"Did you see that Pinkie Pie!" Twilight shouted out in her now empty chambers with no ears but her own to hear her.
"You can't make me do it again if I can't reach her! I won't play your game."
Silence was her response.
Twilight couldn't help but feel a chill along her spine as a sudden feeling of dread came over her.
It was almost as if the silence was a sign of how satisfied the demon mare was with the situation. Maybe, just maybe Twilight had played directly into her hooves.
-
In a tiny little village on a beautiful sunny day, a timid yellow pegasus is walking tenderly backwards away from the asparagus stall of the town market square as ponies one after the other cut in front of the queue. Her limited amounts of courage was draining with each moment.
"Oh... okay. There's no rush." She mumbled, her head downcast.
"Fluttershy! You mustn't let them treat you that way." A white unicorn spoke. Her distinctively curly purple mane distinguished her as Rarity. And beside her was a puffy maned Pinkie Pie, looking on with concern.
This is impossible
"Oh... It's really no big deal..." Fluttershy replied, transforming Pinkie pie's expression from mild concern to irritated indignation.
"It's bigger than big! It's double big!" Pinkie pie exclaimed with accompanied pantomime expressions. "You are a pony with a problem." The pink mare now staring down at the yellow coated mare hiding behind her calmly pink mane, shrinking from the judgement of her friends.
"What problem?" Fluttershy's eyes shifted nervously.
Rarity and Pinkie pie exchanged a look and nodded to each other in understanding before looking to Fluttershy once more. Rarity stepped out of the way of what Pinkie intended while the demon mare put a hoof to Fluttershy's flank, causing a mild bewilderment from the shy mare. And with a dash Pinkie pushed past her so quickly that you could hear the wind rush, the force of which was so intense that it made the shy mare spin on the spot and fall into a shamble on the grassy floor.
"Oh! Go right ahead Pinkie pie. You first!"
"Right there!" The pink mare shouted down to the shy pegasus! "That's the problem!" As if to say, get it through your thick skull, Pinkie homed in the point by prodding Fluttershy's head with her hoof. Fluttershy merely looked up at it, like a pet that doesn't know what it did wrong.
"You've got to stop being such a doormat." Rarity concisely explained. Instantly Fluttershy's face went from bewildered and confused to utterly astonished.
"A doormat?" said the yellow mare almost not believing.
"A pushover darling..." Misunderstanding Fluttershy's response as astonishment than more confusion, Rarity found it best to use an alternate expression to explain.
"You've got to stand up for yourself. Promise us!" Rarity said her tone admonishing and ironically weakening the will of the yellow pegasus to decide otherwise.
"Okay..." The shy mare said weakly.
-
With a great gasp Charity awoke. The act of gasping however had her throat begin to feel tickled and irritated, forcing her to cough a wheezy cough. Her mind raced as she involuntary gasped between coughs, creating a light headedness and a desire to rip her throat out from the irritation. Soon enough her coughing built up to a crescendo and with a final mighty hack, a spatter of blood escaped her mucus filled throat and out into the floor below her. She couldn't see that it was blood but she could certainly taste it.
I guess this is why very few ponies use teleportation. The body simply isn't built for it.
Before it felt merely uncomfortable, but that was because Twilight was phasing from place to place around the city. If this pain is any indication, she was a long way away from the city of Celestia and if this darkness is any indication, the empire as well.
"The Everfree forest." That was what Twilight said. Was she really halfway across the world?
There was no point in denying the magical feat, Twilight isn't titled great and powerful for no reason. Besides, with that vision before, Charity knew that she was close to her goal. Unravelling the marvels of geography aside, she had a job to do.
But the demon mare and Saint Rarity as intimate friends.
The impossible depth of understanding they both had as they silently exchanged ideas with a single look burned in Charity's mind. It just seemed so impossible. A saint and a demon as close friends as that.
-
Gala Snaps was a pony who prided himself to doing the right thing. He didn't trust outsiders very much as to teeter at times into contempt or hate. But he would never bring harm onto a pony unprovoked, without justification and especially if they meant the forest no harm. The forest was his home, a land of all kinds of spirits and fauna and flora that he was proud to call his friends. And so far, he has not summoned their help in the matter he has included himself in.
"Mah lady, the outsider has finally awoken." His hoof touched upon a nearby tree trunk and it crackled with power. He channelled energy through the tree making it pulse and glow with illuminated bluish white veins, spreading out into the leaves and through the roots and into the earth.
"As you wish. No harm will come of this one. Ah will lead her outside of the forest." He said as if to no one in particular, for no pony was around but he and that white filly.
No sooner had he said his words however, the filly had begun to walk and she was going the wrong way.
