Lost and Found

by Cloudy Skies

6. Lost

Fluttershy closed her eyes tighter. For just one moment she pretended that it was Angel Bunny poking her in the side, quietly yet forcefully berating her for sleeping in. She bit her lower lip and clung to the tatters of sleep. She’d been back in her bed, safe and sound under her blanket and somehow more content than ever before. There was something else to it, a soft weight over her side and something pressing against her neck. Whatever it was, it slipped away, elusive as only dreams could be.

It was futile. Angel didn’t sigh. At least, when he did, it wasn’t quite as audible as Applejack’s huffs. She knew it was her friend at her side trying to wake her up, and pretending to be asleep for any longer would be both rude and silly.

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy muttered as she finally opened her eyes, earning a sympathetic look and a nod from Applejack. The earth pony wandered off to nibble on some grass nearby without a word. The sun hadn’t quite risen yet, so they were in no real rush.

Fluttershy hugged the ground close still, feeling so very tired. She’d try to rise soon. She just disliked the part where her muscles caught on to the fact that she was awake. They always set about aching right away, reminding her of what they thought of all this senseless running and flying.

Ever so slowly, Fluttershy stood. Her eyes automatically traced the road to the horizon. The line they had been following for a week and a half now was unchanged and uncaring, and it showed no signs of tiring unlike those who followed it. They were just entering the foothills that they had spotted in the distance upon their arrival in this strange place, and the road wound through the lightly forested rolling hills with a certain slow grace of its own.

At least it broke the monotony. For the first few days, while they were crossing the plains, time had almost ceased to make sense altogether; then, it seemed both forever and no time at all since they had been tentatively investigating the ruins of that lost town. Now, under the sparse canopy of beech and alder trees, Fluttershy was a little more comfortable.

Smoothed boulders and storm-fallen trees mixed with animal warrens and dens, and the forest teemed with animal life. While none of the little badgers and foxes had any idea where Fluttershy and Applejack’s homes were, they were very friendly. Despite never having so much as seen a pony before, some of them had even helped point the pair to streams and brooks, and one particularly nice greenjay had shared with them the location of a grove of delicious berries that neither pony knew the name of.

It was almost pleasant if you forgot about the whole “completely lost” part. And worrying about your friends. And your family. And all the little critters who made their home in your cottage. That was just skimming the top of the barrel of worries, too.

Fluttershy swallowed and focused on breathing steadily. She didn’t hear Applejack until the earth pony stood in front of her, the soft grass underhoof muting her approach.

“Ready to get movin’?” Applejack asked.

Fluttershy had no idea whether she ignored her state because she was being polite, or if she was tired of her complaints. It didn’t matter. Fluttershy puffed out her cheeks and nodded as she thought.

“Okay. If we’re getting closer to the mountains, we really should see about trying to make a basket or something. I mean, for food and water, in case we have to leave the forest. Twilight taught me how to do it when she was on that camping book spree.”

“That’s a mighty big if,” Applejack said as she trotted over to the road, away from the shadow of the trees that had been their home for the night. “Drum us up a bathtub with hot water while we're at it, or a nice pair a' raincoats, too? Sugarcube, we ain't got time to worry 'bout little things like that. Let’s just get moving.”

Fluttershy sighed. “I mean it,” she muttered, too low for Applejack to hear. It wouldn’t hurt to prepare, even if she still figured it would be days until they left the treeline.

If Applejack dismissed her concerns, though, there was probably no reason to worry. Fluttershy nodded to herself and picked her smile back up, letting the sting slide off her as she hurried to catch up to her friend and match her pace. Already her legs were aching, promising a day no better than the last; another Celestia-knew how many hours of moving as fast as their bodies allowed, stopping every hour or so to ask any birds about whether or not there was any water nearby.

There was precious little to talk about. Their hooves’ rapport was in synch as they forged ahead, copses of trees passing by on either side. Even if Fluttershy’d had the breath to spare, they had established early on that there was no point in worrying. Rather, those were Applejack’s words, and if Applejack didn’t worry at all—if her friend was resolved to neither think nor speak of their predicament—what could Fluttershy do about that? She was left alone with her thoughts, and had rapidly discovered that she didn’t like that one bit.

The sun had crawled high on the horizon when they crested a low, sloping hill that the road elected to climb rather than avoid. There, atop the gentle height, they slowed down as another village splayed out in front of them.

