He can hear the storm raging below him. Thundercracks. Rain falling to the earth under a twisted sky. Above, on the tops of the clouds, a temporary peace. The sun dipping across the sky, Cloudsdale cast in a deep red glow. A quiet afternoon, for now.

He stands outside the house, stares up at the door. A different sort of storm waits for him inside. A hoof—tentatively raised—moves and the door slides away from him. Inside, the cloud-house is dark. A malevolent stillness, brooding, waiting.

"Library... always at the damn library... studying up to trade in your wings..."

Why can't the boy see the problem? If the books were gone everything would be all right again. If he would fly right, if only he would fly right...

He is so tired. Tired of passing the old stadium in defeat. Tired of his factory job. Tired of the injury. The shame, the humiliation, the pain. A bum wing and a shattered reputation. He knows they laugh at him behind his back. They are too quick to be caught, but he knows. The boy could fly like him, he knows it. Could make the Wonderbolts, and then who would be laughing?

Why can't the child see? Why won't he understand that everything can be all right again? It must be the books, the magic, the damned unicorns working at the library. They are a distraction, a corruption. A gap in focus that is eating away at his dreams. He needs to be rid of them.

"You can take the books away from the boy... but you can never keep them out of his head..."

"You aren't. You skipped flight class every day this month to go to the library. To be with the unicorns. You aren't sorry."

"No... no, I'll make you sorry. If you won't go to flight practice, flight practice can come to you..."

The colt is taken by the hoof. Led outside. Above the storm, a track built of clouds in the backyard. A shove.

A moment passes. He does nothing, a tiny defiance. He stares up at his father.

There is a violence in the words. Tremors shoot down his spine. Gangly wings unfold and he takes off. Down to the end of the track, then back up. Unsteady in the air. Wobbling, like a young bird.

His breath comes faster as he flies to the end and back once more. The wings are outsized, heavy and awkward, beating slowly. He begins to stop, but sees his father's glare.

Once more, down, then to the house. He is panting, sweating. An urge to go further, to move faster. He has to, if he doesn’t, it will be... bad.

He struggles to fly faster. The effort brings stars to his eyes. He is growing lightheaded...

Up and down the track, again and again. He has never flown this far. His entire body feels numb, his tongue heavy and dry. A nausea reels in his stomach and a burning sears his chest. He flaps desperately, barely able to stay in the air. Only slightly moving forward, hardly aloft. The end of the track looks farther with every lap. Each time he makes it, he hopes this stretch will be his last, but the end never comes. No respite, no pause. Only flight, until he can't breathe. Flight, until his muscles seize and cramp. Flight, until his mind slips into a dehydrated haze.

Down and back until he can hardly bear it. He can't keep his head up. His back aches. He can't fly straight. A burst of wind catches him and his body gives out halfway through a lap. Wings fold into his sides, he crashes to the ground. A limpness sets in that he cannot escape; his muscles are unresponsive, his mind addled.

The boy must do as he is told. Spare the rod, spoil the child, that’s what his father always said. Perhaps the boy is already spoiled, already soft, but he could fix that. He could fix that if the boy would fly. He has to get the boy up, get him on his feet. It’s the essence of the thing. There’s no backing down now.The stallion’s face twists into an obscene rage. Everything that has frustrated him for so long is finally coming to a head.

Another kick. Then another. A barrier has fallen. The child tries to wriggle away. It has never been like this before. Pushes, shoves, perhaps a punitive smack to the back of the head, but nothing like this. There is a change. A line crossed. Something snapping that can never be put right again.

Pain everywhere. He loses track of the blows. Pent up frustration is billowing out over him. He struggles to stay conscious.

One last kick, and then the father walks away, the child left ragged on the track. The father opens a door. Turns to hear a voice. The boy is on his hooves. Somehow.

He glances down, at the cloud-ground, sighs, summons all of his energy and rears. He comes down hard, hooves shattering the magically packed clouds, dissipating them. A hole is formed in the ground. He closes his eyes and falls into the storm.

The father stares at the spot where his son once stood. He should go now, before the boy gets too far, but...

It doesn’t matter. He will get him tomorrow. Another glass of bourbon is waiting for him inside.

Roads tries to stay aloft in the storm, fighting the air, wavering on exhausted wings. Wind buffets him to and fro. Rain in his eyes and flashes of lighting above him. He is soaked, shivering in the air. A gust catches him, bowls him over, flips him onto his back. He tries to right himself. It doesn’t work.

Another gust catches his wing crossways. A splitting pain. He is falling, hurtling toward trees below. Striking branches on his way down. The ground rises to meet him...

Volume 1

“The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.”
-Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz

Roads jerked violently awake. Wiping cold sweat off his brow with a quivering hoof, he tried to force his heart to stop racing. For a moment, he forgot where he was. His mouth was dry and his body ached from yesterday's work. Craning his sore neck, he looked up into the sky to see that dawn had only just broken, the grey sky above them streaked with red and gold. The sight of the sun rising over the horizon calmed him, and he regained enough presence of mind to go get a drink from the lake.

After walking to the bank, he took a few slow sips of the water, then waded slowly into the cool, clear pond. He felt himself relax in the pond, as he dipped his head underwater, clearing dried sweat from his skin and old fears from his mind.

Body cleansed and thirst quenched, he dragged himself back onto the shore, inspecting the camp. It seemed that Summer and Chief were still asleep. Perhaps he could get a nap in before they woke up...

Perhaps not, he thought, seeing Summer's tent flap whip aside to reveal the yawning, bedheaded unicorn.

Summer sat down and re-lit the campfire with a gout of magical flame and, drawing an iron skillet from a pile of supplies next to the fire, began cooking breakfast.

"So, what's on the agenda for today?" Roads asked, lying back against a log as he massaged his aching limbs.

"For me, not much. I'm gonna end up staying in camp today to work on a rough draft of the map for this part of the island using the sketches and coordinates I took yesterday."

"Well, usually, I would. But I get a fat bonus if I come back to Canterlot with a finished map of ‘significant merit,’ as the Aggregate puts it. And since I can finish this half of the island in two days, I should be able to get the other side done about as quick. Which means that I've got plenty of time to get the whole thing done, and I kind of need the money," she explained.

"Really?" Roads asked, elated. An entire day to study the island at his own pace? It was exactly what he needed, what he had been hoping for when they had first landed.

"Yeah. Just take Chief with you—wouldn't want you to get yourself eaten out there. Well, Chief probably wouldn't mind, but I have to do a lot of paperwork whenever we lose a spec."

"I can think of a lot of things that this trip would be like without you, and 'dysfunctional' isn't one of them," she replied. “Now, ‘pleasant’, I could see...”

"Hmph. Oh, speaking of dysfunction..." Roads glanced over to Chief's tent, from which the earth pony had just emerged.

"Mornin' Chief," Summer said. He gave a stony grunt as a reply and sat down heavily on a log.

"I've gotta stay here and draw up the map, so you're with Roads today," she told him.

At that, he looked up and gave Roads an icy glare. The pegasus's eyes flickered to the ground under the force of the gaze. He was going to have to spend the entire day like this? The thought sent shivers down his spine. But then, as he looked over into the ominous shadows of the forest, a tension curled in his stomach. He glanced from one to the other, pony to jungle, and decided he would prefer Chief's company to a trek alone in the wilderness.

