Vinyl Scratch and Octavia made their way through heavy forest. They had been walking for about an hour since their carriage dropped them off along the highway where the trail towards the campsite began, and by now the trail had disappeared.
“Are you sure we’re going the right direction?” asked Octavia. “It feels like we should have been there by now. The sign said the site was only three miles down the trail.”
“Of course!” she replied, struggling to continue carrying all the camping supplies. “It’s the mountains! It feels like it’s been an hour, but it’s probably only been like 20 minutes. We’ll be there in no time.”
“I think we may have had to go the other direction at that fork in the path back there…”
“Don’t worry,” Vinyl said to reassure Octavia. “My family used to go camping all the time. I totally know what I’m doing.”
Fifteen more minutes passed, and still no campsite appeared. Suddenly, they walked into the middle of a clearing in the forest that seemed to come out of nowhere. It looked like it could be a campsite, but no other ponies were around.
The two friends walked around the area and inspected it. The sound of water could be heard, meaning a river must be nearby.
“Helloooooo!” Vinyl called out. “Anypony here?”
No reply. “Well, this must be it!” she said.
“I don’t think so, Vinyl…” said Octavia. “There’s nopony around. We’ve just arrived at a clearing in the forest, and we’ve obviously been going the wrong way.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she said, with a very nonchalant attitude. “But anyway, we can just settle here. Might as well get the full camping experience, right?” She dropped the bag of supplies off her back and magicked the zipper open.
“How are we going to find our way back, Vinyl?” said Octavia. “There’s no trail. We’ve just been wandering through the forest.”
“I don’t know, we could just try to remember our way back or something. It can’t be too hard. Besides, I have a pony GPS to find our way through anywhere, so we can’t get lost.”
Octavia didn’t even bother arguing that. There was no winning with Vinyl because she always invented her own laws of reality to explain herself.
“Well, then,” she said. “if we’re going to settle here, let’s go ahead and set up camp.” Octavia took the box containing the tent out of their bag and dropped it in front of Vinyl. “You can set up the tent, and I’ll take a little walk around the area.”
Vinyl levitated the instructions out of the box and looked at them. They were in Korean. “Uhh…” she began.
“Don’t worry,” Octavia cut her off. “There are some tools in the bag. There should be a hammer in there in case you need it to drive the spikes into the ground.
“Okay, Tavi!” said Vinyl as her friend walked away. “I’ll do my best!”
Octavia began walking in the direction from which she heard the running water. The river was actually only about a hundred meters away. The trees very quickly ended, and she walked out onto the beach of a beautiful riverbed. This must be the Pony Colorado River, she thought to herself. There was a steep hill on the other side covered in pine trees, and the wind made them all sway in unison, giving the appearance that the hill was rocking back and forth. The openness of everything gave Octavia a better taste of the crisp October air. As the wind continued to blow, it whistled through the trees’ branches and ruffled her mane.
She trotted down to the rocks right by the river and observed the water flowing past. There was a boulder in the middle of it, which the current was running into and creating a little bit of white water. Looking down, small minnows were swimming by, and jumped away when she stuck her hoof in a bit.
The whole landscape was beautiful to her. The sound of wind, creaking and whistling trees, and flowing water was like the symphony of nature, and she had front row seats. “I just love nature,” she said out loud to herself.
The she remembered that she had left Vinyl alone with a hammer and decided to return to Camp to check on her.
When she got back, she was surprised to find that Vinyl had successfully assembled the tent. But what caught her attention was how small the thing was. Vinyl didn’t seem bothered by it, and was rather proud of her achievement.
“Well, now the toilet tent’s set up, where do we sleep?” she said.
Octavia looked at her, disappointed. “That’s it.”
“What?!” Vinyl seemed afraid. “But there has to be another part to it? This can’t be the whole thing.”
“No, that box was all we brought. There were no other parts.”
“But this is the WeatherMaster 9000! We’re supposed to be able to go anywhere in this!”
“And I’m sure we will. Just as soon as the wind picks up. I though you knew what you were doing when you went to Pony Sport Chalet?”
“Of course I did!”
“Did you ask for help to find the most suitable thing?”
