Chapter 4 – Appetence
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A light feeling of hunger was the first thing I noticed upon awakening – the simple consequence of not having any dinner before falling asleep. I rubbed my eyes, staring at the ceiling. Something about my body felt off. I felt the cold, rocky ground with a hoof, finding that the numbness from Crystal’s spell was completely gone. Without the spell’s effects, I could now more properly feel the texture of the cave floor, though my chitin still dampened it somewhat. But that was probably a blessing, considering I was sleeping on solid ground.
I picked my head off of the floor, looking around. It was bright outside, but, aside from the blue light emanating from Crystal’s horn, the cave was rather dark. She was a few feet or so away from me, her brown book floating gently in front of her, dispersing the light back into her face. Crystal looked through her book thoughtfully, slowly turning the pages every few seconds or so.
Yawning and stretching, I slowly raised myself off the floor. The soreness gone, I could freely flex my muscles without feeling any kind of pain. If I really wanted to, I might’ve even been able to run without stressing them out too much.
Crystal quickly took notice that I stood up. “Oh, good morning,” she greeted, promptly setting her book down on the floor with the cover facing up. I looked around. Pathfinder and Twilight weren’t anywhere to be found, both perhaps hidden from the dark. “Twilight’s out getting breakfast; she’ll be back soon.”
Well, maybe only one of them, then. I looked over to her, squinting from her light. “What about Pathfinder?”
“He’s just taking a nap.” Her head faced a distant corner of the cave, faintly illuminating a red figure on the floor.
“A nap? But it’s morning,” I pointed out.
“Well... he likes his naps,” she stated. “Did you sleep well?”
I didn’t think I did, but gave an affirmative grunt anyways, running a hoof through the fins on my neck.
“Can you remember anything yet?” Crystal asked hopefully.
“No, not yet. Not even-” I stopped, looking down as the hunger suddenly spiked. “Woah,” I mouthed.
“What is it? Did you remember something?”
I shook my head. “No, no. I’m just a bit...” I clutched my abdomen with a hoof as the hunger stopped spiking, fading back to the level it was at originally.
Crystal offered a weak smile, levitating her book back up and opening it. “Don’t worry, I’m hungry too. We’ll just have to wait together, okay? It’ll be alright.”
We didn’t have to wait long, as it turned out. Twilight came back not maybe ten minutes later, hauling a sizable mass of oddly-shaped apples from behind with her magic. She levitated the mass to the center of the cavern and let go, causing a few to roll aside as the pile hit the ground.
After stopping for a moment to take a breath, her eye caught Crystal. “What the buck are you doing?!”
Crystal blinked, lowering her book. “What?”
“You’re supposed to be watching the changeling!”
“Bu- but I was watc-”
“No, you’re messing around with that little notebook of yours. What if it started attacking you while you were distracted? Celestia, I can’t believe you!”
Crystal hurtfully closed her book and put it back inside her saddlebags. Twilight rolled her eyes, lighting her horn up. The cave turned brighter in response. She then squinted at Pathfinder dozing off in the corner, floating up a loose apple near her hooves and tossing it.
The apple flew across the room and landed on its target with a light thud. "Ah! Ow!" One of Pathfinder's wings reached over to his forehead, nuzzling it. His eyes rolled over to the apple on the floor, not far from his head. "Who in Tartarus did that?!"
"Breakfast is here," Twilight said, barely regarding him. "Unless you prefer starving to death."
"What? Was simply tapping me on the head too hard for you, so you had to bloody start throwing apples?"
Twilight shrugged.
He muttered something under his breath, stretching his legs outwards and letting out a rather loud yawn before pulling himself off of the floor. "Ah, buck," he uttered, "my back. If it weren't for all this changeling bullshit, I'd be napping on a cloud 'nstead of this dump."
A cloud? You’d fall right through, I thought.
