„Are you sure we are on the right track darling?“ Rarity asked Twilight from behind. Twilight didn’t seem to react at all, and simply continued to walk forward. The white unicorn wasn’t sure if Twilight even knew where they were going, considering that she walked with a lowered head. “Twilight, did you hear what I said?” Rarity asked again, and Twilight’s head suddenly perked up.
“Huh, what?” With a confused expression, she looked around the forest. Where were they? She didn’t recognize this part of the forest, at all. Something touched her shoulder and Twilight turned around. Rarity was looking at her with a worried expression. After a short while, Twilight finally understood what happened. With a sheepish smile, she put one of her hooves to her neck and nervously scrubbed at it. “Hehe, sorry Rarity. What did you say?”
“Twilight, you seem to be out of it. Normally you aren’t this distracted. Are you worried about something?” Rarity asked Twilight with a worried expression. The only thing Twilight did was sigh. Did she really appear worried? Yes, she was thinking about Spike, but she couldn’t call this worrying. Somehow, she was not able to imagine her sarcastic assistant in danger. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would wander into dangerous situations carelessly.
“Sorry Rarity. I was just thinking about Spike. Well, not directly about Spike, but rather about myself.” Twilight looked down at the floor again and sighed. “I just want to tell him that I am sorry. I honestly treated him badly.” Twilight stopped walking and turned to Rarity. “I just feel guilty and want to tell him that I am sorry. He deserved at least that.” The last sentence was accompanied by a deep sigh.
Both unicorns heard a groan from over them and looked up at Dash. “Stop ruining the mood,” she mostly groaned at them and plopped down to the ground. “We’ll find that little guy, so stop acting all depressed.” With an eyeroll, she began walking forward. The two unicorns looked at each other with unsure expressions. Twilight sighed another time.
“Maybe Rainbow is right. I think I should stop worrying this much. It won’t help anyway.” She then began to smile, and Rarity followed with her own after some hesitation. Worrying certainly didn’t help right now.
“Wow! That is one big swampy-bampy lake!” Pinkie exclaimed rather loudly. Twilight and Rarity turned to Pinkie and saw what she meant. They were at some kind of swamp. The trees in this area looked mostly dead. The brown puddles of liquid smelled exactly how they looked like. Absolutely disgusting. There weren’t many animals around. The only ones they could see were some vultures and mostly flies.
Twilight looked around the swamp and seemed to search for something. After a short while, she stopped looking and turned to her friends. “I don’t think Spike would be here. He wouldn’t stay at such an unstable and awfully smelling area.” With a hoof, she tried to fan away the putrid air around her nostrils. Sadly, it didn’t help. The foul smell hung above the whole area.
Applejack trotted over to the two unicorns. “Ah reckon even if the chances are low that he’s ‘ere that we should still search for ‘im. We can’t overlook somethin’ like this,” Applejack advised the two unicorns. Twilight looked at the swamp for a short while and then nodded motivated.
“You’re right!” Twilight trotted forward, and Applejack looked back at Rarity. If there was one thing in Equestria that Rarity did not like, then it was dirt; dirt, stench, and clashing colors. This swamp met both of the first two criteria without any effort. Thus, Rarity reacted accordingly. Twilight turned around to Rarity after realizing that she was not following her.
Rarity simply stood there with sweat running down the sides of her head. Her eyes were a little closed, and her mouth had a nervous smile plastered on it. “Eh, I think it would be a splendid idea if one of us – ehm – stayed behind in Ponyville in case that – eh – Spike, yes Spike would return, don’t you think?” At the end of her statement, she began to play with her mane.
Twilight wasn’t fooled. It was quite obvious that Rarity just didn’t want to get her hooves dirty. “Rarity, we need you here with us,” Twilight told her with a friendly voice, and Rarity seemed to back away a little. The other friends also ceased what they were doing and looked over to the two unicorns.
Rarity told Twilight that she would accompany them to find Spike, but she didn’t anticipate that they would go into a swamp. She looked around the faces of her friends in more nervousness. After a while, she finally sighed. “Alright, I will do it,” she told them with a defeated voice. The friends began to smile warmly, and Rarity walked forward.
She stopped when there seemed to be some kind of border to the swamp. The grass changed from a healthy green to a sickly dark green. The image of a diamond sitting next to a piece of coal came to Rarity’s mind. And now it was time for her to step of the diamond, and walk over to the dirty piece of coal. With a deep breath, Rarity raised her right front-hoof and moved it towards the sickly patch of green grass.
