Thief

by conTROLLER234

Chapter 22 Homestead

Thief

Chapter 22

Homestead

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality…

The quiet hum of the truck engine, the slightly vibrating seats, and some unknown music playing in the background was just the perfect combination for a nap. These feelings had gotten so familiar to her, everytime she felt them she felt safe. Safe. That word just made pictures of John appear in her mind. No pony had made her feel more safe than him. She smiled at the thought, wanting to see him right now.

As her consciousness grew more, recent memories began to flood her mind, swiftly changing her emotions. Her mind was so twisted at the moment, she couldn’t piece everything together to tell the story of yesterday. Ugh, she needed some water…

Her body’s limbs and muscles ached to be stretched, so she went on to comply. Though she quickly found out that she couldn’t move, no matter how much she struggled. Was she in some kind of sleep paralysis? No, she was able to move somewhat. It almost felt as if she was, tied together with rope or something. As feeling was not able to tell what position she was in at the moment, she went with the next sense; sight.

She opened her eyes, only to see nothing again, just black. She could tell that something was covering her eyes, as she could barely see through what seemed to be cloth. After realizing sight wouldn’t help much, she tried to speak. When she opened her mouth, her voice was muffled to the point where she could barely make a sound. She could taste some cloth that was stuffed into her mouth, and then something had forced her mouth shut. Her awakening quickly turned sour as she began to panic without realizing. Trying to get out of the ropes, and attempting to speak as loud as possible.

She stopped her escape struggle when she suddenly heard the truck stop, along with the music. She heard a door open, shut, then another door open. This one right beside her. Something grabbed her, pulling off the fabric from her eyes, and in her mouth. She recognised the person, standing over her with a wide grin. Dylan.

“Well well, someone finally woke up. You’ve been out for a while, must’ve been a good sleep-”

“What have you done?! What were you thinking, leaving all your friends behind like that!! They could all be dead right now, and it’s all because of you!” Fluttershy screamed, taking the opportunity to speak.

Dylan wasn’t fazed at all, and just let out a scoff. “It’s rude to interrupt people like that, you know? Anyways,” He shrugged, “I could care less. That John guy was getting on my nerves, and I didn’t prize Luke too much either. The rest of you don’t matter to me, so I didn’t have a problem taking your stuff.”

“If you don’t care about us, why did you take me from them?!” She growled, getting angrier by the second.”

“Oh, you should know better than anyone.” He smirked deviously, glaring down at Fluttershy. “Because John cares about you more than anyone else in that group, he made that pretty damn clear. So trading you for all of these goods, is so simple! A three year old could’ve made this plan! It’s almost too easy.”

“You… You, are the cruelest person I’ve ever met…” Fluttershy’s eyes were filled with horror. And knowing that she was at the complete mercy to this man made her shiver.

His smirk faded, however the insult didn’t seem to make it through him. “Yeah, I’ve heard that lots. And speaking of John,” He looked away from Fluttershy, tapping his chin as he looked up into the sky. “Would you happen to know where he might be going?”

“Even if I knew, I would never, ever tell you in my life!” She got angrier, feeling like she could burst of out the ropes at any second.

“Well, aren’t you just little Miss Stubborn?” He shrugged, looking back down at her. “No matter, I’ll just wait until he ditches the others to come find you on his own, leaving the others to die.” He leaned in closer to Fluttershy, speaking barely above a whisper. “That is, if he’s still alive…”

Fluttershy gulped, trying her best to lean away from him. “John would never leave my friends! He cares for them too much!”

“Oh really? Then why do I get the urging feeling that, if anyone else had gone missing, he wouldn’t have even attempted to look for them?” He finally took a step back, giving Fluttershy her space. “Admit it, he only really cares about you. And it’s only a matter of time before he gets separated from the group, and they all die.” He then grabbed the two cloths, putting the one back into her mouth, and the other over her eyes as he continued speaking.

“Then killing you will be even easier.” He stepped away, slammed the door, then got back into the driver's seat to continue driving. He even turned the radio back on, like nothing had happened.

Some tears soaked into the cloth covering Fluttershy’s eyes.

