Home is where the Mouth is
A Fanfic by FoxxehSquirrel
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Chapter 2
Legalities, yada yada yada
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Previously, on Home is where the Mouth is . . .
Muffin, Hallway, Goddess, Blue, Magic, Clouds, Dream, Clouds, More Clouds, Darkness, Flying, Swimming, Cleaning, Covering, Being correct, More magic, Walking.
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Walking through the Everfree Forest wasn’t anything too bad, at least that’s what Celestia had told them. There weren’t any plants or animals that they weren’t used to seeing outside of the forest, so they didn’t expect too much trouble. There was also a pretty well cut path all the way through the forest.
Minty pulled a map of Equestria out of one of her saddlebags. Celestia had marked the way they were supposed to go.
“What does it say?” Minty inquired. He had no idea what was yet to come. “Where is the first place we have to go?” Colgate stuck her tongue out and squinted her eyes a little. She looked cute when she was thinking.
“I think we just have to follow this clearing through the forest. We’d also have to pass by these creepy looking ruins.” She tilted the map towards Minty. He observed the path that was marked by a red line.
“It seems to be going all the way along this river to Horseshoe Bay. That’s a really long way to walk.” He looked away from the map, then walked a little faster. Colgate struggled to keep up.
“Hey, slow down! Why are you going so fast?” Colgate was now in a very light trot. Her small frame made it tough to keep up with Minty’s longer strides.
“I don’t want to waste any time. Every second we could be spending going fast is just another second that Discord has to regain his power. That’s a chance I’m not willing to take.” He began moving even faster.
“I’m sure we’ve got plenty of time. Besides, how far away is this ‘Cavitopolis’ place? I’ve never even heard of it before.” She worked even harder to keep up with him. She was beginning to pant.
“It’s definitely not on that map. It will take days to get out of Equestria alone.” He spread his wings.
“Heey, that’s not fair!” Colgate said, as she finally stopped from exaustion. “I don’t have wings to fly with.” Minty doubled back and landed next to her. “And besides, we haven’t even eaten yet.”
Minty looked up to where the sun was. It seemed to be close to 11:00 (the Equestrian equivalent, at least). He had lost track of time walking through the forest, and he even felt his stomach growl a little. Nothing audible, though. He looked back to Colgate.
“Eh, I suppose we could stop for a little bit. No more than 20 minutes though. Got it?” Colgate nodded in agreement. She smiled as she pulled out some fresh hay and an apple from her saddlebag. Minty was content with just munching on the grass. It seemed edible enough. As they ate, Minty couldn’t help but look up to Colgate as she took bite after bite of her meal. She would clean off the front of her teeth with her tongue after each bite.
He was lost in her eyes. Those blue eyes that reminded him so much of the sky he loved so much. Every time they would close when she chewed, he would panic, trying to find them again. She opened them, and their eyes met in a single moment of emotion. Minty had no idea what he was feeling. There were conflicting pulls of love and fascination, curiosity and obsession. He felt like he knew her, but needed to know more. She blinked and ended the trance.
“That was weird . . .” Minty whispered to himself, chomping on more grass trying to distract himself from what had just happened.
The last of the 20 minutes they’d allowed had passed (Minty is naturally good with time), so they packed up their things and started off again. They were walking peacefully for a while, just staring at the scenery. They saw many varieties of animals that only lived this deep into the forest. There was a strange breed of a monkey with four arms and eyes, and a rainbow-colored snake would slither in front of them every once in a while. This serenity lasted until they reached a fork in the road.
“Well, great. What do we do now?” Minty asked himself. He looked down both paths and they appeared to be exactly the same. Even the trees and bushes were grown in the same. He looked over to Colgate for advice.
“That’s funny, the line disappeared from the map.”
“The line what?” Minty had a confused look on his face. He walked over to Colgate holding the map and observed that she had been correct. In fact, that entire portion of the map was erased.
