//------------------------------//
// XL - Restoration 
// Story: Mortal Coil 
// by Reeve 
//------------------------------//

	We left Timber early the next morning, rather than asking for a different room, Pinkie had opted to just sleep in the same bed as one of us and avoid paying any more money. While she was away at the toilet, Fluttershy and I flipped a coin on who would ‘volunteer’ when she got back, I was the unlucky one. Considering my last experience involving Pinkie Pie and a bed, involved me being tied up, I had every reason to think it was going to be an unpleasant experience. I’d like to say she surprised me, but she really didn’t, it turns out Pinkie is quite snuggly in her sleep, and her cuddles are just as life threatening as her hugs.

So my two companions woke up the next morning, feeling fresh and well rested, while I just grumbled and groaned having barely got a wink of sleep. I felt better once I was washed up, and while the other two had their own baths, I took the time to repair my outfit. It really had gotten quite banged up since my journey began, but by the time my friends were ready to go I had it looking good as new. It was nice to leave Timber and it still be as normal as it was when we entered, no fanatical cults or violent factions, no homeless ponies or boarded up shops, just a peaceful, everyday town… naturally it doesn’t remain that way, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

We set off north, a little ways down from where the Lonesome Lake bottlenecked into the river that meandered around the southern end of the Grand Pastures, past Port Mule and out into the Horseshoe Bay. This time we didn’t have to rely on giant frogs and displaced logs to get us from one bank to the other as there was a bridge, although it did give us an excuse to tell the story to Pinkie Pie who absolutely lapped it up. Fluttershy was a little concerned about telling another pony about her ability to converse with animals, but I knew if anypony could relate to doing abnormal things it would be Pinkie Pie.

Indeed, she didn’t even react to it like it was something unusual, which says a lot about Pinkie Pie. While we continued along the road that would take us to Glean, we filled Pinkie in on what had happened since she left Sweet Apple Acres, although I gave her the cut down version for expedience sake. That’s important to note, as I may have omitted certain details about our most recent missions, purely by accident mind you, that ended up being a bit of an issue later down the line. Glean was quite a walk from Timber though, so we ended up having to camp out one night, and then we didn’t arrive at Glean until very late in the evening of the next day. 

The journey there was fairly uneventful; we chatted and joked to keep our spirits up despite the fairly persistent rain. There was one tiny little event worth mentioning, it was nothing too major, just that when we established our camp on that first night we decided to do so away from the road so that we wouldn’t be an obvious target for bandits roaming the Pastures... but instead we became a target for something worse. We went off the beaten track to find somewhere out of the way that would be suitable for sleeping, and might even provide a little shelter from the rain. We travelled east off the road, making for a clump of trees nestled close to the base of the Wyvern Heights.

By the time we reached there, the sun was long gone and the rain had reduced, a light fog sweeping in in its place. We were all pretty exhausted by the time we reached the cover of the ancient trees, even Pinkie, despite the boundless energy she always seemed to possess. Settling down on the forest floor, we all started to drift off, not even stopping to think about keeping watch. We should have known something was wrong, but we were just so tired and sleep sounded so appealing. I only knew something was wrong when I woke up and realised that I was no longer at the edge of the wood, and my friends were nowhere to be seen.

It was still the middle of the night, and I could barely see a few metres in front of me between the darkness overhead and the fog that had grown much thicker all around me. I tried to call for Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, but it was like the sound my voice made was simply absorbed by the fog. The panic at my situation managed to rid any feelings of exhaustion and thoughts of sleep from my mind, and I started to realise just how spooky the forest we had willingly entered truly was. The gnarled, twisted trees all seemed to stretch in, their branches resembling monstrous claws ready to grab hold of me as soon as I wasn’t looking.

The real threat wasn’t in the trees however, but in the fog. I could see it, darting around just out of my sight, melting away into the pearly whiteness any time I nearly got a good look at it. I drew my sword, not exactly confident it would help me any, and began making my slow way through the forest. I tried to light my horn, but it only glared off the fog and did nothing to improve visibility, although it might have made it easier for my pursuer to see me. Extinguishing my horn, I quickened my pace, if I could just reach the edge of the woods I could gather my wits and start thinking of a way to find my friends again.

