-???, late evening, Pom-
From what Ocellus saw, we were currently in some kind of valley and there’s several odd things around us that we could look into.
The most important thing that Ocellus spotted was a fairly large bamboo forest with what looked to be well-kept pathways, this meant that there was some kind of civilization was around here we could maybe talk to for help. Provided that they were still around or we could even communicate between ourselves.
This led to the two most important places to look for help. First there were the structures in the more cold, snowy and mountainous regions in the upper parts of the valley and the second were a few structures down towards the lower parts.
We were somewhere between them and Ocellus thought she saw some movement around both parts of the valley. Ocellus did not want to go out to scout them by herself, so she stayed near us and safely within view. This was something I praised her for, but she just gave me a slightly flat look before we set out looking for fruit.
There were not any wild animals near us, at least we haven’t seen anything dangerous enough to be worthy of note. As such this place was extremely odd, but I was more relaxed that there wasn’t much danger when it came to finding fruit, a few vegetables and making our campsite next to the river.
So I was feeling cautiously optimistic about how well we could survive here, but the young goat still needed medical help.
That nothing had happened when we set up camp had made me somewhat wary that some kind of horseshoe was going to drop somewhere eventually.
No place is ever usually this calm.
“So as you can imagine, Arizona was entirely put off about the fact that her mother in Equestria and her alternate’s mother in Fœnum were two completely different cows entirely. Minnie was nice, peaceful and a matriarch of the cows. Maggie on the other hoof is… excessively loud, loves explosives and is a bounty hunter.” I sighed and looked from our little campfire to the stars above. None of them were familiar. “So this isn’t the first time I’ve ended up in another place, but that place had another me in it.”
I looked over to the goat, her head resting on a thick pile of leaves and her body tucked into the makeshift bedding we made to keep her warm. She needed help and I was going to try to find some in the lower end of the valley tomorrow. The makeshift shelter crafted from branches, leaves and some vines wouldn’t survive a storm, but it was our shelter for the night and it would be a bit of a squeeze.
“Huh, so was the alternate Pom exactly the same as you?” Smolder said after she swallowed the bit of fruit.
“No. Though our dispositions were similar, we were very different in many small ways. She had instinctive fluffmancer abilities while I didn’t have any at the time. She also had flying sheep dogs compared to my flying Canis Minor… and wasn’t exiled from her home for several years…” I was still definitely bitter about that last thing I muttered quietly, the other Pom had never lived in exile or learned how to camp. Actually learning how to camp was really useful in this situation, so I really shouldn’t complain about having more survival skills than the average lambkin. “Her sheep dogs weren’t nearly as strong as my Canis, but they were more numerous and otherwise we were pretty much evenly matched in our capability to whine about our lives. Enough about me, do you two want to talk about yourselves?”
“No.” Ocellus didn’t eat any fruit, but with the way she was snuggled up against Smolder told me she’d be fine.
Smolder was feeding her quite well by proximity.
“Eh, you live in the dragon lands, I bet there isn’t much you haven’t heard about us dragons. We have volcanoes, rocks, gems and maybe piles of gold to roll around in to get off some loose scales.” Smolder was a good friend, she was much better than her brother at being nice without seemingly struggling with it at times. That school of friendship was actually doing a good job. “Yeah, we’re pretty boring and are usually always focused on trying to act so tough all the time. It gets pretty tiring after a while and it’s about time we started trying to do new things, even if I do like roughhousing.”
I ate a few plums and considered our course of options from here.
“One of us will want to head down into the valley to see if there is anyone intelligent around that can help the goat, I don’t want to go up into the mountains and possibly get lost.” I looked at the goat, worried about the poor things health. “Either way, someone will have to stay with her. You can both stay here while I set out in the morning or one of you can go with me. I suggest you both stay here to keep her company while I go look for some way to help her.”
“Do you think you can handle being alone by yourself?” Having seen me freak out so much in a short amount of time, Smolder had the right idea to question me.
I certainly wouldn’t trust a lambkin to cross the road without first asking about what’s on the other side, even ‘nothing’ can be a pretty scary answer to a lambkin for various reasons. Everything that is holy help everyone if there was a chicken on the other side of said road.
“I won’t let her down, she’s something important for me to focus on.” I started to floss my teeth with a small bit of reed, then drank some recently boiled water and looked at the campfire. We’ll leave the fire going, it was properly contained and wouldn’t cause trouble. “Anyway, we can’t leave her like this for much longer. If I can’t find any help tomorrow, then we’ll have to figure out something for ourselves. Let’s get some sleep, I don’t think anything will bother us here.”
