The sun dipped down past the horizon in the west, setting the sky on fire with brilliant bands of crimson, orange, yellows, blues, and purples. Maud’s campsite was in a lush valley filled with many acacia trees, along with some deciduous trees. The Sisters were now behind them, to the north.

Trixie lay by the campfire, on her side, with her head resting upon a folded blanket. She wasn’t moving much, but she was awake, staring at the fire, silent, and lost in her own thoughts. Her bad leg was propped up on the folded blanket, close to her head. Not far away, Maud was writing in her journal and Boulder sat on a flat topped stone beside a steaming cup of tea.

Sitting across from the two mares, on the other side of the fire, Tarnish was reading through Vinyl Scratch’s well worn magical primer, trying to see if he could learn anything by accident. Vinyl had an amazing understanding of magic, magical theory, and perhaps of most importance, she had a knack for making magic understandable. Tarnish had his muzzle buried in his book, his brows were crinkled in concentration, and his ears were angled over his eyes.

As he read, he kept a circle of stones in orbit around his head, a simple concentration exercise recommended by the book. If he could keep the stones circling around his head while reading and not drop them, he could improve his ability to multitask. These were basic magical skills that, ideally, he should have learned as a foal, but didn’t. Every now and then, he was supposed to pick up and add another stone to the orbit. So far, he had seven, and it was starting to become a struggle to both read while keeping things aloft as well as moving.

“Tarnish…” Maud’s deadpan voice interrupted his concentration and he looked up. “Tarnish, over there.” Turning his head to the direction that Maud pointed, all of the stones that Tarnish held in orbit plunked to the ground. He didn’t move, he was too scared to do so, but he knew that he needed to draw Flamingo.

Or did he? He stared at the timber wolf that was staring at him. It didn’t seem aggressive. It didn’t attack. It just stood there, watching him, unmoving. The animated monstrosity made of wood, leaves, and moss stared at him with glowing eyes that didn’t blink.

Doing a double take, Tarnish saw that the timber wolf’s eyes were glowing blue. He seemed to recall that there should be a sickly green glow. Curious, he watched and waited, no longer feeling afraid. The wolf turned, took a few steps, stopped, and then howled. Its howl was the sound of demon wind tearing through a forest, the sound of creaking limbs, rustling leaves, and faint whistles.

The wolf seemed to be waiting. Eyes glowing, it stared back at Tarnish over its shoulder, almost as if it was waiting for Tarnish to come along. Compelled by a strange force, Tarnish knew that he had to follow it. Something unseen tugged at him, something mysterious and unknown.

He stood up, set down his book, and as he started to follow, he heard movement behind him. He paused, turned his head to look back, and saw Maud helping Trixie to get up. Intense curiousity burned in Trixie’s one open eye, a desire to know more. She wobbled on her legs and Maud steadied her.

“I don’t know if you should follow,” Tarnish said to Trixie.

“Trixie needs to know why the timber wolf isn’t eating you,” Trixie replied, “and Trixie will know. Trixie finds you mysterious and weird, a unicorn that uses zebra magic and follows timber wolves off into what will surely be a trap of some kind.”

“I doubt it will be a trap.” Tarnish didn’t know how he knew this, so he didn’t bother trying to explain it. “Maud, can you help Trixie along or should I carry her?”

“Trixie will walk on her own!” the grating blue mare snapped.

“Fine then, do try to keep up.” Still feeling miffed about what Trixie had said earlier, Tarnish took off after the wolf, leaving Trixie to Maud’s tender mercy. The wolf moved at a swift loping pace, and Tarnish increased to a quick trot to keep up.

“Trixie demands to know what is going on!”

Determined to keep up with the timber wolf, Tarnish crashed through the underbrush after it. There was no trail here, just rough overland. The trees here were ancient and the ground was on a steady uphill incline.

Somehow, Trixie managed to stumble along after Tarnish, hobbling after him on three legs, and it was Maud that was keeping her upright when she stumbled. Her horn glowed with a brilliant blue light, pushing back the growing darkness. It was obvious that she was recovering, now that she had been given a chance to sleep, had some food, had some liquids, and had the infection purged from her body.

“This is all very peculiar,” Trixie said in a somewhat breathless voice, “Trixie would very much like an explanation and she is worried that this is all a fever dream.”

