The Rivers of Avalon

by Snowy89

Chapter 3

They were about a mile downslope from the eastern fringes of Cherry Point when the ground started becoming soggy. Here, at the base of one of the area’s countless tea terraces, Squirrel called them to a halt.

“Right,” she began, stopping to rummage through her panniers. “Things’re only going to get muckier from here; let’s get our coats and stuff on.”

Rainbow grumbled as she did her best to pull on the great, gauzy coat; more of a blanket, really, it sat over her satchels and her wings. “Never gonna be able to fly like this,” she groused from beneath the over-large hood.

“So? Don’t put it on, spare us your company, and fly on ahead,” Squirrel sniped as she fished out a hoof-sized tin.

There was no way Rainbow was going to just leave Twilight in the hooves of this mare even on dry land, no nevermind in a nasty-looking swamp. “Yeah – no,” she countered as she fiddled with the hemp drawstring.

“Just tie it loose,” Squirrel said from under her own draping as she went to help Twilight attach her censer; before she could, however, Twilight had levitated it up herself, pausing only a moment to buff the rust off and flex out the dents before securing it around her neck. “Everything we have to worry about’s buzzing, not crawling, so there’s no need to throttle yourself,” she added, watching as Twilight worked it all by magic.

Rainbow grunted, loosening her knot. She, like the other two, looked like little more than foals dressed as ghosts, with nothing above their cannons showing. A part of her hated just how silly she looked, but given that the impending swarm of bugs were hovering like a thin, black fog before them, their hissing so loud that all three of them were having to speak up to be heard, she was willing to make an exception.

“Here,” Squirrel shoved a hooffull of reddy-brown chips at her. Rainbow took them in her own, her nostrils flaring at the strong scent. Well, doesn’t take a genius to figure this bit out. She grabbed her censure, looking it over til she realized the top screwed off. With only a bit of fumbling she managed to fill it up and get the cap back on, finally attaching the chain to her neckloop.

“Alright, this stuff burns for ages,” Squirrel said, awkwardly fishing around under her cloak. “Technically the bugs won’t be bad enough for a while to really need them, but I’d prefer just to get them going now – I’ve got more besides, anyways.”

“I can do it,” Twilight offered, her horn aglow as, with a moment’s concentration, there was a flash inside Squirrel’s censer; faint wisps of smoke and a peculiar, pleasant scent soon followed.

“Oh!” Squirrel looked surprised as Twilight lit the other two. “You can do fire cantrips too.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Well then...” Squirrel looked like she wanted to say something more, but instead just shook her head. “Off we go, I suppose.”

The trio continued their wet, squishy way forwards, but it wasn’t long before each hoofstep seemed to sink just that much deeper into the moss and weedy, drowned grass. Ahead of her, Twilight gasped as the chilly waters splashed against her fetlocks, something Rainbow herself was trying her best to ignore.

The cloaks, at least, were working wonders on the bugs – a quick, curious glance over her withers made her start as she saw dozens of blackish bumps moving about on her back; as annoying as it was looking at everything with a cloth over her eyes, she begrudgingly admitted that Squirrel had been right to bring them – this’d be Tartarus without.

Danged if she could tell if the incense was doing anything though.

“You sure you know where we’re going?” she called out to Squirrel. “All just looks like the same to me.”

“Oh for goodness – calm your feathers, filly! What’s the point of me if you’re not even going to trust me?” The mare stumbled a bit in the muck, cursing. “I can see the blasted marker up ahead.”

“Yuh huh.” Rainbow knew she was being aggressive, but her cloth-covered wings were bothering more than she’d anticipated; sure, she knew that she wouldn’t want to get airborne anyways – with how soft the ground here was landing again would be a nightmare. Nevertheless... another quick glance at the mass of mosquitos, midges and who-knows-what covering her convinced her to just try and suffer through.

A pity the jury-rigged fly sheets weren’t made to tie around her barrel – she was really hoping it was just grass she was feeling tickling her.

