny thing, after all. I almost felt like smiling after that, like even through the slight pain of the chains and the worry of knowing where I was that peace was still on the world. "Yes. They took me against my will."

My voice seemed to placate the other voice. "Oh yesss..." He hissed. "I'll have you out of there... soon. Tell me, any odd dreams?"

I smiled and lied smoothly. "Not a one." The dark room slowly made my eyes adjust to it. Blank rough stone decorated the walls and the ceiling. My eyes caught something strange, but I succeeded in not visibly reacting.

Upon my chest, visible as only a faint scar, a single line of characters were cut and healed. The only reason I could see them was because they faintly twinkled to me, as if letting me know they were there. In a way, they were like the dreams. Oddly calmly, but alien and disturbing.

I shut my eyes again. "You are getting me out, aren't you?"

"By the end of the week, I promise." The voice answered from behind me.

I nodded, despite knowing he couldn't see me.

Nightmare Moon's return was just one of the many things that were perfectly planned out. As one cog turns another, and the master clock maker's key turns them all, the mechanics of fate slowly turned onward. The bronze gears of souls and the silver of the immortals, as always, just barely meshed together. Occasionally, a bronze piece will slip out. That one needs to be replaced. If more slip, get more gears.

Celestia closed her book and carefully hid it back in its proper place.

Celestia's country ran like a clock. Every movement was timed and ran, every silly bit of frivolity faintly forced to happen. Of the things that could force her order to decay, she had them tracked and ordered.

Every party tracked and counted.
Every apple was on time.
The feathers were not rounded.
Every horn would make a chime.

It was like this in Celestia's kingdom. Everything ran like it should.

Her sister would return tonight, and like carefully constructed clockwork, the elements would rise to defeat her.

She shut her eyes and let out a sigh of contentment. Everything was perfectly ordered.

Just as it should be.

The ritual was going perfectly!

The sacrifice had hardly moved a muscle while the cutting had began, the sharp knife that they knew he would bring making short work of the delicate tissue on his chest. Always plunging and cutting and knitting the wound shut.

The operation went through as a blur.

The moonstone was used as exacted by the ritual, the chest gone before they had even thought that they were through. It lasted anyway, and surely commendations would be showered on the one who had selflessly obtained it.

His mare friend smiled at him but he didn't look away.

A single feather, the threads gnarled and twisted, the faintest speck of blood on the tip, plunged into the alien's frame. It faded into magic and was sucked into him.

A few more feathers, infused with moonstone and glowing with unnatural splendor were soon added, the ritual going on and on.

The full moon, the primary focal point for the energies was in perfect position, the power of the other system guiding their less than savory task. They could almost imagine her smiling on them, gifting them with more of her unused and untapped power.

It was a minor delusion, of course, but Mindsplit could care less.

This night was the most planned out night in the history of the world. Thousands had tried their hand to make their plans around the summer solstice, and of the astronomer's, well, they secretly celebrated the closest the moon had been in a thousand years.

The land itself seemed happy with the sky, and indeed, the stars seemed to dancing happily.

Mindsplit chanced a look upwards just in time to see four stars move out of place and glide towards the moon.

Of the battalion that had been assembled, only a few remained. Nightmare moon's attack had devastated the castle that they had been sent to take. A few of them still remained.

They would take the castle with the reduced amount of troops.

The moons was clear and the sky itself seemed to revolt.

Ironguard let out a hearty chuckle and rallied his troops. "Our enemy is defeated!" He yelled to the heavens. "Their black god has done their job for us! Of the few that are left, one is guarding what we can only assume to be their weapon, and the others sacrificed themselves so their leader could flee like the coward he is."

The six or seven unicorns took their cue and walked into the ruined building and ignored the still falling bits of mortar. Their leader knew best.

Silverstream let her tears fall to the ground and wet the damp floors. "It's gone." She wailed. The crumpled form of her friend lay before her, his horn still sparking up a powerful shield to stop the ceiling from caving in.

"Leave me. I'll be fine. Take the human and escape into the forest. They won't find you." His vibrant smiled flashed at her.

"I love you..." She whispered, a wet tear splashing against his face.

"I'll be fine." He lied. They both knew that he was going to die. "Go salvage this. I'll see you soon." The large shield buckled, a hint of failing mortar falling through a single crack.

"But..."

"Go." He hissed, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I love you Silverstream."

The human lay where he had been before, his torso streaked with blood and his body slowly healing from the magic placed on him. She turned away from Sunburst and picked the thing up on her back. She dared to look back at him. "See you soon." She whispered, then disappeared into the passages of the castle.

