Cake parked the bike two miles outside the site, it was a walk, but it was worth it for the Unicorns to not see them or hear the loud diesel engine. She had carefully thrown a net over it with some leaves, marked the tree it was beside, and began hiking to Tide Turner's cabin. “When was the last time you spoke to Tide, Yellow?” Cake asked.
“Two weeks ago, we were talking about you and if either of us had heard anything from you, he said there were strange things happening in Unicornia but that he could handle it and there was nothing to worry about.” Yellow spoke with a worried look on her face.
“I told him, repeatedly, that Unicornia was a bad idea, it's too dense and worst of all, it's all unicorns. I told him-” Cake stopped as she saw the cabin come into view. The door was laying down in the grass, like it had been kicked down from the inside. “Oh, this is bad. Really bad.”
Cake whispered as the duo crouched down and slowly approached the cabin. The inside was gutted, empty for the most part, all that was left was the table and pulled out drawers that had been tossed out and thrown onto the ground along with the cot Tide would have slept on.
“You think there's a chance… he could be building a new cabin and is just… moving things?” Yellow asked sheepishly as she looked around for any signs of a struggle.
“Not a chance...” Cake replied, as she entered the cabin properly. There was no indication there had been a fight, nothing was broken just… missing, or taken apart like the drawers. There were no signs of the radio equipment, and more importantly, the terminal.
“We are going to need to split up, I'll give you a trottie talkie, check around here for any clues as to where Tide Turner is, I have to make sure Unicornia is... not in red. Or worse.” Cake handed her the brick sized device, the large antenna sticking out of it made Yellow Diamond unsure of the tech, it looked like unenchanted junk, but she put it onto her service belt and gave Cake a salute that the commander just shook her head in response to. The unicorn trotted off in the direction of the princessdom as the pegasus took to the skies for an aerial view of the surroundings.
“Minty… Minty, where are we going!” Twinkle asked as she walked through the forest, trailing behind her friend, Minty was still taking long drinks from her bottle, and was humming a tune. Twinkle knew every tune and song the village had made to play on the jukebox, even the very special records with the pretty instruments that Santa had brought them. Whatever Minty was humming wasn't any of them, but it was also too complex and detailed for the tea brewing pony to have made it up on her slightly stumbly walk through the woods.
The bottle was filled to the brim when she had started, now it was down to a fourth, soon down to a fifth. She had a big smile on her face, but her eyes were bloodshot, like if she blinked, she might lose it. “Be quiet Twinkie, we are almost there!”
Twinkle didn't feel like they were going anywhere but deeper and deeper into the woods, let alone home. They had been walking now for almost an hour, with Minty taking little detours and changing her direction slightly. She wasn't sure why, but it did feel like they were following a trail of sorts, the ground was a little less twiggy and brush with the little changes in direction that Minty was taking. “Minty the sun is starting to set; can we please go back home?”
Minty stopped, took a long swig from her drink, she turned around and smiled at Twinkle “Are you not listening to me, friend?” she asked in a strange tone. She stumbled forward a little then, they had reached it. It was a metal round circle on the floor of the forest. Minty stumbled over to it and looked at it confused. “Oh, bloody hell, where's the handle?” she ran her hoof over two little metal stumps disappointed. “You, horny, give a lady a hoof here.”
Twinkle wasn't sure why but... she knew what to do. She covered the small metal… door, in her magic and lifted it open at an angle because… it had a hinge on it. How did she remember that? The hinge wasn't visible on the top, and… “Minty!” she called out as she watched her friend dive headfirst down into the hole in the earth, she expected to hear a thunk but, there was instead a soft poof, she trotted over quickly and looked down the hole, and there she saw the earth pony picking herself up off a bean bag. Bean… bag... Why do they call them that? They don't actually have beans in them they have-
“Hey! Are you coming or what?” Minty asked, interrupting Twinkle’s train of thought as she waved to her. She still had that smile on her face but left the empty bottle to roll on the floor as she giggled. Twinkle felt curious, and she couldn't ignore that feeling inside her, so she too jumped down into the hole, landing on the soft bean bag. She looked around the little… place. It was odd, there was a big fireplace on the far wall, a little cot, and a shelf filled with those bottles and a few too many thermostats on the wall. Minty was stumbling toward the shelf and she looked very happy with herself “Home again, home again! Finally! I'm going to have a nice big glass of.” She stopped, her eyes went wide, the bottles were all empty. Each one was missing the little wood sponge thingy that went into them. “No… no, no!” She sat down hard on the metal floor, and quickly began to mourn over the dead bottles. Twinkle did the only thing she could think of, she quickly trotted over to her friend and gave her a big hug.
“Don't worry, I'm sure Santa Claus will bring you more if you just write him a letter!” Twinkle said, hugging her friend tight.
“Who the hell is Santa Claus?” Replied Minty. She looked down the neck of an empty bottle and frowned. Twinkle broke the hug and sat beside her.
“He helps us, Minty. Don't you remember who brought you your sugar? Your favorite mug?” Twinkle sighed.
Minty shrugged. “I guess, still doesn't mean we really know who they are.”
Twinkle scoffed. “We don't need to know, we just need to be good, and be friends with one another, and then Santa will bring us things we can play with. Wouldn't you like it if Doodle got another batch of rainbow berries, or pancake mix?”
Minty scratched her head and looked around the room. “Hey, um… why does this place have so many thermostats on the walls?”
Twinkle gave her a confused look. “Minty, you are the one who brought me here.”
The little earth pony nodded. “Right… I did do that…” She smiled and rocked back and forth, humming a tune silently.
“Ugh, Minty you are acting weird! I told you not to drink that potion!” Twinkle shook her head. “What are you going to tell Band aid when you see her in the morning?”
“I’m fine Twinkie, just give me a moment. My body feels warm, but my mind is like it's going for a swim in the river.” She raised her hooves up to her head and hummed again as the unicorn huffed and sat back on the bean bag.