//------------------------------// // Pouring // Story: The Olden World // by Czar_Yoshi //------------------------------// All around Starlight, it was raining. By some miracle, she wasn't presently wet. Instead, she lay in her crate, turned on its side on the sloped riverbank as an open-air shelter, hoping the wind wouldn't decide to change. For the moment, the air was still, allowing the water to drum down in perfectly vertical shafts, intermixing blackness with streaks of slightly more blackness. Starlight huddled, her almost-dry coat wrapped in her almost-dry blanket in a combination that proved warmer than doing otherwise. Her horn still throbbed, though it was beginning to fade back to the state of controlled senselessness where it made a pact with its owner that they would mutually leave each other alone. She could live with that. She had to. So long as her luck didn't turn foul, it wouldn't kill her... and her luck had been surprisingly good, so far. The rain hadn't snuck up on her. She had been fully alert for it, in between attempts to shut out the world and pass time through unconsciousness. She had seen the stars disappear, swallowed by the mouthful, as clouds rolled down from the mountains and blotted them out above. She had also realized, then and there, that she possessed no method of steering or propelling her boat. Drifting helplessly in the middle of the stream, it had been by pure fortune that her craft had washed ashore before the rains started. Now that she was there, she had no intention of returning to the water without some sort of safeguard. But finding a method of propulsion would have to wait. At present, she could do nothing but lay and wait, feeling as friction prevented her from sliding out of the downhill-facing opening. If the wind picked up, threatening to drive the rain in at her, she'd just tip the box over all the way and lay on the wet sand. Every once in a while, her roof dripped. She took each drop with a grain of displeasure; they meant her boat wasn't waterproof. Oh well. There was nothing she could do about that now. There was nothing she could do about anything. Eyes closed and head raised, Starlight waited for the rains to pass, and didn't care whether she did so by sleeping or not. Eventually, she was met with success. A gleam of morning sun pierced the trees; the first she had properly seen since embarking on her journey. In the mountains, dawn had long left the sky by the time the sun reached her. Here, it was instantaneous, and she reveled in its light. The rain stopped shortly after, and Starlight crawled out to explore. The first thing she saw was the state of her boat, and it made her lip curl with displeasure. The thing was peeling. Her wonderful, hard-spread tree sap was all coming off, a flimsy, brittle sheet hanging from the tightly-spaced boards like a scab waiting to be picked. That must have been why it was dripping. Why hadn't it worked? Stomping in frustration, the filly turned and ignored her craft, climbing further up the riverbank to reach the vegetation. She was growing hungry, and needed to find food. Clambering her way through the vertical, rocky spires that the terrain devolved into, Starlight struggled to keep her fur from brushing against too many wet surfaces, trying to reach the wall of green that peeked through. Her head came within reach of a plant, and she bit down... immediately spitting it out. Bitter! She didn't know for sure, but felt that a good rule was that if something didn't taste good, it wasn't meant to be eaten. It certainly wouldn't do to eat the wrong kind of plant and make herself sick. She bit back a sneeze, nearly falling flat from the motion. That wasn't something she was eager to see back. Waiting a bit to ensure her lungs wouldn't rebel again, Starlight returned to poking around for plants. Bitter... spicy... too hard to bite into. She gave up entirely when something stung her tongue, the underside of the leaf apparently covered in prickly spikes. Whimpering lightly, Starlight held her mouth closed and returned to her boat, soothing herself with a drink. It only served to remind her of her increasing hunger. She had to press on. But to do that, she needed a paddle. Casting around on the rocky beach, she eventually found a moderately long, flat piece of wood wedged under a boulder, and freed it with a couple of strong tugs. Experimentally, she swished it through the river several times, and found it to hold. It would do. Returning her things to her box, Starlight pushed it upright and shoved it back into the stream, running and jumping to get in at the last moment. Quickly, she was back to drifting, her destination an unknown number of miles away. Starlight sighed. She was beginning to feel exhaustion weighting on her eyelids, but some part of her body refused to let her sleep. It was as if the survival instinct that had taken her over and kept her shield up in the cave river simply never let go, and she was now beholden to a force that told her she had to stay awake or die. She hoped that wasn't the case. If it was, she was likely a lot more tired than she felt. And now that she was beginning to feel tired... How long had she been awake for? She couldn't tell if she had slept after going down the falls. That had been the previous evening. Probably. And before that, she had been up all day... had that been the day she went to the canyon and returned to Sosa's camp? The day she built her boat? No, there had been a night in there somewhere. Hadn't there? She couldn't remember. Apparently, her body had decided that memory wasn't a critical aspect of survival. In her worn-out state, she had to agree with it. The only thing that mattered was staying fed, staying dry, and reaching the source of that smoke. She stood up, clutching her paddle resolutely, deciding to test if it could really move her or make her go faster. Many hours later, with the sun lowering in the western sky, she had determined that it didn't. In fact, the thing was useless for anything more than making her spin in circles. That was a problem, because the clouds were returning. Gulping and staring upwards, Starlight continued to desperately waggle the thing, hoping it would push her to shore. She could see the rain itself, a dismal wall of gray haziness that perfectly hugged the bottom of the advancing cloud front. How much longer did she have? Not long at all. The edge of the cloud covered her, and suddenly there was mist. Her ears registered the hiss of water pouring into water, and her exposed head told her that the mist was already turning to droplets. She was out of time. Thinking fast, Starlight pulled on her blanket, untangling herself from the article. Propping her paddle up like a pole in the middle of the crate, she strung the blanket on top, wrapping it around all four sides like the canopy to a tent. She could no longer see where she was going, and it wasn't very waterproof, but maybe it would help. As the air darkened around her, Starlight huddled against the pole, standing slightly to avoid the leakwater already pooled in the bottom of the crate. She would just have to hope the cover didn't blow off... and that there would be warmth and dryness waiting for her at the end.