I'm Not Chewy
At last, we reached the end of the desert. Lena dismounted immediately and headed for the nearest bush, tossin' cookies like there was no tomorrow. I grinned maliciously at her discomfort and started to look for some other food. Very near us, there was a convenient river. Surrounding it, there were a lot of wild apple trees. I started picking the ripe apples, feeling a slight pang of hunger that hadn't been present for around two days. I refilled the canteens that we had and took a long draught myself, dropping the river level a couple of inches for a few seconds. I sighed and wiped my lips, before I heard a splashing sound slightly upriver. Lena had completely dunked her head underwater, guzzling all she could. I sighed.
"Now you're not gonna be able to eat lunch," I told her when her head finally surfaced. She glared at me. "Sheesh, first it's wide eyes, and now it's angry eyes. What's next, googly eyes?" I muttered.
"Shut your big ugly pie-hole," she retorted. I shrugged and gave her an apple, which she scarfed down immediately.
"Um... Lena? You might not wanna eat the core. No? Okay then, don't worry about it. Here, just take some more apples. Uh, Lena? Lena? That's all the apples. Okay then, I suppose you can just eat them."
At the end of this, Lena had clearly eaten beyond her fill. I snickered.
"Hey look! It's a real live pony that rocks! On her stomach!"
Her eyes shot pure venom at me.
"Alright wise guy, I'm gonna get you for that! C'mere! I'll bite yer legs off! C'mere!"
She struggled to move, but the weight of her ingested contents slowed her down so much that she collapsed from exhaustion and fell into a food coma. I rubbed my temples with my fingers, trying to reduce the frustration level. Eventually, I just sat down and ate apples until I was finally full, which took a while. Lena laid on the ground, snoring peacefully in the position of a splayed-out giraffe.
'Hopefully she'll wake up soon enough to get some excercise.'
My thoughts were interrupted by a loud roar coming from behind me, which also woke Lena up. I spun around quickly and saw a pretty big manticore headed our way, tail ready to poison. Lena shrieked loud enough to make ears bleed.
'Oh snap,' I thought as it tackled me across the river.
It knocked my breath out as it landed on top of my ribcage and growled. I snarled right back at it. It seemed a bit taken aback, until it decided to jab it's tail into me, which it did, right in the left shoulder. I yelled in pain. After all, it doesn't feel pleasant to have the equivalent of a knife jabbed into you. The cat stared down in satisfaction. Obviously, it was expecting me to start screaming for mercy against it's poison. I decided to have fun with it.
"That tickles."
Okay, maybe not the best line, but the manticore seemed to look very confused. It tried to jab it's tail into my right shoulder this time, only to be met by an enlarged scale.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, hairball. The same trick won't work on me twice, especially if it didn't work the first time."
The large feline snarled at me, and I roared right back, ruffling it's mane and making it's gums flap comically.
"Wouldja watch where you blow that thing's drool!?!" commented Lena from the other bank.
I merely grinned. Focusing once more on me, the manticore tossed me up in the air and caught me in it's mouth.
"Oh sugarsticks." *CHOMP* "Hey, that didn't really hurt so bad." *CHOMP* "I barely felt that." *CHOMP* "*wheeze*, okay, that was better..."
The manticore finally spat me out and looked around for a more chewable victim. In case you can't guess, it's Lena, still bloated. The monster licked it's lips and was about to leap when I whistled at it. It turned around and was met by a super-speed punch in the snout. It roared at me. Now, it was personal.
I noticed more of a twinge in my shoulder, where the beast had stung me. I clutched my chest. My heart sped up.
'I get it now. I'm a bit more resistant to it's poison, but if it stays long enough, it'll get to me.' I looked in horror to my left shoulder as my heart began humming. To my surprise, it wasn't even swollen. Suddenly, a bit of my green blood forced it's way out of the open wound, jetting out a good foot. Surprisingly, it boiled. I grinned at the manticore.
"Poison doesn't work on a guy with boiling blood," I said as I sped around to it's back.
I hit it squarely with my open palm and it crumpled to the ground, it's back making a cracking sound. It straightened itself out with some effort and limped off to the forest, hissing at me. I hissed right back at it, making it limp faster away from me. I leaped over the river and shook Lena, who had fallen into another food coma after the manticore targetted me.
"What?... Five more minutes mom," she blurted out, hitting the ground again. I retracted my claws and slapped her across the face. "What was that for!?!" she yelled, angry at me once more.
"Since I just saved your life, I figured I would be able to have a little fun. Now stand up and get walking. We want to get as far as we can today, and our supplies are stocked up."
"I don't wanna. I'm too full."
"So you're too full, eh? I think I can fix that. How about a quick jog around the forest." Her eyes widened at this.
"NO!"
"Oh, but I think we must. You can hardly move."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" I grabbed her by the hooves and started running around the forest.
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The noises coming from the bushes were so grotesque that I can't even come close to imitating them. Therefore, I'll just tell you that she hurled, vomited, barfed, spewed, blowed chunks, tossed cookies, up-chucked, was sick, flapped-at-the carpet, yelled-at-her-shoes/hooves, retched, rainbow-yawned, threw up and horked for 17 minutes and three fourths without taking a break.
"Feelin' alright in there?" I asked, leaning casually on a tree trunk. She hurled once more and then glared lasers at me, green finally disappearing from her face.
"I'm gonna kill you for this."
"I know. But it was worth it!!!"
I burst into laughter and collapsed on the forest floor, tears coming to my eyes as I held my sides. Lena's horn glowed suddenly and vines sprouted straight out of the ground, curving till they loomed above me, dangerously sharp. I didn't care. I kept laughing at the thought of her emptying her lunch into the bushes. Her eyes narrowed further, and the vines jabbed into the ground around me. I continued to chuckle maniacally. Until the last vine pierced my right arm
"OW!"
