Author's Note

Stage 2-1: The Chase Beneath the Leaves

In all of her years living in Ponyville, Diamond Tiara could count the number of times she had stepped into the Everfree Forest on a single hoof. Spring Lullaby, the old mare who had served the Rich household for many years as a nanny-cum-governess, used to read her fairly tales about the place almost every night. Thinking about it now, Diamond Tiara figured they were supposed to have served as a warning to never go there, rather than to solely entertain, but they had turned out to be a poor defence against the allure of the white rope that separated Ponyville from the Everfree, and of her need to assert herself amongst her new peers.

It was funny how easily she could recall the expressions of Silver Spoon and the others as they watched her step over the rope and march, muzzle pointed towards the evening sky, across the stretch of grass to the treeline. Despite the shadows cast by the coppery light, she could see the admiration, the awe and respect in their eyes, and for a single moment she could feel her place in the world become a little more defined, a little more certain.

But it was far too easy to also remember the terrible whispering and scratching she had heard while standing beside the warped and gnarled trees, a triumphant smile fixed to her muzzle. It was far too easy to remember that sense of something standing right behind her, just waiting for her to take one more step into the forest, one more step from sight and safety. As she forced herself to trot calmly back towards the rope, and forced herself even harder to not gasp and sob in relief as she crossed it, Diamond Tiara had sworn that she’d never step hoof in the Everfree again.

She leaned back into her seat, eyes fixed on the sunlight as it attempted to penetrate the canopy above, and felt her lips twist into a thin smile. How many more promises to herself was she going to break for Apple Bloom? Coming back to the Everfree wasn’t the first, and Diamond Tiara strongly doubted it would be the last.

At least, she hoped it wouldn’t.

“You doin’ alright there, DT?” Apple Bloom’s voice fought against the staccato throb of the speakers, her head bobbing along to the track. “You’ve been real quiet over there.”

“I’m fine.” She studied her friend out the corner of her eye. Apple Bloom was keeping her gaze fixed on the dirt track ahead, which Diamond Tiara thought was a sensible decision, given her performance back in Ponyville, but she looked pensive. The weak sunlight—Diamond Tiara was convinced that the Everfree could warp the health of absolutely anything that entered it, even a summer’s day—had cast pale shadows across her face, accentuating the tightness of her jaw.

Then the forest began to demand her attention again; towering trees reached towards them, gnarled and warped branches scraping against kart and pony alike as they passed by. At the base of their trunks, dense clusters of vegetation were strangling the life from ruined buildings and walls, forming a near-impenetrable wall on either side of the track. Diamond Tiara couldn’t tear her eyes from the writhing leaves and twitching blades of grass, and she fought against the shudder that was attempting to contort her body.

“Out of interest, why did you decide to take us this way?”

Apple Bloom’s laugh was loud, but sounded somewhat forced to Diamond Tiara’s corporate-tuned ears. “You ain’t scared, are you?”

“Of course I am!” Diamond Tiara felt her coat grow tight at the admission. Something caught her eye again, and for a few moments she was half-convinced she had seen something gleaming within the depths of the undergrowth—the sunlight shining off some dew-dappled leaves perhaps, or maybe the gleaming eyes of a murderous timberwolf. She turned back to Apple Bloom. “And stop grinning at me like you’re not scared! I saw your face when we drove in here.”

Apple Bloom gave the steering wheel a sharp twist; as the kart slid into the curve of the track, Diamond Tiara fell against the door. She shot Apple Bloom a filthy look before turning her attention back to the map between her hooves. The neon blue glow of the interior purged the pink out of her coat; its artificial nature, coupled with that of the soaring synths and thudding bass, made her feel a little closer to the civilisation they had left behind.

She traced the marker-pen line that scythed through the sketched version of the Everfree, before looking up to match the route against the road ahead.

“Up there, where that tree is—yes, okay, the oak tree then—there should be a smaller track heading right. I think that’s the one you need.”

“You think?”

“Yes, I think!” Diamond Tiara glanced back down at the map, feeling very unprepared and foolish. “The Sunset Hills have straighter roads too, for your information, and they’ve been properly mapped!”

