//------------------------------//
// Chapter Five: Hold Your Horses, Horses 
// Story: S.M.I.L.E. For The Camera! 
// by TheGuineaPig45 
//------------------------------//

The five stallions were gathered around the warmth of a small fire.
Shining Armor had been fully prepared to rub two sticks together and light the ash on fire, but luckily, Cheese had a lighter in his mane, which made the process much quicker and easier.
Collectively, the group had decided that traveling through the forest in the middle of the night was not the safest decision, and instead decided to camp out and begin trying to find a way back to Canterlot at sunrise. Flam was excited by this prospect, realizing “guys night out” could become “guys day out.”
As they waited for the sun to appear in the sky, they passed the time with more icebreakers.
“Would you rather,” Flam began, an evil smirk on his face, “be turned into your last Nightmare Night costume for a day, or be forced to only eat Hearth’s Warming Eve fruitcake for a week?” The other four stallions thought on this for a couple of seconds.
“My last costume was an avocado, and I’d rather eat than be eaten,” Boomer replied.
“I’d love to be turned into a fedora-wearing skeleton with a trombone!” Cheese chimed in. “Imagine the possibilities!”
“You’d rather be dead for a day than eat fruitcake?” Flam asked. “Wow. That’s hardcore!”
“Skeletons aren’t dead, my friend. They’re just waiting.”
Everypony stared at Cheese in complete stunned silence. The earth pony just smiled at them.
“On that note,” Soarin said, getting up from the stone he was sitting on, “I’m gonna hit the hay. We don’t know how long this journey is going to take, and I want to have the energy to travel.”
“So will I,” Shining yawned. “I need rest, especially if I want to lead tomorrow.”
Soarin stopped dead in his tracks. “Hold on. Who said that you’re the leader?”
“The fact that I’m Equestrian royalty speaks for itself.”
“Last time you were a leader, you got put in a dungeon,” Soarin said, turning to the prince. “No offense, but I’m not exactly comfortable with a kidnapper being our captain. Let me take control.”
“Okay, yes, I kidnapped somepony,” Shining admitted, getting angry. “Get over it! At least I’m not philandering with other ponies’ wives!”
“Whoa! Hold your horses, horses,” Flam interjected, stepping in between the stallions. “I’m sure we can reach a solution here. How about… you both lead? Two heads are better than one, after all.”
“I can attest to that!” Cheese piped up.
Soarin and Shining looked at each other. Both of their pair of ears were down, and both of their faces were frowning. Neither of them wanted to let the other one lead.
And yet, Flam’s hopeful eyes and big grin were too pure to let down.
Simultaneously sighing, the two stallions shook their hooves and gave fake smiles for the rest of the group, who clapped.
“Great!” Flam cheered, hopping off his rock. “Now, let’s all get some rest. Our guys day out is only just beginning!”
The prince and the Wonderbolt groaned.



It was twenty minutes past sunrise, and the five stallions were slowly trotting through the forest.
They had gotten a fair amount of sleep. Thanks to Shining’s idea of using branches and rope to make a shelter, combined with Soarin’s idea of using leaves as blankets, they were almost comfortable through the night. The biggest problem was that they ended up being very close together, meaning the prince’s first sight in the morning was Soarin’s flank in his face.
Naturally, he wasn’t pleased.
“We need a team name like The Unicorn Squad,” Flam said as the group walked through the boundless land of trees, guided by the light of the slowly elevating sun. “Let’s see… what do we have in common? We’re all stallions, for one.”
“And we were all kidnapped at a wedding,” Boomer added. “How about The Stallions Who Got Kidnapped At A Wedding?”
Flam cringed. “Too literal.”
“The Pallions?” Cheese suggested. “You know. Cause we’re stallion pals?”
Flam shook his head. “Meh. Too cheesy.”
“I mean, that’s kinda my shtick.”
“We need, like, a boy band name,” Flam said, crunching a stick under his hooves. “Something sleek. Something sexy. Something that just rolls off the tongue.”
Boomer and Cheese really considered his requirements. “The Pallions Who Got Kidnapped At A Wedding?” the pegasus eventually said.
Flam facehoofed. “We’ll come back to this later.”
Shining and Soarin stayed toward the front of the pack, remaining silent. Occasionally, one would glance at the other, but they’d quickly retract their eyes before they were noticed. For the most part, they just walked, pointing in directions and nodding instead of communicating with words.
After another fifty-six and a half minutes of small talk, Shining Armor spotted something different in the distance. He ran ahead, and gasped.
“A road!” he called out to the group. Soarin, Boomer, Flam, and Cheese all dashed over to him and looked down from the small hill where they were standing. Sure enough, about fifty feet away from them was a stone road, providing a clear path through the trees. “Haha! Look at that!”
“This is great!” Soarin cheered. “Roads always lead somewhere! If we follow it, we’ll make it back to civilization!”
“Maybe, it’ll take us somewhere near Canterlot!” Boomer hoped.
“One problem,” Flam pointed out, sliding down the hill, “this is the middle of the road. There’s two opposite directions to choose from, and if we go the wrong way, it could be a major setback and take us further from Canterlot.”
“Hmm,” Shining thought aloud. “We should follow the direction of the sun, which currently means going to the right.”
“Dude, the sun changes positions throughout the day,” Soarin pointed out. “But it ends on the left, so I say we head that way.”
“Come on, you’re just saying that because you don’t want to agree with me!”
“GUYS!” Boomer shouted, interrupting their conflict. He had flown up into the air and was scouting out the land from above. “It looks like there’s a little town a couple miles away to the right. I say we go there.”
“Perfect,” Flam said. “Town means food! Last time we went on an adventure, we forgot to eat until the very end. But not this time! No, we are going to eat our hearts out!”
“I ate a heart once,” Cheese absentmindedly muttered. “It was strawberry flavored.”
“We can also figure out where in Equestria we are, and maybe find a map,” Boomer added. “This could be perfect!”
“Let’s go!” Flam exclaimed, trotting off with Boomer and Cheese. Soarin and Shining Armor stayed behind for a second.
“For the record,” the prince said, putting his hoof on Soarin’s back, “we’re going right. Which was  my idea.”
Soarin rolled his eyes and flew off, while Shining pumped his hoof in the air.



