Darkness in Sweetie Belle

“I can hear your voices in my head!” Xerath let out a low cackle, spittle flying from her lips. “Spirits, are you here to lead me to my path?” The zebra half closed her eyes. “Or is this yet another trap?” Her frail body shook as she sighed.

The old witch lifted up the bottom branch of a thick bush and leaned down under it. Pushing her head between the leaves into the opening, she closed her eyes and sniffed at the flower growing in the shade.

Xerath enclosed the steam with her lips and slowly ripped the plant out of earth with its roots still attached. As she jerkingly rose up, she released the branch she was holding, letting it fall back down to the ground. The zebra raised up a hoof and placed the flower on top of it.

Her eyes squinted at the flower, and a wide grin spread across her face. “Requirements for my brew are almost met. ♫ A few more of these, and I’ll be set.”

She twitched and looked around. The corners of her mouth moved up as she nodded at the air. “If you want to help me, spirits, that’d be grand, ♫ but know, I will not yield to your demand!”

Xerath tardily leaned back and dropped the rooted flower into her saddlebag. Her teeth clenched together as she slowly straightened her posture. Sighing, she gazed across the vast clearing in the midst of the Everfree forest. There were clusters of bushes scattered all around her, but only a few of them nursed the herbs she was seeking.

“Rare are the places where these flowers grow. ♫ This clearing is one of them, that much I know.” She walked to the nearby bush and looked under it. “But these flowers are so hard to find. ♫ Especially since I’m half-blind. Help me find now what I seek, ♫ assist a zebra, old and weak.” She looked to the sky. “If in search of herbs you help me out, ♫ this witch of your deeds will be proud.”

The wiccan zebra waited for a response, then shook her head. “No! I give you nothing in return, ♫ concept of giving freely you should learn.”

Her ears perked up. “Oh, but I do know of your plight.” She slammed a hoof against the ground. “It’s what you’re suggesting, that’s not right!”

She rolled her eyes. “Believe me, spirits, I have learned the ritual well. Although I could, I’ll never use the spell!”

“The nether hurts you, yes, I know. ♫ I could help you to transcend it, though; ♬ but it would only bring a different throe, ♫ and I shall never sink that low!” She crouched down looking left and right. Squinting her eyes, she pushed through another cluster of bushes.

Her body stiffened. “Your teachings weren’t to make me smart. Oh, no! You meant to use me from the start!”

The zebra stood up and widened her stance, yelling in the air. “Necromancy is all you taught, ♫ that banishment on me has brought!”

She snorted. “I know the cravings you address. A mere thought of them will give me stress! You crave for life; you want a form. You want a body, even if it isn’t warm.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I see no harm in walking dead. ♫ What comes after is what I dread. You feed on others trying to regenerate, ♫ even the living you fail to venerate. Your half-life is brief and serves no goal. ♫ No matter the effort, you shall never be whole.” Her hind leg twitched and kicked, sending a patch of grass flying.

The zebra turned her head toward the sun that was already setting behind the hills. “My saddlebag has room and I’m in need of a few more herbs, but darkness spreads and the thought of Everfree at night my mind perturbs.” She trotted onto the path leading in the woods.

The sides of her face tugged at the corners of her mouth as she raised her head and nodded at the air. “Yes, I do seek your knowledge, ♫ but raising you I shall not promise! If you grant me know-how, I’ll be grateful and in return, you’ll prove yourself to be less hateful. If those terms you don’t accept, then in the afterlife you should be kept!”

She shook her head. “Pleading with me is to no avail, ♫ in the land of substance, I won’t let you make a trail. ♫ Living kind I shall not fail.”

Ever darker shadows of forest trees merged and shrouded the last spots of illuminated ground. She looked up at the appearing star formations and cantered on the path through the Everfree Forest.

Her ears swiveled in the direction of distant howls as she bit her lower lip.

Breaking into a gallop, she raced along ever darker phantasms of the ancient trees.

Wheezing with her mouth wide opened, she ran on the dusty path. Sweat gathered under her striped coat, yet she pressed on unwearying, leaving muffled hauls in the distance behind her.

The old zebra raced against the approaching night until she laid her eyes on the small clearing that harbored her hut.

Panting, she trotted toward it with heavy steps. “Bad ghosts! My day was wasted, talking to you, ♫ the few herbs I found myself, they just won't do. I wish more flowers I had picked, ♫ but instead I let myself again be tricked. No help I received from you once more.” She sobbed. “You would only use me as a whore!”

“Rare gift I have to speak to you, ♫ but you refuse to help me even with a common brew. Your intentions are selfish, I found that to be true. ♫ My spirit-whispering is more of a curse you try to abuse for breaking through.”

“Ghosts, your company I like, don’t get me wrong, ♫ but your whining for life I can only stand for so long. We part our ways now, spirits leave, ♫ my hut is not your place to grieve. It’s my home and mine alone, ♫ my voodoos will form a no-enter zone.”

The witch walked to a totem in front of her hut. Raising a forehoof, she slid it across a black crystal on the top. A faint glow emerged from it.

As she moved passed it, similar totems, placed around the hut, lighted themselves in quick succession.

“From this point forward, only the living may proceed, ♫ whimpering ghosts in my home I do not need!” She opened the door and sighed. “Peace and quiet in my head, ♫ oh, sweet silence, I deserve a rest from all the dead.”

A crack of a branch and a swish of the leaves disturbed the silence.

She glared in the direction of the kerfuffle and snorted through her nostrils. After shaking her head, she moved inside. Her hind leg shut the door as she carefully unstrapped her saddlebag with her mouth.

The zebra’s frail body stiffened as she flinched. Her head snapped from side to side, eyes darting around the room. As she spasmed, her saddlebag fell from its perch, over her flank. Leaping backward, she trampled it with a hoof without even checking on the precious content in the hurdle on the floor.  She took another step back, tensing up her muscles and grinding with her teeth.

Her eyes fixed themselves toward the ceiling. “What in Tartarus are you, ♫ how did you manage to break through? I sense your strength, ♫ your power great. If you come with knowledge, we can mingle, ♫ if not, in here you should not linger.”

She perked her ears then nodded. “I sense you’re more than just a common ghost, ♫ your cognition is worthy of your boast.”

“I do crave for knowledge you possess, ♫ to learn it from you, it would be a bless, ♫ but do you in trade intend to press?”

She opened her eyes to their full extent and leaned her head back. “Teaching me a waste of time you deem, ♫ yet order me to take part in your scheme. Why would I help you in what you've planned, ♫ you have no lever for demand.”

“Pff, ghosts have no force in realm of the living, ♫ I won’t be pressured into giving.”

“Are you mad—more so than me? ♫ I shall never set you free!”

“And not just a vessel of dead flesh and bones, ♫ you want a living one that a soul still owns?”

“From all the tales I’ve heard so far, ♫ yours is one, that’s most bizarre. A living pony into a vessel you wish to transform, ♫ immortality spell on it you would perform. I’ll take no part in this, you are insane, ♫ go now and forget about your evil bane.”

“Ha! Your threats are worthless in the living realm, ♫ you’ll need far more than words to make me whelm.” Her eyelids narrowed.

She slammed a hoof against the floor and snorted. “Spirit go away now, let me be”—her lips stretched into a grin—“else I’ll bind your soul into a tree!” The zebra descended into crazed hysterics, shoulders wracking as she cackled with glee.

The whole hut shook.

Shelves vibrated. Pots and talismans crashed on the floor.

The zebra crumpled to the ground. Her teeth clenched together, body trembling.

She wasn’t laughing anymore.