Things turned quickly into a cold monotony of squelching mud, dying reeds and dead trees. Still a ways ahead of them Twilight could make out one of the many mesas rising up in the midday sun. While a good part of her was still questioning their decision not to just take the longer, more pleasant route (this area did have some wonderful karst topography, after all!), she’d managed to convince herself that this way was at least quite short, and would probably be as unpleasant as the trip was going to get.

Probably.

She couldn’t quite figure out how Cherry Point was avoiding all the insects either – certainly its height above the waters helped, but it couldn’t be enough at only a hundred metres or so, could it? Maybe the wind played a role... “Hey Squirrel,” she called out to the mare, in part just to break the unhappy silence the party had fallen into. “You’re not from Cherry, are you?”

“Hah! Me?” Squirrel called back to her as she carefully trod across a half-submerged log. “A hillpony? Nah, not a chance.”

Rainbow gave a reluctant snort at ‘hillpony.’

“Well, it’s just that – actually, where are you from then?”

“Wanderbelle.”

“That’s, umm...” Twilight trailed off, wishing she could get out her maps and figure out where that was; it sounded familiar though. “That’s somewhere to the north, I think?”

“Yep – mining town on the Myr.”

Twilight waited for her to continue, but it seemed like she’d need some prodding. “Sooo...”

Squirrel gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes?”

Snippy or not, Twilight was danged if she was going to be accompanied by little more than buzzes, grunts and the sucking of hooves for the whole trip; plus, the silence was making her agitated to boot. “What’re you doing all the way down here, then? And going east, no less.”

“Escorting a couple of tourists, lost and in over their heads; what did you think, exactly?”

“Hey!” Twilight barked. “There’s no call for hostility! I’m just trying to make conversation!”

Squirrel paused, looking like she was going to say something; a few moments later she carried on, a sullen gait to her step.

“What’s her problem,” Rainbow muttered.

“Oh, it’s nothing really,” Squirrel snarked back at her. “I just wasn’t planning on wading fetlock-deep through a fetid swamp on my vacation – that’s all.”

“You could’ve said ‘no’ when we asked,” Rainbow sniped back.

“No, I couldn’t. Obviously.” Squirrel deflated, glancing back at them with a shake of her head. “You two nitwits are clearly lost, alone, and – given those accents – who knows how far away from home. And seriously, asking randomly around town for a guide to cross the Green Leek wetlands? You’re clearly beyond desperate.”

Twilight reddened under her cowl. “Well, what else were we supposed to do, precisely? We need to get back to Hurricanum as soon as possible and we’re not used to hoofing it through abysmal conditions to do so.”

“Exactly my point. It’s not like I could’ve...” Her tail lashed as she fought to find the right words. “You know what? Whatever. Just... whatever.”

The group fell again into an unhappy silence as they continued plodding towards the nearing mesa. Twilight couldn’t help but admit that she had a point – they had effectively backed her into a corner – not that that excused her mood. At least, I don’t think it does. She exchanged a brief look back with Rainbow – or her covered head, at any rate – but neither of them could really think of what to say.

But at least the cloud of incense hanging around them was nice; it was lucky, really, that the air was as still as it was today, or it would’ve all blown away the moment it left the thurible. A quick, gauzy look at the sky suggested they might be close to noon already; with the approaching mesa being what Twilight guessed as the halfway point (though with how serpentine their route has been she really was only guessing) they should be out by nightfall just as Squirrel had figured. She could always put up some faery lights around them if things got too dark, so she wasn’t too worried about that just yet.

They’d been pushing brusquely through a section of reeds taller than they were for nearly half and hour when Squirrel suddenly stumbled through a dense patch with a loud ‘aha!’ Rainbow hurried alongside Twilight as they both pushed through the thick stalks after her, only to find their hooves blessedly landing not on mud, but on solid rock instead.

“By Celestia, finally!” Rainbow exclaimed, hopping up and down on the dry, lichen-ridden stone, clumps of mud flaking off her legs with wet splats.

“I’m inclined to agree,” Twilight said from beside her, her gaze shooting about the area around them. Taking a look herself, Rainbow realized they’d finally gotten to the mesa, standing perhaps some fifty metres tall if she was guessing rightly. Memory told her it was nearly as wide, so it was hardly more than a landmark, but dang if it didn’t feel like something special right now.

