Icaron's Vignettes Vol. 1

Just where were they… they had to be around her someplace. Mercury Shine had seen them a week before on a trot through the Everfree; a special herb that only grew in the heart of the forest, far away from the magic of pony-folk. They had a plethora of unique alchemical applications, the perfect reagent to have on hoof in her stores.

She casts about with her hooves, careful not to disturb any dangerous plants so deep in the forest, focusing intently and looking for the tiny leafed plant- scarce any bigger than a clover, as she recalled. Her forehoof brushed back and forth, sweeping plants and weeds away in her search- but strangely she hits a chunk of stone with a clack against the hard of her hoof.

The mare blinks, turning her gaze upward to investigate what she had walked into in her obliviousness, nearly jumping out of her skin when her eyes meet the shimmering rubies of a vicious snake!

“W-wah!” She yelps, stumbling back before she realizes it was only an unusually lifelike statue of that serpent… beautiful in jade, with two marvelous gems set into its eyes that seemed to glow with a radiant hue in the light. Her eyes locked in with those gems… how curious they looked, why would such a thing be out here she wondered.

Her mind wanders, but seems to come back to the rubies, the glow brighter and brighter, glittering now as she can’t look away. The glow begins to seep forth from the serpent, flickering out in living filaments that reach out, spiraling through the air towards her and forming similar filaments around her, twisting and turning like the tips of a flame.

She twitches a little, eyes stuck on the serpent as she feels a strange coolness creep up over her hind hooves and tail tip, followed by a sensation of squeezing, as if something had grabbed her in a powerful grip. It crawled upward, over her heels and onto her rump, a stiff compacting force followed closely by a coarse gravelly sound, unnerving as she felt a numb prickle in all the affected areas.

Something wasn’t right… She thinks, eyes twitching as she looked at the rubies. Something wasn’t right!

The mare blinks once, twice, shaking her head as she tries to get it out of her mind.

“G-gah… what is… this…” She winces, turning her gaze upward and out of the view of the serpent, freeing her mind from whatever force had kept her paralyzed in its view. She turns her head back, craning to see what was going on…

Mercury Shine’s mind turns to shock, seeing the extent of the magicks cast upon her by the vexatious artefact before her… from hind hoof up over her rump her soft flesh had been ossified, subsumed beneath a surface of hard, shiny jade- just like the serpent!

She tries quickly to turn herself and get away, but the weight of her rear set in stone was too great for her to do any more than drag herself an inch or two, hind hooves digging into the soft soil, perfectly rigid- a feeling that was spreading. She shivers as her entire spine locks into rigid form as the stone advances over her belly and chest, squeezing her breath with its weight. It felt like a hundred books were stacked upon her, pressing down and from all sides, her breathing laborious and constrained in the stone shell.

The mare reaches a hoof out in another attempt to pull herself out of the shimmering aura of the artefact, but is forced to watch and listen as the dense stony texture spreads down over her forehooves, trapping her entire form beneath her head in a rigid and statuesque form. In a last effort to avert the crisis she channels energies into her horn, perhaps to shatter the serpent and save herself, but her aura falters and fizzes, the tip of her horn had turned to jade, blocking her magic.

There truly seemed no way out…

“A-aah gmnnph…” She gulps and winces as the crackling stone creeps up over her jaw, her head frozen now in its position, looking toward the terrible serpent that cast this curse upon her. Her words were garbled and stuck, the stone penetrating deep into her core and sealing away her voice and breath. The mare’s eyes dart back and forth rapidly from her rigid form, looking for anyone or anything that might help… but to no avail. Nopony knew she was out here, and nopony just wandered so far in the wood…

In a moment her eyes too went still, muscles turned jade, locking her view forward in the rough direction of the serpent. Her ears flicked, the last movements she could make before they twitched no more- becoming stone to match the rest of her new form.

She felt as though she had been packed in solid lead, or cast into the crushing depths of the sea as the stone settled in and around her, turning denser and denser, crackles and pops ringing and echoing about inside her as the magick finalized.

The sensation of squeezing turned to a muted numbness, leaving her set upon the spot where she had stood, still and quiet.

Her view was preserved, somehow… as was her mind… a dulled sense of hearing and touch, she was more or less all there, albeit stuck within an inanimate form.

Mercury Shine was alone now…

Alone with her thoughts.

Alone to contemplate her fate here in the Everfree Forest.

She didn’t know how long it had been, the days seemed to run together. Months at least… perhaps longer. Here in the depth of the forest it’s fairly dark at all hours, making it difficult to tell time on a good day. In the light she watched the plants around her sway in the breeze, listened to the drip of the quiet rain, and the calls of the birds echoing in the trees. In the dark she watched the blackness, eyes ever open, the occasional glimpse of movement or misty revenants in the night no longer causing panic or fear. Nothing in the forest bothered her, for she was merely an object of stone, a part of the very forest now.

The weight of her form had steadily caused her to tilt in the soft ground of the mucky forest, listing sharply to one side. She might have tipped over had she not also partially sunk into the ground, her forehoof beneath the dirt anchoring her in place. Small plants had grown up around her, the clearing closing in from when she first entered… she could feel the weight of dirt and moss built up upon her back, and the squeeze of a thick flowing creeper which sprouted and twisted all around her like a tangling rope.

The serpent that had cast her into this state lay nearby, steadily becoming enshrouded more and more in plants. She hoped that it would vanish, maybe sink into the ground and leave her sight, she had grown weary of looking at the thing- and worried that it would trap anyone that ever came and found her.

If somepony ever came to find her, that was…

… before the forest claims her completely.

...

It was too late now.

Mercury had been petrified for longer than she could remember, the days and nights flying past in her mind's eye like the pages of a rapidly flipped book. With each coming and departing of the sun, the thick swampy mire upon which she rested sucked her lower and lower, the action of the roots and vines that grew all around speeding the process until the very swamp of Everfree itself swallowed the stone mare up, sinking her into pure and utter darkness. All that remained was the chilled sensation of the mud and the dense, crushing weight of the ground that closed in around her.

All was black... and yet she remained, her thoughts forever entrapped in this unyielding prison of jade.

As time ticked on in the depths of the swamp, she slipped further and further into the blackness until her mind send her into a restful torpor, incapable of anything else.

And there she'd remain.