Please, hurry up John…

- - - - -

“Okay, okay how about this one,” I laughed, pulling myself together. “What did the one ocean, say to the other?”

No one replied, though there were a couple irritated grunts and chuckles.

“Nothing, they just waved!”

The entire hillside was completely silent, other than the group of laughing humans and ponies. The travelling was beginning to get boring, so we decided to crack some jokes to lighten the mood. God knows we needed it.

“Okay, seriously stop! This is actually physically hurting me!” Luke growled, but a smiled seeped through as he chuckled.

“Sorry, I thought you deserved the punishment.” I laughed harder, and more of the ponies began to groan in pain, though Dash, AJ, and Derpy were having a hell of a time laughing their asses off.

“I swear to god if you don’t stop I will take your knife and stab you with it!” Luke threatened, gritting his teeth.

“No, don’t! That wouldn’t be very knife of you!” I finished, And Luke threw his arms up in defeat as everyone groaned in mercy.

“Stoooooooppp!!” Twilight pleaded. “I can’t take it anymore!, it’s so painful!”

“Okay, okay I’m done. For real this time.” I heaved, laughing off the rest of my jokes.

“You’ve said that like ten times already!” Dash snorted, attempting to pull herself together but failing multiple times.

“Okay, okay…” I sighed, finally regaining what maturity I had before I transformed into an 8 year-old. I suddenly stopped pushing as I stretched. “Anyways, I’m going to go take a piss.”

“Y’all just went less than an hour ago!” AJ scoffed, lying on her back inside the wagon.

“Hey, don’t judge me.” I grabbed my knife and headed towards the trees. “Besides, I’ll check to see if there is a good spot to camp out.”

“Good idea, and we can take a break, finally.” Lyra sighed in relief, her and Derpy taking off their harnesses and lying down on the ground.

“Try not to be too long, I don’t want us to worry, come looking for you and have to walk in on you doing-”

“Yep, thanks for the heads up Twilight!” I rolled my eyes, disappearing into the tree line. The second I had entered, I already realized we would have to search deeper into the forest if we wanted to find a good spot. Everything within eyesight was too thick with trees and other shrubbery. Well, at least it found a good spot to do my business. Though just as I was about to unzip my pants, I heard some quiet rustling in a bush behind me.

I instinctively turned around and backed away, holding my knife out in front of me. I stood there preparing for something to jump out at me, most likely a walker. I was taken by surprise as I get grabbed from behind and tugged to the ground violently.

“Gahh!!” I yelped out by accident, alerting the nearby passengers in the cart as they heard me.

“John? Are you okay?!” I hear Dash yell out, though I wasn’t in the position to respond as I tried to fight off whatever was attacking.

This thing and I rolled around in the dirt for a while, until I finally got ahold of it in the right way. “Aha!” I spun the creature around, pinning it onto what seemed to be its stomach, as I held a knee on their back. I quickly realized it was a pony, as I grabbed their hooves and held them behind their back. Not a second later, I had my knife to their throat.

“If you don’t say something in the next three seconds I’m going to assume you're a walker and paint the dirt with your life.” I growled intimidatingly. The pony struggled for a few seconds, before speaking.

“Get off of me…” The voice was female. The voice was smooth, but yet somewhat scratchy and choked. The tone was deeper for a female voice, and she had only tried to make it sound more intimidating. But of course, I didn’t give a fuck.

“I don’t think so-”

“John!” I turned around as I heard Twilight’s voice, making sure my hold on the pony didn’t weaken. The second they walked through, they created an opening in the treeline, so light could escape in. Once I could see better, I looked down at the pony.

Her coat was a yellow-ish brown color, and she wore some dark green-colored clothing. A hat, that was mostly tan, and a compass tattoo thing on her ass. What mostly caught my attention, was that her mane and eye color was somewhat similar to Rainbow Dash’s. Her eye color was exactly the same, and her mane and tail had the same pattern and color, but instead painted in black and white shading. Her eyes glared daggers into mine, but quickly turned away from me when we both heard Dash’s voice behind us.

“A. K. Yearling?! What are you doing here!?” Dash freaked, holding her hooves up to her head in surprise.

“No time to explain, now run while you still can while I hold him off! You can still get away!” The pony yelled, and I lightly scoffed and turned back to her, until my eyes grew wide in realization.