After bending and shifting around in an attempt to lessen the pain, Pathfinder walked over to the pile of apples on the ground, eyeing them. "Those are some dodgy-lookin' apples right there," he mused. He grabbed one and tossed it up with his foreleg. The apple went up into the air and landed back down onto his hoof, the fruit somehow not falling off with the little support it had.
"You know, it's funny," Pathfinder lamented. "I can't even remember the last time I've had an apple." He tossed the apple up again. "Oh yeah, I remember now. That'll be a whole year ago. Worst bloody bunch of apples I've had in my entire life; didn't even taste like anythin'.” He raised the apple to his mouth, saying, "Never bought a single thing from that tosser again. 'Fresh produce', my arse." He took a bite, but didn't even start chewing before spitting it right back out. "Blimey! What the blazing buck is this? This is even worse!"
"They're crab apples, Pathfinder," said Twilight. "What exactly did you expect?"
"Not this bloody rubbish, that's for sure!" He slowly took another bite, wincing as he chewed and swallowed. "Where in Equestria did you find these? I'd rather have leaves than this trash!"
"I merely picked the first thing I found. If you think you can do a better job, you're free to get your own food next time." Twilight picked up the chunk of apple Pathfinder spat out with her magic and moved it outside the cave, dropping it in front of the edge of the cliff. She then levitated two groups of crab apples off of the bigger pile, floating them over to Crystal and I before letting go. "Eat up," she commanded, "we've got a long day ahead of us."
We both ate. Pathfinder wasn't exaggerating at all; the apples were very sour. I would've rather had leaves as well – they didn't seem to be that bad a couple days ago when I had them – but they would probably be lacking in nutritional value. So I buried my discomforts and kept eating, determined to finish them all through sheer force of will.
Twilight ate from a pile of her own as she looked at her map, staring at it like it had committed bloody murder. I wasn't sure if the stare was because of the food or because she was still having trouble making plans; I suspected both.
I finished my meal first, though I noticed that the hunger did not dissipate as I ate. It remained, lingering. In fact, as soon as I finished off my pile, it spiked yet again.
"Are you alright?" Crystal asked, raising an eyebrow. She had stopped eating not even halfway through, much to Twilight's dismay.
"I don't know," I replied. "I think it's just the crab apples."
"Yet another complainer. Goodie," Twilight hissed. "Maybe you shouldn't have gotten anything in the first place."
"Twilight!" Crystal stressed.
"Oh, shut your mouth! I don't want to hear any more of your horseapples, either."
Crystal glared, but didn't say anything further.
Twilight went on to eat just over half of her pile, while Pathfinder didn't even seem to make a dent.
"This is simply despicable," Twilight complained. "You can't even have half of it? A quarter?!"
"I'll be saving the rest for later; don't get your fanny all in a bunch, now!" Pathfinder exchanged.
Twilight stared icily at him. "Talk like that to me again, and you'll have something else of yours in a twisted, structurally superfluous knot," she growled.
"How about you put down the dictionary for once and tell us this plan of yours?"
Twilight bowed her head, fixating her gaze upon him. "Thesaurus," she corrected.
"Whatever! Bloody just get on with it!"
She held her gaze for a few more moments. "As you wish," she said as she started to pace around. "Alright, so our goal is simple: get to a safe location; find out a way to save Equestria."
“If, we can do that last part, even,” Pathfinder noted.
"With both of those things in mind," Twilight continued, ignoring him, "it is imperative that we take care of step one first. So, where should we go? Well, we know that Canterlot and Ponyville have already fallen to the changelings, so, obviously, we can't go there. Additionally, we could rightfully assume that any city within Ponyville's vicinity will also be invaded by them very soon. So that means..." she stopped by the map, glancing at it. "...Apple Loosa and Dodge City – well, Cloudsdale and Los Pegasus as well, but that's irrelevant, considering not all of us are Pegasai." She resumed pacing. "Now, given all of that, invading these locations will still take quite a bit of time. Ponyville fell only a few days after Canterlot, and both of these places are considerably further away, so we have more than a week to escape to somewhere that isn't any of these two locations or Canterlot or Ponyville. Any questions?"
