//------------------------------//
// 6 Under the Stars 
// Story: Forbidden Land 
// by Mane-Shaker 
//------------------------------//



They arrived to the river bank hours ago after some walking around appreciating the scenery, where they lit up a bonfire surrounded by rocks and rolled their sleeping bags in opposite sides of the fire, with an extra of a makeshift mattress made of tiny branches and leaves.
The crickets and cicadas were starting their noises while the sky kept turning darker. Both sitting in their sleeping bags rarely talking for some reason or simply because there was no topic.

Mane kept looking at the stars and their constellations while Pinkamena kept grilling marshmallows in the bonfire.

"Can I have one?" Mane asked looking at her chomping a marshmallow.

"Shure. Hafe one!" She offered the bag while trying to talk with her mouth full of warm melted sugar.

"Let me see if I remember the procedure..." Mane whispered to himself while readying a soft sugary sweet in a stick's end.

"Put on top of the fire and role It slowly." Said Pinkamena readying another marshmallow. "Simple!"

"I only did this once and failed miserably." Mane grumbled a bit.

"You got distracted." She mocked with a small laugh. "And burned It."

"Don't distract me now..." Mane positioned the marshmallow above the fire and started rolling It as soon the white sweet started to become brown and the sugar to caramelize and bubbling on the sides. "I think I got It!" Said Mane happily.

"Taste It then, you'll love It!" Pinka cheered.

"Can't wait." As soon he finished his sentence, the tiny branch burned and the cooked marshmallow fell on the flames making a bubbling noise of sugar and caramel burning to a crisp. Mane stood silent without knowing what to think while Pinkamena tried to contain her laugh. "Fuck this..." Mane threw away what was left of the stick and lay down in his sleeping bag, while the pink mare burst in laugh.

"HAHAHA! *snort* HAHA! I can't breath!" She laughed hysterically.

"Hahahahahaha! SHUT UP!" Mane yelled in anger.

"Mane! Haha! Why so serious? Hah... my sides..." She asked while cleaning her tears of laughter.

"I have nothing to laugh at." Mane muttered still nervous.

"You will one day." Pinkamena took the marshmallow to her mouth, and she quickly spit It out when she felt like she just chewed a scorching iron. "FUUUUUCK! WATER! WHERE'S THE BOTTLE?!" She didn't let her marshmallow cool down.

"Karma, fool!" Mane laughed evilly while throwing the water bottle to her, which she caught and drank most of It.

"Who the fuck is karma?!" She asked angrily. "My tongue hurts..." She moaned.

"Karma is like... you laugh at somepony's misery for example, but then something happens to you right away or later. It's like life's revenge." Mane explained with an evil smile.

"I can't feel my tongue." She cried a bit. "I won't taste sugar or blood ever again."

"It will heal, don't worry." Mane turned around in his sleeping bag and looked at her. "And blood? I though I made you go through that phase."

"Not totally." Said Diane. "When you have your own demons, you can imprison them but you can't kill them. Besides, we have something in common what comes to killing, so don't tell me a bit of somepony's blood never got into your mouth by accident."

"Does mine count?" Mane asked.

"When you taste your own blood, It's expected to taste the same most of times. But when It's from a different pony, the chances are so infinite... Also, I'm more messy when I kill compared to you."

"Is that a challenge?" Mane smirked. "At least in my case, the scene is easier to clean."

"HA! Are you planning to take away the jobs of the forensic cleaning teams?" Pinkamena laughed.

"No, but jeez. I still remember the basement when I met you for the first time. The miasma there was... urgh! I don't even know how I didn't puke during all that time." Mane looked back at her. "How the fuck did you never got sick or an infection?"

"Easy. I came from a family of miners, and anything could happen in a rock farm where the ground is mostly polluted with metal ore sediments, sharp rocks and gems." Pinkamena pointed to the ground without taking her eyes from him. "And underground, there were some lakes sometimes where the metal content was so much, we couldn't wash our wounds there. Not to mention, an open wound there in a moist place can be a true danger. And if It wasn't moist, could be the toxic dusts."

"So you're telling me your body created It's own antidote?" Mane guessed.

"Say no more." Pinkamena took another sip of water.

"One, that's impressive from you. Two, what a harsh childhood." Mane commented.

"Yeah, but my parents weren't that bad, they are just... old fashioned. And the rock farm is a family business from many generations, It's easy to understand."

"Did you went to school there?" Mane asked a bit uncomfortable. "I mean, you lived in the middle of nowhere."

"Oh, I went. There used to be a bridge in Ghastly Gorge offering passage to Apple Loosa. Then one year after I finished primary school, the bridge fell. Nopony got hurt, but then I got home schooled about the jobs in the farm."

"What did you learn there?" Mane rolled on his belly and rested his head on his arms, paying close attention to her.

"The basics, from how to use a pickaxe to the metal's and gem's names. Then the complicated stuff like precautions in dangerous caves, some techniques for many stuff." She answered with a blank expression.

