I'm excited to finally put out my work properly. Please enjoy this first look into the setting I've crafted over years of work!

Edited by the ray of sunshine, AugmentDuke!

The soft clatter of metal plates filled the unusually sleepy Azora Forest. Few larger creatures ventured this close to the edge, and with good reason. Goldenrod the monster hunter sedately cantered through the gnarled trees as she kept her hazel eyes peeled for any troublemaking creatures. None of the usual suspects had shown themselves on today’s patrol. The timberwolves must have been haunting the deeper forest, normally one or two would be sniffing about otherwise. Only a few smaller creatures let her see them, though she could tell many were there. A timid and very furry brown rodent, a common madnerluck, crossed the path with a mouth full of seeds ready for its nest-mates.

Scant bits of sunlight made it through the dense canopy, and what little of it could come in did so at quite the angle due to how late in the afternoon it had gotten to be. Annoying spots danced across Goldenrod’s face as she grumbled and pulled her heavy steel helm back on. The narrow slits for vision made it harder to see, but prevented the sun from blinding her. This little trick always made her feel a bit clever, so she’d been doing it for a few years now. Unfortunately it meant she had to keep her head on a swivel to ensure nothing snuck up on her. Despite the thickness of her heavy plate and the well tanned leather underneath, it would only withstand a couple of blows from the monsters of the forest.

Hopefully nothing would bother her, and she could finish her nice and relaxing trek instead of fighting a pitched battle while she was already tired. She suspected sweat had matted and marred her lovely coat, colored like the flower she was named for. With the addition of her helm, her lighter curled mane would be a mess too.

Perhaps quiet patrols were boring, but it beat the alternative. Every day she came home empty-hoofed was one where she didn’t have to fight or kill the denizens of the forest. Despite the hostile relations she had with them, she respected them to a degree. Azora was their home just as much as Sweet Steppes was hers.

In the beginning, Goldenrod took up her mission to protect the village from the forest in order to ease the pressure on the civil guard after the monsters took someone close to her. However, over time they ended up downsizing the force and leaving Sweet Steppes nearly defenseless. Only she knew how to defeat most of the monsters in Azora Forest, and it had become a major concern for her. What if she met something she couldn’t deal with?

That thought stuck with her until Goldenrod neared the end of her route, she paused at a small fork in the trail worn down over her near decade of working in the woods. The smaller path led deeper into the forest, little more than a game trail. One of the farmers nearby had anxiously reported some minor activity in the trees. They’d seen some movement and found a few crops damaged, so Goldenrod decided to ensure no new nests had cropped up.

Heavy, thick barked trees had fallen over the game trail, but a few good bucks with her heavy gauntlets at each of the gnawed through and somewhat rotten trunks broke them apart quickly enough. Walking through the sawdust and the chips of falling wood she admired her once pristine boots. Heavy as they were, she could use them for both defense and offense, and nothing in the forest had yet managed to do more than dent them, due to her diligent maintenance at home and the care she exercised on the job.

Beyond the dead trees, she could hear heavy creatures moving about. Snorts and grumbles filled the air, drowning out the ever present hum of insects and melodies of birdsong. Goldenrod wouldn’t have been surprised to learn the birds had left to find a venue they didn’t have to share.

It took Goldenrod an hour to hunt down the origin of the sounds, given the animals didn’t stay still for her. At the end she found near pony-sized creatures called bezobaors. They had created a nest and as she approached they formed a scared circle around the nursing young. The bristly hides and heavy horns discouraged her from getting too close, though. Their cries had quieted down to mere soft squeals and warnings of hard horns cracking against the stones making the nest. This situation wasn’t an easy fix, they’d be tough to forcibly relocate, and Goldenrod wasn’t nearly heartless enough to send them packing when they had vulnerable young to raise. She decided to return in a week when the little bezobaors were grown enough to survive relocating.

Upon turning away to head home, Goldenrod heard a sound, music perhaps. Straining to catch a trace of it before the bezobaors resumed their calling, she stopped dead in her tracks. Slowly her ears twitched and swiveled until she caught another brief snippet through the whine of insects. Goldenrod was moving towards it before she even realized she was walking again. Beautiful didn’t even begin to describe those ethereal tunes.

