//------------------------------//
// 〽 Journey ☃ 
// Story: Obama Goes to Equestria 
// by a human 
//------------------------------//

After following the trail for a bit, the gang ended up in front of the Everfree forest.

"Of course," Rarity sighed. "Where else would it lead?" 

"Come on, let's get in there," Applejack said. 

And so they did.

"Okay y'all," Applejack said with her authority as the only one in the group familiar with outdoors life. "You know how dangerous this forest is. Make sure, whatever you do, you don't go off the pathway."

They walked a couple of feet forward and the oil trail veered off the path.

"Celestiadammit." 

"What do we do now?" Obama said.

"I fly ahead and see what's at the end of the trail, of course!" Rainbow Dash said, starting to fly off.

"No!" Applejack yelled. "We stay together! You remember what happened last time we split up!"

Rainbow Dash scratched her head. "That spider with the eyepatches?"

Applejack pulled her hat down. "You had to spend a day with Pinkie Pie."

Rainbow Dash shuddered. "Okay, I get it, I get it! I'm sticking with you guys!"

They started to follow the oil trail deep into the forest. Things quickly became pitch black.

"Be careful, guys," Applejack said. "We wouldn't want to injure ourselves here in the middle of nowhere."

Rarity yelped in pain.

Applejack groaned. "What did you get into this time, Rarity?"

"A twig!" she screamed. "It's a twig!"

Everyone stared in confusion.

"Do you know how many germs are on twigs?" Rarity said. "Also it cut me. I'm bleeding."

"Oh, it can't be that bad," Rainbow Dash said. She walked over to Rarity. She had cut part of her cutie mark, making it look like the sickest tattoo ever. "See? It's nothing."

Fluttershy drank some of it.

"Well, if Fluttershy thinks it's healthy enough to drink, it can't be too bad," Rarity said. "Let's do this!"

Almost on cue, the gang saw a clearing.

Of course, once they reached that clearing, they saw that the oil trail went across a rickety old log stretched across a 100 foot deep cliff.

"Are you sure I can't just fly ahead?" Rainbow Dash said.

"No," Applejack said. "We have to stay together."

They crossed the log, nearly killing themselves in the process. As Rarity crossed, Fluttershy hit the log, making her fall to the bottom. It was okay, though, because Rainbow Dash swooped down and saved Rarity.

"Oh, Rainbow Dash," Rarity purred, "you're my knight in shining armor."

"No," Rainbow Dash said, trying to ignore a sensation that felt suspiciously like Rarity groping her, "that's Twilight's brother."

"He's okay too."

They landed.

Fluttershy apologized.

"It's okay," Rarity said. "We know how things get sometimes."

While everyone else tried to figure out what Rarity meant by "we," "things," and "get," Obama clapped his hands together. "See? Look. Teamwork!"

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Us trying to kill each other is teamwork?"

Obama looked confused. "Of course it is," he said. "What is it in your country?"

Applejack stopped. "Er."

"It's when we all say we love each other and then nuke things with rainbow friendship death rays!" Pinkie Pie chimed in.

Applejack almost objected, but she couldn't think of anything better. "Yeah, that's actually pretty close."

Obama smiled and scratched his chin. "Interesting," he said slowly, making a mental note to investigate these rainbow friendship death rays.

As usual, though, without any electronic assistance, he promptly forgot.

"So, how much longer do you think we've got, ponies?" he said, waving himself with the jacket of his suit and exciting Rarity far too much for his own good.

"I don't know," Applejack said, testing the the rocky ground in front of her for stability. "Rainbow. How much oil is in that sink?"

"We've already seen way more than I thought there was," Rainbow Dash said.

"Right," Applejack said. She turned back to Obama. "We're screwed."

"I heard."

Fluttershy made some joke about his ears, but it wasn't racist because it was Fluttershy.

Pinkie Pie bounced up to him. "So?"

"So what?"

"How do you like it here so far?"

"What?"

"Just making small talk."

Obama hesitated. "It's great," he said. "Except for the rape, of course."

"Of course."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

Pinkie Pie edged in a bit closer, while bouncing. "Was it Rarity or Celestia?"

"What?"

"Come on, tell me."

"I thought you knew. I thought everyone knew. I thought the whole damn town knew."

"You sound awfully bitter."

"Of course I'm bitter! I was raped!"

The gang stopped and stared at him.

"Nothing to see here," he said, irritated. "Carry on, carry on." When everyone was at least pretending to ignore him, he continued. "…Rarity. It was Rarity."

"Knew it! You know, it's really not that big of a deal. In…"

"Not that big of a deal? Not that big of a deal!?" Obama yelled, diverting attention to himself again. "I cheated on my wife with a horse and it's not that big of a deal!?"

Rainbow Dash did a loop-de-loop. Pensively. "Actually, from what I read about politics in your world, that wouldn't actually be that un…"

Obama shot her a death glare almost as intense as the one that finally got Obamacare passed. 

"…nevermind."

