Morning broke in the east, and Twilight nearly sagged as golden light splashed upon her face. She winced, blinking at the sudden brightness of the sun peeking over the horizon. Her wings faltered for a moment, and she bobbed in midair before steadying herself.
A pointed head peeked out from her saddlebags. Red eyes glared in response the turbulence, though the irritation burned less intensely than one might expect. The Snivy’s nose twitched, then pointed slightly skyward, directing the snake’s gaze toward the faded purple of the nascent morning.
The river flowed on below them, tracing a serpentine path northward to the distant body of water. The pale glint of sunlight on its surface stretched nearly from horizon to horizon, though a fair percentage was obscured by the northwest mountains. Twilight’s eyes lingered on it for a moment, then roved across the expanse of plain that separated them. Here and there a figure loped across the browning grass, but everything seemed quiet.
Her eyes crossed briefly. Then she shook her head and angled toward the ground, focusing on the approaching river. The Snivy watched from the safety of burlap as the world reached up to swallow them.
With a dull thud, the alicorn touched down beside the edge of the river. Her legs held for a moment, then buckled, sending her collapsing into an exhausted heap. It was a scratchy, uncompromising resting place, but it would have to do.
“Why didn’t I just sleep in a tree?” she mumbled, lying motionless. She let the question trail off into the air, but no reply rewarded her. A grunt rose half-formed in the back of her throat, but she could not summon the energy to follow up her own words with a pithy answer.
The world swam before her eyes, and soon the weight of her eyelids was too much to fight. Little time passed before her muscles relaxed and her breathing grew even.
The Snivy stood still, taking in the unfamiliar landscape. The trees to the south were long gone, invisible despite the perfectly flat stretch of land they had just crossed. A cool breeze blew over the water, briefly disrupting the warmth settling rapidly on everything the light touched. Twilight was fading.
The Pokémon slithered out into the open air, heedless of the stubby stalks of grass poking his underbelly. He scrutinized her for a moment; then, assured she was out cold, he relaxed into a little slump. He too had lost much energy, though fixing this was a simple matter in his case.
Climbing up and taking a position on the alicorn’s prone form, he faced the rising sun and watched, unblinking, as it inched its way higher into the sky. His tail stood tall, angled to catch the morning light. The breeze whispered for a moment, but the Snivy was not distracted, instead lifting his nose and exposing the delicate frills on his neck to the sun. Then he waited.
Over the course of several minutes, the light gathered. It landed on the Snivy like snow, accumulating ever so gradually to the point where he glowed gently, shimmering like gold. It was not so much a visible glow as it was a warm radiance, and underneath him the pony shifted, as if trying to snuggle closer to the heat source. His leafy tail was warmest of all, and its faint droop straightened as its broad surface absorbed the sun’s bright rays.
The glow quickly lessened, but a faint shine of the Snivy’s scales signaled the continuation of his morning meal. He allowed it to settle, sinking gradually into his skin, before giving a small sigh that only marginally betrayed satisfaction. He turned away from the sun thin, and his eyes swept lazily across the flat landscape.
A crunch of grass was his only warning. Pain burst to life in his tail, and its instigator dragged him off the pony and into the dirt. He landed in a puff of dust, which clouded his vision with itchy insistence, but he shook off his disorientation as the teeth in his tail reminded him of the unwanted company. Unwilling to flinch, he settled for narrowing his eyes.
In a vaguely shrug-like motion he harnessed some of his new energy, and from his back sprouted a pair of supple green vines. They impacted the attacker with two cathartic thuds, and with a croaking growl the stranger released its toothy grip, staggering back. The Snivy turned to face his foe, vines at the ready for any sudden moves.
The creature resembled a mundane crocodile. For a moment the Snivy could not tell where in the pile of tan and black stripes the Pokémon’s head could be found, but the answer soon became clear as it righted itself, taking on an aggressive stance with its tail curled slightly in the air. Shaded eyes glinted in the sunlight, and beneath them the creature’s strong jaws opened again, exposing gleaming teeth in a humorless grin. With a rasping breath, it lunged forward.
