The Universe Hates You Specifically

“Ow.” Every step she took hurt.

Wizened trees point crooked fingers at the sky, their lower branches grabbing at her. Far off, a crow calls, and the fading glow of the distant beacons left the landscape in a near total darkness. It was hard to keep track of the time if you weren’t at a major hub like a city, and even then, it helped to have a timepiece- but Beatrix knew that she had definitely missed the last train home.

She kept walking.

Tripping over a fallen branch here and there, or stumbling on bits of uneven ground that were hidden under leaves and the cover of the ever-darkness. “Agh. That was so stupid!”

The woods grew darker and denser, the trees she passed by were getting older, and soon she was in the forest proper. Her coat was covered in mud and sticks, and her right flank was matted with blood where part of the barn’s roof had collapsed on her. Even with all the magical work applied to her body, the outburst, even though it had felt so good at first, had hurt her badly- in more ways than one.

She thought of the Pegasus stallion that had been hunting her. How surprised he looked- first when she stopped him mid-air, and second, just before he was thrown across the room like a ragdoll, wetly sticking to the wall, only to slide down it and collapse in a heap of wrong angles and broken parts.

A sensation of wetness hit her cheeks, and by the time the second tear rolled down, she was running as fast as she was able to on her bad leg. A snaking tree root caught her in the right fetlock, and when she fell she made no attempt to stop her muzzle from ploughing into the dirt, quickly stumbling back to her feet.

When a sharp rock stabbed into the frog of her left hoof, she screamed, but only began running even faster. A deep, hollow reservoir within her was being filled up to the brim with an inescapable chill that threatened to freeze her from the inside out.

The ground sloped away, stable floor turning into a steep hillside in a matter of seconds and just a few steps. And over the edge, she plunged blindly.

Spinning and screaming, hitting the ground over and over so hard that she was scarcely falling so much as she was skipping like a stone on water. The tears streamed freely as pain positioned itself to totally overwhelm everything else. Sticks and shrubs scratched her skin, pulled at her mane and her tail; the decrease in speed from when she hit them was only enough to make it hurt just that much more when she came back down on the loose dirt and rocks.

She was still bouncing when she hit flat ground again, and would probably have kept rolling if it weren’t for the massive tree she collided with. She felt her ribcage closing up as her chest struck the bark heavily, and all she could do was weakly cough, whimpering to herself.

Bruised, bleeding and emotionally exhausted, she closed her eyes and cried softly into unconsciousness, weakly blubbering “I’m sorry” over and over.

~~~

Naturally, it was still dark when she awoke.

She let herself lay there a little longer, wallowing in the pain and misery of it all, before she gathered herself and stood. As much as everything had hurt, she could still mostly walk, albeit at a slow, uneven pace.

The part of the forest she found herself in was unusually well lit- it was about the same brightness as the average suntorch you’d find in a small town, or in the outskirts of one of the cities.

A pale, almost ghostly light shone down through the canopy, bathed her body and all of a sudden, she felt so very serene.

The stallion she’d accidentally killed earlier- his name had been Sterling, hadn’t it?

Sniffling, she started to make a small mound of dirt where the light struck the ground, scrabbling at the earth with her bare hooves. Soon she shucked her saddlebags and cloak, both of which were torn and battered, and left them by the base of the tree that she had been wrapped around throughout her sleep.

Soon she had found enough branches to make a decent headstone, and some kind of plant that was rope-like enough to hold it together with the assistance of the dirt foundation.

She stood there for a while, looking at the grave with a small smile. Her eyes stung. “May you find peace,” she uttered, biting her lip as she was about to break down again.

“With the conclusion of your trials.
Should you reach your eternity
Look down on me and smile”
They were the only Pegasus funeral rites she knew, and she could barely carry them out properly here, but he deserved that much.

She cried properly for him this time.

The light shone even brighter, and she knew she was safe in its embrace.

~~~

When she was done mourning the stallion she hadn’t known; the one she’d blindly murdered in a foalish fit of rage, she’d donned her cloak and saddlebags once again. She knew it was hardly enough, but she also knew there was no sense in fretting over things that one could do nothing about. For now, it would suffice.

Now, far more composed than earlier, she was laser-focused on where she was. This part of the forest was totally alien to her in a multitude of ways, and the utter silence combined with the inexplicable glow that continued to shine down on her created an ethereal atmosphere.

Where was that light coming from?

She was recovering more by the moment, but she was still in no shape to go climbing any trees, and she couldn’t think of any better option that simply trying to follow the beams through trial and error.

When she spun in a slow circle, her eyes landed on another patch of forest floor that was lit from seemingly nowhere. As she looked further along the “path” that was being set out for her, she could see a trail of these little patches- almost like a string of spotlights. Somepony wanted her to go somewhere, and while she would usually be more cautious about mysterious lights deep in a strange forest, she somehow knew that no harm could come to her here.

