The Disappearance of Harissa Honeycomb

by Miller Minus


1 – The 'D' Word

We looked damn good in our new armor. And that's the highest-ranking curse word I ever use, so I'm not kidding around. They were the newest leather models from Canterlot's best designers: sleek yet rugged, light yet warm, and comfortable yet still sure to keep us safe from harm. What or who might try to harm us, I didn’t like to think about, but as I held my folded outfit on the morning of our mission, it was starting to make me feel pretty damn brave.

If only our campsite wasn't trying so hard to change that. We had stumbled on the little clearing in the dense pine forest the night before, and it was so dark that we couldn't see past the first trees in any direction. I had hoped the morning would be different, but the greying fog had other ideas.

A loon's call sounded through the trees behind me, and my shoulders tensed. It wasn't a pleasant, melodic tune like normal. More like the call of a loon with a pencil lodged in its throat. Sideways.

I peeked over my shoulder to see nothing but a couple slender branches, covering a patch of fog in the distance like a child playing peek-a-boo. But inside the nothing I heard the sounds of hooves, stepping purposefully through the twigs and branches, and snapping several on its way towards me. I held my breath for all of two seconds when a shape resolved in the fog, but then I laughed at myself.

A pony I knew very well emerged from the mist behind the branches and ducked into our clearing. Slightly panting and with wings fully sprung, she walked around me like I wasn't there, wagging a stray twig covered in pine sap off her hoof. Her braided red hair was matted to her forehead and neck, and she wore a large grin across her face. Or at least, it sure seemed that way. She always looked like she was grinning when she had the hilt of a sword in her teeth.

"Stupid horseshit forest," she declared, finally flinging off the niggling twig.

Needless to say, she went to higher ranks than I did. She was Captain Minerva, and she was Brave with a capital 'B', because it was literally her second name. Third if you counted the 'The'.

I laid my armor on my log and saluted. "Good morning, Captain!"

Her ears fluttered. She flicked her eyebrows up in acknowledgment, slinging the sheath off of her shoulders and thrusting the sword back in place. She let the assembly fall on the floor, then exhaled like she had just returned from a relaxing swim in the ocean, as opposed to a morning training session.

"Well, look at you," she said. "Using the correct titles and stuff. What's yours again?"

"Uh, I think it's… Private."

She snorted. "That's hilarious. I'll just call you Foghorn."

"Okay. Should I just call you Minerva?"

"No."

"Okay."

The Captain scowled at her chest, where a blob of sap had seeped into her armor. She spat in her hoof and scrubbed as much out as she could.

I didn't blame her. Across the chest of our new clothes was the best part: the chevrons. They were embroidered overtop of the leather—a thick purple one underneath a thinner red one. Those were our captain's colours, fur and mane. They stopped at our shoulders, where they transitioned neatly into two halves of a sun. And it wasn't just any old sun. It was the very same markings found on Princess Celestia herself.

The whole design looked pretty impressive on just about anypony. Even me! But nopony wore it like Minerva. I suppose that was the point.

"Let’s do a roll call," the captain suggested.

I glanced over to the log lying on its side next to mine, where the lieutenant was tightly coiled, facing away from us. He was using his armor as a cushion for the jagged bark. On the ground next to him was his short sword, holding down a library book with "A Brief History of Pinery’s Brief History: A Summary" written on the cover in shining silver letters. A bookmark with an image of Princess Celestia leaned up against the book's spine, having just recently finished its journey through the pages.

"Um," I answered. "I think… all three of us are here."

"You say that," Minerva said, "but one of us doesn't look alive."

I watched the lieutenant’s stomach carefully. It rose and fell with perfect rhythm, brushing up against a small green offshoot jutting out from the log.

"I… think he is," I deduced.

"Tell you what. I'll fly him to the nearest river, huck him in, and see if he floats." Minerva lowered her eyes at the sleeping stallion, likely imagining her plan with glee.

The lieutenant’s body grumbled, "I'm alive," but it didn’t bother to uncoil.

"Well I'm still kinda set on the whole river thing."

"Like you could carry me."

"Actually, I can carry exactly one fully grown pony. They test pegasuses on emergencies, y'know."

The earth pony’s ear twitched when the captain didn’t say ‘pegasi’. With an anemic groan, he pushed his forelegs against the log and rose as if from a grave. He swung his hind legs over to face us and knocked his sword off his book in the process. "Present," he said, though his eyes had yet to open.

