Ocellus didn’t want to think about her friends’ odds if they’d been in this same situation without her. Most other creatures, and certainly ponies, just weren’t exposed to enough danger in their lives to appreciate the need to hide sometimes.
The creatures that they were running from were determined hunters, more so than most Ocellus had ever heard of. They weren’t distracted by Smolder’s little demonstration for long.
But they had a head start, and a thick enough forest to hide in that they could stay hidden even from the air. Ocellus hadn’t been willing to take any chances—even if she hadn’t seen any of the creatures flying so far. That didn’t mean they didn’t have some kind of tribes like ponies did, and that they wouldn’t send their winged cousins hunting the intruders.
So when she heard a persistent buzzing overhead, and an occasional mechanical roar, she found herself grateful that she’d picked the densest forest for their route.
“Wait here,” she said, changing into a large crow to scout the land ahead.
And sure enough, the tiny bipedal creatures did have flying cousins—or maybe another kind of creature they’d befriended. Huge metal shapes that roared through the air, with rapidly-spinning blades over them that kept them flying and probably protected them from attack.
They were huge and sent air blasting around her, but they were also the wrong creatures to be searching for fugitives in dense forest. They were just too big to go low enough to find anything. So all her and her friends had to do was hide in place until they passed, then continue on.
But they couldn’t keep at it forever. Silverstream was polite about it—she started slowing down, her voice becoming distant and tired. “Can we… find a stream to sleep in for the night?” she asked, though the sun was still high in the sky. “Please?”
“Shelter would be good,” Gallus said. “Not because I’m tired. I could keep going… as long as Sandbar, for sure. But it would be nice to have our backs to something solid if we need to fight.”
“It would be nice if you all made yourselves easier to find,” said a voice from behind them.
Ocellus spun around, but her panic turned quickly to joy as she saw the one standing there. “Smolder, you’re okay!”
The dragon landed on the worn path beside her, grinning proudly at them. “Okay… yeah,” she said. “But not happy about it.” She pointed at her shoulder, to one of the largest scales there.
Yona was already in front of Ocellus, and she was the one whose voice carried the loudest. “You broke a scale! Yona didn’t know dragon scales could break.”
“It’s only a crack,” Smolder said, though her voice lost some of its confidence. “But… it did catch me off-guard. I guess the little squishy guys didn’t like the show I put on. They…” She reached up, running a claw near the broken scale. “At first I thought they were throwing rocks or something, and their aim wasn’t very good. But then one of them…” She winced.
Ocellus could see it now, a tiny drop of green blood emerging from the gap between two scales. It had already dried, and would probably harden soon. Dragons required far worse to bring them down. “I told you not to try to fight,” Ocellus said. “It’s a good thing all you did was show off. If they can do that to a dragon, what would they do to the rest of us?”
“We need to send a message back,” Sandbar said. “Equestria will come for us. They’ll… help us out of this. But they can’t do that if we don’t tell them where we are. They won’t be able to follow the ship anymore if we aren’t on it.”
I could’ve put a message telling them the direction we went on the ship, Ocellus thought. But the creatures spoke our language. They’d find us first.
“So we send a letter back.” Smolder’s eyes settled on Ocellus. “Go on, be a unicorn. Cast a… teleport or whatever. We really should’ve done that when we were still on the Solidarity. Saved a lot of running.”
Ocellus whimpered, ears flattening. She could feel their eyes all on her—even Sandbar, who should’ve known pony magic better than that.
She changed easily—it had been long enough between her last session of spying, and unicorns were simple. “Being a unicorn I can do no problem,” she said, lifting a rock off the ground in her new greenish magic. “Levitating things around is something I do every day. Or glowing so we can see our way around. But… I don’t know how to send messages, or teleport, or…” She whined, changing back into herself. “Or anything else useful.”
She expected Smolder to yell, or maybe Gallus. But that expectation came from months ago. They were better friends now. Better at coping with the stress of surviving in this strange place, apparently.