“Alright, rest up a minute,” Squirrel said as she clumsily pulled a canteen out of her panniers before loosening her cowl’s drawstring. “It should be easier from here on out.”

Rainbow copied her motions and took a long pull of her own water. “Really?” she asked after a few moments. “When was the last time you were even through here?”

“Dash!”

“What? It’s a reasonable question! It’s not like Squirrel lives here or anything – she’s from Blunderbum, isn’t she?”

“’Wanderbelle,’” Squirrel sighed.

“Sure, sure,” Rainbow waved her off. “I just meant, like, the swamp changes, right? Like how you get oxbows and stuff. ” She shrugged, flexing her wings beneath her fly cloth, the feathers straining against the material. “So it could’ve changed since whenever you were here last. Wish I could have a fly around and check.”

“This is the only swamp this nasty between here and Beech,” Squirrel said as she redid her drawstring. “Or between there and Hurricanum for that matter – bugs won’t be any worse than normal for riverways after this.”

“Right,” Twilight nodded along, pleased at the lack of fighting. “This is the hardest part, isn’t it? We’ll be out of this foul swarm before we know it, and you’ll be free to stretch out and scout again.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Just a few more hours of unpleasantness then – should be easy enough.

“I thought you said this was the easy part!” Rainbow shouted at Squirrel, water lapping at her barrel. They were barely an hour out from the mesa and while this part had for the most part been no worse than the first half, things had taken a frigid turn some minutes back when the path had abruptly ended.

“Oh, shut up!” Squirrel yelled back to her as she struggled to wade through the lily-field. “And keep your damn hoods out of the water!”

Rainbow was far too busy trying to keep her cool to yell anything back: the combined threat of drowning if her hood got wet, getting stung to death by the countless insects about if she removed it, and the fact that she could not get her wings free despite never having gone in the water without them to keep her afloat was all threatening to overwhelm her.

They floundered on for several minutes before Squirrel clambered up onto a great, mossy log, the other two in close pursuit. Pausing first to help push Twilight up and out of the water, Rainbow pulled herself on and just about collapsed into a soggy heap; as much as she wanted to ream out Squirrel for getting them lost she was just too cold and tired.

Squirrel stood up awkwardly on her hinds to peer over the rushes, Twilight right alongside her. “That way,” Squirrel said, pointing at something in the distance. “Path must’ve grown over or something, but I recognize those boulders.”

Twilight grunted, nodding. “Right. Back into the water, then.” She fell back on all fours before swiftly climbing back down the side of the log, a determined set to her withers. Grumbling quietly, Rainbow got up to trail Squirrel as the two of them took to following Twilight for a change.

It took them nearly half an hour to reach the clump of speckled house-sized boulders, but as they got close, Twilight, still stubbornly in the lead, leapt back with a curse and a splash. “They’re writhing!” she exclaimed, as she backed up until her mosquito-ridden cloak nearly bumped Rainbow in the muzzle.

Squinting through the ever-denser haze of insects Rainbow could now see that what she at first mistook for splotches of multi-coloured lichen were in fact the bodies of countless thousands of bugs, crawling and hissing on the stone, itself covered in innumerable fleshy little sacks and nests. “Of course it gets worse,” she practically growled. “If these things can eat through clothes I’m going to be so pissed.”

“I... don’t remember this,” Squirrel said, her body shifting uncertainly. “Let’s just carry on – we’re south-southeast from here.”

“Got it,” Rainbow said, taking narry a moment to feel which way that was. “Over here,” she carried on with a bob of her head, just happy to get away from the boulders. They scurried on in a hurry, adjusting their course a touch to find the relatively-solid route their guide knew, and soon left the nests well behind them.

The insects themselves, unfortunately, were not so inclined to let them go.

“We got anymore stuff to burn?” Rainbow asked loudly as she tried to shake the bugs off her cowl – they’d gotten so thick that she was having a hard time seeing anything.

