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Timberwolf Study, Part Four

By Hearthsong
Created: 2025-12-16 14:16:22
Updated: 2025-12-16 15:00:11
Expiry: Never
anonsafetimberwolfanonstalliontimberwolvesalicornon

  1. 1.
    This one just sprinted full force out of my brain, couldn't stop writing it the second I started.
  2. 2.
     
  3. 3.
    Part Four:
  4. 4.
    >Leaves in your mane? Mud on your hooves? Magic in your heart? That could only describe one Hermitnon.
  5. 5.
    >(Maybe others, yeah, but (you) guessed it right on the first try, good job)
  6. 6.
    >With a great 'umphf' you plop your form on your beloved moss pile, while the chair you swiped from Purple's library clambers over, ever so carefully so as to not spill the drink it's carrying in its' seat
  7. 7.
    >You got that thing fucking trained like a pro
  8. 8.
    >Knows how to ferry things without spilling, carries your magic supplies handily while you're mapping out your runic circles, and even better, doesn't fuck off for hours at a time trying to woo somepony to no avail
  9. 9.
    >You've taken to calling it Spike 1
  10. 10.
    >Just on the off-chance the genuine article ever shows up so you can piss him off
  11. 11.
    >Right now you're taking a bit of a breather
  12. 12.
    >This latest circle was complicated as fuck
  13. 13.
    >And you were pretty sure you were on the verge of another round of 'fuck everything to death with fire' when it came to carving out some of those runes
  14. 14.
    >Normally it's not that big of a deal, just wave your chalk around with your handy-dandy horn and make a sick ehwaz
  15. 15.
    >But this? This is big colt magic you're prepping
  16. 16.
    >The kind of shit you don't want to contaminate
  17. 17.
    >Hell even having Spike 1 active might be a risk of that, but having some actual creature comforts around the cave after a few months of nothing but moss and rock is such a novelty that it's hard to dispel the enchantment
  18. 18.
    >Plus now when you talk to yourself it's like you're talking to the chair and that's...
  19. 19.
    >Okay that might be a little more crazy than just speaking out loud to the stalactites on the roof of the cave
  20. 20.
    >But Spike 1's at least as expressive as the Carpet from "Aladdin", and that goes a surprisingly long way
  21. 21.
    >Anyways!
  22. 22.
    >Since you can't just use telekinesis to carve out your runes, you've been doing it the mudpony way instead
  23. 23.
    >Mouthwriting
  24. 24.
    >You tried wrapping the chalk to your hoof and doing it that way, but, issues
  25. 25.
    >First off, your writing utensil is to the left of your hoof instead of being held in it properly like a hand, and that created a weird disconnect in your movements
  26. 26.
    >Secondly dragging your frogs against the rough texture of the stone floor was irritating in a way you weren't expecting
  27. 27.
    >It's not something you notice during regular walking and trotting and such, but the difference in motion brings that shit to the forefront right away
  28. 28.
    >So, mouthwriting it is
  29. 29.
    >It's a little awkward getting all up close and personal with the ground like this, and you're lucky pony heads aren't designed more closely to the horses from back home
  30. 30.
    >Otherwise you'd have that great prey animal blind spot in front of you and this shit would be impossible
  31. 31.
    >Fortunately, it worked out, and despite stressing out over some of the more squiggly runes, you got your stage set
  32. 32.
    >Today's experiment? Good question, voice from the aether:
  33. 33.
    >'Figure out what is going on with these fuckers'
  34. 34.
    >You've got a hunch going here
  35. 35.
    >Timberwolves don't need to eat, they almost exclusively make their nests in places that radiate with magical power
  36. 36.
    >And they don't seem to be reproducing, not that they need to, since short of extreme exposure to fire most damage is something they can easily recover from with time, or assimilation: be that from regular old wood or combining together, Megazord style
  37. 37.
    >In short? There's no fucking way these guys are naturally occurring creatures
  38. 38.
    >You're fairly sure they're some sort of construct pieced together by a fellow hermitpony wizard from the past, set to stand sentinel over various places of interest in the Everfree
  39. 39.
    >Maybe they're set to overlook some of this past wizard's projects, who knows how many of the phenomena tucked away in this forest aren't just projects left abandoned
