//------------------------------// // Chapter Ten - Wanderings // Story: Quantum Castaways // by DustTraveller //------------------------------// -Tea In the Sahara, The Police "Twilight, I understand how excited you are about this. I am just as excited as you are. The problem is that all the environmental hazards we run into out here in the jungle are pretty tame compared to the kind of bullshit that a desert will pull. We get thirsty here, water is never more than a mile or so away. Out there, you can't count on a source of water like that, you have to bring everything you need with you." She frowned, seated pony style and telekinetically picking at a salad with a fork while Marshall cooked something on the fire. Their discussion basically flitted back and forth over the same sticking point; she wanted to plan RIGHT now, gather supplies RIGHT now, and go. RIGHT now. After the initial excitement on the mountaintop had worn off, as they made their way down the clouds, Marshall had calmed down considerably, to Twilight's initial confusion. She was happy about this discovery, and a large part of her was disappointed that he didn't appear to be as happy as she was. She'd finally cornered him into discussing it when they sat down to get dinner started. Much to her chagrin, she had discovered that he wanted to take things at a slower pace. The maddening part was, as eager as she was to find that distant mysterious structure, she had a nagging suspicion that he was absolutely right. "During the day, we'll bake. At night, we'll freeze. The air will be so empty of moisture that we'll lose what little water we've got twice as fast." She glared at his back and he stopped cooking, set down his spoon, and turned, shoving sizzling meat onto his plate next to a modest green salad. He sat down in front of her and looked downward, considering, then gazed back at her and began further ticking off points calmly on his fingers. "The only sane time to travel will be in the three or four hours when it's still light out at evening, and in the three or four hours after dawn before it starts to broil. Which of course assumes there ain't nothing living out there. Seeing how diverse this damn island is, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. All the tricks and tips I've picked up living in the jungle won't mean squat out there, it might as well be another damn planet." He stared down at his plate, fiddling with his fork unhappily. "There will be no landmarks to navigate by, no shade we don't make for ourselves, and if we get turned around or end up lost, we're boned. I've never been that far into the middle of the desert side of the island for a reason, Twilight. I'm crazy, but I ain't stupid. Hell, for all we know, whatever stuck us on this damn island put that building in the middle of bumfuck nowhere for exactly that reason." She sighed. "I understand this stuff, Marshall. I really do, but as difficult as it's going to be, we HAVE to do this." She cast a pleading gaze at him across the table as he added a little salt to his meal and then dug into his dinner. He met her gaze and smiled. "I know that, Twi. I'm not advocating sitting with our thumbs up our asses when something is just sitting out there that could be the solution to this whole mess. What I'm trying to get across to you is that what we need is a cautious approach with plenty of contingency planning so that WHEN, not IF, WHEN things go wrong, we can adapt." She chewed thoughtfully on her meal and swallowed, sighing. "I know, I just..." She gestured helplessly with a foreleg in a gesture she'd picked up from Marshall that meant, as far as she could tell, helpless frustration. He gave her a look that was completely compassionate, for once not busting her metaphorical balls. "Twilight, this is NOT the one time in your life to throw caution to the wind because you want to go home. I know how much you want to see your friends again, but..." He sighed. "Look, I've been on this island for five years. Five. Years. I've had leads, promising leads, that turned out to be false. Nothing as promising as this one, mind you, but it has happened. You CAN'T hang all your hopes on this panning out the way you want it to. We have no idea what the hell is out there, Twi. It might be Ye Olde ACME Teleportation Complex that'll take us home lickety split, and it might be a fucking trap designed to lure us in and do god knows what to us." Marshall picked at his food moodily, his expression thoughtful. "If this island has taught us anything, it's that it doesn't give away anything for free. We have had to struggle and fight for every step of ground we take from it. I don't want you to put all your hopes on this one thing being some kind of magical cure-all and then be devastated when and if it doesn't... work out." She scowled, about to retort in the face of what sounded like very unpleasant skepticism. It felt in that moment, at best, timidity, and at worst, complacency. She opened her mouth, caught his expression as he raised his gaze from his plate, and stilled, whatever angry retort she was going to say dying in her throat, unborn. Marshall just stared back, calmly. Perfectly willing to let her vent on him, and just as unmoved from his position. She forced herself to take a step back and consider this. To remember that this man had been through this before, and that from his own painfully learned lessons, he was trying to help her, despite her insistence at being obstinate, antagonistic even. She looked down at her meal, momentarily ashamed of her lack of empathy in the face of his own obvious consideration. Finally, she looked up. "Ok, so what do we need?" He cocked his head slightly, considering. "First of all, the most important thing is water. Keeping it in us, and having plenty on hand to replace what we lose..." "X-ray, zero point zero zero five seven niner." "X-ray, zero point zero zero five seven niner, aye." "Yankee, negative zero point zero zero two three four." "Yankee, negative zero point zero zero two three four, aye." "Zulu, negative zero point zero zero five seven eight." "Zulu, negative zero point zero zero five seven eight, aye." "Resetting display. Calibration error factor... is zero. LVDTs have reset to neutral value." "Values verified. Plotting now." Marshall leaned back from the display and turned with a creak of metal and canvas, watching as Twilight Sparkle plotted the coordinates on the makeshift white board they had set up. Well, it couldn't exactly be called a white board; for one, it wasn't white. It was really nothing more than a piece of canopy glass that had survived intact installed with a white wooden backing for contrast and bolted to the cave wall. For a writing implement she was using one of the ubiquitous black grease pencils you'll find in any cargo shipping operation. She had carefully drawn up a three axis grid coordinate system, and was marking the position they'd called out. After this she then extrapolated very quickly how much displacement from the neutral position this represented in space, then, with a complex understanding of expanding thaumic fields, a bit of advanced waveform algebra, and a little trigonometry, changed that into a ray trace of the direction of thaumic field expansion. Marshall was no slouch where complex math was concerned, but even still, he shook his head at this. Half of the symbols up there were gibberish to him... in fact, they sort of looked like what had resulted from the time, half out his mind from lack of sleep after a thirty six hour flight schedule, he'd forwarded one of his mission reports to his CO, after he'd accidentally changed the type font from Times New Roman to Wingdings. Needless to say, his CO had been very disappoint. Even after Marshall had valiantly tried to point out that as bad as Wingdings was, at least it wasn't Comic Sans. Still, loopy-ass characters aside, he could see the concentration and complex problem solving involved. It was like watching a Stephen Hawking, an Albert Einstein, or a Richard Feynman at work, sans bongos, of course. Marshall would be the first to admit that Twilight Sparkle had a beautiful mind. She sat back on her haunches and examined her work for errors, telekinetically tucking the grease pencil behind her poor notched ear. Marshall smirked when he realized she was getting a little black stain right there from the dirty grease pencil. She continued scanning her work, mouthing variables silently under her breath. Her eyes darted from equation to equation, then went back to the top again, for the third time. Marshall was well acquainted enough with the scientific mindset, and Twilight more specifically, to know that if he didn't interrupt her, she'd be teasing and playing with that very limited set of data values all day. He cleared his throat and pointed at the board. "What's that symbol there? The one that kinda looks like a monkey fucking a coconut?" She blinked, startled out of her math funk, then turned very slowly and glared at him. "That is the ancient unicorn glyph for "Aba", which modern thaumaturgical studies recognizes as the symbol for the coefficient of thaumic fluctuation, and it does not look... like that." He smirked. "The fact that you knew exactly what symbol I was referrin' to says a lot about what it looks like, Twi." "You were pointing at it!" "I was pointing generally in the direction of the board, and you weren't even looking at me when I did it. Come on, look at it, see the little feet-" Twilight snarled at him, turned back to the board to refute this, blinked, then cocked her head slightly. She squinted. Her eyes widened in horrified realization, then she scowled and rounded on him fiercely. Fat yellow sparks actually jumped from her mane. "MARSHALL! I-, WH-, YOOOOUUU! I CAN'T UNSEE IT! YOU... BU- ALL OF MY HATE!" He spun out of his chair and ran for the door, laughing, papers and grease pencils flying everywhere. Outraged unicorns being attracted to sudden movements from their erstwhile prey, Twilight Sparkle gave chase. "GET BACK HERE YOU, YOU, MATH DEFILER!" "So how exactly does the coefficient of monkey spunk relate to the coconut, Sparks?!" "ARRRGGGGHHHH!" Marshall choked up his grip on the improvised bat and watched his opponent intensely. He dug his boot into the dirt and tensed, ready. Sixty or so feet away, Twilight also stood resolute, her stance widened out a bit, all four hooves planted. She telekinetically picked up a rock and, biting her lip in concentration, changed it into a reasonable imitation of a baseball. She telekinetically held this overhead. Marshall's eyes narrowed. Twilight's eyes narrowed in answer. With a snap of sparks, Twilight sent the magically created baseball shrieking towards the improvised "homeplate". Marshall waited for his moment, then swung for the bleachers. The ball slammed into the raised hillock of dirt behind him and he tossed the bat down, shaking his head in disgust. "Son of a bitch, got me again! I cannot hit that fucking curve ball." She trotted up, grinning ecstatically. "I told you, I've got this pitching thing down pat. Controlling high speed vectors is one of my specialties." "Well, I freely admit that I am beaten in this arena, Twilight Sparkle. You have bested me, fairly." She looked up at him, an odd look on her face. "Marshall, does... baseball qualify as a sport?" Marshall smirked. "There are some people who would argue that case, but I ain't one of 'em, Sparks. Sure, it's a sport. Why?" She frowned. "I've never been good at a sport before. I mean, I'm not exactly out of