This has been a week of hardship for me. Due to a couple of mistakes I had made, I was demoted from Pharmacy technician to regular associate. This means I am a normal cashier with no protective counter between me and the mobs of idiots people that want to check out. There is an upside to this. The chances are good that the assistant manager over consumables may snatch me up to use as a floor stocker so I won’t have to stand a register all day long. Either way, it will be days filled with aches and pain.
Because of what happened last week, my posts this week have suffered and I just barely managed to promote the Getting to Know You Blog Hop. I did well enough that many people stopped by to see what I and the others were about and left pleased.
This week’s excerpt comes from one of my very first stories ever written. A little digging from my mom produced the ratty old pages filled with bad handwriting of a story about a pony who saved her friends from a fate living as statues in a forbidden forest. Yes, this is very closely related to the old My Little Pony show that aired back in the 80s. I was a huge fan of them at the time and had amassed a decent collection of them.
With that in mind, I’ll let you decide if it is cringe worthy or not. Just remember, this was written long ago.
The path went deep into the shadows of the ancient forest. Within mere feet, it disappeared among the close tree as it wound its way to some mysterious place. Only a few shafts of sunlight reached through the foliage to cast pinpricks of light on that path but they did little to make the darkness retreat.
Clearly imprinted on the soft dirt of the fading path, hoof prints of four ponies were made out, each distinctive to Starlight as she lowered her head to look at each one more closely. Nervously she dug at the dirt with her own hoof, too afraid of the deep green unknown that was the forbidden forest. She could feel the old magic that dwelled within and knew without a doubt that it was stagnant. The very feel of the old magic made her horn itch in a way that told her she was in danger and to turn back or else she’d suffer in the same way her friends would.
Her thoughts kept drifting back to their taunts. Deep in her own heart, she knew they were right. She was terrified. Fear welled up in her and took a choke hold just thinking of what was happening to her friends. Her hooves were frozen to the path and her hocks knocked together with her shuddering. Never before had she felt such a deep seated fear in her life. Nothing had gripped her so tightly and nothing ever would.
Without a second thought she backed away from the ominous darkness and shrunk away from the rolling waves of old magic as they reached through the tree to her soul. The ghostly hands of the victims who entered before called to her, leaving echoes in her mind which made her whinny in fear and rear up to paw at the air before turning and dashing back to the one place she felt safe; the sun filled glade she called home and could almost feel the gentle brush of the flower covered vines the draped down from willow branches beside the calm waters of the river.
An evil laughter chased her as she ran away, taunting her for leaving her friends behind. Suddenly, she skidded to halt, landing on her rump as she stopped in the dirt. ”No!” Starlight shouted at the vile laughter then swallowed the bile rising in her throat. ’I can’t leave them in here.’ she told herself. ”I won’t leave my friends!” She cried at the top of her lungs as she sat there in the dirt collecting herself and what little courage she had in her heart.
Panting, she closed her eyes and concentrated on her friends, listening for them, yet knowing they were too far away to be heard. Above the laughter, she detected a single note; her friend’s talent reaching to her through the magic and the trees of the forest. As faint as what it was, she felt that singular note reaching for her. Just as she focused on that note, it stopped, leaving a deathly silence behind it and a satisfied chuckle within the imagined laughter that chased her.
Gathering up her courage and standing, Starlight took a deep breath, turned around, Then she marched one slow step at a time toward the forest. Once again, she stopped at the edge of the shadows marking the boundary of the forest. Holding her head high, she called to her friends deep inside. ”I’m coming for you! I’ll save you…” then more softly as she lowered her head and took that first step in, “some how.”
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