  40. 40.
    >With how terrified Ponies are of this place, it's the perfect testing ground for that kind of thing, as you well know and have been benefitting from
  41. 41.
    >And then the wizard just... fucked off? Got too into pondering their orb for so long they died of starvation? Got caught by a mob of angry peasants and destroyed for their magical experiments going too far?
  42. 42.
    >Who could say really
  43. 43.
    >Not the mystery you're currently working on unraveling right now anyway
  44. 44.
    >For now it's all about seeing what makes these creatures tick
  45. 45.
    >Without fruitlessly trying to cut one in half or whatever
  46. 46.
    >After a bit of rest on your precious moss pile, you let out a Royal Voice-backed command of 'come here', and sure enough, one of your subjects scampers on into the cave
  47. 47.
    >You've been working on that, too
  48. 48.
    >Screaming like a fucking lunatic isn't really conductive to keeping your current location on the down low, so taking control of your Royal Voice was a must if you wanted to use it to command the Timberwolves
  49. 49.
    >Still not sure why the most effective method of getting them to do want you want is 'be loud', but it saves you the time of gathering up squirrels that wasn't working in the first place
  50. 50.
    >So you took some time off from magic study and zoology to wander deeper into the Everfree to refine the Royal Voice
  51. 51.
    >Less volume, more bass
  52. 52.
    >Condensing that shit like you're trying to pack a month's long vacation essentials all into a single suitcase
  53. 53.
    >Being the fucking prodigy that you are, you managed it after a few days of terrorizing the local bird population
  54. 54.
    >And all without the magical equivalent of opening the suitcase and having your conditioner fire out like a bullet and smack you in the face
  55. 55.
    >Not that you're reminiscing from experience
  56. 56.
    >Unrelated, absolutely-did-not-happen tangent aside, your take on the Royal Voice compacts all that sweet magic so that you can compel your subjects without having to burst their eardrums in the process
  57. 57.
    >As evident by the bundle of sticks sitting on its' hindquarters, wagging their twiggy tail in anticipation
  58. 58.
    >These things are kind of ugly to be honest but they still manage to be a little cute sometimes
  59. 59.
    "Alright, lets get you on the circle, Fido."
  60. 60.
    >And it obeys, sauntering on over to the ritual circle and giving you only a brief moment of terror at the idea of its' wooden claws scuffing the chalk and having to redo parts of it, before that quickly becomes apparent that that fear was unfounded
  61. 61.
    >Good, good
  62. 62.
    >Time to get this show on the road
  63. 63.
    >Today's spell isn't one you picked up from Purple's grimoire - which, having satisfied yourself with the contents of and making your own annotations (and seriously questioning her wasting space in the limited pages for some of the more goofy cantrips), you kindly returned while you were in the midst of stealing more of her property
  64. 64.
    >Instead it's from a less personal spellbook - also from her home, but you were pretty sure it doubled as a library so really you were just checking something out
  65. 65.
    >Not stealing. Maybe.
  66. 66.
    >This ritual is the bread and butter of any spellcrafter worth their title, designed to break down enchanted items to understand how they were compiled
  67. 67.
    >Very handy for novices to be able to piece out how they were put together before they start trying to write their own enchantments from scratch and end up setting their manes on fire, or worse
  68. 68.
    >Very handy for masters to take apart their novices fledgling works and see how inelegant and bullshit their work is
  69. 69.
    >The Timberwolves are a bit more... 'lively', than the usual targets of these spells - enchanted armor, magic-infused gems, etcetera
  70. 70.
    >But it should still work well enough for what you're trying to do here
  71. 71.
    "TFARCLLEPS SIHT DNATSREDNU OT EM ELBANE ...EVAEW EHT EM WOHS ...THGISNI EM TNARG!"
  72. 72.
    >With an energetic recitation of the ritual script and a hard stamp of your hooves on the runes, the entire circle flares with light as the spell catches
  73. 73.
    >The Timberwolf, thoroughly ensnared by the power of your Voice, doesn't even fidget as it rises in the air
  74. 74.
    >And that's when everything goes sideways
  75. 75.
