The idea of being brought halfway across a desert in a horse drawn coach was a tad strange to the Unicorn. Perhaps it was just because he was used to walking everywhere for the most part back home in Seaddle. Then again, he was grateful for the transport. There was no way he would have made it from Appleoosa all the way to Dodge city on his own and somehow he hadn’t read the train routes properly. Hex was quite thankful that Redlove had corrected his mistake the night before and had friends who could help him set up his journey onward. Perhaps he’d have to take another trip out to Appleoosa to visit his new friend again. At the very least, he’d be sending him letters.
The trip to Dodge city only took half a day. Nonetheless, the stallion decided he would still get himself a room at an inn and take some time to himself. The journey through was about to get a hell of a lot rougher when he entered the swamp, so taking a night alone in a room would be much needed to prepare himself. Not to mention it would give him a chance to catch up on his letter-writing and journaling. By the end of the day, his letters had all been dropped off at the post office, he’d re-stocked some of his supplies, and a sales pony at a small camping shop managed to convince him to buy a tent for his travels through the swamp. Perhaps he really had been a little too confident in himself in only bringing a blanket. Apparently Hayseed was known for being much more rough and tumble than he’d anticipated.
His mother’s journals simply made the area out to be so calm and soothing. Of course, that was because she’d lived there. Hex could only hope that his own experience would be similar.
*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~*
“How did she live here?!”
Hex’s voice rang out through the swampy lands far louder than he meant it to. With a loud groan of unhappiness, he flopped down beside a tree to rest his hooves. He was hot, sweaty, covered in mud, and had resorted to hiding his cape-let and hoof covers away into his bag to keep from ruining them. His hair was drooping from the humidity and overall, all he wanted to do was hide away and take a bath. Hopefully his mother’s old home had a working bathtub. Even pausing to rest, he felt mosquitoes biting him every chance they got. He tried to swat them away with his tail, but to no avail. Now it made sense as to why his mother’s recipe for her favorite fur oil called for things like Citronella. It kept the bugs away. There were still a few more hours of sunlight left. Hex honestly wondered if it would be safer to set up camp for the night and only move through the swamp with the light of the sun, or if he should trust his instincts in the darkness and hope that there was enough moonlight to see where he was going.
As much as he adored the moon and the night, something told him that wasn’t going to be enough to get him through the swampland unscathed. So setting up camp was his best option. Setting up the tent was a challenge in and of itself. Admittedly, if he hadn’t had his magic to assist him, he was pretty sure he would have broken the darn thing on the first try. The most concerning part of making camp to the Unicorn were the plants around him. It took some re-reading to find where he’d written the plants that were safe to eat, the ones that weren’t safe to touch, and the ones he absolutely should not burn in his camp fire. So his safest bet was to find plants that were safe to eat, as well as some of the nuts he had listed, and burn wood from the trees that made the nuts.
Searching the swamp was admittedly a bit scary to him. He didn’t want to lose where he’d made his camp. The swampy waters not too far away seemed to be the best place to search. He could simply follow around the edge of the waters until he stumbled upon what he needed. Hopefully. Perhaps next time a travel companion was in order. Who it would be, he wasn’t sure of just yet. But doing this all on his own didn’t seem like the best of ideas anymore. His spirits raised when he noticed a tree not too far ahead with some hazelnuts hanging off of it.
“Oh, I should have brought parsnips,” he scolded himself. “I could have made hazelnut soup.”
Oh dear. Now he was starting to talk to himself. Did all lonely ponies do that? He shook his head, turning his attention back to the task at hand. It was a strange looking little tree, and really wasn’t all that tall. Most of its branches were leaning out over the water and a group of rocks nestled below it like a tiny island. That was a tad on the strange side, but no matter. It was easy enough work pulling the nuts down from the tree and putting them into his saddle bags. One nut however, seemed to be especially stubborn. He pulled and pulled, but even his magic seemed to have trouble with it. After one particularly hard yank, he got the large nut he so desired. Many more went flying off of the branch, pummeling down to the rocks and water below. At first Hex paid this no mind. He’d gotten all he needed. It wasn’t like the nuts wouldn’t have fallen into the swamp sooner or later. That was just what these trees did.
What he did mind was that suddenly those rocks began to move. His voice caught in his throat and he felt his ears pulling back as a large creature pulled itself out of the murky depths. A Cragadile large enough to swallow him whole slammed it’s claw down onto the soil before him, making Hex give a tremble of terror. A loud roar bellowed from the large creature’s throat, and that was all it took to have Hex running for his life. Perhaps it was a stupid thought that running back towards his camp would keep himself. In fact, it was sure of it when he jumped past his tent only to have the Cragadile storm right over it and tear it to shreds. There went his only shelter. He wanted to thank his lucky stars that he still had everything else with him, but there wasn’t enough time to spare that single thought. All he could do was urge himself to run faster, ducking this way and that as the beast behind him seemed to have trouble keeping up in all of the small spaces.
Bushes scratched at the Unicorn’s legs and his lungs burned as he gasped for breath. There was no stopping now. He couldn’t stop. Creatures like Cragadiles just didn’t stop until they had either ripped whatever had woken them up to shreds, or until they just couldn’t keep up anymore. The mountain range up ahead caught his eye, and as much as Hex didn’t want to take the path upward, he went for it. Finding his mother’s cottage could wait. Right now he needed to make sure he didn’t become this creature’s dinner. The reddish rocks screamed “safety!” At least, they did to the pony that was trying so desperately not to get eaten. Up he climbed, trying to ignore the fact that they could be just as dangerous. After all, these were the mountains that lined the Badlands.
The Cragadile gave out an unhappy noise, snapping at the unicorn and just barely missing his flank. Hex’s tail curled upward quickly, and finally as he got to a high enough peak, he flopped down against the rocks to catch his breath. The beast below paced back and forth, letting out louder noises of unhappiness. The rocky terrain was too steep and it simply couldn’t climb up. Curiously, the lavender stallion peeked over the edge; unable to keep himself from shivering when he saw all of those teeth.
“Go on now, shoo!” He called out, trying to wave the beast off. “I’m not coming down! So you might as well go back to your swamp.”
It made a strange hissing noise at him, sitting right down where it was in a stubborn fashion. Apparently going back down wasn’t an option even if Hex wanted it to be. With a groan, he stood up again. His legs were still wobbly from all of the running he’d had to do. Sweet Celestia, was he tired! Trying to ignore the creature below him, he started forward on the mountain, trying to see if perhaps he could go along the side of the rocks and find another way down. However, it seemed the further he walked, the more the Cragadile seemed to follow him alongside the base of the mountain.
“Oh, come on! I can see you, you know,” the unicorn yelled at it. “You act like I’m going to be dumb enough to come down even though you’re right there.”
Again it gave a little hiss, and again Hex groaned. This wasn’t going to work. If it could see him, it would keep following him. And so it did...for roughly an hour. It didn’t seem to matter just how far Hex climbed the side of the mountain, the beast followed. It annoyed him to no end to admit to the fact that he was going to have to climb up and away enough for the Crag to not be able to see him anymore. Only then would it possibly give up on it’s chase.
“You’re a real pain in the flank, you know that?”
With that last remark, Hex turned his sights upward. The sun was setting, and he needed to not only loose the creature that wanted to eat him, but also find some sort of shelter. As luck would have it, there seemed to be some sort of ledge up ahead that had a cover. From where he was, he had no way of telling that it was actually the mouth of a rather deep cave. Even if he could tell, it was his only option to be safe from the elements for now. Therefore, all he could do was climb towards it.