It was haunting, glorious, and yet sad.

The recklessness of her movements surprised her. Goldenrod had always been careful not to go too far from paths without planning first, but now she was running through the trees with no care. Not that it mattered, she had to find the source of that singing! She shouldered through a thicket, heedless of the scraping against her armor. Each patch of poisonous vines only barely evaded as she chanced jumps and ducks to protect her. None of the usual dangers registered to her as more than a slight detour on her B line directly towards the source of that ethereal singing!

The Terran mare burst from the trees in a near panic. When she laid eyes on the singer, though, it all went away. Goldenrod was unspeakably relieved that she got to the origin of that heavenly tune. Relaxedly she trudged over to the pond, towards her destiny. Dimly in the back of her head she recognized it, of course she recognized her home, but it had been a long while since she scouted this part of the forest. It should be fairly safe, it would always be safe around her muse, otherwise she’d try to get the singer to move. Goldenrod wondered what her name was, should she ask? It wouldn’t be right to interrupt.

Perfect sky blue fur covered her enchanting body, half submerged in the water. Her mane was a purple that spoke to Goldenrod of vibrant twilights and good wine shared with a lover, and seemed to cling to her like a mare in a shampoo ad. Never before had Goldenrod felt this drawn to another pony, and it confused her. For a moment the monster hunter suspected something was wrong, but then the singer turned around.

Upon being caught in the gaze of those beautiful, perfect, divine, irresistible, glowing yellow eyes, Goldenrod’s mind cleared. The singing stopped, but she could hardly think enough to be disappointed. Her trembling legs led her into the water, full plate and all. Breaking the surface with a hoof finally seemed to release the tension of the situation, and the pony of the pond gasped softly.

“Oh no! I’m sorry! Wait, don’t… it’s not safe up here but… I can break the spell, just…” the enchanting mare floundered as she looked at Goldenrod, “Can I take you down?”

Goldenrod paused as she stared at the wondrous beauty, how could she not want to do whatever the lovely blue mare wanted? “Uh, yeh” she replied with all the poise she could muster.

The manifestation of serene beauty swam over to Goldenrod. Once she arrived Goldenrod attempted to cling to her, but the blue mare moved back a little, practically flinching, “deep breath miss! We’re going under.” Though her instructions were clear, Goldenrod couldn’t help but feel sad that the mysterious mare’s tone wavered as if uncertain. Maybe she could cheer up this pony later. It would be so good to get to know the beauty as well as she can.

As instructed, Goldenrod filled her lungs as far as they could go. Once her lips closed, the mysterious singer dragged her down under the water. To the muted surprise of the yellow pony, her muse’s back half was very fishy. Ribbon-like fins surrounded her and twisted through the water as she swam down as quickly as she could. The light of day faded as they sank, and Goldenrod’s lungs started to burn.

Darkness clawed at the edges of her vision, and she really began to panic. The fear cut through the haze clouding her mind, making her struggle to try and escape…

Only for them to emerge into a dry area at the bottom of the pond. Gasps for air were the only noises to be heard beside the burbling of water around her. Goldenrod shot to her hooves only to look back at the pretty mare that brought her down here. The blue pony looked normal enough now, gorgeous but not a single hint of anything unusual to be seen. Both her lovely eyes were screwed shut though, and she felt around as she walked towards a home carved out of the rocks on the bottom.

Goldenrod slowly followed, mostly because she wanted answers, and not because the blue pony seemed extremely attractive. Maybe if she forced the singer to talk to her, she’d get to hear that lovely voice again. Two steps later and the mysterious singing beauty had already beaten Goldenrod to the house. With well practiced moves, she entered and closed the door, locking Goldenrod out.

Panic grasped at Goldenrod’s chest. Not only was the blue pony her only way back home, but she needed to see the mare’s eyes again! In desperation she cast aside one of her gauntlets and began to knock on the door heavily. As bad as she wanted to, she didn’t break it down out of respect for the stranger. Goldenrod couldn’t bear the idea of scaring her.

