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// P is for Poison, the tiniest things can kill. 
// Story: Fallout Equestria ABC: Dangers of the Wasteland 
// by Doomande 
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“Do not touch it!” 

    Root Wisdom’s harsh voice cut sharper than any dagger or spear, and I pulled my hoof away from the pretty, violet petals they’d been just an inch from touching. I brushed some of my frizzy red mane away from my dirt brown face and looked at my mentor with embarrassment.

    “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

    Like an old, warped set of roots from a dead tree, my mentor’s body near creaked as she moved, white fur plastered over thin bones. Her own mane of faded pink and white was twisted in a thick set of braids, and old as she was, there was strength in her movements as she walked past me and loomed over the flower that had drawn my eye. She turned rheumy blue eyes towards me.

    “Never touch anything with color such as this, young Heal Berry. This flower has evil spirits within it, born of the land sickness from the Great Fires of old. A prick of the thorns upon it will drain your life as swift as any infected bite from a beast or spear of a rival tribespony.”

    I swallowed and nodded, but couldn’t take my eyes off the odd purple flower. It had unusually large, tapered petals, and its stem grew thick and green, with obvious thorns jutting from it. A cluster of them rose from the base of a tree long dead and black from the Great Fires that swept the world in the old days of Equestria, before the Wasteland. I’d never seen these types of flowers before. In fact the only other kind I’d ever seen were the weed-like ‘dandelions’ that tended to cluster around the higher mountain slopes. Root Wisdom had been taking me further and further afield from our village, further up the mountains, always teaching me new things about both survival and the healing arts.

    I was supposed to one day take her place as tribe shaman, but I hardly felt up to the task yet. My knowledge was still nowhere near the equal of the old earth pony’s, and while some in the tribe might claim my unicorn blood might give me some advantage in both healing illness and communing with the spirits of the land, I mostly felt my ‘magic’ was of little use other than making it easier to carry things. However, unicorns were uncommon enough in the Cliff Runner tribe, so our fellow tribemates tended to think us more capable than we actually were. More tied to the spiritual realm, at any rate.

    Honestly I’d never even seen a spirit, let alone communed with one. Root Wisdom had yet to show me any the deeper mysteries of shamanism. So far my year of training had involved a lot of hiking, collecting roots and mosses, and listening to lectures on how to brew broths to ease coughs, or how to read weather patterns. 

    Our mountain home was situated within a deep valley ravine, cloaked in shadows most times of day save for high noon. It was well hidden, even the few trails leading to our village concealed from easy view from other parts of the mountains and foothills. This helped keep us safe from rival tribes. Well, rival tribe. Since for as long as I could remember, we Cliff Runners rarely had contact with the other pony tribes that inhabited the mountains. We knew there were others out there, to the east and west along the great mountain chain, but only one tribe gave us any trouble. The Stone Teeth. They were a tribe that lived to the north, in the higher, snow capped peaks. 

    Nopony knew why, but the Stone Teeth were not a friendly tribe. Indeed, they were downright hostile, and would send raids south. Usually it was our larger neighbors to the east who had to deal with those raids, given we Cliff Runners usually kept hidden, but every now and then our hunting parties would run afoul of the Stone Teeth marauders. It was why Root Wisdom didn’t take me too far from the village on these training excursions, and why when we camped, we made sure to keep our fire’s light hidden, even if the Stone Teeth only ever seemed to do their raids when there was a fog in the air

    Today was clear of fog, and the closest I’d come to danger was touching a poison flower cluster. I bowed to Root Wisdom with the proper respect, “I should have waited until you said if it was safe.”

    She seemed satisfied enough with that, as much as she ever did anyway, and made that sniffing ‘hmph’ sound she did when she accepted something but was still feeling crotchety about it. “Among many things, you must learn to rely on your own wit. I can impart lessons, but they mean little if you can’t apply them when I’m not around. Spirits above, colt, pay attention and let me tell you about these flowers.”

    I backed up a bit to give her room as she shuffled over and leaned over the flowers, eyeing them and me in turn. “These flowers are known as ‘Cold Kiss Flowers’. Know why?”

