“So you've never watched Star Wars?” I ask with some degree of incredulity as I splash about in the pleasantly cool river water. We had found a stretch of a river (the Mad I think) that didn't have any roads or buildings nearby and decided to take a blissful dunk. Washing off all the sweat and grime is absolutely wonderful. Hauling an earth pony around in the sky is a lot harder than it looks.
Okay, scratch that. Hauling an earth pony around in the sky looks pretty hard to begin with. So maybe it's exactly as hard as it looks? Though to be fair I think that earth ponies feel a lot more dense than any normal living thing has any business being. So I guess hauling them around is harder than it looks after all?
Anyway!
“No...” the Sea Grass confirms. I had found out her name pretty quickly on our flight inland. Our conversation mostly consisted of her talking while I huffed and puffed and tried really hard not to drop her thousands of feet to her death.
The green earth mare seems really curious about the algae and weeds growing in the water. I swear they've grown more vibrant and grass-like since she started fawning over them. Must be an earth pony thing.
“What about Star Trek?” I prompt. Sea Grass shakes her head. “Doctor Who?” Another negative reply.
“I don't really like science fiction. And I've never really watched much TV,” she says as she dunks her head under water and comes up with a muzzle full of green scuz that looks vaguely like really thin lettuce. Once she's done with her snack she offers me a sheepish smile. “Thank you for saving me back there.”
I wave a wing at her dismissively. “Don't worry about it. We're the Wonderbolts. It's our job. I think.” Huh. Is that part of the job of the Wonderbolts? I thought they were just a transparent homage to the Blue Angels? Or rather that's what we would have been if we weren't a real organization from a real alternate universe. Guh, this is still going to take some getting use to.
A more pressing concern than my new job description (old job description?) nags at the back of my mind. “What happened back there, anyway? There was this... voice. And this squeezing. I felt like I was having my sapience crushed out of existence.”
Sea Grass looks down at the river and shuffles her hooves about in the silt awkwardly. “I was looking for somewhere to hide. I was so scared and I couldn't let anyone see me like this. Then I found that barn with the horses and I felt safe, so I stayed there for the night. Everything got hazy until you and your friend Luke came.”
I stick my tongue out at the earth pony. “Her name is Surprise.”
“I know,” she replies with a demure giggle. “I don't know what happened, though. If you hadn't come I... I think I might have lost my mind...”
So there's a danger of losing myself after all. Just not in the way I expected. I shouldn't be worried about the old Geneva completely erasing the new one. I should be worried about my ability to act as a thinking person being snuffed completely.
Now there's a horrifying thought.
“I think we'll need to really guard our minds when we're around normal horses,” I reason.
Sea Grass gives a little shiver. “I don't think I want to see a normal horse ever again.”
I drape a wing over her and offer a reassuring smile. “You've got friends now. You don't need to worry about being alone.”
That seems to make her feel a little better.
The heartwarming moment is interrupted when I hear a tremendous splash and the water level suddenly drops several inches. I turn and find much to my horror that a wall of water is rolling toward me from up stream. Sea Grass mutters a barely audible 'Oh dear...' right before we're both swept off our hooves and washed a few hundred feet down the river.
When my head breaks the surface I begin sputtering for breath and trying to get my dripping mane out of my eyes. Somewhere off in the distance Lightning Dust is boasting about her unparalleled cannon ball prowess.
Ugh. That mare.
By the time Grass and I slog our way back to the others Dust and Surprise are busy splashing each other in a rather animated water fight while Silver sprawls out on a sand bar soaking up the sun with his dark coat. In spite of myself I smile. After all the excitement and uncertainty and crazy adventure of the past few days unwinding a bit is exactly what we need.
“Do you think I, umm... that I might get sick? After being around those horses?” Grass asks uncertainly.
I quirk a curious brow at her. “What? You mean like catching some horse diseases or something?”
