Blue Streak’s heart raced as the distant boom of the cannon dragged her from her slumber. The gentle snore coming from the sleeping bag across from her confirmed what he had told her previously, that he was indeed a heavy sleeper. The ability to sleep through the noise of cannon fire, though, was something else entirely. She reached over and gently shook the foot of his bag.
“Huh?” Clockwork Dawn said quietly, missing a snore as he woke.
Before Blue Streak could answer, another sound of cannon fire pulsed through the forest, signalling yet another death.
“That was two cannons,” she said quietly. “How many does that make?”
Clockwork Dawn thought for a few seconds, still lying in his sleeping bag with his eyes closed, before he gave an answer. “Eleven so far, so that means thirteen left, us included… wait a second, two cannons?”
“Yeah,” Blue Streak responded with a chuckle. “You slept through the first one.”
Her friend blushed a bit, before unzipping his sleeping bag. “I’m gonna look outside a sec, make sure there’s nopony nearby.”
She nodded in response. “Be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
Another cannon fired as he climbed out, but he quickly leaned back in, giving her a small wave to show her he was fine. The ‘always careful’ comment made Blue Streak grin as he crawled out of the small den. When she’d encountered him earlier, he had clearly been anything but careful with how he was going about the arena.
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It had all started at the cornucopia, as the games began. Blue Streak had been one of the fortunate few ponies with saddle packs in close enough proximity to grab, and quickly turn and run without ever being put in harms way. After running until she heard the cannons for the fallen ponies at the bloodbath, she had stopped and gone through her supplies. It was basic survival equipment really; a sleeping bag, a compass, a length of rope, a flint and steel, a water bottle with iodine drops, and a small bag of energy bars. It was enough to get her by.
A crashing noise had caught her attention soon after she had packed her stuff away. She was unlucky in the sense that a weapon had not been provided for her, so she approached the source of the noise with a certain amount of due care. She braced herself to flee if need be, being completely uncertain what she would find.
What she found, however, was far from dangerous.
She found herself looking at a small red pegasus with a dark red coat, trapped under a fallen tree, a sleeping bag wrapped up in its carry-bag a few feet in front of him. He’d had the good sense to jump into a small ditch as it came down on top of him, preventing him from being crushed completely. However, the ditch wasn’t as deep as he’d hoped, and instead of crushing him, the tree had him pinned down. He was small for his age, and despite the fact that he looked like he was on the last year of being an age eligible to be selected for the games, he only stood a head higher than Scootaloo. He didn’t seem too badly injured from the impact of the tree, as he was struggling to pull himself free.
“Hey!” he called out, looking up to see Blue Streak poking her head from behind a nearby tree. “Can you lend us a hoof?”
She remained still. Only one pony could walk out of the arena, and helping somepony out of a situation like this wasn’t going to do her any favors.
He groaned as the same thoughts went through his head. “Look, I haven’t got any weapons!” he called out again, becoming increasingly more desperate. “Please, just help me get out of here. I won’t hurt you, I promise!”
The desperation in his voice hit Blue Streak’s conscience hard. Groaning in defeat, she decided to lend him the hoof he desired. As she stepped forward, she made a quick judgment about the size of the log. It wasn’t that big, but his small stature was heavily restricting his ability to move it. It looked like it would budge if they both put effort in, so she took her place next to him, placing her front hooves on the side of it.
“Push upwards and I’ll push forwards. Got it?”
He nodded.
“Okay,” she said, bracing herself for the exertion. “On three. One… Two… Three!”
The two ponies pushed as hard as they could. At first it seemed fruitless, but seemingly out of nowhere, the smaller pegasus found enough strength to move the log upwards, just enough for Blue Streak’s sideways pushing to have an effect, and it rolled backwards. Blue Streak fell forward, not expecting the sudden movement, ending up flat on her stomach as her new friend stood up.
“Thanks,” he said to her gratefully. “Blue Streak, right?"
“Yeah,” she said, slightly dazed. “And you are?”
“Clockwork Dawn. Or just Dawn if you prefer.”