“Incense?” Squirrel called back over the noisy swarm. “Yeah! I don’t know about getting it out in this mess though – we’ll need to get out of the water first!”

Considering the water was now splashing against her chest, Rainbow could hardly argue with that. “Alright – hey Sparkle!”

“I heard! Keep us on track – I think I can see something off to the left we can climb onto!”

“Gotcha,” Rainbow said mostly to herself as she kept half a mind on the direction they needed to go in as they veered sharply to the side. She really hoped Twi knew some way to magically dry out her censer – it’d gotten waterlogged some time ago and given how her and Squirrel’s still had thin trails of bug-free smoke coming from their necks, she knew they worked, at least a little.

The swarm was getting progressively worse – worryingly so; Rainbow could feel the weight of them, like little raindrops on her cloth-covered cheeks and muzzle, whenever they landed or flew off. She stumbled slightly, pausing as a moment’s panic filled her when she realized she’d lost the other two in the haze. She hurriedly looked around, knocking down reeds to try and see them. Where the buck is – there! A glimpse of Squirrel’s hoary tail floating like so much dead mold off to the right; she trampled through the mire to catch up, taking care now to keep close to the mare as they trudged on.

The raised spot they soon found themselves at was little more than a shallow collection of peat and drowned branches, undoubtably fallen from one of the many bare, ash-grey trees rising from the swamp. The trio marched up onto the pile, the rotten wood crushing like wet sponges beneath their hooves, to stand in water only cannon-deep. “Squirrel,” Twilight asked, leaning in close to avoid shouting. “How much do we have left, exactly?”

“Distance or incense?” the mare responded, head lowered thoughtfully. “Because I’d say only a couple more hours to go to get out of here” – fortuitous given it must’ve been mid-afternoon by now at least – “but as for incense?” She shuffled around to find her balance before slapping away irritably at the mat of bugs on her side, flattening dozens of them into a mucky paste. Twilight made a disgusted noise in her throat as her horn lit up a soft magenta beneath her cowl. There was a dull thwumping sound as the hovering insects were batted away from Squirrel’s flank by small, repetitive gusts of air. Once again Squirrel seemed a bit startled by the magic, but with a muttered ‘thanks’ set about rooting about under her cloak.

“Here we go,” she soon said, pulling out the scuffed tin of incense. “’Bout three-quarters full; main problem’s going to be keeping the stuff from getting wet.” She looked up at Twilight, head cocked. “Any chance you can help with that? You seem like you’re pretty decent at magic.”

Twilight whickered, idly swishing the water with a hoof. “Yeeeah, maybe I can do something, but... no – if we ignite it all at once it’ll just burn itself out fast... shoot.”

Rainbow glanced back and forth between them. “Care to tell me what’s up?”

“The insects really don’t seem to like how close we got to their hives,” Twilight said, looking up and around at the swarm that seemed to be trying its best to bite and sting them to death. “We need to clear them – a big cloud of this stuff should do it if we can get it to linger as we move.”

“Could probably help with that if I could get my wings free,” Rainbow said with a brisk shake of her head and neck to clear the bugs from around her ears. “Bit of a vortex around us should be easy enough, and I can do it from down here too,” she added, mostly for Squirrel’s benefit.

“Really?” Squirrel let loose a bark of laughter. “You two are easily the strangest pair of tourists I’ve ever travelled with.”

“What did I do?” Twilight asked, sounding vaguely offended.

“Fire, levitation, and wind magic? Those alone beat most unicorns I’ve ever heard of!” Squirrel said, still clearly amused.

“Yes, well... alright,” Twilight admitted – such breadth was uncommon, after all. “Still doesn’t make us ‘strange’ though.”

“Fair, fair,” Squirrel chuckled before clearing her throat. “Alright, let’s see about getting your wings free then, Rainbow. The incense should be able to keep most of the bugs off once you get it going.”

Rainbow flexed her wings a little, rubbing them against the cloth, trying to find a discrete way to get them out just enough to build a vortex around them. “No good way to do this,” she eventually huffed. “I’d have my whole sides showing.”