“What are you talking about? Wait…” Twilight started thinking to herself.

“Wait, Dash, you know this pony?” I questioned, and her answer was running up to me and shoving me off of the newcomer.

“Of course I do!” Dash quickly tended to the pony, helping her up. “John,” Dash turned to me and glared. “Why would you just tackle her like that?!”

“ME?!” I threw my hands up. “I was about to take a piss when she pulled me to the ground!”

“A. K., what are you doing out here?” Twilight walked up to the pony, examining her.

“Well, I’m hiding out here. Ever since this weird thing happened where everypony is going schitz, I’ve just left my house and tried to get away from it all. This seems to be the safest place, at least right now.”

“It spread that quick, huh?” I turned to the voice of AJ, who I hadn’t noticed joined the group.

“Oh yeah. This infection spreads like wildfire, and the population goes down faster than a fat kid on a seesaw.” I explained, and suddenly got another glare from the Rainbow Dash duplicate.

“Anyways, the reason I attacked you is because I thought you had kidnapped my friends. So the second you left them, I made my move. Though, I guess it seems that isn’t the case.” She told. I folded my arms and gave her an impressed look.

“Well, I’ll give you this: you snuck up on me pretty good.” I smirked, and I saw Twilight roll her eyes.

“Well, John is our friend. In fact, he’s really the reason we’re all alive right now.” Twilight expressed, and AJ quickly followed her up.

“He’s saved us too many times tuh count. We really can’t thank him enough for it.” The ponies turned to me, and I quickly rolled my eyes to not make eye contact.

“Yeah, okay well this is all very touching, but we need to continue moving and find a site to camp at before it gets too dark out.” I reminded, and AJ frowned, her attempts and creating a heartwarming moment getting crushed.

“Well, actually I have a camp set up not far ahead. If we head there now, we can probably make it in time to build enough shelters for all of you.” The new mare offered, grabbing my interest.

“How far is it from here? Because we still need to drag that cart with us, it has all of our supplies. If we lose those, we’ll lose a lot of time, too.” I voiced, and she shrugged.

“It about five to ten minutes from here. There’s a path a little ways down that leads right to it. It’s a nice spot too, lots of deadfall for shelter building and fires, lots of overhead trees for some protection from rain. There’s even a river right next to the camp.” She listed off items, that sort of flew over my head. Except for the last one.

“...There’s a river nearby?”

“Yep.”

“Clean water?”

“Uh huh.”

I didn’t take another second before I was out of the forest and heading back to the cart. “Pack up, we’re going to this camp!”

“Aww, yeah! This is gonna be sweet!” Dash immediately trailed behind me.

“Thank you very much Ms. Yearling. This is going to help us a lot.” Twilight smiled, walking with A. K. as they headed towards the cart.

“Don’t mention it. It’ll actually be nice to have some company for once. It gets pretty lonely out here.” She spoke without emotion, and Twilight turned to look ahead of her.

“I can imagine.”

By the time they made it to the cart, everyone was strapped up and ready to go. I was eagerly standing behind the cart, waiting for directions.

“Lead the way!” I ordered, not caring much for my manners. I was just happy to get some fresh water. Hell, maybe even take a bath. I think everyone would like one, we were beginning to smell pretty damn awful.

A. K. scoffed, shaking her head as we headed back into the forest.

“Who is she?” Luke asked me, confused.

“A life saver.”

- - - - -

We had been at the camp for several hours, and it was going on 8 o’clock. The skies were getting dark, and we had just finished building the last shelter. We wiped the sweat from our foreheads, taking a seat to relax. We would have to travel a bit farther to get any more deadfall, but because it was getting dark we decided that wasn’t the best idea.

A. K. had already built her own shelter, so we just ended up building 4 shelters. Luke wanted to build his own and sleep on his own, and that’s fine by me, we ended up having enough resources anyways. 3 people in each shelter, the three fillies counting as one as they’re small enough to fit as one whole pony.

Twilight, AppleJack and Lyra were going to share one shelter, Big Mac, the three fillies, and Derpy share another, then me and Dash. Dash wanted to bunk with me, for some reason. I don’t mind, really. As long as she doesn’t wake me up in the middle of the night.

