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Fizzlepop's entire body was drenched in sweat and her tongue was hanging out as she dragged herself along the sandy beach on the next day. She had woken up with the sun, right in the moment when it began rising into the sky, and was on her way for several hours now. But the sun that was her companion ever since she stirred awake in the cool sand and had rubbed her eyes free from the remnants of sleep, now made it difficult for her to continue.
The temperature had increased significantly since she awoke. At first it was about as cool as it was in the forest, but now it was scorching-hot around her. Her thick coat, typical of mountain ponies like her and far thicker than the coat of travellers that had come to her village when she still called it her home, was a hindrance now. Fizzlepop couldn't tell whether she would feel that hot if her coat hairs were shorter and less dense, if it would be easier then, but while she wanted that to be the case so she would feel cooler and not suffer so much in this heat, it ultimately did not matter. The sun was there and had turned from a pleasant companion, into a malicious beast. A traitor. One she could not fight, even the scorpion could not fight the sun in the sky. But do scorpions want to fight the sun? After all, scorpions lived in the southern deserts, they were friends with the sun and a colder climate would only hurt them. Fizzlepop wished to be among them, the mind of a scorpion in the body of a scorpion.
To her right, the cloud town was still visible. Fizzlepop had a harder time making it out in the sky now, unlike during the night, as all its lights were out and without them, it was difficult to distinguish the town from the clouds around it. But if she looked long and hard enough, she could see it. Its sight was the only thing that gave her the strength she needed to continue.
Fizzlepop looked behind at her back. The berries were all dried up, crumpled miseries compared to the shiny, juicy fruits they had been before, and they were covered in sand grains now. She popped a few of them into her mouth regardless, her grumbling stomach and her dry mouth begging her to do so. Their taste was sweet, but awful at the same time, and it made Fizzlepop more thirsty than less. A rattle left her throat as she pushed forward through the sand. She trotted over a beach and there was water nearby, but it still was like she had to go through a desert. A desert..... Fizzlepop's lips curled up slightly.
The water had been useless for her needs. It tasted salty, for some reason, and she spat it out after the first, greedy gulps had went down her throat. She still felt the burning taste. Water wasn't supposed to taste like that. She remembered water as sweet and refreshing, but this was clearly different, it made her throat even drier. First the wolves, now this. The outside world had many unpleasant surprises, it began to dawn on Fizzlepop. But none of these surprises were as horrible and painful as what her village, her own home, had given her, and that made her go on. This world was her home now. No, the cloud town in the sky was. That's what she will make her new home, as soon as she would arrive there. It was the only thing that mattered now.
Like this, Fizzlepop's thoughts were circulating inside her head. They alternated between complaints about the hot weather and the strange, useless water, worries what would happen if she didn't get real water, and something to eat, soon and the hope and expectation of finding a better life in the sky. These thoughts were dominant compared to her surroundings and so, it happened completely unexpected for Fizzlepop, that she tripped and stumbled. She lost balance for a moment, but then caught herself and trotted more steady again. Fizzlepop was out of her trance now, but not enough to realize what caused her to trip. Suddenly, she noticed that her hooves felt wet. Fizzlepop looked down with her baggy, weary eyes and saw water flowing around them. Had she accidentally changed direction and stepped into the huge lake? A fish was swimming past and Fizzlepop turned her head slowly, following its way through the water. She realized what it was she had stepped into, as the fish swam towards the lake, where it turned around and went back into the other direction. This water was flowing into the lake.....
Staring at the connection between the two bodies of water, made it click in Fizzlepop's head. A river. This was a river. She knew what a river was. Instantly, Fizzlepop got down on her knees, bent over and stuck her hot head into the water. More fish who came by tickled her cheeks, but she didn't pay attention. Fizzlepop drank like she had never seen freshwater in her entire life. This tasted sweet. This water was like the water she knew from her previous life. And, what was the most important, it was cold. Not as cold as mountain water, but it softened her burning, pulsating throat. The water coated its walls and extinguished the fire that seemed to blaze away inside of it. Her stomach began to bulge and Fizzlepop only stopped as she felt a slight feeling of nausea rising. She pulled her head out the water, gasped for air and sank into the grass.
“Grass?” Fizzlepop became aware of the sudden change in ground structure, able to question her surroundings again, now that she wasn't thirsty anymore. To her right was the beach and the sand ended there and was replaced with grass. She turned over and planted her head in the soft blades. For a few minutes, Fizzlepop just enjoyed the feeling. She didn't think of her cloud destination anymore, nor of the weather or the fish she had seen or the weird lake with its icky water. The grass engulfed her body and her senses.