"What dangers?" Mane asked with a smile, eager to hear her.

"Sometimes a cave-in. Toxic dusts or even underground creatures."

"Creatures? What sort of? I've never been in a mine honestly."

"Insects mostly, big ones." Pinkamena made a face of disgust. "Ever saw a centipede?"

"BLARGH! I hate those!" Mane expressed with total repulsion.

"Imagine one twenty times bigger and It's exoskeleton made of rock. The only way was with the pickaxe straight to It's body, if you could get closer."

"Sounds like a problem." Mane's spine shivered after hearing the size.

"They are. Besides disgusting and big, they would eat the minerals we dig." Pinkamena yawned and stretched. "Why are you asking all this?"

"If you think about It, I don't know much about you." Pinkamena's yawn caught him too. "*yawn* Just wanted to know you better."

"Well, besides what I already know, what can you tell me from you?" Pinkamena opened a bag of chips and started eating It.

"Well... all I know comes from my grandfather." The mare offered him some chips. "Thanks. *crunch* Too salty... Anyway. My parents conditions were neither bad neither good, It was... we had the necessary to live a good life. But then my uncle's lust for power made him make a dark ritual and pact with Tirek giving him the powers he needed to take the throne by force, and his greed made him forget about my family."

"No offense, but that was to be expected." Said Pinka taking some chips to her mouth.

"You wait, there's more." Mane took another chip from the bag. "By the time being, Sombra's reign of terror made the Crystal Empire's life and pride a pitiful misery, including to my family." Mane's expression lost all emotion and he stood silent for a moment. "One night... an angry mob stormed in our house. I was still one year old so I couldn't do much. They had torches, hammers, crude wooden clubs according to what my grandfather told me."

"Why did they attacked your family?" She asked a bit sadly.

"Simple. It was my uncle who took the power and started a dictatorship, with an iron fist of full oppression and slavery. How do you think the population reacted when they knew of us and we were unprotected?"

"Oh..." She let out a sigh of the obvious answer. "But you were innocent!"

"You gotta learn about mob mentality. But let's not get side tracked... my grandpa told me, that my mom told him to grab me from my crib and run away by the back door while my father was holding the door. Since then, the only thing I know is that my grandfather had no choice but leave me by the gates of the Crystal Empire's palace with a note to my uncle Sombra in hopes he would take care of me. And seems my uncle had a bit of pitty left on him."

"That's so sad..." Pinkamena commented in a depressive low voice. "But... all that happened because of Sombra. And I don't get something."

"What is It?" Mane asked.

"Why do you still like him after all the shit he has done?!"

"It's a hard concept. First and foremost, without him I wouldn't be alive today and I wouldn't have my crystal sense and my shadow form." Mane turned his hand into crystal, swap back to normal, then in a cloud of black smoke then back to normal again. "Second, chances are that I wouldn't be here talking to you. Third and last one, I think... I learned a lesson about the past."

"And what is It?" Pinka asked, finishing the bag of chips.

"Don't try to change the past. Even if you look away, It will always haunt you even if It was good. And my origins can't judge me. You are who you are, and the mistakes and stains from those years are lessons to be taken. The good memories are to remember and make us laugh, the bad ones also to remember and learn from your mistakes and from others too. In this case, from my uncle."

"But... I was who I was." Pinkamena approached him.

"No. You weren't that sick psychopath. I saw somepony else behind that mask." Mane stood up and sit, looking at the stars.

"And who was It?" Pinkamena got closer without him noticing.

"A sweet girl with a tomboy behavior from time to ti-" His words got cut, when he felt her mouth against his cheek. He moved his eyes to the side and saw the pink mare giving him a small but long kiss. They both blushed a lot but Mane was all red over his face with the unexpected action. "Err... uhm..." He babbled with a funny face of confusion and disbelief.

"Does this add to your list of good memories?" She giggled looking away, trying to hide her blush.

"Ce-certainly..." Mane tried to make eye contact with her but her long hair was hiding those blue eyes. "See? You have a girly side!" Mane laughed.

"I don't!" She said loudly with a mixture of laugh and nuisance.

"Then what the heck was that?" Mane laughed even more.

"A kiss of...sympathy. For your past." She grumbled.

"If you say so." Mane giggled checking the moon's position. "I think It's almost midnight. We should get some sleep."

"Yeah... *yawn* All this storytelling made me sleepy." Pinkamena crawled back to her sleeping bag. "When do we wake up?"

"When the sun rises, or the birds awake us or when the first of us wakes up." Mane opened his sleeping bag and got inside It, but quickly opened It again when he started to get hot. "Damn summer..."

"You'll get used to It." Pinka entered her sleeping bag and rolled over to the direction of the bonfire's dying flames. "Goodnight Shaky." She wished in a cute voice.

"Goodnight Ponka." In a cute voice as well