In a blur of motion, the Snivy spun out of harm’s way and reached out with a vine all at once. The crocodilian’s jaws snapped on thin air, and the vine wrapped around its now-closed muzzle like a whip. Beady eyes barely had time to bulge in surprise before the crocodilian was yanked over to the Snivy, who fixed his cool red gaze on the struggling predator. The enemy Pokémon strained to pull its mouth open, but the tight grip of the vine refused to relent.
The snake lifted his other vine, making sure it was well within view of his foe. He allowed a little smirk to lift the corner of his mouth when the crocodilian tried even harder to pull itself free.
The vine came down, striking his foe across the head. The crocodilian grunted in pain as the plant-like construct ignored the scant protection of its scaly hide, leaving a sizable bruise. Before the earthy reptile could issue a snarl in defiance, the vine came back around and whipped the sensitive spot directly between its eyes.
Another smack. And another. And a fifth. Twilight shifted in her sleep as the slaps burst into her dreams like fireworks, and she mumbled something about pineapples.
The Snivy’s expression did not change as the crocodilian sagged into unconsciousness, eyes rolling into the back of its head. He pulled back his occupied vine and, with surprising force, flung his defeated foe several yards into the distance. The limp mass of stripes bounced a few times before rolling to a halt, sprawled out ungraciously in the scratchy grass.
The snake clapped the dust off his hands, sticking his nose into the air as his vines retracted. With a flick of his injured tail, he calmly took his place in the sunlight and resumed soaking up the life-giving rays.
The day passed slowly. An occasional bird flitted across the otherwise empty sky, an expanse of blue only broken by the mountains far to the northwest. Stillness was all that existed here, as not even the breeze gave relief for weather that quickly turned stifling.
There was very little for the Snivy to do. After regaining his lost health from the short-lived fight, he began a casual circuit of strolling around the alicorn. His movement was fluid and casual, betraying none of the tension usually associated with those who are watchful. For a moment it seemed like something would happen when the crocodilian pulled itself into consciousness: the little monster took a few steps forward, and the Snivy prepared himself for another quick battle … but then his foe thought better of it, turning away with a clack of its jaws and waddling into the south. His tail flicked in mild disappointment.
Only a few visits to the nearby river interrupted the Snivy’s pacing. Glances at the sleeping pony were few and far between, but they were lengthy, ponderous things. He strolled on.
The sun fell into the west. The moon peeked up from the east. Stars twinkled into view in the depths of the darkening sky. Only then did the Snivy relent, settling down near Twilight’s unguarded flank for his rest. His eyes were lidded, but his ears were pricked for anything outside of his acquaintance’s steady breathing.
The night passed slowly. Far overhead a winged shape pushed its way through the sky with huge, powerful strokes, blotting out the stars in a jagged silhouette. Somewhere in the distance crickets sang.
Leaning against the alicorn’s side, the Snivy stared coolly out into the vastness of space. Overhead, the stars slowly revolved around the bright point of Polaris, painted on the infinite canvas of the cloudless night sky. The Snivy watched the stars burn from the safety of millions of miles away, deceptively harmless in their twinkling lights of white and yellow and blue, looking for all the world like fireflies trapped in a mass of midnight blue. The Snivy watched all this, and he wondered.
The stars began to fade. The moon fell into the west. The sun peeked up from the east, but the Snivy, despite his increasing fatigue, felt no need for nourishment. Instead he rose from his cramped position and approached the river. His tail splashed gently in the rushing water, and he hissed at the unexpected chill, pulling away sharply before pride demanded him to carefully get himself wet again and wash away the thin coat of dust over his scales.
Gradually, over a space of dreams receding like a tide, Twilight awoke.
For a moment she simply lay there, stiff and unmoving, as her sleep-addled mind slowly puzzled over where she was. She quietly took in the brownish expanse, listening to the insistent rush of water only yards away. Violet eyes assessed the sun’s early position, which quashed her vague hope that she had only been asleep for a few minutes. Her brow furrowed as memories returned, and with a grunt she shifted slightly, wincing as the feeling returned to her limbs with the prickling of grass.
When she sat up, a growl revealed that she had not eaten in over twenty-four hours. With a grumble she pulled a sandwich from her saddlebags, which had been weighing down her wings ever since arriving there. As she munched on the bread and daisies, she gazed to the north, where the body of water lay unseen beyond the horizon. She sighed when she finished and gulped down the last of her water, then trotted toward the river to refill the waterskin. A rune etched on the container’s side glowed faintly as the water rushed in.