    I shook my head because it was expected. She knew I didn’t know, but this was part of how she taught.

    “The thorns secret a toxin that will freeze the lungs. Take the breath right out of you. Too much, and you die choking for air that won’t come. But, just a drop, diluted in enough boiled water, will actually make a fine potion that eases the worst hacking and wheezing. The flower petals themselves are harmless, and if ground to a paste and added with a mixture of gecko urine can sterilize wounds and aid the healing process. If you cut the stems, here, at the base, you can get a clean flow of toxin. Collect it, and you can coat spear heads with it. Makes hunting larger prey like the mighty cave bears much easier.”

    She went on to explain how to properly cut the flower stems and harvest them without risking a potentially lethal prick from the thorns. It’d be easier for me to use my magic, but Root Wisdom insisted I do things the Earth Pony way, and use my hooves and stone knife. She showed me once, then twice, before letting me try myself. Luckily I avoided poisoning myself, but you can rest assured I gave the flowers a great deal of respect as I harvested them, even though I knew it was likely Root Wisdom carried an antidote with her. 

    “Hmm, good, good,” she said, nodding as I finished carefully packing the flower, now separated from the stem, into a leather pouch, and followed her lead in draining the stem into a baked clay gourd. 

    “You knew the flowers were here, didn’t you?” I asked, “That’s why we came to this ravine today. You wanted to show them to me.”

    “Hmph, perhaps. Or perhaps I had another destination in mind and you just happened upon them, and I figured now was as good a time as any to teach you, since you seemed so determined to poison yourself before I could. What would you say to your sister if you died in such a foolish manner?”

    The words may have been spoken in partial jest, but they cut just the same. My ears and tail drooped and I lowered my head, wincing at pained memory. Root Wisdom, for all her old curmudgeonly attitude, gave a look that said she knew she’d taken things a bit far, and let out a dusty sigh.

    “Apologies, colt, I meant no harm in that. Just trying to remind you that caution matters out here. These mountains may be safer than the Wasteland beyond them, but they remain dangerous, and a careless act can still get you killed. Potion Berry wouldn’t have wanted that, yes?”

    “No, she wouldn’t, and I understand,” I said.

    Soon enough Root Wisdom was leading me further down the ravine, not only pointing out more of the Cold Kiss Flowers to harvest, but where several useful roots could be dug up for the night’s meal. We would be staying out here the night and not returning to the village until the next morning. We spent the afternoon trotting among rocky clefts and passing over to the next ravine. My mind tried to stay focused on Root Wisdom’s lessons, but my eyes and mind kept getting drawn to the south.

    South, down the mountain slopes, beyond the rolling foothills dotted with thick forests of blackened trees (and a hoofful of almost living ones with faded brown needles). Beyond all that, to the wide, barren plains of the Wasteland. What was out there, I wondered? Why had my sister volunteered to go there with a hunting party to scout those dangerous lands where the Great Fires had burned hottest and dangers lurked in horrifying quantities?

    I still didn’t know the details of how she died. Only two hunters had returned from her expedition, telling tales of ruins filled with death, of monsters beyond imagining, and so-called “ponies” even more deadly and violent than the monsters. All I knew was that Potion Berry had left one day, promising she’d come back with grand tales and useful items to help the tribe, and that strange, deadly realm beyond the mountains knowing as the “Wasteland” had swallowed her up.

    If I wanted to make her proud, I needed to focus on becoming the best I could at learning the secrets of the shaman. Perhaps, one day...

    We camped beneath the overhang of a short cliff at the top of the ravein’s western side. We built our fire in a dug out pit to hide it’s light, and cooked a broth of roots in a clay pot, which we ate alongside dried gecko meat. Root Wisdom performed a blessing over the food, imploring the spirits of the earth to keep the taint of the Great Fires from it. I paid close attention to her chant and repeated it myself. I still didn’t know if the spirits really listened, but this was part of the duties I would need to learn.

    “Do you think the spirits still  reside in the lands beyond our mountains?” I asked her, my eyes drawn to the south horizon where the Wasteland lay waiting, now shrouded in dusky shadow with the fall of night.