It wasn’t the first such village they had come across. Ever-smaller collections of hollowed-out shells like these dotted the road, and this was the fourth such they had come across so far. Fluttershy had to wonder if Applejack would even have bothered stopping if the village wasn’t built straddling a river, but it was too convenient to ignore. As they drew near the ancient bridge that dominated the center of the village, Applejack came to a halt; Fluttershy did the same, all too happy for a chance at catching her breath.

“Right,” Applejack said as she craned her neck to glance around. She offered the village and the surrounding woodlands only a cursory glance before trotting to the nearby riverbank. “Tank up, missy.”

Fluttershy sighed, but remained still. She really should take advantage of the little break; Applejack set a high pace. Still, she knew she’d obediently trot over there to have a drink and sit down, only to have the thoughts return. She’d ask Applejack how she was feeling, and the farmpony would say she was fine. If Fluttershy admitted she missed their friends, Applejack would make a noncommittal noise and move away. They’d even stopped sleeping close together, and Fluttershy couldn’t understand why.

Perhaps she’d done something wrong. Perhaps she’d said something. It had to be something like that, but if Applejack couldn’t tell her what was wrong, then it was best to just leave her alone for a little while. It was easy to sympathize with somepony needing a little alone time, and such moments were rare when they were travelling together.

Once she’d let that thought into her head, it ballooned, suddenly making more sense than anything. The orange mare was by the waterside, head low as she drank deeply, and all Fluttershy could think of was that if Applejack didn’t want her around, she should just leave. She could be gone before Applejack even noticed, leaving her alone.

Fluttershy froze, eyes wide. She cast the mean and stupid thought out, shaking her head. She would of course never do such a thing, she would’ve said it was unthinkable, but there it was—she’d thought it.

“Come on now, get drinkin’, Fluttershy. We should be off soon,” Applejack called, looking up at her from by the river.

“I, um. I think I just need to take a little walk,” Fluttershy said.

“We’re getting plenty of exercise,” Applejack said. “Gotta drink and eat when we can.”

And there it was again, that little burn of anger. There was no chair around for her to tie herself to, here. Fluttershy strained to not let her annoyance show as she shook her head. “I’m not thirsty. I’m going to take a little walk.”

Applejack tilted her head, and for the longest time, nothing happened. Water dripped from Applejack’s muzzle as she calmly regarded her, and finally gave an exaggerated, slow nod. “Right,” she said, her eyes never once leaving Fluttershy. “A walk, then.”

Fluttershy didn’t have any words to spare. She turned and walked, then trotted, then galloped between the buildings until she was out of sight. Only when she had a solid stone wall between herself and the Applejack did she stop.

“Get a hold of yourself, Fluttershy,” she whispered urgently to nopony at all, cupping her face in her hooves. “Oh my goodness, what are you doing? What’s gotten into you?”

Applejack was probably just worried about their friends, too. She must be missing her home, and that explained why she was being a little bossy. Fluttershy hadn’t been very nice to be around last bunny season with all the stress, she was sure. Even so, it wouldn’t do at all for Fluttershy to be mean to one of her best friends. Taking a shuddering breath and slowly getting back up on all fours, she forced her legs to move. The only thing scarier than exploring on her own right now was going back to Applejack and risk saying something she would regret. Ever so slowly, she picked her way deeper into the ruined village.

The village was different from the others. The second she managed to push her worries back in her mind, it was plain that something had changed here. The ruins they had passed by three days ago had been just like the first; the very stones were old and nothing remained. Here, many of the houses sported walls, and in one case, a particularly sturdy stone structure still had its roof intact.

If that had been all, it would’ve almost been a welcome sight. For a second, creeping around the corners of the abandoned houses, Fluttershy dared to think something was going right. It felt like she was taking a step in the right direction. Some things that were not stone had survived in this village, meaning it was far more recent. Here, a pile of wood mulch. There, a scrap of cloth. She’d crept a hoof-breadth towards something more familiar, towards her own time.

The tentative elation only lasted until she started seeing the other ways in which this place was different. Fluttershy’s step faltered as she started seeing the little signs. In the centre of the village stood a statue of an earth pony, and while the missing foreleg was probably due to the ravages of time and weather, no weather she knew could explain how it had been defaced. Scores had been cut into the pedestal and the flank of the pony both, and faint traces of paint in a myriad of colors that could hardly be the original criss-crossed the belly where the rain could not touch.

