//------------------------------// // Chapter Twelve, Am I The Only One Scared by This? Okay then…. // Story: Dancing Flames, Cooling Ember // by Tamara Bloodhoof //------------------------------// Chapter 12, Am I The Only One Scared by This? Okay then…. *thump**thump**thump*thump* ‘Wha………what’s that?’ My eyes fluttered open, light assaulting my vision. It hurt like hell, but I forced my eyes to stay open, my pupils slowly contracting in order to filter the brightness. After half a minute elapsed my vision had settled enough for me to try and source the rapid thumps. As I sat up and looked around, the source became evident, mainly due to a howl of pain, both from me and from a big black ball of fur over by a tree. Looking down at my lap I saw a coconut, split cleanly in two. ‘How do coconuts grow somewhere that isn’t tropical, heck, how do palm trees spring into existence?’ ‘Same way that walking talking lizards live practically anywhere, dogs can speak, and how the rule of ninja hordes can apply to real life.’ ‘Rule of nin……you know what, forget it.’ ‘What was that again?’ I sighed and stood up, letting the two halves of the coconut roll off my lap and fall to the ground, the sand beneath them turning damp. As I walked over to Grim, I said, “Why the fruit, didn’t think you could eat it? Grim whipped around and looked me straight in the eyes before dropping into a defensive stance, his blade held out in front of him. “Are you still psychotic or not?” he growled, slowly scooting his back away from the tree, evidently opening up a path for retreat. I froze. Grim, the person who could forgive me for castrating him, was afraid of me, was even willing to pull a sword on me. Have I really become that despicable? 'Somewhat, yeah.' Swallowing the knot that was forming in my throat I whispered to him, “I’m better.” I don’t understand how or why, but his expression cleared instantly, his blade already sheathed. He was acting as if nothing had happened last night, as if I was perfectly normal. ‘He’s killed how many of them? Guess you are normal by his standards, which, admittedly, must be pretty low.’ Grim looked at me, a grim smile on his face. “That was the monster you said your dad wanted to harness, is it not?” My jaw dropped open, the hinges squeaking loudly, causing him to laugh. “Course I knew what that was. You said it would scare me, and I’ll admit that it did so, but I can’t condemn you just because you killed something, especially slavers who condemn even more to their deaths than you did.” My brain clicked into overtime, the gears in my mind catching fire due to their speed. It seemed so much to take in after only a few seconds. Then I remembered something that was so simple yet held such a mysterious origin. I grabbed my jaw and snapped it back into place with a loud crack that caused Grim to wince before asking, “Why were you gathering coconuts?” “Look behind you.” Was his simple answer, and as I turned around, I noticed a small pile of about twelve or so coconut halves. *Loading* *Loading* *Loading* *Loading* *Loading* *Loading* *Click* “Where you using them on me?” I asked, instantly wishing I had phrased it differently. “BWAHAHA……..n-no, not….not like that….” Grim chortled, a wide grin now spread across his face. “After the fight you fell unconscious, so I used coconuts liquid to dampen one of our cloths, then I put it on your head so you’d cool down. I’ve heard that sweet smells help people who are sick, so the coconuts seemed like a better answer than the seawater. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to take multiple trips of over a hundred meters within a short amount of time without leaving you open to whatever Tartarus decided to throw your way.” I looked at the pile of coconuts, then at the tree. “How did you get them down? You’re too heavy to climb the tree, so you had to do something to knock them down.” Grim raised his paws for me to inspect. Taking both of the paws in my clawed hands, I inspected his knuckles. It quickly became apparent that his left paw was bleeding, his black fur slick with the blood. Giving a quick guess off of what he looked like, I’d say he had been bleeding for the last hour or so. “Just how long was I out?” I asked him. “Ummmm……..since it should be about nine or ten now I’d say that you’ve been out for……let’s see……..eleven hours?” he said, raising his left paw to his mouth and lapping the blood off of his fur. I snatched his paw out of his mouth and muttered, “Serena, curabat.” and his face immediately turned into a goofy smile, the cuts and rips in his paw quickly closing and the blood simply evaporating, making a slightly red haze over us. His smile grew even wider as the haze slowly dissipated. “Blood fog, huh?” “Why yes, there was a blood fog, so sue me.” I muttered darkly, turning back to our supplies, only to notice that, yet again, Grim had already packed everything up into a tight pack that was ready for travel. “And let me guess, you saved breakfast for both of us, it’s going to be a clear gem, and we’re going to go after I’ve cast my spell.” Grim kept on smiling like a lunatic, his tail wagging madly, before hiccupping, “Ye*hic*p!” ‘Wow Keiko, you even have Katniss down to a T. How do you feel about becoming a horribly rude girl who acts like she owns the place?’ ‘Like I want to bash both our brains out just so I no longer have to listen to you being an insufferable jerk.’ ‘Awwwww, you know I love flattery.’ ‘Sweet mother of God, you sound like the Joker!’ ‘Okay Ninja Girl, I’ll be Hinjoker then.’ ‘I never should’ve introduced you to web comics.’ ‘You may be right about that. Don’t really know, don’t really care.’ I sighed yet again, then asked the other question that was troubling me. "Where'd you get the second sword? It looks...better." He looked down at his blade, something close to that of an Scottish Claymore. "I took it from one of the pack leaders. It was a good blade that would have gone to waste." I nodded in recognition of his answer, then raised my right claw, the index finger pointing straight towards the sun, chanting. “Interioris oculi, rubeum chorda fati.” After the chant, the red string from yesterday shot out of my finger and into the distance. Grim looked at the thread, following its trail along the sandy shore of the beach. He walked over to our gear, slapped it onto his back, assumed a quadrapedal stance, then looked at me. “Ready to go?” he said, his crazy grin dying down just a speck. “Breakfast?” “Tried your pockets?” he said, raising a brow. ‘What pockets?’ I reached down to my side, acting as if I was pulling something out of a pocket. Lo and behold, a clear gem appeared in my hand. It looked exactly like the one I had eaten the day before, and was big enough that I had a hard time fitting the entirety of it in my hand. ‘That was very dirty, and…..ummm……….Hammer space I guess?’ ‘I’m gonna pretend you never said that.’ ‘So you don’t have to listen to my bad jokes but I have to listen to yours? Hypocrite.’ ‘I learned from the very best, wouldn’t you say?’ ‘Why thank you.’ ‘Your welcome.’ I turned to Grim who had a turquoise gem in his mouth, crunching down on it with his powerful jaws, turning the once proud gem into nothing more than a fine dust. “Ready to head out?” I asked him, nibbling on my own gem. “Ready.” he said, his brows lowering until his smile looked like a predatory grin. “Race ya!” he shouted, then started bounding away, me right on his heels. ************************************************************************************************* We had been running less than an hour before saw a group of ponies, all of them evidently the worse for wear. They looked disheveled, discolored, and, above all, afraid. I whispered to Grim, asking quietly, “Should we avoid them or not?” “Better to try and talk to them rather than anything else. They’ll probably see us soon anyways, what with the light and there being no cover nearby.” “Got it, let’s go then.” I stepped my pace up, changing my speed from a good jog to an full on charge. I counted slowly, ‘One….Two…Three…Four!’ before jumping into the air, propelling myself into the air, soarin’ ‘EMBER!’ right over the ponies heads, shifting into a rolling dive as I hit the ground. After rolling onto my butt, I cocked my head back and looked at the ponies, now identifiable. There were two ponies of each gender, all of them earth ponies. They all reeked of alcohol, and the two girls seemed like they were still somewhat tipsy, the dark pink one actually falling flat on her rump when I looked at them. I may not be the best at reading someone’s stance, but I knew that they were all petrified in fear. In an attempt to break the ice I said, “Hello there, what’s up?” I don’t know what I expected, but for three of them to jump on me, holding me down, one mare on each leg, and one of the stallions holding my arms, was not it. The last pony, the bulkiest of them all, was standing right over my head, shouting at me, “YOU’LL NEVER SELL US INTO SLAVERY!” before trying to punch me in the face. Bad move. His hoof, which actually was a pretty decent swing, smashed into my face, but I felt practically nothing. The stallion on the other hand, he was hoping up and down, screaming in agony. Go scales as hard as steel! ‘It’s like wearing our own private set of mythril. OMG, we’re Elijah Woods, only, you know, less stupid faces.’ ‘Not now Gemina, trying to decide how to deal with the ponies, heckle me later, okay?’ ‘I’ll hold you to that.’ “Mind letting me up?” I asked quizzically to the three ponies trying to hold me down. Their glares was answer enough, so I just used the stallions weight on my arms to backflip from the ground, yanking my legs from the mares grasp, before settling onto the stallions back, literally riding him. “By the way, what are all of your names?” The stallion under me started to buck, his eyes now giant orbs of white with two pinpricks of black inside of them. He looked close to fainting and his breath was ragged. I guess having a six foot tall overgrown lizard perched on your back can do that to someone. The mares on the other hand looked at me questioningly, obviously wondering why I was riding the pony under me rather than killing him or just knocking him senseless. The dark pink pony trotted forward, looking me in the face, before going down onto two hooves, her front bowing in front of me. “P-p-p-p-p-please, d-d-d-don’t k-kill us.” she whimpered. “Why would I do that?” I asked, looking at them all. They all froze in shock at my response, even the one underneath me. The other mare, an aquamarine one with a mane of white (I know someone who looks like her, who was she again?) spoke next, saying, “Well, we were almost caught yesterday.” “By what?” I asked, raising my (once again, do I even have that part?) eyebrow. “THAT!” screamed the stallion behind me, his coat close to that of midnight black. “SLAVER DOG!” “Slaver d…..oh no, he’s not a slaver, he’s my traveling partner.” I said, seeing that Grim had finally plodded up to us. “Wait, wha? There were like four or five dogs yesterday, they tried to capture us!” shouted the pony under me. “Those mad griffins killed them though. Said they killed them all.” Grim and I looked at one another, staring into each other’s eyes before bursting out laughing. “HAHAHAHAHA, YOU’RE…YOU’RE JOKING RIGHT!?” I laughed, literally laughing myself off of the pony’s back. “No we’re not, they killed them all, then tricked us into believing that we had slept with……..ooooops….” said the pink mare, the other mare slapping her hoof over the pink one’s others mouth. Our elation at that statement just grew, causing all of the ponies to blush scarlet at our jubilation. “I’m….I’m sorry….” I wheeze after a moment, “But I killed over three times that amount yesterday. But what you said would explain the reason they were talking about griffins.” As I said that my face fell noticeably, no longer jovial but rather somber. Thinking about killing hordes of people can do that to someone. The ponies stared at me, their gaze filled with a mixture of fear, wonder, and, is it even possible, gratitude? “So you saved us?” the pink mare said. “I guess so, though it was unintentional.” I responded, standing straight, the giggles out of my system now. “It was more of a ‘Dogs try to kill friend we kill them’ situation.” “Even so,” said the midnight black pony, “We owe you. We were traveling to Manehatten soon, but I guess we can go right now. We could get you something as a token of thanks then.” I looked to Grim, whose only response was a non-committal shrug. “Okay then, but we’re going to take it at a decent pace, are you going to keep up?” I asked, both me and Grim walking along the line, now obviously setting a course to Manehatten. “Sure thing/Yep/Yessire/You got it!” They responded, trotting along after us.