    “Spirits reside everywhere, young colt,” Root Wisdom replied, “They are ever with us. But never forget, Heal Berry, that spirits, like ponies themselves, are fickle things that come in every ilk. Not all are our allies. In the Wasteland dwell many evil spirits. The Great Fires twisted them, as it twisted the land itself.”

    I swallowed, feeling a chill run down my spine as I tried to imagine in, and felt a stab of regret, wondering what horrors my sister had seen out there before she’d been killed. “Have you ever been there?”

    There was a cryptic gleam in the old mare’s eyes as she flicked an ear and said, “Once, in a much more foolish youth. Do not dwell on these thoughts, colt. The Wasteland is beyond you as you are now, and you’ve many lessons yet to learn before you contemplate it further. As shaman, you will be responsible for the tribe’s well being when I am gone. That should be your focus. Now, tell me, what have you learned this day?”

    I suppressed my immediate instinct to answer with the obvious response that I’d learned what a Cold Kiss Flower was. Root Wisdom usually asked these questions when she wanted me to think about the meaning behind her lessons, not just the bare bones of the lesson itself. I sat there on my haunches, tail lashing left and right as I thought hard about what she’d shown me today. Yes, the intent was to show me the poison flowers, to harvest them, their applications that would help the tribe. But what was the deeper meaning behind it all? 

    “I... I’m not sure,” I said, admitting defeat as I couldn’t quite grasp what it was she wanted to hear. Then again, this was an earlier lesson she’d taught me, perhaps the most important one; it’s better to admit ignorance rather than to pretend wisdom. Only then could one seek answers. 

    From Root Wisdom’s look I could tell she’d more or less expected my answer, and was at least pleased that I hadn’t tried to pretend I knew something when I didn’t. “Well, we’ve a day or two yet before we’re due back at the village. We’ll see if I can’t get the lesson to sink in by then.”

    The next day dawned cold and wet, with rain drizzling down from the gray sky. Used to such weather, it hardly slowed Root Wisdom and I as we picked our way further east through several shear gullies and even steeper ravines. We were Cliff Runners, used to such terrain, and our hooves moved with swift surness over even the slippery of ledges. My mentor showed me a few more areas where Cold Kiss Flowers bloomed, and explained that they usually grew in early to middle Fall. 

    “It’s best to stock up when you can. Store them somewhere a tad damp. You don’t want them drying out. Why, in my early years as a shaman, I let a bushel of these catch fire one hot summer, and I tell you, the smoke from these flowers can kill if you inhale too much. Even a few whiffs could knock out a grown pony.”

    “Hmm, if our hunters had a way to light bushels of these, wouldn’t that make good weapons against the next Stone Teeth raid?” I asked, and Root Wisdom chuckled in amusement.

    “Not a half bad idea, if one could control the wind spirits and ensure the smoke didn’t blow right back in your face. Ah, but your mind is in the right place, young Heal Berry. Keep that head thinking outside of the box.”

    “Outside what box?” I asked, confused, and Root Wisdom rolled her eyes.

    “Old world saying, don’t worry about it.”

    As noon arrived, I couldn’t help but notice a disturbing development in our surroundings. The rain, along with a rise in heat from the midday, was creating a thin veil of fog around us. It wasn’t bad at first, but within an hour it grew thicker, until visibility grew to less than perhaps thirty paces around us. Instinctively I started cocking my head left and right, fixing my ears to try and hear better in either direction. 

    “Root Wisdom...” I said nervously, and she, just a few paces ahead of me, flicked her tail and shot me a short glare.

    “Voice down, colt. Noise travels further and stranger in the fog.”

    I gulpd and lowered my voice, “Do you think they’re out there?”

    It wasn’t as if every fog brought with it a Stone Teeth raiding party, but it was certainly true that every Stone Teeth raiding party came with a fog. I wondered if they had shamans of their own who spoke with fog spirits to garner their aid? Root Wisdom was tilting her head in a similar manner to my own, her ears twitching with intent listening. On top of that her muzzle wrinkled as she sniffed the air, eyes closed in focus.

    “I don’t know. They don’t control the fog, Heal Berry, but they know enough to use it when it comes. I’ve seen no tracks. But...”

