The Symbiote, Chapter 2

by Mike

The path to the Everfree Forest, framed by tall grass, ran over an open meadow full of low rolling hills with swampy, cattail-filled areas in their dells and patches of farmland on their tops. The chorus of frogs and crickets rose louder here than the cacophony of the birds. Ponyville receded in the distance and the sun, now behind the Everfree Forest’s light-swallowing trees, reflected tiredly off the wispy clouds; lighting the sky ablaze with fast-fading orange. The late afternoon air did the ponies some good. They began to consider in the back of their minds the journey ahead and speculate about what they would find at it’s end, but for the most part they tried to enjoy the journey.

Rainbow Dash quickly won the race to the edge of the Everfree (which no one else had actually participated in), gotten bored (and a little creeped out by the dark forest, though she wouldn’t have admitted it), and wandered back to join the other ponies. “Come on guys, you can go faster!” Rainbow Dash crossed her front Hooves and floated lazily about with a frown on her face to exaggerate her boredom. “Not even Ditzy...”

Of course Ditzy was completely devoted to capturing every moment of her adventure in her memory- and was just as enthusiastic about chasing a firefly around as Dash was about Racing.

Twilight Sparkle and Applejack led the herd at a casual pace, taking little notice of Rainbow Dash because they were busy making plans. “Well, we got a late start, so we can’t make it very far, why not spend the night at Zecora’s. Then, tomorrow we can establish a base camp at the castle of the royal pony sisters, since we know the way there already. What do you think?”

“Sounds good… An’ maybe Pinkie will recognize some mountains along the way.”

“Exactly.”

“By the way, where’d Pinkie go?” Applejack looked around thoroughly, then added: “… An’ Fluttershy too!” At this, Twilight became slightly worried. “I don’t know.” After looking around with Applejack for a moment she yelled back towards Rarity. “Hey Rarity, have you seen Pinkie and Fluttershy?”

“No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t. I thought perhaps they were behind us?”

“HERE WE ARE!!!” Pinkie leapt down from one of the trees lining the edge of the forest, and Fluttershy descended more slowly, following the sudden drizzle of confetti. “And that’s how it’s done, Fluttershy”

“Oh, simply marvelous, I never would have imagined that you could do that…can, can you do that again?”

Pinkie Pie looked from side to side, buried her head in the ground, unburied it, looked carefully behind the tree they had jumped from, and cautiously back in the direction of Ponyville, then came up close to Fluttershy to whisper in her ear; “not while the reader’s watching…”Rainbow Dash almost spoke, but Spike beat him to it, muttering in his sleep from upon twilight’s back; “Pinkie Pie, you are so random…” Rainbow Dash remained undeterred: “Er… yeah, what he said!”

Applejack spoke to Twilight “Well, we found ‘em!” Then she gestured down the trail “An’ not a horseshoe-toss from the forest too soon.”

The Ponies stopped for a moment to stare at the immense trees that marked the threshold of the forest. The sound of frogs and crickets was even louder here than on the meadow-lined trail. Though it was approaching dusk and the thick canopy seemed to hungrily devour the light, the forest no longer felt harsh, unforgiving or threatening; as it had been when nightmare moon had forced the place to remain in its nighttime state. No, today it was calm; the type of deathly calm that plays tricks on the minds of little fillies, trying to make them think that it’s fear, but calm nonetheless. Small creatures scurried about in the gloom. Where Ditzy wandered forth and stepped on a colorful mushroom, an odd call emanated; “Papa Smurf, Papa Smurf!” The vines on the trees were thick and tufted with hanging mosses, making the forest look particularly overgrown, but at ground level, perhaps because the leaves of the trees were so good at catching the light, there were surprisingly few shrubs and bushes, except for the patch of poison Joke. That stuff seemed to derive its strength to live solely from blocking the ponies’ clearest path to Zecora’s abode.

“c’mon, Applebloom found a way around that poison joke field that’ll lead straight to Zecora’s place.” The path wound about for a while, but it got them to the hut all the same.