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Blue Streak held her grin as she waited patiently in the small den. Clockwork Dawn had found it just before sunset, completely out of good luck. Blue Streak remembered her facehoof as she’d insisted they needed find shelter for the night, only for her companion to ask her to wait a minute while he ‘went to the little stallion’s room’.
She especially remembered her second facehoof, as she heard him yelp, followed by yet another crashing noise. Going over to investigate, she had to frantically contain herself from bursting out with laughter, as she parted some bushes to see the tips of his legs sticking out from a hole in ground, right next to the side of the tree.
“You okay down there?” she asked, wiping a tear away from her eye.
“Mmhmm,” was the muffled response. “But you should see this, there’s this whole den down here.”
“Must be a foxhole or something. Is it big enough for us both to sleep in?”
There was a slight pause, before he replied with a happy “Yep!”
“Good, now go find somewhere else to do your business. I’ll lay out the sleeping bags while you’re gone, then we can scout for a bit food for dinner when you get back.”
There was no movement from Clockwork Dawn. He legs remained motionless as he sat in perfect silence.
“Something wrong?” Blue Streak asked.
“Err, yeah, there’s something else.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t need the toilet anymore.”
Blue Streak winced at the thought of him wetting himself as she looked around the small den, her eyes long since adjusted to the darkness. The den was right underneath the tree, so branches went down on all sides of the domed walls, sticking out in random places. Clockwork Dawn was right about them being able to sleep in there, but due to his small size, he could also stand up and walk around, while Blue Streak had to duck.
She was surprised as she heard the bushes above rustling, followed by Clockwork Dawn quickly emerging into the den, hushing her as he stood still by the entrance. Luckily, the bushes above completely covered the hole, hence the reason they had stumbled upon it completely by chance. Blue Streak shuffled over to the small entrance, head down low to avoid scraping it against the roof, to see what was wrong. She soon got her answer, as she heard two sets of hoofsteps approaching, but they seemed to be coming from opposite directions. If they were aware of the small hole, this was uncertain, but they quickly got an answer as one of the voices spoke up.
“Oh, Pinkie! Thank goodness! What happened?”
“I’m sorry Rarity,” came the other voice, speaking sadly. “The sword must have punctured an artery or something. I tried to save him, I really did, but he was just too badly hurt.”
Rarity began to cry. Blue Streak looked at Clockwork Dawn, who seemed to share her relieved expression. They were safe, as the two ponies above seemed to have no idea that there was anypony else in such close proximity.
“Look, Rarity,” Pinkie began after a few minutes of her friends crying. “It’ll be okay. He lost consciousness first, so he wasn’t in pain for long. I held his hoof as he passed away as well, so just be happy that he died quickly, and he wasn’t alone.”
Rarity sniffed. “I suppose. It’s just, all this, so soon after the war. It’s just hard to take!”
“I know, I know. The war was tough on all of us. Look, lets forget about this, and get back to camp, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Good. You go ahead, I’ll catch up.” Pinkie spoke distantly, sounding a little distressed.
Rarity must have understood, as she responded with a simple “Take all the time you need, darling.”
The two ponies in the den looked relieved as one of the sets of hoofsteps faded into the distance, only to listen in confusion as the second pony began to talk to herself.
“You lied to her.”
“What was I supposed to do?
“Tell her you killed her friend, maybe?”
“Yeah, as if I’d actually admit that to her.”
“It’s the least you could have done.”
“No, the least I actually could have done is nothing. You can never do any less than not doing anything whatsoever.”
Clockwork Dawn looked at Blue Streak in terror, mouthing the words ‘she’s crazy’. She could only nod in response.
“You owe her the truth.”
“That stuck up District 1 filly faker? I don’t owe her squat. Only one pony walks out of here, and I’m not going to be that pony if I go soft on the others.”
“You told her you held his hoof. How in the hay is that not being soft?”
“If I make her think I’m a softy, she won’t expect it when I turn on her.”
“Okay, but when? You never know when she might think the same thing, which is when it’s the time to turn on you.”