shape. I came in fifth place in the Running of the Leaves, but that was more due to following a book and pacing myself. I... I'm not sure how I feel about this." He reached over and mussed her mane fondly. "Don't worry Sparks, just 'cause you found a sport you've got some natural talent at, doesn't mean you have to turn in your egghead ID card just yet." She snorted, rolling her eyes at this. "Oh good, I was really worried about that, since it nets me a discount whenever I shop for nerd gear and nerd accessories." She said dryly. A lock of mane flopped into her eyes and she blew it out of her way irritably. He gave her a considering look. "Damn Sparkle. That mane and tail are gettin' a little long. I'm not really sure how fashion works for you equinoids, but I can say you don't want 'em to get any longer, for safety's sake." She frowned, looking at her tail for a moment. "Back home I usually have an appointment scheduled every two weeks or so, but obviously that hasn't happened. That's going to be a pain in the flank trying to do without making myself look like a disaster." She sighed. "Still, I guess it can't be helped. We definitely have to take care of it before the trip in four days." After much discussion and planning, four days was the minimum amount of time they'd decided they needed to prepare for "The Road Trip" as it was becoming known. The amount of water weight they'd have to carry was obscene, and they'd needed to make something like a barrel to even carry the amount they'd need. While he had made a few barrels in the past, they weren't anywhere near large enough for their purposes. Furthermore, the barrels he'd made previously wouldn't have stood up to the rigors of the journey. A sort of wheeled water barrel/cart converted from an old crate handtruck was the best thing they could come up with. This was, of course, a secondary means of transport, as Twilight had assured him that despite its cobbled together and kludged nature, it still obviously had an intended function that the Come To Life spell could discern, and thus neither of them had to worry too much about man- (or pony) handling the damn thing. For that matter, if push came to shove, she could just telekinetically tote the silly thing, though that would be a lot more energy intensive. Still doable, however, since they only planned to be traveling during the early morning and evening once they hit the desert. The waterproofing, a converted tarp and some jungle made adhesive (Twilight probably didn't want to know what it was made out of), would take time to set, and the lack of available forage for Twilight in the desert meant that they also had to take the time to dry some fruit and grasses she found edible. It would be by no means pleasant, but it would be survivable. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You do have an alternative, you know. If you magic me up a pair of temporary scissors, I could probably give you a trim myself. I'm no barber mind, but I could probably take care of it without butchering your style too badly. At the very least, it'd be straighter than if you tried to do it yourself." She gave his hair and beard a hard and obviously critical once over and then raised an eyebrow dubiously at him. He caught the look and glared. "Hey now, that isn't strictly fair, Miss Sparkle. I didn't exactly have a mirror to attend to myself with, and before you showed up, who exactly did I have to impress? The rootscrapers?" She continued to gaze at him levelly for several moments, then finally nodded to herself. "Alright. I'll give you a shot, but I want something in return." He raised an eyebrow, wondering exactly when him doing a favor for her turned into a case of quid pro quo, but deciding to humor her. "Like?" She eyed his beard and raggedy mop of hair with obvious distaste. "You let ME give you a shave and a haircut." He blinked. "Uhhh..." She grinned lopsidedly at him. "Oh come on! If you aren't willing to let me try to fix the damage you've inflicted upon yourself, why should I let you anywhere near MY hair?" He grimaced. "I think it's more the thought of a flying piece of sharp metal near my face and neck that gives me pause." She grinned impishly. "Oh come on, it's not like I could mess you up that much more than you already are. I mean, look at it this way, if I really screw up on the right side, at least you'll match." He gave her the stink eye. "That attitude does not fill me with an overabundance of confidence, Sparklebutt." She gazed up at him, pleadingly. "Come on... you know how much control I have! It'd be easy! You know I'd never hurt you." He frowned. "You'd never hurt me intentionally, Sparks. Still, I guess fair is fair. Before we head out on this crazy pilgrimage, I guess we'll wash up and do each others hair." He clasped his hands together in front of his chest and batted his eyelashes at her. "Oh, it'll be just faaabulous. We'll talk about what boys we like, and tell ghost stories!" She stared at him incredulously for about a beat and a half, then burst into giggles. "We can have pillow fights and play truth or dare!" "Like, ohmagawd, it'll be just the bestest day evaaar!" He said, adopting a ridiculous valley accent. They had a good chuckle over this. "Ok, so, truth or dare?" Twilight asked as Marshall circled her, snipping occasionally. She valiantly tried not to wince every time he did. He paused, raising an eyebrow at her. "Are you serious? Are we actually doing this?" She rolled her eyes up at him. "Come on, Marshall. Humor me. You're making me a little nervous with those scissors." He grunted and stepped back a bit, cocking his head. "Ok... Ok... truth." She considered this for a moment, then looked at him thoughtfuly. "What does your Callsign Rain Man, mean?" He grimaced at this. "That's not exactly a clean story, Twi... but..." He paused, considering, then snipped a couple more times at her mane. Still working, he began telling the story. "So the squadron I was attached to had a delivery in Pusan Korea that left us a three day window before the next delivery. CO gave everyone a forty eight hour liberty pass. Thing is, you never go into a foreign country without a liberty buddy." He combed his fingers through her mane, frowned, then snagged something from her neck and crushed it with a pop between his fingers. "Gotcha... little fucker." "Thanks." Twilight said, absently. He nodded and went back to the task at hand. "Anyway, my liberty buddy for the trip was this fireplug looking short fucker named Lieutenant Randy Michaels. Short, stout, red-faced son of a bitch could drink a dedicated wino under the table, and I swear he had to have some kinda hypnotic spell or somethin', cause he was an ugly little bastard, but women would throw themselves at him like he was free chocolate or something. He was an egotistical, cheap, petty little asshole too, but since there was always more women after him then you could beat off with a stick, I put up with him, 'cause sometimes they'd settle for second prize, if you know what I mean." Twilight flattened her ears and glared at him from her peripheral vision. "Sounds like a sound basis for a friendship." She said dryly. He chuckled a bit. "We can't all be models of love and tolerance, Twilight, but I DO try. With the purest of motives, you understand." She rolled her eyes. "Oh absolutely." He grinned. "Randy's callsign was Kiwi, on account of once, for a bet, he ate a whole can of Kiwi shoe polish. That's basically like eating an ounce of black paraffin wax, just so you know." She grimaced. "Yuck, who bet him that?" He grinned. "Best fifty bucks I ever spent. It was a couple of days before he could smile without people doin' a double take, and he had the shits for a week." She snorted. "I should have known." He switched positions to her tail and started working there. Twilight was forced to twist to watch him work. "Anyway, Kiwi and I went in together on a double room at a local hotel, so we wouldn't have to sleep in the shitty transient bachelors officers barracks they had up there. Since we only had two days, we didn't figure we'd get lucky or anything. We started drinking at this place on Texas Street that advertised a hundred and fifty different shots, trying to go all the way down the menu. Our intention was to get absolutely shitfaced. That's extremely drunk, just so you know." She nodded, flicking an ear at him in a sort of pony "go on" gesture. "So 'round about shot... eleven, I think... I lose track of Kiwi, and around shot thirteen I notice he's chatting up this cute little hostess type. I didn't think nothin' of it, 'cause those girls are there to get dumb, drunk, horny assholes like me an' Kiwi to spend money buying 'em drinks and shit. Anyway, I shit you not, I turn away for three seconds, and when I turn back, the son of a bitch tips me this sly wink, and puts his arm around the girl, and damn if they don't go off towards the hotel together." He shook his head, obviously still disgusted. Twilight frowned. "So I know he's going to be... uh... busy, with this chick for at least an hour or so, maybe more, if he had a lot to drink. So I settle in, figure I'll give him a couple hours, then I'll head up. You know, be a good buddy, even if he WAS being an asshole taking a girl up to a room we both paid for." He grins. "Thing is, you can drink a helluva lot of alcohol in two hours, 'specially if you've got a mad on." Twilight frowned. "I don't know if I like where this is going..." He snorted. "I warned you. So about two hours later, I'm so drunk I can barely see, let alone walk, but if being a single officer on liberty teaches you anything, it's a sort of zen and the art of drunken navigation, so I make it back in relatively one piece to our hotel room. It's pitch dark inside, and Kiwi is snorin', so I figure all is well. Thing is, all this walkin' and drinkin' has got me to the point where if I don't get to the head quick, I'm gonna piss myself. So I'm stumblin' around this pitch dark, completely unfamiliar room just kinda blindly feeling around with my hands, I got no idea where the fuckin' bathroom is, and I'm literally doing the peepee dance trying not to ruin my pants. I finally get to the toilet, and man, you want to talk about relief?" He paused, finished with her tail, and stood, stepping back a bit and looking carefully at his work. "So imagine my surprise when Kiwi's snoring stops halfway through me takin' a piss and he kinda groggily goes... What the fuck?" Twilight's eyes widened. "No..." He chuckled. "Yup. It seems in my haste to find the head, and my drunken state, I wandered into the bathroom without realizing it, then felt around the wall 'til I found the doorway, which actually took me back OUT of the bathroom, and I wandered over to the first approximately toilet height object I could detect in the dark. Turns out, that was Kiwi's bed." She shook her head. "So your Callsign is Rain Man because..." Marshall shrugged. "Golden showers are still showers, Twi. I admit, Kiwi didn't see the humor of the situation, but the Pilots Association sure did." She frowned, disbelievingly. "These are your friends?!" Marshall shrugged. "Some of 'em. It's part of being a pilot, Twi. Nobody starts out liking their callsign, but you aren't a pilot unless you have one. It's a badge of honor; a compliment, albeit a backhanded sort of compliment. It kinda says, you're one of us, you sad, sorry son of a bitch. Eventually, you kinda grow into it." She considered this, then slowly nodded. "I don't think I would have understood what you were getting at before