“Nice work guys, we might just survive another night.” I joked pulling off my one-strapped backpack, then pulling out a small fire kit.

“Very funny. Though, it does feel pretty satisfying to build your own house and sleep in it.” Dash chimed in, stretching and relaxing against a tree. “I’m beat.”

“For the record, number one, I built the entire shelter, number two, you weren’t pushing a cart all day.” I snapped back, and she just gave a shrug.

A. K. and Twilight seemed more interested in my firemaking than anyone else. I had a pharrosivium rod starter in my hands, while I pulled out a dark, burnt and charred piece of something from a burnt up steel container with a hole in the top.

“What is that?” Twilight began, ready for another lesson.

“This,” I held it up to her face to she could see it better. “Is a charred piece of a tinder fungus called Fomes Fomentarius. Or, common name is Horses Hoof Fungus.” I pulled it away from her face, and placed it on the steel container. “Charred, well, anything will take a spark with extreme ease, then will begin to smoulder. Place it in a bird's nest, and blow on it, you have fire.” I educated, Twilight just taking in as much as possible.

I perked up and looked around, pointing my finger over at the river, where some tall, dry grass was poking up. “Speaking of which, would one of you be a dear and grab me a handful of that grass over there?”

“Here, I’ve got it.” Twilight offered, though she didn’t get up. Her eyes shut, and her horn began to glow. It flickered, a few sparks flying off before it fully ignited. I watched as a bundle of the dry grass, folded in on itself, and ripped away from the others. She levitated the bundle over to me, before dropping into my hands. Once her horn shut off, she began gasping for air, sweating.

“Hey, looks like you’ve got that witchcraft working again.” I smirked, toying with the grass to turn it into a bird’s nest.

Twilight ignored my snarky comment, but acknowledged my initial meaning. “Yes, I think all that rest paid off. It should be a lot better by morning.”

“Anyways,” Once I had the bundle prepared, a pile of kindling, slowly growing in size, and a fire pit in front of me, I got ready to start the process I’ve done thousands of times. With one strike, and slide off of the rod, millions of tiny sparks flew off, showering the tiny piece of charred material. Right away, you could see the fungus beginning to smoke, and when I blew on it it glowed red.

“Whoa…” Twilight and A. K. said in unison, captivated as if they were watching fireworks go off. After I was satisfied with the side of the glowing ember, I gently placed it inside the bird’s nest, and hugged the glowing ember with the grass. After blowing on it for a couple of seconds, the smoke amount grew dramatically, and with a matter of time, the grass burst into flames. I took no extra time in putting it down on the ground, and sophisticatedly piling the pencil-sized kindling on top of it. It didn’t take long at all for a small bed of embers to form, and a true fire was born.

“Yaaayyy!” Twilight clapped her hooves together. “That was so cool!”

Dash and I scoffed at Twilight. “Wow, you really are an egghead.” I chuckled, and Twilight’s entertainment quickly shifted to irritation.

“You’re pretty nifty with that. I should get myself one of those sometime.” A. K. watched the fire build in size.

“It’s a good idea, these things can do stuff you wouldn’t believe. Definitely handy out here.” I looked around, taking in the surrounding forest and towering coniferous trees that stood tall over anything.

“Well, who wants to go for a swim?”

I looked up at A. K., who had gotten up at already taken off her hat and jacket and was heading towards the river.

“Oh! I do! I do!” The three fillies made sure they were heard as they bolted after the safari pony, no one doing anything to stop them.

“That sounds relaxing. Besides, Celestia knows we could use a bath.” Twilight mentioned, getting up and following, everyone else did the same.

“You comin’ John?” AJ asked, and the second I heard her voice I got up to stop her. “No, and neither are you. That wound is still too fresh, if any contaminants in the water get into it, that could infect it.”

“Aww, come on John! Light up, will ya?” Dash was already in the water, mane and coat mopped to her body with water. “The temperature is just right!”

“I bet it is, but I hate swimming in clothes aside from swimming shorts, and there’s no way in hell I’m getting naked in front of all of you. So I’ll pass thanks.”