She replies with slight incline of the head that can scarcely be called a nod. I don't think she was expecting me to laugh at her question. And I didn't expect her to look hurt. Great, now I feel like I kicked a puppy.
“Ah, hey. Sorry. I wasn't laughing at you. And that isn't a dumb question,” I quickly reassure the green mare. “I hadn't even thought about that, but I'm absolutely certain we should be fine. In fact, I would be surprised if there's anything on earth that would make us sick short of a massive infection.”
Her curious tilt of the head prompts me to continue.
“A normal horse has more in common biochemically with a cactus than it does with us. Most parasites and diseases are pretty specialized in terms of what they can infect. I'm willing to bet they wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of us,” I explain.
Grass looks relieved. “Oh. That's good to know. Thank you.”
“Woah! Hey everypony! Check this out!” Dust yells suddenly, drawing everypony's eyes and ears to her. Sitting next to her is a small white cloud about the size of a beach ball. “Okay Surprise, splash me again.”
Surprise uses her forelegs to swipe a sheet of water at Dust. Dust flares her wings and gives them a strong flap as the water splashes against her. Most of it acts more or less as you might expect water to. But a goodly portion of it nucleates into a tiny white mass of puffy, cottony brightness.
Wow.
Even Silver looks impressed.
“Yeeep! Who figured out how to make clouds from water? That would be this mare right here,” Dust proclaims. “You know what we have to do now, don't you?”
We all nod.
Yes.
It is very clear what must be done.
Grass watches from the shore with a bemused little smile as three pegasi and a hippogriff splash each other mercilessly while fanning our wings to catch as much water as we can. It turns out that Silver is absolutely amazing at this, but I guess that makes sense what with his cloud cutie mark and all. As we work Dust explains why this is so important.
“So Rainbow Dash's house on the show? It's all made of clouds. But they're not all puffy and white. Some of them look almost like weird blue stone or something. And those clouds can hold up things like cabinets and shelves and books and stuff. I figure that if we pack enough cloud together and seal it with enough magic we'll be able to upgrade the Cloudmobile so anypony can ride in it.”
I'm all for this idea.
It means I won't have to lug Sea Grass around anymore.
So that's how we spend the rest of our day. Creating clouds and mashing them together. Smoothing them out with our wings. Every now and again Grass tries to climb onto our growing cloud platform and ends up walking right through it. But eventually? Eventually after a few hours of hard work we're rewarded with a bowl-shaped object about twenty feet across. It's a beautiful crystalline purplish blue material quite unlike anything I've ever seen before. Lighter lavender veins and spirals run across its surface in pleasant branching patterns that echo the golden ratio. It almost reminds me of the whorls and spirals in oriental art.
Sea Grass places a hoof on the floating disk and it remains firm under her. The mare's eyes widen with wonder. “Oh... oh wow. This is neat.”
“Neat nothing!” Dust crows and hoof-bumps with Surprise. “This is totally awesome! We just made cloud rock stuff! What would you even call this?”
“A completely new magical phase of water somewhere between solid and liquid?” I venture as I run my hand across it. It has the smooth, cool feel of stone to it. But certainly not the bitter cold of ice.
“I hereby dub it miststone!” Surprise proclaims. “Write that one down, Geneva. It's really good!”
“Good a name as any,” Silver adds with a nod. Was that a smile I saw on his face? I'm pretty sure it was. “Let's camouflage our new toy with normal clouds and get this thing skyside.”
It doesn't take much more than fifteen minutes to fully shroud both top and bottom with cottony clouds. At Surprise's insistence we make sure that the outer cloud shell of our vehicle looks vaguely like a flying saucer. I find myself inexplicably desiring to abduct some lawn gnomes now. With Cloudmobile Mark Two complete we pile inside and fly it up into the heavens.
Miststone is surprisingly good at holding heat, but then I guess water is that way too. And the outer cloud shell of the Cloudmobile is pretty good at shielding us from the wind. Despite the currents in the air magically enhanced clouds seem content to more or less stay put. Which is a good thing for us. Waking up hundreds of miles from where we go to sleep could cause some problems.
