Breaking The Bull
Chapter 5: Breaking The Bull
Namworth rubbed his sore nose tenderly, letting out a slight sniffle as he looked up at Loré who was busy putting on her saddlebags, along with investigating the further back areas of the cave.
“I hope you’ll remember my sleeping policies next time,” she coldly stated, taking a few more steps into the darkness.
He nodded in response, getting up from the floor to slowly follow her. “Are we really going into the tunnels?” he sounded a bit nervous.
“Yes, we most certainly are.” Loré smirked widely, beginning her ascension into the depths of the cave, and into the pitch black darkness. “There is nothing to be scared of, Namworth. I am almost completely certain that this tunnel is an emergency exit for the train tunnel in case a cave-in happens.”
“I still don’t think this is a g—“ it was first now he noticed that Loré had just gone ahead without him, a mild whimper emanated from Namworth as he reluctantly followed. It was only a matter of seconds before their walk became shrouded in darkness, and it became impossible to even see a hoof in front of their own eyes.
“Don’t you think we should make a torch, or maybe you can use some magic to lighten the place up?” Namworth asked while fumbling around blindly, trying his best to stay as close to Loré as possible.
“If you insist,” she grumbled. Loré didn’t want to exert herself any more than she had to, and doing magical feats every day quickly became a taxing endeavor. She groaned with effort while her horn slowly started to glow more and more, ending up as a vibrant beam of light that showed the nearest features around them. “I don’t see any need for light if this is just a straight shot to the train tunnel.”
Much to Loré’s surprise, what the light revealed was not a straight tunnel, but a myriad of identically looking passages snaking themselves through the base of the mountain. All of them were impressively smooth and all consistent with the same dark gray stone as the material that lined the roof, walls and floor. Loré looked around between the different tunnels with a slightly baffled expression on her face.
“Well, I think there is a logical explanation of these other tunnels. Maybe they had difficulties hitting the outside base of the mountain. Notice how most of these tunnels go a bit up and down.” Loré pointed down the ones to her left and right sides as they both went further down, while the one in front of her went a bit upwards.
“All we need to do is stick with the one that goes up, as the mountain is more elevated on the north side than the southern side,” said Loré confidently.
“We should just head back and go out the cave, Loré,” Namworth tried to interject into Loré’s increasingly complex reasoning for the strange cave system. Though, his heeding was ignored and Loré led them both further into the mountain. The path they took did go up, for a while, but then took a sharp turn downwards. It went left, it went right, there were twists and turns, and after almost an hour of walking, they were lost.
Loré marched back and forth in the excessively large oval room of differently elevated plateaus, before her were eight different tunnels, all evenly spaced out on the wall. The only audible sound besides Loré’s rapid pacing was the faint dripping of water running down the numerous stalactites scattered across the ceiling. Namworth sat patiently a few feet away from Loré, watching her intensely as she tried to figure out which way to go next.
“Loré, why don’t we try to go that way?” Namworth pointed at the tunnel furthest to their left.
Loré barely gave the tunnel a glance before turning her head towards Namworth, glaring angrily. “We just came from that tunnel!” she snarled loudly, her voice echoing in the room. “There is no point going back there, we wouldn’t even be able to trace our way back to the start by now.”
“A-actually, I think I could give it a shot, I’ve always gotten around by my memory.” Namworth smiled proudly.
“Pft, if I can’t figure out our way back, then there is no chance for somepony like you,” Loré snarled while examining the different passages extra closely. “I’m almost certain that these are markings.” She ran a hoof over the strange indents in the rocks that occurred on the sides of each of the tunnels. “I just need to decipher the meaning behind them. I’m sure it won’t take me more than a few minutes to get the hang of this. I’ve studied several languages, and it just seems like this is plain old Equestrian that’s been smudged up.”
Namworth moved closer to get a look at the writing, squinting his eyes in an attempt to make out any kind of pattern in the indents. “I, I don’t know, Loré. It just looks like dents to me. But honestly, I think I can find a way out of here. I think I can feel some wind from this tunnel.” He pointed at the third tunnel from the right side.
Loré pushed him away from the tunnels, gazing into the one he suggested, but feeling no wind whatsoever. “Oh geez, thank you for your deep insight into this important decision. What would I and my degrees in linguistics and history do without your golden nuggets of wisdom?” She rolled her eyes and shook her head before going back to deciphering the senseless markings. “Just be quiet so I can figure this out a bit sooner.”
Namworth took a few steps back, turned around and stared out into the lower levels of the dark room, sighing some before mumbling, “If only she would listen…”
An eye appeared from the pitch black darkness, only a couple of inches away from Namworth’s face. The large formation that he had believed to be a boulder was something quite different. The eye peered straight at him, glowing intensely with a fiery hue and a slit as dark as the cave itself. Though, the focus shifted from Namworth to Loré.
“L-L-Loré, I think you need to see this!” he whimpered loudly.
“I said not now, Namworth!” Loré growled, waving a hoof dismissively at him.
