//------------------------------// // Chapter 54 // Story: Away and Afar // by PropsValroa //------------------------------// Collapse nodded in acceptance and would sigh dreamily and her eyes fluttered shut. In front of her, was the soft blueness of Magloria's coat. It was a relaxing and charming feeling. Collapse's eyes drew heavy, and like that - she went off to sleep. What would fate have in store, for the next day? Time will tell, as it always does. The next morning it seems like Collapse was the first one to awaken. It made sense, given she had already had an unintentional nap the previous day. Looking outside and through the window, she could tell that it was at the crack of dawn, only a few rays of sunlight streaming across the sky. Magloria and Jump Start lay exactly where they were when they had gone to sleep, though Jump Start seemed to have abandoned her petal even more, and now had everything except her head laying down on the ground. Magloria was just spread out slightly more, though she did appear slightly closer. Probably subconsciously attracted to the warmth of another. Collapse looked out into the rays of sunlight across the sky. It was another reminder that somewhere out there, the Equestrians went about their daily lives in complete ignorance of Collapse and her companions struggles. It was surreal. Hopefully when they get back someone could take their claims seriously. Looking to the two sleeping ponies next to her she'd softly smile and lay there a bit as she admired the two of them. They looked like sweet and innocent pillows. After about a minute or so, she pulled herself awake and peeked out of their shelter. She'd let them sleep a little more. As she approached the entrance, she saw that nothing was amiss. The fire pit was cold, the grill was finally in place (which she didn't see before, due to the whole ethereal being thing), there was a lot of excited chattering around the place and there were banana skins lying on the floor. Wait a minute. They didn't have bananas recently. How did that get there? Collapse smirked at the grill, and was pleased that they finally had a grill now. Perhaps she could be the one to make breakfast today. Upon thinking that she would see the banana skins. Monkeys. Yup, that chattering was a sign of monkeys. She'd step out into the open and look at where they were chattering at. Hopefully they didn't take anything. Collapse didn't wanna do a monkey chase this morning... It's a good thing that their bags were kept inside, otherwise they likely would've had to go get them back. This was not the case, thankfully. Up in the trees (including the one that they called a home) a gang of at least 30 monkeys could be seen, hopping from branch to branch and generally making a racket. They didn't appear to have noticed her yet, but it was only a matter of time until they did. Until then, they didn't appear to be a menace. They kept to themselves for now. Collapse went back inside, not wanting to rouse any attention from the monkeys. It was kind of hilarious to see 30 monkeys like that all together. When she walks back inside she sees the two sleeping ponies in the shelter. A grin goes across her face and she sits down, beginning to prepare breakfast for them. But if she wanted to grill food, the monkeys would definitely notice. Preparing food indoors like this, especially so close to the others, was somewhat awkward. She had some fruits that they picked before, but she didn't have anything clean to cut them with. The axe probably wasn't a good idea to use given she had been chopping trees all yesterday. The only other thing was Magloria's short sword. At least they had plates so she had somewhere to put them on instead of where they sleep, or on the ground. Regardless, as she worked the others began to wake up. Jump Start peered over sleepily at what Collapse was doing. "Morning..." she muttered. Collapse smiles at Jump Start before giving her some of the cut fruit on a plate that she cut using Magloria’s short sword. Hopefully Magloria wouldn’t mind. She also put some of the fruits on a plate by Magloria’s snoot so it would be the first thing she would wake up to. Before long, Collapse was sitting there with Jump Start with her own plate. Collapse began to munch on the fruit, occasionally looking over to Magloria while she does so. She’ll likely wake up soon. A minute after Collapse placed the plate down in front of Magloria, her nose began twitching. Her eyes opened, spotting the food and the mare who prepared it. After getting up and stretching, she took the plate. "Thanks." she simply said. With that, they both dove into their meals. "So..." Jump Start said as she chewed. "Where are we going to go next?" she asked. Collapse sat there calmly and as she ate she pulled out the Panthin maps to look at the various locations. "Well, how about we take a look here and find out?" she asked, holding a fruit un her magic before eating it as she layed the map out, looking at all the options on the map. Collapse would point out the ones that seemed the most unusual and important. Assuming that Collapse had taken out the map that showed the jungle at large rather than the one focused on Carocol, she would once again see various locations, including Carocol, the river they were near, ocean borders and several markers. Four markers were indicated with circles. Who knew what that meant, but considering the other markers it was probably approval. Two had crosses, showing that whatever was there, the panthins didn't approve of it. There was one however that was a question mark. The panthins apparently didn't know what they were dealing with at this location, and neither did the ponies given how vague the map was. Looking at the question mark - that was the one that Collapse wanted to check out the most that was for sure. She puts her hoof on it and taps that area. "I think we should check this place out first. It seems the most mysterious out of them and there may be something there that we could make use of. Hmm...what if that location had something to do with the...thing that we encountered yesterday?" she asked, suggesting that was a possible explanation. "After exploring that we can check out the crosses, how about that?" she added. "Drawn to the things that may get us potentially killed are you?" Magloria commented, before shrugging. "Well, not much else that we can do aside from blindly pick, so sure, why not. Maybe whatever is there is enough to ward off anything while we explore." Jump Start silently agreed. Not that she really had anything to add to this. Collapse stood up and slid her boots on. "Well let's have at it and see what we can find there. If its dangerous, then we just avoid it." Collapse spoke as she got up and got her saddle bags on and looked to the two of them with her map held. "Gotta actually interpret the map to see where we are on it, hmm..." she spoke, looking to see where they were in relation to everything else. Magloria levitated her saddlebags onto her back, then strapped on her weapons. Jump Start was given her own saddlebags as well. "Interpreting the map should be easy. The panthins have already done it." Magloria said, pointing at the map where Carocol was, then to where the river was and down to the ocean. "We're somewhere along here. The real problem we'd have is correctly pathing our way through the jungle without a compass, since it would be easy to get lost. The sun can work too, but it's hardly as accurate." "Well I don't think we have a compass with us but let's just go to the closest location on the map then and test our accuracy." Collapse spoke, thinking that was a good idea to test how accurate they could be first before going off further. "I also wonder if there are more than one of the white things, that'd be interesting." she stated. Jump Start glanced over to the map, checking it out a bit before commenting. "The closest places we could test on the map are... here-" she pointed to Carocol, which obviously had issues in them visiting, "-and here." she pointed to where the river met the ocean. Going there would be relatively save, but it wastes time going away from every other marker. "Not quite. We can instead go to the outpost near Carocol. Should be better than going straight to their main place in broad daylight." Magloria pointed out. "That would be the best option. Wandering to the beach would serve very little purpose and just burn daylight." "Right, so let's do it. I don't want to waste time so let us head there." Collapse spoke and took the map in her hooves and began leading them off in that direction. She'd make sure they were following the right path according to to the map, and would point out various things along the way, if there was anything else of note along the way. On the way there Collapse would recall various details from her 'dream' with the white thing, basically telling them about anything else she missed from it, and how it all felt for her. As she moved out of their shelter and into the open (and under the monkey family) towards the river, Collapse realized that *she better specify which direction that she's actually heading in. Carocol, the panthin outpost, or the beach?* The map was virtually worthless at conveying what was to come ahead of them. The only real things that was mapped out were larger stuff like rivers, the locations of interest already known to them and steep drops such as ravines and waterfalls. Only the last bit would really be of use to them that they didn't already look out for. The others didn't really have much of importance to discuss about the dream. Just a few questions of interest about particular things, or concerns that the white thing and/or Collapse wasn't entirely right in the head at the time.