"Good morning, Lieutenant Terrain," I said, saluting again.

Over the course of five seconds, Terrain revealed his green eyes to the world. They were already much sharper than the rest of him, accented by the thick black outlines around them. For the longest time, I thought he wore makeup, but Minerva told me he didn’t. She said ponies from where he was from just looked like that.

I never asked where he was from. It never seemed appropriate.

"I've had better," he replied, and I just smiled.

Minerva, meanwhile, was enjoying her morning. At the sight of her two support ponies awake and alive, she began trotting around the fire pit—black and smouldering from last night’s campfire. Her right wing was pointed out and to the right, and her left wing was pointed out and to the left.

"You guys read the thing, right?" she asked.

"The… thing?" Terrain mumbled.

"Yeah, you know. That thing we had to read."

"You mean the dossier?"

"No, that thing that talks about all of our instructions and objectives and whatever."

Terrain’s eyes fell back shut. "Yes, Minnie. I read the goddamn dossier."

"Okay, good. SO!"

Minerva came to a halt in front of us and plopped on her rump. She glared at us like she was a teacher staring at the only two students who had shown up at her lecture.

"To recap," she began, "Pinery's top chef, Harissa Honeycomb, was kidnapped about seven days ago. Vanished, poof! Without a trace, y'know? The ponies there are all pretty unhappy about the whole thing, so the Big Girl Upstairs has sent her best damn field knights to find the mare, bring her home, and throw whoever the sack of cowpie is who's behind it all into the darkest dungeon in Pinery."

"Right!" I responded. I saluted again even though it wasn't an appropriate time.

My captain continued, "Now, the thing said 'diplomacy' a lot? So we have to be on our most kickass behaviour. If we screw this up, we go from field missions to field trips. Foalsitting new recruits on pointless journeys to Celestia knows where."

She wasn’t lying. Her Highness was in charge of that decision.

She rubbed her hooves together but had to stop when they got stuck. "Pinery and Equestria are… counting… on us… boys!" she struggled, trying to free herself from the sap trap.

I started a neverending nod. Her briefing was a little different from what I had read in the dossier, but I figured she would know more about it than I would. She was captain, after all.

When she finally ripped her hooves apart, she saluted and winked. "So that's it! Any questions?"

Terrain massaged his temples and strained out a breath. "I have one."

"Alright, make it quick. It's still a ten-hour walk to Pinery, so—"

"Did you read the dossier?" Terrain interrupted.

Minerva scowled. "Yeah."

"Okay. Then… Where did you get those lies you just told us?"

"What do you… From the disarray!"

"Dossier! Daw-see-ay! And it didn't say any of that!"

"Well, yeah, I had to read between the lines a little. C'mon, Terry, I thought you were good at that!"

"I am good at that," Terrain asserted. "But there's a difference between reading between the lines and scribbling in your own lines with a blunt crayon."

I stifled a chuckle and hoped they didn't hear it. I always enjoyed their banter, but it never felt right laughing at something I wasn't involved in. Maybe someday I could, though, if I could just get a little more proficient at comebacks.

Minerva got up and went to her bag, stuck her hoof in and ripped out a stack of scrolls. She marched back to her seat and started poring over the front page. "I swear it's all in here..."

Terrain snatched the dossier in a heartbeat. "It's not."

"Alright smart-ass, what did I get wrong then?"

"Well for starters, Harissa has disappeared from Castle Pinery."

"S'what I said!"

"No, you said she was kidnapped, which was grossly presumptive. Dangerously so. Second, nowhere did it say we're tasked with finding her. We're only there to be three extra heads and twelve extra hooves. Patrols, escorts, security advice, whatever they want us to do, we do."

Minerva did a quick count of how many hooves we had. "Okay, but… What about dungeon-throwing?"

"Not in the itinerary. They might not even have a dungeon."

Our captain gasped. "But where will we put their bad guys?!" Terrain had no answer, or perhaps he just didn’t want to give one, so Minerva crossed her hooves and let out a harrumph fit for a captain. "Lame. Well, I got the diplomacy part right, right?"

"Everything but your immature 'kickass' comment, but yes, it stressed diplomacy. Which means Foghorn should do the talking."

My heart made room for an extra beat.

"Wha—?" Minerva blurted. "Why can’t I do the talking?"

Terrain recoiled and held his hooves up. "You guys are gonna find this funny… but for a second there I could swear I heard Minerva the Brave volunteer for diplomacy."