“Okay, we’ll you’ll have to take a bath at some point, otherwise flies are going to vomit when they go near you!” Dash quickly went underwater, enjoying herself.

“You’re not coming in the shelter soaking wet, I hope you know that!!” I yelled, but knew she wouldn’t hear me.

AJ walked over to me, sitting down. “Do y’all think there’s some way ah can clean myself up? This smell is really doin’ a number on mah nose.” She begged, and I thought for a second.

“Well, just try to wash everywhere but your arm.” I got up, heading over to the cart.

“Ah donno how easy it’ll be with only one hoof. Do ya think y’all could help me?” She pleaded, then frowned right as she heard Dash speak.

“Oooooh~, John is going to give AppleJack a bath! I’m guessing you two want some privacy together?” Dash cooed, pressing her hooves against her cheeks and making kissy faces.

“Okay, well after that, no. If you want to get someone to help you, you can get that asshole to do it.” I pointed at Dash, and her mood immediately changed.

“Hey!!” She glared.

“I’ll help you AJ, come on.” Twilight offered generously, and AJ smiled, following her to the river.

I said back down at the fire and relaxed, feeding the fire and poking it with a stick every once in awhile. AJ’s dog, Winona, came over to me and lied down beside me. I beamed, reaching down and running my hand along its back.

“It’s been a long day, huh little guy?” I quietly spoke to the dog, not expecting a reply, and thankfully not getting one. “Don’t worry, I’ll try my best to keep you guys safe. We don’t want to lose anyone else, now do we?” I continued to talk to myself, the dog shutting its eyes as she drifted off to sleep.

“Hey,”

I turned around to see A. K., who had snuck up behind me once again and sat down beside me. I seriously need to work of my hearing skills. Maybe it’s a sign I’m getting old…

“Hey, why aren’t you with the others?” I asked, she didn’t show any body language as a reply. She just stared into the fire.

“Eh, just want a little silence.” She replied quietly.

“Yeah, I hear ya. That’s not something you get when you’re around those girls.” I laughed weakly, leaning back and supporting my weight with my elbows behind me.

“Listen,” She spoke in a serious tone, turning to me. “I don’t see these ponies all too often, but they are special to me.” She turned her body to me, and leaned in close. “Please, don’t let anything happen to them anymore. They’ve already lost so much, they can only take so much before they’ll crack.”

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you here.” I stared her in the eyes. “These ponies probably mean as much to me as they do to you. I can’t promise anyone’s safety, but I can promise you that I’m not going to let anything happen to them without a fight.”

She hesitated for a moment, before smiling, and backing away. “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear.” She stared off into the forest, almost as if she was watching something, and it had her full attention. “Also, these ponies may not seem like they can do much, but I promise you, they can hold their own when they really want to. Especially Rainbow Dash. She is made up of half courage and half pure heart.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve seen them fight, honestly I wouldn’t mess with them personally. Even with the years of fighting I’ve done through this. They can do some crazy shit.” I admitted.

“Right. Anyways, I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to go grab a snack, then probably hit the hay. Good night.”

“G’night, don’t let the walkers bite.” I joked, and I heard her laugh as she walked away. I smiled,

I just made another friend today.

Author's Note:

Heeeeeeeyyyy... Yeah, I know, I'm an asshole. Really, this chapter is to feed you guys if you're still alive, and to let you know that I am still here. I think about you guys all the time, but that whole "time" thing is pretty expensive; can't get a lot of it. Anyways, I'll be working on the next chapter, and who knows when it'll be up?

Comments

[verypeeved]

ibrandolab.com/lab/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/its-alive-1200x475.jpg

[verypeeved]

i just realized i posted what is effectively the same thing two chapters in a row...

[MatTheBook]

Her coat was a yellow-ish brown color, and she wore some dark green-colored clothing. A hat, that was mostly tan, and a compass tattoo thing on her ass. What mostly caught my attention, was that her mane and eye color was somewhat similar to Rainbow Dash’s. Her eye color was exactly the same, and her mane and tail had the same pattern and color, but instead painted in black and white shading. Her eyes glared daggers into mine, but quickly turned away from me when we both heard Dash’s voice behind us.

Daring Do!!?