“If we timed it right it could work?” Twilight mused as she fiddled with the now-open tin. “At the rate this was burning before... we wouldn’t have too much time bug-free, but we only need enough to throw off this swarm before it chokes us.” A fact that was little exaggerated – the insects seem particularly attracted to their breaths, clustering all the more densely around their muzzles.

Rainbow nickered, shifting her weight between her hooves indecisively despite that she’d already made up her mind. “Right – I’ll do it. Get some of that smoke going around me and I’ll get my wings out.”

Twilight looked like she was going to give her a reassuring nuzzle but thought better of it, giving a pleased bob of her head instead. “Brilliant! You won’t be exposed for that long, Dash, so don’t worry. First thing’s first though – what’s our next direction?”

Squirrel craned her neck up as high as she could, bobbing up and down on her forehooves to try and get some extra height over the rushes. “That way,” she eventually declared, looking what Rainbow figured was directly southeast.

“Right. Rainbow, you’ll take centre; I’ll lead. Let’s get this cloud ready.” Twilight opened up the tin, levitating out the crumbled incense inside. “From the looks of it I can probably get the smoldering embers of all this spread out in the air all around us – actually, we might be better off if I just keep it as a melon-sized lump above us?” She shot Rainbow a questioning glance.

“Yeah, once I get the wind going I can keep all that smoke right close around us.”

“Well then – here goes nothing.” The loose ball of incense – Rainbow still couldn’t figure out what type it was – flew a few feet above them; a couple of brief flashes within later and bluish smoke started billowing out.

Rainbow took a deep breath – or the deepest she could, at any rate – whipped her wings down low and out, raising the cloak and exposing a good bit of herself to the swarm. Acting quickly, she concentrated on the feel of the magic in her, so much like cool raindrops running down her coat, and forced it down her wings, channeling it into her feathers and out into the air around her, extending that same ability that let her manipulate the winds into giving her flight into instead twisting the air around them.

With a twitch of her wings the air behind her shunted backwards, and with a subtle pull it came up and over her back, catching the smoke within its embrace. With a sudden jerk it veered off to the side as the first bite of an insect caused her to flinch, losing control. Not. Happening, she thought to herself with a grimace, steadying her wings and bringing them back into a cupping, paddling motion, circulating the sickly-sweet air into a slow cyclone around them. The cloud was anathema to the swarm, almost immediately repulsing it to its edges, leaving Rainbow with only a hooffull of itching spots to ignore.

“Let’s go,” she said, eyes half-lidded in concentration.

“Right – follow me. Dash, if you need to go slow, do so; Squirrel, call out if she does.” With that said Twilight started the trio onwards again through the reeds, the tips of Rainbow’s primaries tickling the water’s surface with every pass.

It was blessedly little time later when the barrel-deep water began to drop, soon leaving them to plod through merely fetlock-deep muck and spongy moss. The bulk of the swarm had since abandoned them, but the group was keen to keep the cloud circulating as long as possible for the relief of it; plus, the scent of it helped distract from the biting cold that was beginning to set in.

“I hope we don’t get thrush from this,” Twilight muttered in the late-afternoon light.

“We’ll be out soon,” Squirrel assured her. “The mountains are looking about right for it.”

“Can’t hold this much longer, guys,” Rainbow cut in between slow, calm breaths.

Squirrel looked around at the thinned-out cloud that had protected them for so long. “It looks about spent anyways.”

Rainbow waited until Twilight gave a nod of agreement before letting the smoke disperse; she gave a few brisk dry-flaps of her wings to try and relieve them of the strain that the slow movements had caused them before hurriedly tucking them back under the cloth for safety. “Muuuch better,” she sighed, stopping for a second to adjust her cloak. She was frankly relieved she didn’t have to keep that up much longer – she was starting to cramp.

“You still held that far longer than I’d’ve thought,” Squirrel said, sounding impressed. “That was what, twenty minutes?”

“Could’ve gone longer! Like, way longer,” Rainbow insisted good-naturedly. “Twenty-minutes is nothing!”

“Dash’s great at that,” Twilight said, smiling back over her withers.

