To bring this friendless unicorn home is the last mission for Screwball the guide, and home is through the blinking scarlet beacon hanging in the horizon.
That broken-hearted Moon Dancer's tears splotch the forest's checkerboarded grass. Stories burdened her, those of life in her ivory tower, of libraries and portals crashing down when the realization hit her that her halls had housed a single soul, that the few friends she retained (she'd sworn she never deserved them) knocked on her door constantly, expecting an answer that would never come.
To the red light, Moon must go.
Their hoofsteps crumple through pages scattered from Screw's previous journey, a paper trail interrogating its writer, masquerading as her notes. Can you name the princesses of Equestria? What is your birthday? How many hooves do you have? Name several baseball pitches. The correct answers fill every straight blank. Moon asks about it, once she's recovered from her stupor. "Sanity check," is the reply, her guide's eyes faintly alight by the beacon in the sky.
Past the light, she says, is refuge, marked on a small map and a few sticky-noted directions: Amare Refugee Zone, some distance away from Canterlot, a cozy commune, a shelter from the elements. "I know the place... sort of," Screwball says. "We'll just have to keep following the light there, and we'll be home." Moon is then quick to list off names: Minuette, Lyra, Lemon Hearts... lemon, lemonade on a sunny day back in Short Stop, back home. Root, root for the home team...! A bunch of lemonade and a long line to lead off a game between towns right out of the park—
"Oh, is that... chocolate?" Moon asks, her horn already on against a sudden mist, like a flashlight.
Babbling water announces a brown-as-mud creek, thick like goo, where strawberry-smelling lily pads fly by and pile up against a boat with Screwball's name painted all over it. It's rigged to a licorice pier.
On the boat, after securing seatbelts and oars with baseball decals everywhere and checking the treasure chest to see if an actual baseball bat is still there, "You do this, Screwball, in spite of all the danger? I... how are you making it safe for yourself?"
"Trust me." Another paddle is given, and a push of an oar sets them off on a cocoa trip. Trees slowly speed by their vision, giving birth to candy corn.
"Won't you get infected by the magic?"
Hooves dance and whir in slow motion, paddling and paddling. Nice and slow, relaxing and easy. All ordered up. Just ignore the crazy sky and the mushrooms gaining eyes on the hills, watching them. "A bit. It's a risk."
So they sit, drifting forward and toward the light, row by row.
"So... uh, Screwball. How does it feel?"
The words halt over a gate of love, marble swans pecking each other from afar.
The look in Moon's eyes gives paranoia a good name. Her horn fizzles and sparkles in self-defense. Sometimes.
Screwball turns away from the rainbow birds spying on her from the trees. "Trippy." Their leaves smell of lemonade, something to refresh her from all the chocolate underneath. "You learn to ignore it." A couple in the grass watch them, eyes glowing like neon signs, pupils turning into advertising arrows to the wrong ways on the next fork in the river.
Moon swivels to avoid eye contact with more lurking alien creatures. It's only the river that makes a sound. "I've heard stories."
An easeled painting of a village and a ballpark fades into a passing hill. "What stories?"
"I've... no, forget stories. I've seen one in action." The awkwardness is thick enough to cut with a knife. She examines her host all strangely. The smile is a decent attempt. "He hung around. Didn't really bother me. Probably didn't know I was even there. All he talked about was sofas and ballpens. Other things were happening around him, but every half minute, maybe, he'd return to that topic. It's his obsession, like some demented Ogres and Oubliettes dungeon master inserted a pet character into her adventure."
"Not all of them are like that," says Screwball, snippy and quick.
A glow steals her attention on her hoof: another note. The questions are the same. Born this time, born in Short Stop, Celestia and Luna. Another flash and it's away from her hoof: translucent silhouettes pop from a bush, stumbling over backwards, keeping pace with their boat.
"Nothing dangerous," Screwball lies, hopes it's true (assuage Moon Dancer, please). The cutie marks on the shadows’ flanks coalesce into hers and another's, a bunch of turtles. Moon opens her mouth—"Talked a lot about his family," Screw says. "Used to surf here and there. Talked about going home near the beach of the mighty Celestial Ocean."
So you're gonna stop now, Miss Screwball?
Hopefully! Also, stop calling me Miss! I don't think I'm that much older than you!
Eh-heh, no problem! Just stay safe okay?... This is it, huh?
She mouths the words in reverse, knowingly. "It's a good sign," goes another lie.
When the waterfall ahead makes its presence known, the lie may be easier to bear. Tendrils of chaotic wisps dart past from behind her, scouting out the expanse, ripping apart conspicuous clouds to uncover the concrete monolith that is a spindly statue of a mish-mashed dragon-horse, sword and baseball kilometers-wide aimed straight at them: a guardian against their saving light.
Far behind it, that faint red flicker persists when they fall and scream down the cliff, the only way forward.
What is your name? Screwball. Who are you? Screwball. Where do you live? Short Stop. What is the color of the sky? Pink. Hopefully it'll get bluer, brighter.
So the papers fly.