Thick greenery seeped across their vision. Overgrown bushes overgrown with more bushes. The kind of endless green that stained your vision long after it was gone.
Progress was slow through this forest. Suddenly, they'd gone from a normal forest to a temperate jungle. Thick brambles slashed at their legs. Again, fur was a useful protection, but it wasn't impenetrable.
Isabel missed the easy going of before. Gentle uphill was all they knew now. Uphill trampling their way through bracken made their journey even harder.
How many miles had they gone since their journey began so many days ago? It had to have been a month by now. Perhaps even more. Hunger famished minds made for bad clocks.
Time would drag on at the best of times. But this was not the best of times. It was the worst of times. And so time crawled even slower.
Roots crept down like sinister mangroves, twisting and turning like nightmares incarnate. Thick trunks broke the line they hoped for and made it crooked and jagged. How she wished she could actually fly. Then she could just fly over this horror. Be done with all the perilous plants.
It felt swampy and the air had an acidic taste, though by now that could be her hunger. Headaches had turned to migraines and fatigue. Each step felt like a mile.
They hadn't eaten since Oscar… Since Oscar fell. He was probably still alive down there, waiting for them to call help to his location. There was still hope. Still hope. Hope.
Grim nights had forced sleep from them. Luxuries that couldn't be afforded when food and shelter were so expensive. Since climbing, the river had become inaccessible and their canteens ran dry. Two days and they'd be dead. If something else hadn't killed them first.
Ahead of them was another of those empty dens that were scattered along the hilltop. Unlike their previous forest, this one seemed to be hostile. Warnings of malicious danger that might be called upon them.
Bears likely. At least they should keep their distance so long as they knew where she was.
With how much sound they seemed to be making, they must've been heard miles away. But that could've been the hunger too. Or the thirst.
Never again would she take for granted all the things she had for so long. Now she didn't have it, she realised how lucky they'd been to find that river.
And before that? Running water. Food. A warm house. All things Isabel would've given anything for.
Now she had do do everything. Everything to keep going.
She hardly remembered the time before that doomed hike. Being a pony seemed as normal now as being a human ever was. Hooves were a little inconvenient at times, but wings were pretty neat, once you learned how to move them around. All that stopped her enjoying them properly was that growl of hunger and the howl of her stomach.
Howl? That wasn't a stomach noise.
Too late did the group realise. Another howl. This one so much closer. Wolves.
Isabel racked her knowledge for anything that might help her. What did wolves hate? How did they fend them off? But her hunger starved brain offered no answers. Behind her, a gap in the trees brought in crisp sunlight. Lighting the way to dusty death.
But if she didn't figure this out it would be her candle that would go out like a walking shadow.
Henry ran.
Chaos was quick to take hold. Aiden followed Henry into the woods and a flash of green followed them. Green glowing eyes, like some kind of monster. Isabel kept moving back. Slowly, facing where she believed the creature to be. Henry and Aiden were long gone, but there was more than one wolf. She kept moving backwards. A hundred metres. Two hundred.
Then she saw it.
Dark wood logs were forced together by some evil god to make that thing. Sticks for features and thorns for deadly claws. Solid, like it had been carved from one block then shattered and reassembled. And beneath leaves that looked like eyebrows the glowing green flashlights peered out at her. It was terrifying. A creature that looked like a wolf but made from wood.
On top of it all was the smell. Like decaying wood, it overcame her and threatened to suffocate her.
For a moment, Isabel considered if it were a hallucination. Wolves couldn't be made of wood could they? But then if magic could exist... anything was possible.
She still backed closer to that clearing. Her only hope, as distant as it could be. However, now she was near, she realised it was a high cliff. Only death awaited her there.
But death awaited her here too.
Flashing wooden teeth and claws, the timberwolf struck. It was brutal and relentless. Like daggers into a steak, the teeth clamped onto her hind leg.
Sharp fiery pain flew through her. Paralysing her nerves with overloaded signals. Worse, was the feeling of warm blood soaking out. Hopefully it hadn't cut an artery. But fortune was certainty not with them anymore. It had left long ago.
A sharp kick to the nose was enough to force it to retreat. But the pain wouldn't stop. Isabel couldn't run. She couldn't fight.
There was only one option. Cliffs might be deadly for a creature of the earth. Wolves couldn't fly. But she could. And she was only ten metres from the edge.
A final burst of adrenaline fueled that desperate last attempt at survival. Throwing herself from the cliff, she began to fall. The ground got closer and closer as the pain from her leg stung her to death.
She fell.
Swirling was tired of this pony. Tracking carvings on a tree to three doomed souls was hard enough on a pony.
Worse, Drift had abandoned her. Some matter of urgency in the north. Leaving her alone to track shadows.
They were deep in timberwolf territory now. The marks had led her here. To a small clearing by the side of the cliff. Thankfully, the markings were distinctive now. Otherwise she certainly would've confused them with the claw markings of wolves.
But the marks stopped. Nothing in any direction. Only a steep cliff face and forest. Perhaps the timberwolves had gotten them.
She couldn't believe that. Someone had to have survived. Someone had to be here. Where had they gone? They couldn't be dead.
But there was nothing. She'd not been strong enough, fast enough or smart enough to follow them. Now at least three ponies were dead. Maybe four. Or more. None of them knew how large the group was.
Swirling stopped. Upon the ground was a stain of blood and three blue feathers. Not expertly placed like the rest, but randomly scattered, as if they had fallen out in a scuffle.
Three blue feathers.
Another dead pony. Maybe the pegasus herself. It was evil of the world to have dropped three feathers in her own death. Some sadistic sarcasm. But evil was all she'd seen. From death to death evil was always close behind.
But nature wasn't evil. It didn't try to kill the survivors. She had done that. By moving too slowly.
They were dead. The search was over.
Wind rushed across her wings as Isabel fell to certain death. The angle needed to be just right to keep her up. Just right.
Pain distracted her from the task that needed to be done. Blood dripped down with her, falling down that immense drop. Phoebe, Emma, Oscar. All of them had died for nothing. Now she would too. Impaled upon a rock at the bottom of the mountain just because she couldn't remember how to fly.
The universe really was cruel.
A twitch in her wing jostled them into the right angle and all at once her fall turned into a steep glide. Air rushed into her face, not her chest and she was moving.
She was flying.
Flying felt like its own perfect magic. Wind in her mane and air under her feathers. Dancing through her wings, air flowed elegantly across them. She could fly!
Of course she'd glided a couple of metres before, but nothing like this. It was so much more real. More beautiful. More perfect.
Far below, the ground rushed by as if she were on a train. Except so much more clear.
Never before had anything come close to the feeling of that wind. That air, the sun above her. All of it drowned out the pain and the hunger and the thirst and filled her with unbridled joy.
Even better was what she could see in the far distance. Much too far to fly and maybe even put of reach on hoof, was a medieval looking town. Somewhere she could be saved. At long last.
Hope saturated her thoughts. She could get help for Oscar. Find Aiden and Henry. They would all be alright.
Then she crashed into the bushes and pain overwhelmed her leg again. Bearing any weight was impossible in this state and alone she had no help.
Hope was still distant.
But it was there.