-
When Charity had woken up she had woken to darkness and noise. Animal roars, squeals and barks flooded her ears in the darkness. Her nose flooded with a plethora of smells both fragrant and pungent, and as she groped about blindly she often bumped into something at every turn. She tried to work her horn for light but the best she could muster was a few pathetic sparks and a massive migraine.
And then there was light.
It seemed as if the trees themselves began to glow a calming bluish white at her wish. At her approach trees lit up with life, and as she left, darkness was left in her wake. But most strangely of all, something about the whole forest seemed to have changed. When before she swore she was surrounded by smells and noises, she was now feeling surrounded by silence in both senses. Plus it seemed that the trees, in the darkness, were so seemingly densely packed together. However they were in apparent actuality sparsely apart, forming a long lined path of trees that mimicked that of a tunnel road of wood and leaves.
This had to be some sort of magic at work. The forest had definitely changed at somepony's whim. It was hard to believe, but magic did a lot of things like that.
Experimentally she moved towards one side of the road and tried to pass through the fence of trees. The trees were so densely packed that it was impossible to move past them without brushing against one. And suffice to say, to attempt to do so was a death hazard. She had only touched the tree with the slightest of touches, but it was enough to have a jolt of electricity twitch her hoof away from the edge of the road. With that her suspicions were certain. Someone was leading her along and with no other means to move but the given path she had to follow the silent command. For all she knew she walked a path of ensnarement, but there was simply no other means available. Charity had no choice but to trust in the sentience of the forest to lead where she hoped would be pony civilisation. Yes, if she could find a pony to talk to, she could hopefully ask about this yellow pegasus whom was clearly a major player in her vision.
"Fluttershy was her name." If memory served correctly, there was no such thing as the element of cowardice.
-
Using the glow of fireflies and will o' wisps as a guide Gala Snaps lead the outsider out of the forest. Once she out of the lady's domain she would be somepony else's problem. The filly seemed to comply very well, moving at a rapid pace that forced Gala to extend himself a little more than usual. There was purpose in this pony, a determination to succeed. None of the usual fear and paranoia was apparent in her like other ponies, just a lingering cautiousness as she efficiently traversed the forest, minding every noise in the distance, every object she passed and every time his silhouette was forced to move in her line of vision so that he could position himself.
For a pony so young, this pony knew how to survive. For that Gala was glad, outsiders were a menace who's aspect of war and destruction corrupts the forest's purity and innocence. He hated that about them so much as their mere presence invites death into his home. But knowing that this filly would not merely starve and die outside in that cruel war-torn world, he could banish the filly with a clear enough conscience to know that she was not left out there to just die. This filly, if the fates were kind, would live to do some sort of good in the world.
-
"What?" Charity padded forwards, her pace slowed to what she saw.
Step by step she could see it. The open fields, the night sky, the stars and the moon and the end of the forest.
I'd been led outside into the forest... And far away from my goal. Curse that damned forest! A full blown Rarity knows how long trek and all she had to show for it was an empty field in the middle of the Lunar Republic. At any moment she swore Lunarian military would be patrolling this area and likely going to attempt to capture her for questioning.
"By Rarity, this place is cold." Charity shivered. Having been use to the empire's glow of the warm sun and the warmth of the forest. She now found herself freezing her flank off in this land that was just barely warm enough to not warrant a snowy tundra.
I need to go back in. It was a foolish idea to trust the spirit that guided her. She could feel with each step she took under that guide, the feeling she got when near an element like Twilight Sparkle or about to get a vision began to wane and weaken. She needed no forest spirits' help to find her goal. All she needed was to trust in Saint Rarity to guide her and follow this feeling she gave her.
Turning back into the forest and running back she had found herself expelled once more, flung out into the cold once more by a mysterious force. It was electrifying as a hard impact smacked her across the face.
"Return home right now. Or Ah'll be forced to give you more than a good bucking." The forest seemed to say.
"Show yourself. I just want to talk to somepony. Her name is Fluttershy, have you heard of her?" Charity felt ridiculous shouting at a bunch of trees, but somewhere in the darkness of that wood the forest spirit was listening.
Answering her summons the spirit walked out into the night, the ground he walked on sparking with power as his hoofs touched upon the earth.
"Ah don't know how you've come to know that name but Ah will not let outsiders trespass upon mah home. Leave now before Ah'm forced to really show you what you're dealing with." Gala snaps was a young earth pony. He wore an old ragged stetson on his head, his gaze downcast as to hide his face. His body was covered in vines delicately caressing his coat as if it were really a part of him. On his flank he revealed his cutie mark to be some strange rainbow coloured fruit contrasting his simple orange coat. His yellow mane flared and crackled with sparks whenever it swayed to some non-existent wind.
"I... I know you..." Charity's heart was racing.
"Pardon?"