//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Once More Unto the Birch // Story: Carrot and Stick // by Tumbleweed //------------------------------// “You know, this explains a lot.” With the sun still out, the Everfree Forest was only vaguely foreboding, as opposed to outright terrifying. Even still, the canopy was thick, and the shadows were deep. Every so often, a bird would chirp, its cheery song entirely out of place in one of the wildest, most dangerous stretches of Equestria. “What does?” Carrot Top didn't bother looking back at me as she pressed through the forest. “You spending so much time here as a little filly.” I cringed a little as something insectoid and likely venomous scrabbled across the path ahead of me. “No doubt wrestling owlbears and manticores and the like. It's no wonder you turned out like you did.” “Like I did?” Carrot Top stopped in her tracks, and looked over her shoulder at me with a familiar annoyed expression. “What's that supposed to mean?” “Oh, you know. Headstrong. Independent.” I gestured aimlessly with one hoof, even as I stepped back out of easy kicking distance. “Terrifying?” “The Everfree Forest isn't as bad as ponies say.” Carrot Top neatly stepped over a gnarled root, and then started making her way down a steep incline. “... and neither am I.” “I've seen what you can do.” “What I do isn't what I am.” Carrot Top said. She sounded decisive, until she added on: “Isn't it?” “Beg pardon?” “I ... I just keep my work and my personal life separate, that's all.” “Very separate.” I said, deadpan. “Or else I wouldn't be here to begin with.” “You know what the worst part is?” Carrot Top gave a brief, mirthless laugh. “Most ponies either know me as Carrot Top, or Special Agent Golden Harvest. Either just another pony in the background ... or one of the lucky few who stands between Equestria and total disaster.” “And?” “And you're one of the few ponies I can name who's seen me as both.” She shook her head, and then picked up her pace, passing through a copse of white-barked trees. “I don't know why I'm even telling you this.” “To be fair, neither do I.” “Do you ever shut up?” “Not often, no. I think it's a coping mechanism to distract myself from the fact that I'm being led deeper and deeper into a monster-infested wilderness.” Carrot Top pressed on. “The reason ponies are afraid of this forest is because it's ... wild. We've been conditioned our entire lives to accept ... to expect control. Earth pony farms feed us. Cloudsdale's weather factories produce the rain for the farms. Princess Celestia controls the sun.” Carrot Top sighed, and looked out into the untrammeled wilderness that stretched out before us. “And that's just what ponies know about. Princess Twilight Sparkle finds a new eldritch horror to blow up every six months or so. And then that's easy compared to what ponies like me have to do ... “ Carrot Top shook her head. “So a place like this, where things just ... happen? That's unique.” “I think I see your point, but the things that just 'happen' usually involve ponies being eaten by large and irate apex predators.” “It's not the big monsters you've got to worry about. For something as big as a hydra or a dragon, a single pony wouldn't be satisfying at all, so they don't bother. It'd be like eating a single potato chip. One bite, and it's gone, and you're still hungry.” I shuddered, suddenly envisioning myself at the bottom of a foil-lined bag. “That's ... not exactly reassuring, you know.” “It should be. Most things in the Everfree Forest that'll try to eat you will be pony sized, or even smaller. Which means you can fight them if you know what you're doing. And I know what I'm doing.” “Not all of us are masters of hoof to hoof combat, you know.” “And not all of us are as good at running away as you are.” Carrot Top rolled her eyes, and started working her way down a steep incline, down into a creek. She tromped through the mud at the bottom, uncaring of the brownish splatters that soon covered her hooves and legs. Not wanting to get bogged down myself, I took to the air, following along at an easy glide. Carrot Top turned back to say something else to me-- only to have her eyes widen in sudden shock. “What are you doing!?” “Keeping clean, that's all. No sense in-- AH!” My excuses were cut short as Carrot Top siezed me by the front legs and dragged me down to the ground. We tumbled over each other, thoroughly coating ourselves in the warm, sticky mud. I spit and sputtered, flapping my