Fizzlepop cooed softly. This felt like a bed. Sleeping in the forest had been terribly uncomfortable compared to this, even at the tree on the clearing with the tasty, ornamented berries. She could take a nap here, Fizzlepop realized. But a part of her mind was against it.
Fizzlepop sat up again and scanned the sky above the lake with her eyes. The sunlight got reflected off something that was in the clouds and a piercing flash of white light entered her eyeballs. Fizzlepop shook her head, dazed, and colorful spots suddenly obstructed her vision. Fear rose in her and she thought back to the forest and how she had been stumbling around, thirsty and craving for water. These lights were different, they weren't white and she could still see through them, somewhat. But she concentrated on her head now and was only relieved as she couldn't detect any pain.
Fizzlepop rose onto her legs. No, she couldn't stay here. The pain in her head that she felt in the forest must have come from being thirsty, that was as much as she could figure now, what she learned. And she never wanted to feel that pain again. Fizzlepop turned towards the river and stuck her head inside once more. She drank until she couldn't fit more into her stomach. This time, she didn't cough and sputter as she stopped, but instead, Fizzlepop noticed something peculiar.
To her right was a black structure. It came from behind her and reached across the river and into more beautiful, soft-looking grassland. Then it just ended. Fizzlepop wiped her dripping mouth and went closer, the river on her left side and the structure right in front of her. When she reached the weird structure, she poked against it with her right hoof. It was very hard and it felt cold. Like metal. Fizzlepop knew what metal was, her old home had a blacksmith, but all she had ever seen there where grey buckets or shiny, silvery swords. This metal was completely black.
And not everything was metal, she noticed now. Splintered boards of wood were in the middle of the metallic framework. She looked to the right and there, the two long pieces of metal at the sides seemed to go on endlessly. The wooden boards connected them and as she looked closer, she could spot tiny, rusty metal screws sticking in the wood. This was new and Fizzlepop could not come up with an explanation what purpose this structure served. But observing it invoked another thought in her. If there were so many things she didn't know, then could she even survive here, in the outside world?
Fizzlepop sat down again. She was still a scorpion, but now she felt weak. She went over the new things she had seen since leaving her village, uttering them one by one. “Wolves. White light in my eyes. That strong headache.” Fizzlepop began to shiver. “Bones..... The beautiful berries. Scorpio. Glowing mushrooms. A ghost..... but a friendly one.” This time, she didn't shiver. “A lake with disgusting water. And a town in the clouds.”
Ten new things. A lot for three days, she realized. One of them was her goal. Of the other nine, only three had been helpful. The berries had kept her alive. Scorpio kept her brave. And the friendly ghost had shown her the way out of the forest. But the other things..... they had either tried to kill her, were terrifying or completely useless. Most things in this world, Fizzlepop had to admit, were dangerous. There wasn't much that was on her side. And the three useful things couldn't help her right now. The berries were dry and she couldn't get new ones, the friendly ghost was far away and Scorpio was invisible at the moment. It looked bad.
For the first time since leaving her village, Fizzlepop seriously thought that returning there would be for the best. Her common sense made itself noticeable. But at the same time, her memory of what happened did, as well. The two giants in her mind began to fight and Fizzlepop began to cry. She was a lost filly. Trapped between a world that wanted her dead and a home that had stopped loving her. There was no hope.
For a long time, Fizzlepop sat in the soft grass, crying and staring into the lands at the other side of the black, metallic structure. As her sobs became quieter and her body stopped trembling, she rose onto unsteady hooves. Fizzlepop drank more water from the river until she had enough once again, then she stepped onto the unknown structure in front of her. She turned to the right and followed it with her eyes. It was impossible to see the end. And somehow, that scared Fizzlepop. The structure that seemed to go on forever let an overwhelming, cold fear rise in her heart. Fizzlepop turned to the left, where she saw the sudden end of the structure and set herself into motion.
As she was above the river, a squishy feeling spread out in Fizzlepop's chest. She looked down and began to sway. The river under her, as gently as it was flowing, began to feel like a threat. It was shaking in front of her eyes now. The bridge she crossed (as nothing else was this part of the structure, Fizzlepop knew a tiny bridge that was made of wood above a creek near her old home, but why this bridge looked so strange remained a mystery to her) wasn't high, but for some reason, she felt very unpleasant just by merely looking down. Another new thing.
Fizzlepop looked back up again and pressed on. Now she knew that looking down wasn't a good idea. Careful and slow, she set a hoof in front of the other on the black metal, eyes fixated on the grass at the other side. It wasn't easy, but she pushed herself forward, longing for a stable ground under her hooves.
Once she had crossed the river, Fizzlepop let herself sink into the soft, tall grass. She breathed in and out in quick succession, from remaining nervousness, but also from relief that she made it. Until now, she would have never guessed that heights could scare her. She hadn't felt any of this when she climbed up the mountain south of her village. Then again, her entire mind had been filled with nothing but anger when she did..... And she couldn't recall that she had ever climbed up a tree.
