//------------------------------// // Chapter Two: And the Fittest, Survive // Story: The Story That Never Happened // by Darkswirl //------------------------------// The pair descended speedily down the eastern face of the mountain, taking great care to avoid the forest and instead choosing to fly through the rolling hills for some time before they ended, and gave way to the grassy plains where Dawning Amity's family had made their home. In the distance, on the bank of the river, Dawn saw the familiar slanted dwelling and her heart began to race as she eagerly flew ahead of Oort. "Dad, I'm back!" Dawning Amity shouted in excitement as her sore hooves touched into the ground, breaking into a short gallop. As the mare reached the slab of wood and pressed her body up against it, confusion jolted across her mind as she found that the door would not budge. "Dad? Dad, it's me!" she shouted. "I have the poultice!" No answer came from beyond the door save for the soft, echoing thuds that came from the pegasus struggling to gain entrance. "Dawn," Oort began with some hesitation from behind her. "What exactly did your parents say to you when you left?" Dawn paused for a moment as she recalled her memories from her tired mind. "Dad said... Mom wouldn't survive without this, that he loved me, and that mom would be proud if she were awake." Dawn explained as she looked quizzically at her friend. "Why?" Dawn felt a pang of familiarity as she saw the same look her father had given her in the eyes of her friend. Instantly, she understood, but she refused to accept the possibility even in passing, and she began struggling with the door, once more. "No, no, he wouldn't do that!" Dawn shouted through growing tears as Oort turned his head to the ground in shame behind the mare, allowing her to pour whatever strength she had left into the solid, unmoving door until she began loudly slamming her hooves against it. "Dawn, please stop." Oort pleaded, softly; his words falling far from Dawns ears as tears and trembles clouded her senses until even the door blurred and faded before she fell to the ground. "He can't do this!" she cried. "I got the poultice! Everything was going to be fine!" Dawn ordered her body to cry, but the tired mass of flesh refused to cooperate; exhausted beyond rejuvenation from the cruelty of yesterday and today. Instead, all her body could create was another splitting headache that caused her to quiver in pain. Oort looked sadly upon his friend before he lay by her side, offering support should she choose to cry once more into his fur. But no tears came, and all the yellow mare could manage was soft trembles and shudders against her friend as she lay in the dirt. Oort hesitated to talk to her, understanding that she needed time, but staying out here in the open during the day made the blue pegasus uneasy, and his eyes darted from tree, to hill, to sky as he attempted to keep them both safe. Thankfully, nothing threatened them in their time of sorrow and, after becoming frustrated that she could not cry, Dawn stood up from the ground and shook the dirt from her coat. She wanted to fly away somewhere where she could leave all of this behind her, but she knew that each new patch of land held its own threats and rules, and Dawn sighed as she realized there was little she could do, at all. Oort stood beside her, carefully judging his friends face before he finally spoke: "I'm sorry, Dawn." he explained, letting his words sink in before he continued. "But we need to leave. We've been here too long." "Where would we go?" Dawn asked with a flat snort of disgust and misery. "Your family would kill us both if we went back, and my family couldn't make it through the forest. What chance do we have?" "We'll have no chance if we just stand here and give up." Oort replied, bowing his head to meet Dawn's sullen gaze as he stood in front of her. "I know it's hard, and right now you may be thinking of doing something brash, but all we have left is each other. If you value our friendship then please, come with me." Dawn shrugged her shoulders to the side in defeat as she began to follow Oort, who began to lead her towards a smaller mountain to the west, out of the flat plains. "This looks like a good spot." Oort announced as he paced around the inside of the tunnel before turning to look at the sullen mare at the entrance. "Come on in." Dawning Amity took slow steps into the cave while idly surveying the oddly symmetrical walls and the over all constant arching of the cavern that led straight through to the other side of the mountain. When she had reached Oort, he settled