wings in indignation, but Carrot Top kept me pinned. Bowled over as we were, I found myself nose to nose with the filly, staring into a pair of eyes that were even greener than the forest canopy above. “Er.” I blurted, for lack of anything better. Carrot Top shook her head and leaned back, prodding me in the center of the chest. “It's a bad idea to fly this deep in the forest. It gets ... their attention.” Her eyes flicked upward, searching and paranoid. “Whose attention?” “You really, really don't want to know. Just don't fly, and you'll be alright.” “Ah. Right.” I laid there in the mud for a few moments longer, and then braved a few more words. “Are we just going to lay here like this or ... “ Carrot Top's eyes went wide in shock, only to narrow in a now-familiar expression of annoyance. Still, she rolled off of me, and shook herself like a dog, sending a couple quarts worth of mud flying in all directions. “We're wasting time. We've got to find--” A shrill scream echoed from deeper in the forest. “Muffin!” Carrot Top said, and took off at a gallop. I scrambled to my feet and followed. Charging towards the source of the screaming made my guts twist uneasily, but I knew the alternative of just standing around alone in the Everfree Forest was even worse. Every couple of steps I stumbled over some rock or root-- in contrast, Carrot Top cleared every obstacle with an acrobat's grace. It got to the point where I was so focused on keeping my eyes on the trail that I didn't notice when Carrot Top skidded to a full stop. I careened into her flank, at which point she did some sort of kung-fu pirouette, using my momentum against me to fling me onto the ground. The impact forced the air from my lungs, and Carrot Top had a hoof to my lips before I could so much as give a girlish whimper. “Quiet.” She hissed. I nodded, for lack of anything better to do. Carrot Top let me stand up again, and then crouched low, pulling me down to do the same. She pointed silently from our hiding place-- where, sure enough, there was her sister Muffin, along with a burly, white-maned colt: Rock Bottom, to judge by his boulder cutie mark. The young couple huddled together in the center of a forest clearing. Which would have been fine ... if it weren't for the things lurking in the trees surrounding them. They looked like lumps of matted, greyish-black fur, hunched in the shadow of the canopy. Every so often the glint of beady eyes or yellowed teeth flashed through the forest darkness. The horrid creatures chittered and gibbered amongst themselves, as if discussing the best way to eat the two ponies they had trapped. “What are those?” I whispered, shocked. “The reason I told you not to fly.” Carrot Top didn't take her eyes off her sister. “Further detail might be helpful.” “Those--” Carrot Top said, frowning, “are winged baboons.[1] Pack predators. They like to ... play with their food.” As if to prove her point, one of the horrid creatures reared back and threw a stick. Rock Bottom took the hit on his shoulder, and winced. [1] Winged baboons (not to be confused with Harpies), are one of the more unique species to be found within the Everfree Forest. Fierce and territorial, they are known for recklessly attacking any flying creature that intrudes upon their airspace. Like bugbears, manticores, and cockatrices, they are a combination of taxanomically disparate species. This amalgamation of mammalian and birdlike features remains a puzzle to many biologists. The prevailing theory is that these strange combination-creatures are in fact remnants from one of the chaos-god Discord's early rampages. Certain radical scientists do note, however, the similarity between pegasus wings and the anatomy of other avian mammals such as the winged baboon, but such theorizing is well outside my area of expertise. I'm a historian, not an evolutionary biologist. “The good news is, they're not in a feeding frenzy yet. I'll hit them hard, and distract them long enough for you to lead those two out the way you came.” “That's a terrible plan.” I said. “Unless you've forgotten that you're the one who spent her childhood in this death trap, not me? How am I supposed to lead those two out of here?” “Muffin will know the way out.” “Uh-huh.” I said, skeptical. “Look, it's the only plan we've got. It's not like you can fight those things.” “I don't have to.” I said, even as an inexplicably mad plan began to form in my head. “I just have to distract them. You said those things hate other things that