“Totally,” Rainbow agreed, doing her best to strut through the mire. “Rainbow ‘Super Fine’ Dash they call me!”

“Really,” Squirrel drawled. “And that’d make you Twilight ‘The Wizard’ Sparkle I suppose?”

“Definitely,” Rainbow said before Twilight could speak up. “Purple Smart here is spooky good at magic.”

Squirrel broke into soft, wheezy laughter as Twilight fought to find her voice. “Okay, no! We are not calling me that!” she insisted, bristling with indignity. “’Twilight’ will do nicely!”

“Can do, Twilight,” Squirrel said, her grin evident in her tone.

“Good! So long as that’s settled then.”

Dusk was just falling when their hooves touched their first bit of dry ground since the mesa hours ago – they’d at last gotten through the swamps. “Freakin’ finally,” Rainbow grunted as she trudged up the shallow stone slope, cloak catching lightly in the yellowed grass peaking through the cracks.

“Let’s get up high first,” Squirrel said from the rear. “Once the bugs’re gone we can set up camp.” Although there was still light enough to carry on for another hour or so, the troupe was far too tired to even consider it.

“Right,” Twilight puffed out between heavy breaths. “We’ll... right,” she finished lamely, choosing to focus instead on putting one hoof in front of the other.

The ground this side of the Green Leek was, like the rest of Basin, a mix of flat, earthy areas and tall – often sheer – rock hills and outcroppings; it was to the top of one of these that they were heading. A faint breeze blew in from the east, tamping down on the bugs, but bringing with it another problem.

“M-maybe we should stop here?” Twilight asked meekly, shivering, soaked as she was in water and sweat.

“A bit further,” Squirrel insisted, looking around in the failing light at the few small trees that made up the otherwise barren face. “We’ll want some cover from the wind – a clump of trees, a rockface, anything like that. Any chance you could just take off and fly around for something, Rainbow?”

“Clothes and bags too dang wet and heavy to fly in,” Rainbow grumbled. “Carry ‘em and we’re good.”

Ignoring the commanding tone, Squirrel nodded. “Yep – quickly now though: night’ll be here before we know it.”

Working fast, Rainbow undid her neckstring and hastily shucked the fouled cloak and censer to the ground, stretching her wings in relief at the sudden freedom. She started fiddling with her satchel straps before they lit up magenta – Twilight had come over to lend a hoof. A few moments later saw Rainbow sitting back on her hinds to doff her jacket and scarf. “Finally,” she muttered. “I can breathe!” She almost immediately shivered in the cooling breeze, still just as wet as before but without any clothing to try and block out the wind.

“Alright, I’ll be quick,” she said, stepping off from the other two. “Stay in the open so I can see you.”

“I’ll put up some lights if needed,” Twilight said as Rainbow nodded and bounded forward a few paces, her wings flaring out and down to get her some lift.

She took off aiming back downslope, towards the wetlands. Angling away, she strove for height as she circled over the two mares below, taking care not to lose them as she worked out which landmarks – which clump of trees or erratics – they were near, and which way they were going; it would be simpler if they just stood still and waited, of course, but they really needed to keep moving to stay warm.

The chill was biting at these speeds, but she knew from experience that any water would evaporate or blow off fast at this rate; plus, as a pegasus, she was a bit fluffier than most.

Once she found a good altitude she widened her circle, sharp eyes looking for anything within reach to abut their tents against. Need safe room for a fire, too, she added to herself. Ideally it’d also be near a clean stream – their canteens weren’t looking so full anymore – but there just wasn’t anything like that within reach by nightfall. There! she thought, pleased, as she caught sight of a small alcove, itself tucked within a little copse of trees. Checking beneath her, she was still able to quickly spot out Twilight and Squirrel – dead easy considering the former had, in fact, lit up her horn with some manner of light cantrip – then eyed the alcove again. Once she’d worked out the best route to get there she began her descent, her slow circles belying her eagerness.

Picking her spot just a few metres behind the two, she flared her wings and, with a mighty thwump, beat down hard to land trotting on all fours. “Found it!” she called out to the two startled, cloak-less mares. “’Bout ten minutes thataway,” she jerked her head off to the left.

