Distant Bellsby Casketbase77Chapters*Snort*Foderleverans ExtraordinaireDen Förbannad Breezie*Snort**Snort* As was routine for her self-taught teleports, a cloud of burnt sienna afterglow lingered in front of River Song’s eyes. She snorted to clear it and when she saw where she’d ended up, she snorted again, this time in agitation. This didn’t look like her secret cloister. Her cloister was a dry, small cave in the side of Peril Peak, accessible only by teleportation. The ugly swamp in which she was standing looked wide and open enough to house all the sludge in Equestria. It certainly smelled like that was its function. River Song felt lightheaded, and not just because of her sudden altitude change. Pulling a cloven hoof out of the mud she was standing in, River Song ran its sensitive digits over her forehead, confirming the worst: Her antler was gone, no doubt burned off at the perennially weakened base and lying abandoned on the grass back in Kirin Hollow. Brilliant. That’s what she got for spellcasting during shedding season. With nowhere to go but forward, River Song trudged through the muck in what she hoped was in the direction of drier land. Dour though her mood was, the quiet, rhythmic squelch of River Song’s hoofsteps began to soothe her. It certainly was quiet out here. She stopped moving. Now it was silent out here. The antler-bereft Kirin closed her eyes and tilted her head back in stoic bliss. Darkness. Silence. She hadn’t experienced real peace and calm in so long. Not since before… before... River Song snorted a third time, reopening her eyes and continuing to navigate the swamp. Since before the Return. That was… how many moons ago? A lot, that was for sure. River Song had only been a foal at the time, not old enough to really understand why everykirin else was suddenly making raucous noises with their mouths and distorting their faces in such disturbing ways. Upon discovering she too was affected by this frightening new curse, River Song had gone full Nirik violently and immediately. So much noise, so much stimulation. None of which she’d ever experienced before or understood in the vaguest sense. According to chief Rain Shine, it took literal days to calm River Song down and get back to her senses. River Song reckoned that was about right. She remembered that lapse of consciousness very well. Or rather, she remembered the experience of not remembering. More than remembered, actually: she cherished it. Having come of age in a world of stoicism, River Song‘s biggest passion was passionlessness. Her favorite thoughts were muted ones. Her favorite company was solitude. And her favorite emotion… River Song attempted to snort again, but instead it came out as a sniffle. Her favorite emotion was none at all. But that state of mind had been cut away from her long ago. River Song hadn’t grown up like this, with these awful, volatile things called ‘feelings’ inside of her. They’d just been foisted on her the day of the Return, channeled through a mug of accursed tea she’d been too young to say no to. More than the changes in those around her, it was the changes inside River Song’s own mind that she had never ever gotten used to. Things she’d never minded as a foal now clenched her stomach and wobbled her knees. The width of this swamp, for example. The current darkening of the sky. The dirty wetness clinging to her hooves. She missed her cloister dearly. Whenever the laughter or shouting of the other Kirin got too much for her (which was often) she’d poof there to recollect. It was the only spell she knew. The only spell she needed. The nub where River Song’s antler had once been throbbed dully. Now her spell had been taken away from her too. A tightness was gripping River Song’s throat from the inside, which she recognized as sadness. She stopped walking again and looked back up at the sky. Stars were just beginning to fade into view. “Nothing in me is good,” she croaked, her voice thick and gravelly from lack of use. “I want the nothing back. Where did it go?” The uncaring sky didn’t answer. So very few Kirin ever talked about why or how things were silent and unfeeling before the Return, and because it took years for River Song to figure out how her own voice worked, she missed her immediate opportunity to ask. The best she gleaned (once she understood that the utterances everykirin was making were actually a form of language) was that covering oneself in water was the key. In the weeks after the Return she was often found swimming desperate laps in the Hollow’s watering hole, much to the amusement of her elders. The swim sessions didn’t end up fixing her, but it did give the others the idea to name her River Song after the helpless, malformed bleating that escaped her tiny lungs as she dogpaddled in circles. A belated name for a foal born into a world once silent. No doubt they all thought it was adorable. River Song did not, but by the time she’d learned to form words of her own it was too late to protest. She’d been named, and therefore permanently tethered to this world of noise. There was no going back for her. Only the brief breaks she took in her cloister before jetting back to the others once they started to notice she was gone. But there was no jetting back this time. Faust alone knew where in Equestria her antlerless teleport had dumped her. Was this miserable bog even in Equestria? Damn shedding season. Damn it to Tartarus. River Song hung her head. All she’d ever wanted, from the moment she gained the ability to want was for water to bring quiet and unfeelingness back to her life. Now, with her legs numb from cold mud and her heart hardened by loneliness, River Song regretted that she’d finally gotten her wish. Despair, anger, and bitterness were convalescing into a physical change. River Song’s nub sparked dangerously and her coat began to darken. Heat built, the type of heat that was so hot it looped back around to feeling cold again, like water from a hot spring. River Song was losing herself, just like she had before that tantrum she threw in response to the Return. But this time, nokirin would be around to diffuse her. She would let go and drift unfeeling through her mind while her altered, primal body stormed around forever, leveling everything in its path- ”Hallo down there, shaggy leetle pony.” Startled back to her senses, River Song looked up. For a moment, she thought two stars from the sky had actually spoken in a tiny voice and were presently drifting out of the aether towards her. Once her eyes adjusted however, she saw something even stranger: a minuscule pixie-like creature whose light-tipped antennae were reflecting off a pair of delicate, gossamer wings. Whatever the creature was, it’s speech had a tone and volume that didn’t hurt River Song’s ears. She’d never experienced that before. ”Windfall hazt been flying over water for many hours and izt tired. May he land on you?” Without any reason to say no, River Song nodded her consent. The pixie-thing lighted down on her forehead, possibly even right on her vacant antler dock, though he was so weightless River Song couldn’t be sure. ”Apologies for Windfall’s speech. Breezie tongues, zey find Ponish words slippery to say. This Breezie izt Windfall, as said already. Who is shaggy pony?” River Song snorted. ”Zat, Windfall cannot pronounce.” “River Song,” the Kirin rumbled painfully. Then she began trudging again. The little pixie, or Breezie, he was apparently called, let out a barely audible squeak of surprise as the sudden air resistance buffeted his tiny body. ”Where izt we going?” River Song snorted. ”Will you answer none more of Windfall’s questions?” River Song snorted again. Then she slowed down in case the Breezie wanted to flap his oversized wings and take off. But Windfall did not take off. Instead he reclined, seemingly settled in to ponder River Song's non-responses. The two of them traveled several additional leagues of swamp before River Song's diminutive passenger piped up again. ”You are outcast,” he eventually deduced. “Defiant stray. Such is clear because ze shell on your back izt not nearly as hard as ze shell ‘round your heart.” Despite herself, River Song smiled inwardly at the eccentric little sprite’s bouncy, flutey meanderings. Never had she ever wanted to hear somecreature continue talking rather than stop. ”Windfall on other hoof, he used to be opposite: Wide-eyed, curious softie. Bad mix. Got him into trouble it did, it did.” The Breezie audibly inhaled before letting a hint of scornful bravado season his words. ”But Windfall recalls old Diamond Dog idiom: Ze hunting sense gets stronger when starving. It means zey find treasures when zey need zem. And Windfall’s own sense has him on trail of his own treasure. He learned of it from quiet cave, see? Quiet cave zat whispered izt’s promises to him, and him only.” River Song mulled over Windfall’s riddles as she walked. Quiet caves and promises. Was he talking about her cloister? Or… River Song’s pulse quickened at a new thought: did Windfall have a cloister of his own? Was he… was he a dreamer like she was? River Song’s squelching steps were at last giving way to thumps, which meant they were making progress onto more hospitable land. If feeling ever returned to River Song’s legs, she was certain they would be smarting from exertion. To recline against a welcoming tree and sleep. That was her strongest desire at the moment. And while it was too dark to be sure, the sprawl of forest outskirts appeared to loom in front of them. She and her cryptic companion