    “But?” I asked, wishing she’d not leave me hanging like this. I felt the stone dagger at my side, it’s weight a small comfort to the prospect of having to fight for my life. I as no hunter or warrior. 

    “There is something out there. I hear less than I should, and smell the stench of death. Not far, either. Come.”

    She started off again, and I followed her, asking incredulously, “We’re going toward the smell of death?”


    “Colt, if there’s danger out here, it’s too close to the village for my liking,” she replied sharply, but still quietly, “I want to see what it may be, first. Once I know, we’re returning home.”

    That was more than answer enough for me, and I clammed up as I continued to follow Root Wisdom through the now disturb lying thick fog. The fog not only limited visibility, but it did strange things to sound, making our hoof steps somehow sound louder to my ears. My nerves started to grow tenser as I kept looking behind us, imagining I saw darting shapes in the gray expanse of fog. 

    The steep ravine we’d been walking along leveled out somewhat into a rise with a cluster of dead, black trees and bramble bushes. Even I smelled the distinct, cloying scent of something dead, now. Root Wisdom, seemingly undaunted, continued forward, but I saw her reach with her mouth to the sheath at her side and draw her dagger. I did the same with my magic, a soft, warm glow of pale blue light drawing forth the weapon of edged stone and carved bone to float it next to me as I walked behind my mentor.

    We poked our way through the brambles, their thorns scratching at our hides. Beyond them, in the center of the copse of dead trees, we found the source of the stench.

    Cliff Runners, indeed almost all tribe ponies of the mountains, trained themselves to speak clearly, even with a weapon in their mouths, and Root Wisdom swore around her dagger at the sight before us.

    At least five or six ponies lay dead on the ground. Or, I gauged it was five or six. Enough of them were in pieces that being entirely sure how many died here as difficult to tell. I was mostly counting by the heads, but some of the torn, pulped pieces of meat I was seeing could have also been heads, at one point or another. Thicker body parts lay strewn, some more intact than others, in a haphazard mess. Torsos torn fully open at the chest or bellies spilled innards about in ropey, gray and red masses. Sometimes the legs remained attached, but other times bits of leg could be seen meters away from any other body part, the ends clearly gnawed upon. 

    What few faces remained intact upon the bodies showed expressions of anguish and horror, open and lifeless eyes imprinted with their owners last moments of terror.

    I feel no shame in admitting I voided my stomach rather unceremoniously on the nearest bramble bush after only a few seconds of looking upon the terrible scene. Root Wisdom didn’t admonish me for the noise, staring grimly around at the death surrounding us. By the time I got my nauseousness under control and could stand to look at the bodies without retching further, Root Wisdom was already examining them more closely. 

    “Wh-what could have done this?” I asked in a tense whisper.

    Her response frightened me more than any answer could have.

    “...I don’t know.”

    She must have seen just how shaken I was, because she looked at me and quickly began to speak in a steady, even voice, “Whatever it was, it struck quickly, and recently. These bodies are not a day dead, yet. These Stone Teeth must have been coming with the fog, and were preparing to set up camp here. Look, you can see where they laid their campfire.”

    With her pointing it out, I did see where, amid all the blood and torn body parts, a small pit with half-charred wood lay partially scattered. I also now noticed that these ponies were of the Stone Teeth tribe. I’d never met a pony of that tribe face to face before, but I’d been told of the way they carved ritualistic scars into their hides and wore baubles of stone in their pierced ears or lips. What unmarked flesh I could see bore these markings. So this had been a raiding party? No, with so few it was likely just meant to scout for targets. 

    As I looked around, I also noticed something else that struck me as odd, “I... I see no tracks. A beast so large and fierce, as to do this, where are its prints?”

    Root Wisdom, despite the grave circumstances, gave me a pleased look. “You noticed as well. Good. True, there are no tracks. This was not the work of a cave bear or pack of geckos. Look up.”

    I did so, confused as to what she wanted me to see. The fog was ever present, but I could still see the tops of the dead trees. I tilted my head, taking notice of how the branches of the trees were snapped in dozens of places, and one of the trees bore a great set of deep gouges, as if from two sets of frightfully large claws.