a few weeks ago. Now... it really is fascinating how you military humans, I'm guessing it's mostly military behavior, have this sort of... I don't know, insulting way of complimenting each other." He grinned. "It ain't strictly a military thing, Twi... but you'll probably see it in the military more often than anywhere else." He crouched, meeting her gaze on the level. "Someone watches your back, someone you really trust... it doesn't matter what they SAY. The fact that they're willing to put their life on the line for you, to have your back no matter what the circumstance, speaks volumes more than a thousand compliments made for politeness' sake that they don't really mean. Plus, when one of us crude types gives you a genuine compliment, we fucking MEAN it." Twilight blinked at this, oddly touched by his sentiment. It really DID make sense, and as she had said, she doubted she'd have understood that before this whole mess had started. What did that say about her? Twilight shook her head, clearing it, then gave him a questioning look. "You done?" He stood, gave her a quick once over, then nodded. "Yup. Best magic yourself up a mirror so you can check." She did as he asked and found that it didn't look half bad. Oh it wasn't professional, by any stretch of the imagination, but despite the conditions, he'd managed to give her a pretty dang good haircut. She nodded her satisfaction and he grinned. "Nice." He said, giving her a thumbs up. She grinned. "Now it's your turn, monkey boy." His grin faded, he opened his mouth, caught her warning expression, sighed, and seated himself, giving her a resigned look. "Alright, let's get this over with." She transformed a rock into a surgical straight razor and tested the edge on a hair. Marshall watched this with a kind of horrified fascination. Telekinetically dual wielding scissors and razor, she brought the flying bits of metal close to his face. He visibly started. "Uh... have you ever shaved anything before?" He asked. "Nope." She said happily. "You maybe want to try on something less vital first... like... a patch on my arm or somethin'?" "Nope." She repeated. "You know, with that mirror I can probably do this myself. Yeah, it's probably better if I-" "Uh uh." She said sternly. "Quid pro quo, Marshall. I'm gonna make you look amazing!" Marshall rolled his eyes fearfully skyward. "I need an adult." He said in a small voice. "I AM an adult." Twilight said, happily. The grooming implements descended mercilously. Marshall was both awed and terrified at the speed with which Twilight worked. Cutting his own hair had always been a convenience sort of gesture. Shorter hair was cooler in the jungle heat, and you had to worry about insects less often. He generally just hacked off whatever bits annoyed him with his knife when it got too out of control. He did the same thing with his beard, so he wasn't sporting the ZZ Top look. Yes, this had a tendancy to give him a slightly ragged look, but as he had said earlier, who was he trying to impress? The problem here was that Twilight was approaching this with her normal manic intensity and attention to detail, and she had her own vision where his appearance was concerned. All Marshall could really do was sit still and try not to fidget, lest he lose something important. Messing with her head SHOULD have been the farthest thing from his mind. "Ok Twilight, so... truth or dare?" She paused, considering him thoughtfully. The scissors hovered, unneeded at the moment, the razor was very carefully clearing his neck and chin. She frowned. She didn't really want to imagine what sort of embarassing questions Marshall could come up with. Marshall was sneaky that way. Of course, she also didn't want to imagine what inventiveness he could apply to some embarassing task he could set her. He wasn't exactly leaving her a lot of options here. Still, fair was fair. She just had to go with the least likely to be sanity damaging option. She thought for a second, then made her choice. "Dare." She said, and almostly immediately second guessed herself. Still, it was too late now. Marshall considered this carefully, then slowly grinned. "I have some of that flying rat bastard left. I dare you to eat a piece of it." "WHAT?!" She cried, incredulously. "I'm not going to-" "Ow! Son of a bit-" Marshall reached up to his right cheek and glanced down at his fingers, now sporting a bit of crimson. "Oh... Marshall, I'm so sorry, I-" He looked very slowly up at her. "How bad is it?" She winced. "Well... it's really just a little cut." He slowly stood up. "Twi..." She backed up a pace, smiling nervously. "Really nothing but a scratch! Honest!" He snatched the scissors out of the air and considered her carefully. "Marshall! It'll totally buff out! It-" Marshall grinned wickedly. "Hey Twi, you're a bit uneven there, with one ear notched and all. It'd be pretty neighborly of me to make you match!" She bolted, and he gave chase, both of them laughing and shrieking uproarously. Marshall winced as Twilight carefully stitched the nasty gash in his lower right thigh, just as Battlefield Expedient Medicine told her to do. She bit her lip in concentration and finished the careful work, then wrapped a medicated bandage around the wound. "I hope we learned a valuable lesson about running with scissors today." She said crossly. He snorted. "Yeah, don't try to tackle a purple unicorn when she can just teleport to escape great justice." She smirked and put away the medical kit. She gave his face a careful look. "Geez, Marsh. I'm sorry about your face." He wrinkled his nose a bit at the nickname, but didn't comment on it. "I kinda brought it on myself. It's not too bad is it?" She shook her head. "No. It really is just a scratch. There's no reason it should scar. I... I hope you still trust me to finish what I started." He grinned. "Yeah, I do. I'd better, or you're gonna mope around all guilty and suffering from taskus interruptus for the next day or so." She scowled indignantly. "I would NOT." He raised an eyebrow. She flattened her ears. "Well... I guess I might a little... it's just, I KNOW I can do it. I don't have Rarity's eye for fashion, but telekinesis is part of my thing, and I'm sorry Marshall, but looking at you half shaved like this is driving me batty." He shook his head and sat down. "Ok, get it done." It took less than five minutes. She stepped back and sat on her haunches, considering him. He raised an eyebrow. "Well?" She smiled. "It looks pretty nice. I mean... you actually have a face under all that." He chuckled at this and her smile turned into a pleased grin. He really did look nicer without all that hair. She'd trimmed his hair back evenly to just under shoulder length, and kept the bangs relatively short. Marshall had one of those manes that had a tendency to curl up when it was too long, but shorter like this, it was relatively straight, which did a world of good towards making him look less scruffy. He was clean shaven at the moment, and it suited him. Oh it had its awkward aspects, for one thing, humans apparently darkened when exposed to sunlight over time, and the areas previously covered by his beard were startlingly pale and white compared to the tanned parts of his face. The scar on his left cheek was bad, but it was an old scar, mostly pale against his tan cheek, and disappearing completely into the pale skin of his jawline at this point. It wasn't an Equestrian face, but she was finding it difficult to picture Marshall as a pony, and there was a certain... pleasing symmetry to it. It was a strong face, an expressive face. She blinked and shook herself, then stood up and transfigured the razor back into a rock. Then she transfigured it into a small mirror. "I think that about does it, Marshall. You want a look?" He grabbed the mirror and looked at himself, fingering his chin and turning his face this way and that, to get a glimpse of his own profile. A strange look crossed his face, an... odd, bemused, far away sort of glance. He hesitantly touched the scar on his cheek, tracing its length. He blinked a little, then handed the mirror to her, a small, slightly wistful smile on his face. "Thanks, Sparks. It looks good." She smiled gently back at him. "It doesn't look all that bad you know, Marshall. The scar I mean." He blinked, then smirked. "You mean it hardly detracts from the rest of the trainwreck I'm sportin', yeah?" She frowned. "No... I'm serious. Don't talk about yourself like that, Marsh. I don't think I could imagine you without it. It's... well, it's a part of you." He stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. "If you say so, Sparks. I'm not winnin' any beauty contests, is all I mean. I guess I got the kinda look that grows on you, eh?" She grinned. "Yeah, like a fungus." He chuckled. "Hey, I told you what you have to do if you get hoof rot. All you gotta do is piss on it for a few days, and it'll clear right up." She shook her head. "Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Judging from your callsign, I think "watersports" are right up your alley." He winced. "Oh, ouch. Your rapier wit is matched only by the sharpness of your razor." He fingered the tiny cut on his cheek. She grinned, enjoying the byplay. "Touche." He gave her a deep flourishing bow and they both chuckled. The day of their departure got off to an unpleasant start. It was absolutely pissing rain, and both of them were carrying almost a half again as much gear as they normally would. It is an unpleasant experience to be both wet AND sweaty. Twilight could tell from Marshall's gait that the wound in his leg was sore, but he insisted that he'd be fine, once he got moving, and Twilight was eager enough to be off to take his word for it. The water trolley, newly enchanted with the Come to Life spell, trundled merrily along behind them like an eager puppy, the only member of their little band whose spirits weren't a bit dampened by the ugly weather. Despite it's unauspicious beginning, the jungle leg of the trip wasn't too terribly difficult. The two of them had a system in the jungle, and the month or so of constant vigilance had tempered Twilight into razor awareness of her surroundings. In fact, if either of them were having problems, it was actually Marshall. It took all of an hour to figure out that his injury from yesterday was bothering him more than he cared to admit. Despite her sharp desire to find that distant building, she began to feel a pang of worry for her stubborn human companion. They had decided to swing towards the mountain to get a better trajectory when they made their stab out into the desert. Having no real way to navigate towards the distant object, they were going to have to rely on luck and careful scouting to find it before their dwindling water supplies forced them back. When they stopped for the evening, Twilight checked the wound to find that it had bled a little, but the stitches had held. In her very limited medical opinion, they probably should have waited another couple of days before attempting this, but Marshall had been insistent. She replaced the bandage and tried not to feel guilty. It was her enthusiasm that was making him push himself, and she knew it. Yet even despite knowing this, she couldn't stop the quivery, excited feeling in her chest at the thought of unlocking more of this enigmatic island's secrets. Finally came the day when they reached the edge of the jungle territory. Marshall called an early stop, and she gazed in awe and no small amount of trepidation at the cracked, desolate landscape ahead