While pegasi seem to have some inherent resistance to the cold Sea Grass doesn't share that trait and sets to shivering. Without so much as a word we gather around her in a nice, tight knit little herd to share our body heat and insulating feathers.
My friends are near me.
I can hear their breath.
I can smell their scent.
And I feel very much at peace.
This...
This is really nice.
This is the way it should be.
“Thank you,” I whisper to the sky as consciousness slips away.
~~~~~
There isn't much time.
I have to move quickly before it's too late.
The train is racing precariously along the tracks built atop trusses towering high above the ridge line of impossibly Doctor Seuss-style mountains. I run down the roof of the train, talons and hooves pounding against the garishly colored sheet metal. One of the awful undead abominations in snappy red tights lunges at me, but I turn on a dime and buck it over the edge. I feel its ribs crunch under the force of my kick and it launches over the edge of the train and tumbles away into the yawning abyss below.
The lizards on the train are trying to sleep but these vampires are being really noisy and might wake them up.
And only I can stop them.
~~~~~
Day Five
Twenty Days Remain
What a weird dream.
Something about lizards and vampires and decoupling a train car with a salad fork. Not a dinner fork, though. Only a salad fork would work. Billy Mays was shouting at me to buy one from him. I think he was that loud guy who did as seen on TV adds years ago?
I gradually open my eyes and find that I'm the first one awake. Or at least the first one sitting up and looking around. I have the sneaking suspicion that Surprise is just pretending to be asleep. The moment I let my guard down she'll probably try to startle me.
It takes a little effort, but I manage to disentangle myself from my friends. Getting my tail away from Dust is the hardest part. She had been using the poof on the end as a pillow.
Once I'm free of the pony pile I climb through the 'roof' of Cloudmobile mark two and gaze out into the wilds of the sky. To the west the Pacific Ocean glitters in all of its vastness and grandeur. The wind blows inland from the glittering waters, carrying with it the mutterings and rumblings of a storm releasing its fury upon the open sea. Morning fog creeps along the coast, shrouding it in a distant curtain of delicate white. Mist mingles amidst the forest of redwood and spruce and fir far below, wispy tendrils waltzing with the crowns of the trees. To the east the sun is framed between heaven and earth, between mountains of stone below and crags of cloud above. Shimmering shafts of morning light radiate from on high, bringing brightness and calm as the last vestiges of night are washed away.
Awe.
I think that's the right word to describe what I feel.
Awe.
I begin to quietly whisper a song as the sun rises.
“It's pretty, huh?” I hear Surprise say from beside me.
“Yeah.” Nothing else really needs to be said.
I think I'm crying a little. Not the sort of panicked, fearful tears of uncertainty from the past few days. But tears of quiet joy. For the first time in the past few days I'm absolutely sure that everything is going to be just fine. I couldn't tell you why I'm so certain. But I'm sure all the same.
“I thought you were going to jump out and startle me,” I say with a sniff. Why does your nose always have to start running when you cry?
Surprise scoots up along side and gives me a quick hug.
“Sometimes the surprise is that there is no surprise.”
I give a choking laugh and hug her back. “Thanks Surprise.”
“Any time Geneva.”
“Have we got a heading on our next pony yet?” I ask after using a wing to wipe the tears out of my eyes.
“Yeah. Another one east of here,” Surprise replies with a nod. “Really far away this time, though!”
East. Hmm... “Reading, maybe?” I venture. “That's the next big town to the East I think. Aside from the smaller ones between here and there. Given the size of the city we might even be able to find a couple ponies there.”
We're going to eventually run out of room on Cloudmobile, too. But we can just make it bigger, right? And once we find some more pegasi it shouldn't be too hard to add that extra wingpower to move it around. Though eventually we're going to start running into logistical problems. Food and so forth. We'll need to set up some kind of base of operations. Though between the weather-herding of pegasus, the terraforming of earth ponies, and the spells of unicorns I'll bet we could set up a stable community in no time at all.