“Yes.”
Octavia sighed. “And when he asked you questions to help you out, did you pay attention to every question he asked you?” She hated having to treat Vinyl like a child.
“Yes.” She thought a moment, rolled her eyes, and said, “um… maybe not?”
Octavia put her hoof over her face. “Well… we’re just going to have to deal with it. Now, I hope when I told you to pack everything you remembered to get the food together.”
“Well…” Vinyl began. “I couldn’t fit everything in the bag so sacrifices had to be made. Besides, the campsite is supposed to have a barbecue every Saturday!”
Octavia looked at her sternly. “We’re not at the campsite, are we?”
Vinyl just gave her a blank stare in return.
“Now,” Octavia continued. “What are we going to eat instead?”
Vinyl looked first at a pile of rocks, then at a pinecone, and finally said to Octavia, “Um, I don’t know?”
With her mind already made up, Octavia said, “The most reasonable food option is fish. There’s a river flowing just beyond those trees. I think I saw some trout swimming by. So you’re going to go fetch us two fish.”
“But I don’t know how.”
“Well, you said you and your family went camping all the time. And you’re a unicorn—a very smart one at that. I’m sure you can figure something out.
Vinyl walked in the direction her friend had pointed, and was standing at the bed of a river after only a few meters of walking. She trotted to the edge of the river, where water was flowing only a few inches from her hooves. Sure enough, she could see a few trout swimming by, their silver skin shining in the early evening sun. But how to catch them? She remembered she had seen on Pony National Geographic that bears just stick their open mouths in the water and pull out a wiggling fish. So, Vinyl knelt down, opened her mouth and threw her head in the water. She came out with a mouthful of gravel and a soaking wet mane.
There had to be a better way of doing this. She thought about available materials—sticks all around her, some extra twine in the camping bag, maybe a hook or two… nothing useful. The she came up with an idea. She dug a few inches into the ground until she cam upon a few earthworms. She levitated one up over her head, and then tied it around her horn. She stuck her head in the water, and soon, she could feel a slippery mouth attach itself to her horn.
Octavia heard Vinyl coming back in through the trees. That was quick, she thought. Vinyl marched her way over to her friend with a great look of pride in her face and a fish latched onto her horn. Octavia looked utterly shocked and disgusted.
“Here you go, Tavi!” she said, lowering her head to shake the fish off onto the plate Octavia had out. Vinyl walked back through the trees and came back several minutes later with a second fish on her horn. Octavia’s expression hadn’t changed.
“How did you— why did you— …I’m not even going to ask.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We cook them. I’ll do this part. I’ve done it before and… well… this part involves fire and I think you shouldn’t be involved.”
“Okay!” Vinyl said without listening much. “I’m going to go skip rocks!”
By the time they had finished eating, it was dark already.
“Your breath smells like fish, Tavi,” said Vinyl. Octavia gave her a deadpan look.
“Oh, by the way,” she continued. “I did pack the marshmallows!”
“And none of the rest of food items that were smaller?”
“Well, they fit.”
Vinyl picked up a couple of good sticks for them. The two friends roasted marshmallows, and spent the rest of the night stargazing and watching for shooting stars.
“You know,” said Octavia, lying on the ground next to Vinyl and looking up at the sky. “This night actually turned out to very nice.”
It was certainly a nice night. They were lying on the river bed, and had a crystal clear view of the night sky without any of the light pollution Ponyville got from nearby Canterlot and Manehattan. They could even see the milky way making a sparkly, shapeless band across their plane of view. The moon was full and bright.
“Hey, Tavi,” Vinyl began. “You know how lots of ponies think that Equestria used to be dominated by humans over a thousand years ago?”
Octavia smiled. “That’s just crazy,” she said. “Where could they have gone? The ruins everywhere are from a more ancient race of ponies. It’s just a myth.”
“Well, you know,” Vinyl said excitedly. “ponies also say that when they were around, humans even went to the moon and walked around on it, and their footprints are still there today.”
“Well, now, that’s impossible!” laughed Octavia. “Everypony knows only Luna can go to the moon because she’s the only one with the right magic.”