    >The spell explained that rather than just dumping a bunch of straight information in your head, as that had a great chance of overloading your brain and turning it to mush, most magical signatures had common 'sensations' that you could use to identify their origin school
  76. 76.
    >The icy chill up the spine associated with Necromancy, the odd minty sensation on the tongue that heralded Alteration, the creeping heat that crawls up the hooves from Destructive spells, the faint whispers in one's ears from Illusionary magic.
  77. 77.
    >You were feeling all of that, and more.
  78. 78.
    >The taste of freedom and the feeling of imprisonment, the sensation of purple and the sizzle of crimson, the smell of rebellion and the scent of order. All at once.
  79. 79.
    >You recognized this jumbled mess for what it was almost immediately
  80. 80.
    >Chaos magic
  81. 81.
    >And that was concerning, yes, but on top of all of that, ALL of that
  82. 82.
    >An overbeating HEAT.
  83. 83.
    >Like the Sun had come to visit and it was trying to stuff itself entirely in your cave like it was trying to make sure all of it met you
  84. 84.
    >And you were sweating like a hog prostitute in church
  85. 85.
    >Dead of night by the way
  86. 86.
    >It felt like your fur was melting and welding to your flesh
  87. 87.
    >Your mind was well on its' way to turning to goo
  88. 88.
    >Whatever you were touching, it was furious that you had the nerve to brush it with your magical sense
  89. 89.
    >And it just
  90. 90.
    >Wouldn't
  91. 91.
    "STOP!"
  92. 92.
    >With a roar of frustration and a great flare of your own arcane might, you seamlessly transition from observation to attack
  93. 93.
    >Dispelling magic was an important skill to learn, and learn fast
  94. 94.
    >Enchantments going awry, accidentally overloading cantrips, scribbling down a rune wrong and triggering an arcane cascade, there were plenty of ways your experiments out here in the Everfree could go wrong, and there was no one to help if and when they did
  95. 95.
    >So figuring out how to shut shit down was on the top of your schedule
  96. 96.
    >Safety first, kids
  97. 97.
    >Your hooves dig deeper against the stone as you struggle against the heat
  98. 98.
    >The fury of the Chaos Magic in the background almost feels secondary
  99. 99.
    >It's present and writhing and making a spectacle but it's content to just get its own freak on
  100. 100.
    >Maybe it's tired of being burnt too
  101. 101.
    >But you're grateful, you're not sure you could weave this dispelling invocation if you had to contend with it at the same time
  102. 102.
    >You're plunging deeper into the vast reserves of mana roiling in your soul than you've had to in months, here
  103. 103.
    >Blood flows freely from your snout and you can feel your eyes rolling back into your head
  104. 104.
    >Just as darkness begins to settle on the edge of your vision you feel the hitch in your brain as the invocation catches
  105. 105.
    >The heat condenses, seems to draw back
  106. 106.
    >And then EXPLODES in your mind
  107. 107.
    >The sheer mental shockwave is too much
  108. 108.
    >As you collapse though you can feel the temperature receding
  109. 109.
    >You fucking got it, baby
  110. 110.
    >After an unspecified amount of time in lovely pitch black dreamless sleep (maybe you should have swiped a clock from Purple's house too), you return to consciousness slowly
  111. 111.
    >Splayed out on the floor of your cave, the first thing you notice is the runic circle completely charred from the sheer amount of magic you were throwing around
  112. 112.
    >Secondly, your subject is still in the circle, though there's something... off
  113. 113.
    >Their stance
  114. 114.
    >It's, for lack of a better word, more animated than usual
  115. 115.
    >Timberwolves are fairly still unless they're actively chasing something to bite the shit out of it
  116. 116.
    >This one's tracking you with its eyes and moving its' head as you slowly raise to your hooves, fidgeting in place
  117. 117.
    >There's a brief moment of unease as you both stare at each other, and then its mouth opens
  118. 118.
    >And
  119. 119.
    >"Ann...on?"
  120. 120.
    >Hey what the fuck

Timberwolf Study, Part One

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Timberwolf Study, Part Two

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Timberwolf Study, Part Three

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Timberwolf Study, Part Four

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