>>42338860
>The only sound she could hear was the slow convulsing of the rock beneath her.
>As she struggled to her hooves, whispered murmurs gave way to disjointed speech.
>“You are new/contemporary/freshborn.”
>The voice, now chained to the tangible world around her, brought with it a shuddering headache. She wheeled around and, in suffocating darkness, came face to face with its source.
>An oblong, vaguely pear shaped mass of pus-yellow resin sat nestled into the earth, the latticework ground underneath rising to coil around its base.
>Wild cracks and fissures raced down the length of the abstraction, originating from two heavily splintered hunks of wood crudely jammed into its left and right sides, akin to a capital T.
>At the very apex of the monolith, the resin smoothed out into a rounded nub that was shrouded by a tattered, milky cloth, which was inscribed with archaic ideograms that she couldn’t make sense of.
>The longer Tradewind stared, the further her horror grew.
>“I understand,” it croaked, whispers cascading into stilted murmurs. “Your shape is incongruent/incomplete/extraordinary. A stun-ted bloom.”
“Where’s my brother!?” Tradewind cried, surprised she could even muster a word in the face of that… /thing/.
>“Jet,” it articulated, obsessed with his name’s phonetics. “J-e-t.”
>Tears ran anew down Tradewind’s cheeks, and her legs bade her run.
>And yet, in spite of everything, she remained.
>“He/brother/hero is elsewhere,” it whispered contentedly. “Homebound.”
>Tradewind’s eyes widened.
“He… He got out?”
>“I… a-aid-ed him-m,” it groaned with great effort. “I will aid/displace/banish you, as well.”
>The cloth on its head began to glow, and before Tradewind could voice her concerns, her head began to feel as if it were splitting in two.
>The agony sent her earthbound, where she cradled her weeping eyes in gravel-dusted hooves.
>A terrible droning swarmed both mind and body as the thing from deepest dark spoke once more.
>“Tell all/the world/the disparate of your… ex-peri-ence here.”
>Pain fell away, and exhaustion settled thusly.
>As the last of Tradewind’s consciousness slipped from her mind, it spoke one final time.
>Its edict, however, fell on absconded ears.

—

>Birdsong.
>Warmth.
>Spring air.
>Tradewind shuddered awake and scrambled to her hooves, aches and pains muted beyond the threshold of adrenaline.
>In disbelief, she blinked away the crust in her eyes.
>She was in the mouth of the cave again.
>She rose quickly, eyes poring over every inch of the rearmost alcove.
>Her brother was absent.
>The hole was gone.
>Tradewind backpedaled, hyperventilating.
>She spun around and set off into a sprint, wailing as she left the cave behind.
>A thin forest welcomed her, equine figures combing the treeline.
>Uniformed figures.
>She ran to them.
“/Somepony help me/!”

one more update for this one until it's thoroughly baked