//------------------------------// // Day 2: As roads are walked, and things are lost // Story: A mare and her dog // by cammera //------------------------------// "Ungh" "Told you" The sun hit the back of her head with terrible, terrible heat. The entire world was a desert, it seemed, from how the dust insisted in entering her eyes. "Shat ap" Winona whined and licked her muzzle "No, bad" she shoved her off. Even the road seemed to be against her today. It looked too much like a beautiful, beautiful bed for its own good. "What kind of lonely traveler gets wasted, anyway?" asked the griffon, Reighnald "It isn't the kind of thing you want to do away from your friends" "A happy one" she tried to bellow a Yeeeehaa!, but wasn't up to it so it ended up as more of a Yiij "Told ya, I am about to reach a big part of my travel" Reighnald nodded. They kept walking the road. "And what is this "big part", exactly? Something about that rite?" "Nearly halfway done" she said "Head hurts too much, dun wanna explain" He nodded, "Told you" "Shat ap" They walked silently for a while. "And what kind of traveling merchant travels by hoof?" she asked. "The kind whose ship is in the next city" "Ah" she nodded "And is that far from here?" "A few miles" he said. After a moment, he added "Where are you going to? Back home?" She nodded. "My next trip is there, and I've been needing an extra pair of hands in the ship" "Nah" she answered automatically, smiling despite her headache "I have two good pairs of hooves. Took me this far, will take me further" He nodded. "But, uhm, could you take some letters? I could pay you" "Don't worry about money," he shook his head "I'll just drop them in Equestria's mail system" "Thanks, you don't know how much that means to me" she smiled at him. Maybe the headache wasn't so bad, after all. "From a traveler to another, I do. The ship will take off in..." he talked under his breath for a moment "five, maybe seven hours, so you have time to write them. And just out of curiosity," he added after a moment "You came here from Atalaya, right? Straight east?" she nodded "Who took you across the glaciers, Morris?" She shook her head with the beginnings of a smile forming in her lips. She loved this part. "Drat?" she shook her head "Steady Hoof? White? Purr Narr?" She shook her head to all the names, her grin getting wider. "By hoof" she took a moment to take on his astonishment "Never underestimate how much a good tent, enough fat, a good length of rope, and my family's knitting can do" "You are either resourceful or terribly mad" he said "And you took a dog across the glaciers?" he regarded Winona, who barked. "You shoulda seen her in her little sweater, fuzzy as a pup" she rummaged in her saddlebags awkwardly without stopping her walk and took out the battered sweater in question to show it to him "She hated it until the first gale hit us. Didn't even scratch it after that" He took it, eyes wide. "Storm and thunder, mare! where did you even get her?" he gestured at Winona again. "Get her? She got me" she gave her a pat "Wasn't even supposed to come in this, just followed from a distance and didn't show herself until I was too far to take her back" He nodded, regarding Winona with admiration. They fell silent for a few minutes. "I just entered... Thrata? Am I saying it right?" he nodded "After here there are the Prasante Forests, then the Bloka mountain range, and then I'll enter Surane?" "Yes. If you keep going in a straight line you won't ever enter the inner Tharata, just its frontier cities. The Prasante and Bloka regions overlap a lot, if we still talk about a straight line from here of course, so it's more of a mountainous forest, and you'll pass right through the heart of Surane. Beautiful this time of the year, the orange trees they love to plant in their parks are blooming. Don't you have a map?" he added. "The glacier we were in cracked one night" She shook her head "Bad way to wake up, let me tall ya" He nodded, cringing, "We lost a shipment to a storm a few years back, I hate when that happens. Anything important, other than the map?" "Food and some trinkets I wanted to send to my friends, and the compass, but I grabbed the bag before anything else fell" she shrugged "Been without a map before, I'll get another" He nodded, and they kept walking the road.