After a few minutes of following the trail of lights, Bea swore she could hear music floating through the twisting limbs of the black trees. The towering pillars that comprised the forest had lost all intimidating qualities, and now she could only see them as proud sentinels, guarding something lost to time. She didn’t need to apply any of her botanical knowledge nor her magic to tell that everything that grew here was hundreds of years old.

It was like singing, and… perhaps a harp? The phantom of the song faded in and out, and it only grew louder, or at least clearer, even as it continued to fluctuate.

Finally, the trail stopped. She had reached her destination, apparently.

It was like something out of a fairy tale. A beautiful old house, deep in the darkest part of the forest, complete with its own ghostly music and lighting. The outside walls were painted a very pale cream, and dark wooden beams framed the walls, with a cobblestone trim running around the bottom. A gothic window with a diamond pattern provided the only view inside from where she was, but the interior was still bathed with darkness. She strode up to the arched door, and pushed on the wood. It swung open with a sigh.

As she stepped inside, her horn lit up with a simple illumination spell, and she took off her cloak and saddlebags again, hanging them on a hook by the door.

It had very obviously not been lived in for a long time. While the rooms here definitely still warranted investigation, they were clearly not the source of the mysterious light. She crept up the stairs softly, soothed by each creak of the floorboards and the smooth feeling of the wooden bannister under her hoof.

This place felt like a home- even though she had been here for mere minutes, most of which had been spent outside, marvelling at the structure’s exterior, she was already incredibly comfortable.

The upstairs was similarly adorned with rustic furniture with a slight touch of gothic design, and a few exotic oddities. The main hall up here was carpeted by a rug that looked Saddle Arabian, and there were more curiosities placed thoughtfully upon the narrow hall table. As Bea walked by, she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror on the wall. She looked half-dead.

Despite all the doors on either side of the hall, she instinctively knew that none of them were the one she was looking for. At each end of the hall, there was a door, and it was obvious that it was one of the two. Picking at random, she strode towards the black one with a golden handle, the one closest to her.

As she reached for the doorknob, a wave of incredible pain wracked her body- not physical pain, but a general malaise of suffering and confusion, a horrific feeling that she was only experiencing empathy for- and that alone was enough to make her jump back, shuddering. How could one person be lost in that much misery?

It didn’t matter whether or not that was where all her answers lay- she didn’t have it in her to try and open the door again. She turned and assessed the other side of the hall. A white door, with a silver handle. Walking back past the mirror and table, she crossed over the halfway point, taking note of the long empty planter box against the wall, and then doing a double take as she spotted the miniature library set into the wall across from it. Two well-stocked bookshelves flanked a cushioned bench with plenty of room to lie down on, and a small coffee table perfect for holding a warm drink, a meal or more books. Despite the inherent grandeur of such an impressive feature, the entire thing was shockingly minimalistic compared to the way the other side had been styled. It was clear that there were two very different ponies that had lived.

She finally stood at the door. Tentatively, she reached out her hoof, anticipating an onset of similarly terrible feelings. Eyes scrunched up, her hoof made contact with the handle, and she breathed a sigh of relief. It sounded for all the world like somepony was gently laughing at her, and she huffed as she pushed the door open with a click. “Shut up.”

This only seemed to make the auditory hallucination laugh harder. Whatever. She didn’t care.

The room in front of her was unexpected, and while there was a lot to look at, her attention immediately jumped to the four-poster bed, and the blackened diadem that lay atop the covers.

The ethereal giggling suddenly became more grounded somehow, and it was now undeniable that someone was laughing. And then she heard the voice, deep and luxuriant, yet fragile, “Sorry, sorry!” the laughter slowly petered out, and she began talking again, although Beatrix couldn’t for the life of her figure out where from. “Oh! but ‘tis been so long since we have been visited- and your face! Ahh, no, no… I shouldn’t be so cruel as to laugh at a guest.”

Finally, Bea looked over her shoulder only to find that the source of the disembodied voice was standing right over her shoulder. A tall mare, with a deep purple coat and a flowing black mane- her horn, long and thin, swirled into a slightly curved point, and her wings, while they were folded by her sides, could still clearly take up half the room, and her smile could easily fill the rest of the space.

Beatrix Lulamoon blushed, hard. A beautiful, semi-translucent princess stood before her, and they just stared at each other- for what must have been far too long to have been comfortable- before the intangible mare spoke again, “Please, do have a seat. You look like you’ve been through a lot to.”

Bea nearly passed out. It was all too much for her to take in.

And what the heck was a ‘today’?