//------------------------------//
// The Fields 
// Story: Pinkie Pie and The Quest for Missing Smiles 
// by Venates 
//------------------------------//

	Through endless fields and underneath a behemoth of packed bags, a lone pink mare skipped. Well, lone, save for one small, toothless alligator. 
"I know I told Twilight and Rarity that I could do this alone, Gummy," said Pinkie Pie to her pet, "but I am glad that you insisted on coming. Having company will make this so much more fun, and it will be a great bonding experience for the two of us!"
Gummy gave a low, raspy sound in response. He readjusted himself in Pinkie's mane for a better grip.
"I know we could have taken the train north, silly," Pinkie replied, "but a big part of an epic adventure is the journey! That's how the colt in the story was able to save the day!"
Gummy gave no audible response.
The duo continued through fields of wheat that stretched as far as the eye could see. Pinkie Pie hummed a happy tune while observing it all, but it wasn't long before the sea of yellow stalks became tiresome. Good thing she was accompanied by such a conversationalist.
"You know, Gummy, I've been thinking a lot about the raincloud," Pinkie said. She readjusted a few of her bags in stride. "The one from the story. I don't think it meant to make the ponies in Ponyville feel sad. Who makes ponies sad on purpose?"
Gummy wagged his tail.
"And besides, the story says that he did it for the Joyflower, who's his friend. Who wouldn't want to do something nice for their friend?" Pinkie Pie carefully stepped around a mud puddle, mentally noting how fun it would be to utilize without heavy gear weighing her down. "I mean, that's why I'm going on this trip! To make my friends happy again!"
Gummy hopped from Pinkie Pie's head onto one of her packs to get a better look at the agriculture around them.
Pinkie Pie looked behind her, but after discovering nothing new, she sighed and continued her trek. She wondered just how much wheat one plot of land needed to grow.
"I know!" Pinkie cried suddenly, "Let's play a game!" She gave her rump a small jolt, and the baby alligator returned to her scalp. "I'll go first! I spy with my little eye... something..." Pinkie's eyes darted to and fro, but they never found a proper mark. She sighed again. "Yeah, you're right, Gummy. It was wheat."
Gummy burped with glee.
The two walked several paces more in agonizing silence.
"Do you think this trip is boring, Gummy?" Pinkie asked. The alligator gnawed at a patch of her mane. "Me neither," Pinkie replied. "It's actually kind of refreshing to wind down a bit, don't you think?"
Gummy happily scratched at one of Pinkie's ears.
"Want to play a different game?" the party pony said to her pet. She sat down to her haunches and rolled the bags from her back. "We've been walking for a while, and I don't want to wear you out."
Gummy leaped from Pinkie's mane and gracefully landed on his back.
"I'll start!" Pinkie said with enthusiasm. She etched two lines in the dirt path, then two more intersecting them. In the square made in the very middle, she drew an X.
"Okay, your turn!" she decreed to Gummy. The alligator sauntered over and past the makeshift board, a rock on the other side catching his interest. His tail brushed one of the outlined squares. Pinkie considered it for a moment, then replaced the tail line with a circle. She then pondered the mark, scratching her chin as she observed it. "Oh, you are good," she conceded.
This pattern continued for several hours until the dirt path was littered with crisscrossed lines, most of the games on their surface only showing five or six marks.
After the twenty-eighth game played since losing track of how many games they played, Pinkie licked her lips and loaded her satchels onto her back. She gently wrapped a hoof around Gummy and placed him on her head.
"We really should get going," she told him. "I know how much you love games, but getting that flower is really important right now."
Gummy licked his owner's ear. Pinkie took a deep breath and marched forward.
As the pink mare continued to make tracks in the dirt at her hooves, the afternoon sun beat down on her. Sweat formed on Pinkie's back and brow, and wherever she looked, there was only more yellow to remind her of the glowing orb above. She licked her lips again.
"Are you getting thirsty, Gummy?" Pinkie asked the mound of scales in her mane. He replied by licking her ear again. "This is probably the longest you've gone without a bath, huh?"
As Pinkie continued forward, her neck and mane drooped. Her gaze drifted across her surroundings, but still couldn't find anything unique to focus on. She licked some sweat from her cheek and gulped.
"We've really got to find you some water, Gummy," Pinkie said. Her mind started turning a few gears. "This is a farm, right?" Gummy gave no response. "Well, somepony is growing this stuff... And either they have water, or maybe we can find what they use to water the plants..."
