//------------------------------// // 8 // Story: The Inconveniencing Adventures of a Washout Kicker // by IC1s5 //------------------------------// Just like going on camping trips again. Spray chanted to himself, trying to take his mind off of the day’s more serious events. “We’re going on a tiger hunt....we’re going to catch a big one....oh no, there’s a mud puddle! We can’t go over it...we can’t go around it...we can’t go under it...we have to go through it!” He imagined his nine year old self adding all the squishing sounds. He chuckled when he remembered how fun the game was. It made many days at camp bearable as his group commuted from one activity to another. Whenever it was his turn to think of whatever hazard would get in their way, he always imagined something horribly unlikely and boring. The other foals would complain, and Spray’s turn would be passed over the next time around. At some point it would be mentioned that all the obstacles experienced were things pegasus ponies could avoid. This led to some awkward answers: first the rhyme was changed so that there were obstacles that the pegasus ponies couldn’t avoid, which was the same problem in reverse. Or they were told that the pegasus ponies didn’t want to fly, to be with their ground-bound friends. This struck the foals as unlikely. At one point a particularly grouchy colt leading the group said it was because their wings had been snapped off. That led to an uncomfortably quiet hike back to camp. The water had turned into a gentle flow down the contours worn into the rock. By now it was hoof deep, and the sun had begun to emerge from behind the clouds. Before long it would look as if nothing had happened. Within a day it would be dry and stony again, waiting for the next time it rained like a very patient predator. Up ahead, he could see the large pool the water had created, lapping at the feet of the beam. There was a large gap in the barrier. The fence dangling forlornly between two peaks. Large enough for a pony to easily get under. Getting as far away from here just became a little more important. At an opening of the water’s path he noticed several lumps from above. Small, dark, definitely not rocks. He swooped low to inspect them further. Hopefully his luck was beginning to turn. Two of their saddlebags had been caught by a rocky outcropping. He swooped down to collect them. Both canteens were still in place. His sketchbook was irretrievable. He found a compass; goodness knew who had the map, and if it was still legible anyways. Still, an advantage: he could scout the landmarks ahead of the returning party and they could wind their way back to Fort Lancer. Inefficient, but it got the job done. At least he could do one thing right. Bright Star wasn’t far away. Spray tried his best to ignore him. The Kickers never left their dead behind, but that was the battlefield, not the wilderness. It would be unfair to leave him, or even make a simple cairn of stone to cover his body. He hadn’t lived up to the family ideals very well, so he hoped this was just another thing he could get away with. Spray heard something come from the top of the beam. The dislodged fence was rustling. Voices were shouting. He darted behind a rock. Figures came into sight. Several ponies were coming down the side of the beam. Strong, wiry ponies. Well, they’re not wasting any time, aren’t they? Even at this distance Spray could tell the difference from an Equestrian earth pony and a Silver nation pony. The silver nation was less round, sleeker, but at the same time thicker with muscle rather than fat. Built for speed, built for endurance. He couldn’t see their faces from this distance, but he wondered if they looked like he imagined them: angry expression on their faces, their eyes burning. Spray crept around the rock, trying to stay as low as possible. The ponies were beginning to tear down the fence. A couple slid further down the beam, as close to the ground as possible. Their feet sank deeply into the soaked sand, but they were making progress. Right by Bright Star, who was uncomfortable vulnerable, was a third saddlebag. Spray quickly and quietly tried to do triage, separating what was most important into the emptiest bag. The voices were coming closer, and he could being to distinguish what they were saying. “Almost!” The nearest pony said. “Looks deep!” “Fine,” another called back, closer to the top. “We can wait! Get back up here!” “Tell the others to bring ropes! It should be gone quickly, but until then....” The pony who had been trekking down the side of the beam turned and imperfectly began to make his way back up. All the ponies were tearing down the fence, now rendered a thin metal string. It gave easily in the drenched sand, so easy it was insulting that once it had prevented them from crossing. Equestrian defence planning at it’s finest! Amazing there was still a realm left to defend! Spray thought for a moment. He glanced back at the third bag, and the corpse of Bright Star. It was unlikely that these ponies would go away; quite the opposite. He had no choice. His innate squeamishness was not helping. Low as he could go, he crept out from cover. One eye on the beam, he slowly crawled over to the saddlebag, the only time lamented being born a pegasus. Unhelpfully, Bright Star had rolled onto about half. He was face down, and Spray was afraid of what he would find if he rolled him onto his back. It could not be helped. He either did this, or he died. He grasped the saddlebag by it’s strap and began to drag it with him back behind the cover of the rock. Carefully, quietly. “There!” Crap. A crossbow bolt thudded against the ground. He wrenched the bag free. Spray leapt into the air. He pushed his tired wings as hard as he could get away with. A couple