"Also, apparently you're not supposed hurt him either. I'd really rather not have to go in front of the Aggregate Board of Trustees again for a safety sanction."

"I'll be discreet. What they don't know won't hurt 'em," he replied. A horrified expression passed over Roads' face.

Glancing up at Chief, he wasn't so sure. He and the earth pony hadn’t exactly started off on the right hoof, and Roads got the feeling that his antics yesterday had not helped.

Seeing the pegasus shy away like that, Chief made a noise that might have been a chuckle. Might have been. It also might have been a bloodthirsty growl. With Chief, Roads was never quite positive.

"'I'm not prepared?’ That’d make a good motto for you. Kind of sums you up, in a way," Summer chimed in.

Roads turned and grabbed his bags. He dug through them to find a flask of Attunement potion that had survived the storm, as well as his intact—if rather weatherbeaten—arcanometer. He gulped down the former and shoved the latter back into his bags, then hefted them over his still sore back. Trudging over to the edge of camp, Roads felt the draught take effect as it never had before.

A sick, wrenching sensation made its way down his spine and wings. He twisted, falling to the ground as a burning nausea gathered in his stomach and an distressing restlessness filled his legs. As his eyes were forced closed by the feeling, he developed the sudden need to stretch and bend and flex his aching muscles as a writhing feeling overtook him.

He writhed on his side, eyes clenched tightly, fore and rear legs crossed and twitching, and waited for it to pass.

It took a few moments, but the sensation began to steadily fade into a dull tingling. As he came to his senses, he noticed Summer and Chief standing over him, a look of slight worry on the face of the former, and an impassive expression on that of the latter.

“How much do you know about ley theory, again? ‘The basics?’” he asked, squeezing his eyes shut as another burst of pain rippled through his body.

“Sure. Down the back, with offshoots running along the legs and neck, with endings at the hooves and forehead—or, for unicorns, the horn.”

“Right... right,” he groaned as he slowly got to his hooves. “Well,” he said, stretching his wings. “Each pony’s ley lines has its own special structure, unique as a hoofprint. This structure is known as a ley line’s ‘polarity.’”

“Wait, I thought everypony’s lines followed the same paths, though. Didn’t you just say—”

“Oh, sure, they all have the same anatomical position, but that’s not the same thing as polarity. Look, think of a ley line like... a bunch of tiny beads floating along a river. It’s the organization of the beads in the current that gives the line its polarity, and what characterizes the magic output by the line.”

“What about unicorns, though? Don’t we characterize the magic by our intentions when we cast?” Summer asked.

“Well—yes. Sort of. Remind me to explain that when we have a lot more time. It’s kind of complicated. Just... remember the river analogy.”

“Right. So, the organization of the beads is structure, and the current of the river—which determines how many beads, uh, ‘flow’ through the river at any given time—is the line’s amplitude. It’s what determines the strength of the magic,” Roads explained.

“Uh, what does any of this have to do with you throwing yourself on the ground, exactly?”

“I’m getting there, give me a moment. So, these beads, right? Now imagine these beads are... uh, spinning.”

“Yeah, like... revolving. Sort of. Well, they aren’t really spinning, not in a classical sense, it’s more of an issue of angular momentum—” he caught Summer’s blank stare and hastily backtracked. “Actually, you know what? Don’t worry about that part right now. Aeton spin isn’t exactly something you’re ever going to need to understand. Forget the spinning, just... imagine these beads have little arrows pointed on them.”

“Yeah, arrows. Pointed in various directions, so that all the beads together make patterns.”

“Almost there. Bear with me. Okay, so the pattern the arrows make is called the ‘alignment’. Now, we don’t really understand how alignment works, but so far as we can tell, it somehow affects both the strength and the expression of magic. Now, a few of the properties of this are known, but they’re pretty arcane—”

“Okay, fine. So, one thing we do know about alignment is that if two ley lines have similar alignment to each other, they do this thing called ‘attunement,’ which generates ‘resonance.’ Now, resonance is... really tricky to explain. It has a lot to do with spin states and aeton flux harmonics—”

Roads sighed. “Alright, alright. So, resonance does a lot of weird, tricky things that you don’t really need to know about, it has a lot to do with seasonal strength cycles in the Everfree, and—and this is the part I’ve been leading up to—it can be sensed by anypony with ley lines.”

“Wow, suddenly all of this explanation has been worthwhile,” Summer said sarcastically.

“I’m not finished yet! Ponies can actually physically feel resonance, which means that if they can become attuned to a nearby ley line, they can sense it—its location, its strength, everything,” he paused, letting that sink in.

“So,” he continued, “Attunement Potions are made to ‘wipe’ away the alignment of a person’s aetons—er, the river’s ‘beads.’ They keep the beads from aligning based on their natural patterns for a day or two. And, when the beads lose their alignments, they won’t just stay as they were—they automatically begin to attune themselves based off of resonance patterns given off by nearby ley lines. The closer you are—or the stronger the lines are—the more complete and accurate the replication in attunement, and the stronger the resonance.”

“My aetons—the infinitesimally small particles that make up magic, basically the ‘beads’ in the river analogy—became dis-aligned, and then violently attuned themselves to the various lines of the island. Which hurt. A lot.”

“No, not usually. The lines around here are ridiculously powerful, though. I’d guess that’s why it made attunement so unpleasant. It’s passed now, though. I should be fine.”

Though his voice seemed calm enough, his body betrayed him; even standing still, his legs and wings still twitched violently. He knew the other two could easily see that his face had grown pale.

While he had expected the island to be the home to powerful magic, his previous potion had faded long before they landed, and he had no idea that the lines here would be this strong. He could practically feel them, in perfect detail, as they moved, crisscrossing the island, flowing powerfully through the land. Standing perfectly still, he took a brief moment to try to sense which would be the most valuable to study first.

"Okay, okay. This way," he said, pointing to the mountain in the center of the island.

If what his lines were telling him was correct, a particularly powerful current was running through it, and he would have been surprised not to find a nexus glowing at its peak. With a few shaky steps, Roads set off into the jungle, Chief trailing behind him, headed for the conical mountain.

Roads stared up at the rocky peak as they walked. How far could it be? He couldn’t see the base from here, but the top loomed large over them, so it couldn’t be that far away.

An hour later, he realized just how wrong he was. As the two trekked silently through the jungle, the peak seemed to always tower above them, yet still be just out of reach. Steadily, though, they drew closer to it, crossing through streams and valleys, hills and ridges, groves and clearings until finally they came to its base.

The incline at the bottom of the slope seemed shallow; the rise was mild enough that trees were able to grow on most of the mountain. The pair made its way halfway up the hill, but was forced to stop on one outcrop as the ground suddenly grew steeper. Firm ground gave way to rocky cliff faces made of blackened volcanic rock, where older, shallower inclines had been shorn away by the wind.

Finally, they reached a point where Chief no longer felt safe climbing unassisted. A rock wall, steep and unforgiving, extending forty feet up before them. Unfurling his wings, Roads leapt into the air and hovered by Chief as the pony pulled a climbing harness out of his bag and tied it around himself, then slid on a pair of spiked climbing hoofguards. He worked a rope through the harness, left the rest at the base of the rock, found himself a hoofhold, and began to climb the steep face. Every few feet, he stopped to hammer a piton into the rock, attach a carabiner, and work his rope through it.