The bolder-esque formation slowly rose from the floor, unfolding four highly muscular legs with hooves on their ends. Its body was bulky and sturdy and the head featured a pair of long sharp horns. The thing suddenly burst into flames that ranged from the tip of its head to the bottom of its back, as well as the legs being engulfed. The shape became fully distinguishable as a flaming bull once its fire bathed the room in light.
“LORÉ!!” Namworth stammered in panic.
“What is it!?” she finally turned around, now understanding the frightened cries of her companion. Loré’s jaw dropped slightly. “Uh oh.”
Namworth stood frozen in place as the bull towered above him. Though, it did not even seem to notice he was there. It took one echoing step after another, walking right over the quivering stallion as it went directly towards Loré.
Her eyes widened in disbelief as it ignored Namworth. “W-why are you coming for me!? He is much closer to you!” she pointed a hoof at Namworth who was staring in amazement as he mumbled something to himself.
“no, no, no, no,” whimpered Loré while running back and forth between the different tunnels, incapable of picking one to run into. Having gone through the myriad of tunnels had taught her the lesson that several of the tunnels lead nowhere, and if she picked the wrong one, she was finished for sure.
Loré could feel her heart racing in her throat, and her mind seemed incapable of producing any helpful thoughts, let alone make snap decision of where to go. It was too late to choose. The beast had closed the distance between them, forcing Loré to stand on her hind legs with her back pressed painfully up against the rock wall. Her eyes ran wide with fear as the beast opened its maw to reveal an inferno brewing inside of it.
“I HATE YOU LORÉ! You’re an idiot! Everything about you is foul and horrible!” screeched Namworth as loudly as he could. The words came to be as much of a surprise to Loré as it did to the bull, which had come to a stop, and turned its head towards him.
“I’ve stolen every bit of food I’ve ever had! I was even going to steal her book! I pull mean pranks on everypony when given the chance!” Namworth kept on yelling one strange thing after another, and even more oddly, it seemed that the bull became more interested in him than Loré.
The heavy beast turned around to walk back from whence it came, heading towards Namworth who gulped before sprinting in between every little boulder and stalagmite he could. The bull released a painfully loud roar before charging right after the nimble stallion. The bulky beast was no match when it came to squeezing in between the small openings that Namworth could go through.
The absence of the bull caused Loré’s limp body to slide down into a sitting position as her heart tried to descend into her chest again. The expression on her face was docile and traumatized, and it took several moments for the otherwise unshakable mare’s mind to return to the real world. Her first sound was that of a choking gasp, having almost forgotten to breathe through the entire endeavor.
“What are you doing?” was all Loré managed to mumble as her eyes fixated on the strange chase. Though, her vision slowly drifted over to the tunnels, knowing that she could try to explore some of them while Namworth kept the beast distracted. The thought of leaving him behind to save herself crossed her mind, but her body felt like unmovable stone.
“Namworth, run!” was all her shaky voice could produce in a loud enough range for Namworth to hear it.
Though Namworth did hear it, he didn’t answer her; he was far too busy avoiding the many charges of the bull. Although it was bigger and bulkier, the intense heat it produced was more than sufficient to melt away the rocks that Namworth tried to pin it in place with. The chase led the both of them all the way down to the lowest plateau, and with a quick agile maneuver, Namworth used the cave wall to flip his momentum to dart in the direction of the charging bull. He rushed past it with enough speed that when the bull attempted to snatch him with its maw, it ended up falling over itself from the sudden attempt to go in the opposite direction.
Despite his quivering limbs, exhausted body and heavy panting, Namworth had still the energy to gallop up the plateaus with a speed that surprised Loré, and even more so was the surprise of him snatching one of her forelegs to pull her along. “We’re leaving now!” he yelled while dragging her into the third tunnel from the right.
“Make it brighter!” Namworth commanded as he dragged her along.
Loré did her best to keep up with him as they went through the coiling tunnels, being uncharacteristically docile with Namworth. She did not argue, or insult him for talking to her like that, she just did as he asked, and put a bit more focus into her illumination spell and it provided them half a dozen extra feet of clearly lit vision.
Namworth made one snap decision after another whenever the tunnel branched out into more, and Loré just kept on following him, still able to hear the thunderous roars produced by the bull chasing them.
“Almost there, Loré!” Namworth cried out at her.
The bright sun was blinding to their subdued eyes as it came into sight at the end of a tunnel. The two ponies flew out like shots from a canon, landing safely in a grass meadow on the north eastern side of the mountains.
Namworth collapsed while gasping for air. “It can’t… get us now…” was all he managed to mumble between his pants.
“What? I don’t understand, what just happened!?” Loré growled flusteredly.
“It was Aatxe, protector of the good, punisher of anypony who cheats, steals, lies and is disrespectful. It can only come out of its cave at night.” He slowly sat back up on his hunches after having gotten some air back in his lungs. “I knew it would come after me if I said a lot of nasty things. Even if it knew it was all lies, it would come for me because I was lying and being disrespectful. I’m also sorry for what I said Loré, I didn’t mean a word of it.”
