Chapter Eight: Welcome to the Everfree
The early morning made the reclaimed wilderness known as Everfree seem more peaceful than it truly was. Towering weeping willows dominated, only the occasional peek of an overcast sky granted by branches that swayed with a nearly mournful groan. The marble towers and ship yards of ancient Canterbury were dwarfed or outright buried in green, and below their piers lay the true story of this forest.
Below the water and silt of the Great Hope river was a vast graveyard of nameless dead from a single event seven hundred years ago. If one were to look down into the clear water they would see their ancestors looking back through hollow eyes, some still reaching out from a silt of white pulverized marble, some tangled in vines that would never let them go.
"I've come here so many times. Not once have I ever been foolish enough to leave my ship. Your Inn-owning friend couldn't pay me enough. Not even the full value of that old rat's nest he calls a pub would convince me."
She cracked a grin and gave a little nod. She felt nervous and could barely meet Angel's eyes, but for once she just let herself live in the overwhelming sensation of someone leaning into her. The non-binary equis she shared herself with didn't seem to notice or mind heI avoidance of eye contact. Perhaps it was because Angel understood the burdens of being different, or perhaps it was because she found herself as far from the civilized and populated world as possible. Both, probably.
"I can't say I blame you. The forest still has a grudge, and I can't blame it either."
"It isn't like us, you know.", Angel said as she gazed over at what used to be a grand mansion. Half of it was waterlogged rubble, the other gave a cut-away view of its many rooms. Some of the furniture was even still sitting on rotted planks that used to be ornate wood floors.
"It doesn't think about death or life in the same way. Everything is transitioning, dividing. It considers everything a part of itself, and to die is just to change."
"You got all that just from your empathic gift?", Arcane said as she allowed Angel's cheek to nestle against her neck.
"It's my interpretation of something very abstract, but yes. It's beyond good or evil. It just 'is', I suppose."
Arcane slid fingers between Angels and squeezed. She knew more than anyone how hard it was to get words out.
"Arcane, nothing is as simple as good or evil and that's how 'she' sees it. We live our entire lives from the lenses of our own experiences, but nature? She's seen it through everyone's eyes. Light and Dark, they all have their place."
Angel slid their hand away and raised to her hooves before slipping into the cabin. After a short moment the boat began to pivot. The water wheel died as a jet of steam fired out from the port-side of that large metal engine. Arcane sat up when the branches of weeping willows brushed over the cabin's rooftop. The water wheel reversed for just a few moments to take all forward momentum out of the vessel before dying again. Finally, the boat brushed against one of the few remaining docs of Old Canterbury with a heavy thud.
The marble dock was several times wider than the ship itself. The surface was paved with wooden hexagons framed in gold. By now most of the wood was soft and sodden with rot or simply missing altogether. Studded all along the edges were large spheres of solid marble, most likely as a way to tie down ships at port.
A few meters down the green, brown, and white path was a tunnel of plant life that had been hacked and burnt over many years and by many adventurers. By all accounts this would be the safest way into the Everfree, though this was entirely relative to every other path smothered in plant life or blocked by fallen buildings. Further down into the tunnel the passage was already small enough for only one person to squeeze through. Perhaps this was recently reopened, but there was no telling how fast the forest could heal.
Arcane stretched her hands within her fingerless gloves and inspected each of the six fuses like the life-saving things they may be. Her tap gloves were in better shape than they had any reason to be, but she couldn't help toss doubt at everything she did. It kept her alive this long.
"Do you have a death wish?"Angel spoke up and stood in Arcane's way, their back to the mossy rotten port.
She smiled softly. "What if I did?"
Angel didn't return the smile and simply grasped her wrists, pulling them up. "Everfree hates magic. Practically every novice could tell you that."
She surprised Angel with a tender heartfelt smile. It was the smile of someone who deeply appreciated the worry spent on her. All of Hex's smiles were practiced, and perhaps only now did that become obvious.
"It's only in absolute emergencies, and pretty much for just one spell. Maybe for bait, depending on the situation."
Angel gave up with a sigh and a smirk, opening her mouth to say one last thing before Arcane interrupted.
"Do me a favor. Back in Last Harbor, after you get your payment, could you just share a drink and talk with a friend of mine there? Her name is Brick."
They gave a soft nod, "Does she change color too?"
She gave a smirk, "Ha, Ha. After this is all said and done we can share a drink, the three of us. Just talk to her. I think she needs someone more… in touch with their feelings."
She reached down and grabbed her duffle bag before stepping up onto the ancient doc. There were no more words exchanged, only the silent understanding before Angel slipped back into their cabin. The boat came to life once again and turned around. She wanted to stay there and watch it sail east, back to Last Harbor, but time wasn't on her side. Nobody wants to be caught unprepared when dark falls in the Everfree.