“Hey!” comes Silver's voice from inside Cloudmobile. “Let's set this thing down and take a pit stop. Then get moving to our next target.”
And so we do!
We have a quick breakfast on the riverbar and Sea Grass gathers up some more of her weird water-lettuce before setting off again. Turns out Sea Grass' specialty has a really nice savory flavor to it. Who knew?
It takes all of five minutes before Silver has swiped pony radar away from Surprise and kicks the loopy pegasus outside to help Dust and I push Cloudmobile through the sky. Sea Grass remains inside neatly arranging bits of pastry, fruit, and water-lettuce into these amazing little rolls. I sneak one during a five minute breather. They taste absolutely amazing.
Forests and fields and streams and hills and mountains creep away below us as we trundle across the sky toward the east. As we travel inland the air gradually warms and dries. The colossal stands of redwood and spruce and fir are replaced by a scrubbier forest of oak and pine and madrone. The air takes on a sharp, sweet scent of baking sap and leaf litter while the drone of insects grows into a veritable cacophony far below.
Surprise decides to pass the time counting the number of waterfalls we fly over. It's actually kind of shocking just how many rambling streams there are that go careening down sheer rock faces. But as we're passing above what looks like a small homestead out in the middle of nowhere a baleful howling catches our attention.
Obviously it's strange because there aren't any wolves in this part of the country. But even stranger is the unnatural dread that these cries fill the air with. It leaves me shivering despite the warm sun on my back.
“What the hay is that?” I mutter as the three of us turn our attention down toward the cluster of small buildings far below. Even Silver and Grass poke their heads out through the wall of the Cloudmobile to see if they can spot anything.
There are shapes moving down there. Rickety, ramshackle shapes that move with surprising alacrity and agility. And not to mention menace.
“Bucking hay, what buck are those things?” Silver swears.
Then comes the sound of a gunshot and one of the creatures crumbles into a heap.
“Timber wolves!” Dust yells. “Come on, we've got to go help!”
Before anypony can object, and before I can ask what a timber wolf is aside from the obvious, Dust drops into a dive.
“Surprise, you stay up here with Grass,” Silver barks. “Geneva, we're going to make sure Dust doesn't get bucking mauled to death.”
I give a nod and the two of us drop like a pair of stones. The wide meadow that the homestead is built in rapidly draws closer. I can see our foes as our altitude quickly dwindles. They're vaguely lupine collections of logs, roots, branches, and leaves all bound together with a livid green slithering mesh of magic. The monsters positively radiate hatred and dread.
There are some humans barricaded inside their home taking pot-shots at the timber wolves.
Lightning Dust is already zipping between the wolves, delivering kicks charged with crackling golden sparks. One of the monsters has already been set on fire by her and it's rolling around on the ground trying to put itself out.
I flare my wings to slow myself and descend onto the back of one of the wolves with talons and hooves at the ready. I feel the monster crunch under my weight as I dig my claws into its skull and shoulders and begin wrenching with all my strength. With a sickening pop the wolf's head rips clean off its neck and I cast it away while the rest of its body crumbles limp and lifeless.
Silver doesn't even bother opening his wings to slow down. He just drops out of the sky like a meteor atop one of the wolves and blasts it to smithereens, leaving a crater in the dirt. “Buck you!” he shouts at the shattered remains of the monster. At this the other wolves turn their attention toward him. Silver spreads his wings and settles into an aggressive stance. “Yeah? Who the hay else wants some little pony?”
Dust never even touches the ground, darting away from incoming attacks before swooping back in to deliver a hoof to the jaw. Thankfully the creatures don't seem terribly durable. All it takes is a single solid blow to send them flying apart.
The wolves seem to be having uncanny difficulty causing any real harm to Silver. Every time they get close they encounter a string of bad luck. Everything from tripping over rocks on the ground to colliding with each other comically when Silver leaps away. And that leaves them wide open to counter attacks. One firm buck is all Silver needs.