    “It came from above?”

    “Yes. I don’t know what manner of beast did this, but it came upon these Stone Teeth from above, likely last night not long after they made camp, and slew them before any could flee,” Root Wisdom said, expression still as a rock. Her eyes grew hard with contemplation, and I started casting uneasy glances at the fog choked air above us. 

    “We’ve no choice but to turn back,” Root Wisdom concluded at last, “A new beast in these mountains is too dire a threat for us to combat alone. We’ll return to the village and gather the warriors. Then, perhaps-”

    Her words were drowned out by the abrupt sound of an unearthly screech that ripped through the fog, seemingly from all directions. The noise pierced me to my bones with freezing fear. I was rooted in place until Root Wisdom all but shook me forcefully and yelled in my face, “Run!”

    Torn from my panicked stupor, I followed her out of the copse of trees, breaking through the brambles with no car for their scratching thorns. The screech sounded again, bouncing through the fog until it sounded like a host of howling spirits were chasing us. My heart tore against my chest in rapid, fear filled beats as I galloped headlong just a step behind Root Wisdom. Some part of my mind feared us running right over a cliff edge in this thick fog, but whatever was chasing us was surely intending a worse fate for us than that. Compared to the torn apart bodies of the Stone Teeth, I imagined a swifter end by falling wouldn’t be so bad, and pushed myself to gallop faster.

    Then, wind stirred at my back, fierce and unnaturally powerful. I heard a sharp series of gusts from above, and saw the fog swirl and stir like churning soup. Something immense flashed overhead, huge, dark, and terrible. Claws of deep, mold green, tipped with black talons, reached down from above and snached Root Wisdom by her hindquarters. The old shaman let out a muffled yelp, and with pure speed and instinct wrenched herself around to stab at the thing holding her with her dagger.

    The dagger did little, and the claws reflexively clenched tighter, and I heard Root Wisdom’s leg bone snap. She screamed, and was hauled higher into the fog. On pure reflex, my horn lit up and I hurled my own dagger heavenward, towards the shapeless mass in the fog. I don’t know if I hit anything or not, but the beast dropped Root Wisdom, sending her tumbling to the ground where she hit hard and lay still.

    Drawing in panicking breaths I scrambled over to her. Her left hindleg was twisted terribly, with a piece of white bone sticking out just behind her lower thigh. Her eyes were dazed but she blinked, alive and coherent. I used my magic to lift her onto my back as the monster’s terrible screech echoed around us.

    “Don’t be a fool, colt,” Root Wisdom rasped, “Drop me this instant and keep running!”

    I ignored her. Not really out of any nobility, but because I was far too scared to pause and argue with the shaman. Keeping her secure on my back, I broke into a gallop once more. I heard what I now recognized not as gusts of wind, but the beating of gigantic, monstrous wings. Whatever this beast was, it was quickly circling around for another go at its prey.

    I had no choice but to lower my head and pump my legs as fast as I could, heedless of obstacles or danger. Whether by luck or the providence of the spirits themselves, a sheer rock cliff resolved itself in front of us, reaching upwards. Yet within that cliff face I saw a crevasse, narrow enough for a pony to fit through, but perhaps not the monster that pursued us? I ran headlong for it, hearing the wing beats growing louder behind me.

    I thought I could almost feel the prick of the monster’s claws at my flanks when I reached the crevasse and all but dove into it. I heard a titanic crash behind me, followed by an enraged shriek that nearly deafened me. I continued running, but within seconds, to my utter dismay, found the crevasse only went about a dozen or so paces deep before terminating in a rise too sheer to climb.

    Gasping for breath, I turned to see what had chased us, and stared in wide eyed awe and humbled fear.

    I’d on occasion spied birds of prey that roamed our lonely mountain, eagles or hawks that hunted the scarce fauna of the rocky valleys. Normally they were not any larger than a pony’s fore leg, if one didn’t count their wingspan, which could make them appear much larger when fully spread. The beast that had me and Root Wisdom trapped in this crevasse was large enough that even if one stacked ten ponies atop one another, they would not reach the crest of this terrible bird’s dark crested head. It bore some resemblance to an eagle, with mottled, pale gray feathers that blended in with the fog itself. Its eyes were twin black orbs, sitting behind a massive, sharp beak that even now tried to reach the wounded prey it now had cornered.

