//------------------------------// // Desert-ed // Story: The Third Diary // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// "Stupid Harmony. Stupid Harmony. Stupid Harmony." Why this time? "Thanks to alicorn endurance I now have a UNIQUE opportunity not to quickly die in the desert without any equipment but spread the experience over several glorious days." Do I really need to mention the increased chance of getting out of here? "Nah, I'm just talking so it's not quiet all the time. The thing is that I have no idea where I am, where I'm going, or even if I'm walking - correction, hobbling - in the right direction. For all I know - COUGH - DAMN -!" I stop until the hacking coughing goes away. Thanks to my previous experience the night wasn't as deadly as it could have been but the frozen air still wrecked what little semblance of health I still had after being baked by the desert sun the entire day. Fortunately, this time I knew to take a rest and sleep for few hours in the evening on the cooling sand, keep going through the night to keep myself warm, and sleep again at the brink of the dawn. "-For all I know I might be going in circles. Crom told me that was what usually happened to those who are lost." You know you COULD just fly up and- "Nooooooooooope! In case you missed it before - frying pan is better than height." Your hooves are burned to the crippling point. "BETTER. THAN. HEIGHTS." Why heights anyway? I mean, you faced gods, unspeakable evils, tax collectors. "Irrational fear, right? Even when I still wanted to die I didn't have the courage to jump off Canterlot city walls. I am completely aware that heights hold much less threat to me than most things I lived through but there it is. Not going away. Heights and mushrooms." Mush- "A PONY'S ONLY NATURAL PREDATOR!" Eeeeeehm? "SHUT UP, THEY'LL HEAR YOU!" You're the one yelling. "..." Never speaking of this again? "Yeeeeeeah." Hours pass again. For once, I'm happy for my crapified eyesight because I can ignore the blinding light blasting me from the sky and its reflection burning me whenever I look down and just go. Mountains? There are indeed some darker shapes far away in the distance. "Meh." Thataway? "Sure." Thare's nothing more that needs saying. "Can't YOU fly up and give me an eagle-eye view of the area?" Unicorn. "Imaginary unicorn?" Unfortunately, my 'realness' doesn't allow me to break the rules anymore. That's the price I have to pay for not being just a shard of your mind. "Flying spell? I sure as hay can't cast it. In theory, you could." In theory. I might be able to supplement your inability to use standard spells with enough practice but our special talent still means somepony has to use magic against you to be drained. And just like that it's back to simply walking the distance towards the shadows. Blaze? "Yes?" What do you want? I mean really want. "I'd have a bottle of Frostberry Ruby '94, thank you." From life! What do you want from life? "Stillll the same answer. Sweet wine is something that keeps me from hitting rock bottom or at least softens the blow." Really? Are we going with that? "Okay, you want an honest answer? Right now, what I want right at this moment is a mare, one in particular. I am walking alone, the company of myself excluded, through some desert towards what might be a mountain range or just a mirage and the only thing I can think of is the scent of Chokey's fluffy chest. Every time I drift off while taking another step just so I don't have to feel my bloody raw underhooves being seared I remember Cromach's wings wrapped around me. I don't know what you wanted to hear but this is all I want... somepony to hold me. I know I sound like a whiny mare but that's simply it - I don't want to be alone. Status, power, money can go down the drain as long as my life doesn't return to the way it was before I ran away to Canterlot. Surrounded by ponies who made me feel alone... mirror Sombra, Nightmare, the original Blazing Light, Holy Light... I'd face any of them again rather than that." So... wine? "Red, strong, and sweet." Step after step my hooves burn but I keep walking and leaving a trail of bronze fur behind me. Not like I have a choice. Heh, there's always a choice but right now I don't want to pick the 'leave a set of bleached bones here' option. The shadows draw closer over the course of the day. I wish I could focus my eyes but alas, the world of blurriness seems to be my new life. "Do you think I would look good with glasses?" Aren't alicorns the pinnacle of health? Shouldn't it heal by itself? "With this body being a living monument of my experiences I doubt that's gonna work." Hmmm. Maybe then. Spectacles could give you a more mature look, a touch of class. Shadows start falling on the desert, announcing yet another day passing. "Is that finally a hallucination or...?" I look into the distance where points of light slowly flicker to life. The Griffon Empire was in days long past ravaged by pony magic and most deserts