The silly walk I had going was becoming more and more a pain in the neck as I continued to walk through the overgrowth of the Everfree. The cement shoes I was still sporting seeming to get heavier and heavier with every step.
“I’ve half a mind to cut these things off. I can just hop around on two stumps for the rest of my days. Maybe get peg pads to replace them so I wouldn’t be hopping on my sensitive, pearly skin… join a pirate gang… Captain Two Leg they’d call me!”
You’re not original
“I’m aware, I’ve stolen every joke I’ve ever told”
With the lack of reply I lapsed into a silent march again. I held tightly onto the shrubbery in my left hand, and kept a firm but not quite death grip on my sidearm. I may be lazy, and somewhat of an… academically challenged, individual, but dammit they trained me well in the corps.
Speaking of, I wonder how they’re all doing back there? I had an explosive entrance to this place after all. By Odin I’m a comedic genius. But I am genuinely concerned for the guys and gals back home. Speaking of home… how am I gonna get back… I don’t think I’ve put much thought into that since I got here, can I get back? Should I go back? That’s not a question, yes I should definitely go back. But I’ve put literally zero effort into making that happen.
What even are my priorities right now?!
It’s getting that shrubbery back to ponyville in one piece
“Thanks mate, I’d forgotten,” I dryly answered
As I stepped over a particularly large root, I heard a snap of a twig far off to my right. I had felt eyes on me the whole time, and it certainly wasn’t because of that snake chicken thing with the chocolates and the look of fire and vengeance in its eyes. Definitely not that.
I made a pointed look towards the sky
Hey man it’s not my fault
“It’s quite literally, entirely your fault.”
I feel attacked right now
“YOU are not that one with an angry whatever the skirt gunning for you at this very moment! Indeed I am the bucket of rusty nails being attacked right now!” I am killing it with keeping the swearing under control right now. Figured though, when nobody is around to witness my self control of legends. Swear to Thor soon as I see a kid something’s gonna happen and I’m gonna curse up a storm so bad It’ll make Katrina look like a light shower.
“The storm will be constant, awful, and weathering. Get it… because weather…” I muttered to myself
Have you considered standup?
I ignored the red menace as I continued. “Many a moon will go by without any sign of stopping. Many a sailor will be lost , and many a mystery will form out the terrifying and mystical nature that is… The Etrius Trapezoid!” I finished, dramatically waving my arms about. Probably shouldn't’ wave a gun around like that in the future.
Just try to avoid scarring children
“No can do,”
It was at this moment that other snake chicken thing
It’s called a cockatrice
Oh… well that makes things easier, if a little less fun. The cockatrice… that sounds French… like just a little. Is that just me? I hope it’s not just me.
You are going to die
“Well it’s about time,”
I stared the would be assassin in the eyes, as it hovered at eye level with it’s weird lizard wings. Maybe I could intimidate the little sucker so I didn’t have to shoot it. Or stab it… or slowly seduce it, and then three years into our marriage with another kid on the way, poison it’s nightly drink and make a daring, heartbroken escape into the night.
It was at this moment that I realized it wasn’t backing down, and in fact it was very difficult to move my legs to walk forward to intimidate it further. Impossible, in fact. That’s a damn shame… OH SWEET FREYA I’M BEING TURNED TO STONE!
I snapped my left arm up and squeezed the… stem? Wrong hand, woops.
“Tehe!” I giggled to myself, conking my helmet with the tip of my sidearm. I’m such a silly little billy at times like these.
I then felt something very important turn rock solid. And not in the good way.
I brought my right arm up, leveled it with the french chickens face, and pulled the trigger. With a flash and a bang, once again not in the fun way, the cockatrice took a dive, and thudded into the ground
“Well, that could have gone worse,” I mused “Could have gone a LOT better, but worse was also an option here…”
I tried to shimmy either of my legs but that wasn’t happening.
I sighed to myself, which was more of an undertaking that I would have liked it to be. You would not beleive how much this mask interfered with breathing. I mean, maybe you would, could in fact, it’s not that hard. Just imagine wearing a rubber mask that makes breathing hard but not impossible.