All around them, the forest was alive with creaking timber, and much to Tarnish’s shock and alarm, a whole pack of timber wolves closed around them, all of them with glowing blue eyes. One was walking right beside him, and Tarnish noticed flashes of blue in its wooden body. Closer inspection revealed blue petals.

These timber wolves all had poison joke entangled within them!

He felt a bit of worry for Trixie, but he knew that she could be fixed with a few sips of his tea if something happened. He looked at the wolf beside him and saw that it was looking up at him. The blue glow in its eyes now made some sense—perhaps the blue glow was because the timber wolves had been taken over by poison joke.

Ahead, the ridge of a ravine loomed before them, an impassible wall. Tarnish wondered how they were going to get up and over it. Perhaps there was a path. If necessary, he was ready to carry Trixie, even if she protested.

Then, he saw it. A narrow crack in the natural wall of stone ahead. It wasn’t a cave, no, it was a crevice. The wolves slipped through it and Tarnish followed them. He found himself in a narrow canyon. Above him, in the indigo night sky, the stars twinkled overhead. On each side of him, the stony earth rose for at least fifty feet. A sweet, pleasant scent was in the air… the scent of… poison joke. Lush, damp grass tickled his frogs.

The narrow gap continued ahead for at least a hundred feet or so, and then it appeared to widen. He pushed ahead and heard gasps from behind him. Not just Trixie, but Maud as well, his ears perked as he heard her sharp inhale. It was a notable sound, something she did when she found something that grabbed her interest—rocks, stones, geological formations, mineral deposits, and his erections poking her in the bed.

He felt the tingle of strong magic here and slowed his pace so Trixie could stay close to him. He could feel the hairs of his pelt coursing with static, and it crackled in both his mane and his tail. He pushed his way through the end of the narrow gap, and made his way into the wider part of what he now knew to be a box canyon.

The box canyon was almost egg shaped. At the far end, a narrow waterfall trickled down the jagged rocks. Tarnish wasn’t sure what a place like this was called. A glen? A grove? Whatever it was, it was a place of natural wonder, it was beautiful, it was breathtaking.

It was also full of poison joke. Turning to look over his shoulder, he saw that Trixie lingered near the narrow gap, away from the poison joke, and Maud stood beside her. He turned back around to look at the waterfall once more and his eye caught a flash of greyish white.

He strode through the poison joke as the wolves circled around him. In the middle of the box canyon there was a statue, a strange statue, it was something that somehow seemed familiar and strange at the same time. After getting closer, he stopped to have a look at it. He began pulling away the moss and vines that covered it so he could see it better.

It was the strangest thing he had ever seen, and he didn’t know what it was, even though it seemed familiar for some reason. He pulled more vegetation away and illuminated the area with his horn as the wolves frolicked around him.

“That’s a centaur!” Trixie shouted from where she stood. “It’s like Tirek, but a female!”

Nodding, Tarnish stared at the statue. She had a pony body and a strange torso with two, plump mammaries. She had an apelike face. Antlers grew from her head, but some of the tips had broken off. Her body was covered in cracks and it was impossible to tell how old she was.

Her arms were outstretched from her sides and Tarnish worked to remove more overgrowth. In her left hand, there was a shield, and much to Tarnish’s surprise, it wasn’t stone, but metal. There was no rust. He moved to the left to have a better look, and froze when he saw the emblem on the shield.

It was a poison joke flower. The emblem on the shield appeared to be made of stained glass. Silver glittered in his horn light and the glass sparkled like blue diamonds. He stared, not knowing what to make of this.

“Centaurs are the reason why so many things in pony culture have handles, grips, and things that could be grabbed, even though we have hooves… they came before us and built civilisation… Trixie learned about this in Princess Celestia’s school while she was there.”

Tarnish barely heard a word.

“They left behind so much… we’ve tried to be just like them.”

Looking up, Tarnish moved over to the right to see what was in the other hand. He saw a flash of blue—which didn’t surprise him—and then he saw it. The other hand was holding a blue orb, not much bigger than a foal’s ball. One of the fingers had broken off, and the others had cracks.

“This is old.”

Startled, Tarnish discovered that Maud was standing beside him. He looked at her, and saw that something about her face was different. He couldn’t quite make out what it was, but he swore that Maud was having some sort of a reaction.