As they pondered why such a thing had happened, there was a noise behind them. It sounded like something running into a bush. Normally, this would have been no big deal. But Minty had noticed that they haven’t run into any wild creatures lately. He turned to the source of the noise. Colgate’s head was still buried in the piece of paper.
The noise came again, except this time from the way Minty was initially facing.
“Do you hear that?” He kept spinning around reacting to the various noises.
“It’s probably just the wind. You know how weather gets in here.”
Minty didn’t buy it. He was too busy trying to find what was causing the disturbance to notice a rather pungent smell floating through the air. Colgate noticed it first. Her magic stopped and her pupils became the size of marbles. She started walking down the right path.
“Colgate, where are you going?” Minty didn’t seem to notice the smell at all. He ran in front of her in an attempt to stop her from walking. She plowed right over him. After getting up, he just decided to follow her. After he grabbed the map she dropped, of course.
A whole 10 minutes passed as Minty just followed Colgate. Her pace was increasing the closer she got to the source of the smell. Minty was having a tough time keeping up this time. The forest became more and more dense the deeper and deeper they went. They jumped over rocks and ducked under hanging branches.
This went on until they reached a clearing filled with beautiful flowers with a strikingly red color. The redness faded into white as they grew towards the edge of the clearing. To Colgate, the odor was so strong she could practically see the trail it made.
“What in Equestria is this?” Minty asked himself. He panned his vision over the whole field. It wasn’t huge by any means, but it seemed to be able to hold a sizeable amount of ponies. “It looks like some sort of sea of blood.” He would have had to look very closely to notice it. Unfortunately, he didn’t look close at all. Instead, he just followed Colgate deeper into the field.
What he saw was utterly surprising and revolting. There was a giant red bulb with pitch-white petals. It looked to be the size of about twenty ponies, and seemed to weigh a ton. There were green vines protruding from the base of the bulb that grew up and were attached to the corpses of ponies. He caught a glimpse of a loose vine. It had spikes towards the end that had small red tips on each of them. He felt like he’s seen this “plant” before.
Upon further inspection, he noticed that all of the corpses were those of unicorn mares. He also noticed bones piled on the ground in every direction around it.
Then suddenly it hit him like a bag of hammers. This plant was called Blood Lust. It would lure in unsuspecting ponies and feed off of the blood of their corpses. His face cycled through expressions of horror and sadness as he tried to make Colgate stop. It wouldn’t work.
He tried pushing her away. That didn’t work. He tried dirtying something to distract her. That didn’t work either. At that moment, he felt like all hope was lost until something began glowing in her saddlebags.
It was the rod.
It levitated out of her bag and caught the sunrays. The rod’s magical power magnified them tenfold. They bounced off of it in all directions. A few beams seared the large bulb. The outside of it cut open and spilled a huge amount of blood and bones. The rod became less lustrous and its color faded a bit. It floated back into Colgate’s bag. The alluring odor that had entranced Colgate now turned into an extremely repulsive smell. Even Minty could smell it this time. She came out of the trance with a gag, then turned to see where she was. She noticed the large dying plant and the tidal wave of blood surging towards her. She turned to see Minty with his wings spread and the goggles over his eyes.
“Hold on to your haunches. This is going to be a bumpy ride.” Minty started flapping his wings until he was just above Colgate. He reached down and grabbed her under her arms, though fear caused her to flip and wrap her arms and legs around his torso. It was an interesting feeling.
Minty flapped as hard as he could with the new load. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to quite make it over the wave.
“Looks like we’ll just have to improvise,” Minty began. “I would close my eyes if I were you.” He blasted forward towards where they had entered. The wave was only a few feet behind them when they finally reached.
“Oh boy . . .” Minty began to weave back and forth, up and down through the branches. He was cutting it very close as he wasn’t used to carrying something more than a bag. He had a fully grown unicorn mare hugging his belly, which proved to be a completely different experience. He had reached a part in the path where the branches were too low for him to fly. He began running. Colgate was situated on his back now, as she was feeling particularly weak at the moment. The run to the plant and the plant itself had sucked a lot of energy out of her.