It was slow going; Roads flapped lazily alongside Chief as he struggled to make his way up the slope. He was a skilled climber, but the size of his hooves—and his incredible weight—meant it was harder for him to use the fine hoofholds that somepony like Roads or Summer would have been able to manage.

"You sure? I mean, if I help you out, I'm sure we'd get moving a bit faster. Y'know, so that we'd get to the top before—oh, I dunno—tomorrow..."

Hardly had the words left his lips when the tiny outcrop that was serving as his right hoofhold broke away from the cliff face. Slipping backwards, away from the cliff, he tried desperately to catch himself. Before Roads could even react, Chief fell, rope trailing behind him. A series out loud snaps burst into the air as pitons ripped free and carabiners snapped under the weight of the falling pony. There was a loud smack as Chief landed ten feet down on a slightly inclined rock face.

Just as Roads was about to breath a sigh of relief, he began to slide backwards down the rock, flailing his forelegs frantically in search for anything to hold on to. He could find none. The rock was smooth and unforgiving, and, a meter from Chief’s lower hooves, it ended in a drop off.

Finally getting his wits about him, Roads dove for the helpless earth pony. He was a split second too late.

All of it had happened in an instant, and for a second, Roads was too stunned to do anything as his partner disappeared from the cliff face. Cursing his own inaction, he dove past the dropoff to catch Chief, who was now falling in short bursts as his protections gave way one after another.

Catching the larger pony in his forelegs, Roads found himself being pulled down along with Chief. Unable to lift the gargantuan of his own accord, Roads settled for shoving him sideways with a flap of his wings, setting them both in the path of a stony outcropping.

After a brief drop, they smacked down onto the outcrop. Roads was happy to find his fall broken by Chief. He groaned as he sat up, then again as he was tossed aside by the other pony. Getting to his feet, he looked himself over.

Nothing seems too damaged, he thought as he brushed the dirt from his clothing. It seemed the natural pegasus resistance to blunt injury had come through for him again. Not that he could say the same for Chief, who appeared to have been rather bruised from the fall.

"Hm. You'd think you would be a bit nicer to me," Roads said, one eyebrow cocked, "seeing as I just saved your life."

"What? You didn't—I didn't need you to—you didn't save my life!" he said. For the first time in his life, it seemed, Chief was actually flustered. Roads tried to lock the moment in his memory.

"Of course I did. You would've gone tumbling down the whole mountain if it weren't for me."

"Is that what you called that? 'Under control?’ Because where I'm from, we call that 'falling.’" For once, Roads had a leg up on Chief, and he was determined to enjoy it.

"Oh, of course you were. That's your idea of fun, isn't it? Jumping off cliffs?"

"—you just thought to yourself, ‘hey, I oughta go leap right off the side of this mountain—’"

"—and you would have been totally done for, too, if it hadn't've been for me—"

"—and you would think, wouldn't you, that the very least you could do for the pony who just saved your life is give a simple 'thank you,'" Roads finished.

Chief glared at him. "You don't have to be an ass about it! You did something useful, for once on this entire trip—so what? And, of course, you have to go around acting like a fool over it. It's not as big of a deal as you think. Get over yourself!" Chief snapped.

At that, the smile faded from Roads' face. His head fell, and his eyes flickered away from the earth pony’s scowling face. That was as much as Chief had spoken all at once on the entire expedition. And all it had taken was getting the bigger pony to hate him. Way to go, Roads. He turned and cleared his throat. There was a lengthy silence.

Chief pulled a few coils from his bag and, after readjusting his harness, tossed them to Roads. The pegasus tied the lengths over his shoulders and around his chest, then handed the other end to Chief, who looped it through his harness. Taking off, Roads began to help pull Chief up the slope as he slowly climbed towards the peak. Once or twice, Chief lost his grip, and each time Roads was jerked backwards, only to right himself and help stabilize the earth pony. Then they would silently continue their progress up the mountain

It took the pair nearly an hour, but with some effort they both made it to the summit. They paused for a moment, exhausted and out of breath, resting as they gazed off of the precipice at the jungle below them. Massive expanses of trees stretched in all directions, multicolored and swaying in an ever-present ocean breeze. From their vantage point, they could make out lakes and streams glittering in the sun. Flocks of birds tittered below them, flying out over the ocean, over waves flecked gold with the light of the afternoon sun. On the horizon, the water curved away from them, meeting a wide, unclouded sky.

Roads stared out at the sea and sky for a while, taking in the view, until finally his reverie was broken by a familiar twinge in his lines. Turning away from the sight, he gazed down at the mountain, focusing. He thought the nexus should have been at the peak; it was the perfect place for one to develop. However, he got the strangest feeling that the focal point was beneath him somehow, though not far. Turning, he peered over a ridge to glimpse the rim of the mountain's summit crater in the distance.

"Over here," he called to Chief, as he made his way across the craggy ridge to stand at the precipice of the crater.

Looking out over the crevasse, it seemed that a large tract of land, one hundred and fifty meters deep and seventy five across had been scooped out of the mountain, leaving a bowl shaped indentation. The edges of the crater were steep and dark, and halfway down met the surface of a deep crater lake that had formed in its center.

Leaping from the rim of the depression, Roads swooped down closer to the lake, landing on a ridge that had formed a ways away from its surface. From here, he noticed that the lake appeared to ripple and steam, heated by an unseen force. The churning feeling that slid across his back told him that a nexus was near.

A loud rumble announced Chief’s arrival as he slid down the stony rim of the crater to meet the pegasus, joining him in inspecting the lake.

Roads shook his head. "Nope. It’s been dormant for a while. The mountain’s covered in vegetation, which means that plants have lived on the mountain long enough to break the volcanic rock down into soil. That means the volcano hasn't been active in a long, long time. No, this water's being heated by a nexus, and a strong one at that."

He scurried down to the water's surface and dipped a hoof in the water, then quickly drew it out. Finding a thermometer in his bag, he dipped it into the lake. Forty three degrees celsius. Nine degrees higher than the ambient temperature on the mountain.

"Let's see... fifty wide, twenty deep, assuming that the lake is vaguely cone shaped that comes out to be... roughly thirteen thousand cubic meters of water—or thirteen thousand metric tons... hmmm... heated at around nine degrees per ton above ambience—assuming water temperature to be a constant—that's subject to change, mind you—nearer to the nexus—given that it takes about four kilojoules to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water one Celsius degree—hang on a minute, I can't do this in my head. Chief, you got any paper?"

But the other pony had stopped listening to him; he merely gazed out at the water as Roads babbled calculations aloud to himself.

"—never mind, I found some.” He pulled a tattered field journal from his saddlebags. “Let's see, four-point-one-eight kilojoules for a kilogram, so four point two megajoules for a ton... times thirteen thousand means—wait a moment, I need to be working in watts! Let's see, so if this much water is being heated at a steady rate every minute, then the conversion factor should be..."

Chief gave a low sigh as the titterings and ramblings of the bookish pegasus filled the air around him. Summer should be glad she isn't here, he mused.