Another trio of wolves come sprinting out of the treeline and I get the inkling of an idea. I was pretty loud before when I mingled my magic with my voice. What if I do that again and crank it up to eleven this time? I take a deep breath and feel my magic rushing into my lungs to mix and enhance the swirling wind. I can feel it like a storm bottled inside me fighting to escape.
So I let it.
The bone rattling roar explodes from my beak with all the fury of a thunderclap. The sheer force of the sound is ripping up sod and kicking up debris as a rippling pressure wave races away from me and collides with the timber wolves in a display of terrific destructive power. The monsters are hurled off their feet and rent asunder as they go bouncing along the ground like woody rag-dolls.
“Woah,” I mutter, wide-eyed at what I just did. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.
The battle is a rout. We manage to drive off the timber wolves without an injury among us. But then, we're the Wonderbolts right? This just feels so natural. This is what we are meant to do. Maybe this is even our destiny?
Dust zooms up along side me for a hoof/fist bump. “Boom! We totally smoked 'em! Those losers didn't stand a chance! That roar thing was sweet! You flat up fus-ro-dah'd their flanks into the dirt!”
Something tells me that I should get that reference. It's from a video game series, right? Let's see... roaring and- oh! Right! The force yell from the Elder Scrolls series! Hehe. Maybe I should try shouting that if I have to use the roar again? My friends would probably get a kick out of that. Dust is starting to give me a weird look on account of staring blankly trying to figure out what she was talking about so I finally get around to replying.
"And those lightning tricks are getting a lot stronger, too. A few more days of practice and I think we might be able to pass as honest to goodness super heroes. You were amazing out there, Dust," I say.
Lightning Dust puffs out her chest at the praise.
“Look sharp, ladies,” Silver calls out as he trots over. “Our new human friends are coming outside.”
Sure enough the two humans, a man and a woman edging toward the old end of the spectrum, cautiously creep their way through the door. The man is holding a hunting rifle and the woman has a pistol of some kind. No idea what kind, exactly. I'm not much of a gun enthusiast. Thankfully neither of the weapons are pointed at us.
“Well don't just stand there!” the old woman grumps at us. “Help gather up that kindling and burn it. Otherwise those things will put themselves together again later.”
She points at a large blackened patch of dirt nearby speckled with ashes and charred bits of wood. Some of the embers are still glowing.
We exchange a glance with each other and do as we're told. My wings feel kind of itchy around the timber wolf fragments no doubt because of the latent magic still lurking in the wood. As we play clean up I can't help but wonder what the hay these things are and what they're doing here.
Silver is kind enough to voice my thoughts.
“Alright Dust, apparently you know what these things are. So what the buck?”
“Theh imbuh,” Dust spits out a chunk of wood into the pile. “They're timber wolves. Monsters from the Everfree Forest. No idea what they're doing here, though.”
“Maybe Discord thought it would be funny to drop some monsters on Earth along with the ponies?” Surprise calls out as she descends from on high, slowly pushing the Cloudmobile down into the clearing. While it's possible to move that thing with just one pegasus it's pretty slow going.
The two humans are staring at Surprise and our little flying saucer with a look of equal parts confusion and wonder.
Surprise waves a hoof at them. “Hiya! I'm Surprise! And these are my friends Silver Lining, Lightning Dust, Geneva Pressure Front, and Sea Grass!”
On cue Grass pokes her head through the wall of the Cloudmobile and offers a meek, “Hello.”
“Well ain't that somethin' else?” the elderly man mutters as he considers us. “So, what? Are you aliens or somethin'?”
“Or something, yes,” I reply. “We're refugees from another universe trying to find everyone who has been stranded here.”
The old woman begins to laugh, slapping her leg at the apparent absurdity of the situation. Surprise begins laughing along with her even though she has no idea what the joke is. The rest of us offer a few uncertain chuckles. Laughter is contagious after all.
