Within the circle of tents, Willow worked on Twilight's tent on the side while the transformed pony princess continued to read next to the fire. She tried gaining every bit of knowledge she can find on whatever is on this island. Most seemed dangerous, however a couple of them seemed so innocent that Fluttershy would've wanted to keep it.
There it is again, Twilight was reminded of home and she began to think about how she is going to get home, fortunately by now she's at least able to try remembering the experiment without getting a headache. Unfortunately it's still all just a foggy blur, all she could do now was think. She tried to think about what she would do with this new world in mind. With a confused sigh she returned to the book
Twilight read up to the page on ghosts, which simply said, "nothing important, just walk away from it and keep your distance and you'll be fine" when she put the book aside to
stretch for a moment and find a more familiar form of what she was just reading about looking down in a meloncholy way.
"Oh hi, Abigail," Twilight said
Abigail gave a slight whisp as a greeting, still looking down.
"What's wrong? Are you feeling alright?"
Abigail just continued to look down in sadness
Willow answered for her from the side. "She misses her sister."
Abigail nodded to confirm.
"What happened?"
"Wendy vanished some time ago with Wilson," Willow explained. "In fact, it was just a day before you arrived when she never came back. We knew something was wrong when Abigail came back without Wendy, now she mostly just floats around camp waiting for her sister to come back."
"I can understand, I have a brother back home. I wonder if he noticed that I'm gone. Though, even if he did I don't know how he could find me," once again, Twilight choked on the thought of not returning home again. She shook her head to clear her mind. "I'm sorry, it's just kind of hard accepting that I'll be here for a while, maybe even longer. I'm not exactly used to surviving."
"Don't worry, Twilight," Willow said. "We were all like that once, it just takes some getting used to.
Abigail nodded in understanding.
Twilight was about to respond when her stomach spoke up first. "I guess I'm still hungry, where are those ice chests you mentioned earlier?"
"Alright, Abigail, could you show her?" Willow asked the ghost.
Abigail nodded and floated in another direction. Twilight followed her as best as she could with one hand using the walking cane and the other holding the book.
After a short walk, Twilight found herself at a large field of farm plots being illuminated by several lanterns, with a few ice boxes near the lower left plot, which was being tended to by a woman with black hair wearing a red shirt and what seemed to be a white apron turned beige from dirt. She looked like a professional gardener.
The woman was humming a tune as she worked, inturrupted by Abigail's appearance.
"Oh, hello, Abigail," she said politely. "What brings you here?" her tone reminded Twilight of Fluttershy.
Abigail gestured toward Twilight with her ghost tail, the woman gasped lightly from surprise at the sight of the pony princess.
"Oh, you're awake! I was beginning to wonder if you died already. You look a little odd. But don't worry, I'm sure you'll fit right in."
"Thanks, I'm Twilight Sparkle," Twilight said.
"My name is Wisteria."
"You don't mind if I take a few things from the ice chest, do you?"
Wisteria shook her head. "Not at all, help yourself. I just finished restocking it."
"Thank you," Twilight placed the book on top of the ice chest as she searched through the compartment. She tried to find something that wasn't made of meat. She managed to find a couple of roasted carrots, which she took out as she sat down to rest her still sore legs. Wisteria sat in front of her to talk.
"So," Wisteria said as Twilight enjoyed the carrots. "Have you met everyone yet?"
Twilight swallowed to answer. "I think I did, but there might be a few I haven't seen yet."
"Hm, I see. So, what are things like where you come from?"
"It's a wonderful place," Twilight answered. "Plenty of space, friendly ponies, beautiful views and..." she started to trail off.
"Twilight? Are you alright?"
"Hm? Yeah, just a little homesick I guess."
Wisteria nodded in empathy. "I understand, each of us went through the same thing."
"Even WX-78?"
"Well, I don't know. But he came here before I did. But I certainly was worried about how things are back home or at least if Maxwell followed his side of the deal."
Twilight nodded in agreement as she finished up the carrots. "It was nice talking to you, Wisteria," she said as she stood up.
"Likewise, Twilight." she picked up the book to trudge her way back to the campfire.
Once she got there, Willow was gone, probably to take a break or something. Twilight sat down on one of the log benches and returned to the book,
After what felt like thirty minutes, Twilight saw a creature in the book that looked like a strange black serpent.
"What is that?" she asked out loud.