Pathfinder raised a hoof.
Twilight sighed. "Yes, Pathfinder?"
"Yeah, you still haven't said where we're going?"
"Terrible question; I was getting to that," she said. "I have decided that we should travel to Tall Tale. It's close, so we won't have to travel far, and it's well-hidden, being right behind the Smokey Mountains."
Pathfinder grit his teeth and rubbed his chin with a hoof. "Tall Tale..." he said slowly. "Hold on just a minute, let me see that chart." Twilight raised an eyebrow as Pathfinder walked over to the map. He looked at it for a while before shaking his head. "Yeah, with all due respect, what a horrible bucking idea."
"What did you say?"
"I said: ‘what a horrible bucking idea’. Oh, yeah, it's close. And yeah, it's well-hidden enough, but when we get there, well, then what?"
Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it, considering his words.
He continued: "With your plan, we would be absolutely bucked if the town gets invaded." He slammed a hoof down onto the map. "Look at the chart, there are zero other places we could possibly go. There's Vanhoover, but it's right next to Tall Tale, so you're just running away so that you can have the same thing happen right after. We could retreat back south to where we are now, but then we're bloody startin' at square one, all the while accomplishing absolutely nothing. Like I said, horrible bucking idea."
Twilight walked over and pointed a hoof above Vanhoover. "There's the Frozen North-"
"Brilliant, then we can all freeze to death. Look, you might be all clever when it comes to your books and magic and all that rubbish, but you're a terrible navigator.”
She huffed. "And you're any better?"
"Love? It's my cutie mark," he said, pointing at the map on his flank. "Let me figure this out for you, yea?"
Twilight gave Pathfinder a look. She stepped away from him and sat down, scowling. "Go ahead, be my guest."
Pathfinder rolled his eyes, turning away from her and gesturing over to himself. "Okay, everypony gather around. Yep, that's right, I said everypony; come on, Crystal."
Crystal and I looked at eachother, standing up and sitting back down near the map.
"What?" Pathfinder shook his head at me. "Nononono, not you. I said everypony, not every... uh, 'ling'?"
"That would just be 'everyone'," Twilight stated.
"Whatever, it doesn't matter, it's here now, oh well. Anyways, let's see what we got here..." His eyes rolled over the map, the gears turning in his head.
I leaned over a bit, tilting my head in order to take a glance at it as well.
It depicted a vast landmass, with the names of various towns and cities marked all over alongside other features, such as rivers, mountains, forests, and deserts. The very top of the map said ‘Equestria’. A city named Canterlot sat in the middle of this Equestria which, judging by the legend, was the capital. The city was very close to ‘Celestial Peak’, a mountain, and another town, Ponyville, which was not that far away from Celestial Peak in the southwest. Near Ponyville was the ‘Everfree Forest’, ‘Rambling Rock Ridge’, and then White Tail Hills, the latter being right next to Ponyville over to the west. White Tail Woods, in turn, laid just to the left of White Tail Hills, with ‘North White Tail Woods’ over to (where else?) the North. Northwest to North White Tail Woods was the Smokey Mountains, Tall Tale laying right above.
All of the other cities I heard mentioned were also on the map, alongside many others, such as ‘Baltimare’ and ‘Fillydelphia’. It seemed to be a trend for these ponies to have most of their city names relate to horses. Both Baltimare and Fillydelphia laid on the coast of the ‘Celestial Sea’, which extended all the way to the eastern edge of the map. The ‘North Luna Ocean’ and the ‘South Luna Ocean’ were over to the western edge, both cut apart by what was only marked as being the ‘Undiscovered West’.
Pathfinder's hoof tapped the left side of White Tail Hills, breaking my concentration. "Alright, so we're somewhere over here... and the changelings–" his hoof swayed back and forth over the area from Canterlot to where we were. "–they're all around there. And soon, the whole area from Canterlot all the way over to the South Luna Ocean will be full of 'em. Now- wait, no... uh." He stopped, frowning.