Pinkie Pie's nose hovered at the ground. Her tongue would have been lolling about if she didn't dislike the taste of earth so much. She tried to think of something, anything, to distract her from how badly Gummy needed water, but the smell of dirt was boring, the endless yellow stalks were boring, the weight on her back was boring, even that white noise was boring.
Wait... what was that noise?
"Do you hear that, Gummy?" Pinkie asked. She raised her head and perked her ears forward. "Why does that sound familiar?"
The further she walked, the louder the noise got. Whatever it was, it was constant. It danced through her head, flowing, streaming...
Stream.
"WATER!"
Pinkie Pie went into a full gallop. The motion jolted Gummy from a nap, and he clamped onto a clump of mane for dear life. He flapped all about as Pinkie dashed forward as fast as four hooves could take a pony.
The first new thing in hours greeted their eyes as a narrow river swam into view at the end of the road. A number of pipes dipped into it. As soon as it was within reach, Pinkie Pie dunked her whole head in, taking Gummy with her.
For almost a minute, the only movement and sound was that of wind blowing through wheat. The tranquility was broken when Pinkie resurfaced, gasping. She took several deep breaths before a sleepy smile crossed her lips. "Oh, that's the stuff," she croaked.
"Ey! Wattoo doin' mah rivuh?"
"Huh?" Pinkie whipped her head around to greet the first voice she'd heard in what felt like a year. Did she already forget what language sounded like, or was the elderly mare speaking with a mouth full of rocks?
"Daggum rivuh fer the crop, anoo got yer 'ed innit!"
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Pinkie Pie said to her. "I didn't know this water was for all the wheat! Gummy and I were just so thirsty, and—"
As Pinkie motioned to the mentioned companion, the elderly mare went into a frenzy of unintelligible words at the sight of an alligator lazing about in her water. Pinkie Pie sheepishly used her teeth to grab Gummy by the neck and remove him from the stream.
"Daggum critter frashin' ra merrit tranna fer iggit—!"
"I'm sorry!" Pinkie Pie said again, placing her pet at her hooves. "We're just a pair of travelers! We're on our way to Mount Neverquest, and—"
"Trav'lers?" the old mare repeated. "Yoo trav'lin wit all dat riff-raff on yer back?"
"'Riff-raff'?!" Pinkie said, offended. She motioned to her bags and said, "These happen to be my most essential, can't-live-without items!"
The elderly mare chose to abandon speech and instead simply raise an eyebrow. Pinkie Pie folded her forelegs. The mare scratched her chin while sizing up the luggage. "All dat gear an' no watuh bottuh?" she asked.
"A water bottle?" Pinkie Pie unhooked one of the bags and started rifling through it. "No, but I've got four different wigs, a pair of water wings, two and a half decks of cards, Rarity's favorite rug (don't tell her), three horseshoes, and THIS!" She pulled out a long tube of snacks and waved it under the mare's nose. The aged pony squinted at Pinkie with one eye, then removed the tube's lid. It instantly showered her in paper snakes. Pinkie Pie wore a huge grin, but the mare's unsmiling expression never changed.
"Yoo kids 'n yer confounded..." The mare grabbed the tube in her mouth and continued giving muffled mutters and she hobbled over to the riverbed. 
"Hey!" Pinkie called after her, "What are you doing?"
The mare stooped over and filled the tube with water. She kept her neck craned sideways as she walked back to Pinkie, careful not to spill a drop. After Pinkie reclaimed the tube, the elderly mare took a few attempts to right her head again.
"Yoo trav'lin, yoo need watuh." The mare poked Pinkie in the chest. "Yoo 'member dat. Watuh is life."
"Water is life." Pinkie Pie gave the mare a salute. "Got it." She replaced the lid on the tube and stuffed it back in her bag.
The elderly pony grunted and, without another difficult to decipher word, turned back down another dirt path, a few spring-loaded serpents bobbing in her mane as she went.
"Thank you!" Pinkie called to the mare with a wave, even though she couldn't see it. "And you can keep the snakes!"
Pinkie waved to the mare until she disappeared from sight. She never once looked back.
"Don't worry, Gummy," Pinkie said while patting the reptile, "I have plenty more of those snakes at home. For right now though, it's important that you have water in case you get thirsty again."
The pink mare placed her pet onto her head once more, and as she did so, she spotted a bridge over the stream just a few paces away. She happily made her way towards it, mentally applauding herself at how well she'd handled her journey so far.