“It’s too big...” Gari grumbled as the crown slid down her face. “And it’s heavy!” She continued, pushing it back up to its place.
“Well... maybe we can pack it with grass or something?” Spirit suggested.
“That would look stupid and get it all dirty.” Magpie said. Gari grumbled and levitated it off her head to put it on a stone jutting from the ground.
“I guess you’ll grow into it.” Springsign said.
“Well big or not, I don’t even think I can BE a princess...” Gari said, staring at the crown.
“I guess you’ll grow into that too.” Nightshade said. They all looked at him.
“Wow that was... kind of deep.” Fly-by-night said. Nightshade just rolled his eyes.
“Perhaps you should think about what to do now? We’re all looking towards you for leadership...” He continued.
“Last night when I was out, everyone said you did such a good job leading us. Why don’t you?” Gari asked. Nightshade smiled.
“I don’t like being the leader all that much unless I have to... And you’ve always been good at telling us what to do.” He replied.
“And besides, you’re the princess now. If I were a princess I’d lead us all to an awesome life!” Trotamundo exclaimed. Gari sighed and thought for a few moments. She looked at her brothers and sisters and assessed what they could effectively do.
“A-Alright... We’re gonna need some wood for fires and food... I think we should all spread out a bit, maybe Maggie can be in the air since she can spot anything from a mile in the sky... Spring you should stay here where everyone can find you, since you’re always the best at identifying plants... The rest of us will look around a bit and if we find any plants we don’t know we’ll take it to you. Ok?” Gari explained quickly, thinking of it as she spoke.
“Sounds good.” Spirit said happily.
“Alright let’s find breakfast!” Trotamundo exclaimed, nearly charging off into the forest around them. Nightshade stopped him, though.
“Maggie, could you go up right now and see if you can see anything about where we are?” He suggested. Both he and Magpie looked at Gari, who nodded. Maggie launched into the air and started turning about.
“Gari, you should come see this!” She called down after a minute.
“How do you expect me to do that?” Gari called back.
“Oh, so those things on your back are extra horns?!” Maggie called back, earning some laughs from the others. Gari facehooved. She extended her wings and looked at them a moment before she started flapping and was soon in the air. It was a shaky hover, but she was next to Magpie and looking around too.
“I really thought you were gonna crash!” Spirit called up, there was something less than friendly in her tone.
“Well we did fly with mom, maybe not with wings but it kind of feels the same...” Gari called back back. Maggie was looking between the two, but just shrugged. She would have pointed, but by the look on her face Gari must have seen it already. The forest wasn’t just a forest. As far as the eye could see there were mountains. Some of them created a very narrow pass close by, probably close enough to walk to in less than a day. Between them and that, though, was nothing but forest.
“Do you remember anywhere in Equestria that has mountains like these?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t think so...” Gari replied. “We better get started, if you see something useful call for one of us.” She continued, looking at the ground. Magpie saluted with a grin and dashed off in one direct and began circling an area, eyes towards the ground.
Gari’s landing was much more like a pony who never had wings trying to land than her take-off. In other words, there was a sizable imprint in the ground. The others all cringed when she hit the ground, but she quickly dusted herself off. Spirit looked like she was trying not to laugh.
“You gotta fan your wings out like this,” Fly-by-night started and put his wings out as if to slow himself in a dive. “and flap to slow yourself down.” He continued, demonstrating how to land properly. Gari glared at him a little bit.
“Well why aren’t you up there with Maggie?” She snapped. He gave her a look and she remembered exactly why. “Oh, right, you don’t fly during the day... gotcha...” She continued.
“So can we go find breakfast now? I’m hungry!” Trotamundo asked.
“Go for it, try not to get lost. If you do then look for Maggie.” Gari said. They all nodded and, in varying speeds, went off into the woods to find anything they could use or eat.
Within minutes there was a scream from one of the fillies. Gari, Nightshade and Nightlight appeared at the source at about the same time. It wasn’t one of the fillies, it was Wind Whisper.
“What’s wrong?!” Gari exclaimed.
“Spider!” Whisper shrieked, taking off into the air and aiming back towards the cave. The three simultaneously facehooved and went back to what they were doing.
It was a good hour before any of them found anything, but after the first tiny patch of berries they were finding things much easier. Springsign did her best to identify everything, she did study a lot of books on flora in the two weeks they were with Luna.
They had found the blueberries, a few strange trees in which the leaves were edible, a small variety of edible and poisonous mushrooms, a few medicinal herbs she forgot the names of, some spices, ginger roots and ginseng roots. There wasn’t all that much of each of them, but altogether they had enough food to last them through the day.
“Hey! I’ve got something else!” Maggie exclaimed, dashing into the mouth of the cave holding a great mound of something in her forelegs. She plopped them all down, it was a massive pile. They looked like a bunch of furry green spheres.
“Chestnuts?” Springsign said, taking one and looking at it closer.
“Mhm, though they’re not very good. I saw some ponies roasting them over a fire, though, during one winter and they said it was really good.” Magpie replied. “There’s whole loads of them everywhere!” She continued.
