//------------------------------// // Chapter XX: Sailing Away // Story: The Equestria Games: First Blood // by 8_Bit //------------------------------// Apple Cloud desperately shuffled backwards as Big McIntosh loomed over him, only stopping when his increasing back pain left him unable to move any further. Big Mac was enormous, and could crush him in seconds if he wanted to. However, the giant seemed to notice his fear and discomfort. “Y’all okay there?” Apple Cloud didn’t respond, he only looked at Big Mac with the same panic in his eyes. “I said, y’all okay?” He didn’t know how to respond. Here was Big Mac, a massive stallion with muscles to spare, and he was asking if he was alright. He remained in stunned silence as Big Mac continued to talk. “Yer’ names Apple Cloud, right?” He nodded his head. “Y’all are Apple family?” He nodded again. “Then stop being so gosh darn scared. Family don’t hurt each other.” Family. Family?! “Y-y-y-you’re… n-n-not… g-gonna… h-hurt… m-m-me?” he asked shakily, unsure if he’d heard Big Mac correctly. “Nope,” he responded with a chuckle. “Y’all are Apple family, which makes you a cousin. A distant cousin, I’ll give ya’ that one, but y’all are still family nonetheless.” The two stallions looked around as they heard distant voices. The clique ponies were nearby, and armed to the teeth. The gentle giant lifted Apple Cloud onto his back, and began to trot swiftly away from the voices. “S-so,” Apple Cloud said with a slight judder to his voice. “Y’all are Apple family too?” “Eeeyup. My Granny Smith moved to District 9 when she was just a ‘lil filly. Apple family in 9 aint’ nowhere near as big as in 11, but there’s still a few of us around.” This was news to Apple Cloud. He knew most of his family in District 11, but he’d never heard of anypony in his family moving Districts. Of course, that had been made illegal not long before the war, and even talking about it was punishable by torture, so it was no surprise that it was a subject left unspoken of. “Anyways,” Big Mac continued as he slowed his trot to make his way down a steep section of hill. “Y’all know where cousin Applejack ‘n ma friend Berry Punch are?” Apple Cloud was silent for a few moments as his mind flashed back to some of the things he’d seen from in the tree. As soon as Rarity and Blueblood had walked past, Nighteye and Rainbow Dash had sent the others to act as sentries, while they cleared the dead bodies away. He’d seen the unmistakable Stetson, and even from the tree, he’d been able to make out the purple pony with the cluster of berries for a cutie mark. “Dead,” he said sadly, as Big Mac slowed to a walk. “They’re both dead.” - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Incredibly, despite the situation they were in, Twilight was beginning to relax, and even enjoy herself. She and Fluttershy had both agreed that whatever happened to them, they would do a lot better for themselves just by keeping their minds focused. After finishing the berries the birds had brought her, Fluttershy had offered to show Twilight how to climb a tree safely. During all her years in the Everfree Forest, Twilight had kept her hooves squarely on the ground. Fluttershy meanwhile had spent many of her years tending to birds and other woodland animals in their natural homes in the trees. “So,” Twilight said as Fluttershy began to scale a tree. “How does a pegasus get so good at climbing trees without her wings?” “Well, its kind of second nature,” she explained, reaching the branches several meters above with almost no effort needed. “I was born with angel wing.” “Angel wing?” Twilight inquired as she began to climb, following the route up the tree that Fluttershy had taken. “Yeah. Basically, it's where the last joint in your wing twists outwards at an angle, even when your wings are folded away. This upsets the delicate aerodynamics a pegasus needs to fly, even to hover, so I was flightless for most of my life. But, my family still needed me to work, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to afford enough food to feed us all.” “You worked in the free range areas of 10, right?” Fluttershy nodded as Twilight hauled herself onto the top branch, and sat down next to her. “The free range areas are basically contained forests. My whole family worked there, but they were all able to fly. My dad helped me out a few times, but I needed a way to get up there on my own, so he spent a whole week with me, helping me climb up all the different types of trees.” Fluttershy shed a tear at the thought of her family, who were probably watching her right now. “So, what about the angel wing? Why haven’t you got it still?” “It was my birthday present a few years ago,” Fluttershy explained. “See, when I was diagnosed, my dad set aside this private bank account, and every time the family received income, he’d put a little bit of it away in that account. When he had enough in there, it was almost my birthday, so he waited until then to tell me we could afford the operation to fix my wings.” Her tears were beginning to flow faster now. “He sounds like a great dad.” “He is,” she said nodding. “There’s six of us he needs to feed and look after, and he still managed to save up to fix my wings. And then when my wings got fixed, he took the whole week off work so he could teach me to fly.” Twilight’s head flooded with her memories of Shining Armor and his knife throwing lessons as Fluttershy looked up at the sky reminiscently. The sun was nearing the end of its day cycle, slowly reaching the horizon line beyond the cliffs. The arena was perfectly aligned east to west, meaning the sun would rise beyond the sea and set out of sight behind the cliffs. “I remember that first proper flight. We didn’t go fast, we took things slow. The wind blew gently through my mane as we broke through the cloud levels, and we just flew around for hours. We sat on the clouds and watched the sun set, and I fell asleep right there.” Fluttershy’s nostalgia broke Twilight’s heart. Fluttershy was sweet and gentle, and didn’t belong here. Neither did little Scootaloo, or any of them. In fact the more she thought over it, the more she came to realize that if anypony did deserve to be thrown into this arena, it was her. Her thoughts of war and peacetime faded instantly as she heard hoofsteps below her. The two mares looked down to see Papercraft looking up at them, axe held backwards, ready to throw at the first sign of movements. Twilight cursed silently to herself as Fluttershy squealed in fear. She’d left her saddle pack on the ground, right at Papercraft’s feet. The blue pegasus grinned up at them, his deep red eyes showing his readiness to attack if necessary. “So,” he called up casually. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.” - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Apple Cloud’s vision blurred as he forced his eyes open. He must have passed out, because the last thing he could remember was being carried by Big Mac in the early afternoon. Now he was lying down next to a camp fire, in the middle of the night. A small pile of food had been placed next to him as he slept. He turned to face the fire again, revealing Big Mac adding more sticks to it to keep it burning. “Evenin’” he said as he noticed his companion waking up. “Urgh, what happened?” “You passed out. I ain’t no Doctor, but you must’a done yer’self one doozy of an injury when you fell outta that tree.” Apple Cloud nodded. He had seen the pile of rocks he’d fallen on to. Couple that with the running he’d done immediately after, and passing out wasn’t really a surprise. He couldn’t remember when he’d passed out though, nor could he recall any conversation with Big Mac after he’d started carrying him. “When did I lose consciousness?” “Couple ‘o minutes after you told me ‘bout Applejack and Berry Punch,” Big Mac responded coldly. “Big Mac, I…” “Couldn’t do nuthin’, I understand. But ‘ah promised Berry Punch ah’d look out ‘fer her, and now she’s dead. An’ it’s mah fault too.” “Don’t say that,” Apple Cloud said, sitting up. “You ran just like everypony else did.” “’Ah ran when ‘ah promised Berry Punch ah’d defend her from them high class namby pamby ponies. Now she’s dead ‘cause ‘ah broke mah promise.” The two sat in awkward silence, the only noises being the gentle crackle of the fire and crickets chirping in the cold night air, as Apple Cloud ate a few of the berries from his food pile. Big Mac seemed genuinely distraught over breaking his promise. Apple Cloud was feeling similar guilt, as he had promised Applejack the same thing. They’d mutually promised to watch each others backs, and she’d been killed after only a few minutes, while he fled for his life. “So,” Big Mac began after what felt like an eternity of silence. “How does a member of the Apple family end up being born as a pegasus?” Apple Cloud smiled at this. The Apple family was predominantly made up of earth ponies, so he was often asked about his heritage. “My dad’s a pegasus pony who met and married an earth pony. It’s basic pony biology, Big Mac. You know, the birds and the bees?” - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - “Look Papercraft, I can see where you’re coming from on this, but I’m telling you it’s a really bad idea.” Twilight was trying to convince the pegasus to stop what he was doing for the umpteenth time, but still was unable to persuade him to change his mind. “Twilight, I appreciate your concern, but I have no intention of staying in this arena.” After some peaceful negotiations when Papercraft had caught Twilight and Fluttershy in the tree, he had finally let them climb down without attacking. After some brief chatting, he finally revealed to them why he was building the raft. He meant to escape. Not as any form of refusal to play the games, but out of fear of death, and in the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to kill anypony, even if his life depended on it. At least, that was the explanation he’d given, but Twilight wasn’t entirely convinced. He’d continued his work on the raft as the Capitol projected the pictures of the fallen tributes into the sky. Gizmo, Limerick, Lyra, Featherweight, Berry Punch, Caramel, and Applejack, all were dead. Fluttershy shed a few tears at the loss of her friend, but Papercraft downright refused to answer them when questioned about Lyra. It was only when Papercraft deemed his raft finished, and began to push it down the beach into the sea, that Twilight deemed it time to put her hoof down. She walked in front of it, crossing her forelegs to make it clear to him she wanted an answer. “Do you mind?” he asked with slight annoyance. “I have no objection to you trying to leave. I’ve tried to warn you that the Gamemakers won’t let you, but if you want to be ignorant to that fact, then that’s your problem. I just want to know the real reason why you want to leave.” Papercraft stopped trying to push the raft, and fell backwards onto his haunches, tears slowly beginning to form in the corners of his eyes. Fluttershy noticed this and walked over to try and offer some emotional support. Twilight opted to keep pushing him. “Is it about Lyra?” The tears began to roll down his cheeks as he nodded. “Was she your friend?” Fluttershy asked. “She was my best friend,” he answered, putting in no effort to hide his tears. “I’ve known her since I was just a little foal. We grew up together, we played together, and her family even took me in when my parents went to fight in the war. And now… she’s…” He literally couldn’t bring himself to finish his sentence, the tears choking him beyond the ability to speak. Twilight nodded understandingly. Grief can drive some ponies to insanity, so it was understandable that Papercraft would want to find some kind of loophole that would grant him escape from this place, so she stepped aside to let him through. He nodded appreciatively as he pushed the raft into the sea, before jumping on and letting the tide pull him away from shore. The raft wasn’t massive, but it was well-built, and seemed to be able to hold him. “Come on,” Twilight said to Fluttershy as the figure of Papercraft slowly faded into the darkness of the night. “Let’s go find somewhere to camp for the night.” Fluttershy nodded as Twilight began to head inshore. They had barely even walked ten meters in when an almighty crash came from behind them. They turned to look, only seeing large waves churning outwards in a circle, right from where Papercraft and his raft had been a few moments ago. He hadn’t even made it fifty meters out to sea. “Um, Twilight,” Fluttershy said timidly. “What was that?” “I don’t know,” she responded as a cannon fired, confirming her fears. “But I think we should stay out of the sea from now on.”