The patch of sick grass seemed to taunt her. It seemed so icky, sticky, ooey, gooey. She felt like she would lose something terribly valuable if she would touch that sick grass. As if she would lose her refinement. Looking back to her friends she watched their reactions. Twilight was a little confused watching her. Well they only knew each other for three days.
Pinkie Pie had the most shocking reaction of all. She smiled. Pinkie never smiled! That was atrocious! How could she smile in the presence of this foul trench of dirty grass? Fluttershy looked nervously around the forest, not giving Rarity any attention. Applejack seemed rather skeptical. It seemed like she would think something on the lines of “Well, does that mare now step on that grass or not?”
Rainbow Dash seemed to be bored and a little annoyed. She constantly looked around the swamp and groaned occasionally. Rarity hoped to see some kind of reassurance of her friends, but as it seemed, she didn’t get any. She was a little stricken by the lack of reassurance. With a disappointed frown, she looked to the front again. She felt a little sad that none of her friends was paying any real attention to this monumental step she would take now.
With one last deep breath, she lowered her hoof on the patch of sickly green grass. The wet muddy sensation she felt on her hooves made her stomach feel as if it was willing to empty its content. Yet, a proper lady must be able to compose herself. With all of her determination combined, she was able to fight off the sickly sensation.
Slowly, she turned around to her friends and looked at them with a nervous smile. It felt like the mud was practically climbing up on her body. With a gulp and a slight shudder, she took another step. This time, the sensation was not as strong as before, yet still existent. Taking some more, she finally was able to get used to the sensation, somehow. With a nervous smile, she looked at her friends.
“Well, it wasn’t that hard,” Rarity shakily exclaimed with a nervous smile. Rainbow and Applejack only rolled their eyes, while the others seemed to be happy about it.
“Alright everypony. Let’s spread out and search for Spike. We’ll meet here in 30 minutes again,” Twilight ordered while taking the spot of the leader of the group. The others seemed a little apprehensive towards the idea to get commanded to do something, but what Twilight said sounded reasonable. So they accepted it without any complaint.
All of the ponies turned to a different direction. After a short while, they began to wal- “Found it!” Everypony suddenly heard from the pink party pony. All of them turned towards her with a curious and some of them with a shocked expression. Pinkie was pointing at something with her hoof. Their eyes wandered from Pinkie to what she was pointing at.
Not everyone was able to see what Pinkie was pointing at, but some of them were able to see a small somewhat white shape, laying in the muddy green grass. Twilight was squinting her eyes at the position Pinkie was indicating, but wasn’t actually able to discern anything. With a questioning gaze, she looked at the pink pony.
“Pinkie, what are you talking about? I don’t see Spike; also, he is not an it.” Twilight looked at the pink mare who simply shook her head.
“No, not Spike. A letter.” Pinkie pointed again at the direction, and Twilight raised an eyebrow. She turned again towards the direction Pinkie was indicating and looked more at the ground. There was something, but she couldn’t recognize it. Suddenly, Twilight shook her head.
“I can’t see anything concrete from here.” She turned her head to Rainbow Dash. “Rainbow, could you fly over there and get whatever Pinkie saw there?” Twilight asked. Rainbow raised an eyebrow, not liking how that sounded, but still flew over there. The ponies watched as Rainbow flew awhile and then touched down near some swampy lake.
They watched as she picked something up and looked at it for some time. Later, she flew back to her friends. With a thud, she landed beside them. “He was definitely here,” she exclaimed and handed the letter to Twilight. Twilight picked it up with her magic and unfolded it. Two golden tickets flew out of the letter and fell to the ground. Twilight didn’t acknowledge them and simply read the letter that stated that she, and one more, was invited to the Grand Galloping Gala.
Rarity picked up the tickets while Twilight was reading and gasped. “Tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala? I always wanted to participate in the gala.” Her friends, except Rainbow who already read the letter, looked over to Rarity, who still held the ticket in her hooves, and made a collective gasp.
“The Grand Galloping Gala?” They all exclaimed at once. Everyone looked over to Twilight, all having the same thing in mind. ‘I need that ticket.’ But before they could say anything, they saw that Twilight felt sad. They could tell by the tears in her eyes. Why wasn’t Twilight happy? Not only did she finally get a clue to Spike’s whereabouts, but got invited to the biggest event in all of Equestria.
Slowly, tears began to roll down from Twilight’s eyes. Her friends were not sure why she was this sad. Fluttershy was the first to speak up. “Twilight, wh-what’s the matter? Aren’t you happy that we finally found a clue to Spike’s whereabouts?” She asked with her typical soft voice. Twilight didn’t seem to acknowledge her presence, and only continued looking down at the letter. Finally, she spoke up.