_________________________________________________________

Back at the camp, Summer let loose a torrent of curses for the third time that day. Come on, Summer Dew, this map shouldn't be that difficult! she thought to herself as she struggled to rescale a sketch she had made yesterday. She had been working on this map for hours, and found herself constantly stymied. Something about the dimensions of the island was off, yet she couldn't quite put a hoof on it. It was beginning to throw off her attempts to create a rough draft of the overall map.

She sighed, frustrated, and returned to scribbling on the tattered parchment that rested on the field bench in front of her. There was a small crack as the quill she had been working with snapped in half as she pressed it to the paper. With a groan, she tossed the shattered utensil aside and slumped forward, resting her forehead on the desk. Feeling utterly defeated, she sat there for a moment, trying to gather up what remaining patience she had left to get back to work.

With a groan, she rolled her head to the side, not yet raising it, and a wrinkle in the parchment caught against her horn. With a disheartening crinkle, the map slid off the desk and onto the ground. Frustrated further, Summer promptly ripped it from the dirt and rolled it back up. Slapping the paper back onto the bench, she whirled away from the infuriating work to face the camp.

She sat still for a moment, trying to regain her patience. Her ears twitched as they caught the twitter of birdsong from the trees above her. Summer glanced up at the lofty boughs and saw that they were teeming with technicolor birds. Red, blue, green, and all of them tweeting happily away under a golden sun. The sights and sounds of the forest brought a slim smile to her face. Work might be frustrating, but it was good to be out in the field again. No map could possibly be worse than being cooped up in a cramped apartment in Canterlot. Out here, the air was so much fresher, everything was so much more lively.

And the city? Summer was glad to be out of the city. Glad, because for her, there wasn’t any life there. None at all.

Not in the run-down old bars, with the fading wallpapers where she could watch the blank faced patrons order stiff drinks to chase the time away. Where she could watch them stare around the room with dead eyes that took in nothing so they wouldn’t be startled while they waited to die.

Not on the street corners, where she could watch indistinguishable ponies walk, autonomic, on the cold grey pavement on their way to indistinguishable jobs in indistinguishable buildings. Where she could watch them look around and see only themselves, because she wasn’t there every day and that was the only thing that mattered.

And not in the sad, quiet apartments, where she knew everypony was the same as their neighbor because nopony ever changed, and nopony ever wanted to know anypony else. That would be different, and different is foreign, and foreign is scary.

And after a while, not even in the silent honest mirrors that couldn’t help but show the truth when she looked in them, where she saw there wasn’t any life in her, either.

But not out here. Out here, where there was grass and rocks and trees and pain, and ponies lived and ponies died, and that meant something. She wanted to show the island to them, to all those sad, dead-living ponies. To say, “here, look, this is life, and if it isn’t, it’s at least Something, and that’s better than what you’ve got.”

Because life was fleeting for everypony, but out here... only out here could she really tell.

But she would only end up stuck there again if she didn’t bring back an accurate map to the Expeditionary Aggregate. That would be just her luck. To get stuck, again... She’d barely been able to stand it last time.

No, she had to get this right. If she screwed it up, not only would she lose her bonus, but she would have to wait even longer to get sent into the field again. And she couldn’t bear that. She knew she couldn’t.

So, she trudged over to the cargo crates and dug around in one of them until she found a new quill. Satisfied, she turned to—wait, why were all the crates open? She most certainly hadn't opened any of them. Summer spun back around to face the stack of cargo boxes. Each and every one of them appeared to have had its top ripped off, and some seemed to have been moved a few feet away from the main stack.

Well, that was odd. But probably nothing to worry about. Chief or Roads had probably moved them around. They must have needed something for their trip. It was really none of her concern.

“If something seems wrong, it probably is. Never get caught unawares.” Her sister’s words echoed in her ears. Honey was always saying things like that, growing up. She had a long list of life lessons she was always reciting to Summer. And they stuck. It had been a long him since Summer had last seen her older sister, but she still remembered all of her little sayings. Mostly because they were often true.

And because they had helped her survive. She had survived on those words on countless expeditions, in countless environments. Little ideas, like “don’t get attached to anypony. It complicates things.” or “don’t let anypony inside your head unless you’re sure you want them there.” The sayings had kept her aloof—and kept her alive.

It was that attitude that kept her safe out here, just like it was Honey’s attitude that had kept her safe as a child. Growing up the sheriff’s daughter in those hot, lawless towns out past Appleoosa, Honey had learned how to survive. And she had taught Summer.

One of the things she had taught Summer was to never let the little things go. Little things, like open crates... She tried to think again if Chief or Roads had been fooling around with the cargo that morning. She couldn’t remember, though she didn’t see any reason for either of them to have opened all of them—and she knew Chief had a habit of re-sealing crates after he checked them. He wasn’t careless enough to leave useful supplies exposed to the elements.

Roads, on the other hoof, was probably thoughtless enough to do such a thing—but why would he have opened all of them? She didn't even remember seeing him use any of them this morning before he left. Perhaps some animal had gone rooting around in them while she was distracted with the map? That made sense. Her desk was all the way across the camp, and she had been focused intently on her work all day. Maybe it was nothing to worry about...

Looking around, she gathered all of the tops of the crates, then resealed each box carefully. It seemed, though, that she ended up with two extra lids. Had she missed one? She gave the cargo a cursory glance. It seemed she hadn't. Yet Summer knew that they hadn't packed any extra lids—what good would that do? Were some of the boxes missing?

After trudging over to Chief's tent, she stuck her head through the flaps and found the inventory list for the trip in a small case next to his sleeping bag. Under it rested his travel log, a sheaf of reports on security and exploration in tropical environments, and a small photo in a tiny, waterproof bag.

In the picture was a tall granite water fountain statue that vaguely resembled a horse reared onto its back legs, neck outstretched, head angled towards the sky. Standing in front of it was a small filly, mouth open, eyes gleaming with excitement, straddling the shoulders of her father, an earth pony wearing a broad, mirthful grin. Both of them were laughing at the camera. On vacation, perhaps, touring a garden. Caught in a moment by a skillful photographer.

Clearing her throat, Summer slid the picture carefully back into the pack; she got the feeling Chief wouldn't want her seeing that. Even though she had an intimate knowledge of his personal life due to the rapport they had built up over the years, this was an image he would want to stay private. Chief could get touchy about that sort of thing.

It was a shame that people so often assumed Chief's stolid nature ran all the way to the core. It was a misconception with often ended with tragic results. The case of Green Hooves, the group's previous specialist, a botanist and naturalist, sprung immediately to Summer's mind. Perhaps if he hadn't been so flippant about Chief's family, he'd've gotten him out from under that rock pile a bit quicker. Maybe then he wouldn't have lost the leg... she mused.

She hoped Roads wouldn’t make the same mistakes as his predecessor. He seemed vaguely useful enough that it would be an annoyance to lose him at this point. Ignorance of hallucinogenic island plants aside, he was knowledgeable enough to be relatively productive—for a spec, at least—if they needed him for follow-up trips to the Triangle. Then again, he wasn't exactly pleasant to be around...

Maybe if he would just get his head on straight... Summer mused as she returned to the piles of boxes at the edge of camp. Levitating the inventory list in front of her, she scanned the crates. Chief had drawn check marks next to each item that survived the storm, and next to each check Summer scrawled a second character for the items that still remained in camp. She went over every container twice and found that two boxes were missing. The first had contained the field equipment for plant samples, the items that Roads had used yesterday.

