ᴛʜᴇ ᴩᴏᴇᴛ-ᴩɪʟɢʀɪᴍ ɪɴ ᴀ ᴅᴀʀᴋ ᴡᴏᴏᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ꜱᴜʀᴇ ʜᴏᴡ ᴛᴏ ᴩʀᴏᴄᴇᴇᴅ. ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ᴡᴀy ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ʀɪɢʜᴛ ᴡᴀy? - Paul Allen
Show Name: Nightwing's Witching Hour
Barn Name: WarlockGender: Stallion
Height: 15.2hh
Halter: Matching with eye color please
Theme Song: Wishing Well Prompt:(Before reading the legend I highly recommend taking a look at this note. For context/setting I used a pre-existing location in my
HARPG facilities as a setting. I had the perfect location in mind with a story that needed to be told, which can be viewed on our
map of the grounds.)
ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴇɢᴇɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ᴅᴀʀᴋ ᴡᴏᴏᴅꜱ ᴅᴇɴ
Sit on down by the campfire, and let me tell you a story that we tell all of our campers every year at Camp Nightwing. After all, what kind of summer camp would be complete without it’s own legend and scary story?
Now, folks around down here in the South are known for being the superstitious type, but none were any more superstitious than my own folks and their folks, so on and so forth. There’s a legend around these parts about an old hag and a mysterious horse with strange markings. When my ancestor first bought this property in the early 1900s, it was sold to him without the realtor letting him know that there was an old woman on the property that they just couldn’t seem to get rid of. No one was sure how she got here or where she came from- she just belonged in Dark Woods and the Woods belonged to her. I guess the realtor thought that since she stayed there and the woods are so treacherous and dark that there would be no problems between the two companies, but problems did arise, as they always do.
My ancestor began to clear the land to build more horse pastures, and all was fine and well, until he began clearing the Woods. He found the dark place unsightly, useless, and thought it was just taking up valuable space on his land, so he did what any reasonable person would do, and he and the workers he had hired to help him started clearing the fringes of the Woods. This is where the trouble arose.
Machines began to short out, the work horses that were hauling lumber all became ill and died, one shortly after the other all on the same day. My ancestor decided that the machines were an unfortunate causality of the rough lands, and the horses, well, that must have been a bad water or feed supply. The clearing was paused for awhile, while new machines were brought in and fresh horses for the work, but the woman was not deterred. Riding upon a brindled stallion bareback she approached the working men and told them that the work must stop or the Woods would defend itself. They laughed her out of the camp and that was the last anyone saw of her and her horse, but true to her word, the woods defended itself. Machines burst into pieces during work and took out eyes and fingers were they could, and horses would break free of their sleighs and run screaming all the way to the nearest shore, scared out of their minds of something unseen. After many attempts, clearing the Woods was finally halted for good.
I came along many years later and had always heard this story, passed down from word of mouth from father to son, and from counselor to camper, but I was different. More bombproof and less scared of the old ways than my predecessors, so one day I decided to venture into the Woods to see if I could find anything there that could dictate some kind of curse. I went alone and in the broad daylight, but true to the legends there was no light in that forest, and I had only a flashlight to guide me. I pressed on through poisonous plants, treacherous roots, through the thorns and nettles, until I broke upon a small clearing in the middle of the Wood where some daylight did shine through. In the center of this wood was a small cabin, though I cannot say I dared to enter it or even look inside. Outside of the cabin was a pair of horse skeletons, partly taken over by grass, branches, moss and flowers, but bare bones still shining in the sun. The sight of the skeletons set something in my blood on fire and I ran from that place with my tail tucked between my legs, all the way back home.
But during the long run (in which I also fell and sprained my ankle), I swear that I heard hoofbeats railing on the ground behind me, intending to chase me from the area but not wanting to reveal itself. I saw shadows move and bend in places that they couldn’t possibly, heard snorting and puffing. There must be a horse still alive out there. I hope one day I’ll get the courage to go check, but who knows if I ever will. I don’t want to go back to that place, and even telling this story told around the campfire sometimes on especially dark nights when there is no moon or star in the sky chills my skin and breaks my entire body out into goosebumps.
That's my personal experience with Dark Woods Den, but there have been many others before me, and even after me, that have snuck into the Woods to look at things forbidden and hidden, see what all the fuss is about and if all the legends about a witch and her horse are true. People that go into those Woods sometimes get lost for days or more, and come out with similar stories to mine, about an impossible and unseen force of a horse guarding and driving people away from the Den. People that go into the Woods are met with accidents and injuries, flashlights and lanterns suddenly stopping working despite the best laid plans, and some even blame their years of misfortune following their visit into the Woods on the Woods itself, like disturbing the land lies down some curse upon them that last for years. We've shut down the Woods and built barriers around it to try and keep people out, from a business standpoint it's a lawsuit waiting to happen, but that doesn't stop our camp counselors. It seems like every couple of years we get a counselor or two that's brave enough to go into the Woods, and every time they come out of it, it's the same story, over and over. Even if you're a skeptic that's gotta mean something, right?
(Word Count: 1,013)
