Author's Note

WARNING: This story begins MANY years before the ponies gain their ability to speak, they are still very much like wild ponies and don't have any form of civilization. So please bear with me here, this is very difficult to write details for.

Chapter 1: Day of discovery (Minor Edits 7/7/21)

In Erebor, 150 years after the destruction of the one ring

Gimli makes his way through Erebor to the grand burial hall, where their dead are interred in stone tombs. After walking for some time to where his father Gloin is, he arrives at his tomb and kneels beside it. He places a hand on the tomb and hangs his head saying, "I came to visit you one more time to say goodbye father, I had hoped to see you alive one more time before you passed on to the next life. I am going to sail west to Ithilien with Legolas and the others, I am weary from fighting enemies father. Perhaps I may find peace over there with my friends, possibly even find love if any of those annoying elven ladies will have me. I will miss Erebor, but I must now be on my way or they may leave without me. So may we meet again father, farewell." He stands up and wipes a tear from his eyes and makes his way out of the ancient city of Erebor, eventually looking back one last time at the Lonely Mountain before returning to his journey.

500 years later, inside one of the caverns

A dwarf uses his hammer and chisel to chip away at the stone, moving the chisel over further to strike a new spot, and starts to hammer again when a deep, rumbling tremor causes his harness to sway. The echoes of hammers striking chisels and anvils being used stop and allows silence to reign for a few moments before resuming their work again, he sighs and shakes his head at how the mountain is starting to make noises it has never made before since Erebor was built. He then sets the chisel in the same spot before his harness swayed and starts to chip away at the side when a crack appears and starts to run down below him and towards the sky. He nervously watches the crack as it veers off to the right for a little ways and back down underneath him, gulping as he hears a loud crack with the sound of stone grinding against stone as a massive chunk begins to move. Acting hastily, he puts away his hammer and chisel and yanks on the rope hard to ring the bell, signaling the others to raise him up higher quickly.

Asulfur holds on as he starts to quickly ascend as the massive chunk breaks off and plummets towards the ground, landing with a massive crash echoing throughout the cavern. He pulls on the rope to signal them to stop, he watches as he comes to a stop and notices something odd in the space where the large chunk fell from. He then tugs on the rope a few times, signaling those up above to lower him back down. He watches the space intently as it slowly comes into view, his bushy eyebrows furrowing in curiosity when he sees a hole large enough for him to fit into. He looks at the hole in curiosity as he finds a small ledge that he can carve steps into, tugging a signal on the rope for them to lower him down to it so he can start working on it.

He spends a few months forming a suitable spot for him to stand on, allowing him the chance to exit his harness to explore the hole he found. Putting the last touches on the makeshift platform, he informs those up above of his intentions through rope signals and waits for a response. Waiting for a couple of minutes, he receives two sharp tugs on the rope signaling him to continue and tugs a signal back in acknowledgment. He then starts to work his way onto the platform, using the rope to signal for more rope to exit his harness and steps towards the opening. He peers into it and sees that it is a tunnel and goes somewhere further in, he then pulls out a spike and his shaping hammer to drive the anchor into the stone next to the opening.

Asulfur finishes driving the anchor in and pulls up his rope that hangs at his side, going over the edge of the platform and into the large cavern behind him. Reaching the end of it, he ties it to the anchor and runs the rope through a couple of rings on his belt then starts to venture deeper into the tunnel.

He ventures into the tunnel, seeing the wall glittering back at him. Continuing past glittering ore seams and jumping across a couple of short gaps leading to a long drop, he comes to a large chamber that is filled with a light from a pool of water glowing with a gold and white light. His eyes widen at the sight before him, ignoring the sparkling and glittering metals and gems dotting the walls. He is filled with curiosity at what this may be and gets closer to it, stopping beside it and touches the water to see what it would do to him. Not feeling anything at all from touching the water, he gets down onto his knees to smell if anything is wrong with the water. Not smelling anything unusual about it, he decides to taste it to see if anything happens.

Asulfur dips his hand into the water, bringing some up to his mouth, and takes a small sip of it. As the water touches his tongue he feels like his body is somehow better, deciding that nothing is different about the water other than it glows and makes you feel good, stripping out of his clothing to enter the pool and wash the grime off his body. He walks into the pool and feels a tingling all over his body saying, "What in the blazes is this I'm feeling all over, it makes me feel tingly. At least it doesn't hurt. When I get back, this pool will be the attention of our researchers." He then sinks his whole body into the pool and feels a short pinch throughout his whole body and runs out of the pool, seeing a large cave around him with a high ceiling and a narrow ramp leading somewhere. Thinking he is back in the cave, he runs up the tunnel and stops when he spots blue skies at the end of the long tunnel.

He blinks a couple of times to make sure he is not imagining this, then slaps himself and sighs, realizing he is not asleep or drunk. He returns to the cave for his clothes, when he remembers that he took them off to bathe. He wonders what the water did to him and feels his body from head to toe, finding everything the same. He looks at the pool and heads into the water when he hears a noise echo down the tunnel. Wondering what the pinch was, he makes his way back up the ramp to investigate the end of the tunnel. As he gets closer to the end of the tunnel, he looks on in curiosity as daylight pours in from a hole up above. Using a vine that is growing down into the hole to climb the wall, standing upon the ground to look around at a dark forest with thickets of brambles all around him. He is amazed at seeing a different location and jumps into the hole to head back into the water, hoping he will be able to return to where he came from to grab his clothes.

He stops at the water's edge, saying before he takes a breath, "I hope that I am not stranded here naked and unarmed, that would be embarrassing." He then heads into the waters, feeling that tingling sensation hitting him. He heads further in and immerses himself in the water fully, feeling the same pinch from before, and hurries out of the water, finding his clothes in a pile, and rushes over to put them back on.

With his clothes back on and his shaping hammer in his grasp, Asulfur re-enters the water to return to the other location and explore it a little before reporting his find to his overseer.