of them. Twilight glanced down at the odd, rocky shelf underhoof that extended about ten feet from the edge of the jungle to the beginnings of the desert itself. She looked left and right, and the broken, uneven outcropping of rock extended as far as she could see, forming an unnatural buried bowl that held the desert as its contents. Marshall nodded. "It extends, as far as I could tell, all the way around the desert. Kinda like the box part of a sandbox. I never noticed it during... well, the first couple days. Had too much else on my mind." She frowned. "So what now?" He removed his pack from his back and checked the ground carefully before sitting on a handy fallen log. "It's the wrong time of day to start our trek just yet, Sparks. It's getting too dark for safe travel, and it's probably a good idea to start our routine early, so we get used to it. Sleep the night 'til dawn, then travel four hours or so, 'til it starts to get too hot. Set up our shade, lounge around, maybe catch a nap if we can, stay hydrated, then start up again when it starts getting cooler in the evening. Travel another four hours or so until it starts to get too dark to see, setup our windbreak and hammock, then sleep 'til dawn. Rinse and repeat." She frowned. "It still seems awfully inefficient." He grinned. "Oh sure, you think that now. Wait 'til we're good and stuck in. You'll be glad you've got me around, then." "I'm glad you're around now, I'm just a bit skeptical is all." She grumbled. He smirked. "Well you don't have to take it completely on faith, Twi. Desert survival was hammered pretty hard into us at SERE school. They weren't dumb, they knew where it was we'd likely be crashlanding." She frowned, still somewhat dubious, but decided that she'd reserve judgement. Marshall had never steered her wrong where survival was concerned yet. They settled in, and before too long, had a small campfire merrily popping along. The conversation turned to a favorite topic of theirs, that being the many differences between human and pony culture. Marshall was finding it pretty hard to stomach some of her claims. "It just doesn't make any sense, Twi. A bunch of strangers don't just burst into coordinated song and dance routines. That kinda stuff takes practice. You start dancing and singing in the streets, and people are as likely to look at you like you're a nutball as not." She stomped a hoof. "I'm telling you it happens all the time! A pony starts singing, something that means a lot to them, something from their heart, and it touches all the ponies around them. It's part of what ponies are! It's magic!" He grimaced. "It's a load a' bullshit is what it is." She scowled. "Marshall, I'm telling you it happens! Don't humans have music? Songs that matter to them?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "Of course we do. Hell, one of the things I miss most is my music collection, I had over sixty gigabytes of music. That's like, over ten thousand songs. No, I'm not going to go into detail about how, Twi... the fact of the matter is that spontaneous musical numbers just don't friggin' happen on earth." She frowned back at him, her expression somewhat saddened. "But... can't you think of anything appropriate? Something that means something to you right now? Something from the heart?" He blinked, then gazed at her incredulously. "Are you asking me to sing?!" She frowned, then nodded. "Yes. I know you're capable of it. So sing something. Something that really matters to you, right now. I'll prove it to you." He crossed his arms. "I ain't a pony. What's it gonna prove?" She sighed. "It might not work, and if it doesn't, you haven't lost anything, and I get to hear a human song. If it does, I prove my point. It's a win/win situation." His brows beetled a bit and he stared into the fire for a moment, thinking. After a moment, he smiled wistfully and shrugged. "Alright, alright... I think I've got somethin'. I'm warnin' you in advance though, I ain't no James Taylor." She shrugged. "I don't know who that is, so it's not like it'll matter." He sighed. "Ok, gimme a second to remember the words." She shook her head. "Just FEEL it, Marsh. You have to FEEL it." He scowled. "Ok Yoda, gimme a second." He cleared his throat, closed his eyes, then began, tentatively at first, but with more feeling as he continued. "There is a young cowboy who lives on the range." His horse and his cattle are his only companions He works in the saddle and he sleeps in the canyons Waiting for summer, his pastures to change..". She didn't think it was going to work at first, then she closed her eyes and listened with her heart instead, and it was there, pure and strong and large as life. She opened her eyes and joined him. Her heart knew the words. A ghostly sort of accompaniment took up. Marshall looked spooked, but only for a second, then he too was caught up in it. Harmony. "And as the moon rises, he sits by his fire Thinkin' about women and glasses of beer closing his eyes as the doggies retire He sings out a song which is soft, but it's clear As if maybe someone could hear" "Goodnight, you moonlight ladies Rockabye, sweet baby James Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose Won't you let me go down in my dreams? And rockabye, sweet baby James" It felt good, so good, deep inside, it was like a glimpse of home. Tears formed in her eyes. This alien song, so different, and yet so fundamentally a PART of her. She gazed over at him across the flickering fire and she could see that his eyes were glistening with it too. "Now, the first of December was covered with snow So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston Though the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frostin' With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go..." The unfamiliar words slipped out of her like the tears, the haunting, quiet melody rising peacefully into the night sky like the embers dancing from the fire, flickering and fading easily into the good night. "There's a song that they sing when they take to the highway A song that they sing when they take to the sea Song that they sing of their home in the sky Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep But singing works just fine for me..." "So goodnight, you moonlight ladies Rockabye, sweet baby James Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose Won't you let me go down in my dreams? And rockabye, sweet baby James." And once again it didn't MATTER that they were so alien. It didn't mean a single tinker's damn. That song encapsulated what they were both feeling, at that exact moment in time, showed that for all their superficial differences, for all of their petty dissimilarities, they were alike in the places where it really, really mattered. There was no need for words after that. They simply stared silently into the dying fire for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts, but not alone, oh no, not alone in their heads. Then quietly, calmly, they lay down to sleep. They awoke refreshed and rejuvenated for the trip ahead. To his surprise, Marshall found that even his leg wasn't bothering him as much, although that might have been just the good night's sleep away from the wet. Despite this, Twilight checked and changed his bandage, nonetheless. They busied themselves with the morning preperations, with one notable exception. Marshall wound the desert camo Keffiyeh scarf around Twilight's neck in a close approximation of his own identical neck garb. She was already wearing the repurposed desert BDU blouse, the sleeves rolled up just a little to accomidate her shorter forelegs, and left open to drape across her back. She was bit longer of body length than a human torso, and Marshall had added a little length to it. A single button at her neck in front, and her saddlebags secured on her flanks completed the ensemble, and held it snug so it wouldn't slip loose. He'd even made little modified hoof covers. He admitted he didn't know if they were necessary, but with how hot the cracked parched earth was likely to be, he figured it was better safe than sorry. He stepped back, considering her for a moment, then adjusted here and there and nodded to himself. "Right off the recruitment posters. Hoorah." He grinned and set her magically transfigured pony sized desert boonie hat in place. Twilight stared up at him dubiously, her expression mostly hidden by the Keffiyeh scarf. "Marshall, this seems... counterintuitive. Not to mention, I'm already kinda hot." Marshall grinned and slipped on his aviator sunglasses. "Ah come on, Sparks! You look cute as a button. A pretty little military, ragamuffin, mismatched, desert camo button." He grimaced evilly at her and bared his teeth. "Come on, Sparkle! Lemme see yer warface! GRRRR!" She gazed flatly back at him her expression annoyed and unimpressed. "Grr." Marshall rolled his eyes in answer. "That was about as convincing as a five dollar hooker's O-face." Twilight wrinkled her muzzle at this and sighed. "You are so... UGH." He grinned. "You love it. 'Sides, it's only hot right now 'cause we ain't in the desert. You wanna keep the sun off you, but with fabric that'll breathe. That's what this stuff'll do, sure as shit. Trust me on this. Let's get movin'." They got moving, and before they were more than a mile or so away from the jungle she realized he was absolutely right. The heat was a palpable thing, sucking any moisture away that it could find. Even in the early morning, the air shimmered with it, mirages giving false promise in the distance. Every hour they traveled, she thought... it couldn't possibly get hotter than this. Every hour, she was proven wrong. Their water disappeared with frightening speed, even on that first little bit of the trip. Despite her eagerness to get to their destination, she was extremely glad when he gauged the position of the sun, then called the small party to a halt. Twenty minutes later they were lounging under luxurious shade provided by a swath of waterproofed nylon, courtesy of an old parachute. They whiled away the hottest hours of the day in relative comfort, napping in shifts and staying hydrated. She even transfigured herself a set of aviator glasses in her size, after the glare got to be a bit too much. Marshall was quietly amused at this. "Alright. Alright. I admit it. You were right. If we had just headed out right then, we'd have been woefully unprepared." She said finally. Marshall just grinned. She rolled her eyes. "You're going to be insufferable about this aren't you?" "Who has two thumbs and just got hisself a point? This guy." He said, pointing. She laughed at this and rolled her eyes. "It's nice to see you can accept victory with such grace and dignity." He grinned. "You wanna see undignified? How's about I do a victory dance." She groaned. "Please don't, it's too hot to even WATCH you exert yourself." As the day cooled into evening Marshall and Twilight packed up their things and continued on their way. They made good time as the daylight failed and the air cooled, by now the jungle was a distant and fading green line on the horizon. Their destination many many miles ahead, and invisible from the distance and the haze of the desert. Eventually it began to get too dark to see, and with it came a chill wind. Marshall quickly used the entrenching tool and Twilight's impressive telekinetic talents to dig a windbreak, then carefully set up the canvas hammock. "Here's the thing, it is going to get COLD tonight, even with a fire, and we gotta be sparing with that, 'cause there's no