seemed to be leaving the swamp behind them, in more ways than one. ”Pony with 'Song' in her name must like music,” Windfall ruminated aloud. ”Does she sing?” River Song’s responsorial snort was so vehement that it nearly shook Windfall off his perch. ”Ojdå! No sing, understood. Instruments, then?” River Song nearly flinched, but stopped herself and kept walking. It was true that, amid all the awful, endless cacophony with which the Return polluted her life, instrumental music was the sound that bothered her the least. Even before the Return, River Song had sometimes contented herself by sitting alone and tapping her forehooves together rhythmically. Her percussive pastimes weren’t symphonies by even the most generous measure, but they were her own tempos and she was proud of them. She took pride in her small, occasional flourishes that dotted the yawning hush that blanketed her world. They were her odes to a life of order and sense. If River Song knew how, she would reset the clock to make everything quiet enough that she could sit and do those hoof taps again. She’d reset it all in a heartbeat. She of course hadn’t the first clue where she’d acquire the power to do so, but just imagining it made the antlerless Kirin’s stony heart beat just a little bit faster. ”A-ha! Windfall sees repressed smile on friend’s muzzle. He reads other creatures like books!” River Song was acutely aware of a tickle on her left ear as Windfall drifted down to her shoulder. There she saw the Breezie in profile for the first time: his grey body, this wispy shock of orange hair that made up his mane and tail, and most of all those tiny but vivid eyes that seemed far too fiery and fierce for the tiny waif-like body that housed them. ”Last question, Windfall promises: Since River Song smiles at ze topic of instruments, has... hee hee! Has River Song ever heard of... ’Bewitching Bell‘?” Author's Note "I've been around for all these years... I hear the sound of Distant Bells..." Leprous Foderleverans ExtraordinaireWindfall flittered over the treetops, scanning the landscape for signs of civilization. Or at the very least, a manageable route out of the sprawling forest he and River Song had gotten themselves lost in. Despite being bookish and out of shape, Windfall was actually a decently fast flier who really should have joined in on more Foderleverans games when he was younger. Getting from one end of the glade to the other without being pinned down was certainly something he felt he could’ve managed. However, speed was only half of the sport. Windfall was never too keen on the accompanying courier aspect. Tossing seeds into the other teams goal was how points were scored in Foderleverans, and every member of both teams carried cargo corresponding to their formation position. Strikers carried buttercup seeds, the lightest loads available and whose delivery netted the fewest points. Sweepers carried mid-value cargo: either mustard pips or peppercorn, depending on whether their team was home or away. And the Swampers, the two brawniest Breezies on the entire field, each carried a mammoth sunflower bud so heavy that most recreational players in that position had to trek instead of fly. The name ‘Swamper’ came both from the terrain they braved and from the dogpile tactics usually required to bring a Breezie like that down. Leon Perennial, better known as “The Flower Tiger,” was the most famous Swamper in history for his awe-inspiring ability to actually get airborne with his load as he drove down the field towards the goal. A young Windfall actually once got to see the aging Leon in action during the latter’s waning years of relevance. Granted, this was after those scandalous accusations came out that Leon’s unmatched strength and endurance came from him secretly juicing with Parasprite hormones, so not many Breezies in the stands were cheering for him during that game. Windfall certainly cheered though, because Leon was the best. Period. How he had achieved the top spot didn’t matter, only that his resulting performance was overwhelming. Seeing the disgraced Flower Tiger ignore the boos to keep on competing and winning the same way he always had taught larval Windfall a valuable lesson: That there was absolutely no point in playing a role unless you were determined to be the greatest at it. To Tartarus with the hit you took to your body or reputation. That was the true reason Windfall had never become a Foderleverans player: The Flower Tiger already definitely conquered that particular field. Windfall instead devoted himself to his poetry passion, scouring every text in the village library for techniques that his predecessors had shrank away from. That was what led him to eventually explore Abyssal Cuneiform. A sudden stiff breeze buffeted Windfall along the treetops. He pumped his gossamer wings defiantly and fought to right himself. Now that Windfall had let a full night go by to digest being förbannad, he’d begun to feel a bit like a Flower Tiger himself. That is, just like old Leon, Windfall was a visionary shunned by the small-minded masses for daring to believe his limits were made to be shattered. And to those who thought Parasprite juicing or sacrilegious sonnets were shocking displays of un-Breezie-ness, just wait until Windfall got his feelers on Grogar’s Bewitching Bell. Windfall beat his wings harder. Just wait. The gust was proving too much to handle, so landing to let it pass was his only option. Lighting down on a particularly high treetop to catch his breath, Windfall draped his wings below his perch so he had a full 360 degree view of the horizon. This forest seemed to stretch dauntingly and endlessly onward in all directions, even more than the swamp had yesterday. Or maybe the biomes were actually average sized and Windfall’s sense of scale was way off. The world outside of his village’s glade was far larger than he could have ever imagined, after all. How was he going to find the Bewitching Bell if he couldn’t first find a pony settlement where he could rest safely before asking around for leads? Windfall shook his head to clear his cluttered thoughts. He would not allow any moments of self doubt on this journey, especially not so early on. After all, Windfall had accomplished plenty in the past twelve hours that he could be proud of. First he’d found and memorized the Book of the Bell. Then he recruited River Song, that sad-faced, dust-covered pony with the shaggy mane. Sure she wasn’t much of a talker, but she had enthusiastically nodded with big, enraptured eyes as Windfall filibustered about his plans. Clearly River Song was a visionary in her own right, with an unspoken but solid idea of what to do once she too was empowered with infernal magic. This excited Windfall. The two of them were kindred spirits, he was sure, sick to death of being tossed around by fate and determined to seize the reins together. Windfall sneezed, something he’d been doing all morning. River Song’s aforementioned dustiness had actually been polluting his pollination pockets somewhat. That nub on her forehead especially had been covered with thick, orangish-brown chalk when he’d landed on it. Chalk that seemed to cling to whatever touched it. Were all ponies so contagiously dirty? Windfall doubted it, but didn’t know enough about any species other than his own to be sure. Perhaps there was a symbolism to it all. Some sort of ritualistic expression of their mutual quest-driven bond between Breezie and whatever pony subspecies River Song happened to be. Most likely there wasn’t anything to it of course, but Windfall couldn’t help but indulge his poetic fancies. The old verses he quilled may have been taken away and destroyed, but already there were new, unwritten ones stirring within him. Emboldened, Windfall pumped his wings and elevated himself high above the trees, searching for a better vantage point to look for towns. He rose higher into the sky than he ever had before, possibly higher than any Breezie had voluntarily gone before, and when the tips of his antennae lightly brushed the underside of a passing cloud, he flipped around and planted his limbs in the ephemeral puff. There he paused upside-down and suspended, like a butterfly beneath a branch. Windfall’s heart was hammering and he had to swallow the bile that was involuntarily rising in his throat. His people were still very much prey animals, bullwhipped and browbeaten by the same agoraphobia and flighty instincts that had kept their ancestors alive hundreds of generations ago. But Windfall refused to bow to the bothersome, obsolete alarms. He wasn’t prey anymore. He’d left that part of himself behind when he flitted out of that cave yesterday. This Breezie had become a hunter. A predator. His spot would soon be at the top of the food chain, not the bottom. Deep focusing his eyes, Windfall scanned the land below with renewed vigor. Then he let out a barely audible squeak of excitement when at last he found what he was looking for: A town. The cluster of thatched-roof houses weren’t much to look at, especially next to the gaudy purple castle that no doubt belonged to their ruler, but aesthetics hardly mattered right now. All that mattered was that the settlement was close. Right outside of the forest, actually. It was going to be a good day. Windfall could tell. Windfall let go of the cloud and drifted leisurely down, eager to report to River Song so they could get moving. No doubt she was still right where she’d been when he left: sound asleep under that willow. Windfall found