“Th-The fact that we found th-this letter here, meant that Spike l-lived the last two days in the Ev-Everfree Forest,” she explained while sobbing. Her friends now slowly realized what she was upset about. A baby dragon living two days in the Everfree Forest. None of them wanted to say it, but they all knew that chances for survival were pretty low for him. Uncomfortable, they all look to the side, avoiding every eye-contact with Twilight.
After a short while, Twilight quickly brushed her tears away, and her expression changed to determination. “We got to find him!” She shouted, and her friends looked at her with an unsure and uncomfortable expression. They all knew that the chances were pretty low to find Spike now, knowing that he was the last days in the forest. They were motivated to search for him before since there was no real indication that he stayed in the forest.
The only thing that they knew was that Spike walked into it. But when they found the letter that deep inside the forest, they weren’t sure anymore if he still was okay. The deeper a pony goes into the forest, the more dangerous it gets. Judging by the dirt and sogginess of the letter, it stayed there for at least one full day, and the swamp was not located at the border of the Everfree forest.
They all knew it, but no pony wanted to say it. With their uncomfortable expressions still attached to their faces, they looked at each other, hoping that somepony would tell the ugly truth to Twilight. Tell her that she would probably never see Spike again. Tell her that she lost somepony of her family. Tell her that the dragon, she was living with for the past years, will never appear again.
Two full days in the Everfree Forest. It seemed unlikely, but it was not downright impossible that he was still alive. There still was hope. Everypony knew it. They all knew that he still could be alive, but there are three things that made their guts twist. Firstly, they found the letter uncommonly deep in the forest. Secondly, he was two full days in the Everfree Forest. Thirdly, he could be anywhere by now. He could have walked into any direction, and they wouldn’t know.
Searching for him now seemed to be an impossible task. What should they do?
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What a lovely day. The walk through the whole forest was uneventful. Not that I wasn’t thankful for that, but it still got boring after approximately three minutes. Yes, even with my new female body. One would think that being in a new body would give some room for exploration. Nope, same stuff. The only differences are the parts of the body that I use to expel my bodily fluids, and my pink slender form. Oh, and my voice. Oh Celestia, that voice.
What would Twilight think if she heard that voice? I coughed and put my claws together in a lovely gesture. I then proceeded to form my eyes into a gaze that told something like “Wow, I really like your mane.”
“Hello there Twilight hihi. Let’s play dress-up.” By Celestia’s beard, did I really just do that? I groaned and not a second later, the flat side of a pink claw impacted with my face. What am I doing with my life? No, stop that thought. There is no time for this now. Wait, yes there is. I have nothing else to do, so why not think those thoughts?
Suddenly, I stopped walking and only looked forward. One of my eyelids twitched. Was I just arguing with myself? There came no answer, how surprising. Another face-claw later, I began walking again. “What am I doing with my life?” I asked myself in a voice that was squeakier than a rusty unoiled door-hinge. “Listen to that voice. I think with this new voice, I would get my cutie mark in professional window breaker, if I was a pony.”
I stopped walking when I was beside a tree. Without hesitation, I turned to it and proceeded to smack my head against it. “Why… does… this… stuff… always…happen… TO ME!?” The last part of my speech was accompanied by an especially loud hit. With a groan, I turned around and let myself slide to a sitting position, back on the tree.
“Great, now I bet the tree hates me too.” Heh, trees having feelings. How silly of me. As if the tree doesn’t have enou- did I just think about the word “silly”? Wow, I even begin to think like a female. Wait, no I don’t. I often said silly, but in my male state it seemed more degrading or mucking. Silly sounds so… silly now.
“Wow Spike, you have a great way with words,” I told myself in a bored voice, and even that sounded cute and female. With another groan, I stood up again. No point in staying here. I need to find out what made me wake up as a female, fast. There was no way I will stay in that body. Without wasting another second, I continued along my way.
I started walking in the same direction I walked before. Sooner or later I would find a way out of this forest.
After several minutes of uneventful walking, I thought about some stuff. Why were there no woody wolves or manticores? I mean, they are practically everywhere, so how is it possible that I haven’t met any for quite some time. Either I am the luckiest dragon(ness) in the world or something was amiss. Maybe they planned to attack a village? Maybe they planned to build a TEE. Oh, yeah I don’t think you know what a TEE is.