firewood once we use up what we brought. The windbreak'll help some, but it won't be enough. The hammock is to keep any creepy crawlies out of our personal space. Even so, in the morning you check your little hoof booties before you put them on. I don't want to imagine what this fuckin' island has in lieu of a scorpion." She frowned. "There's only one hammock." He gestured at the tightly rolled bundle. "There's only one sleeping bag, too. We're gonna have to share it." She considered for a moment, then nodded. "It makes sense. Body heat, I get it. Is it really going to get that cold?" He nodded solemnly. "Depends on what time of year it is, but without seasons, I'm assuming summer or so. Even still, it can get as cold as thirty degrees or lower at night." She shook her head. "I'm glad I wasn't dropped out here in the middle of the desert to begin with." He smirked. "You and me both sister. Jungle was never more than mile or so away." Despite them both obviously resolving to be adults about the situation there was still a bit of a clusterfuck as they both climbed into the hammock. Ponies weren't exactly built for hammocks, and their wildly disparate body shapes meant getting comfortable was a comedy of errors. They eventually found a position which suited both of them, him spooning her with his greater overall body length, her curled up on her side with the back of her head tucked under his chin. Despite the chill, and it was absolutely freezing outside of their little sleeping arrangement, things seemed to work out ok. Before too long, they were both fast asleep. So it went, day in, day out. Before very long, they forgot what it was like to be in the jungle. As their water supplies dipped lower and lower, they both began to worry about finding what they were looking for. Once the green line of the jungle dipped below the horizon, it was difficult to tell if they were making any progress at all. Other factors were beginning to wear on the two as well. "Celestia help me, I am so TIRED of this desert!" Marshall grunted, giving her a sidelong look. "I'll say. I know I WON'T miss the daily gas attack." Twilight gave him a stricken look. "I apologized for that! It's not my fault! I've never had to live on a constant diet of dried fruit and grass! How was I supposed to know it gives me gas?!" "Twilight, a little flatulence is one thing, I could live with that. You try bein' in a pressurized environment for hours on end with a bunch a' nasty fuckers living off of navy rations. That was bad, but it couldn't hold a candle to your accomplishment. What comes out of you constitutes a violation of the Geneva Convention." She flattened her ears and glared at him. "You JUST went over what that was! I am NOT a warcrime!" He grinned tiredly. "I'm not saying you are, Sparks. Just your ass. That is DEFINITELY a-" She gasped. "Marshall! Look! There it is!" He blinked, startled out of banter mode and he looked in the direction the whole line of her body was straining towards in excitement. He shielded his eyes from the glare, then raised his binoculars to survey it. Something flash blinded him momentarily from the roof of whatever it was, but it was gone. He frowned. "Something about this ain't right..." She squealed in glee. "Marshall, I see movement on top of it! Somepony is up there!" In her excitement she took off running up the slight incline shielding her from the immediate view of the object, leaving him in the dust. He cursed and jogged behind her. "Twilight! Wait, we have to-" He saw the muzzle flash before he really internalized what it was, but of course by then it was too late. A blot of something dark blinded him as it splashed across the right eyepiece of his aviator sunglasses, and Twilight jerked and tumbled to the dirt suddenly just a split second before he heard the crack of the high powered rifle. He dropped prone and stared up the hill as Twilight jerked spasmodically. He tossed away his sunglasses and stared in disbelieving horror at the scene in front of him. "No." He scrambled up the hill and desperately grabbed one of Twilight's jerking hindlegs just as the second shot sent up a spray of sand inches from Twilight's thrashing head. He drug her brutally back down the hill, out of the sniper's line of sight, pulling himself up the length of her body. The bullet had hit her dead in the throat, glanced off of one of her vertebrae, (oh god, he could SEE her-) and then exited out the back of her neck, opening a great rent in her that spilled... no poured... no flooded her life out in great gushing gouts. He ripped her scarf off and clapped it over the entry and exit wound pressing hard. She stared up at him, her eyes wild and panicked. "Ma-rerkrkrkr." She dribbled, blood oozing sluggishly from her nose and mouth, staining her muzzle. He fought it, he fought it so hard but it flooded out, it flooded out, the tears and the blood, her LIFE, HER LIFE- Ma-rekreggle." She tried again, her forelegs batting at his forearms, hindlegs kicking weakly, uselessly. Her eyes were full of pain and terror and- "No." He sobbed. Tears spilled uselessly from him, her eyes flooded with them as well, then widened. He watched as the life left her. He saw the exact moment when the thing in front of him stopped being the wildly intelligent, good, noble being he knew, and started being a piece of meat cooling under the uncaring desert sun. Twilight's eyes glazed and fell half-lidded, she kicked one last time, and let out a final rattle. He fell back onto his ass and shook his head, his vision fading. He took in breath for a scream to end the world. "Nuh!" He jumped, cold sweat dripping from his body and glanced around, panicked. The warm body tucked in with him murmured a sleepy protest and kicked him gently in her sleep. Marshall sat up, staring down at the shadowed form mostly hidden by the folds of the sleeping bag. Twilight stirred again, never an easy waker, and twisted in the bag. "Mrrshl, wazz hppng?" She muttered, still mostly asleep. He tried to keep his voice calm, but even he could tell he sounded jittery as hell. Fortunately for him, she was too lost in dreamland to notice. "Nothin'... just... just gettin' up to stir the fire and check our perimeter." She grumbled and shifted, digging her face into the material of the sleeping bag. He slipped out of the sleeping bag and stepped away, barely noticing the icy terrain under his bare feet. Marshall walked out past the windbreak, shivering shirtless and shoeless in the frigid desert air. He could feel the icy cold especially on the tracks of the tears which coursed down his now mostly beardless cheeks. Some of them found the crease of his scar and followed it down like a canyon cut into the bedrock of his flesh. He scrubbed furiously at them. "What the hell was that, Marshall?" He asked the night in bewilderment. It had been so vivid, so real. Usually his dreams were nonsense, stupid, silly things he forgot long before he even thought to examine them. He'd never understood the vivid descriptions others had given of the dreams they had at night. He did now. He was terrified. Scared in a way he hadn't been since those first early days of the jungle, back when he'd still had hope of rescue. Back before terror became anything other than a complete liability. A luxury. He hadn't smoked in well over twelve years, not since the early days of officer training, when he learned about the dangers of lit cigarettes and liquid oxygen and decided that it was time to give the old cancer sticks up for good. He badly wanted a cigarette now. He scrubbed his face again, considering. What killed him about it was the emotional impact of losing Twilight. He had KNOWN... absolutely known that he couldn't survive it. Even now he could still feel it, that leaden, gutshot weight in his middle. A core of ice far worse than the chill of the night. He walked back to the fire and poked a few times, stirring up a little heat. It didn't help much, so he stepped back to the hammock and slipped in as gently as he could. Apparently not good enough. "Celestia's tits, you're freezing!" Twilight cried in protest. He grinned wanely at this. He wondered how much of that curse was her being half asleep, and how much of it was his influence. "Sorry Twi. Us humans apparently don't retain heat as good as you ponies do. Probably 'cause you're denser than we are." She grumped at this. "Are you calling me dense? 'Cause if you are, I gotta tell you, you aren't equipped to match wits with me, monkey boy, even when I'm half asleep." She twisted and burrowed her muzzle into his neck, as though hiding her face there from the cold. It wasn't ideal, her horn was about a half an inch from going up his nose, but he didn't try to adjust her position. Instead, he wrapped an arm around her and she snuggled closer, quieting back down to soundless, pleased animal murmurs, her forelegs bent between them and pointing down. She was warm, and alive. Marshall stared at the cold foreign stars shining down in the distance, his mind still full of that horrible nightmare. He was still awake when the dawn brought in the new day. Marshall was up, shirtless and bare foot and staring down into a small carved wooden cup of water when Twilight finally woke. She watched him from the hammock for a few moments, quietly. He looked... haggard. Tired, as though he hadn't gotten much rest. She vaguely remembered him getting up in the night, or had she dreamed that? She wasn't entirely sure. He downed what was in the cup and stowed it away, then stood and gazed out towards the estimated position of their destination. She couldn't see his face from here, but his body language was... tense. "Marshall... are you ok?" He jerked a little at the sudden sound of her voice, then turned around and smiled tiredly at her. "I'm fine, Twilight. Just..." He stopped, shaking his head. "I'm fine." He reaffirmed, more certain this time. He walked over to his boots and carefully upended one of them, firmly slapping the heel. To her surprise, something small and black and vicious looking dropped out of it onto the ground and scuttled towards him. He brought the heel of the boot down on it like a hammer, smashing it against the earth. He shook his head. "And THAT'S why we check our boots in the morning." He said. She sighed. "Did you have to kill it? It didn't mean you any harm." He shrugged. "It's really harmless now. Plus you saw it, little bastard tried to ambush me. It was self-defense." She shook her head at him and sighed. Still, she checked all of her booties before she put them on. Carefully. Within ten minutes they were on their way, with no variation of landscape or landmark to walk towards. Within an hour the heat was rising quickly, and the distance became hazy. The only sound was the squeaking and creaking of the water trolley, Marshall's boots, and her muffled hoofbeats. She shook her head. "It's crazy... I know we're moving, but it doesn't feel like we're making any progress at all." He continued a few steps more, considering what she said. At first she thought he wasn't going to answer her, maybe he wasn't in the mood for conversation, but he finally did. "In the jungle there are always landmarks to give you an idea of how far you're moving. The terrain is wildly varied, so it's easy to mark your progress, if you know how. Out here, it's just... one big wasteland. You lose your way... you are in for a world of pain." She frowned. "Marshall, is your leg bothering you?" He shook his head. "Nope. I'm just tired, Twilight. I didn't sleep very well last night." She