Apogee had never been in such a dense forest before. The thin rays of sunlight that made their way through the branches and leaves were eerily beautiful, and served as their only source of light, making the entire forest somewhat hazy. Wind rustled the leaves, branches lightly tapped against one another, and all manner of critters could be heard in the distance.
It was like a whole other world.
She walked alongside Zecora, and so far her zebra guide had been correct; the dirt path had been clear, aside from having to duck from the occasional low-hanging branch. But she was also trying to grasp why considerable portions of Equestria considered this place supernatural. So far she had seen nothing to suggest such a thing.
Suddenly, she heard a howl in the distance, and Zecora immediately stopped in her gait, reaching her left leg over to stop Apogee in hers, leaning down towards her right ear.
"Quiet my little friend, carefully we must tread. A timberwolf, watcher of the woods, is there up ahead." She whispered, pointing up the path.
Apogee squinted, not sure what she was pointing at. All she saw on the path was what looked like a bundle of sticks about a hundred feet further up...
...Which then moved.
"The first sign of a timberwolf is always the breath. The cloud from the mouth, it smells of death. It's eyes detect movement, chase you they will, the way to stay safe is to keep very still."
Apogee watched the wolf-shaped gathering of wood check its surroundings, effectively a living canine skeleton made of sticks, branches, splinters and leaves, its eyes glowing a fiery green. Zecora quietly and slowly released her hold on Apogee, and dug into her own saddlebag, coming out with a Dancing Star, a small hoof-held alchemy bomb that would ignite a small area around it. Catching a timberwolf in its radius would effectively blind and stun it for a few moments, just long enough to get away.
Luckily, it didn't take any more steps closer to them, and made it's way back into the thicker forest after a few moments of studying the surroundings.
The zebra glanced at her tourist companion, and didn't see fear or worry, but rather wonder and astonishment in her eyes.
"Wow. So that's why this place isn't natural. And you live in here?" She whispered back.
"With care and attention, certainly I do. Respect the forest, and it respects you." The zebra replied. "Now, come along now and stick close to me, not far now to the castle you want to see."
Delta had been cigarette-free for two years, relying on nicotine gum since fixing her place up, and now she was down to one piece a day. But never had the urge to light up been so great than right now, as she stared at the check that rested on the file folder on her kitchen table, her inner conflict still broiling.
She was certain that he had only made such a gesture because Apogee had told him to. He had always been so smooth and suave with his words, yet that apology was the least confident she'd ever seen him.
Thanks to her daughter, her junkyard was now a very livable place, and the pressure washing business they started up together was the first time that Delta had ever seen four digits in her checking account, never mind the seven that were sitting on her table.
Regardless of Jet's 'no strings attached' claim, Delta felt that taking that money would be akin to forgiveness, just like she considered accepting any of his job offers would be effectively forgiving him. Jet had never been worried about she thought of him, he did this because of what Apogee thought of him when the truth came out.
If she took that money, she felt like she wouldn't have a right to be angry at him anymore.
'But what has being angry at him for fifteen years done for you?' She thought to herself. Her getting a new perspective on her life had literally all been Apogee's doing. She reluctantly understood Jet when he said that he didn't want to view Apogee as something that wasn't supposed to happen. As much as she hated his guts sometimes, even she wouldn't be able to say to his face that he didn't love his daughter. She was even coming to the conclusion that Apogee took off because she herself was perhaps feeling like a mistake.
She wouldn't even be able to do the noble thing and put that money towards Apogee's education. Even without all the scholarship offers she'd received, paying her tuition in full for any rocket science major would barely be a fraction of that check, even without help from Jet.
And she'd also have to face facts; with Apogee going to school in a couple months, even locally, it wouldn't be right to ask her to keep up with the pressure washing, and without her, it wouldn't bring in quite as much money as when they could split the jobs and do more than any single pony possibly could. Income wouldn't quite be cut in half, and it would still be better than when she traded and sold junk.
That fortune on the table was only half of the issue. She had been turning down Jet's job offers at least once a year ever since she bought this place. Jet was right, there was no turning back the clock. EQSA was beyond her reach; she hadn't exactly kept pace with the last 15 years of innovations of rocket building.
But it's not like she couldn't play a little bit of catch-up at EquestriAero...
With a sigh, she picked up the check in one wing, and the file folder containing the application in the other.
'Would you have come back?' Jet's question that she had never actually answered echoed in her head. Honestly, she wasn't sure. She was sure of one thing, though. Before that fateful night, before that job offer... She and Jet were great together. Would she have been a career mare, or would she have eventually wanted a family?
There was really no answering that. The choice had been made for her, and there was no taking it back. She had spent the last fifteen years angry. But when she had taken that anger and put it towards something productive, like doing spring cleaning on her property, she wasn't as angry.
Maybe it was time to be just a little less angry.
"Well, Delta," She began to herself, sliding the check into the file folder and dropped the whole thing into her saddlebags. "Ready for a trip to the bank to make yourself an instant millionaire?"
Apogee slid the key into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open and looked at her room for at least the next two nights in Ponyville. It was a small, rustic single bed room. A bathroom and tub was just to the right of the front door next to a small closet. A dresser, night stand, and two-seat dining table completed the room. If she could pick one word to describe it, it would be 'cozy'. It certainly wasn't as upscale as some of the hotels in Las Pegasus, but she certainly couldn't argue with the price, at 20 bits a night, it was a quarter of the prices she saw on some advertisements in the city.
Today had absolutely been the most adventurous day of her life. After her country homestyle breakfast, Zecora had led her to the Castle of the Two Sisters, and she had even taken a look inside. It was rather strange; it looked like somepony had started to actually restore the place, but then just quit unexpectedly. After that, Zecora had taken her to show the pegasus the hut she had lived in, and all the potions she brewed to make a living. Upon returning to Ponyville, she had lunch at one of the local hayburger places.
But by far, the most amazing thing she had seen today was the timberwolf in the Everfree Forest. It was something that no part of her brain could come up with a scientific explanation for. It was a sentient collection of sticks that patrolled a supernatural forest, because animals and weather doing their own thing was apparently supernatural to a lot of Equestria. But since she laid eyes on that timberwolf, suddenly, ponies that believed in the unbelievable didn't seem so out there.
She dropped her saddlebags on the table, turned off the light, leaving the room faintly illuminated solely by the moonlight, and cracked her window, letting in a cool breeze and the sounds of a country night. It got so much darker out here in the hills and prairie than it did in a city that never, ever slept. With a yawn, she threw herself onto the bed, got under the covers, and quickly fell asleep to the chirping crickets, wondering what tomorrow held in store.