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// Realisation 
// Story: Looking At You 
// by AFanaticRabbit 
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Sunny hated to admit it, but she was lost.
Maybe not entirely lost, just mostly lost. She knew she was somewhere east of Maretime Bay as the sun warmed her back. Other than that, however, she wouldn’t be able to place herself on a map.
Not knowing where she was left her worried. It wasn’t the first time she had ventured beyond Maretime Bay, but she hadn’t wandered further than the rolling hills and well kept forests immediately outside the town. Along her way, rocks and cliffs gave way to flat, verdant plains, and eventually to a thick forest. The path grew less direct and meandered more as it followed the contours of the earth. It was increasingly difficult to actually walk along, having become overgrown by bushes and grass reclaiming the dirt track.
Despite not knowing precisely where she was, Sunny that worried. Walking alongside her, humming away without a care, was Izzy Moonbow.
Izzy was part of the reason Sunny was lost. Ignoring the fact that it was Izzy’s arrival in Maretime Bay that set her off on this adventure, she also hadn’t taken her eyes off the unicorn since. Like a constellation in a sapphire nebula the stones that hung at the back of her mane twinkled through her locks. Sunny had plenty of words to describe Izzy, and wasn’t sure which she’d like to use most. Fascinating. Scatterbrained. Kinda scary, if just because her horn was sharp as Tartarus.
Izzy’s attention was on the world around them. Her eyes cast themselves side to side, and occasional words of wonder spilled from her lips when she saw a particularly appealing sight, like a miniature forest of colourful wildflowers or a fruit tree in bloom.
Two trees passed by their left, their branches reaching out and tangling with one another, mixing red and blue blossoms. Izzy turned her head, tracking the knotted twigs and leaves. Realising Izzy might catch her staring, Sunny snapped her gaze around to stare at the trees too.
Something that had come up repeatedly in their travels that day was a tickling feeling at the back of Sunny’s neck. It only came up when she wasn’t looking at Izzy, but she was certain Izzy was looking at her.
That only made sense. Sunny was fascinated by meeting a unicorn, so it stood to reason that Izzy would be fascinated by an earth pony.
Clearing her throat, Sunny turned to face forward again. They had been walking through the forest for a while, and the trees had only grown wider and taller, with the ground around them becoming increasingly unkempt. It was nothing like the managed forest not far from her home.
“Are we sure we know where we’re going?” Sunny asked. She used the question to look over at Izzy and her sweet smile.
Izzy tilted her head and her ears twitched. “We checked the map, right?”
Sunny nodded. “Yeah, but…” They did have a map, but it was broad and vague. It was what gave them the vague direction, and told them to expect the forest and a mountain but nothing beyond that.
Izzy hummed and stopped, as did Sunny a few steps later. Turning around, Sunny looked Izzy over, and the unicorn sat herself down. Her hoof tapped her chin and her mouth worked silently, but Sunny could read a few of the unvoiced words.
They were directions. Left. Right. Sunny was pretty sure she saw the word ‘kilometres’, too.
As much as she wanted to abuse the moment to continue staring at Izzy, Sunny’s curiosity drove her to ask, “What are you doing?”
One magenta eye popped open. “Retracing my steps,” she said simply before shutting the eye again. “I know how I got to Maretime Bay. I think I can figure out how to get back home from there, and I also think I might have seen some really tall mountains.” Izzy smiled and laughed through the the word ‘really’ as she stretched it out.
“And that will help you figure out where we are right now?” asked Sunny. “Because I’d say we’re still pretty lost in the hills.”
Both of Izzy’s eyes opened in full, and in a flash she was on her hooves facing to the right of the path, then turned her head back where they came. “Maybe! But I got the skills to figure out where we are from just that!” A hoof came up over her brow, shielding her face from the sun’s glare. “But not that way,” she added, her tone as flat and serious as Sunny figured Izzy could ever sound. It still sounded put on and forcefully deep, like she was mimicking Hitch on one of his broodier days.
Izzy glanced back over her shoulder, her expression brightening up once more, and she giggled. “We just keep following the path for now. After that there’s a fork in the road and we go left for about and hour or two, and then there’s a big, big field.”
Sunny stared, a lopsided grin on her face. A few more words floated through her mind, words she hadn’t thought about applying to Izzy until that moment.
Adorable. Pretty.
That came with an urge to want to be a little nearer to the unicorn, and before Sunny realised it her legs were obeying her subconscious. She stumbled as she halted herself, then turned her momentum away from Izzy and along the path in a motion that was somehow both awkward and elegant.
“Sure.” Sunny inwardly cringed at how high her voice was all of a sudden. It even cracked. She cleared her throat and repeated herself. “Sure. Let’s go for a little longer.”
Izzy either didn’t notice a thing or elected to ignore it. Sunny hoped it was the former. Instead all she did was to keep her smile and follow along beside Sunny.