“Tarnish, this is thousands of years old… and I don’t think it’s a statue,” Maud said in a strange sounding voice. “That shield… by now, it should have rusted and crumbled away. It has to be magic. This whole place has a strange vibration to it.”

Mere seconds after Maud spoke, the shield fell to the ground with a faint clang. Looking down, Tarnish realised they were standing on a stone platform that was covered in moss and dirt. He stared at the shield, curious, it was made for a hand, it had a handle on the back, it was shaped like a kite, thick, and at the moment, it had a soft blue glow.

“Tarnish, look out!”

Before Tarnish could react, something grabbed him by the horn. Looking up, unable to move, he realised that the centaur statue’s left hand gripped him by the horn. He could feel the pressure and panic overtook him. Before he could cry out or say anything, the world turned blue.

Around Tarnish, a city burned. Strange, distorted beasts fought with ponies and centaurs… and one another? He had no idea what was going on. He blinked, trying to get a better look and saw… Discord? The battle raging around him was pure chaos as the various draconequus—Tarnish realised that he had no idea what the plural form of the word ‘draconequus’ was—whatever they were, they battled all around him, destroying each other while they also attacked the centaurs and the ponies.

Some of the ponies were different too. Distorted somehow. Some had antlers. Others had strange animal legs. Strange magic crackled in the air and it was as though Tarnish was standing on the most intense ley line intersection he had ever encountered.

A female centaur battled with a draconequus a short distance away. She had a sword and a shield, a familiar looking shield with a poison joke emblem. Beside her, a male alicorn fought at her side, using his magic to shield her from the draconequus attacks.

She swung her sword in a vicious, chopping arc, and the draconequus countered her attack with the swipe of his enormous claws—it appeared as though he had a mole leg, or perhaps a badger leg—and his claws cut the sword blade into pieces.

Confused, terrified, Tarnish watched as a group of armor wearing centaurs and alicorns escorted a group of ponies and foals to safety, trying to get them away from the vicious battle. There were… alicorn… foals?

Gripping her broken sword, the female centaur smacked the draconequus with her shield and there was a blinding blue flash as the shield smashed into the draconequus’ face. It howled in pain and began to turn blue, the colour creeping along its body, originating from where it had been struck.

The sword, which still had a few inches of blade left, was rammed into the draconequus, who shrieked as the sword pierced its neck. Flailing about, his clawed hand raked outwards at the female centaur, but did not strike her.

The male alicorn threw himself between them with a cry, and the terrible claws struck the alicorn stallion in the throat. A second later, his head rolled and bounced along the ground. Tarnish turned away, horrified, and he felt nauseous. He heard a furious, tormented scream of anguish.

All around him was destruction and death. It was horrible. It was unbearable—

—And then it was gone. Blinking, he felt dust tickling his nostrils. He glanced up, panicked, his eyes burning as they too, had dust falling into them. He jerked his head back and realised that the statue’s hand was crumbling, falling to pieces.

He also saw that the statue was moving. The right hand swung towards him and the blue orb it held was glowing with a soft, soothing blue light. Tarnish’s legs trembled and he felt his plothole clenching tight.

As the statue moved, pieces of it broke off; the remains of an antler, more of her left arm, a leg, she was coming apart. She loomed over him, large, powerful looking, and held the orb out to him.

“You are not the one I expected, but you will have to do,” the statue said in a grating, rumbling voice of stone sliding over stone. “I can no longer hold myself together. Take this. I was expecting an alicorn to come and perform this task, but you shall have to do. Be brave, little pony, be steadfast, and do not falter. The orb will show you the way.” The blue orb flared with a brilliant flash of light as the statue spoke.

Not knowing what else to do, Tarnish grabbed the orb in his magic and the statue began to crumble in earnest. He stared, knowing that this centaur female was the same one that he had just seen. Had he been dreaming? He didn’t know what was going on.

“Perhaps the mistakes of the past can still be corrected,” the statue said, and then, much to Tarnish’s horror, her head fell off, tumbled to the ground, and shattered. A second later, her whole body collapsed, leaving behind a pile of greyish white stone chunks and dust.

It seemed that Tarnish had a job to do—what it was, he had no clue.

Author's Notes:

Questions?