The Sunset Trilogy

by ocalhoun


Book 2 - Chapter XXIII

Book 2: Equestria Lost
Chapter 15

“And that's when 'ol nickel up 'an picked up his chair. He went over and poked that mean lookin' manticore right betwixt the eyes, and darned if the critter didn't start runnin' scared!”

As the sun rose for the third time of the day, barely peeking above the mountains to the north, Apollo sighed. His crew had been walking for four weeks now, and the stress of the journey was getting to everypony. Quartermaster's way of dealing with it seemed to be a constant stream of rambling old “truer than the big blue sky” stories of the exploits of his ancestors.

Suddenly, an explosion of snow flew up in front of Apollo, making him rear back. He fell backwards, but jumped right back up, ready for anything... Only to see a sheepish looking yellow face peeking up out of a new crater in the snow. Trigger's bright orange eyes didn't look apologetic at all though. As Apollo was preparing to give the little pegasus colt quite the lecture, his opportunity vanished as the orange and yellow blur shot off again, somewhere off to the right.

As he stepped carefully over the snow crater, he looked to his side, just in time to see Needle having herself a little giggle at his expense. He suppressed his feeling of pique though... The timid little earth pony mare had seemed particularly withdrawn into herself lately, it was good to hear something from her, even if it wasn't the most polite thing ever... especially if it wasn't the most polite thing ever.

With the light of dawn coming from behind them now, Apollo looked onwards to the road ahead. From the crest of the hill they were on, he could see for miles... and yet still all he could see was an endless expanse of hills, broken only by the thin white line that represented the railroad line they were following. With another heavy sigh, he put down his hoof, one more step along the way. If the feeling of exhilaration when setting out on a journey was the favorite part of his job, this was the part he hated the most... When the road stretched on and on, with no relief in sight. He walked on, head hung low... and stopped short when he saw another little crater in the snow... and another. How many times had that little pegasus hit the snow?

He turned to shout to the colt, but stopped as he noticed his navigator staring with abject horror at the ground ahead. Following her gaze, he looked up. The indentations he had noticed a moment ago continued... on and on, right down the same path they were following... and now that he looked at the pattern... True, they were each large enough to have been made by a whole pegasus colt crashing into the snow... but they were all the same shape, and all in two lines... “Um, Splints?” He called, “You think you could come over here a second?”

An exasperated “Ugh!” answered him, “What? Does little Needle need me to hold her hoof to cross another bridge maybe? Oh, I know, maybe our little orange pinball finally ran out of energy and now I have to carry it?”

Apollo Dawn shook his head, “Just get over here, okay?”

Fine,” Splints said, trotting over, disdain mapped across her face, and even the way she moved. “What is it now?”

Rather than risk further argument with his medical and animal expert, he simply pointed.

That got Splints to stop her complaining! She simply stood and stared for a moment, before jumping up to get a closer look, then trotting off to look at a few more prints, making the occasional sound of confirmation to herself. “MmHm, white bear all right,” she concluded, finally.

“White bear?” Apollo asked. He noticed Needle Point cowering, ironically enough inside one of the creature's footprints. “Is it dangerous?”

“Oh, yes, very,” Splints confirmed, accent coming in heavily, “I warned you about them on our way up here, if you could remember anything I ever say... They usually don't come so far south though... Hmm.”

“So what do we do about it?”

“Why're you asking me, oh fearless leader?” Splints replied, “I'm not the one who calls the shots around here, isn't that what you told me?”

Now it was Apollo's turn to be exasperated. That pink and yellow mare could be infuriating at times. That particular argument had to have been years ago, but he still apparently hadn't heard the end of it. “Fine,” he said, “It's ahead of us on the path, maybe we'll never even see it... let's just keep moving.”

Apollo looked at Splints as the group began moving again, their hoofprints obscuring the prints of the bear as they moved along. He found the irritable mare completely unreadable. Often, he wished he could read her the way she could seemingly see straight through him, but she only stared back with an annoyed look on her face... yet there was something beneath that... something frustratingly impossible for Apollo to figure out.

* * *

Waking with a start, Apollo looked around his tent. Nothing seemed wrong. The pile of blankets insulating him from the snow beneath were still fluffy and soft, and it was even dark enough to truly be called night time, not even the slightest glimmer of light coming through the tent wall. The dark periods during the day were hard enough to get used to, but the bright-as-day periods during the night were what really drove him crazy.