More than just this, the second she started truly looking, it was obvious that the scattered stonework that littered the overgrown streets in places was not something done by natural forces. At least, Fluttershy wouldn’t want to see the storm that could shatter stone. Barely moving any more, Fluttershy halted before a small pothole in the ground, the nature of which she couldn’t discern. Her heart nearly stopped when she heard the soft rustle of grass behind her, an unamused Applejack’s sidling up to her as she whirled around.

“This ain’t like the other villages, is it?” Applejack asked, evidently having come to the same conclusion. Fluttershy shook her head slowly, her frazzled mane shifting on her back.

“I don’t think—I think, maybe that these ponies didn’t leave,” Fluttershy whispered.

“How d’you mean?” Applejack asked, tilting her head.

Fluttershy hung her head. She’d never pretend to be as smart as Twilight. In fact, she suspected that nopony was quite as smart as Twilight, and she wished dearly that the clever mare was here to help them.

“What d’you think happened?” Applejack pressed.

“This wasn’t nearly as long ago,” Fluttershy said, licking her lips. “If—if the others migrated, it doesn’t make sense for this to look so different. It’s hard to say because the other places were so old, but this is a mess. Something very bad happened here, and it wasn’t long ago,” she concluded, the words far more tame than the images in her head.

“Doesn’t take a lot of thinking to see that ‘something happened’” Applejack snorted. “Question’s what, but it matters none. Let’s get moving, alright?”

“It’s all wrong,” Fluttershy murmured, but Applejack made no reply. Her companion was turning on the spot and walking away, though she knew she’d heard her.

It just wouldn’t do at all to let it slip again. To let Applejack close her eyes and ears to their predicament. “It’s all wrong, Applejack. Everything,” Fluttershy repeated, louder. Applejack didn’t turn, didn’t even look at her, but she stopped.

“I used to think it was just me,” Fluttershy said, emboldened by her own admission. “The grass, it—it doesn’t just taste different. It tastes wrong. It looks fine, just like the water is clear and fresh and everything, but it’s not. Ever since we got close to the hills, the sun doesn’t warm like it should, either. This isn’t normal!”

“It’s just nerves and stuff, sugar,” Applejack suggested, glancing over her shoulder to look at her with a single eye. For a second, a shadow passed over her face, but the farmpony was smiling so tenderly and gently, Fluttershy knew she should let it soothe her—except it didn’t. It annoyed her. Deep inside Fluttershy, a spark ignited.

“It’s not ‘nerves’!” she cried. “All these ponies left a long time ago, but in this village, it must have been thousands of years after that when they started fighting! This looks like, I don’t even know—a party out of control?”

“I just don’t see what we can do about it. We ain’t seen a single thing that looks dangerous, have we? Whatever did this is probably gone,” came the reply, again with an easy shrug. The farmpony took a few step towards her with a pleading look on her face. “We really should get moving.”

Just like that, the flickering fire was quenched again. Fluttershy’s reply had welled up inside her, but it died in her throat before she spoke. She felt the anger, she tasted the spiteful comment that part of her wanted to deliver, and instantly shut her mouth before it could escape.

“Sorry,” she whimpered, eyes wide as she took a step back, as if she could put distance between herself and her own thoughts.

---

“What’s that, sugarcube?” Applejack asked. She leaned a little closer, but Fluttershy said no more. The poor pegasus stood completely still now, looking scared out of her mind, eyes sightless and staring past her.

Applejack whipped her head around, muscles tensing up as she looked for the cause of this, scanning the ruins and the nearby woodlands for anything that moved. Unless Fluttershy found deep terror in a pair of foxes who regarded them from over by a bush, there was nothing to see. Empty homes, silent woods and clucking river nearby were all tranquil.

Not to say they were the particular brand of peaceful and unthreatening that Applejack preferred. The neckhairs of her coat still stood on end, and she was feeling more jittery than a cart on cobblestones.

Fluttershy had the right of it. The grass looked healthy but tasted sour, and the water was foul, too. The sun was like a fireplace that clung to its last embers, and looking upon all these empty towns was enough to drive a pony crazy. She couldn’t shake the thought of what Ponyville would look like if nopony tended to its gardens or buildings for a thousand years. An image came to her mind, and she couldn’t stop thinking of how the new barn had looked before they added the walls that summer; a mere skeleton of a building like these were skeletons of towns.

She was glad Fluttershy wasn’t looking at her right then. With a small sigh, she rubbed at her eyes with a foreleg, trying to keep as calm as possible and let nothing betray her thoughts.