“We need to do something,” Sandbar said, nodding back at the saddlebags he was wearing. They’d been getting lighter today, as they ate through what remained of their emergency rations. They would last for another day, but after that… “I’m sure Twilight would’ve given us an emergency scroll. And we’ve got a dragon who can send it.”
Silverstream flopped forward into the mud, spraying them all and starting to snore.
“Ugh!” Yona jumped back, stomping and yowling in surprise. “Yona does not like that.”
“We need to rest,” Ocellus said, a little louder. “I think I saw a cave up ahead the last time I scouted. We should shelter somewhere out of sight, in case more of those creatures come looking for us.”
“Sure.” Smolder bent down, scooping Silverstream up out of the mud. “Hey, fish, you can’t sleep in the mud. We’re going somewhere safer.”
Silverstream blinked, yawned, then started snoring again.
“Gallus, can you carry her?”
The griffin looked away, and Ocellus could sense what he wasn’t sharing with them. But it wasn’t her place to say. “Sure,” he said. “I’m strong enough. Sandbar has our supplies, so it’s only fair.”
It wasn’t that much further to the cave. Ocellus stopped them as they got closer, leading them in, erasing their own tracks as they went. Not easy when they had a massive yak to hide, but changelings sometimes had to stay concealed while impersonating large creatures. She had hidden worse.
The cave was hardly what they’d been hoping for—the entrance was small enough that they had to get low and crawl to fit, and the inside had filled with an inch or so of moisture. Ocellus led the way, her horn glowing pink ahead of her. Not all of their group were comfortable with dark, damp spaces.
“Looks like it opens up in here!” she called back. “There’s plenty of room! Just walk through the water until it dries off!”
“You heard her!” came the dragon’s voice a moment later. “Get in. I think I can hear the metal birds coming back.”
Ocellus traced the edge of the cave, where stalagmites and organ pipes gradually closed off passage to all but the smallest creatures. They wouldn’t be going any further.
She stopped as she reached the far wall, where a little sliver of light emerged from the sky above. It looked like previous explorers had taken advantage of the spot for a campfire, because the ground was ashy white and the ceiling had been stained with soot. Is that opening enough ventilation for a fire in here?
Not that it mattered for them. A group of hiding creatures surrounded by unknown strangers didn’t make campfires, they made do with magic.
“Don’t you sleep yet, Sandbar,” Smolder said. “Give us that scroll. Ocellus, you’re going to write it, then I send it.”
Her friends emerged dripping wet with cave water, spreading out along the ground. Gallus and Silverstream fell asleep almost immediately, with Yona soon joining them. For all her complaints about the mud, she hadn’t even taken the time to clean it off.
Sandbar dropped the massive emergency saddlebag onto the ground in front of her.
Ocellus giggled as she saw the huge raft emerging from one half of it, and she yanked it to the side. “Won’t be needing this,” she said, tossing it to a corner of the cave. Just below it was a wax tube, with Twilight’s cutie mark stamped on the end.
“You take care of it,” Sandbar said. “I’m… up all night…” He wandered off to join the others.
Only Smolder joined her as she opened the scroll, unrolling the enchanted paper. Ocellus could feel the buzz of magic from around it, and if she’d run her hooves along its surface she could’ve felt the tiny indentations of the runes stamped inside. They would only be activated by dragonfire.
“To be sent in case of an emergency,” Twilight had scrolled across the page, in her perfect elegant penmanship. “This doesn’t mean an argument or a minor technical problem. My friends and I need your help because…”
A stick of charcoal rolled out from the inside, cracking into two pieces as it hit the ground. Ocellus lifted one in her magic, glancing to the side. “What should I say?”
The dragon yawned. Ocellus had been a dragon enough times to recognize what she was probably feeling—this cave was damp, sunless, and cool. A welcome relief from the summer heat for her, but for a dragon… where Smolder had been fine before, she’d feel the need to rest now. “Whatever. I trust you. How about you ask the ponies to deal with making friends with these weird creatures, so that they don’t try and break any more of my scales.”