They spent the rest of their night looking at the stars and conversing, until it came time to roll out the sleeping bags and get to bed.
“Vinyl, where’s my sleeping bag?” asked Octavia.
“I don’t know,” Vinyl replied. Probably in the bag. You were the one who packed it.”
“But I didn’t pack it. I asked you to pack it.”
“So it’s not in the bag?”
“No.”
“Hm. Well, I guess we’ll have to—”
“NO.” Octavia interjected. “It has to be in here somewhere. I am not going to share a sleeping bag with you.”
She searched the contents of the bag and the tent, and the entire clearing, but her sleeping bag was nowhere to be found. Octavia and Vinyl exchanged blank looks.
“No. I won’t do it. I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because you’re… well, you know… bleh… and your sleeping bag, it smells like… you.” Vinyl looked back at her, slightly unhappy. “And also, I don’t sleep with other mares,” she concluded.
Half an hour later, though, she found herself crammed into the same two and a half square meters as her best friend.
“I still don’t know how you talked me into this…” Octavia said.
“Think of it this way,” Vinyl replied. “We won’t get cold.”
“The implications in that make me feel so much worse about this.”
Then Vinyl got a dirty look on her face and said, “Hey, Tavi… Dutch oven!” She pulled the covers over both of them. Octavia got a strong whiff of sulphur. She kicked Vinyl in the stomach as hard as she could and jumped out of bed while Vinyl was coughing to regain her wind.
“That’s it!” said Octavia. “I’m not sleeping with you!”
Vinyl had the nerve to act surprised. “Really? But where are you going to sleep instead?”
“I would honestly rather sleep outside than in that smelly sleeping bag of yours!”
A sudden clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, followed by a downpour made her instantly change her mind.
“On second thought,” she said. “Maybe it’s not so bad.”
“Wasn’t it just completely clear outside a little while ago?” asked Vinyl.
Octavia said nothing in response. She got back into the sleeping bag, turned away from Vinyl, and tried her best to go to sleep.
Vinyl was the first to wake up in the morning. She opened her eyes and was looking right at Octavia’s sleeping face. She looked so peaceful and happy. “Cute,” she thought. But then the sleepy grogginess began to wear off and she realized whose foreleg was around her and that her hind leg was not in fact between two pillows.
“Bleh!” she cried out, quickly getting out of the sleeping bag. Brushing herself off, she could see Octavia beginning to wake up.
“Mh. Good morning, Vinyl,” she said through a yawn.
“Nothing,” replied Vinyl. “How did you sleep?”
“Well, not too great, considering I had to sleep on the solid ground sharing a sleeping bag with you.”
“I’m going to start a fire,” declared Vinyl.
“Okay,” Octavia replied. “But be extremely careful. We wouldn’t want you burning down a field again or something.”
Octavia sat up in the sleeping bag and let out a great big yawn as she stretched. She tried arching her back to relieve some of the soreness from sleeping on a hard, flat surface. Octavia left the tent and looked up at the sun.
“Isn’t it curious,” she said. “How quickly the weather changed? It was clear at night, and then it rained, and now it’s sunny.”
“Mountain weather,” Vinyl replied. She picked up a stick, jammed a couple of marshmallows onto it, and started roasting them over the fire.”
“Really? Marshmallows for breakfast?” Said Octavia. Vinyl looked at her marshmallows, and then back at her friend, confused.
“Anyway,” she continued. “How are we going to get out of here, again? Since we don’t exactly know the way?”
“Easy,” Vinyl said. “I’ve still got that GPS. We’ll be out of here in ten seconds flat.” She went to pull the device out of the bag. Then she added, “By the way, the ‘P’ stands for ‘Pony.’”
“Well, turn it on. Let’s find out where we are.”
Vinyl powered the device on and it began to connect to a signal.
“Here we go!” she said. “It says… ‘Please take device to an authorized retailer to activate before use.’”
Octavia put her hoof to her face.
“Well, looks like we’ll just have to find our way out the old-fashioned way!” Vinyl continued.
“You mean…” Octavia started to seem angry. “You mean… we’re lost?!”
“Yes.”