They stopped moving.
Minty tried to continue running but there was nothing for his hooves to push off of. Instead, he looked down and saw a pitch dark hole. He wondered how far down it went.
Then they fell.
Colgate’s eyes were still closed while she recognized the darkness and casted a low power illumination spell. They could only see a few feet in any direction.
“What the hey is going on?!” Minty yelled. Colgate was acting entirely different. The energy seemed to have came back to her.
“WOO HOOOOOOOO!” she was screaming while they fell, a smile draped across her face. Minty couldn’t help but smile either.
A little farther down, Colgate got bored and they both just sat there falling, bored expressions on their faces.
“How long do you think we’ve been falling?” Minty asked. He was the one that was usually good with time.
“I don’t know. My magic doesn’t tell time,” Colgate pointed a hoof at her horn. The light then went out. “Whoopsie. Looks like it’s out of juice.”
There was that familiar darkness that had haunted Minty’s dreams the other night. It gave off a feeling of inescapable fear and hatred. He felt like his head was going to explode. Until he noticed a faint light below them. As they reached the light, he noticed that the chute they were falling down gradually began to decline. It was covered with soft hay that would just roll down with them. It didn’t hurt one bit.
As they slid, Colgate got back into her old mood.
“YEAAAAAAH! WOOOOO!” She had her hooves held high above her head while she slid down on her back. Minty was on his stomach right in front of her. They had both been yelling, one out of glee and the other out of fear (take a guess). This yelling continued until they shot off of the slide and into a thick pile of hay and grass. Minty went head first while Colgate smacked into his backside and only went in up to her stomach. She slid out and down on her back until she eventually hit the floor with a thud.
She got up rubbing her head in the process. She looked around for Minty, but there was no sign of him. She began digging into the pile of hay.
“MINTY! ARE YOU IN THERE?!” she yelled. “IS THIS A GAME?! ARE WE PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK?! I LOVE THAT GAME!” She stuck her head into the pile and kept speaking. Her voice was muffled. She then dove in.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the pile,
“Ugh, my head . . .” He put a hoof up to his head. “Colgate, are you there?” No answer came. He saw a dimly lit tunnel in front of him. “She must have gone this way.” He began walking down the tunnel. There were a few torches attached to the left wall.
Eventually he came upon a larger room that had a lowered center surrounded by ledges, about 8, that were flanked by more doors. There was a large fire burning in the center. It was surrounded by what appeared to be other ponies. They were walking- no, dancing around it in circles. He could hear a monotone chanting over the crackle of the fire.
“What they hay is this?” Minty went prone on his ledge and just watched. He noticed another pony, this one a bit older, walk up to the fire. It threw some dust into it and the fire began to change color. First from red to yellow, then to green, then blue, then purple, then back to red. Like a rainbow. A strange plume of smoke began to rise from it. The smoke depicted a sphere at first. It began to change shapes. It morphed into a large unicorn with wings. It looked vaguely like Celestia. Then it morphed into what looked like the Blood Lust plant from earlier. Then into a rod much like the one he had possessed. At that moment, they all looked up to him, eyes glowing green.
“Seize him!” the eldest pony commanded. He had a strong accent and a deep voice. Many of the ‘minions’ began to jump up towards Minty via small ledges that stuck out from the wall. He began to run back, away from his pursuers. He risked a look behind him and saw they were hot on his trail. He sped up a bit. There was a narrow corridor off of the one he was in and he turned into it then into another hallway which was smaller yet.
There was a small hole in the rocks of a collapsed tunnel that he was just barely able to fit in. “This ought to do,” he whispered to himself as he jumped in. He heard hoof steps thunder past him. Just when he assumed it was safe, he let out a breath of air that he was holding in. Big mistake.