Regardless, I was stuck in quite the pickle, with no way out. And no possible salvation. With no devious trickster wannabe god lurking somewhere with all of the ability to get me the felt tip marker out of here.
all of the ability and yet none of the motivation. Let’s be real for a second here Etrius, you’ve been quite the bully to me lately. It’s left me emotionally compromised.
“I have not been a bully! You were yanking my chain this way and that. You effortlessly stole my goat, and at the very end of it all you gave my leg a good pull as well! You sent me on this… now that I think about it very random and seemingly pointless task in the first place! I think you can handle a snarky comment here and there.”
Got me there. But no I’m not helping. With this at least, maybe other stuff, depends on how I’m feelings. Or if that acid finally kicks in. Four years and it’s still lurking somewhere… waiting, watching, about to pounce.
“Well then we’ll both be bored until I die out here… whether that be by another forlorn lover, some other monster, starvation, or anything else really,”
OH that reminds me!
“What reminds you? Also what does it remind you of, and why do I get the distinct impression it involves me in a way I’m not going to like?”
When you said anything really, and don’t worry about. All will become clear. Everything is going according to my master plan within a plan.
I’m tempted to beleive he has no plan. Actually, I just kinda started using he a while ago didn’t I?
“What gender are you?”
Dunno. I’ve been using comic sans so far, so I’m some nondescript degenerate. Let’s change it to… Pacifico! There, now I’m a cool beach dude.
“But, dude, yes? Not dudette?”
You can call me Sally if it makes you happy. But yes I have the same thing as you between my legs. Only bigger.
Yeah cause you can apparently edit reality. It’s the motion of ocean anyways, not the size of the boat. And I, don’t need to cheat.
You should test that theory on a few ponies.
“I’m gonna not,”
Spoil sport, but let me attend to that thing you reminded me of before I get too wrapped up in this.
“Wait no! You didn’t tell me-”
Well it’s been real and it’s been fun, but I can’t say it’s been real fun!
“... what exactly it was…”
I gave a few more experimental, futile tugs at my legs before resigning to my fate. I drooped over like a wilted flower and began to contemplate my reality. Which sucks at the moment. I mean, not dead, yay, but also… not exactly pleasant. And what if death sent me to the pearly gates with topless babes at either side, ready to take care of me for all eternity in payment for all my good deeds.
Heck of a what if considering I beleive that Valhalla waits for me… don’t I?
What is up with my head lately. Death could have sent a great many theoretical things at me, and I suppose this isn’t literally Hel, so I can deal. At least it probably isn’t… I’m overthinking this.
After a great deal more of waiting, and silence, only being occasionally broke by small woodland critters or the sounds of leaves and wind, the sun eventually began to rise. The warm rays of sunny delight were like heaven upon my cold person, and I rose to meet the occasion.
It would be a double entendre, but seeing as I’m already hard as rock, it’s kinda redundant. As I lifted my torso to fully feel the glorious warmth upon me, I felt something in the small of back crick in a very not ok kinda way.
“OOOOOhhhhhhhh… That’s… probably fine. Nothing bad could come of being drooped over for like three hours and then suddenly jerking upright… nothing bad at all… Sweet Odin mah back!”
I’m certain I had a very strained look on my face as I placed a hand on my back, trying to straighten out whatever went wrong as I straightened myself out fully, getting a few more cracks and pops in response.
“...Eeeetriiuuuusss!...” Came a distant call
Oh yay the ponies are here to save me! Sounded like Rainbow Bright but it was kinda hard to tell at this distance.
I holstered my pistol and placed the shrubbery in an empty pouch so I could cup my hands together in an organic megaphone. “WWWHHHHAAAAAAAT!” I shouted back.
First there was nothing, and then WHACK! My neck nearly broke from the sudden force as a rainbow blur pimp smacked at the speed of bitch.
“OOOWWWW!” I shouted in response, holding a hand up to my face and quintuple checking to make sure there were no cracks in the glass. Swear to Odin the last thing I need right now is horny mares while I literally can’t run. But they can’t get into my pants now either… interesting predicament. Matter at hand though.
“Rainbow… What in the name my armored angels from above was that for!”