Hardly the most important information. Ocellus took nearly five minutes to think of how to start, then started scribbling. There was limited space, and the charcoal would smear if she wasn’t careful.
“The six of us were shipwrecked by a huge storm that came from out of nowhere. I think we were just east of Baltimare at the time, don’t know for sure. Woke up on a beach with a pier and lots of white and gray buildings in the distance. Not an uninhabited island, but with many, many creatures living here we’ve never seen before, with two legs, little fur, and lots of machines. They saw us, but we haven’t tried to make friends with any of them yet. Smolder may’ve scared them with fire.
Head north for about three hours from the shipwreck, and we’re hiding in a cave. If we leave, we’ll leave a message behind saying where we went.”
It was less than she would’ve liked to say, but she was out of space, and the reverse side was so covered with runes that she didn’t dare trying to write there.
Twilight is smart, and her friends are the Elements of Harmony. They’ll figure out how to make friends with these new creatures and get us home.
Unless this really was part of their exam, like Sandbar had thought. But that didn’t seem likely—not when the storm easily could’ve killed them. Twilight’s tests were better planned than that.
“Here,” she said, offering the rolled-up scroll to Smolder. “You can read it first if you—”
But the dragon didn’t even glance at the text, just leaned back and blasted it with flames. They tinged green the instant they touched the paper, which was consumed in a bright flash of magic and disappeared.
“There,” Smolder said, turning away and curling up on the rock. “This is the ponies’ dumb friendship test, so they can be the ones to give us a dumb rescue. Wake me when they get here.”
We were the ones who decided to go on a sea voyage. We could’ve just renovated a park or invented a new cake like the other groups.
But instead of saying that, Ocellus wandered to the front area of the cave, the furthest towards the entrance she could be and stay dry. She yawned, stretched, and closed her eyes. She was the lightest sleeper—if anyone found them, at least she’d be the first one to wake up. Maybe she could scare them off or something.
Well, the scroll vanished. I just hope it ended up somewhere.
Also, helicopters seem a bit extreme for animal control. Someone high up the ladder is taking this very seriously indeed.
Why do I get the feeling that the letter isn't gonna be enough?
I have a feeling that Ocellus will basically be saving them all the time. Change into an animal and spy around, negotiating (or just talking) with creatures when knowing exactly how they feel will also come in handy (hoofy). I just hope others have enough sense to listen to her, but I feel like Yona will fuck up a lot (like her initial run).
9238945
I would never hurt anyone who doesn't put me in life-threatening danger. It has to be a kill or be killed situation before I ever think about hurting anyone. If you think I'm crazy enough to kill someone over a comment, you're sadly mistaken. I'm actually quite harmless. The weapons I own are to protect myself and my siblings, not to do anything nefarious. That would make me a criminal and I am no criminal.
Hey, Smolder wasn't killed by small arms fire. That's a plus.
Hmn. I see ship potential.
Mentioning that there's threats here that can injure a dragon might be useful to include.
9240962
Well, a wooden ship appears out of nowhere with big mythical creatures and a fire breathing dragon that's quite bullet resistant. They then proceed to fly/run and avoid capture. Either they are a weird terrorist/activist group with weird and highly advanced technology or they are something even more dangerous.
Either way, you wouldn't want to screw up with that.
9240962
They called animal control for yona. The copters are their for smolder.
Well, good to know Smolder is okay. I'm willing to bet it won't be long before the kids and students meet.
9241030
She wasnt killed by one bullter from a pistol. Multiple shots or an assault rifle could probably get her.
This is something I have been theorising about changelings and emotions, if indeed I’m interpreting Gallus’ action right: Ocellus has an ability to ‘listen’ to other creature’s hearts to know what they’re truly feeling, if she suspects they may be putting on an act or something, and would be herself empathetic towards them whatever feeling they have. So here, if Gallus is secretly feeling something deeper for Silverstream that Ocellus has sensed from his heart, she would now understand that he cares about Silver as possibly more than a friend, but is polite to not say anything.
