Chapter 4: Passing Time
The company of two had marched all afternoon, and their travels had taken them from the slowly flowing river and the dense forest of the White Tail Woods, to the base of the mountains leading up to Ponyville. The stretch that lied before them were miles of grassland and sizable rocks skewed about, presumably broken off or fallen from the sides of the small mountains. The easy walk kept Loré in high spirits, and determined for there to be no more detours this time, and no more dangers due to the insides of those mountains being solid, except for the tunnel system used by the Equestrian trains. Only a scenic walk through the light rain was in store for the two of them, or so Loré thought.
“I think we are still several hours from Ponyville,” Loré pondered out loud
“Ca’ we res’ soo’ the’?” mumbled Namworth through the wooden handle of the makeshift umbrella in his mouth. “My neck hur’s.”
The poor stallion had his neck twisted in an odd angle, which allowed him a better grip and position on the umbrella that predominantly covered Loré’s body from the lazy rain that drizzled down all around them. The thing was made out of a thick stick and several lairs of plants carefully folded into each other, it was one of the many little tricks Namworth had taught himself in his years out in the wild.
“What are you saying? You want to rest already? It can’t hurt that badly. I mean, you’ve only held it for a few hours.” Loré didn’t even slow down her pace to address Namworth, she merely cast him a quick glance when presented with his issue. “Besides, I want us to keep on going so we can reach Ponyville before it gets dark.”
“Looooorrréééé,” whined Namworth, tapping the muddy ground rapidly with all four hooves like an impatient foal.
“Hey, stop that!” Loré growled as mud splashed onto her coat. She quickly turned her head to glare at Namworth who walked at her side, though a step or two further back. Her threatening stare was countered by the big glistening colt-like eyes of Namworth as they beckoned her for a break. It was too much for even Loré’s stone cold heart.
“Erk, fine!” Loré groaned annoyedly. She turned her attention to the walls of the mountain, scanning the intertwining folds of rock for any nooks or crevices they could sneak into. Though, the only thing she could see were wavy layers of stone upon stone, ornamented with a tracing line of shrubberies.
“We can take a small break, but I don’t see anywhere we can rest from the rain. So, I thi-“ Loré was quickly interrupted by Namworth.
“There!” he shrieked through the handle, pointing a hoof at the barely visible opening behind a thick curtain of lusciously green bushes. Namworth didn’t even wait for Loré to respond, let alone change the course for the opening before he ran over to it. The smaller stallion trampled through the many shallow puddles between him and the cave, his feathery coat proved excellent in shielding him from the thorny branches as he made quick work of their meager stature. He instantly dropped the umbrella and slid across the cold, and oddly smooth cave floor while yelping out a childish wee before coming to a complete stop. A tired sigh escaped his lips while he rubbed his sore neck, “Finally, a little break.”
Loré slowly walked around the puddles and over the trampled bushes, approaching him with a grumpier demeanor than usually. The fiery fury in her eyes beamed with such intensity that it could have dried up her soaked mane that hung like thick disheveled threads over her face.
“S-sorry, I got a little eager,” Namworth mumbled while retreating from her.
She forced an unnerving smile. “It’s fine… Just don’t let it happen again.” Loré showed off a great deal of restraint as she strangled the overwhelming urge to slap Namworth over the back of his head. She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and then sat down a few feet across from him. She glanced around the small cave. It seemed to lead far into the mountain, being uncharacteristically smooth for a naturally occurring construct. Loré couldn’t help herself from pondering if some creature had actually made this, or if it was perhaps an escape tunnel that merely led to the cave system where the train tracks were. Her suspicion went with the latter option.
“Loré?” Namworth leaned across the floor, to the point where his chest touched it despite him sitting on his hunches. He poked her gently to break her intense stare into the depths of the cave.
“Huh? What?” asked Loré while looking down at him.
“Could we make a fire to warm up and stay here for the evening?” his voiced carried a mixture of hope and worry, partially afraid of what Loré might say and hopeful for the prospect of resting near a fire.
Loré looked over at the entrance to the cave, seeing the steadily darkening world and the heavy gray clouds that never ceased their weeping. “I thought you said you only needed a little break, and how do you suggest we even start a fire? We got no wood, there aren’t any trees outside the cave, and everything is wet,” she sighed lazily, being fairly tired from their travels as well.
Namworth sat back up, scratching his chin with a hoof. “Don’t you think we can rest here for a little longer?” he smiled nervously. “It’s getting darker outside, and the rain is definitely picking up! I think we’ll get a huge storm!” he exaggerated with his hooves flailing in the air.
Loré kept on staring out at the still very light rain and the almost non-existing wind. Her head and focus turned back at Namworth, observing his hopeful eyes. “I think you are just lazy, and looking for an excuse to rest…” she grumbled. Though, she had been drilling him brutally ever since they met, and she’d barely given him any breaks for the two days they’d been traveling. She sighed reluctantly, “Very well, we’ll stay here for the night, but we’re moving out at the break of dawn. I don’t want to waste too much time walking to Ponyville…” she grumbled annoyedly.