Apple Bloom shrugged. “Yeah, they also have rocs too. Big ones.”

Diamond Tiara’s breath caught in her throat. “They do?”

“Well, that’s what Big Mac told me, but I reckon he was jus’ yankin’ my tail.” Apple Bloom chanced a quick smile. “Come on, DT, cheer up! Sure this is a bit scary, but it’s also excitin’, right?”

“Oh, yes. My heart can barely take it.” Diamond Tiara glanced up as something moved within her peripheral vision. Her eyes darted to and from the passing trees, but whatever it was—if it had been anythingat all—was now lost within the twisting purples, greens and yellows of the dense vegetation. Though she was somewhat reassured by the absence of things capable of eating them, Diamond Tiara couldn’t shake away the icy tendrils uncoiling beneath her skin.

It’s just the forest playing tricks on me, she told herself. We’ve been in here for hours and it’s getting to me a little, that’s all it is.

Apple Bloom drove the kart hard and fast into the right turn. “So what’s the scariest story you ever heard ‘bout the Everfree?”

Diamond Tiara fixed her with a steely glare as she braced herself against the dashboard. “Are you doing this on purpose?”

Apple Bloom’s earthy laugh smothered the music. “No! I was jus’ curious, ’cos we used to tell each other all kinds of stories ’bout way back when—Oh, horseapples!”

The kart skidded and slipped, and Diamond Tiara clung onto her seat as the rear wheels failed to find purchase in the soft, damp mud. The rear of the kart swung outward, as though it had been caught in the magical embrace of something that wanting to drag them deeper into the forest, far from the relative safety of the dirt track. Diamond Tiara’s body felt weightless, numb, and the start of a scream began to crawl up her throat as the wall of trees flew towards them.

But then she was suddenly sliding across her seat in the opposite direction; Apple Bloom, her hooves moving in a loose blur, had released the accelerator and was turning the steering wheel in the same direction that the kart was skidding in. Diamond Tiara felt the vibrations as the wheels of the kart found traction in the mud, and a moment later Apple Bloom was pressing her hoof down again, turning the Everfree back into a rolling panorama.

Diamond Tiara closed her eyes as her heartbeat started to return to normal. Then she looked across at Apple Bloom.

“That was… That was pretty impressive.”

“Heh, turns out you weren’t the only one who was listenin’ to Peach Fuzz back in trainin’!” Though her forelegs were trembling, the smile on Apple Bloom’s face was wild and broad. The sight of her friend looking so reckless and carefree after nearly crashing the kart made Diamond Tiara’s coat smoulder.

“Well it you had listened more often, then you would have remembered her saying to take the bends slow!” She heard the bitter snap of her voice as her anger bubbled over, and waved a hoof at the dashboard. “That cost you time, you know. How about you just stop talking for a while, and concentrate more on not driving like a total lunatic!”

“Uh… Okay…” Apple Bloom’s eyes had widened at the outburst, her smile instantly collapsing. “You’re right, I guess. Sorry”

She reached forward to turn off the music, and returned to staring quietly at the road. The pale lemon of her cheeks had darkened, and her lower lip was fixed firmly between her teeth. Diamond Tiara turned away from the crestfallen expression and sighed. She knew her friendship with Apple Bloom could be combustible, particularly when they were stuck in a confined place together for a prolonged period of time, but she thought it might have taken a little longer than a few hours for one of them to have gotten mad at the other.

Still, she found herself nurturing her anger all the same. She had told Apple Bloom to take care of the kart. She had told her multiple times, but the young mare clearly hadn't listened.

Without the steady beats of the music to keep them at bay, the sounds of the Everfree had come swiftly into focus. Diamond Tiara felt her skin crawl as she heard the wind coil mournfully between the trees, and the snap of the undergrowth and cries of unseen animals drawing close. She reached a hoof towards the volume dial, hesitated, and then retracted it.

