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// CH5: One must endure... 
// Story: The journey 
// by Dashed_Brony 
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	Maybe it wasn't a great decision to let the colt tag along. Or better yet, let him open his little mouth. He was faster at talking than his old-time crush was at racing.

As if the fact that they both lacked food wasn't enough, his ears wanted to run off into some far distance where they could finally rest. It made the trip all the more exhausting. Though, his temporary partner had plenty energy to spare, jumping around and so on.

"So... Why'd you set out into the world?" He finally interrupted the overexcentrick mumblebucket.

Silence. For the first time in over an hour, silence befell the two.

The unicorn had stopped rambling. His head dropped as low as Laxeds had been most of the trip, ever since the inane talking had begun.

"... Can you at least tell me your name?"	He made another feeble attempt at starting a less random conversation that crossed over into all sorts of topics.

"Oh! My name's Toby! Toby Trolt!"

"You didn't run off from home and started pillaging then?"

"..." He dropped silent again.

As they had started the discussion, they had stopped their pace, and were now both sitting on the grass. Time had passed since they first left the village, and now, the sun was slowly setting over a hill in the far distance, as the moon prepared to show itself. It was a beautiful scenery, and he would've enjoyed it more if his companion wasn't completely downed.

He had never seen it like this. Open field of grass, a mountain to the far left, forest to the right, and the mountain it was setting in right ahead. He had only seen it through a window up until now. After all, he rarely left his house, and it was always during morning that he did. He had even gotten others to go shopping for him.

He got lost in the beauty for a second, before he noticed Toby gazing at his blank flank. Since he had, up until now hid it, as a reaction to the red eyes falling upon his lack of a cutie mark, his wings shot up completely, covering it up. Unlike most pegasi his size, his wings were actually formidable in size. Not that he ever took pride in them.

As the wings shot up, Toby stared up at him instead of the flank.

"You don't have a cutie mark...?" He questioned. He was hestitant in his voice. Despite having tried to plunder what goods Laxed had earlier, he seemed discouraged to ask.

"..." This time, it wasn't Toby that had gone silent.

"... Well... I think we should start gathering some sticks and start a campfire... Move close to the forest. Out in the open, we'll be dead meat. You know that, right?"

"Err... Yupp" His eyes shot backwards as he twisted his mouth, an obvious sign of a bad lie.

Toby snickered. He headed over to the forest, gathering whatever sticks he could along the path, and dumping them close to a tree as soon as they had gotten close. Afterwards, he gathered rocks.

"Aren't you going to help, lazy bum?" He shouted at Laxed, who had frozen up completely in the exact same spot he had been as the unicorn had gone ahead and set it all up.

He had absolutely no idea what to do. All those storybooks were worth squat to him now. They never told him about survival. They told him about beating up bad guys. But as he had seen, when it came to those cases, he was as miserable at that as he was at everything else.

He walked over to the small campfire that had been lit up with a small portion of magic.

There was a lack of blankets and anything else, so as time passed, and the poor colt fell asleep, he shivered. Laxed had never been very weak to cold though, so he didn't even notice that the wind had blown out the fire, and was lashing at the two like winter was heading towards them.

But the clackering teeth of the green, shivering pony hit him hard. He walked over to the little ball that formed Toby, and as best as he could, wrapped himself around him with every hoove and tail. The shivering stopped, and the peacefull smile returned to Toby's lips as he got more comfortable.

Laxed on the other hand didn't get to sleep much that night.

Toby was still aging, and so, had a tendency to kick his hooves in random direction. Sometimes in the stomach, other times right in the face. So when he finally awoke, he was shocked to see Laxed with a black eye, whining about how he was aching.

"Who attacked you?!? I swear I'll get 'em! I'll get 'em all!"

"Calm down fuzzball... Nopony attacked me... I just ended up taking a trip into the forest and falling over and whatnot..." He had made sure not to let Toby wake up, wrapped up in him. Morning had come, and so had warmth, so he wasn't worried Toby would freeze even as he was no longer acting like a blanket.

The sooner he didn't have to deal with being a punching bag every 5 seconds, the better.