“So what you're saying is you're a bunch of ETs looking to phone home?” the old woman asks, her tone jovial. “Well I'll be. Doesn't that beat everything? Well then, I'm Edna and the weathered old coot there is my husband Don.”
“Howdy,” Don says with a nod.
“How long have you been having trouble with the timber wolves?” Silver asks, then nods at the burn pile. “Judging from the size of that bucking bonfire over there it's been a while.”
“Two days now,” Don mutters darkly. “They already killed all our goats and drug 'em off into the forest. Now they're coming after us. We were starting to fear we'd have to abandon our home before you all showed up.”
"You couldn't just call for help?" I ask.
Edna shakes her head. "We're off the grid here. Don't feel like bother with any of that nonsense."
Silver nods slowly and turns to Dust. “Alright. What the buck are we dealing with here?”
“In season five there was an episode where the mane six had to find this tree that was making timber wolves,” Dust recounts. “Since they were terrorizing a town and stuff. So that's probably what's going on. We find the tree, burn it down, boom! No more timber wolves.”
“So we need to kick the horse-apples out of a tree?” Silver quips. “Sounds like a gosh darn adventure to me.”
I peer up at the sun's position in the sky. It isn't exactly late, but getting caught out in the forest in the dark doesn't really strike me as much fun either. Then there's the issue of finding other ponies. There are still who knows how many out there, alone and afraid. But we can't very well just leave these poor people to have their home over-run by monsters.
Don pulls his head out of the wall of the Cloudmobile after peeking about inside it. “Hooooeee! It smells of horse in there something awful.”
He finds himself on the receiving end of several deadpan pony stares.
The man coughs awkwardly. “Oh, heh. Course it would, wouldn't it?”
“I think we can get to work on solving your timber wolf problem first thing in the morning,” I declare. “Is that alright everypony?”
Edna sniggers at the word 'everypony' and mutters something about how adorable we are. My friends all nod in turn and it's decided. “We attack at dawn!” Surprise declares, hoisting a stick into the air like a sword.
“Well, it wouldn't be proper not to put you nice folks up for the night after you've been so kind to help us out. It's usually a good day or so before the next batch of those timber wolf things show up, so I think we should be able to relax a mite,” Edna says as she ushers us inside.
The rest of the evening goes more or less as one might expect. I explain the nature of our situation in detail and our hosts are suitably surprise to find out that we used to be human. The reassurances that the cutie pox aren't contagious in the least helps to assuage any nervousness. Edna also fixes some sausages for me and I devour them greedily. Oh meat, I missed you so much.
Surprise rambles about the fun adventures we've had thus far, making a point to embellish all the right bits to make it as amusing as possible. Special attention is payed to the tale of the crazy cat lady and a certain white pegasus' improbable sneaking powers.
Dust shows off a new trick that she had figured out. She sends an arc of golden lightning leaping between her front hooves to light the fire place in a flash of sparks and flame. Everyone's quite impressed and her ego grows three sizes that day.
Silver is introduced to a bottle of whiskey and he vanishes for the night. No points for guessing how he spends his time.
And quiet Sea Grass prepares her little rolls for anyone or anypony who wants them. She even makes a variety without oats or alfalfa for the humans to try. The general agreement is that they're probably one of the tastiest things ever. Surprise insists that it's an earth pony thing, which leads to an interesting conversation.
“Sure am glad I'm a pegasus,” Dust says as she hovers in a comfortable recline. Every few minutes she rubs her hooves together and pulls them apart with a crackling zzzzzeerp! of electricity. “Earth pony magic is lame. Growing stuff and making food? Pfft. Give me wings and lightning any day.”
Surprise frowns at her slightly, though doesn't speak.
Sea Grass, however, does.
