The sinister shriek echoed through the devastated forest. Tread Lightly felt beads of sweat forming across her brow, the purple mare unsure what to do or how to proceed. Marigold had gotten up and bolted to the nearest rock formation putting it between herself and the direction of the powerful eagle shrieks. The forest itself had grown quiet. Even the breeze had stopped. The leaves didn't move, there was no insects chirping, no birds uttering a noise, or any animals that dared to move it seemed much less utter a sound.
Tread Lightly decided to take one step forward. She moved her hoof slowly, lifting it deliberatly and watching from the direction of the sound of what they all assumed to be a great beast. She moved agonizingly slowly. Messer Schmitt flapped his wings slowly, gliding down to the ground as he watched the step. He was prepared to dive right at Tread Lightly and tackler her. His muscles were tensed and he could feel the electricity in the air. It was almost palpable at his pegasi senses that told him any second now there would be a strike of pure energy into the ground. A strike that would pack a lethal amount of electricity if it built up any greater. Tread Lightly's hoof met the ground with a soft pat and a gentle dispersal of the dry surface dust as it sank into the wet earth below the surface of the road.
Nothing happened. The tension in the air remained and not a moment went by that the trio did not expect Tread Lightly to sudden collapse from a bolt of pure death raining from the sky. The purple mare steeled herself and snorted, she took another step. Then another, each one determined, each one deliberate; as though challenging a bull to charge. She narrowed her eyes and growled. This was what was expected to be seen just before two armies started to scream and charge towards each other. Yet step after step and nothing challenged her. Morning Marigold felt she could peek up and walked out from behind the rock.
“Tread, are you sure that is a good idea? Shouldn't we adhere to your namesake right now?” Marigold said, her lips trembling as she looked up to the sky to see if something was brewing. She felt a tingle inside her horn as magic coalesced. She looked down the road, then into the depths of the forest. Her teeth started to chatter and then stopped when her hoof forced them to. The tension could be tasted much less felt.
Yet the quiet continued. Tread Lightly turned her head and smirked, “If I obeyed my own namesake, we wouldn't have had half of the crazy adventures nor a quarter of my discoveries.” She stated rather boldly with her head turned. As she turned her head back, to meet Marigold's eyes and spoke the words; the tree tops exploded outward.
There was a deafening shriek that forced all three to cover their ears. Messer dove and tackled Tread Lightly away from the path as his instincts kicked in. He felt it just two seconds before the bolt of lightning had discharged. Messer looked up from where the two of them had landed, seeing a bolt of energy sunder the ground where Tread had been a second before, leaving a crater the size of a trader’s wagon behind.
Debris rained down as mud and dirt was thrown high into the air. The pieces of rock and dirt where charred black as night. While in others it had flash solidified into rock. Marigold's vision went pure white as she had been looking where Tread Lightly had been just seconds ago, the bolt of energy overloading her retinas for a moment. She tried to scream only for her voice to let out a near inaudible squeak. The green mare fled in terror completely blind. She almost instantly tumbled into a ditch on the side of the road and decided to just stay there taking cover.
Messer held onto Tread Lightly like he was holding something precious as they slammed into the ground beside the road. He clung to her as though she would float away if he loosened his grip at all. She took a moment to recover having had her air driven out by the rough dive bomb of the pegasus. With what little air she had left she looked up at the stallion on top of her. “Air.....Messer.....I...Need...Breathe...” She managed through his strangle hold. He looked down and blushed till his orange fur was looking much more red than orange.
“Sorry....” he said in a very meek voice and quickly bolted off of the mare to stood upright next to her. He quickly scanned the trees for threats or whatever had made the shriek.
The smell of burning dirt and gravel hit their noses and made each of their stomachs churn. It was worse than a cesspool and there was no way to describe what it smelled like except perhaps an outhouse on fire. They looked to the sky where the treeline had burst into splinters and saw nothing. Whatever had caused the shrieks and eruption of the trees had left. Marigold was hyperventilating rapidly. Lightning was the one scariest thing in all of Equestria to her. This was her worst nightmare come to life. Her uneasy legs gave out the moment she tried to stand. She shut her eyes tight, so tight that they looked like they may not even exist under her eyelids.
Tread Lightly ran forward to her as soon as she saw the collapse of her dearest and only friend. The purple mare moving at a speed that even Messer was stunned by. 'Earth Ponies were strong not fast right? How could she go so quickly?' He thought to himself and then realize that Marigold had hit the ground and followed suit arriving to her side only a few seconds after Tread Lightly. Tread did the one thing he would have never guessed would help a pony in trouble. She smacked Marigold across the face with a harsh hoof.
“Snap out of it! We're fine! Get yourself together girl!” She shouted at the top of her lungs as Marigold's hyperventilating came to a halt. She let out a breath, deeply inhaling before exhaling all her air from her lungs. She collected herself as Messer stared, his mouth agape in disbelief that someone had just slapped Marigold so hard that her jaw looked bruised and Tread Lightly acted like that was suppose to help. He was wincing as he expected shouting and yelling to follow.
Marigold however, slowly opened her eyes. Her vision was still blurry but had started to return. The mare's breathing relaxed and a single tear rolled down her cheek. She slowly turned her quivering lips and trembling features into a lighter smile. “I'm fine...thank you Tread.” She said in a very even, emotionless voice. Her mind starting to recover from the shock of what was a moment ago Tread Lightly being incinerated by a strike from the heavens.