frowned, opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she asked. "Was it because of me? Did I..." He glanced at her. She couldn't really tell what he was thinking because between the scarf, the booney hat, and the sunglasses the only thing visible was his nose. "No... no, it was fine, last night. I guess I just had a lot on my mind. Kept... going over the same thing in my head again and again. Don't worry, Twi. I can keep up." She frowned. "Marshall, I'm not worried about that! I'm worried about you." He sighed. "I told you, Sparks. I'm fine." His tone suggested that the subject was closed. She shook her head, a little irritated, but aware that if he didn't want to talk about it, prying it out of him would be like trying to hide a cupcake from Pinkie Pie. She let the matter drop and they continued on in silence. At their midday break he set up the shade, drank the requisite amount of water necessary, and very deliberately lay down using his pack as a pillow and pulled his hat down over his eyes. Twilight busied herself by keeping watch and updating her journal. She was careful to record the incident with the song, noting especially how it made her feel. She also wrote down what she could remember of the words. She was constantly amazed at the complexity of the human equation. There seemed to be no common thread, no absolute rule of human behavior. From her conversations with Marshall they ran the gamut of motivations and philosophies. She got the impression that she could make a lifetime study of their idiosyncrasies and still only scratch the surface. She glanced up at her human companion, blissfully asleep on his back, his hands folded on his stomach, snoring up into his hat. She found he usually did that when he slept on his back. She smiled at him, amazed at how familiar to her he was now. The sun beat down overhead, but the shade provided by their makeshift shelter kept the worst of it off. This whole desert thing was turning into far more of an ordeal than she could have imagined from the outset. She'd been so... skeptical at first. Once again Marshall had pulled through, reining in, well, tempering her occasionally dangerous enthusiasm. He had put so much work into this trip, trying to make it as safe as possible. Was it really any wonder he was exhausted? She frowned, mulling over this little bit of data in her head. Had she been overly short with him? She had a sneaking suspicion that she had. Worse, she realized, it probably didn't HELP his exhausted mental state. Maybe... maybe he didn't want to talk about it because SHE was the problem. A sudden snort from Marshall interrupted her train of thought, and she glanced at him, ears flat, but he simply resumed his snoring. She shook her head. "Marshall isn't the kind of person to..." She stopped, considering this. No, he wasn't the sort of person to politely lie to you when something about you was bothering him. He was more likely to pick at it until a confrontation was inevitable, BUT... If it was combined with something he viewed as a personal issue? Something he felt was HIS problem? Her gaze turned a bit worried. "What's going on in that stubborn head of yours?" "Spray ME, Marshall! Spray me!" "But the water's so cold, honey... look at how much Jessica's nipples are standin' out in her teeshirt." "Oh, I see the problem. Alright girls, remove your shirts!" "Nice." "Marshall! You must bring the sacred purple stone to the fires of Mount Doom, to defeat the evil one!" "Uh... little busy here, old guy." "Marshall, I am not trying to cockblock you! Do not take me for a conjuror of cheap chicks!" "Hey, I'll have you know these are extremely expensive hookers that I didn't pay for." "True dat." "Wait, we're not getting PAID?!" "Uh..." "FLY YOU FOOL!" "Damn it." Heat. Time. Distance. Light. Dark. Sleep. Walk. Time had a strange elongating effect in the desert. On the first day, it was difficult to imagine the inhospitability of the blasted landscape that stretched before them. On the third day, it was difficult to imagine they'd ever been anywhere else. "On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life There were plants and birds and rocks and things There was sand and hills and rings The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz And the sky with no clouds The heat was hot and the ground was dry But the air was full of sound" "I've been through the desert on a horse with no name It felt good to be out of the rain In the desert you can't remember your name 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain La la la la la la..." It took a moment before Twilight realized that he was singing. In fact, she wasn't entirely sure that MARSHALL knew he was singing, it was so quiet. As it got louder, she felt herself falling into it. "After two days in the desert sun My skin began to turn red And after three days in the desert fun I was looking at a river bed And the story it told of a river that flowed Made me sad to think it was dead" "You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name It felt good to be out of the rain In the desert you can't remember your name 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain La la la la la la..." She was a part of it, but she wasn't singing. In fact, she began to forget everything... even her purpose for this journey, it was just one hoof following another hoof in step, and a set of footsteps beside her, and no end to it. Her contribution was to be a silent witness and a partner to the desolation of it. The emptiness of it. "After nine days I let the horse run free 'Cause the desert had turned to sea There were plants and birds and rocks and things There was sand and hills and rings The ocean is a desert with its life underground And a perfect disguise above Under the cities lies a heart made of ground But the humans will give no love" "You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name It felt good to be out of the rain In the desert you can't remember your name 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain La la la la la la..." As it finished she shook herself, as though from a fever dream, breaking once more into the harshness of reality. She looked sidelong at her human companion, but his gaze was fixed on the distant horizon. "That was..." She paused. "That was very powerful, Marshall, but I DO have a name." Marshall continued forward, still staring at the horizon, his expression never changing. "Do you?" He asked quietly. Twilight had no answer for him. No answer at all. Twilight stared up at Marshall, her expression hopeful. Her horn gave off a faint, steady glow. The human, telekinetically suspended about sixty feet in the scorching desert air, panned carefully with his binoculars. "Well?" She asked. "Not a damn thing, Twi." She frowned, lowering him gently to the ground. "Are you sure?" He cased the binoculars and put his sunglasses on, letting out a frustrated sigh. "Yes, I'm sure. I'm sorry, Twilight, there's just nothin' out there to see." "It's been three days, Marsh. What if... what if we passed it?" He frowned. "It's a distinct possibility, but I don't think so. I admit, I expected we'd have seen it by now, but..." She sighed unhappily. One more day of searching, and then they had to seriously consider turning back. He patted her head sympathetically. "It's not that bad, Twilight. If we don't find it this trip, we'll head back and rest up, resupply, then try it again. Maybe come at it from a different direction. It's not like it's goin' anywhere." She frowned, looking at the dust caked on her hoof covers. "What if it does? We have no idea how it got here in the first place. What if it DOES disappear?" He opened his mouth, closed it, then sighed. "I don't have an answer for you, Twilight." He sounded tired again, and here she was being difficult, AGAIN. She felt bad. She lifted her head to apologize, but he wasn't looking in her direction, he was looking towards where they guessed the object was, at their last best estimate, his expression thoughtful. He uncased the binoculars and ducked his head under the strap, then looked in her direction. "Take me up again. High as you can this time." She frowned. "That isn't safe, Marshall." He gave her a negative gesture in the form of a downward slash of his palm. "Don't care. We're gonna find this damn thing. It can't be far, I KNOW it's out there." She bit her lip, knowing she should say it was a bad idea, but... she sighed. "Ok, let me know when you're ready." He nodded. She encapsulated him in her telekinetic field and lifted him up, straining to the limits of her telekinetic capacity. Which was really around where she started to lose line of sight. Lifting Marshall was incredibly easy, for a living target. That was very high up. She watched that speck, biting her lip in concentration and worries started up almost immediately. If he was having problems, she couldn't make out any gestures. She probably couldn't even hear him from this distance. Not clearly. Then a wave of dizziness struck and she slumped to her side, her telekinetic field winking out like a light switch. Immediately Marshall began to drop, his voice dopplering louder as he approached the ground. Straining, suddenly terrified, she forced herself back to her hooves and gritted her teeth as she focused on his wiggling, flailing form. He was moving very fast, and she was still so dizzy. She almost got a grip on him several times. Failed. He was moving faster... she wasn't going to be able to... She screamed and lashed out, sparks and light streaming from her horn. Marshall halted about a foot from the ground, the binoculars swinging like a pendulum back and forth from his neck, held in place by his collar and the angle of his head, the lenses inches from the hard packed, unforgiving dirt. He eased out from his wince and opened one eye, then the other. "Fuck me sideways..." He muttered quietly. "Marshall, I'm so sorry, the sky lights... I-" "Twilight, buddy. Pal. Friend. It's alright, but if you don't put me down right now, I'm going to start screaming, and I don't think I'm going to be able to stop." She eased him down to the ground and sat on her haunches, wincing. "Sorry." He lay flat on his stomach, then reached up and convulsively pulled open his keffiyah scarf, eyes closed, and breathing heavily. After several seconds, he kissed the dirt and rolled over, looking at the sky. Despite the protective measures he'd taken with the scarf, she'd noted since the second day that the pale skin of his jaw and cheeks were red and peeling. It couldn't have been comfortable, but he'd never mentioned it. A persistant feeling of guilt had began to swamp her every time she noticed it. Now this... "Are you alright?" She asked, timidly. "Just ducky." He said weakly. She frowned. "Wha-" He sighed. "I'll be fine, once my heart stops trying to mosh with my lungs, Twi. What happened?" She sighed. "Ill-timed sky light nausea. I lost my concentration. Marshall, you could have been-" He scowled and sat up. "I am very much aware of what could have happened, Sparks. The possibility was quite clear to me as I headed face first towards the ground." He smirked. "I wonder if I'd have been like a lawndart." She looked stricken. "Marshall! That's-" His expression softened. "It didn't happen, Twilight. You came through. Let's move on." She frowned, but decided to drop it. For several minutes neither of them spoke. He simply concentrated on evening up his breathing, and she let him have a moment, feeling increasingly guilty, despite his assurances that he didn't blame