Still, what had awoken him... Not a dream... he had actually been having a very pleasant dream... one featuring Splints, embarrassingly enough. Slowly, he let his guard down, pulling a thick blanket back over him... Then, he heard it. A thick, sustained, creaking crunch as old snow was crushed beneath something heavy... and a windy-sounding snuffle.

He knew what it was instantly. The white bear. It must have found their camp, and now it was only a matter of time until some disaster happened. Would it attack one of the ponies? Would it eat their supplies? They still had weeks of travel left: without supplies they might not make it... and the thought of the bear having its way with one of his crew sent a bolt of lightning down his spine. Not on his watch!

Quickly, he hopped out of bed, thankfully already wearing his parka, no time wasted wrestling that heavy thing around his wings. He unzipped the front of his tent, seeing the pale white snow barely visible in the dim moonlight from the southern horizon. Strangely though, he couldn't see any trees, or the other ponies' tents... only three big dots arranged in a triangle, two on top, one below. Still a little sleep addled, he stared at the odd vision in front of him... until the two top dots blinked.

Fabric ripped as he shot straight through the back side of his tent, a feat he never thought he would be able to do, but apparently a huge bear right in front of one's face could inspire one to some pretty epic accomplishments!

At a safe distance, he hovered above, flying in a small circle around the camp. The bear was still just standing there, staring at him. The huge beast made a low, rumbling growl as it watched him circle.

Responding to that growl perhaps, a face popped out of one of the tents. Needle Point's, Apollo noticed with suddenly redoubled worry. The face popped back into the tent, giving Apollo a moment of relief, only to have it shattered as Needle's face once again popped out of the tent, this time with her thick glasses in place so she could actually see what she came out to look at.

Now that she did see it, she popped back inside even faster, zipping the closure up behind her with a timid little squeak.

Apollo winced as that squeak diverted the bear's attention from him to the tent where the sound came from. As the huge white muzzle came down to sniff at the tent's entrance, he knew that he would have to take action if he was going to protect his crew.

He dove down towards the bear, buzzing by and landing a good kick on the back of its head. He bounced off, back into the safety of the sky, but the huge bear only looked up at him, a little annoyed. Hitting it had felt like hitting a brick wall... a big, fuzzy brick wall. The bear was huge, a little bigger than their whole supply wagon, and a lot heavier looking... How could he possibly stop this thing?

The bear lumbered up after him, bowling over a couple tents in the process. Apollo winced, trying to remember whose tents those had been, but quickly found something else more urgent to think about as the bear reared up and took a swipe at him, coming uncomfortably close – Apollo had badly underestimated the bear's reach!

As the bear pursued him, an idea occurred though. He kept at it, always staying barely out of reach, always coming back to harass the bear if it began to lose interest in him. Slowly but surely, he was drawing the bear away from camp.

* * *

Apollo made one more tired dive at the bear, using his new strategy of hitting it with snowballs rather than getting within kicking range – his back right leg still stung with the glancing contact it had gotten from a big bear paw. This snowball was a great success, hitting right in the eye. “Bullseye,” he said to himself, with a little smirk. After a couple of hours of this, he was starting to get good at it!

The freshly enraged bear made another run at him, which he easily avoided, gaining what he now knew to be just enough altitude to put him firmly out of bear-reach. As the first light of the night's second dawn broke the horizon, he decided that he had probably led the bear far enough away. He darted away, quickly making one last snowball before the bear caught up with where he landed, and again took to the air.

This snowball didn't hit quite so spectacularly on-target, but further enraged the bear nonetheless. With that, Apollo began to fly off, slowly gaining more and more altitude, still heading away from camp. With any luck, the bear would continue to chase him in this direction even after he headed back to camp.

The bear slowly receded in the distance, becoming difficult to see against the snowy backdrop. Apollo gave it plenty of extra room though, continuing on long after the bear was invisible in the snowy countryside. The sun was fully above the horizon by the time he made a sharp dive back down to tree level, leveling back off just above the treetops, and only then beginning a wide circle back to camp. With any luck, he could get back to camp by the time the sun was going down again, even by this wide route, and he could still enjoy a few more hours of sleep before the 'morning' came.

* * *