After a few minutes which felt like hours, my brisk trot turned into a full gallop, but still I never reached the end of this blasted wood. More than that, it felt like I had never left the one spot where I had woken up. It was impossible to tell, all around me was fog, and above me the twisting trees looked the same. My head began to spin and I could feel myself growing weak as I fell to my knees, my sword fell from my grasp and rolled away. When I tried searching for it, it was nowhere to be seen, like it had simply sank into the ground.

I was beginning to panic at that point, more than that; I was starting to feel seriously scared. I had wandered into some kind of nightmarish trap, and I was all alone with no hope of escaping. I began to feel very cold as the weakness spread from my legs to my chest, it was getting difficult to breathe and I feared I had little time left. Using my last breaths I shouted desperately for my friends, all of them, just wishing that somepony would answer me in my last seconds, even if they couldn’t save me... but then, I heard somepony reply.

I heard a pony calling my name, it was faint. It sounded so far off, but I knew they were calling to me, calling me to them. Despite the weakness I felt, I forced myself to stand up, one leg at a time. Each of my legs trembled violently as I put weight onto them, but I refused to let myself collapse a second time. With all my remaining energy, I put one leg in front of the other and walked into the fog, making my painfully slow way to where the voice was still calling me from… and then I woke up, for real this time.

I gasped for air, as if I had just broken the surface of water after being trapped until my lungs were ready to burst. Pinkie Pie was leaning over me, holding me slightly off the ground, a terrified look on her face. I quickly realised that this place wasn’t where we had stopped to rest either, in fact, it was far from it considering it appeared to be underground. I tried to sit up, but all I could manage was tilting my head so I could just about see where we were. It turned out we were in a barrow, walls of dirt and roots poking through the ceiling. We shouldn’t have been able to see a thing, the only entrance being a small tunnel in the far wall, and it was still night outside.

We were able to see quite well due to the eerie, pale blue glow coming off of the creature that floated in the centre of the room. It was a pale, ghostly figure, comprised mostly of wispy, tattered sheets. Only its long skeletal hands were visible, extending from beneath the wraps, long dead flesh stretched over its twitching digits. The only other feature it possessed was a single round, dark hole in its head where the mouth would have been, I could hear it sucking in a deep rattling breath, as it did I could feel more of my strength get sapped away.

The creature was a Wight, an undead that fed off the life-force of its prey. When we had neared the wood where its barrow lay, we had been entranced by its bewitching fog. All that stood between it and us, was Fluttershy, who stood defiantly with her mace raised.

“Get away from her monster!” she barked at it in a ferocious tone I would never have associated with her.

The Wight gave a high pitched shriek and swooped forward, its claw like hands raking the air, ready to tear Fluttershy in two. I wanted to scream a warning, to tell her to run, but it turned out I didn’t need to. Without any hesitation, Fluttershy stood her ground and gave her mace a mighty swing upward, catching the Wight in the chest. As the mace head impacted, there was a great explosion of light and the Wight retreated, shrieking in agony. The mace had burned a shining hole in its chest which was expanding with every second, before long the Wight’s screams of anguish were eclipsed as the burning light devoured it whole.

When the Wight was gone, all that remained was a ball of swirling blue energy, the same blue of my magical aura. Fluttershy reached out for it tentatively, it seemed to connect to her hoof, to cling to it. Slowly she carried it over to where I lay, still cradled by Pinkie Pie. She brought it down to my mouth, and as I breathed in, it flooded into my lungs and system, refilling me with the life force that was taken. With the Wight gone and my life-force returned to me, the barrow become pitch black, however Fluttershy was still full of surprises. She held her mace up and whispered something to it, as soon as she did, the weapon began to glow with a powerful light.

“Oh Rarity, you had us so worried!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, pulling me into a hug I really hadn’t been ready for. “We woke up and you were gone, we looked everywhere in the woods for you. Then we found this mound with a spooky blue light coming out of it and we found you inside asleep, at least we hoped you were asleep.”

“We should be fine now,” Fluttershy said, prodding Pinkie to indicate that she should loosen her grip on me. “This was the only barrow we found.”

