May Races 2023

The races were… fine, Anemone supposed. She wasn’t quite sure what had prompted her to join them, other than being lost and having no clue what else to do.

When she had left Echaria she had dreamed of wondrous adventures, brave and loyal friends, long nights by the campfire and stories to tell. Not… wandering, alone, searching for purpose. So when the deities issued the call, she had answered.

“This is stupid,” Anemone muttered to herself. No other racers were in sight. “I probably got lost already. I don’t know why I both-Oh!”

She was falling, falling, then…. What the heck? 

Looking around, the world felt… strange. Brittle. And was that… icing? But the most important part - she was no longer alone.

Three other Quirlicorns…. Er, Quirli…..cookies? Were there with her, and for a moment something in Anemone settled. A sense of belonging filled her, a sense of completion.

“Where are we?” 

Anemone didn’t realize she spoke until the words echoed around her. The one without a skull face looked around. “I surmise we have dropped into an alternate reality,” she said, a note of excitement about the strange magic in her voice.

Anemone blinked in surprise. That…. Made sense, she supposed. 

She turned toward the others, trying to gauge their reactions, but being cookie-fied made that a bit difficult. The purple skulled one had icing dripping from his maw, though he quickly looked away as if he hadn’t been snacking on the ground. The other, a green-skulled stallion, seemed to be examining an almost bone-shaped cookie piece.

In fact, the entire world seemed to be made of cookie. She herself felt… solid. The world felt solid, but she felt strangely two dimensional. Not that she had ever thought about being a creature in a three dimensional space but this! This was certainly something else. 

“It’s like we are in a cookie universe!” Anemone suddenly blurted, and the non-skulled Quirlicorn gave her a look that even on an icing face conveyed a sense of ‘well duh!’. Or maybe that was just the icing.

“Uhm, so…. My name is Anemone. Anemone Andrasti. Who are all of you?” Anemone defaulted back to her drilled in manners, feeling quite awkward.

“Devi Lynx,” the non-skulled mare said, after a moment. “Of the Hex Familie.” 

She said the name like a title and for a moment Anemone wondered if she was supposed to know of it. It was then that Anemone realized she really didn’t know where her full name came from, or really where her family was. Should she have introduced herself as from Echaria? As a Seeker? Was there some protocol that she was unaware of? 

“Eloi Ermolai, if we are being fancy about it,” the purple skulled one introduced. Something about him seemed wilder than the others, despite the bit of extra icing dripping down his cookie-skull face. 

“Sett Liberium,” The green skulled one said, and awkward silence fell.

“So now what?” Eloi finally asked, scooping up more icing. “Are we supposed to battle some cookie beast to gain our freedom?” 

Devi seemed to be looking everywhere but at the others, and Anemone sighed to herself slightly. Sure. It was weird, they all had some form of dragon tattoo and were the same age and suddenly in a cookie world. But then again it was the same way she had come to be in Echaria - there had been a lot going on that spring. They were probably victims of the strange spring as well.

“I guess we keep going,” Devi finally said. “Whatever strange magic seems to have dropped us here probably has a way out, I would not be surprised if this were one of the strange occurrences of the race. The magic works in strange ways. All magic does really but this is - are you chewing on a bone?” 

Her musing on the magic was cut off as her gaze found Sett, who was indeed trying to chew on a bone shaped cookie. Both of the boys looked guiltily at each other, Sett with his bone cookie and Eloi with his face half covered with extra icing. 

“It's…. scientific theory!” Sett said, nodding suddenly. “We were uhm, testing the reality of the world. It is indeed cookies.”

“And icing,” Eloi added. 

Devi sighed, and Anemone shook her head slightly. “I suppose if it’s testing a theory….” Devi shrugged. 

“Let’s just…. Start moving?” Anemone suggested. “Perhaps we will find a way back. Short of eating our way back.” 

Anemone felt so awkward. It wasn’t like hanging out with the others in Echaria when she was younger. These were strangers, and while she felt a connection to them, she also felt like she was lacking. She wasn’t sure how, but just… lacking. Devi was quiet, but seemed so smart. Eloi charged ahead as if he wasn’t afraid of anything. Sett was so uniquely himself, it seemed, not letting any of this bother him. But herself? She felt lost and afraid and just a bit worried about not being able to get back home. Devi quietly shared some observations on their status and the world around them. Eloi boasted about being able to take on any cookie critter they could find, with dramatic details about how he would perform certain moves (but Anemone couldn’t help thinking he sounded like he was picking ideas from an adventure novel). Even Sett chimed in from time to time about random observations, many of which had to do with bones. Anemone wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to think about if they had cookie bones in their cookie bodies, and what would happen if a limb broke. Really, she didn’t want to think about the situation at all.