the forest canopy far more difficult to enter from above than it had been to exit from below, but after using the lift from his wings and the grip from all four of his tarsi, he managed to fold back a rather large leaf so he could peer in. A surprised robin peered out. Then the bird nipped at Windfall’s right forewing, ripping nearly a third of it off at the midsection and leaving another third in gruesome tatters. The sound of crinkling membrane being swallowed was eclipsed by Windfall’s panicked screech of fear and pain. ”Aaaaugh!” The robin cocked its head at the soft, high pitched noise emitted by the prey that had just stumbled across its path. Then it nipped again, this time managing to tear off a tuft of orange hair and one antenna with it. ”Aaaauuugh!!” Sense of balance immediately and utterly ruined by the traumatic loss of his precious feeler, Windfall pitched forward through the hole in the canopy and freefell down to the forest floor, spiraling like a dead and withered leaf the whole way. The robin swooped down to nip a third time, but broke off to circle indignantly as Windfall gave a great stomach emptying heave, trailing spittle-coated streamers of the previous day’s undigested nectar behind him as he plummeted. The shredded remains of Windfall’s ravaged forewing buckled underneath him as he landed on his side, but that ripple of fresh agony was enough to shock him back to most of his senses. A million nanoscopic needles jabbed through the exposed nerve endings in the blunted stump of what used to be Windfall’s left antenna, but through that haze of unfiltered extrasensory feedback, the Breezie’s bulging bleary eyeballs caught sight of potential safe haven under the cap of a nearby mushroom. Every fanciful meandering of the previous few minutes were gone from Windfall’s mind, smothered by primal panic and blistering pain. There was only room for gut responses now. Get to cover. Get out of the open. His head too flooded with vertigo to even attempt to stand, Windfall desperately writhed on his belly towards the mushroom, dragging the ruined remains of his wing behind him. The pursuant robin landed on the ground nearby then hopped quizzically closer to observe its prey thrashing feebly around in the dirt. Windfall finally got under the mushroom and wrapped his tiny limbs around its stalk, managing to drag his soggy self to sitting position. The robin meanwhile continued hopping, plumage ruffled in frustration as it made laps around Windfall’s meager shelter, seemingly searching for a good angle to tear another piece off of the traumatized insect, but finding no approach it deemed suitable. The stalk was clammy and cold, but it still took all of Windfall’s willpower to pry a forelimb away and wipe some residual vomit off his chin. His forelimb snapped back immediately afterwards, hugging the stalk like it was the stuffed spidersilk Ursa that used to keep him calm as a larva. Windfall had read enough medical texts to know his injuries were causing him to go into neurogenic shock. The fact his arthropodic race was even capable of such a mammalian response mechanism had actually fascinated the Canterlot School of Biology for decades, but understandably not much research had been done due to nopony knowing any ethical way to induce trauma in another sapient- The robin gave a few thunderous test pecks on the mushroom’s cap, jolting Windfall out of his drifting delirium. He had to do something. He had to seize initiative before any more of him was torn off and eaten. But what could he do? Fight or flight were the only options, and Windfall was equipped for neither. Even with two antennae, Breezies weren’t exactly built for brawling, and with a wing as lacerated as his, Windfall was as grounded as a… as a... As a Swamper. A pulse of steely defiance surged from the depths of Windfall’s soul. He didn’t have the might of Grogar (not yet at least), but he did have the imaginary resolve of the Foderleverans player he never ended up becoming. Such sudden strength was of course just mortal terror mixed with hysteria, and maybe somewhere in his tiny overclocked brain Windfall was aware of that, but this wasn’t the type of encounter a former poet who’d just been crippled for life was going to survive. Only a demigod among Breezies could win a fight with a bird. And fortunately for Windfall, a demigod was exactly whom he was channeling right now. “Come at the Flower Tiger again and see what happens to you!” Windfall dared uproariously in his native tongue. He staggered out from under the mushroom, sweating bullets and somehow still standing despite swaying worse than that time he’d knocked back too many Honey Hops at a Summer Sun Celebration. Still perched, the robin stared blankly down at its snarling prey. “You rapacious, knemidocoptes-infested, feathered vermin…” The robin pecked without warning. “I am NOT DYING BY YOUR BEAK!!” An all-consuming, boiling heat surged within Windfall’s injured body as he dodged the robin’s jab, seized some neck feathers in his feeble grip, and affixed himself tenaciously to the bird’s front. The robin’s response was to puff up its plumage and give a full body shake. Windfall clung tight and avoided being dislodged, but fear was starting to catch back up to him. What in Tartarus was he doing?? The robin flapped in frustration before belly flopping onto the forest floor, bending Windfall’s ruined wing at a horrible angle and causing him to yelp as he let go. Sprawled on his back and helpless, Windfall could see his failed attempt at grappling did nothing to the robin other than rub some of that thick orange dust off his own body and onto his better’s chest. Windfall sneezed. Disgraceful. This aspiring Bell weidler was about to be pecked apart by a mindless animal, and all he’d managed to do to his attacker was deliver a smudge of dirt that wasn’t even originally his. The robin chirped, then nipped right as Windfall sneezed again. Raw magic sparks shot from the stump of a ruined antenna, made contact with a smear of Kirin antler dust, and with a booming burst of burnt sienna, the robin was gone. Spent teleportation powder drifted lazily down onto Windfall like ashes from a fire. He continued to lay where he was, staring fisheyed and dumbfounded at the unmoving lattice of branches above him. Then with a vivacity that was almost too much for his mutilated state, he sprang up and pumped his forelimb in the air, battered but victorious. Breezie idioms weren’t exactly built for taunting, but historical Foderleverans players had produced a few long standing insults worth invoking right now. “Skol! Go curl your mate’s feelers, stamenbrain! You don’t have the coxas to pin a Swamper!” Windfall tossed back his head and laughed quite mightily for someone his size. Then he glanced around and noticed, to his utter joy, that he was airborne and hovering. Even down half a wing and a whole antenna, there was enough of him left to keep flying after all. And as long as he could move, the Bewitching Bell was within reach. All the same though, Windfall considered as he flapped forward, he wasn’t too keen on having any more body parts torn off of him. Things like pain and debilitation wouldn’t matter after he became a god, but they certainly would on the journey there. Compelled by curiosity, Windfall flexed his amputated antenna and confirmed he could indeed shoot sparks from the stump on command. He glanced down at his forelimbs to see they still had a little bit of that lifesaving magic powder in their pollen pockets. Windfall didn’t exactly know what this dust was, but he knew how to apply and detonate it now. That was something. He reckoned there was enough left to fend off any other beasties that picked a fight with him while he made way back to River Song. And when he did get back to her, he was definitely going to restock. Author's Note Tried to return to the contest’s prompts with this chapter by developing Breezie culture a little more. Hopefully it meshed well with the action and character building. Den Förbannad BreezieWindfall threw his head back and cursed pitifully at the uncaring sky. “Tusan också! Också!” Windfall was blaspheming for all he was worth, but Breezie lungs weren’t exactly built for bellowing. Had there been any other creature in the desolate swamp with Windfall to hear his cries of despair, they might have confused it with a mosquito’s buzz. “Jävla det till helvete,” he whispered despairingly as he lighted down on a cattail and wrapped his frail forelegs around himself miserably. “Helvete, helvete, helvete...” Windfall had remained stoic when the village presiders put him to a förbannad vote. He’d stayed silent when each presider reached into their respective satchels and tossed an offering of colored pollen to indicate their respective judgement: yellow for innocent, red for guilty. He’d even bowed his head in quiet acceptance when he saw there had not been a single fleck of yellow among them. The vote was unanimous. He was förbannad. Banished. Only after the portal to the village closed behind him, leaving Windfall alone in this endless, terrifying swamp, did his facade finally break. The outcast had flittered in furious circles aimlessly for minutes on end. He’d cursed and raged and raged and cursed, but Breezie wings weren’t exactly built for physical exertion. Before long he was exhausted and had to land. Puny and forlorn perched on this lonely cattail, Windfall knew he should feel guilt or regret, but instead he felt something else. Something the Breezie language