are the result of dessication spells rendering large stretches of the continent unlivable. As such it is possible for a desert to be right next to a mountain ranges or lush forests. Thus, one can assume that in the case that this is one of those places, not a natural desert of Zebrica or Saddle Arabia, it might be possible that the lights in the distance are a forest fire. Forest means shade, water, and possibly some food. I could keep walking to get there faster, to possibly not freeze like last night. I don't. Curling up on the still warm sand, I press my back against a small dune I made to protect me from wind and close my eyes. Maybe I learned something, maybe I really am not the same scared colt like four years ago. Maybe I still am. Who knows? All I know is that I just might be a little more patient. Frost biting through my coat wakes me up and I resume my walking pace. The cooling night sand feels like a soothing balm on my wrecked underhooves. Focusing what little power I have left into my horn, the area around me flickers with faint light. I can't help noticing it's much weaker than last night. It's still enough to prevent me from stepping on a scorpion or something nasty though. "Do YOU see as poorly as me?" No, not really. I see just fine, *Facehoof* "What's with the lights in the middle of the mountain? Fire or something?" No, they don't seem to flicker. My best guess is a standard lightbulb or stabilized magic which means civilization. "Fake hope, LOVE IT!" Perhaps the alicorn of Hope guess wasn't as far fetched as it seemed. "No comment. Damn, I wish you were real." What, still horny? "Don't tempt me! No, I would be fine with carrying you as long as I had something to cover my back. It's so Celestia-damn cold." Celestia-damn, heh. Why not swear to real gods? "Discord-damn, Nightmare-damn, Harmony-damn... doesn't exactly really roll of the tongue. Maybe I'm just used to Celestia." How about you? You had a power of all three for a moment. "Me-damn. HAH! That sounds fun." The cold grows from soothing to chilling as the night progresses. My only solace is that the lights steadily get closer. "Look on the bright side. Not feeling my legs anymore is better than feeling grains of sand stab so far into my hooves they change my DNA." What's DNA? "Do Not Ask?" Seems legit. "I hate to ask but... how far is it?" At this pace we'll get there some time tomorrow. "Crap." Anger restraining training engaged. "Just crap. Not CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP! I'm simply frustrated and we know what that means. That will not stop me from punching the starlight out of- calm down! My mind is like a calm pool, no breeze passes by. Nopony dares to disrupt the stillness otherwise I WOULD STRANGLE- like a blade of grass, completely still. Like a continent, completely motionless... seemingly motionless until a MASSIVE ERUPTION OF LAVA MELTS EVERYTHING ON ITS SURFACE HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!" I'm scared. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! See? Totally calm and collected. Crazy is a word that doesn't exist in my dictionary." Insane, mad, touched in the head, cuckoo- "That's it, I'm getting an exorcist." What? "I said I needed more exercise. A walk like this wouldn't even phase me in the past." Maybe because you were immortal and so hopped on divine power that your waste could heal cancer? "Or cause it." I don't think even Discord knows what his chaos power does. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he just snaps his talons and when he doesn't blow up he smiles smugly and says - I meant to do that. Giant chickens breathing fire? All planned! What are those for? Eeeeerm, fun? It's eating Fluttershy! Okay, back to the incinerator with you." Do you think they bang? Imagine the things that a god of chaos could- *POMF!* *Siiiiiigh.* I'm going to have serious problems talking to a normal living being after this. Moon decides to end its journey through the night and the soft rays of the sun pour over the horizon. This time I'm not in their path though because the shadow cast by the high hills protects me from another day of being scorched. I might be stabbed, eaten, or something worse but those are things I can somewhat control. The words mountain range were heavily overexaggerated. This place looks more like several craggy hills presumably surrounded by the desert. Patches of grass and trees here and there offer an explanation that this place has to host an oasis somewhere. In the world of blurs, I'm close enough to see the path leading to a fortress of standard griffon origin, one anypony could see near every bigger city or important strategic position. Do I want to possibly get captured, sent to the Holy City, and being experimented on for the rest of my maybe unending life? Do I want to walk through the desert again? With that, I step towards the fortified gate in the massive stone wall. *Boom!