Meanwhile, back at the pile,
Colgate crawled out the other side of the pile, no sign of Minty anywhere. “I wonder where he could have gone,” she sat down on her rear. “I’ll just wait for him to get back.” That’s when she began hearing footsteps. They were getting gradually louder. “Minty, is that you?” she asked cautiously, unsure of what was coming her way. She noticed that it was more than one pony. Three of them, in fact. They had stepped into the small opening she was in.
They weren’t exactly ponies. They were white with black stripes (or black with white stripes, depending on how you look at it), and seemed to be wearing tribal gear. They were zebras just like Zecora. “Who is this that trespasses in our home?” the one in the middle asked. A hostile look appeared on her face.
“My name is Colgate,” she said as she extended out a hoof. They just looked at her with disgust. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Get that thing away from us!” the one to the left shouted. She jumped back a couple feet, nearly hitting the wall. “You disgrace us with your presence!”
“Well that’s not nice at all,” she began, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. “That’s actually kinda mean.”
The zebras continued to look angry. The male zebra on the right had a very loud voice. “You are not a friend and therefore not welcome here. Leave before we make you.” Colgate remembered something.
“Oh, speaking of friend, have you seen mine around here? He’s a green pegasus, kind of skinny.” She wiped the tears with a hoof.
“If you refuse to leave, then we will just have to take you as a prisoner,” the center zebra said. “Follow us, and there will be no trouble.” She stepped to her right opening passage between her and the male.
“Okay, if you say so.” Colgate followed them back down the hall. The two female zebras walked in front, while the male flanked her to prevent escape. They walked until they reached a narrow passage that shot off to the side. There they saw a green mess being held down by multiple zebras, mostly male.
“Let- Me- GO!” Minty commanded as he attempted bucking his captors off of him. It didn’t work. After several minutes of struggling, he finally quit due to exhaustion, and then looked up to the other zebras he hadn’t noticed. “Colgate? Where were you?”
“MINTY!” she yelled as she galloped over and glomped him back to the ground. They slid a good distance on the ground. “I looked everywhere in the pile for you!” She started nuzzling him. At least, she tried as he pushed her off of him. Minty heard one of the male zebras that held him down whisper.
“She sure is affectionate.” He pretended to not hear that, but he couldn’t help but think about it. The center female zebra from Colgate’s capture stepped towards them. “Our command still does not change. You must come with us.”
Minty had no idea what she was talking about. “What? Why not just let us go?”
“Your blue marefriend here refused to leave without you, so she agreed to be our prisoner. Now you are as well.” Minty blushed at that statement.
“My- She is NOT my marefriend! We’re only just friends.” He looked over to Colgate who was distracted by a small dust ball rolling around on the ground. She didn’t seem to notice. A male zebra spoke up.
“Heh, I’m sure. Next thing you know, you’re telling us you’re on some sort of extremely important journey to save all of Equestria.” Minty blinked.
“Enough, both of you. Follow now or risk getting hurt.” Minty looked around to the very well built zebra males.
“Alright,” he said without hesitation. He gladly complied with her ‘request’. After a few minutes of walking, they ended up on the ledge Minty was on earlier. The fire had been put out, and there were many torches planted around the room for light. The zebras led them across the room to a large door that appeared to be made of wood. After a bit of talking, two male zebras on either side of the door pulled a large rope that hung down. The door slowly swung open.
“Who is this that disturbs me?” an elderly voice asked. It seemed very tough and demanding of respect.
“We have captured the intruders, Elder. They have accepted our terms and have agreed to work for us.”
“Work? I wish not for them to work,” the Elder said. The female zebra looked surprised.
“But Elder, I-” she was interrupted.
“You nothing. They are our guests and will be treated as such.” The Elder turned around. He was an old wrinkly zebra with tribal gear and a peculiar pattern of blood red ‘paint’ on his face. “Might I ask what you call yourselves?” Minty and Colgate looked at each other, then back to the Elder.
