Lunch ended, and since the sun was shining warm and bright, Twilight decided to play a game of fetch with Spike. She gathered a few choice sticks to throw, and let the little pup out onto the main campground; tail wagging rapidly, Spike jumped and yipped in excitement as Twilight picked up a stick and gave it an enticing wave.
“Okay Spike… you ready? See the stick, boy?”
Spike woofed eagerly.
“Alright, Spike! Fetch!” Twilight drew back her arm and threw as hard as she could, watching in amusement as her pet took off, nearly tripping over his feet in his zeal to chase the stick down and bring it back. Maybe she didn’t have the throwing arm of Indigo Zap but Twilight was still happy with her toss.
Spike came trotting back to her a moment later, stick tightly gripped in his jaws, clearly very proud of himself. Twilight couldn’t help but giggle; her dog was so cute!
“Good boy, Spike! Now give me the stick back…”
Spike huffed, and growled lightly as she took the end of the stick, and soon enough dog and owner were playing tug-of-war for the piece of wood.
However, Spike suddenly found a new object of interest, when he spotted a large gray rabbit go loping out from the undergrowth nearby. Swiftly letting go of the stick (and causing poor Twilight to go stumbling back in surprise) Spike lunged after the bunny, and a frantic chase began.
“Spike!” Twilight called in panic, “Stop! Come back! Heel, heel!” She ran in pursuit of the little dog, wishing too late that she’d remembered to stop and grab Spike’s leash. Now she’d have to catch him on her own. “Spike!” The chase took them around the campground, winding through one of the work areas (“Sorry! Sorry!” Twilight called out apologies as she wove among some of her fellow campers) and then finally around to Timber and Gloriosa’s cabin – where right before Spike could follow his rabbit quarry into the woods, Twilight managed to snag his collar and bring him to a halt.
“No! Bad dog, Spike!” Twilight scolded him, “Don’t go running off like that!”
The little pup shrank down in guilt, letting out a pitiful whimper, and very rapidly Twilight’s irritation vanished. “Aww, Spike…” she gently knelt down and picked the little dog up to give him a cuddle, “I’m not *that* mad at you. Just, don’t go charging off like that, please, boy? Who knows what’s in these woods…”
Spike let out a soft woof at that. Twilight shushed him softly, giving him a pet along the back. “It’s all right, boy…”
Her voice trailed off as she suddenly heard footsteps from inside the cabin. Heavy, fast ones, like someone had just gone running inside. It was then that Twilight now remembered she was right behind the home of the two camp leaders, and she felt a rush of embarrassment; time for her to get back to the main camp!
Twilight started to stand up. “Come on, boy,” she said softly to Spike, “Let’s go get your leash and—”
“Are you kidding me?!”
Twilight squeaked in fright at the sudden shout from inside the cabin. She knew that voice, recognized it immediately… but she never had heard Timber Spruce sound so angry before.
The voice continued. “I can’t – just – UGH!”
Twilight ducked down in panic, Spike held tightly in her arms, as she heard a door slam and footsteps stomp through the cabin. They sounded like they were coming very close to her… she scooted up against the outside wall of the cabin, praying that she wouldn’t be seen.
“Timber!” Gloriosa’s voice had joined the commotion now. She sounded startled. “What’s wrong?”
Timber didn’t answer her directly. Twilight, straining her ears, heart pounding in her chest, heard some faint noise through the window; then, a moment later, Gloriosa spoke up again.
“Oh, Timber…” She sounded so sad as she said it, “I’m so sorry…”
Twilight still didn’t hear a spoken answer. Spike whined quietly in her arms, wriggling in anxiety. She patted him, soothing him to be quiet, even as she felt a horrible prickle of guilt for eavesdropping like this.
“I need to go out,” Timber’s voice finally said, stiffly.
“…Okay,” Gloriosa answered, after a delay. “You do that, you take the day off… I’ll cover for you, all right?”
Twilight heard a grunt in response.
“Timber, please… it’ll be all right—” Gloriosa started to say, but the rest of her sentence was cut off by the window suddenly being forced open; Twilight’s heart nearly stopped in fright, this was it, she was gonna be caught, she would be in so much trouble…
But she didn’t hear anyone call her name or anything. She heard what sounded like paper ripping, and then she squeaked in surprise as a few large, hastily-torn pieces of paper fluttered through the air around her – one even landing right in her lap.
A moment later, she heard footsteps stomping away and then the distant slamming of a door.
“Timber!” Gloriosa called, upset. “Timber, please wait!”
Another rush of footsteps, and then all was quiet again.