fly, right?” I stretched my wings out, preparing for the mayhem to come. “I'll just break through the canopy and make for open sky-- I'm no wonderbolt, but I'm sure I can lose these things if I can make it to cloud cover.” “That's a terrible plan.” Carrot Top said. “So we're even.” I pulled in a deep breath, and stared at the two cowering ponies in the clearing, even as my heartbeat started pounding faster and faster in fearful anticipation. “But hey, if there's anything a coward like me is good at, it's running away, right?” My voice cracked, if just a little. “Why are you doing this?” “I honestly have no idea.” “I-- You-- Dammit-- Fine.” Carrot Top went through a whole debate in the span of a breath. And then, without so much as a word of warning, she seized me around the neck. I braced myself for the inevitable twirling of the world that came right after one of Carrot Top's martial arts maneuvers. Which made the sudden feel of soft, hungry lips on mine all the more shocking. “What was that?” I gasped for breath, feeling myself suddenly blushing like a schoolboy. (Then again, that might've just been the impending mortal terror getting my pulse racing). “I honestly have no idea.” Carrot Top sounded just as bewildered as I. “Now get moving, before I change my mind.” “Uh, right.” I said, for lack of anything better to say, and took to the air. I hardly made three wingstrokes before the baboons started howling and screeching, enraged to see something else flying in their territory. They leaped out of the trees and took to the air-- their mangy black wings just as matted and filthy as their fur. What was more concerning, however, was the bared teeth and fangs as they bore down on me like a swarm of airborne piranhas. Below me, Carrot Top dashed across the clearing, and started barking orders at Muffin and her paramour. The two stared at her, stupefied, but after a few more sailor-worthy invectives from Carrot Top, they took off running into the (relative) safety of the underbrush. Which left me on my own with a flock of murderous flying simians to contend with. So I fled. I've always been good at that. I burst through the canopy and into the sky above the everfree forest. The midday sun and clear skies nearly blinded me after trapsing through the shadows of the Everfree forest. I flew as fast as I could, but the baboons still snapped at my heels. I gritted my teeth against the pain, and fixed my eyes on a puffy white cloud some distance above me. Surely, I could take refuge in the thick cloud-- or, barring that, maybe even compress it into a thunderhead I could throw at them. Provided, of course, they didn't tear me to bits, first. I felt steely little fingers wrap around my ankle, and then the sting of sharp teeth sinking into my flesh. I squealed in both surprise and terror, and kicked wildly. The winged baboon wrapped around my leg tumbled back into the foliage below, and three more howling monstrosities rose to take its place. They overtook me in seconds, swarming around me in a storm of scratching claws and clacking fangs. I fought and flailed, keeping the baboons at a distance-- which just meant they made shallow little cuts in my hide, as opposed to ripping my throat out. We tumbled over each other, sending blood and feathers flying in all directions. One of the ugliest of the brutes popped up in front of me, closing its jaws mere inches from the end of my nose. I hit it with both front hooves, and bolted for open sky. Somehow, eventually, the flying baboons broke off their pursuit. I don't know if I outpaced them, or if my panicked flailing was enough to drive them off, or if they just didn't like the taste of me. Even still, I was free. I laughed the giddy laugh of the nearly eaten, and settled into a shaky glide. Through some little miracle of navigation, I pointed myself in the direction of the edge of the forest. Sure enough, I saw three familiar earth ponies dashing out of the treeline, and up along the road beyond. The cold wind made my dozens of cuts and small wounds sting, and I could steadily feel my adrenaline wearing off, and the pain setting in. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I pressed on, angling myself down towards the group. Wounded and exhausted, I did all that I could to keep myself from dropping out of the air like a rock. The ground raced up towards me, and Carrot Top yelled something alarmed (and likely obscene) when she realized I couldn't slow my descent. I hit Rock Bottom, and passed out.