“You really expect to convince me that she has a shred of tactical knowledge?”
“Point taken.”
“I’ll turn on her when her usefulness runs its course.”
“Any thoughts on how you might end her?”
“I dunno. Slit her throat probably. Easy enough, and effective too.”
“Just don’t let her get you first.”
“Heh, I’ll make sure she doesn’t get the chance.”
And with that, Pinkie walked away, blissfully unaware of the two terrified ponies she had left behind her, more than close enough to have heard every word she had spoken to herself.
“Well,” Blue Streak finally said after several minutes of awkward silence, and shared stares of disbelief. “That was interesting.”
“To say the least, yes it was.” Clockwork Dawn added.
Saying nothing more, the pair both got back into their individual sleeping bags, and tried to forget the whole one-sided conversation they had just heard, praying that the deep recesses of sleep would provide an escape from the haunting words of a truly maniacal pony.
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Twilight opened her hazy eyes to be greeted by the gentle glow of morning light pushing its way through the leaves around her. The birds sang their merry songs in the distance, and the pleasant sound of the river rushing nearby merged with the distant noises of the waves crashing at the beach, creating an orchestral series of sound so beautiful that it was only conceivable that they be naturally made.
As Twilight sat up in the makeshift bed, it took her a few seconds to notice her companion, or to say it with more accurate terminology, the lack of said companion. Fluttershy had somehow slipped out of the sleeping bag earlier, without disturbing Twilight.
“Wow,” the unicorn said aloud, to nopony in particular. “I knew I was a heavy sleeper, but jeez.”
She unzipped the sleeping bag and sat up, happily noticing her saddle pack still in place in the notch where the tree split into smaller branches. A quick check confirmed all of her possessions were still present, save for the water bottle, which she soon found tucked underneath the pack, a small amount gone where Fluttershy must have drank after waking.
Twilight rolled up her sleeping bag, deciding to leave the crudely built mattress in place, should they need to stay another night. She brushed all the leaves on it that hadn’t blown off overnight, theorising that if anypony came along as some were blown away, there was a small chance they could locate it, and all they would have to do is wait for nightfall and Twilight and Fluttershy to return, and they would be able to stage an attack.
“Oh,” came a timid voice from below. “Good morning, Twilight.”
She leaned her head over the side, happily seeing Fluttershy looking up at her.
“Morning, I’m just packing up my stuff, I’ll be down in a sec.”
“Oh, um, okay. Why did you brush all the leaves away?”
“I’ll explain when I climb down there,” Twilight answered as she pushed the rolled up sleeping bag into her saddle pack. “Where did you go just now, anyway?” she asked, dropping the pack onto her back.
“Oh, um, I had to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“Um, you know, go.”
“Yeah, but where?”
Fluttershy squeaked quietly as the penny dropped for Twilight.
“Ohhh,” she said as she began climbing down. “The little filly’s room?”
Fluttershy just nodded silently. As Twilight reached the bottom of the tree, one of the birds from the day before flew over, landing on Fluttershy’s shoulder.
“Oh, hello there!” she said happily, as the two began a short conversation of Fluttershy talking, and the bird responding with a series of tweets.
“What’s that? Oh my, congratulations! Oh yes, I’ll be sure to come by and see them later. Oh, my, that’s very generous, thank you very much!”
Twilight looked on in confusion as the bird flew away. “You mind telling me what that was all about?”
“Oh, yes!” Fluttershy responded excitedly. “That was the mother bird from yesterday, she said the eggs hatched overnight, and she was very grateful for me lining the nest for them.”
“Don’t tell me,” Twilight said. “She offered to get us more food?”
The birds seemed to have some kind of foresight, as almost perfectly on cue, the two parents appeared, one with a large bundle of berries, and the other with an apple in each claw. They dropped them on the floor in front of Fluttershy, tweeted appreciatively, and flew away to tend to their newborns.
“Yep!” Fluttershy said happily.
Twilight sighed. “You really need to show me how to do that.”