“I’m Minty,” he started, holding a hoof up against his chest. “And this is Colgate.” he finished as he pointed that same hoof towards the blue pony.
“Minty and Colgate . . .” the Elder said. He sat back and appeared to be thinking. “What is it that brought you to our home?”
“Elder, I don’t think-” the female zebra interrupted. She was cut off again.
“No, you don’t. Go visit Scribe Sara to have your attitude checked.” She growled at this.
“Very well, Elder.” she grudgingly trotted off, flicking her tail at Minty as she walked past him. The large doors slammed behind her.
“Now, where were we,” The Elder walked over to a wooden desk in the center of the room and sat behind it.
“You asked why we are here,” Minty began. Just as he was going to add on to that, a chiming sound could be heard through the door.
“Ah, the evening meal,” the Elder observed. He got up from his chair. “I must ask that you stay until morning. The creatures of the forest are most dangerous at this hour.” Minty wondered how he could tell it was night. “You will join us for food, and then you shall be escorted to private chambers. There shall be a council meeting in the morning when you awake to determine what we do with you, seeing as how you are currently our ‘prisoners’”. Minty heard him exaggerate that word a bit, as if he didn’t mean it.
“Oh, it’s quite alright. We can just go to our rooms and-” he was cut off by Colgate who had been surprisingly quiet this whole time.
“Oh, food? I LOVE food! When do we eat?” she was very excited again. Minty rolled his eyes.
“We shall leave now, since you have no other business to attend to.” The two ponies walked with the Elder who was accompanied by two strong-looking male zebra bodyguards. If Minty had to guess, he would say there was some sort of intense political battle going on in this civilization, and every precaution is necessary.
They walked in silence for minutes until they came upon a round room larger than the fire pit room. There were many tables set up in rows. They were filled with zebras. Many of them were children.
“Come, you shall sit with me,” the Elder said. “I would like to hear about you two.” They slowly made their way up to a long table. Many of the seats were unoccupied. The Elder took a central position next to the table. Colgate and Minty both sat to his left. When Minty looked past Colgate to the Elder, he noticed a somewhat young female zebra with a gold necklace on the other side silently chomping away at some hay. She paid no attention to him.
Half an hour passed and nothing much had changed. The Elder and Colgate were going at what seemed to be a rather engaging conversation, and zebras appeared to be idly chatting about news and such. If only it were so simple. Minty adjusted his hearing a little, and he could hear the suspicious whispering of many a zebra. They were also cautiously looking their way with curious and repulsive looks. He didn’t feel very welcome.
Dinner finally ended and every zebra emptied out of the room. Minty and Colgate followed one of the Elder’s bodyguards from earlier to a room conveniently placed near the Elder’s room.
It was pretty average (at least Minty thought so). There was your standard hay bed, a stone table carved right out of the ground, some torches hanging around. It was all very cozy. Maybe just a bit too cozy.
Minty looked at the bed. “Only one?” he began. “There are usually two beds in hotels I go to.” He turned to ask the bodyguard for another bed, but he found that there was nobody else in the room but him and Colgate, and the door was closed. Probably locked too.
Colgate was walking around admiring the ‘rusticity’ of the whole thing. She then began dusting off the table. “I think this is really nice.” She plopped down on the hay. “Don’t you?” She expectantly stared at Minty who kept just looking at the bed. There was only one option.
“I guess we’re going to have to share the bed,” he began with a sigh. He sat on it as well, more carefully than Colgate had managed. “Not very comfortable, either.” He tried bouncing, but there was practically no spring at all.
“Oh, come on. It will be fun!” she said. “Kinda like a sleep over.” she turned her head to him with a big smile on her face. That face. He just couldn’t say no to it.
“Eh, I suppose,” he began. “Though I’ve never actually been to a sleepover. Or been offered to go to one.” Colgate looked appalled.