The Cyan pegasus swiveled around to face me, wings flapping quickly in anger and face flushed with frustration. She hovered up to be eye to eye with me and poked me in the chest while speaking.
“What the heck were you thinking! Leaving in the middle of the night to go on an adventure! Without me! In the Everfree! Without me! Making everyone think you had up and left! But most importantly you did all this without telling ME!”
“I’ve a couple things to say to that. First off, you aren’t my mom, so I don’t need to tell you what I do, so don’t take it all personal like, and secondly… I didn’t want you guys to worry I guess? Things do down in the forest. Spooky things. I didn’t want a bunch of tiny little technicolor ponies getting caught up in the cross-spook,”
“That’s kinda sweet, but it doesn’t excuse you! Why were you even out here!?” She looked genuinely concerned, I felt kinda bad now.
“I was…” I just realized what absolute shite my answer is. Oh well, honesty always wins right? “...out… getting a shrubbery,”
The sting on the other side of my face has informed me that honesty does not, in fact, always win.
“I am so, completely, unbelievably, mad at you,” She seethed. Feathers ruffling more with every word.
“Fair. May I offer a counterpoint… what if you weren’t though? That’d be pretty cool right?”
I’m gonna have bruises after all this slapping. Like, my children will inherit these bruises. Sweet Odin that smarts!
“Etrius, could you please be serious for a moment! Everypony is super worried about you!”
“Yeah yeah, and I’m sorry. Could you please help drag me back to ponyville? I’ve had enough forest wanderings for one day,”
Dash gave a few testing prods around my body and circled her hooves around me, shifting a couple times to see where best to lift me from. I felt myself lift up ever so slightly, and one of her hooves around my waist slipped upwards to my chest. She lifted me another foot into the air, and I started to get concerned.
“Y’know you could just drag me forward, up is probably bad. REAL bad actually,”
She didn’t respond but she started hovering forward instead of up, so I guess she heard, or didn’t care and this was her plan from the start. So, hovering about two and half feet ish above the ground, we slowly made our way back to Ponyville.
“Hey uh, Rainbow…” I started, getting a ‘hum’ in response. “It wasn’t just you looking for me right? It was like… a group? Because if it was I think telling them to stop searching and leave the spooky forest is a good idea,”
Rainbow Dash gasped in realization and her grip on my slipped just enough. I would have pulled a sweet roll and looked like a total hero had my legs worked, but unfortunately I had to settle for loudly thump into the ground and lilt forward slightly, so I could process that I was falling before actually face planting into the dirt. Is it Tuesday? I feel like it’s Tuesday. It must be Tuesday.
“Right! That’s… OH wait no sorry! I mean… ah, uh, uhhmm…” Rainbow seemed to be thinking a mile a minute as she thought about what I said and also wanted to apologize and take care of my slightly broken face.
“It’s fine,” I mumbled “Go round everyone up, make sure they’re safe. I’ll just nap here for a moment,”
Dash rattled off one more apology before zooming off to find whomever else went on this little excursion.
I kinda felt like a green army man. You ever take one of the ones who’s holding their rifle above their head and lay him down, and then his whole body forms an arch? And then because you’re like five you try and replicate it because green army men are the coolest thing since sliced bread, and you fine it’s actually really hard to make that pose at all, let alone keep it?
No? Just me? Cool. This whole smile is worthless then. Or is it metaphor? If I use the word metaphor then I sound like a refined dandy gentleman, but then I also sound like a rich ponce, and I was gonna use ‘like’ in the joke I was building to, which makes it a simile… English is a rough language.
I would like to say that something snapped me out of my thoughts just then, and I had something to pay attention to, and it was gonna be all cool and interesting… but there wasn’t, and still isn’t. The forest is a big place, and it takes some real luck… or unluck, to run into pretty much anything. Especially if you’re not walking anywhere.
I pushed myself over to I was looking at the sky, my legs thunking end over end as I twisted my waist and settled into this MUCH more comfy position.
I sighed a weighty sigh and stared at the patches of sunlight filtering through the dense canopy.
“Guess I’ll just wait here then,” I muttered, resting my eyes and clearing my mind… for once… as I waited for my savior's to arrive. Wonder if this is what it’s like to be a princess...