//------------------------------// // Let's go. // Story: Exploration turns out to be much longer than expected. // by Totito30 //------------------------------// J´zar patted his own shoulder, trying to get the dust off his armor. With his left hand, he reached for the hilt that protruded from a pile of debris and pulled out a bloodied sword with a chilling shriek and a blood splatter. J´zar sheathed the sword carefully, worried for the integrity of the blade because of all the dust and blood. "¿Umm…sir...erm…J´zar?" Fluttershy asked. "¿Yes?" J´zar answered with a question. "I think there’s something wrong with your arm" She said. J´zar looked at his elbow and indeed noticed something bad. His whole arm was twisted in a strange position, as if it was disturbingly loose. "It’s dislocated" He said coldly "¡Nothing hard to fix!" J´zar grabbed his loose arm and jammed it against his shoulder several times before a cracking sound was heard and his arm regained the normal position. The warrior flailed his healed arm in several directions before judging it acceptable and descending from the pedestal of rocks and debris he was standing in. "There you go" J´zar said to Fluttershy "Now let’s get moving. We need to reach the end of this accursed forest before the nighttime. I don’t know you, but I would prefer not to sleep with so many wild things out there" J´zar walked a few steps before stopping and turning around, promptly returning to the place where he had been standing. He crouched for a moment and pulled out a glass vial. He did something which the ponies couldn’t manage to see and then returned to the ground, but this time, the vial was filled with a thick and dark red substance. "¡I almost forgot! ¿How where we supposed to perform the ritual without it?" He said as he stored the vial inside an almost invisible pocket in his armor "Now we can go" And he walked away again. The six young mares followed him, also not wanting to stay on the forest more than what necessary. They didn’t walk for long before Twilight Sparkle asked something: "¿Hmm…J´zar?" she said. "¿What is it?" J´zar was slightly annoyed by how many questions they had. "¿Where are we going exactly?" she asked. J´zar had not thought of where they were going, but he wanted to get out of the forest the soonest possible, and walking in the direction opposite of where they had come from seemed to be the best option. "I do not know where are we going, but I know what we’re leaving" he said. "¿But you do know where Ix is, right?" Rarity’s voice sounded from behind J´zar. "¡Ha! ¡I have no idea!" J´zar mockingly said "¡But I expect to know soon!" They kept walking for several minutes before something interrupted their path. An anteater lied down in the ground as if he was dead, with his hose-like muzzle darkened beyond normality. J´zar quickly approached the animal and laid his hand on the creature’s belly. It was raising and lowering, but dangerously slow. J´zar knew what was happening. "Ix. The diseases of The Maw have reached into your realm " he said with grim acceptance "This creature is doomed" "That’s impossible" Fluttershy said "¡There’s a cure for all diseases I’ve ever seen!" "Not for this one. It’s the Smallpox. It killed thousands in my realm, and this animal is on the final stages of infection" J´zar continued. "¡But there must be a cure!" Fluttershy insisted. "There is. If the vaccine is applied within the first three days of infection, most of its effects are nullified. But this anteater has been suffering it for months. It’s a miracle his skin is not falling off as I touch it. There is, however, something we can do about it" the warrior explained. "What...¿What can we do?" Fluttershy asked with anxiety. "We can shorten the pain. We can give it peace" J´zar had never seen a creature saddened as much as Fluttershy. "¿Wait…what do you mean?"Fluttershy asked, her voice trembling. "I think you already know" He said, saddened by the mare’s frustration. Fluttershy was crying. She sat on her hind legs and started sobbing profusely, hiding her eyes with both hooves. J´zar had never seen somebody so stressed because of a simple euthanasia. It was bothering having to wait so long for something so simple. "I-I-I’m terrible at taking care of animals" Fluttershy cried as Twilight Sparkle hugged her "¡I should quit, if I can’t keep an anteater healthy!" "¡My god, would you please stop that!" J´zar exclaimed "¡We have no time for this!" With these words, he drew his sword and cut the anteater in half as if it was made of bread. "¡Now move!" He said. Deep down, J´zar was feeling terrible for having doing this to such a compassionate creature as Fluttershy. But there was no time for being soft. As the sun drew closer to the horizon, J´zar and his companions treaded mile after mile, each step shortening their path towards the end of the forest and to the almost unexplored lands after them. "¿Are we there yet?" Pinkie Pie asked for the umpteenth time that day. "¡No, we are not there, nor we will be until nightfall! ¡So please, be silent while I try to locate the Southern Cross!" J´zar said, staring at the sky as he walked. The stars didn’t spoke to him as clearly as they did in his own planet. "¿Southern Cross?" Twilight Sparkle whispered to Spike, who was sitting in her back "¿What is that? ¡There are no constellations named that way!" "Maybe it’s a constellation from his dimension" the baby dragon answered "¡and here in Equestria they aren’t the same stars! That’s the only explanation I can think of" "¿Are we there yet?" Pinkie Pie asked again. "¡NO!" J´zar answered with fury. "¡Oh, c’mon, I’m just joking!" Pinkie said. "It’s not a joke if one part doesn’t enjoy it!" J´zar exposed his opinion. "Guys, ¿could somebody tell me how much we have left?" Rainbow Dash ventured. "¡I DO NOT KNOW!" J´zar yelled. "¿What is it with all that yelling here?" Twilight Sparkle said with surprise "¡We are never going to reach the forest end with all this screaming!" "In the name of all the past, present and future gods, ¿Could you please just SHUT UP?" J´zar screamed. "My, what a bad temper ya got…" Applejack mugged. J´zar wasn’t listening however, his sight was grabbed by the vision he possessed now: The forest had stopped abruptly, and now he was standing in a hill made of soft breeze, watching over the landscape. At the group’s feet (and hooves) were vast and open steppes ridded with small hills, which extended for miles like a green cloak covering the earth before crossing a pass and entering inside a “cauldron”, a valley encircled by mountains. Their journey through the forest had ended.