//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: The Spirit of Adventure 
// Story: A Storm on the Horizon of the Arcane World 
// by Fluttercheer 
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When Fizzlepop awoke again, there was nothing but pain. Pain in her head. Pain in her stomach. A dry and burning sensation of the worst kind in her mouth. Pain in her eyes and even pain in her hindlegs. And her horn stump was, unsurprisingly, in pain as well. Fizzlepop whimpered doing her first attempt at moving her body in the tiny resting place she had found last night. The headache was not as bad as it was right after she had fended off the wolf, sleep probably protected her from having to endure the worst of it. But combined with the pain in the rest of her body, it was enough to make Fizzlepop almost cry again.
“Owww.....” she wailed as she looked up. Her horn stump was throbbing and now that she moved her head, it sent out new waves of pain. The light that came from above didn't make it any easier. It wasn't very blinding, but the minimum amount of the sun's light that managed to reach down the hole was enough to pierce her sensitive eyeballs.
Fizzlepop coughed. Then wailed again. As slowly as she could, she began crawling up the hole. A part of her wanted to stay down there, in the hole that was probably the safest place in the forest, even if it meant to die inside of it. But Fizzlepop fought it back, what she perceived as a treacherous voice inside her mind. She grabbed onto the soil harder, pulling herself higher bit by bit. “I left my home, but I don't want to die here,” she thought, gritting her teeth.
After agonizing minutes, her efforts got rewarded. Despite the pain, she now stood in front of the hole's entrance. Fizzlepop looked around, gasping over the surprise the forest had in store for her. It was much brighter than on the day before. It was morning now and there were no shadows of the encroaching night in the forest yet.
Fizzlepop shuddered. Her stomach emitted a loud, intense grumbling. The hunger she felt seemed to increase the headache. It hadn't been as bad on the day before, fear and anger had distracted her from such basic needs as food and water. But now, after a night of sleep, she became uncomfortably aware of it that she won't be able to continue on for much longer in this condition. She needed to eat and she needed to drink. A cough left her throat, but Fizzlepop dragged her exhausted and aching body forward.
The forest felt completely different now. A few times, when Fizzlepop came past trees, she remembered how she had bumped her head into them on the evening before. Now she could trot past them without danger. It gave her a feeling of sudden, newfound freedom which in turn gave her new energy. She could fasten her hoofsteps as she moved through the thick fauna.
A couple times, she came past bushes with berries, deliciously-looking little fruits that she was not able to see yesterday. But she didn't dare to touch them, yet alone bite into and eat them. Fizzlepop's knowledge of what lied beyond her village was limited, but what she did know was that some berries in this part of Equestria were poisonous. They could cause diarrhea, which would make it necessary to drink a lot, and this was impossible right now. Unlike when she was still in the care of her parents, she had nothing she could drink.
The realization how bad it was that she didn't take at least a bottle of water with her before she left dawned upon Fizzlepop in a menacing, foreboding way. She shivered. A few steps further, she stopped for a moment and listened to her surroundings. The forest right next to her village had a little creek, maybe there was one in this forest too. But no sounds of water found their way into her ears. Fizzlepop dropped her head. The berries began to look even more delicious and her stomach grumbled again in response to the sight, but the fear of eating them and making her condition worse was still too big. Fizzlepop looked away and trudged onwards.
For a perceived eternity, she kept stumbling through the forest without finding anything. Black tree after black tree moved out of her vision and past her, berry bush after berry bush. As the feeling in her mouth became even drier, small flashes of light obscured her sight. They blocked out entire objects she could see around her, one time it was a tree, then a root on the ground. Little spots of white light, outlined in red, that covered up part of her surroundings no matter where she looked. Fizzlepop gulped and a cold feeling spread out in her chest. Was she becoming blind? Could a pony become blind by not drinking enough? Fizzlepop remembered how her parents had warned her of becoming too thirsty, but they never told her what consequences it could exactly have if she did.
Forced into submission by her fear and the now rapidly increasing intensity of her headache, Fizzlepop leaned against a tree. She closed her eyes and breathed in and out in a ragged fashion. Her legs began to wobble and Fizzlepop collapsed. Eyes still closed, she kept lying there and pressed her head against the bark of the tree where it hurt the most, attempting to stiffle the pain. The filly gave a howl. After a round of more fitful breathing, she erupted into whimpers.
Fizzlepop never knew whether she had fallen asleep in that moment or not. Her next memory was her dragging herself further, with a blurry vision and a racing heart. Something red dripped from her mouth and she could faintly see that her forehooves were stained with a red substance, as well. The question what this meant emerged, she clearly had lost time after collapsing at the tree, but her mind could not wrap itself around it. All she could think of was that she had to go on, that she couldn't allow herself to stop or rest. The survival instinct of her brain had taken over once again, much stronger than it did on the day before. It was like something else that was buried deep in Fizzlepop's mind controlled her body right now.