“We’re lost in the middle of the forest because you can’t do anything right!” she was beginning to get hysterical. Her mane started to puff out and look ragged. “We’re going to be stuck here for days. Weeks. Months! But by then we’ll starve. We’ll starve to death and they’ll never find our bodies. We’ll just disappear. Oh my God!”
She was jumping about the place panicking by this point. Vinyl was still just sitting there eating her marshmallows.
“Calm down, Tavi,” she said. “You’re starting to act like Twilight.”
“THAT’S IT!” Octavia snapped at her. “I’m not dying in the forest with you! I’m going to find my own way out!”
She galloped into the trees in a completely random direction. The panic was running through her body, and her heart was racing. She could feel a tear or two roll down her face. She only ran a few dozen meters or so, though, before she tripped over a rock and began tumbling out of control through the woods. Everything started to blur and she lost all sense of direction.
Then she stopped rolling and found herself in the middle of another clearing of the forest. She was lying on solid concrete. Octavia stood up, turned around, and found several other ponies with tents looking back at her. She froze for a few seconds, and then backed into the trees again to return to their site.
“Hey… Vinyl?” she said, returning to their clearing. “Could you come with me for a second, I want to ask you about something.”
Not considering that the very recently livid Octavia might be dragging her into the woods for panicked cannibalization, she followed. They walked the same path that Octavia ran, and arrived at the new clearing. The other ponies had gone back to their business.
“What is this?” asked Octavia.
Vinyl though for a second and said, “Oh! This is the campsite!”
Octavia jerked her head towards Vinyl, shocked out of her mind.
“WHAT?!” she cried. “We were just right next to the campsite the whole time?”
“Yep! I guess so. Want to move over here and stay another night?”
Octavia could feel a brush fire of anger spreading through her body as she realized that Vinyl’s poor judgment had ruined their camping holiday for nothing. Thinking of what to do next, she simply hung her head down and said, “Vinyl… you’re an idiot.”
There was a long pause before she continued, “I guess I did have a fun time after all. I mean, there were a few speedbumps, but it was a real experience. It really wasn’t that miserable after all. I don’t think we would have had nearly as interesting a time if we just stayed here instead. But then there’s the part where we slept together.” She paused to shudder. “I wouldn’t do that twice. But I guess it would have happened here too.”
“Well, that’s all right, Tavi,” Vinyl replied. “I had a great time too! But yeah, except for sleeping together. I didn’t like that either.”
“How about we don’t spend an extra night? I think I’d like to go home and sleep in my own bed by myself tonight.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I kind of want to do the same. But in my bed, not yours.” Then her eyes lit up. “Hey! I have an idea! Why don’t you write a letter to the Princess about what you’ve learned?”
“Me?” Octavia didn’t understand. “I thought that was just something Twilight and her friends do because Princess Celestia asked them to.”
“Well, the CMC wrote a letter to her a couple times, and she doesn’t care about them.”
“Well, all right. I’ll do one tonight and ask Spike to send it when we get back.”
That night in the living room of their apartment in Ponyville, Octavia got a quill in her mouth and some paper and began writing a letter:
“Dear Princess Celestia,
“Though I’m not a student of yours, I’ve learned a valuable lesson about friendship. Sometimes, a situation can become bad due to mistakes and misfortunes that may or may not be within your control. But you always have to remember to make the best of a bad situation and try to have fun anyway.”
Then she thought for a moment.
“I also learned that if you want something done right, it’s best to just do it yourself. Trust is important, but you should never put all of your trust into anyone, even your closest friends—especially a particular pony who sometimes forgets to turn the water on for a shower.
“Your faithful subject,
“Octavia”
Vinyl trotted over to her as Octavia slipped the last paragraph of her letter underneath the unused second sheet of paper.
“Finished?” she asked.
“Mh-hm!” Octavia replied happily. “By the way… when you say your family used to go camping all the time…”
“Oh, yeah!” Vinyl interruputed. “We went to places like Pony Yosemite, The Pony Grand Canyon, Pony Arches National Park,…”
“Yeah,” Octavia cut back in. “But when you camped at these places, did you use a tent?
“Of course not, silly! We always rented an RV.”
Octavia rolled her eyes and folded up her letter to send off later.