For a moment, Summer wondered if he had just moved it somewhere else while using it, but then she remembered him storing all of his samples in the container and leaving it there last night. She frowned at that; he wouldn't be happy to see all of his work lost—though she supposed it wasn't exactly his primary job anyway.

The absence of the second crate was a bit more distressing; it was the small box that had held copies of all of Summer's maps. Fortunately, it hadn't been full when it disappeared; many of the maps of the immediate area were currently resting on her field bench, where she had tried to use them as references when drawing the island.

Even so, it seemed she had lost nearly half of her field maps, and while she could easily replace most of them upon their return to Canterlot, there was something disconcerting about being without them. While she had enough left to guide them back on their trip back to the Equestrian mainland, there had been a security in knowing exactly where she was in relation to everything else in the known world. She had just lost that.

Or was 'lost' even the right word? Her mild discomfort at having lost her geographical frame of reference rose into a dull fear as she wondered if perhaps 'stolen' was more apt. There were no drag marks in the dirt where the crates had disappeared, as there were in cases where animals pillaged boxes of food from campsites. No, what was lost would have had to have been lifted and carried away. The discarded lids bothered her, too; whatever had taken the boxes had opened them first and checked the contents—and perhaps checked that of the other boxes as well. She wondered if anything had been removed from the other crates.

Working quickly as apprehension began to build in her stomach, she rifled through the contents of the containers, checking them against the inventory sheet. Upon finishing her work, Summer found that items had indeed been removed. She knew most of what was missing had most likely been taken by Chief and Roads in the morning. However, a number of things she knew the pair would not have carried off were gone, among them a hatchet, a pickaxe, a sledgehammer and tent posts for setting up tents, shaving razors, and a good deal of her mechanical equipment for the Zephyr, including two lengthy wrenches, a welding torch, and a hammer.

Something was definitely amiss here, and as Summer read over what was missing the hair at the back of her neck began to prickle. She looked up, glancing around at the jungle. Her surroundings seemed different, and for a moment, she could not quite place the feeling.

As the realisation hit her a chill crept down her back. The birds. They had stopped squawking.

For as long as they had been on the island, the noise of the island birds had been so incessant that she had completely tuned it out, until now. The forest around the campsite seemed to have been plunged into an unnerving silence. Edging backwards until she stood against the rocky outcropping that served as the border to one side of the camp, she eyed the jungle. Summer's heartbeat quickened as the disconcerting sensation of being watched passed over her, chillingly reminiscent of the pretense to the chimera attack—though somehow even more disquieting. At least then, she had known what was going on.

To her left, a twig snapped among the bushes to her left, and she whipped around to face it. She stared keenly into the jungle, trying to keep calm. A moment passed and the forest remained still. A twinge of anger passed through her. It seemed she was being toyed with.

For some time, she stood, stock still, peering into the swaying fronds of the jungle. As the seconds slowly passed, her initial chill slowly faded into a burning frustration. She did not like not knowing what was going on. Clashing with whomever—or whatever—lurked in the jungle did not bother her, but there were machinations at work behind her back, and that was incensing.

A bird in a tree above her gave a loud squawk, then dashed away. The spell was broken. The other birds slowly began to chirp and twitter once again, and Summer’s anger began to subside. Moving to the edges of the camp, her horn lit as she began to cast a tripwire spell around the perimeter. It was fairly difficult magic—for her at least—but she had been forced to master it at vocational school. Setting enchanted boundaries for a campsite was supposed to be standard expedition procedure.

Normally, she didn't bother—it was a tedious spell to cast and required a re-enchantment every few hours. Not to mention the fact that it was absurdly easy to trip, which had in the past resulted in hapless coworkers sending the bolts of alarm running through her forehead as they forgot to watch their step entering or leaving the camp. And, of course, she normally felt confident in her own capability for self defense.

For once, though, it seemed that following operating procedure as she had been taught all those years ago would have saved her a bit of trouble. She paced about the outside of the camp, horn glowing as she focused her energies into channeling the spell. Summer chided herself for not casting the it earlier; she would have been able to catch whatever it was that was stealing from the cargo crates. It was a rookie mistake, one she could have easily avoided. Still, there was no use kicking herself for it now. That wouldn’t help anything.

After securing the camp, she returned to her bench and sat down, too on edge to continue working on the map. Instead she merely sat, trying to puzzle out what was happening. Her discontent filled her with a bristling energy that she didn’t know what to do with. She tried to think of something productive to do, some way to resolve the situation, but ultimately came up with nothing. Frustrated, she hoped Chief would come back to camp soon. He would know what to do.

_________________________________________________________

Chief had no idea what to do with Roads. Try as he might, he simply couldn't stop the irksome pegasus from babbling incessantly. It was those cursed "ley lines" that had him all riled up. The pony had spent hours flying around and diving into the pond at the top of the mountain, dipping instruments in the water and forcing gadgets into the glowing ball of energy he called a "nexus."

Of course, all the while, as Chief had sat and meditated, silent and waiting—just as he had learned to do in the Guard—Roads had chattered on and on about magical effects on "transitional particle motion" and "aeton excitation" on a "vast scale." Alternately lamenting the loss of one of his many gadgets—a dense network of copper wires that had half-melted when submerged into the nexus—and extolling the wonders of what he had found, he was beginning to drive Chief insane.

He swore to himself that if Roads used the words "magical fabric of reality" one more time, he would snap his neck. Chief supposed that wouldn’t be difficult, given that it had all the thickness and fortitude of a toothpick. Though Summer would be fairly disappointed in him. He wasn’t sure exactly what she had seen in the infuriating whelp, but then he supposed that she had a natural fondness for other ponies. What a despicable trait.

It was a bit frustrating to him how easily she trusted and accepted others. It was a quality he saw all too often in his peers, one that he had seen often in his travels. Particularly in such towns like Ponyville and Appleoosa—detestable places. Such an open-armed approach to dealing with new ponies was exactly the kind of thing that was typical of soft folks.

No, no, he much preferred keeping strangers at hooves’ length, which was why he so vastly preferred living in Canterlot between assignments. The ponies there seemed a bit colder, more distant. Less likely to talk to somepony they did not know, because they knew not to trust everypony, or in some cases, anypony. He supposed that must have been the reason Summer always went back to Appaloosa when she wasn’t working. She had never met a stranger she couldn't strike up a conversation with, and tended to surround herself with similar ponies. Well, except for him, of course. Roads, on the other hoof...

He glanced over at the exuberant pegasus as he made his way through the jungle, leading them, no doubt, to another "nexus" he could fawn over. Roads, on the other hoof, could have a conversation with a brick wall. And what an unfortunate brick wall that would be.

Chief sighed. After a few hours of work, he had abruptly pronounced himself done studying on the mountain, and had begun traipsing back off into the wilderness. Chief, supposing it would be best if the pegasus didn't get himself killed, had followed suit, trailing Roads as he filled the air around him with empty words about "expansive magical fields" and the like. Having long since given up trying to silence him, Chief resigned to simply accompanying him quietly as he led them through the jungle.