“W-wonderful!” Twilight chattered, smiling despite the cold, as she changed the trio’s direction. “O-once we’re t-there I’ll get a fire going.”

“I’ll get us fuel,” Squirrel added, the stolid earth pony handling the cold quite well. “Easy enough to find dead wood.”

“And I’ll... well I’ll do something too,” Rainbow insisted, not wanting to be left out. “I can do tents!”

“That should be fun to watch,” Squirrel smirked. “That said, I’ll do my own, thank you.”

Rainbow snorted. “As if I’d set up yours for you, miss ‘gets-lost-in-her-own-swamp.’”

“W-what!?” Squirrel spluttered. “How in the world is that my swamp?”

“You blended in well.”

Squirrel didn’t seem to know quite how to respond to that. “I – what? Whatever – but I didn’t get us lost!”

“You totally did. You remember that, right Twi? Twi remembers everything,” she added to Squirrel. “You remember, right?”

“I d-don’t have perfect memory,” Twilight countered over her withers, still shivering lightly. “It’s mnemonics, m-mostly. That said, we did get lost for a bit, yes.”

“Hah! See? Totally got us lost.”

“Fine,” Squirrel deflated. “We did. For a bit. But we got through it anyways, thanks to the ninety-nine percent that I did remember.”

“Riiight,” Rainbow drawled as they crested a small ridge. “Ah! Right – Twi, the campsite thing’s just other there – those trees next to those rocks, see?”

“Umm... yeah, there,” Twilight nodded, angling straight for it.

“So did you want your gear back?” Squirrel asked as they stepped under the boughs of the dozen or so short, bristly trees that made up the copse. “Or should I just toss it on the ground.”

“Don’t toss it! Place it,” Rainbow snipped as Twilight stopped in a flattish, clear spot next to the stony back of the alcove some metres tall.

“This’ll do,” Twilight said, working her own gear off. “If we c-can get some wood I’ll get the fire going.”

“Yep,” Squirrel said, shucking Rainbow’s gear unceremoniously into a pile before veering off into the trees.

Rainbow spared her a frown before picking up the small tent that Twilight had picked up in Cherry Point; it was just a small, cramped, two-pony thing, but it should do the job well enough. “I’ll get this up right quick,” she said, giving Twilight a flank-bump. “It’ll be cozy enough with the fire going outside.”

Twilight hummed distractedly, shoulders hunched as she slumped in on herself against the night air. Rainbow considered ignoring the tent for the moment – there was no way she’d get that up as fast as she’d like – and just tucking Twilight up under a wing for warmth when Squirrel trooped back up to them. “Here,” she said, dropping a pile of sticks and branches as she settled back down on her hinds. “Let’s get this going; I’ll grab some more once it is.”

Twilight gave a shaky nod as her light spell dropped only to be immediately replaced with sparkling flashes, both at her horn and in the midst of the pile. The scent of ozone filled the air as the wood lit, pine-scented smoke curling out of it. Squirrel leaned down, keeping half a wary eye on Twilight’s horn as she blew softly onto the embers. Within moments the fire flared up, bathing them in its warmth. “Alright,” Squirrel sighed wearily, leaning back on her haunches. “I’m going to get more wood for this. Dry your clothes next to the fire and get that tent up as soon as Twilight’s fit.” Without waiting to see if they’d listen, she disappeared again into the gloom.

“Let’s get that jacket off then, eh Twi?” Rainbow said, helping Twilight out of her heavy, wet coat. Laying their jackets and scarves out on the needle-ridden stone next to the fire, she set about unrolling the tent as her friend scooted closer to the flames. She had the thing half-built when Squirrel came back into the clearing, a piddling little pile in her arms. Dropping them, she walked purposely over to her panniers. “Not enough wood on the ground,” she said, unstrapping a short hatchet as she did. “Don’t like doing this, but we need the heat to dry.”

Rainbow quietly watched her leave – she didn’t like the idea of felling living trees either, but needs must and all that – before busying herself again getting the tent’s rods set just so.