My dreams were of nothing but flying.

Feathers

“And on that day, he will walk unneeded on the field of order, and that alone will make the difference. And he will march unwilling, and he will fight another’s battle. He will rise. We will rise. He will fall. We will rise.” Book of Chaos, verse of the walker.

Fear. Fear is deadly. Loathing is as well, like hatred whisping in the wind. And we all know that hatred is poison, seeping through the ground. And what is worse than hatred?

Hatred isn't the opposite of love, you know.

That's apathy.

The land was apathetic. It was tired land. It had been repressed, beaten down with hundreds of hooves. The weather was weary. It no longer wanted to move itself, nor could it. It had been tired and weary for oh so long. So very long had it been since war had graced it, since chaos had reigned and it could finally breath life into the many shapes and souls that demanded to be freed.

The land was apathetic. The sky was as well.

The forest was alive. The forest was happy, the forest was undisturbed except by the brave few willing to look into it, and even they were rare. Rarer still were they that understood. They understood that the forest was the many, that the forest had needs, that the forest was happy.

The forest was happy indeed.

The forest was happy, for something oh so unfamiliar had graced it. Familiar too, something whispered, bringing back memories of the frozen times. Frozen battles, when winter went unwrapped up for years while everyone labored to destroy one another. That was a time of chaos.

The forest longed for the land and the sky and the weather to be free, just like it was.

Forever free, even.

Deep deep in the forest was a tomb, you see. A tomb filled with darkness. And bones. Naturally, you would know it to be a tomb by these things.

Something special about these bones, though. They have, or would have, or did have names engraved into them. Hundreds of bones, hundreds of bodies whose souls never found a place to rest. All of them scattered to the side like toys thrown by a child in a tantrum. Scattered. Nobody would ever piece the ivory together.

And in the center, the one bone unbroken and unmolested by rage, the one bone who may have truly found peace, or was finding peace, the one soul who might truly be the one to help the world...

There was a name on that bone. On the other bones, if they could still, walk, talk, play, eat, have fun, or love... they would speak about that bone.

“Why did you leave us? Leave us to die? Why did you kill us? Why did you lie?”

“Why are we alone now, traitor? Betrayal? That is who you are.”

And inscribed on the bone, if truly, the tomb did exist in, or ever had existed the heart of the forest that nobody dares venture far into, for the wind is free there, and the weather free to play havoc upon order, if the tomb really did exist, and the bone as well, there was a name on that particular lonely bone.

Valder.

I was flying. High. There was something peaceful about it, but below me was a wreckage of a battle, a true blemish on the cool crisp snow that covered the land. A few charred feathers, launched high in the air drifted down, a few bloodied ones drifted down in the same way.

Wasn’t hard to see that this was the way the land wanted to go when you could hear it sighing in the breeze. Out in a blaze of fire rather than the slow death of peace. A false peace, far worse the flavor. A quick agony over a slow agony,

Alas, this is not a story about the land, or the scenery, no matter how tragic. Back at hand, without the inglorious wording I have given to the land, we had Mark.

Myself.

It is at this point, I shall inform you, that I more than likely die before the end of this tale. I write this, so that, in the case that I have failed, or fallen off the path of retribution, maybe I will be written fairly in history, instead of being a cruel heartless villain, bleached black as sin by the passage of time. Maybe I am foolish to believe that people will be willing to forgive.

Maybe... Maybe I write this so that I will at least bring peace to one person.

Myself, at least.

“Guards.” An authoritative voice cut through my sweet slumber. I had been dreaming more of the same, more of snow and feathers, and of flying.

Hooves clopped against marble, the noise echoing slightly. It was not cold where I was, nor was it warm. A nice middle of the two.

I expected someone to start clapping, and a spotlight to hit me, honestly, when I realized my arms and legs were bound together. You know, first thing I do when I wake up is try to stretch out, and almost needless to say, after what I had gone through recently, I did try to stretch out.

Then I opened my eyes and saw her. Her being a white horse. With a horn. And wings, can’t forget that. The rainbowish mane just made me think I was tripping out. I wasn’t obviously.

“Greetings.” It was a command, of the sort that was soft, yet all knowing, and with the hint of hidden steel that told me that I was before someone who was not only used to getting their way, but had had to defend the right to get their way many times before.

Also, it was a good indicator that I was staring at a talking horse alicorn thingy.