of arrows flew by him. One struck his left wing about two thirds the way down. He winced, emitting a short gasp of pain. His altitude dipped, but he regained control. He dove low, trying to avoid their fire, and while it was painful he still pulled it off with respectable aplomb. Not easy while trying to balance three saddlebags full of very heavy equipment. Heck, he thought, maybe I could have been the first Wonderbolt in the family. Incredibly, he made it back to where the others were. He landed with a gracelessness that his instructors at Young Fliers would have wept at. He struggled to his hooves, but pain and exhaustion overwhelmed him. “Spray!” Velvet called. “I’m fine,” he said, “I think.” Immediately he worried that the Silver nation covered their arrowheads with some poison and that he was destined for a gruesome death. The way today was shaping up it would not surprise him. Either way, without him they only had the compass, an imperfect method of navigation. Things were just a little bit better but a great deal worse at the same time. “Is there a first aid kit?” Velvet asked. “In one of these, I think,” Spray said, dumping the saddlebags at their hooves. Mace and Pinion started poking at his injury. The arrowhead of the bolt had been cut off, and now the shaft was being fiddled with, in preparation of the wrenching pull needed to remove it from his wing. “We can’t stay here,” Spray said, “they’re already coming through.” “You’re hurt,” Velvet said. And exhausted, but that really doesn't matter right now. “We don’t move fast, we’re going to be guests of the Silver nation, and I’d rather not take a vacation right now,” Spray replied. Velvet froze. This was a situation her heroes and heroines frequently found themselves in, and they always found the strength within themselves to pull through. Easy to ask of a pony who only existed on the printed page, hard to ask of yourself when danger was staring her in the face, especially after getting a personal and vivid reminder of how deadly things could get in the wild. She knew he was telling the truth. If the beam was irreparably compromised, and help was taking it’s time, they would have to hoof it to the hills, and hope for the best. She wanted an adventure...well, it was time to start living one. Spray winced. Pinon had grasped the bolt with his magic, giving Spray a moment to steel himself before it came out. If it came out quickly, painful as that sounded, it would be endurable, as opposed to the slow torture of dragging it gingerly out of the wound. “Be gentle!” Velvet said. Memories replayed of treating skinned knees with her foals, but this was a problem gentle words, a kiss and a sweet treat could not fix. It was so frustrating to be sidelined. “I’ll try,” Pinion replied. “No guarantees.” He met Spray’s face. Spray attempted to stallion up, and failed. Pinion shrugged; it wasn’t his wing, after all. “Don’t be a wussy,” Pinion said. Shining yelped. Instantly the sudden pain was augmented with the sting of an antiseptic, but he gritted his teeth. His wound was papered over, his wing involuntarily trembling. “The hills,” he said, “we have to make them if we’re going to stay one step ahead.” The hills were on the horizon, appearing remote and unattainable. It was good to have a destination, any destination. Something to wear out what little energy in trying to reach. “We’ll find a cave,” Spray said, “and hunker down there. We can plan our next move, hopefully find a supply of water, and rest.” He didn’t know about the rest of them, but he was itching for a few hours of shut eye. The guard or the patrol could move into the area, control and contain the Silver nation, and they could be rescued. None of them were in a state to do anything more. “I’m all for resting,” Mace said. Pinion said nothing but nodded in agreement. They set off at a reasonable pace. Pinion took two of the saddlebags; Mace took one. Pinion had done a cursory inventory: three canteens, two thirds full, and some munchies. No map, no weapons. If they rationed and embraced the suck, they might be able to make it. Might. “Worst comes to worst, we might have to develop a taste for meat,” Pinon errantly mentioned. Trying to drum up at least some laughs. “At this point, I’d be excited if it came to that,” Spray said. “Actually,” Velvet said, certain that nopony would appreciate learning this, “ponies in our situation have been known to do just that.” Pinion looked stunned: he made the comment in a weak attempt at levity. In Velvet’s books ponies fought to avoid that taboo, and most of the time they succeeded. Again, another part of her fiction was intruding into her life. “When the first ponies reached the San Paolomino, their crops failed because their weather ponies simply didn’t know what to do about the heat,” Velvet elaborated. “They developed a taste for iguana. They had to, after eating every tumbleweed, sagebrush and shrub they could find.” Pinion reacted like she said a taste for pony. Same thing in his eyes. Granted, at one point during guard training they were hiked out into the woods and told that, if things got dire, worms were always a good source of energy. Starving to death started to look pleasant after hearing that. The attitude had been ditched, fast: Pinion wanted to live. Of course, he would have preferred not resorting to measures that would haunt him until the end of his days. “What was it like?” Mace asked, beginning to come around to the idea. “Gamy,” Velvet said, not thrilled about the prospect either. “If we do meet the Silver nation, we might get the chance to swap recipes.” Pinion had heard that Silver ponies ate meat, but had enough brains to distinguish fact from barracks rumour. The more outlandish, the more unlikely. As a guard, he represented