“Oh, we can’t have that! Everypony deserves to have at least one sleepover in their life. It just isn’t right to not have one.” Minty rested his head back onto the ‘pillow’ at the head of the makeshift mattress..
An hour passed, and Minty still felt no signs of sleep. Colgate, however, had dozed off a while ago. Her very light snoring and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed made Minty’s heart soar.
(Which is ironic, because he is a pegasus.)
He couldn’t help but stare at her until he finally began to feel sleepy. His eyelids slowly closed as he grew a small smile on his face.
He was asleep and dreaming.
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It was Hearts & Hooves Day in Ponyville, the one a few days before his mother had gone missing. Minty (who hadn’t been named yet, as was tradition where he was from) had just gotten home from school, and was excited to see her right at the doorway with open hooves. He rushed to her and they embraced in a hug. Sure, they had done this every day when he got home, but today was especially special. It was the first Hearts & Hooves Day that he had gotten his mom exclusively to himself. She had always had stallions lined up for her every year. But since some new mares had moved into town, they had been stealing the attention of everypony that was eligible.
Not that she minded. She had, as far as she was concerned, the greatest colt to ever grace her with his presence, Minty Rush. That H&H Day (Hearts & Hooves shortened for convenience), they had all to themselves. They sat in the living area on a couch made of cloud telling each other stories about what they had done that day. Minty would always have exciting stories to tell about what he learned from his teacher, Ms. (now Mrs.) Cheerilee. His mother would be so excited and happy for him. After storytelling, they would settle down in front of a cozy fire with cocoa and just cuddle. It was the happiest Minty had ever been.
There was a knocking at the door. It was the delivery pegasus. The one with the weird eye.
“Letter for a Ms. Windy Springs,” she began. She held out a single white envelope. Windy took it.
“Thank you, Derpy. Have a nice day now.” she waved goodbye to the carrier and closed the door behind her. She looked at the envelope. Nothing but her name on it. No address, stamp, nothing.
She opened it and walked back into the living area to find Minty sleeping on the couch. A little smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. She then began reading the letter.
‘Dear Ms. Windy Springs,’ it began.
‘We regret to inform you that there has been an accident with one of your family members. A pegasus by the name of Minty Fresh was struck by a cloud bus and fell to the ground below. He did not survive the fall.’ She had gasped at this.
As she continued to read on, tears began to well up in her eyes. She started sniffling, and Minty woke up to see her crying. She was holding a piece of paper.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” He had a look of concern about his face. It looked a lot like . . .
That is when she lost it. The stream turned into a river, and quiet whimpers and sniffles gave way to full out bawling. She had left the room and locked herself into her bedroom. She didn’t want her colt to see her like this. He followed and sat in front of the cloud door to her room.
“Mommy, why are you crying?” Minty was entirely confused and concerned about what was happening.
No response.
He continued to sit there, until he got tired and curled his little pony body in front of the door. He was asleep.
Hours later, the door opened, Windy staring at the little foal sleeping on the floor in front of her. She picked him up with her mouth and placed him on her back. Thank Celestia he could sleep through anything. She didn’t think she could take any questions he had for her. In fact, just looking at him made her heart break. He reminded her too much of Minty Fresh, the stallion who had impregnated her and given her such an amazing colt. Unfortunately, he ran away hours before his birth because of the stress of being a father. You either got it or you don’t.
She gently set him down on his bed and pulled a blanket over him. She planted a kiss on his forehead.
“Good night, my little Minty Rush.” she said. She decided to stay in the room with him and fell asleep next to the bed, her head resting right next to his.
- - - - - -
End of chapter 2
This one took a while due to school and other personal hobbies (Borderlands 2, beyatch.).
The story will pick up a little more, and a new character will be introduced next chapter. I will also try to make the chapters a bit longer. It could take anybody 15 to 20 minutes to read this if they really tried.
Also, if anypony that reads this could spread the word, it would be greatly appreciated. I want people to see and experience my work. :o