//------------------------------//
// High Up and Low Down 
// Story: Pinkie's Dream Quest 
// by MadHauk 
//------------------------------//

Part Five: High Up and Low Down

Now that the sun was shining high in the sky, the path out of the forest was fairly easy to find. Opal and Pinkie Pie were walking side by side, talking about everyday topics ranging from the weather, their friends back in Ponyville and Equestrian history, a subject of which Opal seemed to have indepletable knowledge.

Soon however, they reached the end of the forest, and Opal had to turn back. The cat pointed out the mountain Pinkie would be aiming for, and gave her some advice and word of caution about the trip.

“You will not want to climb the mountain in the dark,” he warned her. “Not only will that make the trail almost impossible to find, but this far from Pony civilization there is no telling what predators might be hunting. Sure, there are plenty of nasty beasts in the Everfree, but there you at least have the cover of the trees and vegetation, on the mountainside you'll be free meat.”

Pinkie promised to be careful while she tanked and hugged the cat again and again before they finally parted ways. The warm sun, green grass and gentle hills made Pinkie start off boldly in a fast trot, augmented by occasional jumping and dancing; and plenty of humming.

The mountain seemed like only a half-hour trot away, but each time Pinkie ascended another hill she realized that was only an illusion played on her by the immense size of the mountain. In reality the hills rolled along for several miles, and the foot of the mountain was still way out of view.

Such disappointments would not take the heart off Pinkie though. She had the sun shining on her back and a gentle breeze blowing through her mane, and whatever she would find at the journey's end she knew it would be worth it; so she picked up her pace and went on, with a smile on her face and not a care in the world.


The sun was already touching the horizon, where the huge forest was no longer to be seen, when Pinkie reached the foot of the steep mountain.

Pinkie stopped for a short rest, while she contemplated the advice Opal had given her. He had told her not to climb the mountain in the dark, due to predators, but Pinkie was quite confident in her mountain climbing-skills. Like most ponies she could walk up nearly any incline, no matter how steep and she had never seen any predators that could outrun a pony on such terrain. The only thing she could think of being a threat would be a dragon, but as far as she knew dragons were diurnal and would not be a threat at night at all.

After all, she had to be on the plateau on the top at the mountain by sunrise. If she waited until morning before she started climbing she would have to spend a full night at the top and her quest would be a full 24 hours delayed; so Pinkie did not lose another minute, but started walking slow but steadily up the mountainside.

Ascending above the level of the surrounding hills gave Pinkie a short illusion of traveling backwards in time as the sun suddenly appeared in the sky again; but the extra moments of daylight were short lived, and soon the sun was gone beyond the horizon and a few bright stars showed up spread over the darkening, cloudless sky. Pinkie sped up her walk to a slight trot, she wanted to get as far as possible before twilight ended and the dark of night fell over the land.

It was not too long until the deepening darkness forced Pinkie to slow down her pace to avoid tripping on stones and rocks that stuck out all over the mountainside. The moon was hidden behind a thin veil of clouds that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, so the light of the stars were her only guide. It had become too dark to see the top of the mountain above her, but neither could she see the bottom if she turned around, so she was confident she had come a fair distance already.

Suddenly and without warning the stony ground fell away under Pinkies hoofs! Or rather: she was lifted up into the air by an unseen and unheard assailant. She didn't even get a chance to shriek before the numbing feeling of nothing but air for fathoms below her made her freeze in place and not move a muscle in fear that whatever held her might drop her by accident.

While she was hanging there in mid-air under her soundless abductor, she noticed in the corner of her eyes another creature flying along beside the creature holding her. Soon her curiosity overcame her terror and she swung herself around to get a better look at the creatures. It was hard to get a detailed look due to the darkness, but from their silhouettes against the stars she thought they reminded her a lot of changelings.

They clearly had the bodies of ponies, only slightly smaller than her, but they were clearly not pegasi; for their wings were clear and insect-like, unlike the colorful feathers a pegasus. They were still not quite like the changelings she had encountered earlier. Those changelings had been noisy, making a gurgling, buzzing sound, somewhere between that of a wasp and a bat, while these two were completely and ominously quiet.

As she watched them she soon realized they were having a voiceless argument, and something told her she was the prize being fought over. Soon the changeling not carrying her started pushing on the other one, so that its wings beat against Pinkie and started tickling her. Pinkie, more terrified than ever of being dropped, had to pull out every ounce of willpower in her to keep herself from laughing or doing any sudden movements in reaction to being tickled.

They went on like this for a while, the changelings fighting and pushing; and Pinkie fighting off equal measures of tears of laughter and tears of terror, until the fateful moment when the moon showed itself through a hole in the clouds and Pinkie got a look at the creatures’ faces; except, there were no faces! Where the creatures mouth, nose and eyes should have been there were nothing but a continuity of their sleek, leathery, black skin.

Pinkie screamed, and then screamed again when the sudden noise made the changeling drop her. She could see their silhouettes diminish as she plummeted downwards. Apparently she had not been that exiting after all, for neither of the changelings lifted a hoof to try and save her.

She fell and fell, until she could scream no longer. The air was pressed out of her lungs and her throat was sore, and still she kept falling. The creatures had disappeared completely between the twinkly stars and the moon was once again hiding behind the clouds, and still downwards Pinkie fell; until she landed on a steep, muddy dirt-incline, and tumbled down into a dark cave. Down and down she rolled, skidded and fell, until she hit the rocky cave floor and passed out.