A flash of green caught her attention as she put the waterskin back. Her eyes lit up at the sight of the Snivy, who was now drying out in the sun. “Well, hi there! I didn’t know if you’d stick around after that long period of nothing. I’m glad you did, though.” Her smile faded a little. “It’s nice to have someone around.”
The Snivy gave her an unimpressed look. He pointed in a random direction, then in another, then in a third, and finished off his gesturing with a massive shrug.
“Heh … I guess you’re right,” Twilight admitted, rubbing the back of her head. “Not a lot of places to go, are there?”
There was a moment of awkward silence. The river rushed on.
“So …” She scuffed at the ground with a restless hoof, kicking up a tiny cloud of dust. “We should be heading out. There’s a lot of ground to cover today. Some might say too much, but that’s a matter of perspective.” One of her ears flicked. “I’d be happy to drop you off whenever you’d like.”
He rolled his eyes, slithered over, and slipped into her open saddlebags. The confusion had barely crossed her face when his head poked out into sight again and jerked toward the north. When she failed to come up with an appropriate response, he gestured again, this time harder.
“That is the way we’re going, yes,” were the words she managed to come up with. “You don’t talk much, do you?”
His expression was as flat as paper.
“It was a joke.” Twilight huffed in annoyance. “We’re going to get along so well …”
Her wings flared, and with a few powerful strokes she was airborne, ascending above the dull and dreary. She glanced down briefly, but the impression she had left on the grass was already lost to view. As she adjusted her blocky glasses, she began to wonder whether or not she and her silent passenger would grow tired of each other before the day was out.
The body of water was not getting any closer.
Twilight had been flying north for hours by now, and the shining water remained as distant as ever. At first she had wondered if this was just an illusion—she’d reasoned it was possible that the water was simply huge enough that she was still dozens of miles from reaching it. But as she’d flown, the mountains to the northwest slowly drew nearer, and she’d come to the conclusion that since she was approaching the water at the same rate, it should at least look a little closer than before.
“I guess they’re serious,” she remarked as the more prominent cliffs on the nearer mountain became visible, making rising and dipping shapes against the face of rock. “Whoever ‘they’ are.”
The Snivy had no comment. He was tucked away comfortably in her saddlebags, doing absolutely nothing. He hadn’t so much as bothered to peek out since she had taken off, effectively negating any sense of companionship his presence offered. It was likely that he had been sleeping the entire time, while she worked to carry him to more habitable lands.
“Don’t think like that, Twilight,” she scolded herself. “It’s not his fault he can’t fly.”
Maybe not, her thoughts admitted, but it was his fault he had decided to join her.
She couldn’t argue with that logic.
Biting back a grumble, she eyed the approaching mountains. They were sprawling, sand-colored things, only remarkable in that they stood above the dreary plain. The closer she drew to them, the easier it was to see brownish vegetation clumped together in odd patterns. Presumably they were bushes, although the distance made it hard to tell.
The mountains slowly passed by. She could see little gray shapes carefully making their way across the unforgiving slopes, but no further details could be seen; they were like insects at this height. For a moment she considered taking out her Pokédex, but reason soon caught up with her. It was next to impossible for it to identify them at this distance.
Still, the idea of finding new and exciting information about these powerful species made a small part of her want to make a u-turn and observe the herd creatures. She shook off the urge with some difficulty. There was no time for such excursions, she told herself. She needed to fly.
The sun slid westward. Twilight felt her wings starting to ache, but she forced herself to fly on. She would reach the body of water by nightfall, she was sure of it. She just had to keep going.
More plain stretched out before her, unbroken by trees or bushes. The emptiness of the scene dwarfed her, even though it could not touch her from her lofty position. No creature could be seen, not even a bird or an insect. The silence of the scene weighed on her like a tangible burden; she was, in essence, utterly alone. It was as if she was the last of all beings to live.
She bit her lip, pushed her thoughts out of her mind, and soared on through the cloudless sky. Behind, the mountains continued their ponderous existence, sprawling in their rolling folds of earth and stone.