-
The issue of which bounty to first pursue wasn't a hard one. The first one was an inanimate object, possibly problematic if it were anything like her unknown clieas claimed it was. Nevertheless, it was just a rock roughly the size and shape of a grapefruit. It wasn't some silly mare who ran away from her military training and decided to hide in the world's most dangerous forest.
Past the narrow tunnel of branches and brambles was a wider space, though still just as claustrophobic. The eccentricity of Old CanterBury could be seen quite easily in the pale gloom of a vast street of large yet purely aesthetic gems used as cobblestones. A rainbow of colors flickered between creeping vines and small trees breaking up an otherwise flawless road. On either side were buildings of black, white, brown, green, and red marble. All had massive columns and ornate walls decorated in beautiful figures. Each was no less than three stories tall of once-magnificent windows, most busted out by branches and vines snaking in and out of the violated facades. High above all the roofs was a canopy of leaves which granted only the faintest green-blue light down into this artificial canyon boulevard.
It was truly a grand sight so long as you could ignore one dark truth. Every cobblestone and ornate nude figure, every flawless inch of this place was built with the blood and tears of the Mundane. It was called 'indentured servitude' by some and the 'feudal system' by historians. The Astrals owned the land and the Celestials bowed their knees. The Mundanes worked the land, as their gifts so often made them talented at doing. Debt was a way of life for her ancestors due to Astral manipulation, so it was only a matter of time before an Astral owned a Mundane in body and soul. They owned their future children. They owned their bloodline.
To be fair, Queen Celestia wanted to abolish the debt-labor system. Sadly, she was only a Princess in those days. She only became the queen after the disappearance of their father, roughly during the fall of this very capital. Suspicious, yes, but she wasn't about to argue the result.
Arcane approached a crossroads that told a rather bloody story, thankfully one that took place centuries ago. To her right a massive root barricaded the street. Piled up behind that root was a small mountain of carriages with their skeletal occupants inside, or spilled down the wooden mammoth. They were all aged and jumbled around, but the tatters of silk and cotton among their corpses suggested each was from the upper class. Perhaps a thousand or so Astral nobels of a bygone era met their deaths here, just one street away from a possible escape.
She decided to 'look' here. She took a deep breath and succumbed to an anxiety she struggled to push down daily. She let her heart beat faster and her senses sharpen until swiveling lines of magic began emerging from everything with and once-with wild magic flowing through it.
Emerald light flowed through every tree and every leaf that hung high over her. Multi Colored sprites with little buzzing wings flew by her ear that were invisible seconds before. Deep below her hooves she felt a rumble, a sort of purr that dominated everything. This forest was alive, not just alive but one massive life. It was calling to her, seeing her as a sister of millions of sisters. She felt an overwhelming desire to dig into the earth and become a part of it, that not even death meant the same anymore.
She breathed in and out slowly. She had to fight it. She had to drown out everything but the one glimmer she sought. Something had to be different, unique enough to stand out no matter how far it was. A voice spoke to her, but it wasn't words. Raw intention ran through her spine and spoke so loud she confused it for her own will for just a moment. She found herself shouting but the words didn't belong to her.
"What do you seek!"
She gasped in breath and answered.
"The seventh?"
She clenched her teeth and fought for control. She lost.
"Thirteen rivers, six dark, six light, the last betwixt under Twilight!"
"No. Not now, please!"
The roots were no longer there, nor the dead or the tall trees. She was standing in the middle of a flawless road with a blood-orange sky. Overhead were the first stars of the approaching night, and shooting like a blazing beam into the air was the final dying embers of the day. To Bless' relief there were no rivers of power here. It was nothing like the day she was force fed power. All around was shallow water and this strange sunset.
She ran towards the light before colliding into a solid wall of moss-smothered wood. Knocked onto her ass she now looked around in the gloom. Reality returned and with it the welcomed absence of other voices.
"Damn vision quests…" she grumbled to herself. A world of magic like her's had their fair share of weird magical omens and spirits beyond time putting people on long paths. In fact, they were so common that most avoided them like religious types on street corners.
"Well, guess there's only one way forward. Up."
It took thirty minutes of climbing and slipping to get over the barricade of roots. One too many times her hands found a slippery crevice between split bark and fell onto roots stacked over one another. She was glad not to fall thirty meters down onto the ground, but the wood was hard and unforgiving. At the summit, she was rewarded with more horror. The streets were stuffed with carriages and the bones of large flightless avian beasts of burden that were now extinct. Among vehicles and harnessed birds were the dead. They ranged in age, yet the majority seemed like grown stallions. By all appearances these were the wealthy that died of stubbornness and ego.