“So that was why you said all those things.” Loré’s mind was racing a hundred thoughts per second, analyzing and repeating all the events that just took place and it only caused her expression to sour more and more.
“I can’t believe it! This is so damn humiliating!” Loré growled. Despite being tired, she still paced back and forth in front of Namworth. “I froze up! I should’ve used my magic on it, I should’ve evaded it myself, I should’ve just left you in the cave to save my own skin. That is what any sane pony would have done. Why didn’t you leave me behind when that… thing! Came for me? I mean for goodness sake, I handled that Timberwolf just fine a few days ago.”
Namworth stared in confusion as he tried to make sense of Loré’s rambling. “I helped you because friends help each other.” He smiled tentatively.
“Oh great, and now you probably expect me to be in your debt, don’t you? But guess what, I’m your employer, and this was part of the job! Don’t even think that I owe you a thing.” Loré had stopped her pacing and moved close to Namworth. Her eyes never once glanced at him as she looked every which way with her face going through a range of emotions while she yelled at him.
“Loré, look at me,” Namworth asked gently as he interrupted her rant, noticing her quivering legs.
Loré halted every action for several moments, becoming like a statue. She felt his hooves on her shoulders. It was enough to get her to actually look into his eyes. Her own were like wide mirrors, reflecting his own image perfectly with the layer of moisture that glistened along her pupils.
“It’s okay, Loré, everything is okay. We’re safe here.”
“I know we are safe!” Loré snarled defensively, and more aggressively than usual.
“Loré, we’re going to be fine. It won’t hurt you out here, I won’t let it get to you.”
Namworth’s words seemed to have broken something inside of Loré, as her face contorted into a sentiment of pure anger and sadness while her eyes welled up. She pulled one shaky foreleg as far back as she could, to which Namworth simply closed his eyes while expecting a punch to the face. But, it never came.
All he felt was Loré’s forelegs embracing him and her face burying into his neck. He returned the favor by wrapping his forelegs around her, feeling her body quiver more vibrantly, and though her chest rapidly lowered and expanded, she made no audible sounds.
“Thank you…” mumbled Loré quietly into his neck.
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3861120
But it does make sense since they got clothes in the pic, and they first get that in chapter 5 
Aaww, I'm sorry that my descriptions weren't good enough to match up with the awesome pic my friend drew for the story
I'm really glad to hear that you enjoy the story and think I got something good here :D
If Loré Scroll was voiced, what would she sound like?
3861414
hhmmm, I think she would be a bit tomboyish.
I've actually never thought about that before
A new set of chapters to read!
You've really improved your style even in these last two chapters. The dynamic between Namworth and Lore is heading into adorable territory now. I only really caught one mistake in this chapter, and I expect that was because you were ready to get this chapter out.
No worries though! Was the Aatxe something of your own creation, or was it inspired by some mythical creature? It sure is interesting to say the least!
3861502
I'm glad to hear that you still enjoy my silly story, and that I'm slowly but surely improving
Though, a big thanks to my editor for helping me make these better! So, it could overall just be him 
I'll fix the mistake right away! And you think they are adorable together huh? Glad that you think so, for there is going to be a loooooooooooot more dynamic between them in the future. I got a strong feeling you'll enjoy next chapter, especially the scene with Namworth, Loré and Rarity 
And for the creature, it's an actual real life myth from northern Spain
3861622
Well, she is his great great great (a total of 38 greats) grand daughter. And, there is actually a subtext reason for why I chose that title for her to give Namworth
If Namworth was voiced, what would he sound like?
3861703
Why are you so curious about their voices? 
A rather feminine guy
Another good chapter with more good development. Can't think of much else to say other than that I'm loving this so far. It's got a good groove going, and it holds my attention. So far, so good.
3861896
you are far too kind 
I hope that will be the same for the rest of it. I got a lot of themes and things I want to convey throughout this novel, so I hope I can get it all down right 
Aaaww
Either way! next chapter was what I originally had planned for chapter 3. It's time for PONYVILLE! and interaction with some of the mane six
Next chapter is also going to be the longest of the five, hope you'll enjoy it 
3861711 I like to narrate the voices of characters in my head when I read.
3861908
Fair enough. I hope my answers have provided you with some kind of voice for their narration
Ahhh, she does care.
3861908 I leave that task to my smexy subconscious; that's what it's there for, after all!
Good lord, it is! Well done for including a really-obscure creature. Even if you got it out of Guild Wars.
6503584 I didn't get it out of guild wars lol. Because, I've never played the game XD I got the creature from old folk lores, probably the same place that Guild Wars got it
When I got to that chapter in my story, I felt that I would go with the same method MLP uses when it presents new monsters and such, which is to borrow it from old mythologies and folklore. So, I went on a hunting spree to find a mythological creature that lived in caves. I stumbled upon that one and found it suited my needs and fell well within the range of how the show seems to add in new fantasy creatures 