Here in Equestria we know of something called electricity. Nopony actually knows how it works. As far as we know, there are just some exceedingly small things that run around, and we use them, and with them we can make stuff move. Yes, this is a truly scientific explanation. TEE is a Theoretical Electrical Engine, meaning an apparatus that gets its power of electricity.
Yes, the idea of wooden wolves creating metal machines seemed unlikely, yet not impossible. I will be prepared when their machines try to take over the world. Slowly, I stopped and not a second later, face-clawed. What the Tartarus am I thinking? Wolves that build machines? Have I lost my mind? With a groan I continued walking.
After some more minutes, I suddenly came to a stop. There was a strange sound coming from some direction. It sounded familiar. It sounded a little like somepony sawed something off. Why would someone saw here? Oh, maybe I was close to a town and the timbers are getting some more wood? Seems like I finally lucked out. With a smirk, I walked towards the sound.
I passed some bushes and cursed silently whenever one scratched me. "You are a dragon," you say? Well, it apparently seems like female dragons don’t own the scale density that males have. Another reason to get out of this embarrassing pink body as fast as possible. I bet I woke up as a female as revenge for my lack of prayer to the Spinachlord. Damn lord of vegetables is getting cockier by the minute.
I pushed another branch to the side, and the sawing noise got louder. I tried to take another step, but fell down on the dirt. With my face burrowed into the dirty ground, I grumbled to myself, and EVEN THIS SOUNDED CUTE! I can’t take it anymore with this Celestia forsaken forest. Angrily, I turned around and looked at what made me trip. It was a small root that grew a little bit out of the earth.
With an angry shout, I grabbed the root and pulled with all my strength on it. “DAMN…ROOOOOOOOT!” I practically screamed through my teeth while the root did not budge. It seemed to be strongly anchored into the ground. My face began to get even pinker than it already was, due to the effort. It didn’t take long then my face was red.
Suddenly, I slipped with my claws off of the root and what happened next, was not one of my proudest moments. With my new salamander like body, I somehow managed to roll back quite a distance. I felt myself crashing through multiple bushes until I didn’t feel any bushes anymore. Yet, I didn’t entirely stop. I was still able to roll a little time after hitting nothing, but I stopped after this.
Great, what luck of the gods was bestowed upon me on this fine day? Shall I thank Rolldiho, the Rolllord? Shall I thank Ironio, the Ironielord? Or the most annoying of all, Trollana empress of pranks? This whole damn day. Couldn’t at least one thing go my way? I mean, I saw so much useless junk today, that I would bet my liver that I wouldn’t be surprised by the next thing that would happen to me.
Slowly, I came out of my cynical rage-induced fit and began to roll on my tummy… it still didn’t feel like a tummy at all, but that doesn’t matter now. I opened my eyes with great effort since I still felt kind of dizzy from my action-roll. Yep, this was a clearing alright. Much sun on the grass. Surrounded by trees and bushes. Definitely a clearing. Well, at least no strange things were hap-
Excuse me if I interrupt myself right there, but due to current sightings I could not end this sentence with a positive conscience. It seemed like there still was one way to surprise me. My jaw fell to the ground as I saw this. I knew that woody wolves were intelligent, but not THAT intelligent.
Let me explain in considerable detail what I saw. There were four woodies. Nothing special yes? Well, now comes the next part. Three of them were standing on their two hind-legs. One of them was laying on some kind of iron desk, belly up. They didn’t seem to have noticed me yet, so I could look at what they were doing.
Beside them was some kind of second table with different kinds of things on top of it. One looked like some kind of knife. Another one looked like a pair of tweezers. Another one like a wrench. Suddenly, one of the wolves made a low, but silent growl. Another wolf quickly looked over to the table and took the small knife in between two of her claws and gave it to the other one.
The one who growled before took the knife between two of his claws and did something to the laying one. After a while, he made a different growl and the wolf from before gave him the tweezers this time. He continued working on the one on the table, but made another growl before he was finished. One of the wolves took some kind of sponge and wished over the forehead of the one with the tweezers.
After a while, murmurs began to erupt from them, and the one with the tweezers lifted his fore-leg. At the end, between the tweezers was some kind of stinger. It looked somewhat familiar. Where have I seen it before? Oh right, that’s the stinger from a manticore’s tail.
Alright, let’s recap. I tumbled into a clearing in which woody wolves were operating on another woody with the professionalism that could rival the best doctors in all of Equestria. I think I shall give this credit to Trollana, the god of pranks. Nopony, but her would be able to create a situation of such combinations of impossible actions. Is she somehow having fun bringing me into these kinds of unexplainable situations?