“Uh. Hello.” I said, in my best attempt at not being threatening. I flicked my gaze around the room. It was a conference room, or done in that style. She sat at the head of a long table, and I on the other side. She also sat closest to the door. That’s against the style, I thought, at the time.

But I’m not really here to judge the plush red upholstery on each of the chairs, or the nice smell of lavender in the room. The brickwork was nice as well. All in all, it was a nice place, especially after what little I remembered from earlier. Except, you know. I was still tied up.

“Hello?” She replied, looking me over thoughtfully. Like a teacher lazily eying a student to see if he was chewing gum, or something like that. Oh, right. Forgot to mention. Girly tiara on her head, girly necklace on her... chest... front area on horses name I don’t know. I’ll go with chest. “Would you mind explaining to me why I found you running away from the scene of a crime with a known criminal?”

The way she said it, that light tone told me that while I could be in a whole lot of trouble with the pretty princess, I was not quite there.

I looked up. Lights were pretty nice here too. Were those purple candle? With purple flame? Might be lavender scented. “I have no idea what you are talking about in the least.” I forgot to mention this, but my voice was rough with disuse. Or something. Maybe I was hitting some sort of belated puberty? She was royalty. I was betting she was royalty.

“Really now. Quite odd, isn’t it? And here I was hoping that you were some nasty criminal I could tidy up, throw in a cell.” She shook her head, almost sadly.

She scared me for some reason. In a horrible, deep to the core, kind of way.

“Wait. You believe me?” I asked, incredulously. The rope was starting to itch against my legs. That, and they were still numb.

“Why yes, griffon. I do. You couldn’t lie to me if you tried, right now.” Her horn flashed brightly and a plate full of bread and some sort of delicious smelling pastry floated over to me.

Griffon. What. Who is she talking to?” I tried to flick my gaze around for a second. There was someone else in the room, unless griffon was some sort of name for outsider I didn’t know about. “My name is Mark, mi-” I stopped myself from saying milady. Wouldn’t do, I thought.

“Mark, hm?” She asked, then passed the tray over to myself. “I’ll just keep your little Earth life a secret then.”

I blinked. Uh... alright then. “Who are you?” I said, a little lost.

“My name is Princess Celestia.” She said, then nodded. There was a window I forgot to describe, mainly because it was shuttered and not as nice as everything else in the room. She opened it, and glorious glorious sunlight poured through. “I control that.” She pointed at the sun.

“If you’re the princess, where is the queen?” I asked, knee jerk.

“If you were a human, why are you not anymore?” She asked, cutting off that line of conversation. Though it seemed like it wasn’t because it bothered her, but more that she didn’t care to explain to me the answer.

I blinked again. This was to be a pattern. “Uh. What?” I said, eloquently.

“We found you as a human. In the past two weeks, you changed into a griffon. Explain that?” I was staring at her mouth, but the movements weren’t matching up in a way that made much sense at all. Her tone was clipped, as if she had better things to do.

I was probably just imagining things. “Again. I have no idea at all what you are talking about.”

She nodded. “True. That makes my decision all the harder.” She paused for a moment. It was a regal one, and it did nothing to halt the sudden fear that not only was I never going home, that I was about to die.

Her horn glowed again and she floated the tray over to me. “Would you like a bit of cake, before I tell you?”

I stared at the bread, and my stomach howled in delight. It kept right on howling after I realized that I was still tied to the chair, and that she was taunting more than anything.

Did I mention I had a problem with paranoia? I do.

“Sure.” I said, staring at the wonderful bit of food.

She wrapped it in magic, then pressed it to my mouth. I opened it, and she placed it inside. I felt my pride take a blow at a horse of all things feeding me. A horse!

Then just as suddenly, it occurred to me that my mouth was feeling odd, and I apparently lacked lips. Or... well... A nose. I tried flaring my nose, and there was most certainly not a response.

I moved on to my ears, and tried wiggling them. No response.

Wait. I couldn’t wiggle my ears anyway. Why’d I even try that?

I chewed it with... the odd teeth that were in my mouth that weren’t the same that I had gone to sleep with... and swallowed. I was rewarded with a feeling of satisfaction and stupidity.

She cleared her throat. “Yes. Yes. You aren’t human now.” She rolled her eyes, not that I knew that.

I flicked my gaze curiously over to her. “So, what happened?”

“While you were out, I took the liberty of taking a cursory glance through your mind.” She stated, like she was talking about the weather. “And that is the question, what happened.”

“To me.” I finished, more than a little confused. And bound to a chair, can’t forget that.

