Skins, that’s what he needed a lot of now to make the journey.
Those would come naturally over time, but the tools, he’d need a real axe, something to actually use and other tools to help save his and Roseluck’s ass were something to happen along the way.
Kacie had gotten up that morning, cleaned the travois completely for Roseluck to use and even sanitized it.
“A bag, a backpack would sure be helpful for this,” he mumbled to himself as he picked up the boltcaster and knife from the foyer of the abandoned castle and was gone out the door.
First up, tools, so he went wandering around Ponyville, looking at each building he could to spy any hint of what he needed being in one of them. His goal was the commercial street. A howl chilled his spine, wolves were moving into this area and they were bound to get more and more desperate in their attempts for food.
He was a predator in competition with them after all.
And he did eventually come across a hardware depot, a larger building in Ponyville. His unprotected hands wrapped around the door handle and he yanked, staring the closed sign down with something akin to hatred. The door didn’t budge and he tried again, harder, thinking the snow piled in the front might be making it harder. The door didn’t budge, had to be locked.
But with no magic in Equestria, he didn’t think he’d have to worry about wards stopping him from entering. He reared the butt of the boltcaster up and smashed it into a window. The glass caved easily enough and he climbed through, feeling a bit warmer already.
“Ooookay, spooky. Kinda dark as hell in here with few windows, but let’s get to looking,” he wandered about, pulling everything he thought was useful and chucking them over by the broken window.
Kacie did find a hatchet, a splitting axe, and a much tougher knife, looked like it was specifically meant for woodcarving, definitely a hooby of many ponies. Though the blade was shorter than a usual hunting knife, that would’nt matter too much. If it could carve wood, it could carve tendons, joints, and ligaments, too.
“Goddamn freezing even in here...breaking that window might not have been the best idea.”
Lucky for him, there was still an abundance of whetstones and those were carefully transported to the window unlike everything else.
The stores had saddlebags and some kind of faux leather, maybe woven fabrics, cut out into pieces and strips. They wouldn’t be much good for keeping warm, but he could fashion something out of them. Kacie took time to do exactly that and started modifying three of the small saddlebags into a proper multi-pocket backpack. He brought along some sewing material specifically for this, but after a while, his hands start to shake from the cold. Even in the afternoon, it was frigid for him still.
Survive, that was the big picture and he had a bunch of small little puzzle pieces to fit into it.
“Need to finish up here I guess.”
And he went past the “no customers beyond this point” door. It was a living room, plain and simple like every other house. Not much for him to really use here, but the bedroom was a different story.
Two ponies laid in it, wrapped in winter gear and blankets. Cold to the touch.
“Some just...just don’t think and they just give up, huh?” He somberly patted to the frozen corpses, taking a moment to look them over, “guess that fuckin’ figures,” he pulled the keys to the store out of the stallion’s pocket, “’spose I’m lucky enough to know how to start a right proper fire.”
He left the bedroom after going through every drawer and even the closet, nothing useful to him. He made a final effort to pile all the food fore Roseluck up at the front counter before he wrapped a moving blanket from the store around all his loot and started to drag it on back to the castle. It was still afternoon, thankfully, and that meant he had more time.
Roseluck wasn’t present and neither was the travois, so she must had been out in a different part of town to stockpile things up.
Kacie lit a fire in his bedroom to recouperate heat, during which he finished punching and sewing together something like a backpack. It fit comfortably enough, sturdily enough. He even took time to make little loops for his hatchet and knife. The boltcaster even got a strap that he could use to hang it around his shoulder or neck.
“Alriiiight, now we’re in business,” he made a point to set some of the woven and treated fabrics aside so he could make something specifically for bringing back harvested game maybe that night or the next day.
Kacie left out again with the sun hanging over a little later than he liked, but he had a goal.
“Forests, needs some shady dampish places to grow,” so off he went to the Everfree Forest.
Not the smartest move to make, but he needed to make it. In reality, he didn’t need to make it right this moment, but for morale sake, he did. His dad also taught him not to go back on his word.
He stood at the edge, most of the fern, brush, and twiggy plants were stripped of every green fiber they had. This made it very easy to see unlike when he first saw it in Equestria. Foraging for the right things would easily be a breeze in here.
“Now...let’s dig in,” he entered into the forest, keeping the boltcaster close to his abdomen and his finger right next to the trigger.
Many things thought he’d be an easy snack before in here, that’s probably still true.
He didn’t struggle to find much of the things he wanted, pulling buds from bushes and scrapping mushrooms off stumps and trees. Most people wouldn’t dare to think about eating let alone foraging plants in the wilderness. Accidentally poisoning oneself was enough to keep most foragers away.