The scariest story she had ever heard about the Everfree was that it was always shifting, in a state of constant change. Well-trodden tracks would become smothered by the undergrowth, familiar hollows and barrows turning into timberwolf dens and cockatrice nests with the passing of the sun and moon. Diamond Tiara found she had to only imagine that for a second—becoming lost among the shifting tracks, thinking she had found shelter only for the forest to turn brutally against her—and her stomach began to tighten. She clutched the map between her hooves a little harder.

Apple Bloom remained silent as the sun-dappled gloom of the Everfree whipped by, with only an occasional grunt or hiss escaping her mouth as she steered the kart along the uneven ground. Diamond Tiara watched her out of the corner of her eye. Apple Bloom’s forelegs were tense, her jaw a hard line. Her saffron eyes, usually so easy and joyful, were constantly in motion as she stared ahead. Then she shivered.

A smirk twisted Diamond Tiara’s lips. For all of her bluster, Apple Bloom was scared. All of that silly conversation about the Everfree had just been her trying to talk her way through her fear.

And I’ve been trying to drown out mine.

Diamond Tiara snorted her displeasure as she realised the truth of the matter. A few seconds passed, and then she tapped Apple Bloom on the foreleg.

“Well come on then, tell me this scary story of yours.”

“Eh?” Apple Bloom glanced across. It took a few seconds, but the smile that emerged chased away the shadows from her face, and warmed Diamond Tiara from the bottom of her hooves to the tip of her muzzle.

“Okay, well, AJ told us it the last time we went campin’ with Sweetie Belle and Rarity—” she paused, her throat bobbing once “—it was this story ’bout some kind of beast called a banshee.”

“Uh-huh.” Diamond Tiara’s eyes darted to the canopy as the startled cry of a bird pierced the air. She shuddered, trying not to dwell on how abruptly the sound had been silenced, and turned the music back up again. If she was indulging Apple Bloom, she decided, then she could indulge herself at the same time.

Apple Bloom hadn’t noticed. She was back to her usual chattering self, a foreleg gesturing as she recounted the story with a smile in her voice.

“So this banshee usually lives out in a cave deep in the Everfree, right? But it’s s’posed to appear when a loved one dies.”

“How lovely.” Diamond Tiara kept her eyes on the map. “Where is it supposed to appear, then?”

“I dunno, like, in the family home or somethin’?” Apple Bloom waved a dismissive hoof. “It’s not important. Anyway, it has this real ferocious scream when it arrives. It’s s’posed to sound like—”

A bestial screech ripped through the forest air, drowning out the sound of Apple Bloom, the music, everything. The pitch of it rose and fell in waves, as though made by a pack of wolves competing in some strange, savage choir, and the sudden intensity of it chilled Diamond Tiara to the core. Her wide eyes met Apple Bloom’s, her friend gripping the steering wheel so tightly in her hooves that it looked at risk of being pulled free.

“W—Was that..?”

Apple Bloom had turned pale. “H—How would I know? It was AJ’s story!”

A loud crack rang out from the canopy above. Looking up, Diamond Tiara felt her stomach contract at the sight of the top of one of the trees breaking—no, exploding—apart. Pieces of wood bloomed across the air, small splinters descending like rainfall around larger, heavier, chunks, which spun as they fell towards the kart.

“Look out!” she whinnied, pointing a hoof as thick slabs of wood began to smash around them. Apple Bloom’s eyes were wide with terror, but she moved the wheel smoothly between her hooves, and the kart began to dip and curl around the fallen debris.

The sound of another tree exploding filled the air, and mud splashed against Diamond Tiara’s face as the fragmented wood knifed into the ground. She wiped a hoof across her eyes, her ears swivelling at a third, then a fourth crack. She tried tracking the descent of the larger pieces, but everything was moving too fast, and Apple Bloom’s evasive maneuvers kept throwing her about the kart like a ragdoll.

As she pulled herself up for what felt like the hundredth time, Diamond Tiara noticed them: Just ahead of the kart, a line of wooden shards had become embedded in the ground like broken teeth, effectively blocking the track. Her heart pounding, she glanced at where the tangled and dense forest floor was attempting to reclaim the pony-made track, and pointed a hoof.