The body of water — most likely a lake — was suddenly quite close. She had almost missed it, so intent had she been on moving forward. She was doing her best not to think about the implications of her severe inattention.
A light had flickered near the bottom of her vision, and she’d dropped a little mid-flap in surprise to see that a fair expanse of city had appeared at the shore, responding to the dimness of the oncoming evening. It was less than a mile away, giving her a good view of its coiled confines. The ground seemed to slope slightly down toward the water, providing a shade of depth to its simple layout.
The sight of it made her frown, and she slowed as her brow furrowed in thought. The city was no gleaming metropolis, but she was sure that she should have seen some suggestion of light when she’d been flying two nights ago. Only the single light shone in the midst of the clusters of buildings, even as the sun touched the horizon. She watched the city, waiting to see if more points of brightness sparked to life as the seconds passed, but the light remained a lone sentinel in the growing dusk.
Regardless, shelter was shelter. She adjusted her course slightly, dipping toward the ground at a shallow angle. The air currents jostled her slightly, but she held firm. Even her relatively inexperienced wings brimmed with pegasus magic, with every muscle beneath her feathers making tiny movements to maintain her motion and keep her from falling out of the sky.
Sensing the change in altitude, the Snivy peered out from within the saddlebags, watching as the world rose to meet them. He considered the nearing city for a moment, then tensed. His tail flicked this way and that, jostling several items in the process, and he kept his eyes fixed on the inviting beacon.
As they drew closer, details emerged from the midst of hazy shapes. Many of the buildings, particularly those closest to the lake, were tall, blocky things clearly designed for efficiency rather than aesthetics. Skyscrapers reached up like metal hooves; their glossy windows gleamed, but that was from light without, not light within. It was not the skyscrapers themselves that caught her eye, however; rather, it was the unusual pattern they had been constructed in. A perfectly straight line of them stretched from the south to the north, with the northernmost of them practically upon the silent harbor. Perpendicular to this line was another, directed toward and away from the setting sun. From the ground, where all buildings would block a pony’s view of the sky, one might think nothing of it. From the air, however, it was a simple matter to see that the skyscrapers were arranged into the shape of a cross. And it was from the skyscraper at the cross’s intersection that the single light shown in the fading daylight.
Twilight shrugged mentally. She swooped down toward the odd formation, and before long the rooftop of a building near the southernmost skyscraper rushed up to provide refuge. Her wings flared, and in a ray of golden dusklight she slowed her descent, coming to land on the concrete construction with only a little wobbling as her hooves made contact. For a moment she simply stood there, leaning forward until her body gradually accepted that it no longer needed to hold such a position.
As she came to herself, the Snivy slipped from the saddlebags, examining his new surroundings. He eyed the small, browning garden that occupied most of the rooftop’s space, analyzing the wilting plants with some disdain. As he circled its perimeter, Twilight made as if to keep him from getting himself into trouble, but she checked herself. They were surrounded by a wall that would keep taller creatures than ponies from falling off the edge, albeit at the cost of blocking much of the city view. The Snivy seemed uninterested in exploring beyond this boundary, so Twilight let him be.
Gardening implements were scattered here and there, leaning against tables and benches that served no other purpose but to hold scattered seeds, gloves, and pottery shards. A pair of columns for ventilation poked up from either side of the top of a stairwell, which was concealed by a weathered door. On a whim, Twilight seized a rake and slid it through the handle, jamming the door firmly into place. Failure to effectively wiggle it left her satisfied, and she cast a brief look at the taller buildings surrounding them before indulging herself in a sandwich and a few gulps of water.
Night fell in an unveiling of stars. The warmth of day began to dissipate, and a mild summer chill set in, playing with Twilight’s hair in a suggestion of a breeze. She stretched, tucked her wings comfortably against her sides, retrieved her bedroll, and curled into a fuzzy ball close to the shelter of a table. The plush fabric accommodated her weight as she settled in preparation for slumber, and her heavy eyelids drifted shut. Pointed ears caught the sound of her reptile acquaintance’s movements as he continued to scuttle around, examining what this roof had to offer without bothering to take some rest.
She listened to the swishing of his tail for a while, but where the swishing ended and the sounds of dreaming began, she could not distinguish. All she knew was that at some point the city faded into slumber, leaving her hopelessly alone in her own memories.