The streets were so packed she was forced to walk along the rooftops of carriages. She did her best not to trip over luggage and the occasional deceased driver. The rarity of skeletons wearing a driver's uniform made her smile, however. She imagined all those servants running off, leaving their snooty masters to die.
She jumped off a carriage roof once the vehicles were spread apart enough to expose a clear sidewalk. It was here the buildings no longer stood side by side. Large overgrown lawns behind tall fences boasted majestic official buildings, or in some cases simply the decapitated bronze roof of buildings destroyed from inside out by massive oaks and birch trees.
It was only after an hour of wandering down this overgrown graveyard she found something truly odd. The white marble structure had a massive cracked dome made of glass on its roof and vines weaving their way in and out of every broken window. Along the rusty iron fence were trinkets like dolls and old weapons that ranged in age. A bastard sword from five centuries ago, an executioner's blade from three centuries ago, even a burnt-out tap glove that couldn't be five years old.
They all seemed like sacrifices, or someone's way of leaving an old memory behind. There was no guessing how many came here before, but something must have drawn them here.
She threw her duffle bag over the gate before climbing over and landing in grass that came up to her chest. Before her was a museum of sorts. Tall statues of a male and female Alicorn framed the stairs up, no doubt the former Queen and King themselves. She didn't bother to examine the faces of those deserving to be forgotten and pushed open one of two iron doors that stood four times her height.
The creaking hinges sent an eerie echo across what was once a main foyer. In a grand circle below the glass dome were empty marble pedestals and the shattered remains of glass cases. The cavernous room was bare and anything that once held value was long since plundered. From here three hallways branched out ahead, to the left, and the right. She felt a subtle pull on her left hand. Left it was.
Arcane could feel something wrong the moment she entered the hallway, but it was the graffiti that gave it a name. Along the walls were empty picture frames with tatters of canvas left over from vandals that cut the expensive art out. Within one of these hollow frames were bold black letters written in something black.
"Beware the mirror. Can't break, can't move."
A violent pressure built behind her eyes the moment she looked down the long hallway and into a wide showroom. Within that dimly lit room a flawless reflection cast from a tall ovular standing mirror. The silver surface was clean while its lacquered mahogany frame was caked in dust and grime.
The pain was all thanks to her gift and the overwhelming effect of Ascended magic. Of all the gifted beings in her world only a handful had the merged bloods of Mundane, Celestial, and Astral. Queen Celestia, Queen Luna, Queen Cadence, and Regent Queen Twilight. Merged as one, their power far surpassed all else. It was a long-since-deceased Ascended that made this 'mirror' and the fifty or so mirrors that were meant for easy travel all about Equestria. Unfortunately, their inventor didn't realize just how far the mirrors could go. Other worlds occasionally found the mirror network. Sometimes parallel versions of prominent Equis could find themselves in this world. Sometimes they cross over and do horrible things, for instance, scar every Equis they can in an attempt to rob them of their power and enslave an entire planet.
Arcane pressed her hand against the closest wall and closed her eyes. She dragged in air slowly and let it out slower. She focused on losing focus. Heat ran from her left nostril and fell with a dense tap onto the marble floor. Even through hazy eyes she could see the red of her own blood. It wasn't working, her gift refused to silence itself.
She tightened her fists and slowly stumbled towards the tall mirror.
"Shut. Up."
Her mind wandered to that day. A hollow eyed horror with a pale white collar in her hands. She wanted to pull away but she couldn't fight it. The collar snapped closed tightly around her neck. In an instant she couldn't feel a seam. It was solid, like it was always there.
She felt the flames start from her neck and spread below and above. Between her eyes she could see her nose change into exposed sinuses made from bleached bone. The painted filly was now bathed in black and white fire. Her left eye was now a golden speck, her right a blue speck quivering in empty sockets.
She felt a link to something ageless, something demented. From another world a fifteen year old Arcane was force-fed power she desperately wanted to reject. Her gift grew sharper and the universe was torn open before her. The sky was a vein work of light and she knew every one by name. Her hands quivered as they brushed fate itself, time itself. The smallest motion felt as if it could send reality crumbling down.
She couldn't stop herself from crying out. Her voice disturbed the air and set it alight. She screamed and everything around her flew apart like spent matches. The abomination that enslaved her burst into dust and that damned collar with it.
-
"Shut!"
Her gloved fist slammed into the glass. It quivered but refused to crack.
"Up!"
Her second fist made contact. Not a single scratch.
"Shut!"
Her left hand collided again. The three fuses of her tap glove began to glow as bolts of blue light crackled from the prismatic tubes.
"Up!"
Her right tap came to life. The bolts of blue energy lept from one fist to the other. Blood dripped from her nose freely as small crimson pearls welled from the corners of her eyes.