“Yes.” She said, seeming a little distracted. Her horn glowed again, magic wrapping around it in a beautiful azure shade which switched to a murderous red. A knife floated up from her side of the table and she spun it in her magical grip. “This is really quite the impasse, is it not.”

“Er... It is?” I asked. “Can’t you just... send me home or something?”

She shook her head simply. “It would be an easy matter if you were not in your present shape, Mark.” She used my name, and said that sentence with a hint of uncaring.

Right. I was still imagining it. Had to be.

“I can’t go home?” She had to be kidding. She was a talking alicorn horse thing. Taking me home would be the least weird thing that had happened to me lately.

It occurred to me that I was not that fond of the pastel ponies I had met so far in my stay, and that this was probably going to be a pattern that stayed with me.

Not sure why that occurred to me, but it did. Something in the middle of my head did that. No, not my brain, I mean, a literal feeling between my eyes, in the tuft of feathers there. Like a deep itch.

I closed my eyes at that point, trying to ignore the sudden bubble of fear that was rising in my head. A griffon. I was some sort of fantastical beast for the time being- and yet something else was whispering that it was going to last forever, my stay as being extraordinary.

“No. You cannot.” She replied with a calloused, practiced, tone. “In fact...” She shook her head.

“What?” I asked, desperate. Fear was still bubbling to the surface.

“The griffon king is presently within our borders.”

I blinked. Was that non sequitur or something? “I don’t follow.”

“You’ll need prey, and a steady supply of it... freshly transformed, I understand that the griffonkind has certain desires that do not end well when repressed...” She pulled out a large map. “Ah. Yes. Daughter of a minor duke is scheduled to journey to Ponyville.” She shot me a meaningful look.

“... I’m still not following at all.” Desires? What?

“You see Mark, you do resemble that of the ancient line of royalty. I imagine you look rather fetching with griffons.”

...What?

“...What?”

“So, it’s decided. You will be sent to Ponyville, and when that griffon shows up she will instruct you on the griffon life.” She clapped her hooves together.

“...What...?”

“Great! Glad to see you agree.”

“... For a princess, you don’t act exactly the way I thought you would.”

“Would you rather I direct you to the dungeons, as would I normally do so to a suspected criminal among my presence?” Her voice changed to a more prim and proper tone. I wondered if that was the tone she normally used, and if she had slipped or something in dealing with me.

“... No?”

She tapped her horn slightly with a hoof. “I just adjusted the translation spell I currently have on you. It’s translating my words into a style that you are more used to. Now, would you allow me to slip back to informal tones?” Less a question as much as it was an order.

Dang. I was talking to royalty like she was just another face in a crowd.

“Yes...”

“Good. You shall awake in Ponyville, and you will not mention that we had this discussion.”

Features

“-When time is lost and order found, he shall make the choice that dooms the world. To prevent this, he must be convinced otherwise-” Words from a transcript of a conversation between General Greenscale and the lord of chaos.

“Now... Do not mention that we have met. You will be a griffon that is new to town. Now, sleep. You will wake near your destination.”

True to her word, I did indeed wake up somewhere else. I was still furred, feathered, upset, and just barely, I suppose, not tarred.

See what I did there? That was a joke. Ha ha. I’m not actually laughing either, don’t worry.

Being a griffon... was a little weird. I mean, first off, I didn’t really even know what I was going to do about walking... or anything else as a griffon. Like eating. Sleeping. Evacuating wastes. The important stuff, I guess...

All I could see was grass. Cliche as it was, that was the truth, and I was SERIOUSLY getting tired of waking up in places I didn’t understand. Grrrr....

I was actually growling. That’s what it sounded like, GRRRRRR. Low in my throat, sounding like a wet cat, I continued growling as I noted this in astonishment just how I was growling. Not quite like a warble, not quite like anything else, not quite like breathing... more like... how best to say this? It was quite a bit like purring.

Not that I knew how to do that either.

So, instead of continuing the growl, I tried to stand up. My legs locked up when I even dared to try that, and I managed an almost... crouch before my legs flipped me off metaphorically and came undone from the position I was imagining, dumping me right back down.

I tried again. I managed to crouch on unsteady legs, my new tail... my new tail pointed straight out as inelegantly as you can please.

A... strange surge of pride went through me after a few moments of standing like this, feeling like a nice warm fire.

Here, I guess, I started purring. It was a deep warm rumble. I liked being able to do things, and the pride, while alien, was strong and powerful. It felt like... someone cheering me on!