As I was contemplating about a possible divinity that had the time of her neverending life, the woodies noticed me. Slowly, one of them walked towards me on his two hind-legs. When he arrived at my side, I noticed him too and felt a twinge of fear. He slowly bent down and put a paw on one of my shoulders.
“Grah grah,” he calmly growled at me. It sounded a little bit like he wanted to reassure me of something. I stiffened and looked nervously around. I have positively no idea how I should react. What does he want from me? After a while, the wolf looked confused. He turned to one of the other wolves and growled something.
The other one looked at some kind of paper and replied with a shake of her head. The wolf directly in front of me turned his gaze back to me. This time, he lifted an eyebrow. I nervously smiled and looked in his eyes. They were a calm and judging yellow sea. Suddenly, the sea changed. His eyes weren’t calm anymore. One spark of enlightenment sparked in them and suddenly, the eyes were a volcano of rage.
The wolf began to growl, and my fear intensified again. Like a lightning bolt, I turned around and ran away from him. While I was running I heard them growl from behind of me. They were all chasing me. Why? What? How? Where? I had so many questions that I couldn’t even ask them to myself. What’s with this whole situation? Why are they chasing me suddenly, even though they weren’t earlier.
This makes no Celestia-damn sense. A very close bark brought me out of my own thoughts, and I looked to the front again. There was no time to think about this stuff now. I need to survive. Even if, this ridiculousness confused me and probably amused some divinity in the skies, I would still have massive problems if one of those wolves caught me.
I began running even faster. The wolves seemed to be able to equal my speed. Of course, I can’t simply outrun quadruple predators that have a bigger size than me. I needed a plan, stat. I looked to my right and to my left. Forest. Forest everywhere. Unimportant boring trunks with unimportant boring leaves with unimportant boring twigs on top of unimportant boring grass, which grows on unimportant boring dirt. Yes, now there is nothing special around. Exactly when I could need something extraordinaire.
Looking ahead, I saw some kind of end to the forest. Well, I was not sure if it was an end, but the trees seemed to stop there. If I would be able to make it to there, I might be able to get away from them. It is said that the monsters of the Everfree Forest don’t leave it. I just hoped that this was true.
Suddenly, I had the immense urge to jump a little to the left, and I complied. A woody wolf paw came down on my old position, and I gulped when I saw that. If I hadn’t moved, I wouldn’t be standing or running, now. I looked back to the front. Not far, I only need to hold up some more seconds. Just then, a paw hit me on my left side and tossed me to the right.
I flew a little through the air but quickly landed on something hard. Just when I began to get back my bearings, I felt the ground beneath me shift violently. I instantly opened my eyes and realized that I was on the back of one of the woodies. Apparently, they didn’t like me sitting on their backs. The one I was on jumped around like crazy and I grabbed on one of its twigs.
The woodie stopped for a second, and just then, a muzzle of one of the other woodies wanted to bite off my leg. “Wow, careful!” I told myself in my feminine voice, which I ignored at that point. There was no use complaining over this now. I simply continued holding myself at its back. My eyes scanned the surroundings, and I saw the exit again.
I inhaled deeply once and stood up. The other two woodies instantly went for my legs, but I simply jumped over the woodie I was standing on. I landed in front of him and began to run again. They didn’t wait a second and immediately gave chase. I came closer and closer to the exit. One turn to the woodies and I saw that they still were hot on my tail. Nearly there.
I took one deep breath and jumped with both of my legs off. With a mighty jump, I flew through the exit of the forest. Light assaulted me immediately after I left the cold embrace of the dark forest. With a smile, I felt the wind going over my scales while I was in the air. Oh this feeling. Wait, I needed to open my eyes. One wouldn’t like to jump right into some kind of hole or trench.
I opened my eyes and looked down at the gigantic ravine over which I was currently jumping. All of my scales began standing on edge, and my eyes shrunk down to pinpricks. The ravine looked dark and dangerous. Very steep stony edges were seen on both sides, and a violently streaming river was at the bottom. The river seemed pretty deep.
I quickly looked all around me if there was any way to get out of this. None. Quickly, I began to descend. I let out the most girly scream anypony can even imagine. Yep, somepony up there hated my guts. My last thoughts were an undistinguishable pile of memories. Those memories seemed to represent my whole life until now, and it kind of depressed me that nearly all the pictures of memories are made inside of the library. I said one last thing before I impacted with the furious river.
“DAMN YOU SPINACHLORD!”