* Sand and dirt splatter my front legs. The only clue to what happened is a small hole in the ground in front of me. Gunshot. Sentry. Take cover! I look at the short grass and a single tree stump in the nearest vicinity. Yeah, that's SUUUUUUURE to work. Sitting down, I raise my hooves in the air. "Come closer to the gate, slowly!" says a squeaky voice and I obey. A slot opens in the massive gate at about head height and a pair of eyes look through. "Friend or foe?" "What if I said foe? No, seriously, who would announce themselves as a foe?" I'm sort of ticked for no particular reason, ehm, so I tease the obviously young guard behind the gate. "I'm just supposed to say that. Nopony has ever said foe before." "Friend then." Not the smartest cookie, are you? Smaller door opens in one wing of the massive gate to show a rather young looking unicorn aiming a griffon rifle at my face. His eyes bulge and the gun slowly aims away as his look darts from my forehead to my back. The unicorn is yellow with brown mane cut short according to what I heard were standard regulations basically everywhere aside from Canterlot. That place really puts emphasis on individuality. At least something that being alicorn is good for. Do you think you're gonna get crowned a prince of Equestria or something when you get back? Right, because Void and Scream are such good examples of royalty. Oh. Yeah, alicorns are alicorns, royalty are royalty. Case in point - prince Blueballs. The unicorn guard obviously has no idea what to say so I have to take the initiative. "Can you let me in? I've been wandering the desert for almost three days and I'm half delirious. Who knows? I might come to the conclusion that you are just a hallucination and try to eat you." "Aaaaaah!" the rifle swings wildly, enveloped by a bluish aura of the unicorn's telekinesis. Grinning, I weaken his magical grip on the weapon and feel a little bit of my strength recover. An orange aura overpowers the blue one and makes the weapon aim at the ground. "Calm down, I was just kidding. Really though, I'm starving and parched. Can you help or at least tell me where I am?" "Oh oh oh oh okay. Sorry, sir!" the guard salutes, "This is the Griffon Foreign Legion fortress Ironclaw, sir! You are in the biggest northern desert of the Empire." North? North, north, north, north. Foreign legion, that explains why a unicorn in this backwater place is armed and not a decoration hanging from a fortress wall. Ah ha! Remembering my last official visit to the Empire where I was aboard the Lightbringer trying to save Cromach from execution, I also recall the maps I studied exceedingly. Not that my precise location matters right now. I'm way too far from any means of travel back to Equestria so I guess this is my only hope. "WHAT'S GOING ON, MAGGOT?! YOU WAITING FOR YOUR MOTHER TO SEND YOU A FRESH BATCH OF CUPCAKES?!" yells the voice of somepony who was undoubtedly born to be a sargeant. That takes me back. The griffon suddenly appearing behind the young stallion and making him twitch is lightning fast and in a fraction of a second I'm looking into a barrel of a pistol held in his talons. "Speak quickly," his voice turns from the amusingly loud one used for scaring newbies to a serious low tone. "Stranded in the desert. Walked for three days and nights. My name is-" Some fortresses have a Black Ops agent stationed in them. This one seems to be of very little importance but watching over some foreign soldiers might be of enough interest to the Intelligence Service. There are only about two or three Black Ops members who have met me but the name Blazing Light should be way more recognizable. "Frostfire. Can I at least buy some supplies before you send me away? I've got a little gold." "Well well well," the griffon lowers the pistol, "I'll explain to you exactly why that is not possible in a moment but I sure as heck won't turn a totally random stranger somehow getting here while we are surrounded by a week of travel's worth of a desert." "Soooo, interrogation?" I roll my eyes at his not even barely contained sarcasm. "Smart one, aren't you?" the griffon turns to the unicorn guard, "BACK TO YOUR POST, SENTRY!" "Sir, yes, sir!" he trots off. "You know, just in case we don't find out you're a spy we'll need you to pull your own weight here. What can you do?" Yep, Canterlot all over again. "Aren't you, by any chance, looking for a janitor? I know it would take away one of standard ways to punish recruits but having clean floors in the morning might be good for morale." "Smartass." Why does everypony keep saying that? "Frostfire, my name is Frostfire." That's why. Gun barrel. My face. Again. "Fiiiiiiiiine," I sigh and follow the griffon into the fortress. [Blazing's Entry] Frostfire, the janitor. He sweeps, he mops, he solves mysteries, but can he find love? Find out in the next episode of: The Broom and The Handler. Mistake is telling me I'm crazy again. After reading what I've just written I can easily say... ...I'm completely fine, just too tired to care. [End Entry]