I straightened my posture! I was a griffon now, and I wasn’t going to take my first steps quite so foolishly, so weakly. Ha Ha! Take that, GRAVITY!

More pride, then I took a step forward! I managed it! It felt great! Terrific, fantastic, all those words that mean the same blasted thing one by one by one by one at me! I felt all of those at that moment, washing through me like a torrent of awesome!

Then I took another step. And another. And another, just parting the long grass with my form, I took bold strides forward, alien pride flaring up and out, expanding through my form. It was exhilarating!

Then I realized I was literally just walking at a slow pace, less than a meter per second or anything even remotely respectable and my mood was blown as efficient as snuffing a candle. The pride was gone, and I was suddenly more concerned with my environment. After all, I was in a mysterious field without any explanation beyond the fact that I knew I was near a place called Ponyville.

Said town was probably full of ponies. Said ponies were probably going to be complete and utter jerks. I felt myself let out a low growl at that and clung to the feeling of irritation. How dare they inconvenience me so? I came from a long li- No wait, I didn’t come from any long like. I was Mark, son of Paul, son of James and some chick James met at a bar who stuck him with the child.

Yeah, but how dare they be such complete jerks to the first... well, maybe first alien that had ever ventured to their shores? Or planet? Come on now, I had to be special in that regard...

No, wait, Celestia probably had interdimensional visitors over for tea all the time. She did seem like the all powerful omnipotent being that could totally do that. Maybe she had tea with the President? Maybe I was going to be like... An interdimensional exchange student? How COOL would that be?

Probably not cool at all... And ‘sides that, she’d have told me if I was going to be something like that. Heck, if anything... she... acted like... she wanted me to cover it up or something. I mean, it’s not like she was going to go around claiming that I was an alien creature when I was so clearly a griffon.

I let out a happy trill at that. I was a griffon! Ignoring the fact that I was horribly lost with no real way of ever finding my way home that I had any idea of, and the fact I was probably never going to see my family again EVER... Being a griffon was pretty dang sweet! I mean... I could’ve been turned into a bird or something, but this way, I was all furry and...

And I REALLY couldn’t help but feel like I should be disturbed by how I was thinking. I mean... All I could see was grass... All I could hear was the faint rustle of grass as it moved against my skin and feathers and fur...

Oh my god! I have a tail! Tail...! I turned as fast as I could, a little giddy from discovery! I turned so fast I fell flat on my front and slid through the grass a bit before I realized I could just turn my head to look at it. It was long... Slightly tawny, and ended in a little furry tuft that was a dark color. At the very tip, it was more black than brown. How cool was that?

Alright, there was something wrong with me. I should not be this thrilled with being something that was not human! Though really, humans kinda suck- YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH. HUMANS ARE AWESOME! Grrrr... Self, get on your game. Humans are awesome and you know that! I mean, come on, they might not have wings... or you know, claws... Or a valid reason to li-

No... Ergh... Right... You know what? I’d deal with that later.

I shook my head really hard, and managed to crack my neck. I groaned a little, then jerked it the other way, letting the almost sickening crescendo of popping echo out into the grass! Finally, something new to listen to!

Oh wait, what was I doing? Hm... Oh! I was examining myself a little more. So far, I had determined that my rear half was a tawny color, and now I just had to describe my feathers as they were. Which, as they were, they were a dark bronze color with an almost delicate gossamer look to them.

I had wings! ...Could I fly? I could fly! FLY! Suddenly, the sky above made me feel hungry in a way that I couldn’t really understand correctly. It was just pure longing.

Oh. And I had a beak. That was a burnt orange color. And some talons. They were black. I thought my back claws were the same way.

Wow. This grass wasn’t pointless and all that cliche! It was also grass of exposition, and I felt so giddy and happy at the moment that I could hardly even describe it!

...Did I seriously just spend the last 15 minutes checking myself out? Man, if I wasn’t such a completely sexy specimen of griffon, I’d be concerned about how the rest of this journey into the unknown was going to happen.

… I decided to stop checking myself out before my mind pulled out a shotgun and killed the rest of my mind. Instead, I finally walked out of the grass. The sun was high up in the sky, the clouds were nice and grey, the birds were chirping...

And I was at the edge of a giant apple orchard. Terrific. Fantastic. Celestia couldn’t drop me at the edge of Ponyville, huh? No, I was going to have to come up with a reason why I was here AND come from some random direction.