    It couldn't fit inside the crevasse, but I wasn’t sure how much that mattered. Already I saw the humongous bird using its claws, which were unnaturally sharp, to scrape away chunks of stone from the entrance. If given time, it’d dig us out, and there was nowhere for me and Root Wisdom to go. It was only a matter of time, perhaps less than ten minutes, before our temporary sanctuary would be gone, and we’d share the fate of the Stone Teeth scouts.

    “You should have left me, Heal Berry,” Root Wisdom said, voice strained with pain, and filling with aged sadness, “You may have escaped while it was making a meal of me.”

    “Haven’t you told me, many times, to not dwell on mistakes, but instead learn from them?” I replied, somehow managing a very forced, almost manic smile of weak humor, “I promise the next time we’re chased by a horrible monster, I’ll leave you behind. No questions asked. You see? I’m a good student, who can learn.”

    She barked out a laugh that was mitigated by her groan of pain, “Good. I was wondering if any of my lessons were sinking in. A shame none seem suited to getting us out of this mess.”

    Her words poked at my mind nearly as much as my growing concern for the ever slowly widening gap in the crevasse that the titanic bird was digging before us. There had to be a way to survive this! I desperately cast about for a plan. The crevasse was empty save for a few loose rocks, which while I could throw them with my magic, they’d do little against something so mighty. I had lost my dagger, and Root Wisdom had dropped hers as well; not that the weapons would have been much use here either. All we had were our small packs of camping supplies and food, and the bags of gathered Cold Kiss Flowers.

I felt cold wind on me, and looked up. The crevasse went all the way up the cliff, to the very top where light came down in a pale beam, along with chill wind funneled down from the higher part of the mountain. It was steady, even rather strong, for an air current.

My eyes traced up and down that opening, impossible to climb, and then down the crevasse floor to the monstrous bird of prey growing slowly closer as its talons ripped more rock free. Then my eyes lit upon the bags of Cold Kiss Flowers.

With great speed, but as gently as I could, I took Root Wisdom off my back and put her at the very back of the crevasse.

“What are you doing?” she asked me as I took the bags of the poison flower we’d gathered.

“Thinking ‘outside the box’,” I told her and turned to face the crevasse entrance.

The bird was now perhaps able to get half its head inside the crevasse. Not close enough to reach us, and with a frustrated cry, it pulled back to keep digging. I unwrapped the bag of Cold Kiss Flowers and set the bushels of them down on the cold, dry stone floor. I all but tore off my own travel pack and fished out my flint stones and a bundle of dry tinder twigs used for starting campfires. With a fierce will and extreme focus I used my hooves to shield the tinder and bundles of poison flowers with my hooves and started striking the flint, sending sparks upon the tinder. 

The tinder caught, and fire was born within the cluster of flowers. Smoke began to come forth, slowly at first, but soon in greater amounts. I held my breath to keep the fumes from reaching my lungs, at least until the bundled flowers were burning fiercely and creating a strong enough stream of smoke. Then I backed away, gathering the burning bundle in an aura of my magic and held it up to the wind blowing through the crevasse.

The wind carried the smoke like a steady river, straight into the face of the monstrous bird as it tried to shove its beak towards us. 

Immediately the bird let out a hacking noise, rough and wet. It shook its head, slamming it into the sides of the crevasse, and tried to pull back. To lure it back in, I risked coming forward, shouting, “Hey! Hey you ugly bastard! Look at the tasty morsel you’re leaving behind!”

My voice caused the bird to home in on me, screeching as it lunged forward, and subsequently got another lungful of poisonous smoke. I danced backwards, the beak snapping within inches of me as I moved to the back of the crevasse. I kept the burning bundle high, letting the smoke continue to flow out of the crevasse and into the bird’s path.