didn’t have a word for. But the Ponish language did. And while Windfall didn’t know much Ponish, he knew the word for what he felt right now. “Betrayed,” his thin, flute-like voice whistled through the reeds around him. “Windfall izt been betrayed.” It was ironic that the friend who’d taught Windfall the term “betrayal” and so many other Ponish concepts was the one who’d ultimately demonstrated it to him. Windfall had gone his whole life not sharing his poetry notebook with anyone, but Seabreeze had seemed like a kindred spirit. Seabreeze dabbled in Ponish. Seabreeze would cuss or insult if the situation demanded it. Seabreeze seemed to appreciate all forms of speaking, not just the narrow, underdeveloped semantics of Breezen. Windfall had shown his poems to Seabreeze because he thought the latter would see past the surface, would appreciate the artistic contrast of penning loving descriptions of life and nature in Abyssal Cuneiform, the language of Dark Magic and ancient occult scriptures. Because using black speech to write beautiful verses was proof that all words were inherently neutral, was it not? Seabreeze was unafraid to use gentle languages to communicate anger, so he would certainly respect Windfall being unafraid to express spirituality through diabolical script, right? Wrong. Seabreeze had been disgusted by the notebook. He immediately informed the village’s presiders, and the poems were confiscated. Windfall initially held onto some hope that the subject matter of his verses would exonerate him, but when the presiders reached Windfall’s sonnet praising the bravery of the Pollen Pilgrims (Breezies who braved the wilds beyond the village to gather supplies), he knew he was sunk. Rendered in Abyssal Cuneiform, the sonnet could be arbitrarily interpreted as a war march, and the author could be labeled as a dangerous fanatic. To call a Breezie “dangerous” was of course laughable. One would sooner find an unfriendly pony or a peaceful dragon than a Breezie with a mentality twisted enough to wish harm on anyone. And in the extremely rare cases a Breezie did exhibit troubled behavior, well, a förbannad vote could take care of that. It had certainly taken care of poor Windfall. The presiders hadn’t even let him take his precious poems with him through the portal and now here he sat, with nothing left in the world but resentment. Interrupting Windfall’s thoughts, a swollen mud bubble burst near his cattail perch. The resulting gust sent him spinning away deeper into the swamp, trailing a fresh string of profanities behind. Breezie reflexes weren’t exactly built for snap decision making, but Windfall still struggled to right himself because he knew plunging into the muck and drowning would be a terrible way to go. A flat stone slab flashed in Windfall's periphery as he tumbled, and with some maneuvering managed to intentionally crashland on top of it. Too small and weightless to be injured by the fall, Windfall got to standing position and looked curiously up at the solid mass he’d been lucky enough to encounter way out here. In front of Windfall loomed an ominous stone structure halfway between a cave and a sculpture of a ram’s head. It looked like it hadn’t been inhabited in along time. A very long time. Biting his lip, Windfall glanced around, trying to discern whether it was getting darker out or it was just the structure’s shadow on him. Either way, now that Windfall had gotten all the thought-clouding anger out of his system, he grudgingly needed to start thinking seriously about his own survival. The sun would set soon, and with the dark came predators. Breezies were slow fliers with no natural defenses, which meant everywhere outside their magically sealed villages were extreme danger zones. It also meant Pollen Pilgrims were endlessly respected for their bravery and that being förbannad was generally accepted as a death sentence. Windfall shook his head to clear his thoughts. He certainly didn’t have a village anymore (thanks Seabreeze, you judgmental hypocrite), but he did have this cave. And forbidding as it was, shelter was shelter. At least its jagged, unwelcoming appearance matched Windfall’s mood. Flitting up into the air again, he headed for the entrance. The darkness in the foyer passageway was unnaturally thick. Solid, even. Windfall beat his gossamer wings feebly, but he had no real body mass, no momentum with which to push forward into the thick shadows. Why did the universe keep testing his already tattered patience? Windfall growled, closed his eyes, and focused. Breezie antennae weren’t exactly built for spellcasting, but Windfall had taught himself a basic illumination charm to make it easier to see his notebook’s pages during long, dark nights of penning poems. The tiny specks of light at the end of Windfall’s antennae were blazing beacons in the absolute gloom, lighting up the large chamber into which he emerged. Windfall felt his breath snatched away by the sheer relative size of cavern. Burned out torches ten times his height. A flight of stairs so long that it didn’t fit in Windfall’s field of vision. A thick, open faced book lying forgotten on the floor… Wait, a what now? Windfall hastily lighted down on the abandoned book, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. Oh yes. Oh Faust above, yes. The comforting smell of parchment was replacing the bitterness of being cast into this swamp with tender memories of days spent in the village library. It was there Windfall had first discovered his Special Talent for learning language. There where he poured over the archived basement texts to learn the intriguing intricacies of Abyssal Cuneiform. And on late nights after everyone else had gone to bed, on the steps of the library by the light of his antennae was where Windfall penned his most passionate verses. He’d never see that place again, would he? Windfall shivered and curled up on the page, his good memories gone and the present situation freshly miserable in his mind. Teaching himself taboo texts hadn’t quite led in the direction he’d hoped, now had it? The förbannad Breezie’s foreleg lazily traced the letters visible in his antennae’s light. He wondered what the words he was laying on might possibly say. There were pictures on the opposite page that certainly intrigued him, such as the rendering of a mighty looking warlock goat with a radiant bell hanging from his neck. Windfall’s speciality was words, not images, but he could tell by the drawings that this book had intriguing secrets hidden beneath its incomprehensible text. Gah, if only it had been written in Breezen. Or Ponish. Or… wait. Abyssal Cuneiform? Windfall scrambled to standing position and peered down at the text upon which he’d been reclining. Now that he was no longer looking at the words from an upside-down fetal position, he could see that the book was actually twice-removed from his native tongue: the text being Cuneiform, and the language Ponish. Real Ponish that had been hornwritten long ago by a forgotten unicorn scribe. Windfall rubbed his forelegs together in helpless excitement. He’d never read an authentic foreign text before, only miniature replica manuscripts copied by ancient Breezie scholars. For all the dangers that existed out here in the real world, it was only fair that some treasures existed too. Armed with his own knowledge and some supplemental half remembered linguistics pointers from Seabreeze, Windfall took in the text beneath him, savoring the words like they were the sweetest nectar from the ripest summer blooms. Bewitching Bell. Those were two words Windfall understood separately, though the significance of putting them together was lost on him. Grogar. Now there was a term he didn’t know, but he certainly liked the taste of it. Boundless... infernal power… The meaning of the text slowly materialized, and Windfall’s tiny head began pounding from the scope of it all. The warlock goat, this “Grogar” character, was truly a fearsome creature. Downright inspiring in his fearsomeness. As Windfall’s eyes darted all around the page, the words “Bewitching Bell” appeared again and again. The artifact was the source of the long dead Grogar’s might, and this book was an instruction manual on how to use it. As Windfall continued to process the knowledge of this book, the frenzied smile on his face grew wider and wider as rubbing of his forelegs went from excited to frenetic. “Bewitching Bell...indestructible… empowers ze wielder...” Tiny, piping giggles escaped Windfall’s mouth, bouncing off the walls of the chamber and growing in volume. The village presiders had told Windfall his dabbling in other languages was a sign of an ill mind. A mania that if left unchecked would only bring him misfortune and ruin. But by Windfall’s measure, his ruin was their doing, while his affinity for the alien had led him to a promise of salvation. A promise of this… this ‘Bewitching Bell.’ Windfall’s tiny chest heaved and his limbs burned as he laboriously gripped the corner of the book and flittered backwards to turn the page. If he weren’t so adrenalized, his physical strength would have failed him, but he was very adrenalized. He had to keep going. To keep reading about this alluring, beautiful Bell and all the world-shaking and destructive ways it could be used. Breezies weren’t exactly built for domination, but Windfall had been pushed too far. He was förbannad. Banished. Untethered and free to pursue any end he desired. And the end he desired was to get out of this Faust forsaken swamp and locate the instrument that would be his ascent to godhood.