A while later, her vision had cleared up somewhat, Fizzlepop could see something in the distance. It was black and it lay stretched out on the forest floor. It had to be a part of a tree, something that remained of a tree that fell, Fizzlepop figured. Or, of a tree that had been lumbered.....
Fizzlepop's heart did a jump. If there was a lumberjack out here, then she was saved! She could ask for help and get something to eat and then, hopefully, out of this forest and back into a civilization! Fizzlepop dragged herself to the object her eyes had locked themselves on, her tempo only slightly increasing, but with the determination of a pony who didn't have much time anymore. Fizzlepop prepared herself to shout for help as she was getting closer to the fallen tree, she decreased her tempo and calmed her breath the best she could. There was no way of telling how far the lumberjack had gotten after cutting down this tree. It was important that her weakened body produced shouts that were loud enough for the other pony to hear. She was almost there. Fizzlepop felt her heartbeat increasing from excitement.
It wasn't a fallen tree. Fizzlepop came to a halt in front of the object, forcing her hooves to stop as dread, horror and fear swamped her mind all at once. In front of her, mere inches from her forehooves, lay the skeleton of a wolf. It was charred black. There wasn't a single fragment of fur or flesh left on the bones, but Fizzlepop knew what it was because of the massive, sharp teeth that grinned at her from the skull of the dead predator. The skull was a few shades darker than the rest of the body.
Fizzlepop stared into the lifeless, empty eye sockets, as her stomach convulsed and sent a signal to her throat. A split-second later, she had to bend forward and a warm, burning stream got forced into her mouth and spilled over the skeleton. As Fizzlepop opened her eyes to look at the mess she had made, she saw a thin, acidic liquid of a red color in the eye sockets of the skull. They looked like little basins now and in the middle, Fizzlepop could make out tiny, red berries. The sight of her own vomit caused another convulsion. After it, her stomach eased.
In haste, Fizzlepop turned around and fled from her gruesome find. She continued her way into a different direction. Her thirst from earlier returned, but a new force drove her now and so, she kept stumbling through the forest, further and further away from the corpse. Once more, Fizzlepop had lost her perception of time, passing by an endless number of trees. The spots of white light returned eventually, obscuring her vision again. Fizzlepop tried to ignore them. The vomiting had robbed her body off the little water it had, but there were no bushes with berries she could eat to change that now. Her only hope was to find an unexpected source of water, a tiny creek, a lake or a pond maybe. Driven by this hope, Fizzlepop slowly kept setting one hoof in front of the other, while the number of lights in front of her eyes increased and the first pain got built up on her skull.
Fizzlepop did not find a pond or a lake and neither a river. What she found instead was more light. Her vision became nearly completely obscured by it and soon, she knew, she would go down again, wailing in pain at the side of a tree and begging for it to go away, without anything to save her this time. She was near breaking down, as she noticed that something was odd about the light she saw. It came from between the trees and no matter how much Fizzlepop moved her head, the light remained at the same spots.
Feeling a little hope, the exhausted filly dragged herself to the source of the light. It became brighter and then, she stumbled out onto a wide, free space. Her hooves touched grass; soft, long blades of grass that wrapped her legs in an embrace that felt wonderful.
She stood on a clearing. The feeling of hope in her heart increased, as the thought emerged that this might mean that ponies were living here. She saw little cottages in her mind; a cozy, tiny forest village built on this clearing, with small gardens that grew vegetables, goats and chickens standing around and a few fillies her age playing catch between the houses, before they stopped and stared at her in curiosity. But the picture faded and then all she saw was tall grass as far as her eyes could reach. One lonely tree, a leaf tree, was standing in some distance, on the left side of the clearing and near the tree line of conifers. Bitter disappointment arose in Fizzlepop and a few tears leaked out of her eyes. Her body wasted more water, but she did not care. Then her tears dried nearly as quickly, as she noticed something at the edges of her vision.
Near the leaf tree, the clearing was lined with berry bushes. Following them with her eyes, Fizzlepop spotted many more. The entire clearing was surrounded by berry bushes, she realized soon, with only small gaps between, like the one she had stepped through when leaving the thick forest canopy.
Without thinking, Fizzlepop turned to the left and stampeded to the nearest bush. Her sight was too bad to determine whether these berries looked the same as the ones she must have eaten earlier or different, but the fear of dying from dehydration right then and there prevailed over the fear of poisoning herself. Fizzlepop ripped entire branches of berries from the bush and stuffed her mouth with them. Soon, her lips and the surrounding fur were soaked and red again, but Fizzlepop kept eating. She did not even wipe her mouth, letting the dripping berry juices sully her chest fur as well. Moving from bush to bush and emptying each one of the tiny life savers in the process, Fizzlepop ventured further and further into the clearing. It was near the lonely leaf tree, that her thirst had ceased completely and that her stomach felt like it would burst any moment. Fizzlepop burped involuntarily, a sign that it was time to stop.