down at her hooves and beckoned her to do the same. "So we need food and water." Oort stated as he turned to look at his friend. "I don't know about you, but I haven't eaten in about three days, and I don't think we can count on another rain storm any time soon." "There's a river in between the forest and my plains, but it's too open and too big of a distance to bring stuff back..." Dawn mumbled, halfheartedly. "Plus, I don't have the skill to make a proper trap for rabbits..." "Yeah..." Oort admitted, with a sigh. "To be honest, the only meat I've ever had was scraps from eagles and hawks around the mountain, and it was difficult to catch them." The pair sat in silence as they contemplated their options for survival, until Dawn spoke up, once more: "We could try to drive a rabbit into the river." Oort pondered this idea silently in his head before giving a considered nod. "We'd have to find a colony and force them out, then manage to keep them from going anywhere else." he explained. "I can do it." Dawn offered. "Dad taught me how to scare rabbits out of their holes, and I could teach you." "Then it's a plan!" Oort decided with a smile as he stood and approached the entrance to their tunnel, careful to slow his pace as he looked through the sky before stepping out into the sunlight, once more. Dawn quickly followed after him and stuck close as loose gravel gave way to grass and dirt beneath their hooves. As they entered the plains once more, Dawn took the lead and paused. "The key to finding a warren is not to stomp through the field looking for a hole, but to wait for the rabbits to come out." Dawn explained as she stood, motionless, at the edge of the field. "If the rabbits hear you stomping around up top, they won't come out for a long time. But, if they think the coast is clear, they'll be cautious and peek their ears out from any hole to make sure it's safe for them to come out." "And then we see just how many exits they have." Oort realized with an impressed, understanding nod. "Exactly." Dawn continued. "Then, it's just a matter of quietly plugging up some holes and having someone ready to chase the rabbit as it comes out of the only exit it has left." The pair sat in silence for many minutes, and Oort fought off the cries from his body to stretch his muscles as he, too, remained motionless; eyes scanning the field looking for any signs of movement among the swaying grass in the gentle breeze. "There." Dawn whispered, breaking his concentration and motioning with her snout. Oort followed the line and saw grass part quickly as a rabbit appeared in the distance, cautiously sniffing the air. Oort soon spotted another, a shorter distance away, and motioned for Dawn. Soon, they had mentally marked four holes and Dawn spoke once more. "Now we have to be very careful." she explained. "If the rabbits sense danger, they'll run back into their holes. But if they think they're being hunted, they'll scatter." "We need to act like we're just walking through." Oort agreed. With a little nod, the pair split up and calmly paced through the field as though they were taking a relaxing waltz through nature; startling the rabbits from a distance, who paused to assess the pegasi before scampering back into their home. When the field was clear, Dawn and Oort signaled to each other and the pair began independently filling the twin holes they had found, leaving only one entrance and one exit. When they had finished, Oort stood behind one hole facing the river, ready to give chase once a rabbit fled, and Dawn stood at the other, taking a deep breath before pushing her snout into the dirt and letting out a terrifying scream that bellowed from Oort's hole and sent a shiver under his coat. The next instant, the pitter-patter of soft scampering announced itself to Oort and soon a group of rabbits burst from the hole and fled in different directions. As Oort took off after a pair, Dawning Amity joined him in the corralling of their meal, and soon the pair of rabbits crashed into the deep river with Oort diving in after them. Dawn watched Oort's rippling image beneath the current with interest as he thrashed and caught both rabbits in his jaw, struggling to keep them in his grasp as they drowned. After a few more moments, Oort broke the surface and clambered onto the shore, shaking his soaking coat before proudly announcing to Dawn with a mouth full of rabbit: "Iff goff femm!" Dawn smiled at the display and soon began to snicker, with Oort joining in after he had dropped the dead rabbits at his hooves. "The great rabbit hunter, Oort; scourge of the plains!" Dawn teased