Zecora heard a knock at the door. She put down the bundle of herbs she had been making and let in her visitors with a greeting: “Ah, welcome, welcome my good friends. What brings you around the bend?” Twilight Sparkle spoke for the group “Hi Zecora, we were wondering if we could spend the night here. Tomorrow we’re going to explore the forest: we’re looking for some sort of… ‘enemy of Equestria’.”

“Sure; this home is a station for rest. I think that’s what it does best. If I recall, I may have seen this foe. It likes to be addressed by simple names like Joe.” Twilight stared smugly at Zecora. “You just had to rhyme that last line, didn’t you?”

“No; the pony you seek is quite eccentric: hyper, translucent, and a bit pedantic.”

Twilight was confident that, though it was unlike her, Zecora was just stringing words together. How else could you explain such random comments? “Well how could you even be certain that… oh, never mind.”  “Thanks Zecora. That information might prove, um… useful!” “Come on in guys!” the other ponies made themselves comfortable, thanking Zecora for the place to sleep and the warm welcome.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had so many guests, cooking tonight is going to be a quite a test.” Applejack didn’t want to be rude, so she intercepted Zecora before she left to get food. (Darn, now I’m doing it too) “Aw, that’s mighty kind of ya, but I brought some apples for that.” She gathered the other travelers, and they each took a single apple. Rainbow Dash almost went back for seconds, but Applejack stopped her. “Hold on there, partner! I know it’s not much to eat but we gotta conserve food. We don’t know how long we’ll be out here.” Eventually, after bouts of intermittent conversation the tired ponies finished their apples and settled down for sleep around the fire pit.

Twilight and Zecora, nearest to the window, were brought back from the brink of consciousness by a sound from the inky blackness of the forest: giggles at first, then a large tree branch fell, then some strange whistling and whirring noises, then footsteps. Aside from Zecora and herself, Twilight counted only four ponies at rest by the fire pit.

Twilight couldn’t take it anymore: she walked grumpily to the window to find the source of the noise. Upon ascertaining the source of the noise, She “whispered” rather noisily out the window; “What the? Pinkie, Ditzy, get back in here! What are you guys doing?” Of course, it shouldn’t have been all that surprising; Ditzy Doo and Pinkie Pie were the two most… unique ponies in all of Equestria.

The two ponies seemed bent on staying awake. “Aw, come on, we were just chasing after a blue light we saw!” Pinkie Pie flailed around, gesturing towards a specific direction in the undergrowth. “Blue light, eh?” Twilight looked around, unconvinced, into the deep dark. She felt like she was staring out the window of a bathysphere- that Pinkie and Dinky were adrift in the deep ocean, or floating through some sort dark void, illuminated just so by the embers of the fire pit. She couldn’t have seen through the trees, but above them it was cloudy. With the pegasi to clear the weather away, it would never be this dark in Equestria. Even the crickets and frogs had entered into a restful torpor. Receiving no audible or visual input, Twilight sparkle stared at the forest for a minute, considering Pinkie’s suggestion, and trying not to be rude, though she was tired. I don’t know pinkie… but I do know that we’ll need our rest for

Then Twilight saw it- a strange blue light accompanied by that whirring-whistling sound. “Huh, I guess you guys were right.” Twilight thought for a moment “Well, you two should sleep to be ready for tomorrow morning; if you wander off, you could get lost. Zecora and I will check it out.” Twilight turned to face Zecora, who hadn’t yet fallen asleep. “You don’t mind going for a little walk, do you?”

Zecora shook her head and began to gather some implements the uses of which Twilight could only guess.  Twilight opened the front door and let in the two ponies. “Do you two promise to stay here?” Pinkie Pie responded immediately “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” Ditzy simply nodded in agreement.

Zecora and Twilight left the other ponies to find the source of the blue light. It didn’t take long before they heard rustling in the bushes; someone was clearly trying to get away. “Zecora, do you think it’s that pony you told me about earlier, the enemy we were looking for?” Zecora was focused on the chase, but still gave her input. “That’s not the pony - too easy to track. This pony’s likely to end up a snack.” She tossed one of the tools she had brought with her, and by the sound of things, it hit its mark.

The shady figure fell to the ground with a loud thud, but seemed undaunted. “ooh, a bolas, didn’t see that coming.”