her. After a solid ten minutes of this, she finally broke the silence. "So... did you see anything?" He grinned weakly. "Aside from my life flashing before my eyes? Not really. I kinda thought..." He trailed off, looking at something in the distance that flashed and momentarily threw a shadow cross his face. She blinked, and then he grinned and pointed out over past her shoulder. She turned, watching as soundless blue lightning crashed into the earth just barely over the horizon. "I didn't see anything, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts that what we're looking for is that-a way." She gave him a hard grin and stood. "No bet. Besides, I value donuts higher than dollars." He sighed. "Same here." The structure was in a small natural depression that made it difficult to spot from ground level. Marshall chalked his inability to spot it from the air up to bad luck. As they approached the two could see that it was a single story light tan brick structure sitting on top of a slab of what looked like concrete or stone. Marshall stopped and motioned Twilight closer. He removed his scarf again, and crouched down to put his eyes level with hers, his eyes shockingly serious. Taking this as a sign that she should probably rein in her impatience, she watched him curiously. "I know you're really excited about this building Twi, but we need to approach this thing with caution." She frowned, but said nothing, flicking her ear in a "go on" gesture. "I'd prefer to sit back and scope it out thoroughly from a distance for a day or so. We have the water, BUT... I can already tell that ain't gonna happen from the stink eye you're given me." he smiled wanely. She sighed. "I just..." He nodded. "I know. Trust me, I've had enough time to figure you out, Sparkle. If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it my way. That means no running ahead. You stay near me, and you keep your eyes and ears open. We are gonna scope it out with the binos from a couple of different angles before we approach, and that is nonnegotiable. I gotta tell you, I have a bad feeling about this." She nodded. "Alright, Marsh. I get it." He surprised her then when he gently put his hands on either side of her muzzle and looked into her eyes. She saw real anxiety there, and was transfixed. "I MEAN it, Twilight. No rushin' in, 'til we're both ready. We treat this thing like it's full of Antarian brain spiders, ok?" She blinked. "What's a-" He nodded. "I don't know, that's the point. We have NO IDEA what's in there, yeah?" She stared at him for several beats, then finally nodded and smiled, gently. "Ok Marshall. We do this your way." As they approached to within sighting distance, several details became clear. They were obviously approaching it from the rear, and it sat at a very slight angle on the slope, as though it had been dropped into place and not built from the ground up. From here, the two could make out the cleanly cut edges of pipes in the block of concrete it sat on, and a few cut electrical conduits. They realized that what they were looking at was the backside of a building. "There's somethin' damn familiar about this." He muttered. He scoped it out with the binos, passed them to her, and then they began to circle it, warily. What Marshall identified as a dumpster and some trash cans rested in back, next to a small rear entrance. When they came to an angle that let them see around the edge of the building Marshall made a sound like he'd been gut punched. Twilight looked at him, and realized he was now staring dumbfounded at the sight before him. She looked in that direction and noticed that the building did not take up the entire slab upon which it rested. There was a flat space, marked with faded white lines in a rectangular grid pattern. Several odd machines of various colors sat carefully positioned in several of these open boxes. They were of a wild variety of shapes and sizes, though all appeared to have the same function. They all had a glass section up front and sat on what were obviously wheels, but were unlike any vehicle she'd ever seen. Marshall shook his head. "Those are cars, uh automobiles... that's a Volvo... and uh... that's some kinda station wagon." His grin became very large. "THAT, is a cherry red four by four chevy truck with aftermarket offroad tires and what looks like a gunrack. The transportation of choice of the greater North American Redneck." She frowned. "What..." He shook his head. "It'd take a while to explain, Twilight. Let's keep...." He stopped again, staring at the front of the building in shocked silence. "Son of a bitch. I guess they really ARE everywhere." She blinked, staring at what appeared to be a colorful storefront. She stared up at what was obviously a store logo. "Ok, I know what coffee is, but what the hay is a Starbucks?" She asked. He shook his head. "Just what it would appear to be, Twilight. We've found the starbucks coffee shop at the end of the universe. It's a franchise chain... hundreds of locations... what the fuck is it doin' out here?" She scanned the storefront with the binoculars. "I can't see in... it's a bit too dark. Oh wait... Marshall, something's been at it. Look over to the left." She passed the binos over to him and he scanned where she'd indicated. Sure enough, there was a sizeable hole torn out of the side, about the size of one of the windows and crumbled at the edges, as though someone had tried to shove a car through one of the large plate windows then wrenched it back out. He also noted another powder blue subcompact that had been hidden by the good five or six foot difference between the slabs edge and the desert floor that someone had rolled onto its side, probably from trying to drive off the concrete, misjudging the distance and trying to take it too slow. The side door pointed at the sky looked torn open and mangled, ballooned outward with terrific force. Marshall shook his head, and bit his lip. "That don't look good." She looked at him, now a little worried at the obvious signs of violence. "Should we...?" He shook himself. "Let's get up on the parking lot... carefully. Me first, then you when I'm sure it's clear." She frowned, but nodded. They aproached, passing the subcompact as they did so. From this distance they could see that the earth was torn up around it, with fresh earth turned in a strange circular pattern around the wreck. Marshall cautiously approached and looked into the rent in the side door, noting that the other door had been burst inward with about the same force. There was no sign of any of the occupants, but there were suspicious brownish stains at the edges of the ragged, torn metal. Marshall crouched against the cool concrete base, unslinging his carbine and putting it up on the edge of the parking lot before grabbing the edge and pulling himself up. Twilight watched him disappear over the edge with some trepidation, a sudden chill striking her now that her companion was out of sight. He picked up the carbine and took cover behind the Volvo, scanning the roof, and the interior of the dark building, what he could see of it. It looked like someone had stacked some boxes up into a makeshift sort of ladder off around the central counter. If he remembered correctly, that was around where... He frowned. Where the roof access usually was. Mostly only accessible for maintenance of the AC units and fans on the roofs of such buildings. "Marshall." Twilight called softly. He eased backward, peeked over the edge and nodded. "Ok, Twilight. Come on up." She teleported next to him and took cover like he did behind the Volvo. Neither of them noticed the slight bulge of earth that her hooves had been resting on before she teleported ease slowly back into flatness. They were too busy focusing on the engimatic coffee shop in front of them. "Twilight, I want you to give me a boost up to the roof, before we go in." He said firmly. She frowned. "Ok, mind telling me why?" "Just humor me, yeah?" She gave him the pony equivalent of a shrug and the two of them approached the Starbucks gingerly, as though they expected to be fired upon at any moment. It was immediately apparent that something untoward had gone down inside. Several of the tables near the hole torn in the side were smashed to kindling, and they both noticed the great dried streaks of brownish stains that streaked the faux marble tile floor. It looked as though something, or someone, who had been mortally injured had been drug out that hole and out into the desert, leaving a trail of gore behind them to quickly dry and harden in the desert heat. Neither of them was reassured by this. Pausing next to the entrance, Marshall readied his carbine and nodded to Twilight. She lifted him up slowly and smoothly, and he scanned the roof top. She brought him closer and he dropped down to the lip of a short wall that circled the top of roof. He lowered the rifle and scanned the rooftop in disbelief, shaking his head. "What is it, Marshall?" He stepped off of the short wall and onto the roof proper, then disappeared from view. "Marshall?" Marshall stared down at the pathetic bundles that lay mummified in the desert heat. A scattering of empty plastic bottles and wrappers next to the remains told him most of what he needed to know. It looked like there were four of them. A woman in her twenties lay curled around a toddler in one last futile protective gesture. The three year old's withered tiny fingers clutched at her lank brown hair in a final death grip. Not far away lay a teenage boy in a Starbucks apron and uniform whose rictus grin and empty eyesockets still held piercings at eyebrow and lip. His brown rooted hair was bleached blond and faded further by the constant sun. His uniform tag read, "Ted". All of the bodies lay curled against the small wall that ran around the roof top, as though seeking any shelter they could from the sun that inevitably had killed them, sure as a bullet or whatever it was they had been hiding from. Disturbing and sad as those pitiful remnants were, they weren't the body that really caught his attention. They weren't the sight that held him riveted, or sent a buzzing sense of unreality in his skull, or sent a spike of fear through his gut that threatened to drive him to his knees. No, at his feet was a man in half of a business suit, tie and coat removed and tied around his head in a sort of half assed turban held in place by a simple red silk business tie. Littered around the body were several casings for what looked like .308 rounds... big ones. Half hidden by the body was a .308 hunting rifle with a somewhat bulky scope. He looked out over the desert, looking at the what would have been this unlikely sniper's vantage point. It was the rear of the building. The same direction of their original approach. He shuddered. Remembered to breathe. "Marshall! Answer me! I'm coming up!" He shook off his sense of disconnection from reality and crouched, looking at that gaunt, desiccated rictus grin of death. The man was in his forties, but before he had met his end here, he'd been well preserved. Probably an executive or manager with the money and time to take good care of himself. His grey hair was clean cut and well groomed, despite his ignominous end here on the backend of nowhere, on the rooftop of a Starbucks he'd had the misfortune of visiting, probably for a lunch break, or a morning cup of joe. It hardly mattered. Wrong place. Wrong time. "It's ok, Twilight. I found... I found the folks who were down in the store." She teleported up and looked around, then gasped, her