Applejack shrugged. "Well, down here, everyone cheats on their spouses with horses all the time."

Pinkie Pie gasped. "Applejack! You SICK, DEPRAVED oh wait we are horses."

"It's not creepy because we can consent," Rarity suggested. She did a creepy thing with her eyebrows.

Fluttershy said she liked her sex like she liked her men, black and blue and begging for mercy.

"You go, girl!" Rarity said, and they clopped their hooves together. That may or may not have entailed exactly what you thought it did.

"Look, that is not the problem here," Obama said, then reconsidered. "Okay, it is a very large part of the problem, but it is not the problem."

"Oh, come on! You'd be fine with this if I was a human woman."

"No, no I would not," Obama said. "That's Clinton shit."

"Look, ladies, can we at least hike and argue at the same time!?" Applejack yelled "Celestiadamn…"

Everyone else shut up and trudged up the hill some more. Rarity and Obama continued to grumble at each other the whole trip. Rarity insisted it was building sexual tension between them, but Obama didn't believe a word of it.

Finally, they reached the top, and were greeted by a giant cave.

"Great!" Applejack said. "Now what?"

Rainbow Dash sniffed the ground. "The trail's getting thinner. Maybe it'll pick up later, but I can't tell whether she went in the cave or not."

Applejack was a bit stupefied. "You can track the oil by scent? Just how much do you know about kitchen sinks?"

Rainbow Dash suddenly became flustered. "Oh, nothing! Nothing! It's not like I had intercourse with one or anything…"

Full stop.

"Why would you even say that?" Rarity said, narrowing her eyes.

Rainbow Dash gaped and sweat (sweated? swat?) profusely. Luckily, Pinkie Pie came to her rescue.

"Don't worry, Dashie's telling the truth!" she said. "Twilight stopped her before it got that far."

Applejack blinked. "What."

"After Celestia finished laughing, though, which took about 10 minutes, and that was long enough for Rainbow to put on the…"

Rainbow Dash quickly covered her mouth. "Well, that's enough of that, isn't it!? Let's go in that cave."

They did.

It was pitch black.

"It's pitch black," Rainbow Dash said, astutely.

"You are likely to be eaten by a grue," Pinkie Pie said, automatically.

Rarity quickly put an end to that. "Here, darling," she said, lighting her horn. "Light."

It was a very large, empty, respectable cave. The air tasted old somehow, as if it was some kind of time capsule. The place was completely featureless except for…

"Tally marks," Rainbow Dash said in amazement, looking at the wall.

Hundreds and hundreds of meticulously carved tally marks adorned every wall and ceiling of the cave, and were beginning to spill onto the floor.

"This is… ominous," Applejack said.

"What do you think they're counting?" Rainbow Dash said.

"I don't know," Rarity said, "but look at them. Look at how perfect they are. These aren't just any tally marks. They were carved with magic, and way stronger and precise magic than mine."

Rainbow Dash couldn't stop herself. "Celestia…?"

"Or Luna. Or both," Applejack said, examining some others more closely. "Some of them look a bit different."

"Why would the alicorn rulers carve this many tally marks in an old cave?" Obama said.

Fluttershy said it was to remember the ponies they crushed under their godly hooves.

"I doubt it," Rainbow Dash said, too fascinated to react. "If that was the case, I think all of Equestria would be covered in tally marks. It would be something that happened less often… or had to happen less often…"

"Well, regardless, Derpy ain't here," Applejack said, patting her hat. "Let's go the other way. You know the way, right Rainbow?"

"Yeah, sure," Rainbow Dash said, slowly fluttering out.

On the way out, Obama bumped into Rarity.

Rarity's heart fluttered, among other things.

"Oh. Oh my. I have to go," she said, and teleported away, taking away all the light.

"No, wait!" Applejack screamed, and then froze. She looked around herself uneasily.

"What? What is it?" Rainbow Dash said.

Applejack blinked, although no one could see that in the darkness. "Well, for one, I didn't know Rarity could teleport."

Pinkie Pie piped in. "Twilight taught her! She seemed really excited at the possibility of Rarity having another way of not being around her!"

Rainbow Dash paused. "And? For two?"

"I thought that if this cave was built by Celestia, there'd be booby-traps. I mean, the whole mountain could've exploded if we did anything weird, and we'd have to start from scratch again." She took a breath. "Looks like I was wrong."

The gang slowly shuffled out, bumping into every combination of the walls and each other as they could.

Everyone except Pinkie Pie, that is. She stood completely still, pale as a sheet.

"That… many…?"

– – – –

After a while, the oil trail started getting sparser and sparser, until finally it seemed they would not be able to follow it at all.

"This is it," Applejack said. "This is either the end of the line or our only hope." They pushed through a thick bush, praying for the best.

It turned out to be a bit both.

They saw a bright clearing with giant, rickety, homemade cannon in the center. Ditzy (or was it Derpy?) was sitting next to it.

"Oh, bollocks," she said in a distinctly British accent.