*Snort**Snort* As was routine for her self-taught teleports, a cloud of burnt sienna afterglow lingered in front of River Song’s eyes. She snorted to clear it and when she saw where she’d ended up, she snorted again, this time in agitation. This didn’t look like her secret cloister. Her cloister was a dry, small cave in the side of Peril Peak, accessible only by teleportation. The ugly swamp in which she was standing looked wide and open enough to house all the sludge in Equestria. It certainly smelled like that was its function. River Song felt lightheaded, and not just because of her sudden altitude change. Pulling a cloven hoof out of the mud she was standing in, River Song ran its sensitive digits over her forehead, confirming the worst: Her antler was gone, no doubt burned off at the perennially weakened base and lying abandoned on the grass back in Kirin Hollow. Brilliant. That’s what she got for spellcasting during shedding season. With nowhere to go but forward, River Song trudged through the muck in what she hoped was in the direction of drier land. Dour though her mood was, the quiet, rhythmic squelch of River Song’s hoofsteps began to soothe her. It certainly was quiet out here. She stopped moving. Now it was silent out here. The antler-bereft Kirin closed her eyes and tilted her head back in stoic bliss. Darkness. Silence. She hadn’t experienced real peace and calm in so long. Not since before… before... River Song snorted a third time, reopening her eyes and continuing to navigate the swamp. Since before the Return. That was… how many moons ago? A lot, that was for sure. River Song had only been a foal at the time, not old enough to really understand why everykirin else was suddenly making raucous noises with their mouths and distorting their faces in such disturbing ways. Upon discovering she too was affected by this frightening new curse, River Song had gone full Nirik violently and immediately. So much noise, so much stimulation. None of which she’d ever experienced before or understood in the vaguest sense. According to chief Rain Shine, it took literal days to calm River Song down and get back to her senses. River Song reckoned that was about right. She remembered that lapse of consciousness very well. Or rather, she remembered the experience of not remembering. More than remembered, actually: she cherished it. Having come of age in a world of stoicism, River Song‘s biggest passion was passionlessness. Her favorite thoughts were muted ones. Her favorite company was solitude. And her favorite emotion… River Song attempted to snort again, but instead it came out as a sniffle. Her favorite emotion was none at all. But that state of mind had been cut away from her long ago. River Song hadn’t grown up like this, with these awful, volatile things called ‘feelings’ inside of her. They’d just been foisted on her the day of the Return, channeled through a mug of accursed tea she’d been too young to say no to. More than the changes in those around her, it was the changes inside River Song’s own mind that she had never ever gotten used to. Things she’d never minded as a foal now clenched her stomach and wobbled her knees. The width of this swamp, for example. The current darkening of the sky. The dirty wetness clinging to her hooves. She missed her cloister dearly. Whenever the laughter or shouting of the other Kirin got too much for her (which was often) she’d poof there to recollect. It was the only spell she knew. The only spell she needed. The nub where River Song’s antler had once been throbbed dully. Now her spell had been taken away from her too. A tightness was gripping River Song’s throat from the inside, which she recognized as sadness. She stopped walking again and looked back up at the sky. Stars were just beginning to fade into view. “Nothing in me is good,” she croaked, her voice thick and gravelly from lack of use. “I want the nothing back. Where did it go?” The uncaring sky didn’t answer. So very few Kirin ever talked about why or how things were silent and unfeeling before the Return, and because it took years for River Song to figure out how her own voice worked, she missed her immediate opportunity to ask. The best she gleaned (once she understood that the utterances everykirin was making were actually a form of language) was that covering oneself in water was the key. In the weeks after the Return she was often found swimming desperate laps in the Hollow’s watering hole, much to the amusement of her elders. The swim sessions didn’t end up fixing her, but it did give the others the idea to name her River Song after the helpless, malformed bleating that escaped her tiny lungs as she dogpaddled in circles. A belated name for a foal born into a world once silent. No doubt they all thought it was adorable. River Song did not, but by the time she’d learned to form words of her own it was too late to protest. She’d been named, and therefore permanently tethered to this world of noise. There was no going back for her. Only the brief breaks she took in her cloister before jetting back to the others once they started to notice she was gone. But there was no jetting back this time. Faust alone knew where in Equestria her antlerless teleport had dumped her. Was this miserable bog even in Equestria? Damn shedding season. Damn it to Tartarus. River Song hung her head. All she’d ever wanted, from the moment she gained the ability to want was for water to bring quiet and unfeelingness back to her life. Now, with her legs numb from cold mud and her heart hardened by loneliness, River Song regretted that she’d finally gotten her wish. Despair, anger, and bitterness were convalescing into a physical change. River Song’s nub sparked dangerously and her coat began to darken. Heat built, the type of heat that was so hot it looped back around to feeling cold again, like water from a hot spring. River Song was losing herself, just like she had before that tantrum she threw in response to the Return. But this time, nokirin would be around to diffuse her. She would let go and drift unfeeling through her mind while her altered, primal body stormed around forever, leveling everything in its path- ”Hallo down there, shaggy leetle pony.” Startled back to her senses, River Song looked up. For a moment, she thought two stars from the sky had actually spoken in a tiny voice and were presently drifting out of the aether towards her. Once her eyes adjusted however, she saw something even stranger: a minuscule pixie-like creature whose light-tipped antennae were reflecting off a pair of delicate, gossamer wings. Whatever the creature was, it’s speech had a tone and volume that didn’t hurt River Song’s ears. She’d never experienced that before. ”Windfall hazt been flying over water for many hours and izt tired. May he land on you?” Without any reason to say no, River Song nodded her consent. The pixie-thing lighted down on her forehead, possibly even right on her vacant antler dock, though he was so weightless River Song couldn’t be sure. ”Apologies for Windfall’s speech. Breezie tongues, zey find Ponish words slippery to say. This Breezie izt Windfall, as said already. Who is shaggy pony?” River Song snorted. ”Zat, Windfall cannot pronounce.” “River Song,” the Kirin rumbled painfully. Then she began trudging again. The little pixie, or Breezie, he was apparently called, let out a barely audible squeak of surprise as the sudden air resistance buffeted his tiny body. ”Where izt we going?” River Song snorted. ”Will you answer none more of Windfall’s questions?” River Song snorted again. Then she slowed down in case the Breezie wanted to flap his oversized wings and take off. But Windfall did not take off. Instead he reclined, seemingly settled in to ponder River Song's non-responses. The two of them traveled several additional leagues of swamp before River Song's diminutive passenger piped up again. ”You are outcast,” he eventually deduced. “Defiant stray. Such is clear because ze shell on your back izt not nearly as hard as ze shell ‘round your heart.” Despite herself, River Song smiled inwardly at the eccentric little sprite’s bouncy, flutey meanderings. Never had she ever wanted to hear somecreature continue talking rather than stop. ”Windfall on other hoof, he used to be opposite: Wide-eyed, curious softie. Bad mix. Got him into trouble it did, it did.” The Breezie audibly inhaled before letting a hint of scornful bravado season his words. ”But Windfall recalls old Diamond Dog idiom: Ze hunting sense gets stronger when starving. It means zey find treasures when zey need zem. And Windfall’s own sense has him on trail of his own treasure. He learned of it from quiet cave, see? Quiet cave zat whispered izt’s promises to him, and him only.” River Song mulled over Windfall’s riddles as she walked. Quiet caves and promises. Was he talking about her cloister? Or… River Song’s pulse quickened at a new thought: did Windfall have a cloister of his own? Was he… was he a dreamer like she was? River Song’s squelching steps were at last giving way to thumps, which meant they were making progress onto more hospitable land. If feeling ever returned to River Song’s legs, she was certain they would be smarting from exertion. To recline against a welcoming tree and sleep. That was her strongest desire at the moment. And while it was too dark to be sure, the sprawl of forest outskirts appeared to loom in front of them. She and her cryptic companion seemed to be leaving the swamp behind them, in