“There! To your right! I think you can get round them if you pull off the track!”

She was thrown back across her seat as Apple Bloom complied, crunching the gear up and down as she attempted to curl the kart around the outside of the shards. The wooden teeth blurred past, but Diamond Tiara heard a sickening crunch as Apple Bloom tried to manoeuvre the kart back onto the track. Both ponies were thrown forward against the dashboard as the speed of the kart suddenly halved.

“What in the hay is goin’ on?” Apple Bloom cried, jamming her hoof down on the accelerator. The kart only groaned in response.

I don’t know, I—” The rest of the sentence became stuck in Diamond Tiara’s throat as movement above caught her eye. She glanced up, and the terrible sensation that had been nestling in the pit of her stomach began to spread outward.

It was darting in and out of the canopy with ease, a six-legged horse flying—no, cantering—through the air. It was long and slender, with a body that looked as though it had been sculpted from moss and lichen, and across which ran lengths of strange, silvery symbols. They didn’t look entirely dissimilar from the one on the flank of Apple Bloom’s friend Zecora, from what Diamond Tiara could remember, and they seemed to catch and reflect the weak sunlight as the creature moved. Around its head, some kind of large, uneven ring was rotating like the hands of a clock, and streams of roiling cloud were falling away from its tail.

As the creature darted ahead, its tail slapped against a tree, which instantly shattered as the trailing clouds enveloped it. Turning its head, narrow eyes glowed like ill suns as they tracked the movement of the kart.

Diamond Tiara moved her mouth soundlessly, sweat breaking out across her coat. Then she forced her eyes shut and, with the fearful spell that had overcome her broken, gripped Apple Bloom’s foreleg with both hooves.

“D—Drive!” She gasped. “Drive Faster, AB! Faster!”

As she looked up, Apple Bloom lost what little colour she had left on her face. She slammed her hoof down, and again, but the speed of the kart failed to increase. On the dashboard, the seconds continued to tick down.

The six-legged horse changed its course then, legs pressed tight against its body as it knifed down like a fish through water. It’s nostrils were flaring, its mouth falling open as another terrible roar rumbled free. Flying towards them, barely a meter above the ground, the creature veered to one side at the last second, disappearing with a howl into the thick woodland to the side of the track.

Diamond Tiara’s eyes followed it until it had vanished from sight. She waited a few moments, expecting it to reappear, before sinking back into her seat and drawing in ragged gasps of humid Everfree air. Beside her, Apple Bloom was shaking as she pumped her hoof against the accelerator again and again.

“T—That sure was… somethin’, huh?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Diamond Tiara caught a remnant of the creature’s scent in the breeze—she couldn’t place what it was exactly, but it made her feel as though the world was ending. She shuddered, her lungs aching. “I don’t know if I even want to think about it.”

“Gotcha, sure.” Apple Bloom replied, sounding relieved. Her eyes dropped to the dashboard, and colour returned to her cheeks. “Well maybe you could think about what we can do to get this kart workin’ properly again. Somethin’s stoppin’ it from goin’ any faster, and we’re losin’ time.”

“Right. G—Good idea.” Diamond Tiara bobbed her head, pleased to have something to do to take her thoughts away from the monster with the terrible eyes. She forced her numb body into action, her ears tilting one way and another as as she tried to hone in on where the unhealthy sounds were coming from.

She was soon guided to the rear of the kart. Holding onto her seat, Diamond Tiara leaned over it and peered at the rear wheel. A flutter of excitement suppressed her earlier dread as she noticed a large, thick branch wedged inside the wheel-arch. The wheel itself was pressing against it and splintering as it rotated; it didn’t take a genius to work out that the friction was the probable cause behind their loss of speed.

“Hang on a moment,” she shouted over her shoulder. Holding onto her seat with one hoof, she stretched out towards the trapped branch with the other. “I think I found the problem.”

That was the moment when a nearby tree exploded, and Diamond Tiara’s vision was consumed by snapping moss-covered jaws and baleful, yellow eyes.