Spike whimpered in Twilight’s arms, looking at her with clear fright in his big eyes, and she soothed him again, giving him a few pats before letting him back onto the ground. “It’s okay, boy…” she told him, “It’s all right…”
She started to stand up, and the bit of paper in her lap fluttered to the ground.
Twilight stared at it for a long moment, and at the other pieces littering the grass around her.
She bit her lip, thinking hard and fast. And then, reluctantly, she began to gather up the pieces of paper, trying to put them back together in a way that made sense, figure out what on earth had upset the boy who’dhelped her so badly.
Laying the pieces out on the open windowsill, she began to get a clearer picture: it was a letter, and an official-looking one at that. She recognized a somewhat familiar insignia in the upper corner of the page. It was the symbol of a college that she had once done some research on, and had even considered applying to at one point before the Friendship Games.
Twilight’s eyes skimmed the words on the page, and her heart sank more and more as certain words and phrases leapt out at her.
“We regret to inform you… wish that a different decision were possible… at the moment just not what we are looking for… we appreciate the interest you have shown… we hope you will accept our best wishes in your future endeavors…”
It was a rejection letter.
And, if she had to guess by Timber’s reaction, not the first one he’d ever gotten either. Twilight wrung her hands, as she did a lot of thinking. A couple of things from the past few days all began to make an unpleasant amount of sense to her: Timber’s evasive answer at the campfire when she had talked about living at the camp from a few days before. Him snapping at his sister just yesterday. And hadn’t she heard something about him from Flash or Derpy, about him being a bit grumpy at times?
He must have wanted to get out of the camp, very badly… and now he’d had one of his chances go up in smoke.
“Oh, what do I do, what do I do…”
The instant Twilight said those words though, she knew what she had to do.
Timber Spruce had been nice to her. He’d listened to her. Talked to her, given her advice. And now he was clearly hurting, and not in a good place at all. And she knew, more than anything, that people could do stupid things, make horrible mistakes, when they were scared and hurt and angry.
I have to find him, and talk to him. But how?
Spike yipped anxiously from the ground, and she looked down at her new friend, her beloved pet, and began to get an idea.
“Okay, good.” Twilight stood up, “Come on, Spike. We need to go find Timber Spruce.”
But as she crossed back around by the front of the counselors’ cabin, Twilight was hit by a sudden realization… she had no idea where to start looking. Or how she could even find the other boy. She didn’t know the camp or its surrounding area nearly as well as someone who’d grown up here would.
Spike suddenly barked up at her. Twilight looked and found her dog pawing at a discarded hat by the door of the cabin. Specifically, a beanie. Timber Spruce’s hat; perhaps he had thrown it off when he’d stormed out of the cabin?
“Good boy, Spike!” Twilight came over, and, getting an idea, carefully picked the beanie up with one hand. She held it out to Spike’s nose, instructing him to sniff it. She knew about police dogs being trained to track scents, and while Spike was a smart dog… it was a long shot and she knew it, but she didn’t know what else to do. Time was of the essence, she just knew it.
“Can you find this scent Spike?”
The dog yipped up at her, tail wagging, and he took off at a run, heading straight for one of the hiking trails; stopping every now and again to sniff the ground before continuing onward.
“Good boy!” Twilight ran to follow him. Spike unhesitatingly led her along the path for a while, until he surprised her by veering off and into the undergrowth to the left. Twilight came to a stop, looking intently at the layout of the new path Spike was on… after a minute she could see enough gaps in the foliage to realize that this was a path too, just a more secret or hidden one than the officially-marked trails.
Twilight bit her lip, thinking. Her earlier resolve was starting to waver, and she wondered if this was really the smartest idea. What if she got lost, or ran into an animal out in the woods? She hadn’t told her friends where she was going, or anyone else… Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe she should run and fetch Applejack, or Autumn Blaze.
But then, she remembered other things too. Timber’s kindness to her earlier, his anger, her fear that he could be doing something rash or foolish right now… she remembered all too well what had happened when she had felt trapped and desperate without anyone for her to really talk to her and help her.
I have to try.
She repeated it to herself. “I have to try.” And she carefully stepped off the trail and onto the hidden path, following after Spike as he plunged on, deeper into the woods beyond Camp Everfree.
Twilight followed Spike further into the woods, taking care to stick to the narrow path and not stray into the underbrush. She’d never been too invested in botany and cursed herself now for not having read up more on what types of plants were safe to touch. It would be just perfect if she stumbled into a patch of poison ivy while trying to find Timber Spruce—
Crack.
