She marches on.
She marches on.
She marches… settles down. She’s been first trotting, then walking, for far too long. Her legs are worn out, and she needs to rest. Fortunately, she’s found a particularly dense patch of the woods; closing off the gaps to make a quick shelter takes only a simple spell. Here, she rests.
For hours she rests. Until her muscles are restored. She’ll have to forage for food sometime- but she’s made it this far, she feels certain she can make it the rest.
She rises swiftly, shatters her shelter, and marches on. Food will be easy- she can think of a few different spells she can use to tell what’s safe to eat and what’s not. Besides, she’d eaten a decent meal before the celebration; she’s not quite hungry just yet. Either that or she’s not noticing it again.
She enters a small valley. The cliffs on either side are wide; she’ll have to detour at least a half a mile to the side to be able to climb them, and it doesn’t look like a long valley. She decides to keep an eye on the rock above as she passes through, in case of a rockslide like earlier, and canters forwards.
Only- what was that roar? Something is in the mist, directly ahead, in the middle of the canyon. She squints her eyes, casting a gentle dispersion spell on the mist.
It’s a Manticore, and it’s charging towards her. She readies her shield spell, and perhaps an attack; mostly, she plans to dodge it and slip past.
Wait! Why is it limping in its advance? Every time that paw comes down, it’s flinching and raising it back up, interrupting its gallop. She’s still a good five bounds away from it- so she casts a quick scanning spell, focusing on that paw.
A… something. The visual she gets back is of a thorn, though it’s much too large to be a natural thorn- and the thaumic signature is something very different. She directs her attack spell at this, even as she dodges the creature’s final bound and darts back the way it had come, glancing behind to make sure she doesn’t need a shield. She also glances upwards as she passes through the short valley; no rocks fall. Once she gets around a bend and into the woods once again, she slows to a walk and dodges behind a tree. Here, she listens for the manticore’s approach. Nothing. She glances back around the tree. Nothing her map hadn’t already recorded.
She nods to herself, emerging from behind the tree, and continues on her journey. She’s halfway there.
Trees. That’s her next opponent? Really?
She rolls her eyes at the scary faces somepony carved into them. Is somepony really trying to scare her with trees?
She walks on. The faces get “scarier”.
She almost laughs at it. Somepony- or, something- really is trying to scare her with trees. No- she actually laughs at it. Why would the image of a carved tree scare her-!
She yelps, jumping a full foot into the air when one of the “scary” faces disappears in a flash of light… in response to her laugh. So, she steps closer to another tree, and tries again.
“Ha. Ha-Aaah!” It vanished too.
She looks around. Somepony is trying to scare her with silly laugh-triggered disappearing toothed faces carved into trees… It’s so ludicrous she can’t help but start laughing again- and this time, the disappearing faces only serve to boost her laughter, rather than frighten her. Shortly, every tree in sight is normal. She trots forwards- and finds that the rest of them seem to be normal as well… Darn, she was looking forward to laughing at these trees for the rest of the trip. She trots on.
She’s starting to get hungry now. But she’s come three quarters of the way already. She can hold out until she finds the Elements- then satiate her hunger. Her journey has been fairly direct- but she’s not entirely certain when she’ll run into the river.
Speaking of the river, she realizes she’s found it, as she rounds this tree. The river is raging; she won’t be able to safely cross it. Unless… She pauses at the riverbank, staring blankly at the rapids while she processes her surroundings, captured by another quick glance around and recorded by her map spell. She sever that tree at the base, sharpen the tip and pierce it into the riverbank… Those trees over there would do the same, for the other three posts… These two trees could form the rails, this tree’s branches could become the planking… The bridge comes together in her mind’s eye. It’d take some effort to build, not to mention a little bit of time, but she could do it… Wait. Is that crying she hears?
“... just horrid!”
Her head snaps up, searching for the source- and she realizes there’s a sea serpent complaining about… something. There, she realizes, is the cause of the rapids… And, possibly, willing assistance across the river. She trots towards… Him? Her? She’s not sure. “Hello?”
“... Now I- AAgh! Oh, sorry! I’m just looking absolutely terrible right now!”
She blinks. Looks? Ought to be pretty easy… Unless he wants something more permanent. But she can manage some of those, too. “What happened?” she asks.
“Oh, I was just minding my own business here a minute ago when this wisp of purple smoke came along and tore off half of my beautiful mustache!” He points at the severed side of his strange mustache.
True to his words, she can see it’s been cropped much shorter than the other side- and not very cleanly. Mane growth? That’s easy! Trimming it to match the other side might be harder- but it’ll still be easy, even without shears of any kind. “Ahh… I could help with that, actually.”
“... absolutely- wait, what?”
“I can help with that. I know a spell for mane growth; localizing it to the damaged mustache will be a piece o’ cake. Trimming it to match the existing side will be the hard part- but even that will be easy.”
The rapids die down somewhat. “Really? Oh, thank you!”
“You’re welcome. You will have to hold still for it to work, though.”
Shortly, the right side of the serpent’s moustache matches the left once again, and the rapids die away completely.
“Oh, thank you soooo much! I’m Steven Magnet, by the way- what’s your name?”
She bows her head slightly towards him. “Twilight Sparkle, at your service.”
For this, she earns jovial laughter. “So, what brings you to these parts? It’s not often I see a pony this deep in the woods.”
At this, Twilight smiles. “I’m journeying to the Castle of the Two Sisters, actually, to recover the Elements of Harmony.”
“Oh? Then you’ll be headed across my river, right?”
“Uh, yes, right.”
“Allow me, then.” He then makes a bridge out of his body, gesturing for her to cross. Which she does.
“Thank you,” she tells him, once she hits dry land on the other side.
“Oh, no problem. Oh- if you head about a half-mile thataway, you’ll find the path to the Castle.” He indicates a direction, roughly forty-five degrees off from her original heading.
She looks that way, her map spell cataloging the approximate location he’s indicating for her. “Thank you,” she informs him again.
“You’re welcome- and safe travels!” He waves, and disappears back into the river.
She travels on.
The pathway turns out to be exactly five elevenths of a mile away, on that heading. Close enough; she turns to follow it to the castle.