more ways than one. ”Pony with 'Song' in her name must like music,” Windfall ruminated aloud. ”Does she sing?” River Song’s responsorial snort was so vehement that it nearly shook Windfall off his perch. ”Ojdå! No sing, understood. Instruments, then?” River Song nearly flinched, but stopped herself and kept walking. It was true that, amid all the awful, endless cacophony with which the Return polluted her life, instrumental music was the sound that bothered her the least. Even before the Return, River Song had sometimes contented herself by sitting alone and tapping her forehooves together rhythmically. Her percussive pastimes weren’t symphonies by even the most generous measure, but they were her own tempos and she was proud of them. She took pride in her small, occasional flourishes that dotted the yawning hush that blanketed her world. They were her odes to a life of order and sense. If River Song knew how, she would reset the clock to make everything quiet enough that she could sit and do those hoof taps again. She’d reset it all in a heartbeat. She of course hadn’t the first clue where she’d acquire the power to do so, but just imagining it made the antlerless Kirin’s stony heart beat just a little bit faster. ”A-ha! Windfall sees repressed smile on friend’s muzzle. He reads other creatures like books!” River Song was acutely aware of a tickle on her left ear as Windfall drifted down to her shoulder. There she saw the Breezie in profile for the first time: his grey body, this wispy shock of orange hair that made up his mane and tail, and most of all those tiny but vivid eyes that seemed far too fiery and fierce for the tiny waif-like body that housed them. ”Last question, Windfall promises: Since River Song smiles at ze topic of instruments, has... hee hee! Has River Song ever heard of... ’Bewitching Bell‘?” Author's Note "I've been around for all these years... I hear the sound of Distant Bells..." Leprous
Foderleverans ExtraordinaireWindfall flittered over the treetops, scanning the landscape for signs of civilization. Or at the very least, a manageable route out of the sprawling forest he and River Song had gotten themselves lost in. Despite being bookish and out of shape, Windfall was actually a decently fast flier who really should have joined in on more Foderleverans games when he was younger. Getting from one end of the glade to the other without being pinned down was certainly something he felt he could’ve managed. However, speed was only half of the sport. Windfall was never too keen on the accompanying courier aspect. Tossing seeds into the other teams goal was how points were scored in Foderleverans, and every member of both teams carried cargo corresponding to their formation position. Strikers carried buttercup seeds, the lightest loads available and whose delivery netted the fewest points. Sweepers carried mid-value cargo: either mustard pips or peppercorn, depending on whether their team was home or away. And the Swampers, the two brawniest Breezies on the entire field, each carried a mammoth sunflower bud so heavy that most recreational players in that position had to trek instead of fly. The name ‘Swamper’ came both from the terrain they braved and from the dogpile tactics usually required to bring a Breezie like that down. Leon Perennial, better known as “The Flower Tiger,” was the most famous Swamper in history for his awe-inspiring ability to actually get airborne with his load as he drove down the field towards the goal. A young Windfall actually once got to see the aging Leon in action during the latter’s waning years of relevance. Granted, this was after those scandalous accusations came out that Leon’s unmatched strength and endurance came from him secretly juicing with Parasprite hormones, so not many Breezies in the stands were cheering for him during that game. Windfall certainly cheered though, because Leon was the best. Period. How he had achieved the top spot didn’t matter, only that his resulting performance was overwhelming. Seeing the disgraced Flower Tiger ignore the boos to keep on competing and winning the same way he always had taught larval Windfall a valuable lesson: That there was absolutely no point in playing a role unless you were determined to be the greatest at it. To Tartarus with the hit you took to your body or reputation. That was the true reason Windfall had never become a Foderleverans player: The Flower Tiger already definitely conquered that particular field. Windfall instead devoted himself to his poetry passion, scouring every text in the village library for techniques that his predecessors had shrank away from. That was what led him to eventually explore Abyssal Cuneiform. A sudden stiff breeze buffeted Windfall along the treetops. He pumped his gossamer wings defiantly and fought to right himself. Now that Windfall had let a full night go by to digest being förbannad, he’d begun to feel a bit like a Flower Tiger himself. That is, just like old Leon, Windfall was a visionary shunned by the small-minded masses for daring to believe his limits were made to be shattered. And to those who thought Parasprite juicing or sacrilegious sonnets were shocking displays of un-Breezie-ness, just wait until Windfall got his feelers on Grogar’s Bewitching Bell. Windfall beat his wings harder. Just wait. The gust was proving too much to handle, so landing to let it pass was his only option. Lighting down on a particularly high treetop to catch his breath, Windfall draped his wings below his perch so he had a full 360 degree view of the horizon. This forest seemed to stretch dauntingly and endlessly onward in all directions, even more than the swamp had yesterday. Or maybe the biomes were actually average sized and Windfall’s sense of scale was way off. The world outside of his village’s glade was far larger than he could have ever imagined, after all. How was he going to find the Bewitching Bell if he couldn’t first find a pony settlement where he could rest safely before asking around for leads? Windfall shook his head to clear his cluttered thoughts. He would not allow any moments of self doubt on this journey, especially not so early on. After all, Windfall had accomplished plenty in the past twelve hours that he could be proud of. First he’d found and memorized the Book of the Bell. Then he recruited River Song, that sad-faced, dust-covered pony with the shaggy mane. Sure she wasn’t much of a talker, but she had enthusiastically nodded with big, enraptured eyes as Windfall filibustered about his plans. Clearly River Song was a visionary in her own right, with an unspoken but solid idea of what to do once she too was empowered with infernal magic. This excited Windfall. The two of them were kindred spirits, he was sure, sick to death of being tossed around by fate and determined to seize the reins together. Windfall sneezed, something he’d been doing all morning. River Song’s aforementioned dustiness had actually been polluting his pollination pockets somewhat. That nub on her forehead especially had been covered with thick, orangish-brown chalk when he’d landed on it. Chalk that seemed to cling to whatever touched it. Were all ponies so contagiously dirty? Windfall doubted it, but didn’t know enough about any species other than his own to be sure. Perhaps there was a symbolism to it all. Some sort of ritualistic expression of their mutual quest-driven bond between Breezie and whatever pony subspecies River Song happened to be. Most likely there wasn’t anything to it of course, but Windfall couldn’t help but indulge his poetic fancies. The old verses he quilled may have been taken away and destroyed, but already there were new, unwritten ones stirring within him. Emboldened, Windfall pumped his wings and elevated himself high above the trees, searching for a better vantage point to look for towns. He rose higher into the sky than he ever had before, possibly higher than any Breezie had voluntarily gone before, and when the tips of his antennae lightly brushed the underside of a passing cloud, he flipped around and planted his limbs in the ephemeral puff. There he paused upside-down and suspended, like a butterfly beneath a branch. Windfall’s heart was hammering and he had to swallow the bile that was involuntarily rising in his throat. His people were still very much prey animals, bullwhipped and browbeaten by the same agoraphobia and flighty instincts that had kept their ancestors alive hundreds of generations ago. But Windfall refused to bow to the bothersome, obsolete alarms. He wasn’t prey anymore. He’d left that part of himself behind when he flitted out of that cave yesterday. This Breezie had become a hunter. A predator. His spot would soon be at the top of the food chain, not the bottom. Deep focusing his eyes, Windfall scanned the land below with renewed vigor. Then he let out a barely audible squeak of excitement when at last he found what he was looking for: A town. The cluster of thatched-roof houses weren’t much to look at, especially next to the gaudy purple castle that no doubt belonged to their ruler, but aesthetics hardly mattered right now. All that mattered was that the settlement was close. Right outside of the forest, actually. It was going to be a good day. Windfall could tell. Windfall let go of the cloud and drifted leisurely down, eager to report to River Song so they could get moving. No doubt she was still right where she’d been when he left: sound asleep under that willow. Windfall found the forest canopy far more difficult to enter