Feeling heavy, Fizzlepop trudged to the leaf tree and let herself slump in front of it, the bark gracing her back as she sat down. She let out a sigh and smiled. For the first time since leaving her village, she felt content. The headache was gone, her vision worked again and she was neither hungry nor thirsty anymore. Maybe being out here wasn't as bad, a sudden thought hit her. It made more than sense to Fizzlepop. Sure, the wolves had scared her, she had to spend the last night in a dirty hole in the ground and she nearly died from thirst and probably starvation too. But had it not been exciting as well?
Fizzlepop looked up into the sky. The sun didn't stand very high anymore but, here on the clearing, she could feel its warm rays heating up her coat. Fizzlepop closed her eyes and groaned in comfort as she bathed in the sunlight. She recapped the events of the past two days in her head, from the moment she set hoof out of her village to this blissful moment of relaxation she enjoyed now.
Her heart started pumping blood faster as she thought back to the encounter with the wolves. She felt fear in this moment, wanted to scream for her parents. But now that she was safe and didn't feel exhausted anymore, the memory caused a different feeling to rush through her veins. It was invigorating. To her surprise, she realized that there was something she enjoyed about this encounter. Her heart was beating fast, but this time it felt good.
Her memory went further through the events. Then, on the next day, she had found the dead body of the wolf she had attacked with her magic. This was something she did. Fizzlepop breathed out, eyes opening wide and her heartbeat increasing even more. She was the one who had killed this wolf, all by herself! She didn't need the help of any adults for it. She had defended herself, successfully, and that's why she was still alive.
Fizzlepop grinned. A feeling rose in her heart. Pride. She was a strong filly, not fearless, but brave enough to face the dangers she encountered. Yeah, being out here wasn't so bad. She would have to sleep under the stars tonight, but thinking about this fact only got her more excited. She had never slept under the stars, but now she felt eager to do so. Another adventure.
The wolves were still in the forest, she knew. But Fizzlepop didn't feel an ounce of fear anymore. “They won't dare to disturb my sleep again!” she shouted into the forest. “If they smell me again, they will know that it's the smell of their conqueror and their demise! They will stay as far away from me as they can!” She looked up at her broken horn, that had become such an unexpected ally. “And if one of them is foolish enough to come anyway.....” She let the stump spark and fizzle. “..... then I will burn it like the first one!” She laughed at the thought, cheerfully.
Above her, the sun had sunken deeper and was now descending towards the horizon fast. It got darker around Fizzlepop. She sat there in serenity, looking up and watching the orange glow of the sky as the sun was setting. The first stars came out and Fizzlepop gasped in awe. “They look more beautiful out here,” she decided.
The sky darkened more and more, as Fizzlepop sat there and silently watched the transformation. She did not feel tired yet, the spirit of adventure that had come to life in her  keeping her awake. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf was howling. Fizzlepop's broken horn sparked in response, lighting up the face of the smiling filly.
The stars had come out fully. Gazing down at her, the tiny white dots in the purple sky twinkled. Fizzlepop let her eyes glide over them, wandering from one star to the next. She traced back the constellations and soon, she could see forms and figures in them. Her hooves reached up and she moved them over the sky, drawing invisible lines whenever she discovered a new constellation. Fizzlepop had no knowledge about astronomy, but her imaginative mind let her see all sorts of things in the stars. She identified different animals; a fox, a wolf, pigs and geese, chickens and goats, a squirrel and even a fish. The animals came to life in front of her mind's eye, they were frolicking on the nightsky and started to play with each other in harmony, chasing each other for fun, smiling and giggling. Even the fox and the wolf participated in the game, there was no food chain among the stars. Fizzlepop watched their happy games, filled with nothing but pure satisfaction. The night was getting chillier, but she did not notice it.
On the upper edge of her vision, her eyes caught sight of a particular constellation. Once more, Fizzlepop's hooves pointed up and she began to connect the individual stars. It was a longish constellation, a row of stars in the middle that extented into a curved, tail-like line at the top, with the last star standing askew. At its bottom, a short line of stars protruded on each side of the constellation, like limbs, pointing behind at the tail of the creature. After two stars, the lines branched off into the opposite direction. At their ends, after four more stars, they split up into opposing directions and the last two stars formed a triangular structure that resembled claws.
“A scorpion,” Fizzlepop said, eyes glistening. “Your tail is filled with poison and your claws hold your prey in place until you vanquished it!” she spoke while remembering what another visitor of her village had told her about the exotic bugs from the south. The scorpion came to life and moved over the sky, joining the other animals.
“And you are just like me,” Fizzlepop continued. “Anypony attacks me and I'll sting them!” She grinned up at the scorpion.
“I just need a name for you.....” Fizzlepop pondered, but she didn't have to ponder for long. It was a rather obvious choice. “I call you Scorpio!” she said after less than a minute. “You and me, we will see the world and find a new place to live, Scorpio!”
These were Fizzlepop's last conscious thoughts in this night. As she watched the animals and her new, imaginary friend playing together, her eyelids became heavy. She fought the sleep and tried to keep her eyes open but, eventually, Fizzlepop had to give up and accept the embrace of sleep.
“Goodnight, Scorpio,” she mumbled as her eyes finally fell shut for good.