Tread Lightly was focused upon the task at hand and she worried about her friend. It hadn't even dawned on her that without Messer's instincts, senses, and quick reactions; she would likely be dead now. She looked at her friend and rubbed the cheek where she had slapped her; it eased the pain of the bruise and made her reassured that Marigold was okay. Marigold looked at Tread Lightly as they stared into each other's eyes. Like two friends who hadn't seen each other for a long time and presumed the other had been lost the annuls of death.
The green mare with her shakingleaped forward, her entire body quivering from the tip of her horn to the side of her flank where her crystallized marigold cutie mark was. She burst into tears and clung to Tread Lightly tightly for support. The sobbing the only audible sound other than the breeze blowing by as the tension in the air seemed to flee and release with the bolt of energy dissipating.
Messer walked up to Tread Lightly and looked at her quizzically after a moment he spoke, “Why lightning?” he asked as he placed a hoof onto Marigold's back and gently pat her there to calm the mare and cause her to let out all the fear. He was doing his best to bring the near hysterical mare back to ground level.
“It's a long story Messer,” Tread Lightly started to explain over the sobbing, “But You'll have to let Marigold here share that one, when she is ready. In the mean time, let's try to get her calmed down and move on before whatever that was decides I wasn't threatening enough.” Tread Lightly replied. Her response got less full of emotion and more cold the longer she spoke, almost mechanical. Tread Lightly stroked her friend's mane and sighed as the sobbing slowed and the crying eased into the slow shredding of tears. The mare let out a breathe of relief and sighed, “I've got you little foal.” She whispered in Marigold's ear, like you would expect to a bigger sister.
Morning Marigold pulled back from Tread Lightly's shoulder and got down onto her own hooves. She wasn't shaky anymore and had managed to recover herself enough to stand. “I'll...be okay. You're right we should get a move on.” She said and took a step forward, moving cautiously to get away from the cart sized crater and march down the road, her pace increasing to a near full on gallop as other the ponies moved to catch up. This was easy for Messer because he simply flew ahead and land in front of Marigold. He looked at her sternly and made her come to a stop.
Tread Lightly caught up to the two of them and placed a hoof onto Marigold's flank, “It's okay, we can walk dear, we will make it just fine.” Tread Lightly said soothingly to her friend. Marigold took a breath and nodded. The three started to walk down the path, Tread Lightly deliberately pacing them slower than a trot to try to make Marigold relax.
As the lightning strike mark upon the road got out of their line of sight she looked to Messer, “Have you ever seen anything like that?” she asked him as she was curious now just how powerful that bolt had been to create the destruction it had made. By now they were far enough along that the forest here had managed to heal or not have been assaulted by the storm.
Messer Schmitt placed his hoof up to his chin and thought about it for a while. He wasn't sure himself how such a bolt of lightning should have formed. After a few moments he turned to Marigold and asked, “Did you sense anything magical in the air?” Messer said as he looked at Marigold whom was hanging her head to avoid eye contact.
She looked up and around, with an expression asking 'were you talking to me?' written all over her features. She thought back to that moment just before the electricity had reigned down a destructive roar of deadly intent and then it ran through her like a shock to her system, “Yes! I felt it. It wasn't Unicorn magic but definitely something magical was in the air,” she replied as her thoughts gathered. She was certain what she had felt in her rush of fear and flight instincts.
Tread Lightly paused mid stride as she heard this and turned her head, “Then let's keep putting distance between us and where we camped. Hopefully whatever it was, we're out of its territory and into Luna Bay by nightfall,” she declared. The trio agreed and picked up the pace. It was a grueling demanding pace that left them breathing hard as they made their way off the road and onto a path that looked like it needed more travelers to keep itself from being over run with vegetation. At spots only Tread Lightly could see the way forward and the other ponies had to just follow and assume she was going the right way.
Messer felt something ice cold and soaking wet plop down onto his head. He let out a yelp of surprise and then as he jumped he saw the ball of white fluff and dripping water cascade to the ground. The two mares turned and saw it was a clump of snow that fallen from a hidden nook in the trees above. Their shock quickly turned to laughter as they looked at him. Humor was needed for the trio to simply stop feeling like a bolt of death would fall from the sky at any second and made them realize that even in the face of near life ending experiences, they should remember to laugh.
Messer took a moment and looked at the two mares who had collapsed onto their backs and laughing as hard as they possibly could. He grinned, started to chuckle and then busted into laughter himself. If snow was falling from the trees they had made it much further north than he thought. It was also truly funny to him that a tree had just started and won a snowball fight in one shot.
Tread Lightly started to recover and through the trees saw something sparkle. It took a moment as she adjusted the lenses in her monocles, her eyes behind the new set were huge to ponies looking at her. She pushed the regular ones back in with a click and bolted forward, “Come on, hurry.” the mare called back to the two of them.
Messer and Marigold, finished laughing and rushed to catch up to their friend. Here as they broke through the tree line, each of their hooves hit piles of white fluff from the clouds. The snow crushed underneath and before them they saw the most beautiful sight of the entire day. Their eyes beheld was a snow covered beach and the rolling tides of Luna Bay.