No answer came following her pounding on the door, and so Goldenrod sat there, waiting. Time passed painfully slowly, but each minute returned a bit of her senses. Why had she followed the sound? It was dangerous to leave the path. The only reason Goldenrod hadn’t panicked yet was that she knew where this pond was. Anger crept up on her, what had happened to her? Why was she acting so irrationally? Invading her mind seemed to come naturally to that mare, so why-

Goldenrod took a calming breath, and moved to gather her lost gauntlet. Thinking it over slowly, she realized that the pretty singing mare likely did not intend to ensnare her. If she had done it on purpose, she wouldn’t give Goldenrod the time to come to her senses. But what kind of creature was that curvaceous blue mare? Goldenrod had never read about any kind of half fish ponies. Let alone ones that could bewitch you with their voice or their eyes. The details couldn’t match a single story she’d read.

The front door derailed her train of thought as the strange blue mare returned, a book held in her mouth. Both her forelegs blindly pawed at the ground until they located Goldenrod’s hooves. Silent as she was, the mare did her best to communicate relief. She shoved the book into Goldenrod’s hooves, and tapped the cover insistently.

“You want me to read this…?” Goldenrod didn’t bother to hide how skeptical she felt. But with no way to swim to the surface fast enough, she didn’t have a choice. Reluctantly she opened up to the first page.

Hello! My name is Cerulean, and I am a siren. Probably the last one, so I’m not sure if I should call myself a species. We have very strong mind control magic, and it takes a while to wear off. Don’t try to make me talk or look into my eyes, please! I’ve been here since-

Goldenrod looked up from the book, which appeared to have been written as a stream of consciousness from the… siren sitting before her. The tone made her wonder how old the siren was when she wrote this book.

“Cerulean?” She asked, somewhat uncertain.

The mare beamed back at Goldenrod, happy to have someone know her name.

“This is all a bit strange. Can you not turn your mind control off?”

Cerulean’s posture drooped almost immediately. With a silent sigh, she tapped a little further in the book. The intended passage was tough to find due to her current blindness, but Goldenrod located it with some trouble.

According to my mom’s lessons, I’m a solitary freshwater siren. We’ve got the strongest mind control of any other siren, but we can’t stop doing it. Mom always said there was a big fight and there’s not many of us left. She went to find more, and never came back.

Cerulean seemed a bit talkative, or at least wordy with a quill. Goldenrod had to take a minute to process this new information. It appeared there was some kind of contact with sirens before. She would have to research them and figure out how to counter their powers. It didn’t matter how strange and polite they were, Goldenrod wouldn’t risk her hometown. Some days it felt like she was the only pony defending Sweet Steppes from the monsters of the forest. She was certainly the only one going into the forest proactively.

Today had reminded her she was but one mare. A little mistake, or even something she couldn’t possibly have avoided, and it would be all over for her. She resolved to return home and tell her family how much she cared about them. Even if her sisters were a pain in the flank from time to time.

“Okay, thank you for explaining yourself to me. I should get going before-”

Cerulean snatched the book back and frantically flipped through the pages, her hoof constantly moving to the corners of the book. Finally she found what she was searching for. The page had only a single sentence on it.

Will you come visit me?

Goldenrod held her reply back for a moment, examining Cerulean. The siren appeared excited, but also worried. The corners of the pages had little clusters of bumps so she could count while blindfolded. Places where the text indicated dates had many crossed out numbers, slowly getting larger. By all appearances, Cerulean had been alone for a very long time.

Now, Goldenrod herself wasn’t the most popular. While hardly a pariah, many ponies found her intimidating or confusing. Working her patrol keeping monsters from the town could be lonely. And here was a mare, more alone than Goldenrod on her worst days. The hunter removed a gauntlet and gently rested a hoof on Cerulean’s shoulder.

“I’ll come back tomorrow. You can show me more of this book then, right? Just try not to be singing after midday.”

Cerulean nodded rapidly, excitedly prancing back and forth as she celebrated in silence. It was kinda cute, and not in the enchanted way, just plain joy that warmed Goldenrod’s heart.

It felt nice to make a new friend.