from above than it had been to exit from below, but after using the lift from his wings and the grip from all four of his tarsi, he managed to fold back a rather large leaf so he could peer in. A surprised robin peered out. Then the bird nipped at Windfall’s right forewing, ripping nearly a third of it off at the midsection and leaving another third in gruesome tatters. The sound of crinkling membrane being swallowed was eclipsed by Windfall’s panicked screech of fear and pain. ”Aaaaugh!” The robin cocked its head at the soft, high pitched noise emitted by the prey that had just stumbled across its path. Then it nipped again, this time managing to tear off a tuft of orange hair and one antenna with it. ”Aaaauuugh!!” Sense of balance immediately and utterly ruined by the traumatic loss of his precious feeler, Windfall pitched forward through the hole in the canopy and freefell down to the forest floor, spiraling like a dead and withered leaf the whole way. The robin swooped down to nip a third time, but broke off to circle indignantly as Windfall gave a great stomach emptying heave, trailing spittle-coated streamers of the previous day’s undigested nectar behind him as he plummeted. The shredded remains of Windfall’s ravaged forewing buckled underneath him as he landed on his side, but that ripple of fresh agony was enough to shock him back to most of his senses. A million nanoscopic needles jabbed through the exposed nerve endings in the blunted stump of what used to be Windfall’s left antenna, but through that haze of unfiltered extrasensory feedback, the Breezie’s bulging bleary eyeballs caught sight of potential safe haven under the cap of a nearby mushroom. Every fanciful meandering of the previous few minutes were gone from Windfall’s mind, smothered by primal panic and blistering pain. There was only room for gut responses now. Get to cover. Get out of the open. His head too flooded with vertigo to even attempt to stand, Windfall desperately writhed on his belly towards the mushroom, dragging the ruined remains of his wing behind him. The pursuant robin landed on the ground nearby then hopped quizzically closer to observe its prey thrashing feebly around in the dirt. Windfall finally got under the mushroom and wrapped his tiny limbs around its stalk, managing to drag his soggy self to sitting position. The robin meanwhile continued hopping, plumage ruffled in frustration as it made laps around Windfall’s meager shelter, seemingly searching for a good angle to tear another piece off of the traumatized insect, but finding no approach it deemed suitable. The stalk was clammy and cold, but it still took all of Windfall’s willpower to pry a forelimb away and wipe some residual vomit off his chin. His forelimb snapped back immediately afterwards, hugging the stalk like it was the stuffed spidersilk Ursa that used to keep him calm as a larva. Windfall had read enough medical texts to know his injuries were causing him to go into neurogenic shock. The fact his arthropodic race was even capable of such a mammalian response mechanism had actually fascinated the Canterlot School of Biology for decades, but understandably not much research had been done due to nopony knowing any ethical way to induce trauma in another sapient- The robin gave a few thunderous test pecks on the mushroom’s cap, jolting Windfall out of his drifting delirium. He had to do something. He had to seize initiative before any more of him was torn off and eaten. But what could he do? Fight or flight were the only options, and Windfall was equipped for neither. Even with two antennae, Breezies weren’t exactly built for brawling, and with a wing as lacerated as his, Windfall was as grounded as a… as a... As a Swamper. A pulse of steely defiance surged from the depths of Windfall’s soul. He didn’t have the might of Grogar (not yet at least), but he did have the imaginary resolve of the Foderleverans player he never ended up becoming. Such sudden strength was of course just mortal terror mixed with hysteria, and maybe somewhere in his tiny overclocked brain Windfall was aware of that, but this wasn’t the type of encounter a former poet who’d just been crippled for life was going to survive. Only a demigod among Breezies could win a fight with a bird. And fortunately for Windfall, a demigod was exactly whom he was channeling right now. “Come at the Flower Tiger again and see what happens to you!” Windfall dared uproariously in his native tongue. He staggered out from under the mushroom, sweating bullets and somehow still standing despite swaying worse than that time he’d knocked back too many Honey Hops at a Summer Sun Celebration. Still perched, the robin stared blankly down at its snarling prey. “You rapacious, knemidocoptes-infested, feathered vermin…” The robin pecked without warning. “I am NOT DYING BY YOUR BEAK!!” An all-consuming, boiling heat surged within Windfall’s injured body as he dodged the robin’s jab, seized some neck feathers in his feeble grip, and affixed himself tenaciously to the bird’s front. The robin’s response was to puff up its plumage and give a full body shake. Windfall clung tight and avoided being dislodged, but fear was starting to catch back up to him. What in Tartarus was he doing?? The robin flapped in frustration before belly flopping onto the forest floor, bending Windfall’s ruined wing at a horrible angle and causing him to yelp as he let go. Sprawled on his back and helpless, Windfall could see his failed attempt at grappling did nothing to the robin other than rub some of that thick orange dust off his own body and onto his better’s chest. Windfall sneezed. Disgraceful. This aspiring Bell weidler was about to be pecked apart by a mindless animal, and all he’d managed to do to his attacker was deliver a smudge of dirt that wasn’t even originally his. The robin chirped, then nipped right as Windfall sneezed again. Raw magic sparks shot from the stump of a ruined antenna, made contact with a smear of Kirin antler dust, and with a booming burst of burnt sienna, the robin was gone. Spent teleportation powder drifted lazily down onto Windfall like ashes from a fire. He continued to lay where he was, staring fisheyed and dumbfounded at the unmoving lattice of branches above him. Then with a vivacity that was almost too much for his mutilated state, he sprang up and pumped his forelimb in the air, battered but victorious. Breezie idioms weren’t exactly built for taunting, but historical Foderleverans players had produced a few long standing insults worth invoking right now. “Skol! Go curl your mate’s feelers, stamenbrain! You don’t have the coxas to pin a Swamper!” Windfall tossed back his head and laughed quite mightily for someone his size. Then he glanced around and noticed, to his utter joy, that he was airborne and hovering. Even down half a wing and a whole antenna, there was enough of him left to keep flying after all. And as long as he could move, the Bewitching Bell was within reach. All the same though, Windfall considered as he flapped forward, he wasn’t too keen on having any more body parts torn off of him. Things like pain and debilitation wouldn’t matter after he became a god, but they certainly would on the journey there. Compelled by curiosity, Windfall flexed his amputated antenna and confirmed he could indeed shoot sparks from the stump on command. He glanced down at his forelimbs to see they still had a little bit of that lifesaving magic powder in their pollen pockets. Windfall didn’t exactly know what this dust was, but he knew how to apply and detonate it now. That was something. He reckoned there was enough left to fend off any other beasties that picked a fight with him while he made way back to River Song. And when he did get back to her, he was definitely going to restock. Author's Note Tried to return to the contest’s prompts with this chapter by developing Breezie culture a little more. Hopefully it meshed well with the action and character building.
Den Förbannad BreezieWindfall threw his head back and cursed pitifully at the uncaring sky. “Tusan också! Också!” Windfall was blaspheming for all he was worth, but Breezie lungs weren’t exactly built for bellowing. Had there been any other creature in the desolate swamp with Windfall to hear his cries of despair, they might have confused it with a mosquito’s buzz. “Jävla det till helvete,” he whispered despairingly as he lighted down on a cattail and wrapped his frail forelegs around himself miserably. “Helvete, helvete, helvete...” Windfall had remained stoic when the village presiders put him to a förbannad vote. He’d stayed silent when each presider reached into their respective satchels and tossed an offering of colored pollen to indicate their respective judgement: yellow for innocent, red for guilty. He’d even bowed his head in quiet acceptance when he saw there had not been a single fleck of yellow among them. The vote was unanimous. He was förbannad. Banished. Only after the portal to the village closed behind him, leaving Windfall alone in this endless, terrifying swamp, did his facade finally break. The outcast had flittered in furious circles aimlessly for minutes on end. He’d cursed and raged and raged and cursed, but Breezie wings weren’t exactly built for physical exertion. Before long he was exhausted and had to land. Puny and forlorn perched on this lonely cattail, Windfall knew he should feel guilt or regret, but instead he felt something else. Something the Breezie language didn’t have a word for. But the Ponish language