"You had it coming," she remarked as the vines disappeared into the ground again.
I examined the wound. A hole was in place in the bicep area. Green blood poured out of the wound, but it didn't trickle far. It just floated to the edge of the wound and stayed there. 'Note to self: ticking off Lena is fun, but dangerous.'
"You know what's funny right here? It barely hurts. It stings a little, but it's not like it makes me scream in pain. At first, it hurt a lot, but now, I can barely feel it."
I grinned again as I thought about her vomiting. She stuck her face right up next to mine and looked me in the eye.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again. That. Never. Happened," she threatened. I sighed.
"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my ey...DOH!"
She nodded, satisfied. Evidently, Pinkie Promises were famous. Or maybe she was just kin. The pink hair/fur and red mane were pretty close colors. Then a question struck me.
"Hey Lena, why didn't you just teleport back to your house after you had gotten what you were looking for?"
She mumbled something I couldn't understand.
"Beg pardon?"
"I-I can't say."
I folded my arms at her.
"Not gonna happen."
I raised a non-existent eyebrow.
"No."
"You get sick with teleportation too, don't you?"
She blushed in embarrasment.
"N-NO!", she denied.
I didn't shift my gaze.
"Yes.", she muttered. "I got sick whenever I teleported short distances, so I never worked on the spell. Now I can't teleport to save my life. Literally." She sighed. "Listen, you can't tell anyone about this. Barely any unicorns can actually teleport, so I had a lot on my back because of my ability to output enough energy in two different points in space and actually put them together."
She was a lot calmer than beforehand.
"My lips are sealed." She smiled gratefully.
"You really aren't an ordinary dragon, are you?"
"Nnnnnope."
"Well, we're almost to my house. Let's get a move on."
We started walking again, and I took another look at the wound of mine. By now, it didn't even tickle, and the scab was fully dry. I shrugged. 'Another great mystery of my body.'
"So why'd you think I could teleport, anyways?"
"I dunno, I just kinda thought all unicorns could teleport."
She gave me a funny look.
"Why the heck would you think that?"
"Well," I said, scratching the back of my neck, "Well, I heard a little about unicorns teleporting, you know, just kind've a pop and that's it. Doesn't sound too complicated..."
She facehooved. "You truly are a moron." She removed her hoof and gave me an 'Are you serious' look. "It's hard enough to teleport the way I do it, energizing two different points and then jumping the distance, but 'just a pop'? Do you realize how much raw power that would take? That's a unicorn with the power of a monster"
I shrugged as we moved on a bit more. We continued in silence for a few minutes, until...
"So Scales, what are you going to do next?"
The question hit me like a ton of bricks. I hadn't even thought of that before. All my thoughts were focused on just taking Lena to her home.
"I have no idea," I responded.
"Seriously?"
"Eeeyup."
She seemed to ponder a bit before responding.
"Well, I wouldn't know what you should do. You're good at pretty much anything you put your mind to."
"I'll probably just explore, walk around, that kind of thing, looking for adventure and whatnot."
Silence reigned supreme for a while, as we walked through the green landscape. I noticed a particular arrow on a tree. Looking at Lena, I raised an eyebrow.
"Trailmarkers. We're getting very close to my home."
As if on cue, we rounded a tree and there it was, a rather large cabin in a clearing of green grass that stretched probably a few miles.
"That road right there goes into Equestria. I get all my supplies that I can't get myself from there. Now let's hurry up, I'm dying to be home."
She started to gallop towards her house. My smirk plastered itself on my face. As Lena ran, she saw a green blur to the right of her.
"Rather slow pace this is, what?" I said with a slight British accent.
Her face contorted into a challenging and determined grin.
"This ain't half what I got."
She sped ahead of me, as I had planned. I caught up to her easily, examining my nails nonchalantly as I ran backwards. She looked at me in disgust.
"Show-off."
I shrugged.
"Gotta show my superiority somehow."
She rolled her eyes as we approached her cabin and slowed down.
"Well, here we are. Welcome to my humble abode," she said, bowing comically as candles were lit.
"Nice place you got," I remarked.
"Thanks."
At that moment, I remembered something that I had been thinking about, which involved the blink hound furs and teeth.
"Hey Lena, are you any good with making enchanted objects and the like?"
"Well... Somewhat. Why?" I put my mouth up to her ear and whispered my idea to her. "Ummm... Scales?"
"Yeah?"
"... Why did you whisper that?"
"... I have no idea. But let's get started."
I slung the furs off my back and took them to her workshop, as she called it.
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Canterlot Palace
Princess Celestia frowned as she sipped some tea with Princess Luna. The moon alicorn was chatting amiably to her sister about subjects best known to herself, but the sun-raiser had her thoughts elsewhere.
"Tia? Hellooo! Is there anypony hidden in there? Luna asked, waving her hoof in front of Celestia's face. Celestia woke up from her daydream.
"My pardons, Lulu. I haven't quite felt myself these past few days."
"Whatever for?"
"I'm not quite sure. Two or three days ago I felt something strange and different, and it's been bugging me ever since." Luna raised her eyebrow.
"I wouldn't worry about it quite so much dear sister. Nothing unusual has been reported in Equestria."
"I suppose not." Celestia's face brightened. "But listen to you! Your manner of speech has greatly improved."
"Thank thee, Tia." Luna replied, sipping her tea.
Well, fifth chapter finally complete. Sorry it took so long, but I was kinda stuck for a bit, wondering what to do next. Have fun.