A faint thocking sound came from the darkness just as she finished up and began setting up their sleeping bags. Twilight, startled, perked up to stare owlishly towards the sound. “It’s just Squirrel,” Rainbow said as she inspected their bags, one hoof deep inside and rooting about. “Good news though – our sleeping bags are dry! So that’s nice.” Perhaps the bags were overkill for the weather, but Twilight had been worried the mountain passes closer to Hurricanum would be too cold and windswept to do otherwise.

“Mmhmm,” Twilight said, settling back down. “M’hungry,” she mumbled, her horn aglow as she pulled one of her panniers towards to her; she tugged out a spare canteen and a couple oatbars and began nibbling on them, while nearby there was the cracking and rustling sound of a small tree coming down.

“Grazing’s going to suck,” Rainbow grumbled as she lay down the two sleeping bags in the tent. “Unless there’s a place between here and Beech, at least.” She plopped down next to Twilight and reached over to start fishing around in her own satchels. While midway through a bar of her own Squirrel trudged slowly back into the firelight, an arm-thick pine being dragged behind her.

“This’ll do til we dry out,” she said, dropping the tree and hatchet before doffing her own damp clothing and gear. “The night’s warm enough once we’re dry to do without; one of us’ll have to stay up until the fire’s out though.”

“I imagine we’ll all be up til then,” Twilight said as Squirrel took to lopping the branches off the trunk. “Do you want any help with that?”

“Nah,” Squirrel replied without breaking stride. “Done this plenty in the past. You just keep warming up.”

“Better now,” Twilight mumbled from where she still lay, close to the fire. “I guess the water just got to me after a while.”

Squirrel paused in her work for a moment before continuing. “The swamp was... wetter than I remember. There were fairly dry paths woven throughout it the last time I went through.”

“Seasonal, perhaps?”

“Probably.”

They fell back to silence as the night deepened, busying themselves with their meals, such as they were. Having finished her’s, Rainbow set about preening and figuring out if the bug bites she’d gotten earlier had gotten through her fur. No welts, at least, she thought as she went back to aligning her primaries. Happily for them, they’d left all the insects behind.

“We’ll need more water tomorrow,” Twilight said as she stared lazily into the fire. “Canteens are low, and a bath wouldn’t go amiss either.”

“Waterways will clear up not far southwest of us – we’ll get some good water by late morning, I should think,” Squirrel said from off to the side, as she finished setting up her own narrow one-pony tent.

“We’ve enough til then.” Twilight sat up, rolling her shoulders and neck. “Are the clothes fairly dry? We should get some sleep if we’re to be up early tomorrow.”

Rainbow leaned over to poke at them. “Eh, good enough,” she shrugged – from the feel of it they’d be dry by morning.

“Best douse the flames, then,” Twilight sighed as she stood up fully and cast her gaze around her some dirt to smother it.

“Just a moment... there!” Squirrel said, standing back with a pleased look at her tent. “Needed to finish up while we had light; douse whenever!” With that said she grabbed her clothes and walked straight into her tent, disappearing behind the flaps; a bit of shuffling and rustling followed, ending with her head poking back out of the opening to watch them, head cocked. “Need to make sure you smother it right,” she said, in answer to their curious looks.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “As if we could muck it up,” she muttered, turning with their own gear to crawl into their tent. The faint hum of unicorn magic, followed a few seconds later by muffled thumping, heralded the darkness as the fire was extinguished. Still robbed of her night vision she felt, more than saw, Twilight shuffle in beside her and crawl into her own sleeping bag.

Rainbow figured she’d leave her’s open – with how snug it was with the two of them practically pressed into one another’s sides she had a feeling it would be far too warm not to.

“Wish I had a bath before getting into this,” Twilight grumbled softly beside her, her voice almost in Rainbow’s ear.

“You sound like Rarity,” Rainbow teased as she wiggled around to try and find a more comfortable position.

“Oh, shush,” Twilight said, doing much the same. “Now go to sleep.”

“Heh. Night Twi.”

“Night Dash.”