"Shut Up!"
Her left fist crashed into the flawless surface. Instead of brittle glass, a flash of blue made the silver ripple like a dense fluid.
"Shut… UP!"
Her right hand vanished onto the rippling silver. Against reason, everything from her wrist to her fingers now felt impossibly far away. Something was forced into her hand. She pulled free and stumbled back.
The world grew silent for a few precious moments. The God-tier magic of the mirror vanished as the ripples flattened into what seemed like common glass once again. It was all but forgotten as she looked down at the stone sphere she now held.
It didn't seem like anything special by just looking at it. Her mind felt strained, and even trying to summon her gift of other-sight threatened to knock her unconscious with a vicious migraine. It was simply a grapefruit sized sphere made of rough grey stone with the symbol of 'resolution' etched into it.
Anyone who knew of Lady Sunset knew what that symbol looked like, even if they never studied ancient Pictograms. A sun giving off flares and divided like a yin-yang. Many considered it the counterpart of the Dawn-spark, the symbol of our currently acting Queen.
She hissed in air as the metallic plate of her tap glove and the sphere were suddenly attracted to one another. Her other hand flew onto the rock and doubled the pain, forcing her to scream out.
A chorus joined her. The sound of wind howling through leaves rose in an ear-splitting maelstrom outside and echoed through the stone hallways. The noise lowered to baritones and discordant sopranos as what sounded natural became anything but. Thousands of clicks, growls, and snarls grew closer. She tried to raise her hands and ready a spell, but the damn sphere had her bound.
The main doors burst open slightly before the abominable pack began to flow in. The creatures called Timberwolves resemble wolves constructed of grey-green driftwood. As they pushed and bit at one another, their cobbled-together pieces flashed an eerie green light. Teeth made of chipped stone and sharpened glass snapped eagerly. Tongues of dark brown clay drooled out a viscous tar-like saliva.
Arcane's hazy eyes focused on something not very wolf-like at all at the front of the pack. Its feet were odd. Instead of hooves, it had large toes with talons that retracted every time its foot landed. Strong hips allowed this thing to practically leap well beyond the drooling beasts with each step. Its midsection narrowed in a feminine curve that remained solid to the core. The only disadvantage she could see was the being's height. It was barely over a meter high.
The creature grew near as it shouted something out. It sounded like nonsense with rolling r's and sharp vowels, but the last word was perfectly clear. It said 'home' as an arm hooked Arcane's bound hands. She was being dragged by the creature as it continued to run from the snarling pack. Gravity quit and the world became a narrow tunnel of light. Inertia pulled at her as if she were falling.
A flash of red followed as she flew tumbling across dry leaves and soil. She finally came to a stop, laying on her back as she looked up at a red sky through skeletal branches.
"Of all the stupid… Why do I even try?! Sometimes I think, 'Alloy, maybe you should just find a nice corner of the multiverse and settle down. What's the point of saving a species this stupid!' Bringing magic gloves to a forest that hates magic? Yeah, that's smart. Why not?"
The being calling itself Alloy kept ranting as Arcane tried to pry her hands off the round stone. It gave off a sort of quiver as she fought to be free. It was preparing for something, but the magic it was as constructed from was beyond even Ascended types like Queen Celestia. It was older than her, older than the world, perhaps the universe itself. It not only hurt her to see it, it truly pushed her to the edge of sanity to even understand it.
"… are you even- Hey, are you alright?"
The being looked down at Arcane, giving her the first clear look at her angry savior. Her nose was petite and nuzzle slender like a deer, though slightly shorter and more articulate than the four-legged variety she would see in forests. Long cervine ears were permanently held down by large dark green horns that swiveled in an s-curve as they pointed backwards. Her face was coated in very small feather-like strands of fur that dabbled her body in shades of green like a watercolor painting, but her pale brown eyes were rich and solid. There was hair of sorts on her head that seemed like soft feathers, long down the left side of her head and short on the right.
Her clothes looked recycled and patched several times over. She wore a brown tank top and tattered baggy pants under a long shawl, all of it dusty. Under this, Arcane could make out a belt with several chords and gems dangling from it. Each seemed potent with magic, nothing like the thing she was still bound to, but still an impressive collection.
Alloy stumbled back as her eyes grew wide.
"W-w-A-…"
She tried to ask what was making Alloy panic, but her voice came out twice and resonated like a tuning fork. Her vision doubled and blurred. She was vibrating, jostling back and forth. Before she could make sense of it, Arcane found herself being flung away from the stone. She was dazed and disoriented yet finally free.
"What the fuck!!"
Alloy shouted out. She looked over at the green dragon and over to the white.. the black.. Equis that showed up from nowhere. Words failed as she faced another her, clothes ripped in half.