as the blue pegasus playfully posed in triumph. "Indeed, a remarkable strategy." a deep, calm voice sounded, causing the pegasi to turn their heads in fear as their eyes fell upon a massive, light-purple and green scaled beast calmly laying on the opposite bank of the river, blending in among the trees. "It's been quite a long time since I saw ponies working together towards a common goal." Dawn's body screamed at her to run, but her mind remained calm as her eyes locked with the creature's gentle, green eyes. She could sense Oort's body tensing next to her, but he remained at her side despite fear radiating through his coat. The creature remained motionless, as well, staring at Dawn in silence until he offered his voice once more: "I assure you, I'm not one of Discord's monsters or the Lord of Chaos himself; were I, we wouldn't be having this conversation." "W-What are you?" Oort bravely choked out as his voice found itself back in his throat. "A long time ago," the creature explained. "my kind lived in the farthest reaches of the world. Today, I suppose there hasn't been a dragon sighting in well over a millennium. You may call me Spike." "A-A dragon?" Oort stuttered, quizzically. "Yes." Spike replied. "Magnificent, massive reptiles who soar through the skies spewing magic from their mouths. Or, at least we once were. I appear to be the last of my kind, and I haven't spread these useless flaps in centuries." Spike idly twitched his massive wings as he referred to them before resting his gaze once more on the golden mare, seeming to focus on something beyond her before she finally managed to stop shaking. "You won't try to eat us?" Dawn asked. "Of course not." Spike chuckled. "I prefer to clean up Discord's monsters; besides, pony meat is far too stringy for my tastes." Dawning Amity was put off by his final comment, and moved to shy away from the dragon before Spike smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, just a little dragon humor to lighten the mood. You two seem far too tense." "Well, we're talking with a thing that looks ready to pounce on us if we turn our backs on it, and we're out here in the open where a Grycordria could spot us!" Dawn defended, causing Spike's smile to fade into a frown before he stood up and tilted his head towards the sky, letting loose a massive jet of flame that roared through the sky and sent all nearby creatures scurrying for safety as he opened his mouth. When he had finished, he settled back into his spot before speaking: "No creature would dare approach, now. Please, stay a while; it's... comforting to have someone to talk to, for once. I can even cook your food for you." Spike offered, sensing their hesitation. Silently, Oort and Dawn both weighed their options and ultimately agreed that settling down for the time being was in their best interests, if for nothing more than keeping a dragon from eating them whole. With trepidation, Oort cautiously brought the two rabbits before the massive creature and hurriedly stepped to the side as a much smaller jet of flame spurt out across the rabbits for a few minutes before subsiding, leaving hairless chunks of brown, cooked meat which Oort quickly scooped up before hurrying back to Dawning Amity, wincing in pain as he held the hot meals in his wings. "How old are you two?" Spike asked with interest in his voice as he watched the ponies ravenously devour their food. Dawn paused after her initial bite to answer: "Seventeen or eighteen marks, I think. Hard to tell when Discord comes and changes the seasons." Oort nodded as he chewed his food before swallowing with a loud gulp. "Between seventeen and nineteen marks, definitely. How old are you?" Spike chuckled once more. "You would not believe me if I told you." he explained, and neither Dawn nor Oort pressed the question further. "What are you doing here?" Oort asked, causing Spike's gentle green eyes to cloud as he focused on incorporeal memories of times since passed. "I was born close to here." he finally admitted. "And I lived in a homely little town that used to stand where you now sit. Every once in a while I grow homesick." "There used to be a town here?" Dawn asked. "Like, lots of ponies all living together?" "Over a thousand ponies lived in Ponyville." Spike nodded. "It was home to six of the greatest minds of the Golden Age." "Who were they?" Dawn asked, entranced. Spike shrugged slightly and sighed, sadly. "I have forgotten most of their names with time, but I still know two of them: a unicorn named Rarity, and another unicorn named Twilight Sparkle. They were the bearers of the Elements of Harmony."