“Great!” Namworth yelled with a whole new outlook on life, a break was more than a welcome change from the normal policy of only stopping to sleep and eat. He rushed out of the cave, much to Loré’s surprise, and began to assault all the shrubberies near the cave. Yanking, stomping, biting, he used all his tricks to get the plants out of the ground and into the cave. A large pile was secured a bit further into the cave, all evenly spaced out to allow them to better dry, and a smaller pile he hoof-dried with his dry feathery underbelly. The little pile was then place in the middle between the two ponies and a small circle of rocks added around to make sure the fire didn’t go anywhere near the larger pile.
“Well, I guess all the bushes and whatnot can be used for a campfire, but how do you suggest we light it?” Loré almost seemed mildly impressed by Namworth’s continuous resourcefulness.
“Your magic duh,” he replied, panting a bit from exhausting his last bit of energy getting the material for the fire.
“Oh, right!” Loré had almost forgotten that she was a unicorn. Though, it was not all that common for her to perform any other kinds of spells than the simple levitation one. She placed her horn close to the small branches and many dried up leaves as she closed her eyes and concentrated like never before. Her horn flared up for a quick second to release a tiny bombardment of pathetic sparks, it was however enough to start a fire which Namworth quickly tended to.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Namworth mumbled quietly, lifting his eyes from the now roaring fire. “But, every time I’ve tried to ask you big questions, you’ve always looked at me like you were going to kill me.”
Though Loré was busy tending to her drenched mane, using both hooves and the fire to dry it, she still managed to stare daggers at him.
“Yeah, just like that!” he exclaimed with a strange amount of joy and a big smile on his face. “I won’t back down this time. I really want an answer, Loré. Why would you brave dangers to get some stuff from a book? You don’t seem like the type to do anything for anypony unless you have something to gain from it.”
“Sounds like you are having second thoughts about joining me on this wonderful adventure,” Loré stated in a dull and almost emotionless tone, still tending to her mane as they spoke.
“Well, sorta, I guess,” he thought about it for a moment, “I think I am at least. I just, I really want to know what I’m getting into. It’s not that I don’t trust you!” he quickly added in fear of Loré looking any angrier than she already did. “I… I just want to know. That’s all…” his voice trailed off near the end.
Loré sighed and nodded at him. “Honestly, I think it’s a fair request.”
Namworth looked rather surprised by Loré’s sudden transparency. “It is?” he asked quizzically.
“Yes, it is.” Loré placed her front hooves onto the ground as she took a deep breath before explaining. “I’m sure you know who King Sombra was, right?”
Namworth shook his head rapidly.
“How can you not have heard of him!?” she shrieked at the top of her lungs, almost taking a step forward into the fireplace. Loré quickly regained her composure, “I mean… I guess some ponies haven’t been educated in Equestrian history as much as they should have. All you really need to know is that he was the rightful ruler of the Crystal Empire, and in the eyes of our nation, he was evil. Though, he is my great great great,” Loré repeated great a total of 38 times once again, “grand father, and he possessed a great amount of dark magical powers. The book I am carrying around was written by him. I know it contains the information I need to reclaim his powers.”
Namworth looked a great deal more worried by the mention of dark magic. “A-are you planning on taking over Equestria or something with the dark magic? A-and how do you even know what is in the book if you can’t read it?” a nervous smile broke out on his lips.
“Maybe,” she stared into the fire, seemingly lost in thought, “maybe I’ll take over Equestria, maybe I won’t. I don’t really know what’ll happen when I find the source of his dark magic. I just want the power, I want to reclaim what is rightfully mine, and find out the real truth behind how the family member that gave me the characteristics of my distinctive horn actually was like.” She looked up from the fire to see a less worried expression on Namworth’s face, he almost looked sorry for Loré. She chose to ignore the strange look he gave her and just continue with answering his questions. “I know about the content of the book from a dream I had.”
“A dream? What was the dream about?” Namworth scooted a bit closer to her, getting more curious.
Loré looked at him in a strange manner. She was surprised that he hadn’t taken more offense to her want to reclaim dark magic, and he hadn’t objected to anything she’d said. He seemed to fully believe everything she told him, and that he was actually going to help her with this.
“I guess I might as well tell you that too,” she rolled her eyes. “Sombra showed up in my dreams the night of his defeat, the night he was killed. He appeared as a cloud of smoke and darkness. I found myself in this weird cold crystal cave with a dark crystal thing in the center of the room. Sombra’s smoke danced around me as he lured me closer to it. His voice told me everything I needed to know, where his book was, what was in it, and that I would be rewarded with unlimited powers if I did this quest.”
It was first now that Loré noticed Namworth had moved all the way around the fire and sat right next to her, staring up with his big curious eyes.
“What are you doing!?” she shoved him with enough force to knock him onto his side.
“S-sorry! Your story was just really engaging, and I wanted to sit a bit closer so I could better hear it.” Namworth slowly sat back up.
“How come you aren’t scared? I’m related to an evil king and I want to take all his evil powers for my own goals. You seem to believe everything I’ve said, so how come you haven’t run off yet?” she grumbled pessimistically.
“Because it is raining,” he pointed at the entrance of the cave and smirked like an idiot.