The town they had arrived in looked like it was lifted straight out of the wild west.
Secluded from all the trees in the nearby forest, the small community of only twelve wooden buildings rested in the middle of a desert. There were only about two or three ponies out and about, most of which wore cowboy hats or were carrying hay.
“Where in Equestria…?” Shining Armor asked, looking around. “I’ve never seen this place before. It doesn't even have a train station!”
“Forget a train station,” Soarin said, shielding his eyes from the sun with his wing. “I don’t think there’s any modern technology here at all!”
“At least it’s inhabited. Hopefully some of the locals can point us in the right direction. Getting home has to be our top priority.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Boomer, Cheese, and Flam running off. He sighed. “Never mind. I guess food is our top priority.”
Soarin and Shining followed the stallions, who had entered an old-fashioned bar. The room was dimly lit, with wooden tables and stools in the center, and pictures of past owners and ancient celebrities on the walls. There was one white mare with a red mane at the bar, wiping a glass with a towel.
“Hello!” Flam said, taking a seat on one of the bar stools. “We were just passing through this quaint little town, and we couldn’t help but smell the delectable aroma of food wafting from your fine establishment. If you would indulge us in a meal, we’ll be out of your mane faster than you can say ‘Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000’.”
The bartender put down her glass and stared at the stallion, confused. “Huh?”
“We’re hungry and we wanna eat,” Boomer translated.
“Oh,” the mare replied. “Why not just say that?”
Flam frowned. “I did, it’s just… Words and talking are kinda my thing… It’s how I make a living…”
“Then you need a new thing,” the mare replied, walking away into a different room. Flam just sat there, mouth gaping open.
“That was pleasant,” Cheese said, spinning around on his stool.
Flam was flabbergasted. “I talk,” he whimpered, looking at his face in the reflection of a glass. “That’s what I do. If I can’t talk my way through life, then who am I?”
“Now really isn’t the time for an existential crisis,” Shining sighed. “If she's not going to help us, we might as well go.”
Before the stallions could depart, the mare walked back out, a tray of beer resting on her hoof. “Y’all don’t look like you belong in this town,” she said, placing a drink in front of each of them. She scanned each of the group, taking note of their suits. “Fancy-lookin’ folks like you aren’t a common sight around these parts.”
“We’re from Canterlot,” Shining replied, pushing him and Flam’s beers away. “Actually, we were hoping you could maybe help us get back there.”
“Well, my advice would be to get outta here as fast as you can,” the mare deadpanned. “Our town is cursed.”
The stallions looked at each other. Before anypony could say anything, Boomer bolted out the door.
“Nope!” he screamed, running off in the distance. “I don’t do curses! See ya!”
Shining rolled his eyes. “I’ll go get him,” he groaned.
He ran outside, and, after a minute, returned with an angry Boomer. The pegasus sat down on his stool front legs crossed. "If I die here, it's all your fault, Shining Armor! I want you to know that. Your fault!"
"I got it, Boom." He turned back to the mare. "Cursed? Please explain."
"Well," the mare said, pushing Shining's drink back towards him, "nopony visits this place for a reason. Ev'ryday, there's some strange, unexplained occurrences. Sometimes, there's these freak earthquakes that shake the whole town. Other days, there are these noises in the middle of the night. And every so often, ponies just magically go missing."
"Your fault," Boomer whispered to Shining.
"I'm only still here to care for my sick granny. Once she's passed, I'm gone."
Shining Armor looked at the other four stallions. They were all trembling. "Oh, come on, guys," he said, shaking his head. "Clearly, she's just trying to scare us off. I'm sure we're all going to be--"
Before he could even finish his sentence, the entire building began to rapidly shake. The stallions all fell backwards off their stools, as the pictures around them crashed the floor. Frantically, they crawled under a nearby table, huddled together. Each of them was shaking.
"YOUR FAULT!" Boomer shouted to Shining, who was next to him. The prince's ears drooped and he sighed.
"My fault..."