I guess I shouldn’t have been so negative. I mean... This was apparently pony land, given that I had met what had seemed someone who claimed to control the sun who was a pony, and I was going to Ponyville, it was probably a safe bet that I was going to meet more ponies than griffons. Unless it was oddly ironic.

Hipster griffons?

Oh. Right, on with the story!

Author's Note

For skyblaze the bard. More should be coming soon... this was fun to write.

Elucidation

"And the apple shall be the symbol. For an apple is only an apple so long as one sees it as such. Otherwise, it can be anything you want. The tree can be a torch, but also a house. The apple, food, but also rotten. The land itself can be fertile and green, or destroyed and salted. Though the land sleeps now, it can be awakened but with a single spoken word. And the apple shall be the symbol for the land, though it may be forgotten.

And he shall walk through fields of the dead and remain unaware.

And he shall walk unknowing.

And he shall march, and with his steps heralds the end."- Excerpts from the fifth book of chaos.

The orchard was a rather calm place, all things considered. Eyes were glaring at me from beyond the shade of the trees, and something was eating something else in the trees with a loud chomping noise which reminded me of bones, like some horrible monster was eating something in the trees, eating someone.

But that would be silly, for the ground was dappled with the sun streaking through the trees. The leaves were the shade of grey normally reserved for hot chocolate. I was pierced with a feeling of homesickness, standing there and watching it all.

The crunching stopped.

A squirrel raced by.

My tail flicked, and instantly, I fell into some form of crouch. It was a grey squirrel. Probably adorable in an unfeasible way, but my stomach was growling.

And then I was stalking it, my legs moving me without my wishes, and a dark grin was smashed upon my face with all the grace of a wild cat. Oh, and it felt great. Like a pride I didn't entirely understand was pressing against me, telling me just what to do. It was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Perfect. It was all I needed. It was my sun. It was my perfection. It was like wings upon my body, like a comforting friend willing to help out whenever needed. This was what the feeling was like. It was a friend who would protect me.

Oh... stalking felt so very very good. Whatever I did in it must also be as good.

Then the squirrel chirped out a questioning tone and shattered the feeling.

Hot anger burned through me, searing like a lance.

My eyes narrowed on the little creature, watching it stop in place and sniff the air. Stupid thing. How could it not notice me?

I'd make it pay for it! Stupid squirrel.

I was moving, then. It was silent. Almost completely so, I could hear myself, and clearly the squirrel could not, for if it did, it would've fled.

The sun dappled leaves soon left the sun as a cloud darted over the sun with all the grace of the slithering serpent I projected, leaping on the squirrel and destroying the life inside of it with all the ease of a single flick of taloned hands.

I stopped, the hunting grace leaving me. That's a good term for it, actually. Hunting grace. It was a good friend, and it gifted me with food.

I stared down at the corpse of the thing and poke it with the bloodied talons. Then I quickly made as much of a meal of the squirrel as I could, trying to get used to having a beak. I'd be using it for everything, best to get the hard parts out of the way already.

So I choked down the most of the raw meat of the squirrel, letting instinct guide me most of the way. I shook out the intestines, choked down the liver, did all the things I felt like I was supposed to do, then respectfully buried the bones as deep as I could to prevent a scavenger from getting at it.

The squirrel was bloody delicious, and I found myself licking the blood off of my talons long after it was gone.

The blood was enticing. If I was forced to live on nothing but squirrels, I could do it without much complaint.

The crunching started again. I jerked my head head up and searched the trees with eyes that were far better than they had ever been. There were no signs.

Crunching.

No signs.

Crunching.

No signs.

For some reason, this pattern was maddening, and igniting. I was frustrated that I could not piece it together, though for the life of me, I didn't understand what was happening, or what I should be putting together.

Then I spotted an apple core on the ground and stared at it. It was eaten by something with sharp teeth, and it hadn't been there when I had eaten the squirrel.

Then I looked up at the tree nearest to the ground.

Plunk. An apple core fell on my head. Something chittered at me.

I leaped into the tree, probably clearing about ten feet as easily as I could take a single step. The entire tree was filled with bats. Bats and apples. A large one, one that had eyes that gleamed evil, flew forward and chomped on the top of my head. "SCREEEEEEEEEEE~"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" I screeched right back at them, falling from the tree. I hit the ground with a loud thud, hundreds of bats chasing after me as I ran away through the orchard.

They had sharp teeth, these bats. A few managed to nip me easily enough, and hot blood dripped into my eyes from the original wound. It smelled delicious, like copper and inhibitions.

Then they stopped in the air and flew off. They left me blinking and bleeding on the ground.