Or for all I know, I am just putting all this here with nothing to support it, as I think I tend to do with this kind of thing.
Neither police, or animal control would normally be armed, and the response time to get armed officers before the first cracks seems to be lots too fast.
Responders to a beached sailing ship would certainly not be in the apparently usual circumstance until they saw the yeti.
And so the dragons are bulletproof, oh well then. (I do know that there is more to the chapter than just guns, but I'm good only in that... so...).
It is time for the big elephant hunting rifles, where are my .700 Nitro Express?
And before anyone tells me "But Dante! You are a warmonger and a monster to shoot without talking", I would respond by sayng what anyone would say in front of a colorful talking pony.
Uh-umh:
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! DEMON! DEMON! AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!1!!!!!!!"
Or at least it's what I would say...
Umh... if smolder is so resilient to bullets... and she is so young... what can a dragon like Torch withstand? Uh... maybe we will need the Challengers 2 after all...
Also, she better take out that bullet, unles she pierced her right trough, if she want to get an infection or live the rest of her life with a lead penetrator in the sholder (maybe with some copper...).
Well a strange comparation between helicopters an birds, past the flight they do not share that much... planes are more similar to birds, but effectively I do not know to what you can compare them........ giant... metal... flies...?
I was half-expecting that letter to automatically and immediately return to sender, but it didn't, so until it does anything of the such, there's hope it'll get where its supposed to go...though given circumstances, I'm not sure how much Equestria can do. The Young Six are very likely on their own here.
I'm sure they will love coming to that conclusion.
9241275
I've always found dragonflies to be the closest equivalent to helicopters.
9241578
Twilight should be smart enough to recognize the creatures described by Ocellus as humans from her time in the Equestria Girls movies. But I don't think these guys are on that Earth, so... That might delay their rescue.
Ah dang they wasted their lifeline home a bit early i think. They really dont have enough info on the situation to send back anything meaningful or helpful for finding them yet. The group seems to be sticking together well enough for now, though i have a feeling only ocellus and smolder realize the danger they're in. I can see that forming a potential rift in the group in the future.
9244516 I'd have to agree on that, you guys are overdue.
9242432
It hasn't been mentioned what color these humans are, so I suppose that's not actually out of the question. Admittedly, this story does not have the Equestria Girls tag. But then again, if they're going to be in Britain and not run into any of the EQG characters, maybe it just doesn't need it then. Or maybe this will be EQG and StarScribe will just write this in a way that doesn't portray humans as being rainbow-colored mutants. That's been done before.
Im not use to humans being smaller than ponies. It'll sure to be interesting.
One thing I haven't seen in the comments yet: If this is realistic, the police helicopter has seen them with thermal cameras. When criminals flee from helicopters, their first instinct is to break line of sight, so hiding in a forest is quite common. The leaves don't block IR for the thermal cameras, however.
9241113
That probably was a rifle bullet. UK regular police don't carry guns. So it's possible some of that popping wasn't fire arms, but tazers firing off. Armed response units do, but they're more like two-cop SWAT teams, and tend to skip handguns in favour of MP5s or M4s or the equivalent. And while they're trained to fire as a last resort, the whole 'flame thrower built into the costume's head' might get them to do that. Though I can also see them shouting instructions to, and Smoulder telling them "Bite me" which would also do it.
9529815
I checked, and trees do hide IR very well. Example:
https://youtu.be/xsMMvLL0B_k?t=168
They could probably be tracked through trees, since the coverage is intermittent, but the police would have to know, and believe, what they were looking for. Things probably haven't gotten that far yet.
That aside, I go to Brighton fairly regularly for work, and the beach runs east/west, not north/south, and there is no rough ground/dense forest in the area. So we're operating on Art Major Geography rules.