I didn’t sleep easily, but keeping Smolder between me and Ocellus was probably for the best. I was closest to the entrance of the makeshift shelter and the goat was deeper in.
I was the adult here and I would protect them with my life if things came to it, even if I was completely terrified of the prospect that I was responsible for them.
-The next morning-
The sun was rising into the sky, Smolder and Ocellus would wait at the camp and I set off on a trek down the river to see if I could find anything intelligent. If I did, then my best course of action would be to ask for a doctor.
-Equestrian Campsite, Ocellus-
“Do you think she’ll be back?” Having a few doubts was not unnatural, I mean we are talking about a lambkin far out of their depth. She was surprisingly good at camping though.
“Eh, she’ll be fine, she’s a Huoshan Guard and she was put on protection detail by Ember for a reason.” Well Smolder seemed confident, though she was wary about our situation as well. “Besides, she succeeded at protecting the diplomats and my brother. Sure she might be a bit panicky, but that doesn’t mean she’s as bad as other lambkin are.”
“Have you actually met any other lambkin?” I know the answer to this, it was a definitive no. I on the other hoof have met quite a few.
The fact that Pom wasn’t a hypochondriac and wasn’t constantly paranoid did make me feel somewhat better about sending her off alone to find some possible form of help. Not that I cared about her all that much, but I wouldn’t feel okay if something bad actually happened to her.
-Down the river, Pom-
My ears twitched left and right as I trotted along listening for the sound of anything. Nature was wonderful, just so long as nothing was trying to eat you.
I heard something like a loud crash going off to my right, it spooked me into throwing myself to the ground and curling up to make myself small. My heart rate was going a mile a minute as I cowered on the ground.
After a moment I poked my head up and made my way in that direction.
In this case I needed to be curious, I needed to not freeze up and freak out. If someone needed my help and if that crash was someone in trouble, then I would need to seek them out despite how wobbly my legs are currently getting. I would continue to move forward despite my limbs knocking together in fear.
Of course this didn’t mean I wasn’t cautious. Once I was closer to the increasing sounds of something going on, I ducked into the nearest bush and poked my head out in the direction of another crashing noise.
What I saw was one of the oddest things I think will have ever seen in my life.
On one side there was a white furred baboon, with him was a lot of monkeys. The monkeys were pushing the baboon in a large makeshift wooden cart while he was wielding a wooden lance.
On the other there was a skunk, also wielding a wooden lance and in a makeshift wooden cart, only his cart was being pushed by numerous monkeys. Let’s see, there was a pig, a rabbit, a white tiger and a fox.
Both of these groups were heading straight towards each other.
I just tilted my head at what I was experiencing. What I was seeing was two groups of animals that were clearly showing intelligence and fighting one another in what looked like a jousting competition, the weirdest thing was that were all the same general size as normal animals back home.
The clash of both carts was impressively destructive on both sides and those odd monkeys went flying everywhere.
“Wasabi.” The baboon muttered as he got up from where he slammed painfully into a tree.
The monkeys with the baboon and the skunk with the other animals all got up amid the broken pieces of wood to glare at one another. The skunk, the tiger, the fox and the rabbit were all notably bipedal.
I inhaled slowly through my mouth, exhale through my nose and stepped out the bush to walk up to them slowly. I didn’t really want to spook anyone, also I was being very careful in my approach in case they all decided to attack me.
One of them said ‘wasabi’, which was that radish stuff that makes for a spicy paste. So I could understand them, hopefully they don’t attack me for interfering in… whatever this is.
“Um… excuse me…” My soft voice suddenly diverted every bit of their attention onto me, they all blinked at me curiously.
I shrunk in on myself, but someone was relying on me to find help for them and this was my best opportunity to ask for help. While I didn’t like so many scrutinizing eyes on me, my need to help the goat was far more important than my need to curl up and cry as the lambkin that I was.
“Yes?” Both the skunk and the baboon stated at the same time as they turned to me.
“Does anyone here know where I can find a good doctor?” I asked timidly while poking my hooves together. “If you do, which direction can I head in to find them?”
“Oh, you’re looking for Master Turtle, he’s down by the lake that way. Ask anyone around there if you don’t see him.” The skunk was the one to answer my question.
“Thank you.” I bowed to them all respectfully and then quickly continued in the direction the skunk pointed out to me, mostly to get out of the way. “I’m so sorry for disrupting all of you.”
“Oh that’s alright, don’t mind us.” The baboon said conversationally.