"That doesn’t sound like you," I added.

The captain threw a petulant gaze at Terrain and me. "I can totally do the talking! Name three reasons why I wouldn't be good at it."

Terrain paused. "Okay. How about respect, tact, and swear density."

"What the shit is swear density?"

"Don't worry yourself. Foghorn is perfect for the job and we all know it."

I butted in to the argument. "I don't know it… Why me?"

"Yeah!" Minerva protested. "Why him?"

There was a hint of venom in that, but I forgave her. It was a weird choice.

Terrain put his hoof around me and patted my shoulder twice. "Because Foghorn here respects everypony he's ever met, and everypony he’s yet to meet. He's a born diplomat."

Minerva got right in my face and peered into my eyes, inching forward for every inch I leaned back. It was like she was trying to find my soul and call it names.

I looked away. "I mean… Everypony deserves respect."

"Disagree," Terrain replied. "But that’s why you’re perfect."

Minerva spun away, then spun right back to throw a hoof at me. "Alright, fine. Fog, you take care of the introductions, but after that, I wanna talk to them."

Terrain snorted. "You're as generous as you are tactful."

"Okay," I said, standing up. I floated my armor in the air. The chevrons between Celestia's cutie mark emerged from the folds, almost like they were looking for me. "Okay," I repeated. "I can do introductions. How hard can it be?"

"Couldn't tell ya," Minerva answered. "I don’t have the tact," she hissed in Terrain's direction.

He responded with a cringe. "That doesn't make any sense."

*****

I was hoping to continue the discussion a little longer, but at that point, Minerva and Terrain were done talking, and that was all that mattered. Pretty soon, our saddlebags were packed, and we were scanning the campsite to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything.

Not that we had much to forget. My superiors had our few essentials in their bags already. They had suggested that I carry some too, but I refused. The idea of carrying the food, the water, the budget, the emergency medical kit, or anything else so important made me squeamish. They would probably be more responsible with them, after all.

Accompanying the essentials in their tightly packed bags was the dossier, their sword licenses, and of course, their own personal bandage rolls. Terrain packed his for first-aid purposes, because 'the sandpaper they packed in our kit wasn’t getting anywhere near us', while Minerva's roll was for wrapping around her hooves and applying the opposite of first-aid to anypony she felt had earned it. Then again, she was considering giving the sandpaper a try.

My bag was the easiest to pack, and the easiest to carry. Only my bandages, tucked in the pocket on my right side. Just in case either of them needed a spare roll. I could do some first-aid too, sure, but so too could everypony who graduated from the academy.

And it was good that I didn’t have too much to pick up around the campsite, because I was having trouble paying attention. I was busy thinking about my upcoming first task.

The talking.

Did I need to be nervous? No. Minerva and Terrain were incredible friends and even better comrades. It was always sort of a fluke that I had gotten as far as them, and I mean that in the least self-deprecating way possible. My numbers simply weren't as good as theirs. But I knew that when I dropped the ball, they’d pick it up before it hit the ground and probably do an even better job with it.

So no, I had no reason to be nervous. Was I anyways? Well, let's just say that my quivering jaw and itchy forelegs were already showing how good they were at 'the talking'.

But that could have been more than just the dread of my first task looming in the back of my thoughts, because somehow, from the time we woke up to the time we were ready to depart, the fog managed to thicken, and the wild creatures in the forest were making their presence more and more, well, present. I couldn’t tell what was more off-putting: the distant sounds in the woods, or the pockets of silence in between them.

"Hey," Minerva said, gesturing to Terrain as she slung her sword back on and pulled the straps tight. "What's that word for a place that kinda makes you want to shit your pants, but like, is subtle about it?"

Through a yawn, Terrain answered, "Ominous."

"Yeah! That’s the one… Such a great word."

The howl of a wolf pierced the thick air around us, tensing all of our bodies. It wasn’t a majestic and empowering howl like normal. More like the howl of a wolf with a loon with a pencil caught in its throat caught in its throat. A howl that made it clear it had to pass through sharp teeth before it reached our ears.

The captain wasted no time pointing into the fog, the opposite direction from where the howl had come. "Let’s make tracks, yeah?"

We got started on the last leg of our journey—my armor shifting and lurching on its own around my body the whole way. The humidity must have worn it out, I thought, as it suddenly felt a little big on me.