did. And while Windfall didn’t know much Ponish, he knew the word for what he felt right now. “Betrayed,” his thin, flute-like voice whistled through the reeds around him. “Windfall izt been betrayed.” It was ironic that the friend who’d taught Windfall the term “betrayal” and so many other Ponish concepts was the one who’d ultimately demonstrated it to him. Windfall had gone his whole life not sharing his poetry notebook with anyone, but Seabreeze had seemed like a kindred spirit. Seabreeze dabbled in Ponish. Seabreeze would cuss or insult if the situation demanded it. Seabreeze seemed to appreciate all forms of speaking, not just the narrow, underdeveloped semantics of Breezen. Windfall had shown his poems to Seabreeze because he thought the latter would see past the surface, would appreciate the artistic contrast of penning loving descriptions of life and nature in Abyssal Cuneiform, the language of Dark Magic and ancient occult scriptures. Because using black speech to write beautiful verses was proof that all words were inherently neutral, was it not? Seabreeze was unafraid to use gentle languages to communicate anger, so he would certainly respect Windfall being unafraid to express spirituality through diabolical script, right? Wrong. Seabreeze had been disgusted by the notebook. He immediately informed the village’s presiders, and the poems were confiscated. Windfall initially held onto some hope that the subject matter of his verses would exonerate him, but when the presiders reached Windfall’s sonnet praising the bravery of the Pollen Pilgrims (Breezies who braved the wilds beyond the village to gather supplies), he knew he was sunk. Rendered in Abyssal Cuneiform, the sonnet could be arbitrarily interpreted as a war march, and the author could be labeled as a dangerous fanatic. To call a Breezie “dangerous” was of course laughable. One would sooner find an unfriendly pony or a peaceful dragon than a Breezie with a mentality twisted enough to wish harm on anyone. And in the extremely rare cases a Breezie did exhibit troubled behavior, well, a förbannad vote could take care of that. It had certainly taken care of poor Windfall. The presiders hadn’t even let him take his precious poems with him through the portal and now here he sat, with nothing left in the world but resentment. Interrupting Windfall’s thoughts, a swollen mud bubble burst near his cattail perch. The resulting gust sent him spinning away deeper into the swamp, trailing a fresh string of profanities behind. Breezie reflexes weren’t exactly built for snap decision making, but Windfall still struggled to right himself because he knew plunging into the muck and drowning would be a terrible way to go. A flat stone slab flashed in Windfall's periphery as he tumbled, and with some maneuvering managed to intentionally crashland on top of it. Too small and weightless to be injured by the fall, Windfall got to standing position and looked curiously up at the solid mass he’d been lucky enough to encounter way out here. In front of Windfall loomed an ominous stone structure halfway between a cave and a sculpture of a ram’s head. It looked like it hadn’t been inhabited in along time. A very long time. Biting his lip, Windfall glanced around, trying to discern whether it was getting darker out or it was just the structure’s shadow on him. Either way, now that Windfall had gotten all the thought-clouding anger out of his system, he grudgingly needed to start thinking seriously about his own survival. The sun would set soon, and with the dark came predators. Breezies were slow fliers with no natural defenses, which meant everywhere outside their magically sealed villages were extreme danger zones. It also meant Pollen Pilgrims were endlessly respected for their bravery and that being förbannad was generally accepted as a death sentence. Windfall shook his head to clear his thoughts. He certainly didn’t have a village anymore (thanks Seabreeze, you judgmental hypocrite), but he did have this cave. And forbidding as it was, shelter was shelter. At least its jagged, unwelcoming appearance matched Windfall’s mood. Flitting up into the air again, he headed for the entrance. The darkness in the foyer passageway was unnaturally thick. Solid, even. Windfall beat his gossamer wings feebly, but he had no real body mass, no momentum with which to push forward into the thick shadows. Why did the universe keep testing his already tattered patience? Windfall growled, closed his eyes, and focused. Breezie antennae weren’t exactly built for spellcasting, but Windfall had taught himself a basic illumination charm to make it easier to see his notebook’s pages during long, dark nights of penning poems. The tiny specks of light at the end of Windfall’s antennae were blazing beacons in the absolute gloom, lighting up the large chamber into which he emerged. Windfall felt his breath snatched away by the sheer relative size of cavern. Burned out torches ten times his height. A flight of stairs so long that it didn’t fit in Windfall’s field of vision. A thick, open faced book lying forgotten on the floor… Wait, a what now? Windfall hastily lighted down on the abandoned book, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. Oh yes. Oh Faust above, yes. The comforting smell of parchment was replacing the bitterness of being cast into this swamp with tender memories of days spent in the village library. It was there Windfall had first discovered his Special Talent for learning language. There where he poured over the archived basement texts to learn the intriguing intricacies of Abyssal Cuneiform. And on late nights after everyone else had gone to bed, on the steps of the library by the light of his antennae was where Windfall penned his most passionate verses. He’d never see that place again, would he? Windfall shivered and curled up on the page, his good memories gone and the present situation freshly miserable in his mind. Teaching himself taboo texts hadn’t quite led in the direction he’d hoped, now had it? The förbannad Breezie’s foreleg lazily traced the letters visible in his antennae’s light. He wondered what the words he was laying on might possibly say. There were pictures on the opposite page that certainly intrigued him, such as the rendering of a mighty looking warlock goat with a radiant bell hanging from his neck. Windfall’s speciality was words, not images, but he could tell by the drawings that this book had intriguing secrets hidden beneath its incomprehensible text. Gah, if only it had been written in Breezen. Or Ponish. Or… wait. Abyssal Cuneiform? Windfall scrambled to standing position and peered down at the text upon which he’d been reclining. Now that he was no longer looking at the words from an upside-down fetal position, he could see that the book was actually twice-removed from his native tongue: the text being Cuneiform, and the language Ponish. Real Ponish that had been hornwritten long ago by a forgotten unicorn scribe. Windfall rubbed his forelegs together in helpless excitement. He’d never read an authentic foreign text before, only miniature replica manuscripts copied by ancient Breezie scholars. For all the dangers that existed out here in the real world, it was only fair that some treasures existed too. Armed with his own knowledge and some supplemental half remembered linguistics pointers from Seabreeze, Windfall took in the text beneath him, savoring the words like they were the sweetest nectar from the ripest summer blooms. Bewitching Bell. Those were two words Windfall understood separately, though the significance of putting them together was lost on him. Grogar. Now there was a term he didn’t know, but he certainly liked the taste of it. Boundless... infernal power… The meaning of the text slowly materialized, and Windfall’s tiny head began pounding from the scope of it all. The warlock goat, this “Grogar” character, was truly a fearsome creature. Downright inspiring in his fearsomeness. As Windfall’s eyes darted all around the page, the words “Bewitching Bell” appeared again and again. The artifact was the source of the long dead Grogar’s might, and this book was an instruction manual on how to use it. As Windfall continued to process the knowledge of this book, the frenzied smile on his face grew wider and wider as rubbing of his forelegs went from excited to frenetic. “Bewitching Bell...indestructible… empowers ze wielder...” Tiny, piping giggles escaped Windfall’s mouth, bouncing off the walls of the chamber and growing in volume. The village presiders had told Windfall his dabbling in other languages was a sign of an ill mind. A mania that if left unchecked would only bring him misfortune and ruin. But by Windfall’s measure, his ruin was their doing, while his affinity for the alien had led him to a promise of salvation. A promise of this… this ‘Bewitching Bell.’ Windfall’s tiny chest heaved and his limbs burned as he laboriously gripped the corner of the book and flittered backwards to turn the page. If he weren’t so adrenalized, his physical strength would have failed him, but he was very adrenalized. He had to keep going. To keep reading about this alluring, beautiful Bell and all the world-shaking and destructive ways it could be used. Breezies weren’t exactly built for domination, but Windfall had been pushed too far. He was förbannad. Banished. Untethered and free to pursue any end he desired. And the end he desired was to get out of this Faust forsaken swamp and locate the instrument that would be his ascent to godhood.