Her foot came down on a stray twig, and the piece of wood snapped with a shockingly loud noise. Twilight flinched, and Spike suddenly drew up short and looked around, now anxious about something. Twilight carefully walked over, scooped up her pet and held him in her arms. “It’s okay, boy,” she soothed him, “It was just a stick. Nothing to worry about.”
Spike whined softly.
“It’ll be okay,” she patted him again, and carefully set off again, in the direction that Spike had been going. In silence the two of them made their way through the wooded trail, Twilight noticing that the trees were growing thicker and thicker overhead – even though it was early afternoon and the sun would be shining bright, the atmosphere felt gloomy and even oppressive. She was starting to feel on edge again…
Spike nestled deeper into her arms, as though he was trying to hide. Twilight gave him a reassuring squeeze, but he still whimpered softly. Girl and dog continued onward in silence, Twilight’s ears pricked up for the slightest sound, especially that of anything scary or monstrous… but all there seemed to be was the quiet.
Not even the hum of insects or singing of birds… what could have caused that?
The treetops above her began to part as she pressed on, and she could make out the sun again, thin beams of light shining down onto the forest floor. She was coming upon a clearing now. Twilight felt relieved at first…
Then there was a sudden flash of green light from up ahead, and she nearly dropped Spike in alarm. Darting out of side behind a nearby tree, heart pounding in her chest, Twilight waited in desperate panic for a long several minutes before she could make out, faintly, a familiar-sounding voice nearby…
Twilight’s heart skipped a beat. She knew that voice, all right. Carefully, taking pains not to make noise or drop Spike, she edged around the side of the tree and crouched down to look in and see…
And her stomach dropped with a sick thrill of horror. She saw many smaller trees lining the insides of the clearing. They were blackened and almost dead-looking, but they were wiggling their branches like tentacles, swaying rhythmically to a silent beat. She saw Timber Spruce standing before them, waving one arm almost like a conductor’s; the trees were moving in response to his motions, it was like he had complete control over them. There was a faint greenish light coming from his front, though Twilight couldn’t make out the cause of it…
And then she could see other things in the clearing, too… what looked like wooden animals, though they could not be sculptures, they looked both too crude and too real to be carvings!
And then one of the wooden animals, that had been lounging by Timber’s feet, sat up and looked around. It had a canine snout and glowing green eyes.
Twilight practically felt her heart stop at that moment, as the Timberwolf opened its jaws and yawned, revealing its jagged teeth, and got to its feet, as another wolf slunk over to join it. Timber Spruce stopped gesturing to the trees, which immediately froze in position, and he absently reached over and patted the head of one of the wolves.
She felt sick. Timber Spruce had magic? The Timberwolves were real? They were working for Timber Spruce, or he was a friend of theirs, or – or – it didn’t matter “or,” just what was right in front of her! The boy she had wanted to help, was messing around with magic and playing with monsters – monsters that had attacked Flash Sentry, and maybe had torn up the cell tower! What in the world was he thinking! She had to talk to him, had to figure out what to do…
But as she looked at the scene, at the two wooden wolves hanging around Timber like bodyguards, Twilight suddenly realized that she had no idea how to do any of that. It wasn’t like she could just walk in, all casual-like, and say, 'Hey Timber, what a surprise! I didn’t know you had magic wolf monsters out here, can you tell me how you got one?'
Okay, think Twilight! She urged herself. You have a brain, you can use it! Okay, okay… first, I need to get the wolves away from him; I need to talk to him one on one.
But how do I do that?
Spike suddenly whimpered loudly in her arms, shuddering and pawing at her like he wanted nothing more than to get away.
“Spike!” Twilight chided him quietly, “Be quiet! It’s… all right?”
Her voice dropped to a squeak, for just then Twilight heard the growling. Low, and deep, and angry… And right behind her.
Twilight, too frightened to scream, whipped around, and saw a snarling Timberwolf, tall enough to look her in the eyes, just a few steps from her. Its blank green eyes practically blazing with anger, and its teeth, thick as rail spikes, bared.
Spike suddenly wriggled out of Twilight’s arms, leapt to the ground, and took off running as fast as he could, yipping in terror as he vanished into the woods. The massive wolf lunged forward, its jaws snapping just short of Twilight’s face as she shrieked and half-leapt and half-fell backwards, stumbling out into the open clearing.
“Twilight?”
Her eyes had been shut; she had closed them, too scared of her impending death to want to see it come for her. She forced herself to open them, and looked up.
The big wolf was still much too close for her liking, standing a few feet away from her, still growling softly… but Timber Spruce was right by her side, looking startled and concerned too. A necklace of gleaming geodes hung around his neck; she could now see that this was what had been making the glow from earlier.
Twilight groaned softly, full of dread. “Oh, no…”