“Light!” Shadow shouted, flying after the electric blue mane “Light! Stop!”
“You can’t tell me what to do!” Lightning shouted back at him, not breaking her galloping pace.
“Light, you’re going the wrong way!”Shadow yelled “That’s going deeper into the forest! That’s where the monsters are! Manticores! Cockatrice! Changelings!”
That seemed to get her attention, she slowed to a fast trot, letting Shadow catch up “Well we haven’t seen anything yet…” she said “actually I can’t see much of anything, how long have we been running?”
“I don’t know… five minutes?” Shadow said, his eyes adjusting a little bit better to the deepening darkness “I think we should turn back now..”
“I guess…” said Lightning “but which way is back? We’ve turned how many times?”
“We just follow the…” Shadow trailed off “Where’s the path?”
“It stopped a little while ago,” said Lightning innocently, “I just kept going, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention.”
Shadow brought a hoof to his face. Thanks to this ditzy filly they were lost in the Everfree forest with no idea how to get out.
“Should we yell for help?” Lightning asked, starting to sound worried now.
“That would be ill-advised,” said Shadow, trying to put on a brave face, but his voice trembled “The sound would probably attract more bad things than good.”
“Like Manticores?” Lightning squeaked in fear “I heard they find foals by the smell then hunt them down and gobble them up.”
“Actually, I’m not really worried about Manticores…” said Shadow.
“Well that’s a relief…” Lightning sighed.
“They’ll all be hibernating,” said Shadow “this is timber wolf season. They attack travelers in packs and rip them to pieces.”
Lightning squeaked and pulled one of Shadow’s wings out, hiding behind it. Shadow sighed.
“Look,” he said “I see a little light coming up here, it may be the way out.”
Lightning peeked out over his feathers “Oh yeah,” she said “can we go now?”
“If you let go of my wing, sure.”
Lightning let go slowly and started trotting towards the light, Shadow following at a bored pace behind. As they approached they realized this wasn’t a way out at all, but rather, a clearing with a large hill.
“Great…” Shadow muttered, starting to scale the hill “now we’ll never get home.”
“We can just climb the hill,” said Lightning, her voice quailing “then we just look around, find our way home…right?”
Shadow, having reached the top of the hill, sighed “It doesn’t go over the trees,” he said “I don’t know what to do…”
“No way!” Lightning shouted, running up to the top of the hill to join him “There’s… no way… we have to get home. Can’t you just fly us over the trees?”
“I could barely get you up to the tree house” Shadow muttered dejectedly “we’re miles from home and no one even knows we’re out here.” He sat down “We’re dead…” he moaned “we’re gonna die…”
Lightning quailed “No way…” she said quietly, tears starting to form “No… I don’t want to die…”
There was a slight shudder from the ground and Shadow’s ears stood up. He may have given up but Celestia be damned if he went down without a fight. He turned to Lightning, who was completely oblivious to the low rumble. He glowered slightly, and pounded the grass with a hoof.
The entire hill suddenly shook violently. Lightning jumped up “What was that?” she shrieked diving toward Shadow. Shadow caught her and looked rapidly around. The grass was starting to split around the base of the hill, their altitude seemed to be changing, the trees seeming to fall into the ground.
“We’re going up!” Lightning squeaked, gripping Shadow tightly “What’s happening?”
Although he was too stunned to speak, Shadow managed to get an assessment of what was going on. The dirt falling off the hill revealed a dark mass of gigantic scales. The hill was rising steadily off a single pillar
“We’re on a snake,” he managed to choke out “a massive snake.”
A patch of grass next to them suddenly fell away, revealing a huge yellow eye. It dilated and focused on them, a low his rising from below.
Shadow jumped, wings spread, Lightning still clinging to him. They fell more than flew downward, Shadow’s wings beating fast. The massive head above them shook back and forth, raining dirt down over the forest like a meteor shower. A loud predatory hiss came from it as it focused again, staring right at them.
“It’s looking at us…” Lightning whimpered, grabbing even tighter around Shadow, who was looking desperately around for somewhere to crash. The lake had come into view now but it seemed unlikely they would make it that far before splattering onto the hard ground.
The huge snake lunged, mountainous fangs glinting in the sunlight as it shot toward the two. The choice now seemed to be to angle downward and die in the impact, or be devoured by a monstrous snake.
Just as Shadow shut his eyes, ready for the fangs to sink firmly into him, he felt a push forward. He didn’t know it yet, but Lightning’s hoof had connected squarely with one of the fangs. There was the sound of cracking bone as the kick pushed them forward.
The snake reared up, letting out a horrifying screech, the massive fang falling with a crash into the forest below. Before Shadow could figure out what was happening they were splashing down in the lake
Lightning let go to struggle to the surface and Shadow came out of the water barely a moment behind. They bobbed in the water for awhile, dumbstruck, watching the huge snake’s body lower slowly into the forest and vanish.
They stared out at the forest for a long time, just floating on the water, Lightning was the first one to laugh as the situation finally started to brighten. Shadow was quick to join in.
“We’re alive!” Lightning shouted “No dumb snake’s gonna get the best of us!”
“No way!” Shadow hollered back “You may be big and bad but I’ve never seen a snake that can fly like a Pegasus!”
“Oh but I’d love to see a Pegasus kick like an earth pony,” Lightning teased “did you see that? I knocked his fang out!”
“Earth ponies can’t fly either,” Shadow scoffed, splashing Lightning with a wing “There’s no way you could’ve gotten out of there without me!”
“That goes double for you!” Lightning shouted, throwing both hooves down into the water and sending a wave over Shadow’s head.
This argument continued for a full hour, both sides attacking with great waves of water. They splashed around in the lake happily, diving and swimming and everything in between. There are some things you just can’t do without becoming friends, many are near death situations. Even at the age too young to understand death, the bonds are just as strong.
By the time Lightning and Shadow’s water battle finally slowed down the sun was starting to set. Shadow was the first to climb out of the lake and shake off the water, preening a bit to get the water off his wings. Lightning leapt out a moment later, spraying him with water droplets all over again.
“I guess we can find our way home from here huh?” Lightning asked “It’s what, ten minutes?”
“I don’t know,” said Shadow “but I am hungry!”
“You want to get tacos?” asked Lightning with a smirk.
“That sounds good!” said Shadow, shaking the last of the water out of his feathers.
“Last one to Taco Gio’s pays!” Lightning spoke quickly, then took off at a full gallop towards town.
Shadow, not one to be outdone, sprang off the ground and took off after her. She may be light on her hooves, but he would eat his shoes before a Pegasus lost a race to an earth pony.