When she came to she was at first immensely revealed at yet again having solid ground under her hooves, not to mention at not being killed by such a high fall, but her relief was soon overshadowed by concern. Pinkie had apparently been wrong about weather mountainsides was a safe place for a pony at night, but she had never even had any delusions about dark, big, scary caved being safe for any pony at any time.

At least she could take some comfort in the fact that this was not a dragon cave. If it was she would have already smelled the smoke, and it would also have been full of gems and therefore not so dark. Dragons are not the only unpleasant creatures living in caves though, so Pinkie felt a definite urge to find her way out of the cave as quickly as possible. She started fumbling around with her hooves outstretched, trying to get a feeling of which way she had fallen from. Luckily her hooves soon made contact with the cold, wet cave wall and she started tracing her way alongside it.

After some stumbling through the darkness and more than once stubbing a hoof on a rock, holding her breath to avoid waking whatever might be slumbering in the dark, Pinkie found a hole in the wall. The hole led to a tunnel, a relatively small tunnel compared to the rest of the cave, but a huge and roomy tunnel for a pony. When she strained her eyes she could see that there were light coming down the tunnel, so it had to lead to the surface, but it was too steep and wet and slippery to climb.

Pinkie fell back on her haunches in despair. She was exhausted after a long night of far too much unwanted excitement, and being trapped in this dark cave with no viable means of escape was not helping on her mood. She had been reckless and unwilling to wait, and now she might have to wait for Celestia knows how long. A single tear rolled over Pinkie’s nose and dripped onto the cave floor; but she was not ready to give up. She started fumbling around her in search for something that might help her climb out the tunnel.

Pinkie went through several piles of rocks and a few twigs before her hoof fell on something different. It was long and hard, but not quite like a stick. It was even harder and a lot smoother. When Pinkie finally realized what she was holding she threw the bone on the ground and backed away in disgust, before she ran to the tunnel opening and screamed as loud as she could with what feeble voice she had left, no longer caring if something living in the cave could hear her. Her instinct of self-preservation had called it a day, getting out of that cave was now her only priority.

“Help! Somepony! Anypony! Get me out of here!”

The moment she uttered the first sound she heard a deep rumbling behind her, but she didn’t turn around to see what it was. She just kept on screaming, higher and thinner and more desperate every second. She realized, of course, that the chances of anypony happening to walk by and hear her were astronomical, but she had nothing else she could do, so she kept on shouting, hoping for a miracle.

Suddenly the cave lit up, as if the stars of the night sky had been reflected inside the cave. Pinkie couldn’t help herself but to turn around and have a look, and what she got to see was exactly what had been her worst fear. An Ursa. And not an Ursa Minor, like the one Twilight had saved Ponyville from, an actual fully grown Ursa Major.

Pinkie screamed like she had never screamed before, and she almost ran up the tunnel by sheer adrenalin-power, but then suddenly a rope fell down the tunnel and hit her over the face. Pinkie was so surprised that at first she forgot what to do, but when a voice from above told her to ‘grab the rope!’ she didn’t need to be told twice.

With the help of the rope ascending the tunnel was not too hard, especially with a roaring Ursa Major at one’s tail. Luckily the tunnel was too narrow for the Ursa to enter, so Pinkie was safe for now. The moment she reached the top she threw her arms around her rescuer in a thankful embrace, shedding a few tears of relief into the pony’s orange mane.

“What in the wide world were you doing down there?” The pony, whom Pinkie soon recognized as her old friend Carrot Top, asked with a smile while gently stoking Pinkie’s head and whipping her tears.

“There were changelings,” Pinkie said. “They picked me off a mountain and dropped me into the cave.”

“I see.” Carrot Top said with a concerned frown on her face. “When Queen Chrysalis was defeated a lot of her changelings left the hive and went rouge. Now that she’s rebuilding her power she is punishing them by taking away their powers. First they lose their ability to change form, then they lose their voices, then they lose even their own form. In the meantime they fly aimlessly about passing their time doing random pranks or fighting each other, but- um, is something wrong?”

While Carrot Top had been talking the moon had once again appeared, now much higher in the sky, and a herd of zebras hiding in the shadows were now visible. Pinkie also noticed that Carrot Top had dyed her coat in black stripes imitating those of the zebras. Not only that, but there was something uncanny about her face as well. Pinkie could not quite put her hoof on what it was, but there seemed to be something off with her teeth. Suddenly all the horrible stories her grandmother had used to tell her about zebras welled up in her mind and she became extremely uncomfortable; she didn’t want to seem rude though, and they had after all saved her life, so she put up a brave smile and answered as steadily as she could.

“No, no! Nothing at all! I’m just tired and a bit jumpy after all that’s happened; that’s all.”

It was hard to tell if Carrot Top actually believed that or simply didn’t want to push any further, but any way she soon changed the topic.

“So, what are you doing this far from Ponyville anyway?”

I could ask you the same thing Pinkie thought to herself, but wanting to keep conversation to a minimum she just gave a straight answer and told Carrot Top about the city she was looking for.

Luckily the zebras were well traveled in the area, and although they were not welcome in the city itself, and could therefore not follow Pinkie the whole way (to Pinkies shameful relief) they could follow her close enough to point her in the right direction.

And so they walked through the night, Carrot Top and Pinkie Pie in front with the herd of zebras following behind. The two ponies talked a bit about their friends back in Ponyville and other trivial subjects, while the zebras kept quiet. Pinkie could not quite shake of the uncanny feeling that she did not belong in this company, and she would have lied if she said that she was not quite reviled when the sun showed itself above the eastern mountains and Carrot Top announced that from there she would have to walk on her own.