If not for her hare-brained idea, they wouldn’t be here, and she couldn’t even bring herself to tell Fluttershy. For all her friend knew, the little spell, the catastrophe had nothing to do with either of them, and it was all an unfortunate mishap.

Fluttershy wouldn’t blame her. It simply wasn’t in the nature of that gentle mare to ever direct any anger or blame at anypony else, be they friend or foe. Yet still, she found herself unable to let up that secret. If she didn’t fear reprisal, why couldn’t she speak plain and admit it? Something held her back, and for every day that passed, it became harder to try to bring it up.

So she held her silence. If she couldn’t clear the air, if she had to carry that truth unspoken, then she could do the next best thing; she could bring Fluttershy home, no matter what it took. She would pave the path and do what she had to do to ensure that Fluttershy didn’t suffer. The journey had already begun to take its toll on the poor pegasus mare, that much was clear; once or twice, she’d caught Fluttershy scowling or frowning at her when she thought she wasn’t looking.

“So, you good?” she asked, casting a quick glance overhead. It was barely past noon.

“I think so,” Fluttershy replied, nodding. It was obvious she was everything but ‘good’, but Applejack was glad for her little lie. It felt foreign and odd to admit it to herself, but it was that or being forced to think about things that’d get them nowhere.

“Right. Grab a drink and let’s move,” she added, setting course for the river once more, happy to be on the move and one step closer to leaving this strange village. Once Fluttershy had drunk her fill, they crossed the aging, grey stone bridge that spanned the small river. As if by some unspoken agreement, they galloped the short distance that remained until they were safe in the forest’s embrace again, neither of them electing to look back so much as once.

It would have been a blessing had that been the last of it, but the days didn’t get easier, and Applejack’s sense of unease only grew. It seemed that with every morning, the cold cut deeper, hungry for her bones. As they followed that eerily unchanging dirt road through the increasingly craggy hills, she soon came to miss grass that merely tasted bitter. The paling stalks tasted of ash, and the nameless woods that had fed and housed them for so long soon had more dead trees than healthy ones.

Fluttershy, for her part, seemed reluctant to say much at all. It was pleasant with some silence, at first, but on the second day, it had passed straight into being unsettling. The bedraggled pegasus looked almost haunted and avoided meeting her eyes. While the greying landscape would have unsettled any pony Applejack knew, she had a creeping suspicion that the pegasus feared something else entirely.

When Applejack finally admitted that Fluttershy’s idea of trying to prepare better had been a good one, she didn’t even offer comment. The two ponies spent the better part of an evening in silence fashioning crude saddlebags in which to carry some grasses with them. Making something that would hold water was futile, and the best Applejack could come up with was some concave pieces of dried wood to gently balance atop their makeshift saddlebags. It was better than nothing, but only by the barest of margins.

On the afternoon some three days after they had left behind that last village, the road met an obstacle it could not circumvent. The forest had hid well the wall that met them, and as such, it came as a surprise when they met the cliff that towered over twenty strides above them. The near sheer cliff face shot up past the treetops, and the road zig-zagged up its side with numerous sharp turns.

Applejack craned her neck up as if she could throw her gaze past the edge and see what lay beyond, but it was a futile gesture. Doing was easier than thinking, anyway. Stepping on to the narrowing open path as it climbed the cliff, she noticed that yet again, Fluttershy was hesitating. She was a good ten paces up the punishing climb of the slope when she stopped and turned to look at her.

“Um, I think maybe we should wait here until tomorrow,” Fluttershy suggested.

Applejack shook her head resolutely. “And what in the hay would that do? We still have a good few hours of sunlight left.”

“But it’ll—” Fluttershy began, but she stopped herself, her mouth working itself into a thin line. The sheer wrongness of whatever passed through her usually demure friend was staggering, but she nodded once and trotted after Applejack, head down as she joined her on the climb.

“Not a lot of critters about,” Applejack suggested, trying to smile. She’d meant to ask Fluttershy what was up, but the words were harder to speak than the pleasant nonsense she instead found herself spouting. “Ain’t seen a single varmint all day, and no birds.”

“They don’t come here,” came the murmured reply. “They know it’s a bad place.”

Applejack made a small noise, but kept climbing, leading them past the first turn. The climb only steepened. “Really now? Why didn’ you say something?”

“Would you have turned around?” Fluttershy asked, flaring her wings before re-settling them on her back.