Equestria, as Captain Armour said, and it would not be advisable to believe anything that could not be easily discounted. “For real?” Pinion asked, hoping he misheard. The other ponies were leading him on, he dearly hoped. Velvet nodded. As a student, pouring over the primary documents (the diaries, the logs, the letters back home) she had read about the feelings of those desperate ponies. The belief that they had failed as Equestrians, and were forever tainted. She never thought she would understand the feeling, but here she was, the one proposing the idea. “Very little water for crops, so they did the only logical thing.” Pinion did not know how to reply to that. Carnivorous ponies! His pace began to quicken. It also got colder at that exact moment. “I figured they ate cactus.” Velvet shook her head. “Doesn't sit well in the stomach, apparently.” “It’s basically food,” Spray said. “Meaty, treaty, sometimes creamy, always screamy.” Velvet laughed. “Glad to hear you’re open minded.” “Doing the best that I can,” Spray said, struggling forwards. Sooner they reached the hills, sooner he could sprawl on the ground and fall asleep. # Wrapped in the latest dispatches was a copy of the Canterlot Times, included at Shining Armour’s request. Time to see what the damage was at the home front. What he expected, to an extent, he got. The Editorial page did not hold back. Seven million bits washed away, and the Long Patrol had somehow misplaced a Class 4 thunderhead. Questions were asked about the quality of leadership on display, questions Shining wanted answered more than any other pony. He would get answers. Not today, but he would get answers. The second part was not what he had expected. Maybe somepony at the ministry of defence was a gabby gums, or incredulous journalists had extrapolated from what they heard, or maybe they wanted a jump in sales. All he saw was that Twilight Velvet and Spray Kicker had been promoted from missing to presumed dead. On page two were two photographs of them: a file photo of his mother at a signing, and an outdated picture of Spray during his brief stint at West Hoof. Some small biographical details followed each one. A particularly blackhearted pony had placed an advertisement for their shop highlighting a special sale on Velvet’s books. At the end of Celestia’s dispatch was a curious note that “her majesty’s student has taken recent news with great distress. Please advise.” Advice? Tell me where in blazes they are, and Twilight will calm down. Shining closed his eyes and thought. His father was no doubt having a conniption fit; Twilight was worrisome, but between the princess and her redoubtable friends, she would not be in too bad a shape. Given the way events were unfolding, it would take him time for a response to be sent out, and it pained him to see his family in such a state. Nothing he could do now except try to get the situation under control. “What is the update of the guard train’s arrival?” he demanded. “Several hour’s delay: dust on the tracks turned to mud in the rain. Trying to get enough chariots and wagons to ferry them here, but...” Time, time, time. “Understood,” Shining said. He turned to face the map spread across the table. Olive Branch would be on station with his ponies shortly. Two thirds of the fort’s ponies were deployed, the rest forming a crisis reserve Shining was struggling not to expend on the Dusty River but if reinforcements were delayed by any more, it would become necessary. Shining did not want to concede even a fraction more of initiative to the Silver nation. Canterlot would not be appreciative if the water right negotiations turned into peace talks. Olive, half clad in his armour, was making final preparations. From across the table Thunder steamed. “We need more pegasus ponies on weather detail. If there’s one thing we learned today, it’s that,” he dictated to a following lieutenant. Thunder wanted to pin the stupid pony to the wall and scream at him. Never, never before in his career both as a guard and as a pegasus, had he encountered anypony so dense, so disconnected from their responsibilities as him. Ask any pegasus about the level of concern Olive displayed for a Class 4, and you would watch them either laugh or weep. More ponies on the weather detail. Learn that the hard way, did we? “Perhaps we should make it a rule of order to ensure we have more than three ponies to handle a situation any schoolcolt could tell you needed more.” “Thunder,” Olive said calmly, sweetly, “we’ve had a very bad day. Let’s not get mad and make the situation worse, shall we?” That did it. Thunder was on his hooves and moving menacingly towards Olive, ready to pound some truth into him if he absolutely had to. “Canterlot is not going to be very happy if we try to pin the blame for this on the ghost of Old Tom!” Olive protested; Thunder counter protested. Like little colts in the playground fighting over the sandbox or teeter totter. Shining Armour’s hoof was brought down on the table, hard. The venerable skull danced a little on his shelf. “All right,” he snarled. “Enough of this. As far as I’m concerned, you’re both screwed, unless and until you do something that might raise my very low opinion of the pair of you. Olive, get to your troops. Lead them. Thunder, cool it until your ponies arrive.” He turned his back on the ponies. He didn’t have time, and oh how he wished he did, to provide some calming words for his family. For his sister, who never did anything by halves, and his father, who never took bad news well. He wished Cadence was here to spare a few for himself, since the idea to come here had been his. Evening was turning to night. It was going to be a long one. Nopony had refreshed the coffee. He would have to order somepony to put a new pot on, fast.