So, at last our course was set. We headed off into the mysterious lands that surrounded Maretime Bay, the unexplored territory which lay between here and Zephyr Heights. Or at least as far as I knew it was unexplored. Dad had only put a big question mark on the territory between here and the Pegasus capital, suggesting to me he'd never really scouted the area. Then again, that's not surprising. Based on the film he fought his battles on the page rather than out in the wilds, even if he did do some field work every now and then. In his memory I had to push forward.
Wait a moment. Am I really losing track of self, or was I really getting that much into the roleplay, so to speak? I had to try and distance myself a bit from this. I'm not truly Sunny. I'm just a human inhabiting her body.
As we pushed onwards, the terrain shifting back towards open plains away from coastal towns, Izzy grinned. "I came this way to Maretime Bay," she explained. "It's crazy the movie creators didn't show us this bit of Equestria. It's seriously beautiful, don't ya think?"
I was enraptured with the area's beauty as well. Equestria had done pretty well for itself considering some sort of apocalypse happened between the end of Friendship is Magic and now. I pushed onwards alongside Izzy. "I know. I think they were a bit constrained by the runtime. They could have done with thirty more minutes on the film to flesh out the third act a bit more."
"I don't know," Izzy replied. "I've had devoted a bit more time to extra lore and worldbuilding."
"Oh?" I said. "You were that type of brony?"
"Yep!" Izzy replied. "Got it all stored in here. Want to know precisely which episode each bit of lore appeared in? I can tell you. I memorised it all."
That's pretty dedicated, to be honest. I could piece most of the lore together, but I could hardly be said to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the topic, especially since the writers cobbled most of it on later rather than starting with it. "That's neat," I said. "Though I assume you are aware they built Equestria as they went rather than planning it out from the start?"
"That's not too surprising," Izzy replied. "I mean, it is a show meant to teach good morals and be entertaining rather than focus heavily on lore. As I had to point out regularly to one guy on Fimfiction, My Little Pony is not Lord of the Rings!"
Fimfiction? They had a Fimfiction account? "What was your username?"
"JimmyHook19."
That name rang a bell. "Hmm," I said. "I have heard that name somewhere before. Probably from a story." I decided not to divulge the name of my account. After all, it was highly unlikely she'd have heard of it. I was hardly what you could call a prominent Fimfic user, what with only 450 followers to my name.
As we made our way onwards, the chat continued. "So, where did you live?"
"It was a small coastal town in the east somewhere. Pretty place, but somewhat lacking in action for most of the year."
"I lived in a city. Loud, noisy place. You'd have hated it!" I noticed the irony immediately. Coastal city resident who ends up as a unicorn who lives in a secluded forest. I was just a city guy, although not born and raised in south Detroit, who lived in an urban environment far from the sea and was now an Earth Pony who lived in a lighthouse.
Funny how life works sometimes.
As we continued on our way, and the conversation continued, I couldn't help but feel a bit strange around Izzy. I noticed that when I looked at her sometimes I felt strangely... warm. In my face, I mean. I mean, she was pretty and-
Hold on. Did I just call Izzy pretty? I mean, she had said the same to me before we set off, but to finally acknowledge it in my own mind felt a little odd. Whatever magic turned me into a mare seemingly didn't do anything to my sexuality, it seems.
As the sun loomed overhead, I began filtering these questions in my mind. Was I a lesbian now? Not a problem if I was, after all. I am aware the movie hints quite heavily at Izzy and Sunny being romantically involved, but I seemed to be legitimately developing feelings for her beyond simply a friendship. It was probably just a short term crush I'd get over pretty quickly.
Izzy looked over to me. "Sunny, can you hear something?" she asked.
I raised my ears and focused them closely. "I think it's... music?" I asked. "I had this earlier on where random musical numbers suddenly start up in our minds. Look like we'll be singing that duet."
Izzy nodded. "Good thing I know all the words. Even to the extended version!"
She started off with vocal responsibilities.
"Up ahead is a sky growing dark/
Where it leads is a big question mark/
And I'm scared that I'll end up a pony gone missing from pegasus-ing!"
I then joined in.
"But you're not alone, you've got a pony in your crew!"
Izzy then froze, and the music began to loop as it had for me when I'd started singing the chorus instead of the pre-chorus of 'Gonna be my Day'. "I do," I prompted her.
"Oh!" Izzy said. "I'd forgotten that bit. I do? Who?"
As we trotted along, Izzy being more focused on the song than the terrain she was in, I took over vocal responsibilities.
"I'm lookin' out for you!
When you're off track/
I got your back!
You can rely on me!
I'm lookin' out for you/
Lost in the hills/
I got the skills!"
As I sang this bit I stopped Izzy from falling off a cliff. She needs better situational awareness.
Izzy returned to singing.
"Keepin' your eye on me
I'm lookin' out for you!"
I knew she was, as her eyes were focused intensely on me. So I resumed the vocals as I was the next one to sing. Here's hoping I didn't mess up the lyrics.