Fizzlepop opened her eyes and rose up sharply. She flashed a glare out from between her lowered eyelids into the direction she had come from and, making the silent resolve to never set hoof into the lands beyond it ever again, she got up on her hooves and marshed further south. She would never look back again, all that counted was her new home in the sky. Fizzlepop looked over the giant lake, that was now to her right, and fixated her eyes on the cloud town. It didn't look any closer, but the direction was still the same. Looking back at the grass in front of her, Fizzlepop quickened her steps.
She had been trotting through the wide, endless grasslands for an hour, as her stomach started to hurt. Fizzlepop stopped and looked down on herself. She hadn't eaten anything for half a day, she estimated, ever since morning when she awoke in the sand in front of the lake. The berries she ate didn't fill her up by much, but they had been something. The heat had made them useless and it was hours ago that she dropped them off her back and left them behind.
Fizzlepop dragged herself further, driven by the hope to somehow find food. The cloud town was still out of reach and she hadn't seen a single house anywhere. But sooner or later she had to find one, right? She just needed to go on. Her legs started to hurt and she felt a slight headache, but her hope kept Fizzlepop going.
Another hour later, her body was nothing but pain. Her stomach convulsed in cramps she couldn't explain, a headache of a similar intensity as two days day before in the forest made her almost puke, she felt hot over her entire body and her legs felt like something that was pulsating in them would let them explode at any moment. Finally, Fizzlepop sank down into the grass. She was sitting on her flank; hindlegs stretched out, forelegs placed in her lap, head lowered, and panted heavily. Her tongue hung out and now she realized that she was thirsty again, too.
Fizzlepop closed her eyes and tried to come up with solutions for her miserable situation. She couldn't trot anymore, but if she just stayed here she would die, she was sure of that. As she had arrived at the question if going back over the bridge and trying the other direction would lead to a settlement of other ponies quicker, a deafening bang above her head made her open her eyes again and look up.
It had become darker around her. The sky was covered with thick clouds that were almost black. At the same time, a sharp wind picked up and tugged at her and Fizzlepop felt almost knocked over by it. The blades of grass next to her got flung around violently. Something wet dropped into Fizzlepop's face and only a few seconds later, a torrent of rainwater came down on her. Soon, Fizzlepop was drenched from her broken horn to her hooves. But she wasn't concerned and neither frightened. She once lived in a tiny village near a high mountain, she had witnessed thunderstorms that were much scarier than this one. In fact, Fizzlepop was happy over this change of weather. She laid back her head and opened her mouth wide. The large and fast-falling raindrops calmed her burning throat like the water of the river had done it a few hours earlier.
Fizzlepop gulped and swallowed until her thirst had ceased and her belly felt full again. Now there was at least water in it. The pain became bearable and so she rose back onto her hooves. Now she could continue for at least a little bit longer.
The wind gave her chills. It could have dried her coat, if it weren't for the rain that made sure she would stay wet. Fizzlepop shivered. Coming from a colder climate was somehow useless now. But she also had never spent a thunderstorm outside, nor such a heavy rainfall. Her mother always called her back into the warm house if one came..... Fizzlepop shook the thought away and trotted faster.
Above her, the clouds continued to roar and lightning danced over them. Despite her hopeless situation, Fizzlepop could not help but admire the spectacle. In a certain sense, it was beautiful; like a firework made by the clouds. More than a few times, she had watched similar thunderstorms from the window in her bedroom. Fizzlepop pushed the memory back and inhaled deeply. There was a smell in the air, a familiar one, yet it was slightly different here. “The smell of adventure,” a thought flashed through her mind. Once more, Fizzlepop felt more energy. She averted her gaze from the thunderstorm, focused on the ground again and continued to trot.
The blades of grass lashed against her legs, still controlled by the sharp wind. Her mane dripped with water and Fizzlepop realized that her nose felt stuffy all of a sudden. She would get a cold from all of this for sure. But everything else was okay. Even her head had stopped hurting again, for the time being.
Fizzlepop relished her condition and she was starting to imagine how she would arrive in a town populated by welcoming, generous ponies, something that could not be far from the truth anymore now, she was convinced. Then Fizzlepop stopped abruptly, just a few seconds after another explosion had went through the sky. There was a stinging pain on her back all of a sudden, not enough to make her wail, but enough to forcefully rip her out of her daydream. Confused and surprised, Fizzlepop turned her head. But before she could check what it was, everything became black before her eyes. Her legs wobbled and gave in. The wet grass tickled her stomach. Then Fizzlepop felt nothing anymore.