“Wait you can eat these? Tingle and I started tossing them at each other, they are everywhere!” Trotamundo said, picking one of the things up and swiftly lobbing it at the grey unicorn. It got stuck in his already messy mane. Tingle wasn’t amused.
“Hey, that’s food... You can have Chestnut fights when we’re all full.” Gari said, stopping the two before they had an all out fight with the things. “We have a bunch of stuff here, but not really enough to feed everyone evenly. I remember mommy taught me how to make vegetable stew so I can try that.” She continued.
“Don’t you need a big pot for that?” Spirit asked.
“Oh! I know! We can use leaves and wood to make one!” Nightlight exclaimed. They all looked at her and she thought about what she said. “Oh wait, fire... right...” She said with a laugh.
“Anyways, I found these in the cave. I think we might not have been the first ones here.” Gari said, showing them a small pile of rocks. When they all looked they found it to be a few stacks of small stone bowls, looking a lot like cups, and a much larger one. “Maybe they used these to drink from the springs, whoever they were.” She continued.
“Don’t stews take a while to cook?” Candlelight asked. Gari nodded.
“We can roast some Chestnuts now to keep us off and then I’ll stay here and cook while everyone keeps looking for more stuff.” Gari suggested. They all looked at her for a little bit, thinking.
“I can’t think of anything else.” Spirit said.
“Agreed.” Nightshade said. The others gave general agreement as well and soon they had a decent fire going. They were all cracking the shells open to get at the nuts inside and the unicorns, and alicorn, were holding them over the fire to roast with their magic. Candlelight kept accidentally setting them on fire with his own magic, which in the end actually sped up the process.
When everyone was satisfied they only had a few of the nuts left, but there really were lots of them around. They weren’t exactly a meal, but they were better than nothing. Gari filled the large pot-like stone bowl with some water and put it on a makeshift stand over the fire.
“You should heat up some rocks and stones and put them in the fire, and when they get really hot put them in the pot to bring the water to a boil.” Nightshade suggested to her, coming from the cave with one of the stone cops filled with water held expertly on his head. Gari still had no idea how he did that without magic.
“What’re you doing?” Gari asked, doing as he suggested.
“I read somewhere that Ginseng makes a good tea.” He replied. He picked up one of the few ginseng roots they had and carefully bit a small piece off. He coughed a few times, ginseng had a very strong flavor. He dropped the chunk of root into the cup.
“Would you mind putting one of those tiny rocks in here?” He asked. Gari smiled and levitated a small rock that had heated up rather quickly into the cup. It didn’t start boiling, but it was better than nothing she supposed. He proceeded to take a stone that looked rather like a mortar and started crushing up the root carefully, making sure not to make any of the water splash on his face. After a moment he stirred it around and took the thing out and proceeded to sip.
“Want a sip? It’s not half bad.” He offered. Gari cautiously accepted.
“That is kind of good...” She admitted.
“Come on Nightshade, let’s go get a bunch more chestnuts!” Magpie exclaimed, dashing out of the cave with her muzzle still dripping water a little bit. She didn’t stop to wait for him, though. He laughed and quickly drank a good third of the tea and then passed it to Gari.
“The lady calls, good luck.” He said. Gari giggled at that and Nightshade left. The others followed suit, checking up with her as they left with varying degrees of interest. In about four hours the stew was looking less like boiling water and more like a stew.
Gari had used a few of the spices to give the broth a nice base flavor, then she added the mushrooms, small chunks of ginseng and ginger, a diced up potato Magpie had returned with and strange roots that were rather like carrots.
Among the roots and the potato, the others found some more things to add to their small stash of food. A few more berries, more of the different kinds of roots they had found before, loads of chestnuts and the edible leaves. The leaves were too bitter to add to the stew, Gari thought, since there was already ginger.
“Alright everyone, fill up your cup and enjoy!” Gari exclaimed happily. The others had all gathered around to wait for her to say so and within seconds were doing as she said. When they all had bowls full of the stuff and were happily eating, there was about enough for everyone to have a second helping.
“At least you cook better than you land.” Spirit said. Gari wasn’t sure if she should take the compliment for what it was or not, but decided not to react. She had to admit, it was better than she had hoped with all of the makeshift ingredients.
“I don’t even really like mushrooms and this is amazing!” Trotamundo exclaimed.
“Well good, I worked really hard on this.” Gari said happily, glad her siblings enjoyed her improvised stew.
“So, what now? We’ve got enough food to last a few days at the least.” Magpie asked, breaking the silence that none of them really realized had formed. They all looked to Gari.
“U-Um... Maybe tomorrow we can just explore? If we have enough food for a little while and nothing to carry it with I don’t think we should worry about collecting any more for now, maybe just remembering where to find some of it.” Gari suggested, thinking hard.
“Explore to where?” Spirit asked.
“Um... I guess we can start with this entire area, up until that narrow pass. Maybe we can try to find somewhere to stay that’s better than a cave just outside of it, since I didn’t really see anything from the air.” She replied.
“Sounds good.” Nightshade said. The others were either in full agreement or in uncertain agreement ,but generally they were in agreement.
“So it’s settled, we find out what’s in the area and then what’s past that pass.” Tingle said, finishing his bowl and getting his second.
When night fell they turned in, eager to explore their new world.