head whipping about from body to body in shocked horror. "Marshall! They're..." He stood up and looked over at the mother and child. Everyone up here looked like they'd been dead for at least... a month or more. Some quirk of the desert heat, the lack of moisture, and the sterile environment had turned them into the next best thing to people jerky. There was barely even a smell. "Dead." Marshall said flatly. He kicked away an empty .308 shell and it twinkled and jingled merrily as it bounced away. She shook her head, obviously floored by this. "But... but why? They had shelter... they had vehicles! I mean, it even looks like they had weapons! Water... food... Why just... come up here and..." He turned and looked at her, and a part of him couldn't help but focus heavily on her neck. The exact spot where, he was pretty sure, she'd been fatally struck in his dream. He had a sneaking, a nagging, sanity shaking suspicion that, if a forensics team had examined the wound and found the slug, they would have matched it to a .308 winchester hunting rifle. In fact, his mind treacherously told him, it could have probably been matched to this exact rifle, right here. What did it mean? Did it mean anything? Should he even mention it? "I don't know, Twi." He shuddered and turned his gaze forcefully away from her to look out over the desert, and a quiet, moaning wind began to howl around them, like the soft mourning noises of the departed. "I just... I don't know." Despite the amazing amount of new resources they'd found, Marshall found that he couldn't wait to leave this awful place. He was suddenly absolutely convinced, they'd find no answers here. Only death. Thus concludes chapter 10, or as I have started to call it, that fucking musical chapter. I hope I haven't gone completely overboard with that, but screw it. I like it, and I think it's appropriate, so what the hell. I freely admit that there are several homages to some abridged series I like scattered in here, and inspiration for the effects of music on ponies was in some part received from this, but with my own take on it, of course. Still, credit goes to where it is due. Today QC Omake theater has a pair of short tales for you, once again by the indefatigable Nugar. Hope you enjoy! OMAKE, or, What if part 2, by Nugar It happened, as usual, without the slightest bit of warning. Just like the blue lightning he’d put up with for years, only this time, something was different. Instead of random, soundless flashes, this was a very bright, continuous streak across the sky. And instead of just being electric blue, it had all the colors of the rainbow in a vibrant band that zoomed overhead, chasing something he looked up too late to see. For a few moments he just stood there, gaping at the riot of colors, and then the wall of noise hit, knocking him off his feet. For a moment all he could do was clap his hands over his ears and make a kind of keening “….aaaaaaa,” sort of noise as the veritable explosion washed over him. And then it was over, and he crawled back to his feet, listening to the deep, rolling boom echo off the hills and mingle with the startled cries of various aerial species disturbed by what he was increasingly deciding was some sort of sonic boom. With a rainbow. A rainbow boom. Abruptly, there was an even louder boom, like a (nearly) unstoppable force meeting an (actually) immovable object and reflecting off like a wren hitting a patio door. And then he could see it, the normally invisible dome that enclosed the god forsaken island, as a shifting ripple of faint rainbow spread in a series of waves across the dome from horizon to horizon. Oh, to have been on the mountain for this! Marshall dug a tiny bug out of one ear and cracked it between his fingers in an absentminded sort of way. Rainbow aside, that was a sonic boom. Maybe there was some sort of plane that had additives in its exhaust to cause a prismatic effect? He’d never heard of the Blue Angels doing rainbows before, but he guessed anything was possible, especially in this fucked up place. Whoever it was, they’d obviously hit the side of the dome doing some serious speed. He’d been too surprised and in too much pain to count the time between seeing the rainbow and hearing the boom, so any guesses as to the actual mach number would be on the order of ‘wild ass’. But hey, you never know. If anything had a chance of knocking a hole in the force field that kept the island sealed off, that had to be it. And from both the direction of the rainbow streak and the ripples that worked their way across the dome, he had a pretty good idea of a direction to look in. Time for an expedition! He found the invisible force field, as he’d learned after a few painful incidents on first discovery, when the end of his long whippy stick suddenly bent sideways and wrenched his hand. Welp, dome was still there. A little tiny part of him was disappointed, but he’d never let that part speak up so it didn’t bring him down much. With a little bit of forced cheer, he made a little pyramid of rocks on the ground and began his search. It’d only taken him about four days to both gather supplies, (three terribly excited, shaking hours) and walk there. Strangely, there seemed to be a conspicuous absence of burning wreckage or scrap. Or even any kind of impact evidence on the ground. Maybe it really had punched through? What if the hole was up high? Hmm. Scaffolding, or a really big ladder? Such thoughts occupied his mind while he made a series of semi methodical arcs, pushing aside bushes and looking for scrap, and peering into the treetops, hoping for some evidence to show itself. He knew he was getting closer to the actual impact site when he started seeing broken limbs and even knocked over trees. The shockwave from the impact itself must have been tremendous. Still, no scrap metal, shorn off wings, fuel residue, nothing. He did stumble upon the remains of a scavenger feed close to the dome. Some shattered bone bits thrown around, and some tufts of multicolored, but predominantly blue hair. Most of it was too scattered to identify, having been consumed by little scavenging birds and mammals, but he thought he recognized one scrap as a hoof, like from a horse, sitting upright like a little rind of fruit with nothing inside, not even an ankle bone. Whatever it was had apparently had feathers, too. Long, pretty blue ones, like flight feathers, or possibly crest feathers. Fur and feathers? With a mental shrug he wrote it off as just one of those things, though he did save the least damaged of the feathers and tucked a small one behind his ear. After several days of searching, he gave up, a little bit older, a little bit sadder. Yet another tiny hope, smashed by the island. He gave one final farewell to the being or beings that had made the sonic rainbow, hoping that they’d made it home, and suspecting that they’d escaped the only way any of them really could. Oh man, the looks on your faces. Since, like Dusttraveller, I am a whore for comments, I paid attention to the ones readers left for the last chapter, and saw several people wanting side stories exploring each of the cast of ponies being on the island. I have no plans to do this, because omakes are born of inspiration, not formula. So, since I'm NOT doing all of the other ponies with Marshall, I wrote this to make you feel better. Better? Why, yes. Now that you've read this, aren't you glad I'm not going to do it with the rest of them? Well, okay, I might get more inspiration for one or two, but who knows. Also, here's the real omake, in the silly spirit of the way omakes should be. The pair of mismatched companions trudged determinedly along the hard ground, their magical servant trundling along behind. Once again, they had lapsed into a shared silence that was at odds with the free flowing banter that took up their daily lives at home in the jungle. Twilight was thinking deep thoughts, trying, for the umpteenth time, to come up with a way of experimentally determining the nature of their cage and captors. Marshall… not so much. “I like big butts and I cannot lie!” he bellowed suddenly, half scaring Twilight out of her wits. “What?!” she exclaimed, holding one hoof over her chest. “You other brothers can't deny, when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face -you get sprung!” Here Marshall started getting into it, boogieing a bit and shaking his own ass with a move stolen from the twist. Marshall, like so many men before him, loved that song, and could feel it in the deepest of his feels. Startled, and horrified, Twilight found herself up on her hind legs, shaking her tail, literally, alongside him. “I do not have a big butt!” she wailed in futile protest, her magical nature pulling her into the song. Kicking and screaming, as it were. “...But that butt you got makes-“ “M-me so horny!” Twilight moaned, then blushed scarlet and held one hooves over her mouth and one over the tip of her horn, giving Marshall a slightly panicked and increasingly irate look. Marshall just grinned like the deranged, sunburned maniac he was. “'...Cause you ain't that average pon-e!” “My flank is in the fifty fifth percentile for mares of my age! I’ve measured!” Twilight protested, dropping to all fours and waving her rump around in a move not unlike that she used to share with her favorite foalsitter. “I've seen her dancin' To hell with romancin' She's sweat, wet Got it goin' like a turbo 'Vette” “Six significant figures!” Twilight wailed. “...Take the average black man and ask him what- She gotta pack much back.” Twilight found herself backing up against Marshall and grinding, who looped one arm around in the air as if he was waving a cowboy hat and mimed slapping dat ass. “Sooo, fellas!”called, then suddenly leaned to the side, playing the chorus of men as well. yeah!” Back. “Fellas!” Lean. “Yeah! “Has your girlfriend got the butt? (Hell yeah!)" ...Shake that healthy butt! Baby got back! Twilight shook her moneymaker with wild abandon. “...'Cause silicone parts are made for toys.” Twilight made a noise not unlike the squeak made by a chew toy, or a child’s soft plastic doll. “...But I gotta be straight when I say I wanna-“ “Uh!” Twilight gasped, shocked. Apparently, even their magically moving water barrel had gotten into the action, sloshing itself back and forth to the beat. "...and I'm down to get the friction on! So, ladies!” He did a double point at Twilight. “Yeah!” “Ladies!” “Yeah!” “If you wanna roll in my Mercedes,” he cried, hopping on their magical water bearer and riding it around in a little circle. “Yeah!” “Then turn around! Stick it out! Even white boys got to shout, Twilight got back!” And, in a scene not unlike the nightmares Twilight never knew she was going to have, Twilight Sparkle, studious, serious, rather nerdy mare she was, did indeed turn around, stick it out, and shake it all about. When it was over, and Marshall could lay on his back and breathe again instead of being helpless with laughter, Twilight lifted her head off the hard, gritty ground and gave him a cold, cold glare. “You are not allowed to come to Equestria with me. Ever.” “What, you don’t think your Princess has got the back?” he asked. “To the moon, Marshall! To the moon!” she yelled, her sense of dignity rocked to its core. “Aww, Twilight. Don’t be like that,” he cajoled. “Darn it, Marshall! I show you something sweet and magical about ponies, and the first thing you do is figure out a way to exploit it!” “So, every pony in earshot, huh?” he asked with a grin. “To the god damned moon!”