Loré returned with a blank stare and a punch the back of his head.
“Ow! S-sorry, I’m just. I don’t know. You don’t seem like a bad pony, Loré. You just seem a bit confused about what you want in life. I think you are actually really nice.” The smile on Namworth’s face was almost sickening to Loré, it was by far too sweet and kind for her own taste.
“Oh please, don’t give me the ‘there is something good under your layers of hostility’ crap. Ponies have tried that with me before. There isn’t anything good underneath it. I’m just brutally honest, and there are a lot of annoying ponies in this world.”
“I still think there is something more than that,” Namworth nodded assuredly.
“Well, go ahead and think that then,” she grumbled while her face contorted into an annoyed expression.
There was a short moment of awkward silence between the two, only the drizzling rain and the crackling fire filled the ambiance of the cave. It was Namworth who broke the pause between them.
“How come you always look so angry, Loré?” he asked.
The scrunched up expression of Loré quickly dissolved into a puzzled look. “What do you mean by that? I’m pretty sure that I don’t look angry all the time,” she protested.
“Not all the time, but you have for most of the time we’ve spent together. You do seem to be upset about something. I don’t think it’s because of me, or because of this adventure. Did you grow up with like really mean parents?”
“I’m not angry!” Loré yelled and rubbed her forehead in frustration, “and my parents were excellent, I couldn’t have asked for anypony better.”
“Oh, that’s good. I’m glad to hear that at least you had good parents,” Namworth studied Loré intensely as he tried to figure out where her anger came from. “Did you have any mean brothers or sisters? Or was everypony mean to you in school?”
Loré turned her head to once again stare daggers at him. “Listen, I hardly think this is any of your business, but I’ll indulge these personal questions one last time, Namworth. I’m on very good terms with my brother and two sisters, and nopony was mean to me at school. In fact, a lot of fillies wanted to be friends with me.” She almost scoffed at the very last notion. “I didn’t want anything to do with any one of them. I just wanted to spend my time reading my books, studying how everything in our world came to be.” A bit of a smile formed on Loré’s face.
“You didn’t have any friends?” Namworth asked with a frown.
“Correct. I didn’t have any, and I still don’t want any today. I don’t need friends. They are just a hassle to keep.” She got up on her hooves and walked a bit over into the darkness of the cave, staring into the abyss. “You have to remember all these unimportant things about them, help them whenever they ask for it, and give them presents on special occasions. Erk, there are so many things you need to do for friends. It’s all a farce anyway. Nopony does anything for anypony without wanting something in return.”
“I think you are looking at this the wrong way, Loré,” Namworth interjected.
“Am I? Wasn’t it the promise of figuring out your purpose and a handsome reward that persuaded you into joining me?” she turned around with a huff, facing him as she walked back to the fireplace.
“Well, I guess you are right about that. But, not everypony does something to get something else in return. True friends don’t!” he smiled nervously as Loré leaned her face in close to his.
“Interesting notion coming from a pony living out in the middle of nowhere, and from a pony without any friends for that matter,” Loré delivered her observations with a colder voice than usually.
It was enough to cause his ears and face to droop. “Yeah…” this was the first insult she’d thrown at him that seemed to stick; it caught Loré completely off guard. The broken expression on Namworth’s face was more than sufficient to cause a surge of regret in Loré.
She slowly sat down beside him, wrapping a hoof around his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Not completely at least. I don’t want to deal with you crying or anything. So, let’s just pretend that we are sort of friends. I did ask you to come along because I found you a bit interesting. Though, it was mostly so you could carry stuff. Now, can we talk about something else instead?”
“Okay…” Namworth’s voice still carried a trace of sadness; her cold words, despite her great deal of effort did not seem good enough to lift his spirits back up again.
“It’s late, we should get some rest and then continue our journey tomorrow.” She sighed and released him from her half-embracing hug.
Namworth merely nodded before curling up on the stone floor. Loré curled up as well, but on the opposite side of the campfire from Namworth.
“Maybe we should try to go further into that tunnel when we wake up. I think it will go faster if it leads us to the tunnel system,” Loré smirked a bit at her own cunning. “We should be able to shave off a few hours of our journey if that’s the case. I’m certain it is because of how smooth this tunnel is, definitely the work of ponies.”
“I don’t know about that Loré,” said Namworth.
“What do you mean?” asked Loré
“Couldn’t it be some kind of animal that made this place? Like, they live deep within the mountain and only come out to feed during the night,” Namworth shuddered at the thought of whatever lurked deeper in the cave.
“If something like that made the cave, and lives within it, wouldn’t it have reacted to our presence by now?” Loré asked with a raised eyebrow.
“W-well, good point. But, could we sleep a bit closer, just in case?” he frightenedly looked around the dark cave, it being much more dim now that the sun had gone down.
Loré sighed “Fine, just no touching me, and be quiet so we can get some sleep.”
Namworth slowly crept up the side of Loré, lying as close to her as possible without actually touching her. He felt a bit safer at her side, and it only took a few more moments before all the exhausting walking, the warm fire and her presence whisked him off to sleep.