I was heading in the direction of the lake and would hopefully find this ‘Master Turtle’ the skunk spoke of.
-With the skunk-
“Uh… who was that?” The skunk said while rubbing the back of his head, he for the most part seemed curious about the newcomer.
“Never seen anyone like them around here before, do you suppose they could be a spy?” The rabbit seemed quite eager to question the newcomer. “That would be twenty percent cooler than just fighting the ninja monkeys and Baboon!”
“I don’t know why, but there’s just something I really liked about her.” The lithe fox stated while looking after the odd creature that wandered into the middle of their battle. Her tail was wagging behind her excitedly and she wasn’t quite sure what she was currently feeling about the newcomer.
“If she was a spy, she’s definitely not one of ours.” Baboon paused for a moment, considered something, then shrugged and decided to be entirely indifferent about the newcomer. He raised his fist and charged forward. “Right then, back to what we were doing, attack!”
The various animals and the monkey army glared at one another as they charged towards each other, they would resume their fight without giving another thought towards the interloper that interrupted them.
In fact, they quickly forgot about Pom’s existence entirely in the ensuing battle.
-Pom-
They all seemed nice, even if I could hear the noises of them fighting each other behind me. I had something more important to focus on then joining a fight that I have absolutely no stake in.
I’m fairly surprised they didn’t try to drag me into it or force me to choose a side. They seemed particularly violent towards one another and I knew absolutely nothing about what was happening here to make such a decision.
I arrived at the lake and started to look around frantically for a turtle. I mean if the animals here are intelligent, then I am absolutely looking for a turtle called Master Turtle.
“Looking for something missy?” The turtle that spoke to me wore a conical hat and was pretty old, his purple shell looked nice.
I squeaked pretty loudly and shivered slightly in fright since he practically appeared out of nowhere; he approached me calmly with a curious smile.
“Um, yes, are you Master Turtle?” I hastily queried. If he was a doctor, then he could help us. “A skunk told me you were a doctor.”
“Why yes, I am Master Turtle, but you don’t look that hurt.” The turtle tilted his head curiously.
“Oh, I’m not the one that was hurt, there’s someone who was injured in a pretty bad fall and I really need your help… but my group doesn’t exactly have the skills to heal her.” Okay now that I was done with my little adventure, I can finally let my panic set in and I wasn’t afraid to beg for help. “She hit her head pretty badly, her breathing is erratic and she’s not waking up, this injury happened yesterday and we are really quite lost. Please, I beg of you, help us in any way you can!”
He looked into my eyes for a moment and then nodded solemnly.
“Now, now, no need to beg, let me just get my stuff and we can go.” Sighing at Master Turtle’s answer, I waited as he quickly ran off.
I felt a sense of relief knowing that that goat could be okay, provided that the turtle was actually capable of helping us. It took forty five seconds before turtle came back to me carrying a medical bag.
“Okay, how fast can you get me to the patient?” In answer to Master Turtle’s question, I crouched down and he got onto my back without prompting. He wasn’t too heavy, so I stood up and immediately started galloping back towards the river and where the campsite is. “What’s your name miss?”
“My name is Pom.” I answered as I was speeding back towards camp as fast as I could go.
“Well Pom, you already told me the kind of injury the patient has, which is very helpful.” We were already halfway back as Turtle asked this question, I was making good time and I was more worried about the goats safety than my own at this point. “Can you tell me how large your group is?”
“There’s two others, we’ve recently become acquainted and we don’t know the name of the injured one.” Full disclosure, I didn’t have anything to keep from someone who was going to help us out of the goodness of his heart. “I hope you don’t mind us being a little bit odd.”
“Eh, I’ve lived for a long time miss, I’ve seen plenty of weird… things. Okay, so there are some things that I still haven’t seen yet even at my age. Heh, I guess you can’t see everything.” We arrived at the campsite and Master Turtle stared at Smolder for a moment, then his gaze went to Ocellus and then his patient as I collapsed into the shelter next to the goat. I pointed frantically at her, Master Turtle quickly got off my back and started to look over the goat carefully. “Well now, this is a pretty big emergency. Luckily for you, I can get her back on her hooves. You’re certainly a heroic one to travel into the unknown for somebody you don’t know. Huh, malnourished, that’s going to make this a little bit rougher. Well it’s a good thing she has you three trying to look out for her, so try to relax a…”
-A little while later, with the skunk-
“Where’s Master Turtle?” The skunk and his friends had various bumps, scrapes, bruises and the rabbit even had his right ear in a sling.