"Back at home, it was Earth ponies first/
Heard it so many times, I could burst!
And I fought for a change/
But it's lonely, 'cause you know, party of uno!"
"Well, technically Sunny did, as we're both humans happening to inhabit their bodies but-" Izzy stopped when she saw my facial expression. "Sorry! Forgot about having no fourth wall breaks!" She went to singing.
"Well, if you need a friendly steed like you know who-"
I interjected.
"I think I do!"
As the music in the background began to swell to absolutely epic proportions, Izzy sang a linking segment.
"I'm lookin' out for you!"
Now came the difficult part. I was yet to attempt harmonizing with another pony, and having gained a voice in a different vocal range was proving to be an interesting challenge. To sing these vocals at the correct pitch in my old voice I would have been screeching pretty near the top of my range.
Luckily, as far as I could remember I got the harmony line, so I did my best to stick to the harmony part as well as I could remember it.
"I'm lookin' out for you! (I'm lookin' out)
When you're off track/ (When you're off track)
I've got your back/ (I've got your back)
You can rely on me!"
Seems that disembodied backing vocals are a key part of the local fauna in Equestria, as I encountered one back in Maretime Bay. They technically qualify as diagetic audio in the film, then.
"I'm lookin' out for you! (I'm lookin' out)
Lost in thе hills! (Lost in the hills)
I've got the skills! (I'vе got the skills)
Keepin' your eye on me!
I'm lookin' out for you! (I'm lookin' out)
Starting your ques/t (Starting your quest)
Makes you feel stressed! (Makes you feel stressed)
Pony, it helps knowin'!
I'm lookin' out for you! (I'm lookin' out)
You blaze the trail/ (You blaze the trail)
I'll watch your tail/ (I'll watch your tail)
Pony, let's get goin'!" (Get goin', get goin')
Izzy took over vocal responsibilities on her own for a bit.
"I'm lookin' out!"
(I'm lookin' out for you)
(I'll go where you're goin' to)
(It's all that I wanna do)
(I, I, I)
Then we sang together, in what proved to be an incredibly long note indeed.
"I'm lookin' out
(I'm lookin' out for you)
(I'll go where you're goin' to)
(It's all that I wanna do)
(I'm lookin' out)
We then turned to one another. "For you!"
It's not hard to see why so many fans saw this as a love song. Sunny and Izzy do get awfully close throughout, and it would be regarded as such if one of them was male. And Izzy had been getting awfully close throughout the trip, which made me wonder if she was going through the same thing I was. It seemed a bit rude to ask, and besides it would distract from speed running the movie, so I chose not to ask and chose to press on.
The song had certainly sped things up, it seemed, as it was now night time. The landscape was now very mountainous. Up above us glowed the bright and powerful lights of Zephyr Heights.
"They must have really good lungs to live up there," Izzy said.
"Tell me about it," I replied, as I consulted my map. "That place is a fortress. Not only is it on top of a mountain, but the only paths up there are long and steep to climb. We'll have a difficult climb ahead of us when we set off. Let's get some sleep. Pitch camp here, and we'll set off in the morning. Now if only I'd had time to pack a..."
I trailed off when I saw what Izzy had put down. "Tent. Izzy, where were you carrying a tent?"
"The same place I was carrying my microwave earlier! It's quite handy to be able to produce objects from nowhere. And I wasn't carrying a tent." She dropped another one down, fully assembled. "I brought two tents! One for each of us. I also packed three more for when we meet the others."
Well, Izzy is crazy prepared if nothing else. Hers was purple and mine was orange, so it made remembering who slept where easier. I popped inside mine after we had our evening meal and said goodnight, then drifted off to sleep.
The next morning we began our ascent to Zephyr Heights. The path was very tough going, more akin to a scramble over some cliffs than a hike. We were trotting through a canyon filled with Mist when Izzy signalled a halt.
"There's something in the canyon with us," she said.
I was pretty certain what the something was, but seeing as we'd deviated from the script a fair bit already I didn't want to jinx it. "I saw movement as well."
Suddenly, rocks began to fall behind us. "And whatever it is, it's chasing us!" Izzy called. "Run!"
We dashed for the facing wall as the thing behind us continued to erratically leap about. We soon reached the rockface and began to climb it as best we could.
"Could you give me a boost?" I called. "I'm a bit stuck!"
Izzy stuck her head under my rear hoof. "No problem!" she said. "I'm not a mountain goat either!"
After much panic and struggle, we pulled ourselves over the top, and I hauled Izzy over. We paused at the top to catch our breath. "Well, that was strenous," I said, firmly out of breath.
"At least the thing that was following us is gone," Izzy said.
Seconds later, a familiar pegasus launched herself into the air in front of us. I decided to stick to the script and scream in fright at the sight, before Zipp leaped between rocks and landed on a nearby rocky outcrop.
"An actual pegasus," I said, both in a mixture of legitimate amazement and trying to avoid attracting Zipp's suspicions.
The pegasus looked at us quizzically. "Sunny and Izzy? Huh. They're right on schedule."