"What was that? You were saying something?” Twilight snarked.
"Oi! Piss off, I'm thinking!"
"Thinking hard, or hardly thinking? All you've done so far, essentially, is repeat everything I've said without offering anything new yourself."
"I said piss off!" Pathfinder lowered his head. "Dammit, I thought maybe we could go to Baltimare, but..."
Twilight smirked. "Not as easy as it looks, isn't it?"
He looked at her. "Oh, go back to reading your dusty old books! At least then you're less of a total arse!" Pathfinder looked back, staring intently, the gears in his head working harder than ever. "Oh, come on. Where, where, where? Where can we go?" His eye stopped at the western side of the map. He sat straight up, thinking. He looked back down. "Maybe..."
"What is it?" Crystal asked.
He faced her. "West," he said simply.
Twilight slowly turned her head towards Pathfinder. "West?"
"Yep. We keep heading over to the West. It might actually be our only option."
"'Keep heading to the West'? You mean all the way to the Undiscovered West?!" she exclaimed.
"Well, we can't head east; we'll be caught for sure! It's like running back into a burning building right as you got out.”
She shook her head. "No, no, no. NO. We are not abandoning Equestria. Period."
Pathfinder looked at her quizzically. "'Abandoning'? The buck you mean, 'abandoning'?"
Twilight stood. "Equestria is our nation, Pathfinder. Our home! We can't just leave it all alone by itself to rot!"
"Leave it alone to rot? Good Luna, girl, listen to yourself! We aren't abandoning it, we're only saving our own flanks – nothing more, nothing less."
"Oh! So that's it? Save ourselves and look back unto this kingdom as it crumbles all the way to the ground? Do absolutely nothing to save it?!"
"That was the plan wasn't it? Make sure we're safe before we try anything else?" Twilight said nothing. With no response from her, he added, "I mean, not sure why we would even bother. Seems like Equestria's done for anyways, so."
Twilight stomped her hoof. "As the bearer of one of the Elements of Harmony, I am telling you right now that, as long as I am around, Equestria is not done for."
I turned to Crystal. "Elements of what now?"
"I'll explain later," she whispered before looking back at Pathfinder.
"Pfft- oh, the Elements of Harmony. That would be you and your five little friends, huh?" Pathfinder laughed and then suddenly yelled, "WAKE UP, sunshine! Wake up and smell the roses, because the Elements are useless now!"
Twilight stood still, almost seeming to listen to him before shaking her head. "No. I can't just give up. I've saved Equestria before. Twice. And I will do it again."
"Oh yeah?! What're you gonna do, huh? March straight into Canterlot? Demand they hoof your friends right back over to you? Kill them all if they don't? You wouldn't last one bloody second!"
She gave Pathfinder the death glare. "Try me."
Pathfinder returned her glare, taking two steps towards her. "Almost wanna tell you to buckin' do it, just so that I can say that I bloody told you so."
"Go right on ahead," she dared.
Pathfinder laughed again. "Oh, wouldn't even be able to do that, 'cause you'd be dead. Do you really think that – just because you can take down more than, what was it, five changelings at once, you can take on a whole army? Take a bucking hike, love!”
At that moment, I saw something inside Twilight Sparkle break. Her death glare faded, replaced by something far more psychotic. Her eye twitched. "You know what? That's not a bad idea, taking a hike. Not at all."
"Uh, what?" Pathfinder said, confused.
"Yeah, I'll take a hike all the way down to Canterlot! Step right inside, exactly like you said! And if they send an army, I'll swat them all down like the flies they are!" She tapped her hooves together, as if applauding. "This is the perfect plan!"
Pathfinder rubbed his head. "Now, hold on just a secon-"
"Although! It's probably best to know what I'm getting into first..." She turned towards me, her expression unhinged. I had the vaguest sense that I should maybe get the hell out of there, but, for some reason, I froze, foolishly holding my ground.