They didn’t see Master Turtle at the lake and moved on to the hill where they trained to recuperate after their arduous battle.
-Equestrian Campsite, Pom-
I sharply inhaled and sat up with a gasp and turned towards the goat. Her head was slightly bandaged and she had various needles sticking out of her.
Turtle was using acupuncture on her?
“Is she going to be okay?” I asked as I sat up blinking at the sight.
“She’ll be fine when I start removing the needles, though you should take care of yourself first before you start worrying about someone else. You have a good heart and an innocent disposition, also legs built for running.” Master Turtle chortled a bit, I couldn’t see him as being threatening. It was a little weird that he kept sending odd glances at Smolder, he eventually turned back to me. “The way you laid up the patient really helped her state immensely and I’ve got everything in order. You keep resting, you really pushed yourself hard in getting me here so fast.”
“So does this confirm what we fear Pom?” With a frown, Smolder looked to me with cross arms.
“That we’re lost and we don’t know how we’re going to get home.” It was obvious we were definitely nowhere near Equestria or even on the planet of Equus anymore, at least the locals were friendly… mostly. “The answer is yes. We don’t even know where we are.”
“We call this place The Valley. While you and your friends are a bit… odd.” Master Turtle stated as he looked at Smolder and Ocellus. “You don’t seem like bad folk to me.”
“Right, we should introduce ourselves, since you have some time to talk. I’m Smolder, do you have dragons around here?” It seemed Smolder wanted to work up a rapport with the turtle who was saving the goat’s life. “I ask, because you keep giving me weird looks.”
“I’m sorry about that, but yes we do know of a dragon around here. It’s probably for the best that you don’t ever meet him.” Turtle nodded to her and then looked to Ocellus. “Please, just call me Turtle. Unless I have something to teach you, then it’s Master Turtle.”
“I’m Ocellus, you already know what dragons are so I might as well tell you that I’m a changeling.” Ocellus seemed chipper towards him, more so than she ever was towards me. “I can shape shift into other things.”
“Truly? Well given that you’re telling me, you apparently have nothing to hide.” Turtle watched as Ocellus transformed into what changelings used to look like. He got a little spooked by her transformation and the appearance she showed.
What changelings used to look like and what they looked like now were two entirely different things.
“We used to look like this, now we look like this naturally.” Ocellus dropped her disguise as she spoke.
“I bet there’s an interesting story behind that.” Turtle said while rubbing his chin.
“Yeah, they used to steal love, but now they only try to share it. Love given freely apparently stopped the starvation that was rampant among her people and they became more colorful.” At that point, Smolder received a look from Turtle. Turtle started smiling coyly as he looked between her and Ocellus. “Now they are our friends, though they can still be a bit mischievous at times.”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you are talking about Smolder.” Responded Ocellus, who grinned cheerfully.
“Well now, I’m certainly glad that your people learned a lesson about greed and you taught me a fresh one as well.” Turning back to the goat, the turtle started to remove some needles. “Now what about you Pom, what are you?”
“I’m a lambkin, my people aren’t exactly known for our great feats.” I sat down and watched as the turtle continued to remove needles from the goat. “We’re panicky, easily spooked and in general are well known for our incurable cowardice.”
“While you seem to fit that, you certainly seem to be more than just a general summary of your people.” Turtle said merrily, he was a fairly jolly and easy to talk to. He waved to us when there was one needle left sticking out of the goat. “Now, when I remove this needle, she’s going to wake up… can you hold her down for me please? She’s going to flail around a bit before she gets her head on straight. Oh and… what do you three do for a living?”
“I’m part of the Huoshan Guard. Despite being on a volcano, I assure you that Huoshan is a very nice place to live .” Was it that much of a surprise that I’m a guard? Turtle seemed to think so until I explained myself. “I’m mostly a reserve guard though, but I still help people where I can.”
“As for us we’re friendship students, we learn a lot about friendship and how not to be a jerk.” Smolder said with a smile. “It’s been working out pretty well for us dragons and changelings.”
“As for the goat… I think she’s an orphan.” I stated as I pinned down her rear legs with my hooves, Smolder and Ocellus grabbed her front legs while giving me indecipherable looks.
“So it’s as I thought, the poor dear.” Turtle just shook his head and then carefully started to remove the last needle. “Well I openly welcome you all to stay in The Valley for as long as you need.”
When the needle finally came out of the goat, she gasped and her eyes flew wide open revealing her bar shaped pupils.
The goat thrashed around wildly, she was strong for her size and current state of health.
It was nice to see her finally awake, now all she had to do was calm down.