They proceeded with tired steps. Rainbow Dash seemed too tired to be twitchy, or even fly/hover, which he could understand. He was pretty tired himself and his shoulder burned like it was on fire. He was fairly certain the wound had opened again, but there wasn’t much to do about it. At least his bandages where clean…ish. Well cleaner than his old ones were anyway.
“Jax? What are you anyway?” He felt like he was going to get this question a lot. Still, how come he knew about pegasi, when they didn’t know about humans? Eh, there were weirder things to worry about. Like why were they so friendly? He didn’t feel threatened a single moment in their company.
“Do you think I could explain that to all of you at once? I don’t feel like repeating it a hundred times…”
Rainbow looked at him for a bit before nodding. She wasn’t as full of herself as he thought she would be. Sure she liked to show off, and stated things with the confidence of… someone very confident. Yeah, comparison skills over the roof. Still, she had helped him, and she didn’t pressure him to say things he didn’t want to.
“Rainbow, why do you have a tattoo on your butt?” He asked, half of curiosity, half to take his mind of things. Like a certain party he was headed towards.
She looked at her butt a bit confused, before laughing a little. “It’s called a cutie mark, and it’s on my flank. It practically represents my awesomeness.” She looked at him with that cocky grin again, and he looked at her with his confused face.
“Cutie… mark? Like a mark… that’s cute?” He said with a smile. Whoever came up with cutie mark as a replacement for tattoo was crazy. Poor males that wanted a tat in this world.
“What? No! Does this look cute to you? It’s cool and awesome!” She replied as she shoved her tattoed butt into his face, hovering in the air again. She sounded offended for some reason.
“Woah, calm down.” He said as he moved his hands up in front of him and his head to the side. Even if she was an equine, she was still female, and he didn’t know how free he was to stare. Well they were naked. And horse…ish. Maybe it didn’t matter that much. He should totally stop blushing right now.
“I do agree that having a lightning shaped rainbow is pretty cool, plus it matches your name, I was just… cutie mark sounds silly.” He explained.
Rainbow looked at him a bit before finally hovering back down to the ground, making Jax sigh in relief. He wasn’t very good with situations where females presented their rear end to his face. Not that that had happened to him before. He just wasn’t good with awkward situations.
“I guess it is a weird name. Never thought of it before. You can ask Twilight about it if you want.” Rainbow answered. It seemed like he would have to make a list of things he had to ask this Twilight. He was too tired right now, but he would definitely ask her everything on his mind.
***
They continued moving, and soon found themselves on the outskirt of the forest. Jax hesitated when he saw the little town. Was this really all right? He could still run into the forest… Except he was wet, tired, and Rainbow knew where his camp was anyway. Still, he couldn’t help but look back at the forest he had spent the last few weeks in. It was dangerous, dark, and dangerous… Yeah, it was that dangerous. He had almost died so many times he had stopped counting. But at least he didn’t have to deal with other people. He could just be himself in there. Sure he had to battle timberwolves, struggle to find food every day, and was starting to feel very lonely, but at least… He knew what to do. Wake up, find food, do some other activity, go to sleep exhausted. In front of him lay an unknown fate, decided by sapient multicoloured equines. It was hard to leave behind what he knew. Rainbow Dash seemed to pick up on his hesitation, and looked at him with a surprisingly soft look. “Hey… I promise we aren’t gonna imprison you.” She said softly, “Not unless you hurt somepony anyway. You seem like a cool stallion, Jax. I’ll vouch for you if anything happens, okay?” He looked at her in surprise. He hadn’t known her for very long, he honestly didn’t think she would try to reassure him. These pegasi…
“But you barely know me! I could be a crazy killer waiting to strike for all you know!” He argued for some reason. He didn’t know himself. It’s been so long since anyone tried to reassure him that everything will be fine…
“You could be. But then you wouldn’t have let me walk out of the Everfree.” Her cocky smile returned: “Besides, if you are, I could probably beat you, one hoof tied behind my back.” He returned the smile. He had hugely misjudged her when they met. He made a note to himself to do something nice for her someday. When he looked at it now, his choices were simple:
Choice 1: Go back into the Everfree alone, die once winter came around, if one of the timberwolves hadn’t finished him by then, or
Choice 2: Go with Rainbow, suffer a little at the party, get his questions answered, and someday return the kindness shown to him by Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash.
The choice was obvious. With a smile he followed after Rainbow.