“Trek all the way back and head off in some random direction just ‘cause your little animal pals are scared?” Applejack asked, chuckling as she glanced off to the side and off the road. They were just climbing above the canopy now, and the vast expanse of the forest they’d crossed stretched out behind them, the plains beyond hidden by hills and dying trees.

“Exactly,” Fluttershy said, her eyes on the ground as she followed in Applejack’s wake.

It was the work of minutes to climb the cliff-face, but the angle made every step felt. The earth and rock that bridged the horizon stabbed so sharply up from the forest’s floor, it made Applejack a little uneasy, but there was no other way around the formation. Like a castle wall the cliff jutted forth.

When Fluttershy and Applejack took the final steps of the climb and stood upon the lip of the cliff, none of them were eager to move on, and Fluttershy even took half a step back. Applejack herself swallowed.

Mountains large and small described a huge valley ahead. Ahead and to the left—the north—tall, snow-capped mountains stood proud, but even they were dwarfed by the colossal peaks to the south. The sharp, jagged things pierced the sky until they were hidden by thick clouds. At the other end of the valley, smaller peaks capped off the valleyscape that was so shattered, it might as well be called a crater.

The ground was cracked and dry, the dustbowl studded with copses and small forests where every tree was a twisted, leafless husk. Great rents criss-crossed the ground in a patternless tapestry of destruction, and the only color was a smattering of green on the far edges. At the foot of the tallest mountains to the south, a single building stood out like a corn cob in a hill of beans. It should have been hard to pick out a single building at such a distance, but the blocky thing drew the eye due to the sheer lack of anything else in the entire valley.

The light changing was almost an afterthought at that point. Applejack cast a glance over her shoulder, and even as she watched from the threshold of this odd valley, the sinking sun itself seemed to pale. The orange glow that had refused to share its warmth was a sickly thing, and the sky that had been a light blue was now a dead gray.

“The road is gone,” Fluttershy said. Her voice was almost completely flat, given only the barest tremble. She was also completely correct.

Behind them, not three strides away from where they stood, the face of the cliff was almost completely sheer. The path hugging the stone was barely visible as a set of rents and jags no pony could possibly think to climb. Far below, the road below was barely visible; a washed-out stretch of dirt only saved from being overgrown by the lack of plant life where it met the cliff.

“This is wrong. This is wrong, this is so very, very wrong,” Fluttershy whimpered, backing away from the edge. “Why is the road gone? We just came from there!”

“Don’t know,” Applejack muttered. “But looks like we ain’t going back. We got some food, and long as I don’t trip over my own legs and drop my saddlebags like I did yesterday, we got a bit of water too,” she said, checking to make sure that the water she carried hadn’t sloshed too much. It seemed more important than any silly road. At least, it was easier to think about.

Fluttershy said nothing, her breath still coming fast. The pegasus tore her attention off the forest floor behind them, instead fixing her attention on the dark stone building that waited at least a full day’s journey ahead and below, at the bottom of the dead valley.

“I don’t like the look of that much either,” Applejack said, puffing out her cheeks. “But we can’t afford to ignore something like that. Let’s head down to that place, see if there’s anything that can help.”

It was very much an anything. The hope of anyone, or anypony, seemed slim at best.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Fluttershy protested, but when Applejack started picking her way across the broken, rocky ground, she followed. Despite the fact that every fiber in Applejack’s body suggested she was doing the wrong thing—despite how her instincts and those carefully honed little things that made up the voice in her head told her this was folly—there was precious little choice.

“Besides,” Applejack said, replying more to her own doubts than Fluttershy, “I figure that if the old play’s right, and if this road was used, well, this could well be the meeting grounds the tribes used.”

Fluttershy appeared to consider that, but made no reply.

“See, you don’t make a road for a one-way trip,” Applejack reasoned. “This place’s got to be at the center of it all, don’t it? I’ll bet you all the bits in my coffers back home this is where the leaders met.”

“Yes,” Fluttershy retorted, her eyes once again on that foreboding structure. “And whatever happened, happened there, and the play doesn’t say anything about what that was.”

“Windigoes don’t count, now?” Applejack said, raising a brow.

“I don’t see any snow,” Fluttershy answered.

“Guess it melted. Heavens to Betsy, Fluttershy,” Applejack snorted, and while Fluttershy gave up at that, lapsing into silence, part of her knew her friend was right. There was a darkness hanging over the building in the distance, and the desolation, the sheer lifeless here was decidedly unnatural. Her very blood told her what she needed to know as they slowly made their way across the treacherous ground; plants and animals would always find a way, in time, but here, nothing grew, and nothing made its home.