"Bucky?!" This was most certainly NOT a bat's voice... And more than likely a pony. I was near Ponyville, after all.

"Oh, this is stupid. The squirrel probably just ran off. Why'd you even send him, Fluttershy?"

I hopped up into a tree, a few drops of blood lit up in the ground in the sun that was shining again. I froze in position, peeking through the leaves to try and find the voices.

This was actually a surprising amount of fun despite the sting to the wound on my head. The wind whistled through the trees, bringing up a few hisses of pain.

"Are you sure about what you said you saw? Bucky should've met him by now. It shouldn't take long to find a big scary griffon."

"I'll have you know that the only thing scary about griffons are their morning breath. Eeyuck." There was a pause. "And yeah, I'm pretty sure I saw a griffon in the orchard while I was flying over. He's probably lost or something after that storm. Geez fluttershy. Why are you even doubting me? When exactly have I been wrong?!" Ah. So the other voice is Fluttershy...

"Do you want me to count the ways, Dash?" And this one is dash.

Dash sputtered a little, her mind trying to catch up to her thoughts, more than likely. I knew the type. Head strong and unwilling to admit defeat.

I remained silent in the tree. I didn't want to hop down just yet.

"Oh... I sure hope Bucky is alright... Poor grey squirrel." Who the hell gives any sort of a care to the well fare of a squirrel? It's a squirrel for crying out loud. They are delicious, and considered pests. Nobody cares if you destroy them and eat them.

Not that I was going to tell them that. To them, I committed murder.

Wow. Not more than a day or two into being awake as a gryphon and I was already a murderer. And I didn't even care. Stupid squirrel.

So I decided to jump out of the tree. I hit the ground with an over dramatic thump. In front of me were two ponies, just like I had expected. One was yellow, with a pink mane. I instinctively wished to utterly terrify the hell out of the pony. She cowered as my gaze flittered over her, and I felt an odd mix of shame and pride in being terrifying.

And the other was blue, with a mane that was sculpted from the rainbow of the sky. Dash was her name.

"Hello!" I chirped out. No seriously. The expression my face made was a chirp.

Author's Note

Dalania will rise.

First there was 1. Then 2. Then 4. Then 5. Then came 6. Then there were none.

Now there are six.

Six souls.

Bad Apples

"It takes but one bad apple to rot the entire crop." -Pony proverb, sometime before the end of the first great war.

"Betrayal is the worst of crimes. -Gryphon belief.

It had been a month since Mark had gone missing. He knew this, and he knew that he should be worried.

This was Seth.

and Seth could dream.

and Seth dreamed.

Seth was staring off into the stars. Beside him was a purple dragoness with scales that seemed to be carved out of the night sky, one that he knew far better than he thought that he should. He was wearing a crown ornately laid with gems, perfection glittering near. Next to her was a creature he knew merely in myth, and more importantly, as a shade. A large, immense gryphon, covered in shadows. He had a dagger clutched in his hands.

"Traitor..." He whispered from lips that were not his own. In fact, he didn't even have lips.

He didn't even have lips.

"I am no more of a traitor than you are..." Said the gryphon. And he knew who he was, but his name was as much of a shade as he was. His colors were undefined, but he knew that they belonged in the part of his mind that all things he knew were at.

He was large and smelled like blood. Seth knew that he should remember something, anything at all, something important, something digging at his mind, something was guiding what was happening, he should be able to remember it!

But he couldn't remember.

To his growing frustration.

"You ruined everything..." Rumbled the dragon. Her tail flicked lazily. Her name was Lapis.

Seth didn't know how he knew that, and he didn't question it. He thought she had beautiful scales... but knew she had a selfish heart.

Seth himself had a rather boring life. He went to the same college as Mark had, and had medium grades. Not near the top of the class, but oh so certainly not near the bottom of the class. He wore grey shirts, without any emblems or insignias on them. Not because he believed that wearing advertising wasn't that good of an idea to his ideas in an era of growing conformity, but more so that he would blend in.

Seth was mediocre and boring.

Except in his dreams.

"You ruined everything." He accused the shadowy gryphon, stalking over to him. He was bigger than he was when he wasn't dreaming.

This made Seth feel special. He was glad to feel special.

He had a spear in his hands, and he threatened the shadowy menace with it, curiously making the gryphon back up. "We'll be dead soon."

That was Seth speaking. They would be dead soon. It was a simple saying.

Then Seth motioned at the impossibly white area they were standing in. "This is impossible. We shouldn't even have lived this long."