The two victors ran over to their fallen captive, a brown horse with an hourglass cutie mark, barely visible in the gloom.

“Hello, I’m Twilight Sparkle and this is Zecora, and we’d like to ask you some questions.” Twilight spoke first in a welcoming manner, then in a more serious tone.

“Oh, what a coincidence, me too! First question, have you detected any human telecommunications signatures coming from within this forest?”

“uh…”

“I’ll take that as a no, anyway, what do you call this place- and what are the names of some of the places around here. C’mon, names, names… no? what year is it?

Twilight was caught off guard: she would have been more forceful, but the pony talked too rapidly and she had become compliant in the process. “The 1001st year of the Equestrian calendar”

“Oh, not good, not good, never heard of it… Why is that not good?” he asked rhetorically

Twilight was no longer really taking note of the pony’s mad ramblings. “Well, we found a crazy pony, now what” she asked Zecora, with a hint of exasperation. She might have thought to provide aid to the strange creature, but she was too tired to really think it through.

“Because I ought to know just about every place and time, which leads me to a strange hypothesis…”

Zecora also seemed to think, wistfully and reluctantly, that the horse they had found was insane. Any instinct she had to help was overpowered by the memories of rabies epidemics back in the old country. At least it was not as much of a threat as she thought they might find; still, better safe than sorry. “Back away slowly, be careful of bites… let’s just go home now, and turn off the lights.”

“This universe is either different from mine, or so far in the future that no Time Lord has ever dared venture here!... Oh? Where are you guys going, I was just starting to enjoy the company!” It was too late, the ponies had already snuck away. The male pony thought to himself ‘What strange creatures this planet has… oh well, it’s probably for the best anyways.’ Then he wriggled out of the bolas, picked up his sonic screwdriver, and wandered off into the forest again. He felt as if during the entirety of that short conversation very few words had actually been passed from either group to the other.

Zecora and Twilight sparkle approached the cottage quietly so as not to draw the attention of anything else that might lurk in the darkness. Soon, they too were asleep.

That night Ditzy had dreams. They came in intermittent, short bursts which resembled memories in their consistency, but which Ditzy recognized as new.

…  Ditzy saw what looked like a pony, but couldn’t have been; it had the striking texture of a leaf! “Ah, yes, Hi, I’m I.P.∞, but you can call me… (Steve, Bob, Joe?) um, Steve, for our purposes… I’ve been expecting you all; welcome to the Symbiote! … … … Oh yeah… almost forgot, follow me please!”   …

…   There was a humming metallic sphere in front of Ditzy. A glow seemed to emanate from within it. The air was thick. She heard the leaf-pony’s voice “Ah, wonderful! I knew you’d be good with bubbles… I don’t know how I knew, of course.” Ditzy couldn’t tell if that last part was sarcastic, but she assumed so from the context. “Seriously though: cutie marks, magic: it still seems so surreal after a thousand years of living here… pass the D2O pod please!” for some reason Ditzy felt happy, felt at home.  …

…   Ditzy was back in the Everfree Forest, but not quite. There were broad, darkly colored leaves of various hues. Symbols danced across their surfaces. The air around Ditzy shimmered as it might in a desert, but it wasn’t any hotter than usual. The other ponies were with her, but they seemed angry at the leaf-pony, who was making a desperate plea. “No, no, no…! I am not your enemy, ambivalence is! There will come a point for your species, as it did for mine, when the very physical laws of the universe itself pale in comparison  the limits you set up for yourself in your own minds… I beg of you, open your minds!   …

…   Ditzy was scared. It was dark. It was cold. She couldn’t breathe. She felt weightless. It felt like her blood was boiling, no, it was! She looked in the direction she assumed was down. She saw a sphere, serene, bright blue and green, crumbling in on itself, the red glow of the powerful implosion which was also swallowed up. Ditzy no longer felt weightless: she felt very heavy, in fact! At this rate she felt that her hooves would tear out. So much pain! She didn’t have to endure for long. All the light there ever existed in the universe cascaded down upon her, and she was vaporized instantly.   …

Ditzy woke up. Her dreams faded, but the dread remained.