Every so often, Roads would stop dead, mouth thankfully shut for a few blissful moments, closing his eyes and stretching his neck, apparently ‘sensing the magic in the air’. It seemed whatever potion he had taken earlier was starting to wear off, slowing his ability to seek out the lines. As such, their progress was slow and unsteady, and they were often forced to double back to circumvent land barriers—cliffs, lakes, severely overgrown areas, and such.

It seemed to Chief that they were nearing one of the beaches. He was beginning to catch whiffs of salt in the air, and the sounds of gulls rang faintly in his ears. They were heading north; it appeared they had crossed over to the other half of the island..

The differences between this side and the other side perplexed him. Here, the vegetation grew even taller, blocking the sun almost completely, casting the entire area into a deep shadow. The topography had changed, too—the land in this area was far more harsh than its counterpart; it was replete with deep gorges and steep cliffs, foreboding hills with sharply inclined faces and an uncanny number of ominous looking caves cut into rocky terrain. The ground had evened out as they approached the shoreline, but even so, it was far more difficult to traverse than that of the half of the island they knew.

"I wonder if it has something to do with the mountain," he mused, "it might block wind from moving across one side of the island, and skew the weather, contributing to a difference in erosion. Or maybe this side of the island is subject to some sort of ocean current. Or perhaps it could've been caused by the magical influences of ley lines in its formative years—which is definitely possible, given the strength of the magic around here, I mean did you notice how that nexus gave off those pulses from its constant flux states..."

Chief stopped listening, his interest waning as the one-sided conversation turned once more to magic. The infuriating pegasus could discuss it all day. Chief took a deep breath, hoping he could gather his patience. His hopes were dashed. Not that he had ever put much stock in things like ‘hope’; he found that often such delusions were—wait, what was that?

He and Roads had stumbled into an old clearing, a mostly flat grove a few dozen meters wide, free of trees, where the bushes rose only slightly over the ground. In its center were a few frayed stretches of waterproofed canvas, wrapped around lengths of iron poles. Scattered around them were a number of small, cracked glasses, dented tin containers, and torn bits of plastic.

"Huh. That's strange," Roads remarked, walking up to the debris. "What is all this?"

He inspected the area. As he looked around, an ominous tightness gathered in his stomach, his head swiveling as a razor-sharp alertness overtook him, a focus taut as piano wire. Something in the dirt glinted, catching the sun, and he moved cautiously to investigate. From the ground he lifted a short metal chain. As he raised it to his face he saw that hanging off the end was a thin metal strip. It was a tiny plate, half covered in semi-flattened indentations.

"Really?" Roads rushed over him to see it. "'Strongsteed, M. Petty Officer. 2 18 15 14 25 ENC. AB+.' What does it mean? Who was he? Did he die here? How did something like this even get here in the first place, this island has never before been discovered by an Equestrian. Is he even Equestrian? I mean, sure the name sounds like—"

"Yes, he was Equestrian. In the Navy. That's what ENC means—Equestrian Naval Corps."

"Dunno," Chief shrugged. "More important is when he got here. Look at this. The metal. That coloring? It's monel—the Navy stopped making tags out of the stuff six years ago."

"Doubt it. He wouldn't be running around without dog tags. And if he was, we probably would've seen him by now."

"What do you mean? That there should be more ponies out here? That he wasn't alone?"

Chief shook his head. "Members of the Equestrian military wear two tags. One on a small chain, one on a large chain. So that if something happens one pair gets taken by your comrades and the other stays with the body. But there's only one here."

"Maybe somepony found this 'Strongsteed' somewhere else, and took the tag with him."

Chief nodded. It made sense. "Maybe. But in that case, what's on this island that can kill a Naval officer, and who took the other tag? And why leave it behind? Why leave behind this whole camp?"

"Maybe it was chimeras? Maybe they got the Navy guy, or maybe they ate whoever took his tags. Or both."

"Doubt it. Nothing looks burnt. Chimeras always leave burns. No bones around here either."

Roads fell silent. He had been getting paler with each question, a bit more quiet and hesitant. It was easy for Chief to tell that all this talk of death, chimeras, and mystery got to him. Just like anypony soft. Back home, ponies weren't used to dealing with this sort of thing. Roads was no exception.

"No. We've got at least three more hours of daylight left. Plenty of time for you to get your work done."

"Yeah, but it seems we've got strange military ponies running around the place, or even worse, something that eats strange military ponies."

Chief scowled at him. "Six years ago maybe. Today, probably not. Even so, still not worried about it."

"How can you not be worried about it? You don't even know what's out there!" Roads' voice was climbing with the fear. Chief could pick up a nervous tremor in his voice. The warble of the weak.

"Ridiculous. We didn't know this island was even here, we never had expectations."

"Which is that you're going to get both of us killed in that jungle!" Roads' was shouting now, the rise in his voice annoying in Chief's ears.

"Doesn't matter. I want to spend as few days marching across this island with you as I can."

"I'll be fine," he growled. "And if anything happens, you'll just fly off. Again."

"Hmph. Every time you look around, you look scared. Every time you talk, you sound scared. I know you. I know your type. Cowards. Good for nothing, reliable for less." Chief's facade had finally broken, all of his pent-up frustration from the past two days now audible.

"That's... that's not true..." all of the fight had gone out of his voice. Chief could see he had struck a nerve, so, naturally, he didn't relent.

"It is. You know it. I know it. You're thin-skinned. You live what you call a life indoors. Away from danger. Away from anything that might make you sweat. You come out here, into my territory, and think you get a say in how we spend our time out here? I don't think so. You'll do your work; I won't have to come back out here later. Got it?"

Chief was nearly seething. He usually hated losing his cool, betraying his inner emotion, but something about Roads pressed on his last nerve. It was far out of the domain of professionalism that he prided himself upon inhabiting, but it felt good to finally unload on the pegasus. Real good. He looked down at Roads, towering over him as the pegasus gazed fixedly upon the ground, head drooping, brow furrowed, mouth in a slackened frown. He half-wished Roads would look up, fight back, make a retort, do something. But then, he supposed, if Roads were capable of that, he wouldn't have needed to say anything in the first place.

For a split second, Roads' eyes flashed up to him, and a small hope rose within him that the other pony might have a spine in him yet. But... no. He merely turned away, head flopping back down as he headed off into the forest at Chief's behest, following the invisible tug of some distant ley line. Eyes boring into the back of Roads’ head with all the force of his inexorable glare, Chief followed him. A steady silence enveloped them as they walked, a tense silence broken only by hoofsteps and the occasional birdsong.

It seemed to Chief that he had broken Roads' will to speak; the quiet followed them across the island, as they passed over craggy ridges and rolling hills. At one point, the two walked along the high banks of a thin stream, looking down over the clear waters as they passed. A misstep by Roads collapsed the uneven, muddy bank under them, sending the pair rolling down the embankment into the water. Both rose mutely, each covered in mud, and climbed resolutely out of the ditch.

There was no lament by Roads. No retort by Chief. To the latter, the day seemed to now be going quite well. Wiping dirt and shaking water off of themselves, they resumed their voiceless march through the jungle.