With little but a few scattered comments from either of them to the other, or to nopony at all, the final few hours of daylight brought them from the edge of the valley into an area rife with trees as dead as everything else. When the sun finally spat out the last of its light and moving any further was risking injury on the rocks that littered the place, they stood in a dried wasteland that pretended to be a forest. Applejack wasted no time in shedding her saddlebags and sitting down by one of the dried logs that scattered the area.

“Colder, here,” Applejack remarked, sighing and pushing her hat down on her head and closing her eyes. There wasn’t much wind to speak of, but what little there was, was decidedly unkind.

“We’re higher up and exposed, that’s why I wanted us to wait down there,” Fluttershy remarked. “I don’t mind. Pegasi don’t get cold as easily.”

Applejack shrugged and crossed her forelegs, trying her best to let sleep claim her before her thoughts did. With neither fire nor another’s warmth to shield her, it took a long time before she dozed off, and when she did, it was long before she awoke again.

She’d always been a sound sleeper, but then, sleep wasn’t what it used to be, and hadn’t been for weeks now. Applejack cracked an eye open. She’d woken to a soft but insistent noise.

Fluttershy was awake. The pegasus lay on the ground nearby, her once luxurious mane tangled and her coat tainted with dirt. Her gaze was distant and fixed on the horizon across the valley where the sun would rise hours from now. By moonlight, she was tracing the same sketch in the dirt over and over.

With mechanical repetition she drew a cloud and a jagged line leading out from it, caressing the shape with a hoof’s edge. It was easy to recognize as Dash’s cutie mark, but if it was because she missed her friends, Applejack wondered why she had not drawn the others’, too. Tears were budding in her eyes, and it was the first time Applejack noticed how her once clear teal eyes were clouded and muted.

It had to be a trick of the light. That’s what she told herself. It went to the back of her mind with the same impulse that urged her to admit she was the cause of this all. The same part of her that wanted her to ask what was wrong with Fluttershy—and herself. She had simply forgotten how to let it concern her, and found it so much easier to keep quiet. Instead, she closed her eyes again and slept through the chattering of her own teeth.

Comments

[JAG]

Well, this just got creepy as hell. When they ended up on a giant prairie, I was expecting something like Dangerous Business' Gildesdale without the Daleponies. But now... yikes. And I think I have a theory as to what's causing this: Discord. This seems a little dark for him, but we know time travel might've been involved in bringing AJ and Fluttershy here; maybe this is during his original reign. We have non-sensical magic changing the landscape, towns that have been recently inhabited when they shouldn't have been, AJ and Fluttershy starting to exhibit signs of straying from their respective Elements... it's a possibility, at least.

Can't wait to find out.

[CanaDASH]

omg i think i figured out the letter

POTENTIAL SPOILER!

something about dash and fluttershy marrying and fluttershy's parents disapproval, hence why the wouldnt go to the wedding

[emrlddrgn]

Ugh, this Applejack is even MORE annoying and smugly superior than the canon one!

[Makokam]

1185733
That...almost makes sense. But why wouldn't the other's know about their relationship if they were involved enough to contemplate marriage? And I dobut it'd be a secret if homosexual relationships were tolerated enough to have a wedding.

1183125
And yeah. This is creepy. I had to remind myself that they started at the coast to explain why they were going this way. I'd have wanted to head north or south by now, but Applejack does have a point. A road goes somewhere, and if there's nowhre else to go... but, I gotta say, what it really feels like is something is drawing them in, and won't let them leave. Like a psychic antlion or something.

[Luna-Eclipse]

Chapter 6/14 at the moment. If you have something come by and murder Applejack i will forever be in your debt.

[Zaphod]

You know, it's really interesting: this is the first chapter I'm starting to really feel the time slippage becoming a part of the story. One moment we're exploring an old town, next it's a week and a half later and the next it's a few days after THAT!

And it's really drawing me in; that's exactly how I'd imagine being lost in an unknown land would be for the ones experiencing it. Day in, day out travelling and what do they have to show for it? Such little palpable progress would surely mess with anyone's sense of time.

I was apprehensive about starting this because of the word length, but I'm glad I got over that. Once again, Cloudy, your work does its job in eliciting such emotional responses. Well done