But K’s dad made sure he developed a taste for this stuff, it’d be like a little yellow brick road to home for his tongue. Kacie guessed a couple hours had been going by and with his bag now filled to the brim of foraged buds and mushrooms, he returned back to the castle without issue. An easy outting at last.
It took him far less time to prep the plants he brought back and he started making a large bag for meats and skins that he would bring back from the fabrics he took out of the hardware store. This would make hunting easier and meant the travois was dedicated to Roseluck only.
“Let’s see...three deer skins, that’s a pair of boots and the start of some pants. A bear skin that I can easily pull into a whole coat,” he whispered to himself, “gonna need to down two more deer, maybe a moose if I’m lucky. Get a nice hat and some mitts from a bunch of rabbits,” he kept whispering aloud, “check a firehouse or police station around town for something to keep wildlife off.”
He turned to the bow in his room. He could eat all the meat he was gathering for a store of calories while he ran about trying to collect proper wood to dry out for arrows and feathers for fletching. As for coal, the train’s not here and they’d have to hoof it to Canterlot so that would be the best place for some hotter burning fuel then he could properly mold out some arrowheads from the many pots, pans, and other metals around Ponyville.
A plan was coming together quite nicely.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms." - Henry David Thoreau, Walden
If he ever did see Twilight again, he’d have to thank her for being a bit of a doomsday prepper and hobbyist.
“Hey! Hey! I know that smell!” A voice came from the other side of his door and he set the bag down that he was working on, pieces of fabric strewn messily over the floor. Roseluck opened the door a little too excitedly and trotted her way over after it banged on the wall.
“No waaaay,” she sat down next to him, looking into one of two pots and seeing a deep red liquid steaming in front of her.
“Pour yourself a cup, Rosie,” Kacie smiled to her, pouring a cup of yellowish brown liquid himself.
Roseluck took a sip from the mug she had just poured while Kacie moved the pots away from the fire he had built, “rosehip tea! I...I can hardly believe it!”
The man smiled even wider, taking a sip from the savoury but bitter tea he made himself, “glad you like it. It’s all yours, the whole pot.”
Roseluck threw her hooves around him, squeezing tightly, “I used to have this so many times before bed. Thank you, thank you, thankyouthankyou!” She cried into the echoy ceiling, “K, you’ve gotta be the nicest stallion in all Equestria.”
He patted her back, rubbing up and down with his hands, “well, let’s hope I’m not the only one. Something else to look forward to when we get to Canterlot.”
She kept a huge grin as she released him, sitting close, “I can definitely make it through a whole month of waiting with this. What are you having?”
“Reishi tea,” he answered, “high in vitamin C, the one deficiency that’ll turn deadly for me real quick,” he took a sip, “and doctors...at least on Earth, found that it can be a good antimicrobial natural medicine,” Kacie rolled his eyes, “annnnnd my dad made sure I knew what it looked like, how to prep the fruiting body, and he got me addicted to the taste.”
Roseluck laughed as she stared at the fire, “addicted? To drinking mushroom water?” She shrugged her hooves, “worse things have happened than that,” Kacie moved his cup in front of her lips and she took a sip before sputtering and clearing her palate with the red drink, “euugh, what is that? It’s so bitter. I think your dad was trying to kill you, K.”
“To each their own, Rosie. You ever make a tincture from burdock root? Or how about birch bark?” She cringed at his words, “you don’t get to be too picky in the wild,” he took another long drink from it, “how goes your scavenging around Ponyville?”
“I have a good stock of tools in the basement and a huge pile of food,” Roseluck answered, “If it all stays forzen I could eat for...years maybe by rationing.”
Years, that’d be a long time to live like this. That wasn’t a thought that crossed Kacie’s mind until she said it. Now he needed to mentally prepare for that possibility.
“Hey, what if we can’t fix this? What if the princesses can’t fix this?” Kacie started.
“What do you mean?”
“What if we’re stuck like this?” He clarified, “in the blinding snow?”
Roseluck let her head fall, “I don’t know, K. Maybe I’d give up.”
“I sure as hell wouldn’t let you. I’ve only been surviving with you for like a week, but you’re not going anywhere on me,” he nudged her.
“Then maybe you could teach me some of your tricks or knowledge,” she pipped a little.
“Well, I just think that eventually we’d have to move to other places. So if Canterlot is a bust, then we should come back here and gear up to go to other places. Like Dodge Junction you mentioned or somewhere big like Baltimare, gotta have a good stockpile we can find in those places.”
Roseluck perked even more, “travel all of Equestira?”
“Yeah, we could totally do that,” K agreed. He did want to see more than just Ponyville and a glimpse of Canterlot.
He did firmly believe that Roseluck was seeing him through that potential possibility as much as he was seeing her through it.