After a while, Roads stopped suddenly, staring. After nearly walking into the now immobile pegasus, Chief followed his gaze to his right to see that a green path had been laid out before them. Stretching a few hundred meters into the distance, the trees gave way to a long, narrow patch of Healing Ivy. It grew thick and dense, wrapping around the bases of the trees around it. Their thick trunks seemed to bend outward, away from the path, creating a veritable tunnel of flora; thin, viney canopy above, thick, luscious ivy below, and everything cast in the green-gold glow of sunlight filtered through thin leaves. Stepping into it, Roads finally managed to break the prolonged silence.

With a nod, Chief accompanied him down the path cut by the nearly chest high ivy. As he walked, he felt the herbs brush against his bandaged stomach, their leaves working their way through the bindings. A strange, warm numbness gathered around the area where the chimera had raked his underside. Though to most it would have been a pleasant sensation, it put Chief on edge.

The lack of feeling bothered him greatly. In his line of work, losing one’s senses was never a good thing. Pain was helpful; it let him know that he was still alive, it served as a reminder to be cautious. Bliss, on the other hoof, was disturbing. It enticed ponies to let their guard down. Never was there so dangerous an object as a shield lowered...

Roads, though, appeared entirely in rapture. He waltzed down the ivy path, wide eyed and gaping, flashes of nostalgia crossing his face. Devoid of pain, of apprehension. Living in a memory, the tendrils of ivy clasping his legs, the spores of the past flourishing in his mind. He had seen this before. A long time ago, in a memory distant, in a moment he did not wish to recall.

It was not long before his path down the grove brought him to a clearing. Twenty meters in every direction the trees bent away, forming a circular gap filled with Ivy. The plant grew everywhere in the grove, thick and tall in all directions, except in the center. There, rose the massive stump of a tree, a great towering flatness, dominating the land. Even without the trunk, it was easily thrice as tall as Chief.

It drew in the pegasus with a tug as powerful as it was mysterious. Unable to draw his eyes off of the fractured remains of what had once been a massive, imposing plant, he made his way to its base. Carved crudely into the stump were rows of steps, slanted slightly upwards, leading to the top of the trunk.

"Roads?" Chief called behind him, wary of the spectacle, "There shouldn't be steps here. Those are pony-made." There was an edge of caution in his voice.

His words fell on deaf ears. Roads ascended to the top of the stairs, and found himself within a small, roofless hollow, where the original surface—though not the edges—of the trunk had been cut away, forming a four foot high ring around the central platform. Behind him Chief was saying something more, but he was not listening. He had found the nexus he had always sought.

It wasn't visible, but he could feel it there—without the help of the Attunement potion—roiling, hanging a foot off the ground. The energy it gave off was palpable and potent; he could feel the magic work through his body. Old bruises and sores faded away, the cut he had opened on the zeppelin knitted itself together, even the throbbing ache of his muscles dwindled off as he stood before the nexus. His previous despondency was lost, replaced by a new curiosity, intense as he had ever felt it.

As the enchantment took hold of him, Roads felt the inexorable need to move closer to it, into it. Every cell in his body yearned to bask in the unadulterated power of the nexus, to submerge himself into it. For a moment, he hesitated. Surely he couldn't. It wasn't... what?

Professional? Objective? Safe? Right? He didn't know. For the second time on the island, his mind was beginning to betray him.

Tentatively, he took a step towards it, feeling its surging presence anew with the gain of but a few inches. He was about to move closer when he felt a hoof on his shoulder. Chief was looking at him sternly, shaking his head.

"What is that?" the earth pony asked, voice subtly awestruck, but still cautious. He could feel it too.

"I—it's—it's a nexus," he stammered, his vacant mentality beginning to slip away.

Roads shook his head, his brain slowly beginning to function again. "It's... different from the rest. Not the same kind of magic. All of the others were... elemental in nature. This one, it's just... unique."

No, not unique. He had seen this before. Felt this before. But not on this scale. Not like this. His memories were beginning to return to him—that last one, it had been smaller. Far smaller, and visible, as well. It had been safer, more benign. This one acted in the same way, but more powerfully, so much so that it might be dangerous.

Had he really been about to enter it? To expose his body to that much magic, all at once? What was he thinking? He must've been spellstruck. Not in his right mind.

"What exactly does that mean?" Chief asked, not taking his eyes off of the spot where the nexus should have been.

"I'm not sure. The others, they all affected change on a level of movement—changing kinetic energy of particles to heat or cool surroundings, transporting air, changing the weather—but this one seems to have some sort of effect on organic tissues. It also doesn't feel quite right. Its alignment, I mean. I've used potions to sense unicorn lines before, and it felt about the same as natural magic, if on a different scale. This is nothing like that. I need to run some tests on this and—oh. Oh, no."

Looking down, he eyed the half-melted copper matrix that rested in his hoof. He had forgotten about that. But... maybe... well, it was better than nothing. Raising his foreleg, he tossed it as gently as he could into the nexus. It landed with a dull 'thump' in the middle of the floor. As far as Roads could tell, nothing happened.

"Unsurprising, really," he explained to Chief, "now that it's lost most of its structure, it can't form a synthetic line, and since I didn't expect the nexus to have an effect on any nonorganic substance that it came into contact with, I mean—wait, Chief?" he said as he noticed the earth pony staring intently at the copper, his face ashen, his focus unflinching.

His jaw slackened as he peered more closely at the hunk of metal in the center of the room. Was it breathing? It certainly appeared so. The metal seemed to be undergoing cyclic contractions and expansions, which didn’t appear to be the result of the metal bending. It seemed more organic than that. More... lifelike.

"Fascinating. Metal respirating under the force of the magic? That's... unusual. It must be that the nexus is forcing organic qualities on all that it touches. Curious, though not entirely unprecedented. In his early experiments, Starswirl the Bearded documented numerous successful experiments with magical animation of nonliving matter, though this is certainly... groundbreaking. I'll tell you what it reminds me of: depetrification."

He heard a sharp intake of breath from Chief as the word left his mouth. He turned to see a vacant expression in the earth pony’s eyes. A strange expression had crossed his face, one Roads hadn't seen before. Uneven parts confusion, horror, and astonishment, but under them all, a shocked sadness. It surprised him to see such a look on the face of a pony normally so stoic. For a split second, his mind began to buzz, alight with explanations for Chief's reaction to the nexus.

However, his attention quickly shifted back to the issue at hoof, the nexus. For a long while, he stared at it, thinking, before he resumed his previous observations. "The odd thing about it, though, is the fact that depetrification normally occurs in several stages and this appears to happen all at once. Well, I suppose it’s animation, actually, but the two are closely related—I would imagine that this could do both. It's really a shame, though, that I'm lacking proper instrumentation—this could be a huge find. I mean, just look at this!"

Reaching across the floor, Roads found a small pebble, and hefted it into the nexus. Within a few moments, the rock began to quiver and shake, then expand and contract along with the copper.

"Fascinating. I mean, when you think about the potential implications of what's going on here—the whole idea of magic interfering on a cellular level with living organisms and bestowing properties of life onto nonorganisms—well, we might have just stumbled onto a new facet in the discussion about how life on this planet came to be! Isn't it amazing? Chief?" He looked around.

A moment passed, filled with confusion. What was going on here? A burst of fear ran through him as the image of dogtags leapt to mind. What if—? No. No, that wasn't right. There would have been a scuffle. Roads would have heard something. Even if whatever had happened to "Strongsteed" had just transpired behind him, a pony like Chief couldn't simply be spirited away without a sound. He had to have left of his own accord.