As Root Wisdom had told me, in small does, the smoke from the Cold Kiss Flowers wouldn’t kill, but just paralyze, as it had in her little accident during her youth. But we’d gathered quite a bit of the flower in our journey, and I was burning all of it, and sending smoke nearly as thick as the fog outside right towards the bird’s face. And in its rage and hunger, it refused to leave, determined to get at its prey and unaware of the true danger of the smoke it was inhaling.

In another five minutes it may have torn away enough of the crevasse to get to me and Root Wisdom, but it took less than a minute for it to take in enough of the deadly Cold Kiss Flower’s poisonous smoke for the bird to seize up. Its body went rigid, as if frozen, and with a rattling croak it fell to its side, shaking the earth with its fall. It ceased breathing a few moments later, its entire body laying still as the poison froze it’s lungs and suffocated the mighty creature.

I threw the burning bundle outside, waiting until the last of it was gone and the smoke had faded away. I then waited another few minutes, just to be certain the terrible bird was well and truly dead. I then sank to the ground, all the strength leaving my body as my fear shook me and I wept into the ground, realizing just how close that had all been.

Root Wisdom, ever a pillar, even while badly wounded, patted my flank comfortingly.

“That was well done, colt. I hadn’t thought of that myself, and feel a bit of a fool for not doing so.”

I pulled myself together and stood once more on somewhat shaky legs, smiling back at my mentor. “I didn’t even know if that was going to work.”

“Most plans are like that,” Root Wisdom said, looking down at her broken leg with a sharp grimace, “Oh, but this is going to be a true pain to heal. Help me up, Heal Berry. I can already imagine infection setting into this, and I’d like to get back to the village quickly.”

I had no complaints about that, and carefully gathered her onto my back once more. She was incredibly light, all things considered. As we exited the crevasse, I cast a still frightful and awed look over the corpse of the gargantuan bird.

“You truly have no idea what this is?” I asked, and Root Wisdom shook her head.

“I’ve never even heard stories of such creatures, and little wonder why. We may be the first ponies to have survived an encounter with one.”

“I hope there aren’t any more of them,” I said, shivering.

“Well, this one certainly didn’t spring fully formed from the ground,” Root Wisdom replied, “No doubt there are others. Let us pray to the spirits this one’s presence in our lands is a mere fluke, and not a sign of some manner of beastly migration.”

I shook off that dire thought and began the long trek back home. The fog cleared up by the time night fell, and by then I’d used what little I could scrounge to begin rudimentary treatment of Root Wisdom’s leg, re-setting the bone and using her directions and find and mix a few roots and herbs into a powder that would help keep infection at bay. All the while I thought of what Root Wisdom had asked the night before, and the terrifying memory of the monster bird’s attack.

“I think I have an answer to your question,” I told her as we camped in a familiar cave, not at all far from our village. She was laying comfortably by the campfire, only grimacing every now and then from lingering pain. She looked at me questioningly.

“About the lesson,” I said, “What I’d learned. Those Cold Kiss Flowers, the poison inside them, it’s very dangerous. Deadly to anypony who doesn’t understand them. Yet that same poison can be turned into a tool for the good of the tribe, used to mix cures, or made into a weapon to fend off dangers. It just takes understanding, respect, and knowledge to apply it. And that... applies to everything, doesn’t it? Everything in this world, from the fire we use to warm our village’s tents, to the stone we use to forge our spears, to the poison of simple flower, can all be useful with the right knowledge.”

Root Wisdom was silent for a time, then let a soft series of chuckles as she laid her head down to rest, “Actually I mostly just wanted you to learn to stop touching things without asking what they are first, but I like your answer better. Now shut up and get some sleep, colt, it’s been a long day.”

I watched her with a faint twitch in my eye as my mentor went to sleep, and gently started snoring. After a moment I could only shake my head and let out a hapless little laugh, letting the tension of my recent experiences out into the cool night air. I was far from ready to become my tribe’s next shaman, and Root Wisdom had many more lessons to teach me, but I was starting to realize that “wisdom” isn’t something that could be taught. You had to earn it yourself, in your own way, every day you live. The poison of the Cold Kiss Flowers had taught me to respect even the smallest things, and to use my head when thinking about how such things could be used to keep myself and the tribe alive. It wasn’t a lesson I was going to forget anytime soon.