Then the shadowy gryphon spoke, with a voice that was a shattered mirror. "Good night, Seth."

The dragoness turned away and walked off of the land and into the white. Then she disappeared. Seth never saw her again.

Then the Seth abandoned the gryphon. "Welcome to Hell, Valder." He spat, then walked off into the white.

Then Seth slept without dreaming.

I blinked at the sudden expression of shock that slid over the cyan pony, er, pegasus's face. Was there something on me?

She wrinkled her nose and gave an odd, casual sniff, before turning to look at the yellow pegasus. "Oh, will you relax, 'shy?"

'Shy turned to look at me with all the spine of a rubber band. I valued her just as much in that single moment, my tail flicking in the light wind whistling through the trees. Gentle autumn leaves, a breeze like none other.

It felt fantastic against me, and I almost zoned out before the other pony responded.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot. "A-are you sure? Um... I mean... It's been such a long time since I've seen a griffon..."

"I assure you, I am quite dangerous." I paused. "That is, not dangerous at all." I shot her my most winning grin, hoping my almost terrifying disregard for her didn't show through my eyes.

She recoiled, the pathetic yellow pony almost falling flat on her rump. "U-um..."

Dash rolled her eyes and shot me a glare. "I swear, griffons. tend to get the most out of terrifying Shy." Her... magenta eyes bored into me for a moment before I met them with a bored look from whatever the hell color my eyes are.

I shrugged in reply. Let me tell you, the whole shrugging motion on a quadruped is awkward.

Shy remained sitting most absurdly, looking at me in terror. "Y-you're not going to eat me, are you?!" She said, the last word coming out in a shrill squeak that made me want to murder another small furry animal and eat it in front of her.

Woah. Kinda disturbing there, thoughts. You sure that's the sort of thing that you should be thinking at all?

Of course, my thoughts didn't reply to my query.

"Not unless there is nothing else for me to eat." I reply simply, almost disgusted by how good it feels to cow the pony even further.

And cow her I did. To my delight (and disgust, again) she hid herself behind her mane in a way that probably would've been adorable had I not suddenly had the idea that she would taste good raw.

Mmm... I was suddenly seized with the urge to eat the little pony, my eyes dilating, growing and shrinking and growing again.

Dash snapped me out of my thoughts with a glare. "Grrr... Pay attention!" She stamps her hooves on the ground in what I am sure is meant to be intimidation.

I'm sure that I'm supposed to be terrified, but I'm oddly not. Which is terrifying in all of itself, given the urges I had to find something else to eat, despite already having eaten. It's an odd itch in my brain, like I needed to run around really fast without any rhyme or reason, to tear after something and chase it down, sinking beak and talon into it until the blood ran out from it.

And I'm disgusted by the fact that just thinking about that is awe inspiring and terrifying.

So I backtrack. "Yeah, I'm paying attention." I muttered to her, like I was actually paying attention. I guess that would make that a lie.

I'm... not supposed to find the idea of murder exhilarating. That's a thing. That's... why in god's name is that a thing I should even be thinking about? Murder is a bad thing.

Murder is bad. God Mark, how the hell do you even forget about something like that?

"What exactly are you doing in the apple orchard?"

I took a step back. Dash was suddenly in my face, her muzzle almost shoved against my beak. "Right. I was... seeking settlement..."

She blinks once. "Liar."

"... I got lost." I admitted. It was some sort of a truth in the grand scheme of things, which was about all that mattered. My tail twitched in the slight breeze. I ruffled my wings, adjusting them so that the air could flow more pleasingly over them.

Magenta eyes narrowed dangerously, glaring at me, as if to try and dare me to lie to her. The stare continued on for a few seconds after I finished saying my words, before she turned away and looked at Shy.

"'Shy. He's hurt. Would you mind doing your weird animal thing and seeing if he's got an infection or something?"

Oh right. I do have a few open cuts. How marvelously complex am I that I forget that I am injured? "I was attacked by some... bats."

The shy pony stood up and slowly walked towards me, slow as if I were surrounded by endless landmines ready to explode. Then she was at my side. "Oh... fruit bats?"

Dash nodded over at the side, still looking at me suspiciously. "Apple Jack has been complaining about them..."

Shy gently touched a hoof to the top of my head, making a face. "Well mister griffon, I don't think you're infected..." Her voice had taken on a weird baby talk, like I was some sort of dumb animal. It was soothing, but it also made me want to punch her in the face. "But if you come by my cottage, I can run a few tests to make sure that those bats aren't rabid..."