To where, though, Roads couldn't be sure. He presumed that Chief had headed back to camp, though he didn't imagine it mattered anyway. Regardless, he decided to return to Summer; if Chief wasn't there when he reached the camp, he could ask her what to do. If he was, then Roads might be able to find out what the hell was going on.

Taking to the air, he soared up through the canopy, to glide through the crisp island air. As he flew back towards what seemed to be the general direction of the camp—he had no map, and struggled to find his way on memory alone—he tried to think of a reason for Chief to leave.

A few minutes passed and nothing sprung to mind. Of course, he had noticed that the earth pony was ill at ease around the nexus, and certainly surprised—who wouldn't be?—to see metal breathing. But surely, if he had felt that strongly about the magic, he would have at least said something. It had to be something else.

In a flash of recollection, Chief's pained look at the mention of petrification rose to the front of his mind. It must’ve had something to do with that. Whatever it was that could get somepony like Chief to inadvertently display that much emotion had to be the root of his desertion.

Wait, desertion? Had Chief just deserted? Roads had not thought of it like that before. Did it count, leaving him like that? Would he really do that, after being as disparaging as he was towards Roads?

Roads gritted his teeth as a heat rose in his stomach. The hypocrite! To act so tough, so hardened, and spend the entire trip looking down on him like some sort of coward, only to turn around and do exactly what he had condemned. Roads nearly spat into the wind. Where did he get off, acting like that? Roads hoped Chief would be back in camp. Eyes narrowed, wings flared, he flapped with increasing intensity, outrage burning in his head as the wind rang in his ears.

He passed the mountain, and caught sight of the lake, gleaming with the light of the now-fading sun. Swooping down towards it, he could see blue and brown dots below him, moving around in the camp. So, Chief was back. He must have left earlier than I thought, if he beat me back here. Roads glided to the ground, landing shakily at the edge of the pond.

"You bastard!" he called, catching sight of Chief, "You left me!" The earth pony raised his head, squinting in the dying sunlight. Without a word, he rose and began to move towards his tent, as Roads charged into camp.

"What the hell were you doing?!" he shouted, slowing as he moved to stand between Chief and his tent.

"Desertion. That's what you were doing. After everything you said to me in the jungle today—" Roads snarled bitterly.

"Roads, don't—" Summer edged towards the two, eying Chief, who stared at the ground, his eyes curiously vacant, not making eye contact with the pegasus.

"—what was it you called me? A coward? Said that every time I talked, I sounded afraid, said that—"

Chief's head snapped up at that, and he fixed Roads with a spiteful glare, lips curled tight over ground teeth. What would have normally quieted the furious pegasus now did nothing. The week's pent up self-loathing was finally spilling out, redirected now, uncontrollable.

"Roads, shut up!" Summer said from somewhere beside him, but he paid her no mind.

His shoulder twitched, the muscles in his foreleg bunching apprehensively. He shifted his weight to his rear legs. Roads noticed and knew what was coming. He allowed a short pause to elapse, then stared into the larger pony’s eyes.

The hoof came before Roads could even flinch, the blow knocking him from his feet. He was tossed several feet to the side, crumpling on the ground as he landed. Turning away from him, Chief pushed aside the flap to his tent and entered it noiselessly. Roads struggled to his hooves, forelegs flailing, wings flared.

"Where are you going?!" he screamed. "Bastard! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

He could taste something coppery in his mouth as he shouted. He spat it on the ground, defeated, the pain setting in around his face. He could feel it beginning to swell.

"What's going on here?" he asked Summer softly, shaking his head. She sighed deeply.

"Look, Roads, have you ever had something happen to you that you didn't really want anypony to know? That maybe even you didn't want to be reminded of? Ever?" she asked.

"Yeah, well, Chief’s the same way. Today you just happened to have stumbled onto something that reminded him all the wrong things."

"—I have just been left in the jungle and beaten across the face. Somepony owes me an explanation."

"He'll tell you. Sometime. When he's ready. You'll get your explanation, just not now, not from me."

Summer smirked at that, a small chuckle escaping her mouth. "Yeah, well. That's life for you." There was a small pause as they both settled in around the firepit.

"Say, what was it exactly that set him off?" She asked, bending to light a fresh fire as Roads tended to his bloodied mouth.

"—you came back to camp?" Summer asked, intrigued. Perhaps this would explain the missing supplies.

Roads' eyes widened as he realized Chief hadn't yet told her. He took a moment to explain the situation, relaying to Summer what Chief had said about the dog tags. Her brow furrowed as she listened to his story.

"Another pony? On the island? That would explain the situation with the cargo..."

"Earlier today, while I was working on the map, I went to get a fresh quill and found that a bunch of boxes and supplies were missing. Something—or somepony—had taken them. In a few cases, searched right through the crates and picked out certain items. I wonder if it's this ‘Strongsteed’ guy."

"I doubt anything savage enough to eat a pony would have the presence of mind to search through boxes for what it needed."

"I don't know. I wouldn't doubt that whatever's out there is intelligent. Earlier, I got the distinct feeling I was being watched. Same as in the rows of lotus trees."

"That reminds me... we never had a chance to really investigate that did we?" Roads asked.

"Right, but I mean, those shouldn't have grown like that. They were cultivated. Rows don't exist in nature. Like stairs."

"Well, I hadn't thought about it until now—Chief noticed it—but that nexus we found, it was at the top of this giant tree stump. It was the strangest thing—somepony had carved stairs into the stump. And, now that I think about it, they looked a bit worn, too. Like they'd been frequently used."

"So it's safe to assume, then, that we're dealing with a somepony here and not a something."

And so they proceeded, discussing and arguing into the night about the unknown facets of the island, until the sun had long since sunk and their only light came from the full moon and the fire. Eventually, Roads found himself exhausted, and Summer excused herself to her tent. Left alone, the pegasus stared out into the darkness of the jungle as the fire burned itself out. Tired as he was, he had trouble getting to sleep, each moving frond a hideous beast coming to steal him away during the night, every rustle in the bushes the slinking of whatever had gotten to Strongsteed. His heart pounded in his chest, but he forced his eyes shut and tried desperately to sleep.

He stayed that way for some time, lids tightly closed, trying to doze off, and eventually managed to sink into a light sleep. A dream or two flitted across his subconscious, dancing about in his mind, until a low rustle woke him from his sleep again. What was that?! he thought, catching sight of something moving out of the corner of his eye. He rolled over to see that it was the mere shadow of a coat rack. Nothing to worry about. Just some harmless furniture. Just as he was falling back to sleep, a thought struck him.

Wait, why did I bring a coat to the tropics? It's always warm out here... how silly of me...

He sat up suddenly, a bolt of fear running through him. The hairs on his neck stood on end as his eyes shot open. Hold on, I didn't bring a coat! I don't even own a coat rack!

"Chie—" he had just enough time to call before something soft and moist was forced against his mouth. His eyes grew heavy, and a fog swarmed around the periphery of his vision. Through the haze, he could just barely make out Chief being dragged, struggling, out of his tent, Summer unconscious beside him. Then he began to sink back into the darkness. He took a deep breath. Curious, he had just enough time to think, smells a lot like lotus...

Stories of a Warden

by Rosencranz

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