"What is what, eh?" asked a deep voice behind her. She gasped from surprise as she turned around, finding two men behind her. The first was a clear lumberjack, having a thick beard, gloves and a plaid, rolled up shirt and holding a red axe by his side. The second was tall and thin. He wore face paint, like a mime, maybe?
"Oop, sorry I scared you," said the lumberjack.
"It's fine, I've been snuck up on a lot recently," Twilight replied.
"Alright then. So, what were you asking about, eh?"
"Oh, nothing, just talking about what's in this book. Who are you?"
"My name's Woodie, this is Wes, what's yours?"
"I'm Twilight Sparkle."
A voice squeaked from Woodie's side. "Well, that's an interesting name."
"Uh... Wes, was that you?"
Wes shook his head and ran his fingers over his mouth as though zipping it shut.
"Nope, Wes doesn't talk," Woodie said. "That was Lucy."
"Lucy?"
"Yep, Lucy." Woodie held out the axe he was holding.
"Hello," the axe squeaked.
Twilight stared at the axe in shock and confusion. "It... can talk? How is an axe able to talk? That is not possible by both science and magic," she turned to Wes. "How is it talking?"
Wes gave a nervous shrug while Lucy gasped. "It?" she chimed, "How rude. Woodie, why is it that everyone when they first meet me call me 'it'?"
"Sorry, Lucy," Woodie said. "She's new here. She just needs to know you more."
"Oh okay, fine. I'll forgive her this time."
Twilight looked at Wes. Wes shrugged, made swinging motions with his arms, then talking motions with his hand, then shrugged again.
"Well... it's nice to meet you two. Er... three..."
"Nice to meet you too, Twilight," Woodie said as he and Wes sat next to her. "Sorry for being nosy, but eh... what's with the wings? You're not part bird are you?"
"No, actually I'm a pony princess from another world."
Wes rose an eyebrow in curiosity while Woodie seemed to relax a little. "As long as you aren't related to birds, I'm fine."
"What do you have against birds?"
Wes facepalmed out of frustration while Woodie said, "Oh, don't get me started. I mean first you chop down a few birds' nests, then next thing you know you're banned for life from a forest. This one time I..." as Woodie talked, Wes looked at Twilight frustrated, made talking motions with one hand, then made circle motions with his finger on the other.
Lucy spoke up during Woodie's story. "Woodie, Woodie, Woodie!"
"And there were hippies everywhere- eh?" Finally Woodie stopped talking and faced his axe. "What'cha need, Lucy?"
"Woodie, you got caught up in your story, again."
"Oh, really? Sorry, Twilight, sometimes I get carried away. So, long story short I don't like birds."
"I can tell."
Afterwards, the three simply sat there, the only noise was the crackling of the fire as they waited for time to pass.
"So... do you know where Willow went?" Twilight asked. "She was just working on my tent."
"Probably in her tent, sometimes she goes there but no one really knows why."
"Right, so how long do these nights last anyway?"
"Shouldn't be too long," Woodie said, "it's midspring so it's not that far away. In fact, the sun should rise any moment now."
Light began to cover the area as the sun rose from the horizon, taking the moon's place in the sky. Finally Twilight was able to see past the perimiters of the camp. "I guess I should get used to this." She said to herself. "Because I'm going to be here for a while."
______________________________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, Maxwell was taking care of a few small problems of his own.
"Something's wrong," he said to no one in particular. "It's been days and I still can't seem to feel her prescence, it's been four days and she's still not here, isn't she the slightest worried that she could get caught? No, there has to be a reason. Perhaps underground?"
A crack and a poof later, and Maxwell found himself in the dark caves of the underground. Yet no matter how close to the darkness he was, he couldn't find her.
"How is it that she's here at night but not during the day? I must find out what's the cause of this quickly, Before Charlie's rampage grows too much for even me to handle."
Maxwell put his fingers to his mouth, blowing a quick whistle that summoned a black, snake-like creature to him.
"Mr. Skitts," he said. "Get more shadow creatures, do a wide search on the island. Find something, anything that could let Charlie escape. And if you do, tell me immediately!"
Mr. Skitts nodded and dove into the ground to fulfil his command.
"It looks like I either underestimated or overestimated you, Twilight Sparkle. Once I figure this out I will know that if your move, whatever that was, has something to do with Charlie's disappearance, then it's either your greatest achievement, or your biggest mistake. Either way, I don't like where this is going."