Twilight slowly walked up to me, stopping mere inches away from my face. She looked at me up and down with contempt before saying, "If you ask me, I think you're long overdue on your usefulness." I give her a confused look, which she takes notice of. "What? You thought you could tag along without doing anything? Well, you've got another thing coming."
A purple aura engulfed me as I was slammed to the ground. Without Crystal's spell in effect, I felt the whole punishment of the fall, crying out in pain.
"Alright. I'm going to make this dead-simple. Simple enough that even a creature as intellectually challenged as you could understand." The aura dissipated as Twilight pinned me to the floor with all four of her hooves, looking down at me. "I am going to ask you some questions. You will answer each and every last one of them immediately, honestly, and concisely."
I gulped. "I swear to God that I don't know anything."
"QUIET!" Her horn started glowing violently. "Talking when I'm not talking, that ought to be strike one. Three strikes, and you're out."
I didn't reply.
"That's a good changeling. Okay, now The Queen. What's her plan?"
I stammered, unconsciously chittering as I failed to recall what she was talking about. "Who?"
"The Queen! Your Queen! She takes over Canterlot, and then the whole of Equestria. What happens after that?"
"I-" Right when I've forgotten about it, I felt my hunger rise again. I winced.
"...You were saying?" Twilight presses.
"I really don't know," I say as it died back down, "I haven't remembered anything yet, honestly!"
"Whoopsie-daisy! That's strike two!" Twilight put a hoof to her chin. "Actually, kind of unfair that I gave you a strike earlier when you didn't know what the deal was, so... buck it, you're still on strike one."
"But I'm being honest! I don't know about The Queen or Equestria, nothing!"
"Aaand we're back to strike two. That was fast. Well, if you don't want to talk about her plans, then at least tell me what she's doing to Canterlot. What’s going on over there? What has she done to the ponies living there, to the princesses?" A pause as she waits for an answer. "TELL ME!" she yells.
Seeing as trying to explain myself hasn't done any good so far, I kept my trap shut.
"Well?! Speak up!" She waited a few more moments. "Oooo, you're getting really close to strike three. Dangerously close!" she said maniacally.
I tilted my head over to Crystal and Pathfinder. Predictably, the former was horrified. The latter was biting his lip, wings spread wide open, as if he were ready to fly away at any moment.
"You know," Twilight started again, making me face her, "silence won't save you. In fact, come to think of it, that just makes me feel even more peeved." She sighed. "Oh well, I guess this is strike three. A shame, a real big shame. Looks like I really was lugging you around for nothing." Her horn glowed ever so brighter, sparking in a torrent of energy. I found myself clenching my jaw and closing my eyes, shielding them with the little coverage my hole-riddled hooves provided. "Goodbye."
So. This is how I die, I thought as I waited for everything to end. For the blast from Twilight's horn to carry me away from this world and into limbo. I wish I could've said that my life flashed before my eyes, but my amnesia denied me that, so whatever life I did have, I wouldn't know about it now. What did I ever do to anybody to deserve this shit? Well, at least I won’t have to worry about that anymore. Soon, I wouldn't need to worry about anything at all.
Hmm...
Hold on, I was still worrying. And if I was worrying, then that meant that I’m still alive.
But shouldn't I have already died moments ago?
I lowered my hooves ever so slightly and opened one eye, only to find Twilight's own eyes drooping. Her body was covered in a familiar blue aura.
What?
She was levitated off me and gently placed sideways on the ground a couple feet away. I rolled over and tentatively stood up. Crystal's horn was glowing.
...What?
I looked at Twilight. She was mumbling, her lips slowly opening and closing. It seemed like she was trying to say something, but couldn't get the words out.
I turned back to Crystal, looking at her alongside Pathfinder in awe. She stood quietly for a few seconds before finally speaking: "Simple sedative spell. It'll expire in less than ten minutes."