“I like it,” the reserved earth pony says softly. “It feels nice. I can smell the water in the stream from here. And all the wonderful things growing there. But they're all tangled and messy. They're lost and confused without an earth pony to show them how to grow. It's my job to make the world more... pleasant. That isn't very flashy or exciting, but it's important too.”
I flash a smile at Grass and give her a little encouraging nod. She smiles sheepishly and brushes her sea foam blue mane out of her face with a hoof.
Dust rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Lightning is still cooler.”
“So all this chatter about magic,” Edna pipes up as she rocks in her chair. “That's all real? That's how you do all of those crazy things? Because of magic?”
“We believe so. I think it's a whole bunch of physics that no one ever really knew about,” I reason. “Or if we did it was so long ago that the only things we remember are bits and pieces that have been distorted by time and mythology. It responds to a combination of certain motions and intent, at least with fliers like myself and my pegasus friends,” I peer curiously over at Grass. “I'm not sure how it works with unicorns or earth ponies though.”
Grass gives a small smile. “I just feel it through my hooves and it happens. The green things in the water listen to me.”
“So there are unicorns too?” Don laughs. “Well I'll be. I take it y'all just haven't found any yet?”
“Yeah, they've been no-shows so far,” Dust replies. “They do spells and stuff with their horns. Really versatile, but I don't think they pack as much punch as pegasus magic or even earth pony magic.”
“Y'all said something about someone named 'Discord' when you mentioned the wolves. Who's that?” Edna asks curiously.
“The biggest meany McMeanerson ever,” Surprise replies, giving her hoof a little stomp. “He's the one who booted us all to Earth and stole our memories and ruined Equestria and probably did other awful stuff too like kicking puppies and pulling the do not remove tags off mattresses before they're sold!”
The fiend!
“He's like a more mischievous version of Q from Star Trek,” I offer.
Both Edna and Don nod at that explanation. Ha ha! Someone who watches the classics!
“Sounds like a trouble-maker to me. Well, if he's responsible for getting' our goats killed you give him a kick in the teeth just for me,” Edna huffs.
Dust replies with a wide grin. “Yeah, I think I can do that for you guys.”
Eventually the conversation winds down and everypony and everyhuman head off to sleep. My pony friends and I are sprawled out all over the rug. Edna is kind enough to lend a nice quilt to Sea Grass to keep her warm and insists that she keep it since after all it must be cold sleeping inside some contraption made of clouds parked in the sky. Grass gently thanks her and snuggles up under the quilt.
I can't help but imagine how cat-like I must look curled up in front of the dying fireplace. It might be a little cliched, but it feels amazing so who cares? As my eyes begin drifting shut I whisper to the ceiling.
“This is getting pretty surreal. Not only are we setting out to find lost ponies on some sort of quest, we're going to be fighting monsters too? I never would have imagined that anything like this could possibly happen to me. It's amazing and frightening and a little exciting, too. Keep an eye us on while we're out there looking for that... wolf tree. Dogwood tree? Whatever it is. We can't allow monsters like that to stay alive, let alone begin to spread.”
“I'm still not sure what was happening to Sea Grass and I, but it felt awful. Thanks for keeping us both safe. It just goes to show how important friends are. Having somepony around to snap you out seems like it's the only cure. I would hate to even imagine what that would do to someone if they were left alone with it addling their mind for too long.”
“We're going to need to set up some kind of base of operations, I think. Somewhere that ponies will be safe. We can't just keep carting them around with us. That'll run us out of food in a hurry and if something where to happen to us while we're on a mission... How would Sea Grass get down from eight thousand feet in the sky if we were all killed or captured on a mission? Just... make sure we don't get killed or captured on a mission. That would be great.”
“Thanks for the sunrise this morning. It was really wonderful. And thanks for my friends. They're even better.”
A smile tugs at the corner of my beak as the night closes in around me. My friends. My friends are amazing. Cheerful, smart, strong, brave, compassionate, and true. Today we had met two humans and without a second thought we decided to put ourselves at risk to help put down a menace that is threatening them.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow the hunt is on.