"Hey! My name isn't Fuzzball, okay?!?" He had gone back to his snarling and annoyed attitude.

"Doesn't make you any less fuzzy, does it?"

Toby mumbled. They sat by the coal that was their fuel for fire yesterday for a few more minutes. Neither said much more. They mainly kept their words to themselves, and the silence between the two was only broken when the pegasi said they should start making their way ahead once more.


The world wasn't infinite. They would have to find some sort of town, village, or something along the lines to stock up and move on. So far, they had to live on whatever berries they could find, as well as a few tasty flowers.

But hours passed. Hours became more nights of nothing but pain. Each day a new excuse for why he looked like someone had beaten every last bit of him to a pulp.

Toby had even managed to eat a toxic flower, and it was only thanks to the survival book that he had been able to pull through, thanks to a recipe for an antidote. Since the flower was common, so was the ingredients required to treat it.

The unicorn even had stories to tell, about his life. Laxed, in return, had stories from books he could re-tell. Trying to put himself as the hero wasn't much of an option since he neither fit the description of the character, nor had the personality to back it up.

Not that he cared of course. The trance Toby had whenever he listened made him smile. 'Still a child after all' was his thoughts as he saw those amazed eyes.


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One night was different though. He woke up in the middle of it, only to notice a pair of stick-like paws sweep right at him. He heard a shout a few hoovesteps away, and that made him roll out of the way from the strike that was targeted towards him, and instead ended up digging through the earth and launched dirt right into the air with ease.

Timer wolves. The fire was gone. He had no definite way of scaring them off. He was surrounded by three, and the scream he had heard was of Toby. He might've had the magic powers to solve this entire situation, but he was still a colt, and that fear grasped him wasn't shocking.

He decided the only way out of this was to take a stand. Timber wolves were rated 'Lethal'. At least they were just number 3 of categorised creatures. Fire was the only way listed to overcome them, but that wasn't an option, so he had to make use of what he had.

His bag was nearby, and with a quick roll over to it, he managed to pull a dagger from it, holding it with his mouth.

He could feel his entire body shaking. He wasn't prepared for this at all. But he had to improvise. He could run, but Toby couldn't. That would mean the end of the line for the poor unicorn.

One wolf tried lunging right at him. Thanks to his wings, he could easily leap over, land atop the back of the wolf and jump right off, knocking it right into the ground with a *Thud*.

It wasn't enough to make it give up, and another had tried to catch him off guard by slapping a hoove right at him. It grazed his cheek, and left a small bruise. He was thrown off balance, and right into the ground. They once again cornered him, but he got up. He had to.

His vision blurred. He had already partly lost consiousness. There was no way he'd win this, but he had to. One way or another, he had to. Toby seemed to handle himself somewhat fine against one. But that was just one. Three more, and he'd be done for sure.

He shook his head. Tried gaining his balance. Another one leapt at him. He slid right below, and as the timber wolf was right above him, he kicked his backhooves right into it.

*Whimper*

It was immobilized. At least enough for it not to fight back. The two others snarled. They had learned that lunging was not the way to go, and they now launched assaults of paws and jabs, trying to bite and claw him, in hopes of hurting him. One got a hold of his right fronthoove, but he managed to make it drop its grip around him with a measle attempt at jabbing the knife at it.

He had partly lost vision, and he was now having trouble standing as well. But he had to win... He had to. No matter how upbeat he got, he wasn't going to end up going down.

Many minutes of the assaults passed. He could hardly stand as they had gotten many succesful attacks at him, but in return, they had ended up with more than one kick to various parts of the body. He stood. No matter what they threw at him, he stood. 

In the far distance, a howl echoed over the plains, and to where he and Toby was. The others howled in return, and soon after, ran off.

"T-Thank Celestia..." He mumbled under an exhausted and unconsious breath. He was bruised all over. It made the nights with being a punching bag feel like heaven.

Toby had gotten away pretty unharmed. Aside from a little scratch along his side, he was off fine.

Laxed took a breath of relief, and no sooner, he fell straight to the ground as his eyes shut.

"Thank Celestia indeed..."

He passed out as soon as he had finished his second sentence.

- End -