“That still doesn’t mean we’re sleeping in here,” I replied in a weary voice. “Let’s get out of these woods; I’ll take a little rain over this place any day.”

The pair of them helped me up, and together we climbed out of the barrow and made our way back out of the woods after consulting my compass. Once on the outside, we kept walking until it was sufficiently far behind that we could all relax. As we lay down to get a few hours of actual sleep, I thanked them both for rescuing me before immediately drifting into a deep slumber. As the sun rose and we got ready to leave, Pinkie gathered up some wood to create a makeshift sign while I used my magic to burn a message into it. It simply read ‘Don’t sleep in the woods’.

We got back on track and continued along the road to Glean, as stated, we didn’t arrive until late evening, by which point we were all thoroughly exhausted again. As we neared the town, I was surprised, but glad to see some ponies had made a brave attempt at re-establishing the farmland. There were still lots of houses with blacked out windows, but they were fewer than the last time I had been there, and there were even some sheep in the paddocks. We navigated to the inn I had stayed at before, hoping somepony else would have taken it over since I was last there.

All three of us froze when we saw two Rebel soldiers standing guard at the door of the inn. Curious as to what was going on, we made our way over and greeted them.

“Good evening fine sirs,” I began civilly. “Is there something going on in here?”

“Not at all miss,” one of the guards replied. “The inn is open and ready for business, we’re simply here as part of the restoration scheme of Glean.”

“Restoration scheme?” I repeated, looking back at the other two who looked equally confused.

Shrugging, I thanked the guards and led the way into the modestly occupied inn. While it wasn’t packed like the inn at Timber, nor was it deserted like it had been when I was there. We all made our way over to the bar where a young mare stood to greet us.

“Good evening ladies,” she said pleasantly. “Are you looking for a room or just something to eat?”

“Just a room please,” I told her before Fluttershy urgently whispered into my ear about our supplies. “And some food as well if it’s no trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” the mare assured me. “I’ll fetch you some menus and your room key.”

“Very efficient,” I murmured as she popped into the backroom.

Fluttershy had pointed out that we didn’t have much in the way of supplies since Pinkie Pie joined our party, it would be wiser to save what we have for on the road. When the mare returned, she passed us the menus which Fluttershy and Pinkie began looking over while I worked out the payment for the room, luckily Pinkie Pie had also brought some money to the group thanks to her pirate treasure.

“So what’s this thing about ‘restoration of Glean’?” I asked the mare while I was counting out bits. “The guard outside mentioned it.”

“It’s a very recent thing brought in by the new mayor of Pivot,” the mare explained. “After the recent tragedy, she’s focusing on trying to restore the city, but she needs Glean to recover as well to help with the food shortages.”

“A new mayor who’s actually doing something,” I repeated thoughtfully.

It made sense, Pen Pusher was a unicorn, he might not have survived the Children of the Earth’s attack. It was nice to think that this new mayor was trying to fix things and help ponies rather than just help herself.

“Who is the mayor?” I asked curiously.

“I think her name is Inkie, she used to be a secretary,” the mare explained. “Apparently she was inspired when she overheard some mare shouting at the last mayor and telling him what he needed to do to fix things.”

“Inkie…” I repeated, sure I had heard that name before.

At that moment a stallion emerged from the backroom, wheeling out a trolley with two crates on it. He stopped to call over to the mare who excused herself, while I was looking over the menu, I could overhear what they were saying.

“That’s the last of the junk cleared out of the basement,” the stallion informed her. “But check this out, I found it while I was shifting these boxes.”

“That’s pretty,” the mare commented, examining the gold pin he showed her.

“Not just pretty, this is a Wonderbolts pin,” the stallion explained. “You know, that elite Equestrian air force.”

“What on earth would that be doing down there?” the mare asked sceptically. “It’s probably a fake.”

“I don’t know…” the stallion argued, holding it up to the light. “Looks pretty real to me, might even fetch a decent price.”

We ordered our food, ate it too quickly, then retired to our room where we all felt bloated and sick. That did make it easy to fall asleep, and it was a much more comfortable sleep than then last two nights considering it was in warm beds and there were enough that nopony had to share. By morning all our spirits were high and we set off from Glean with a spring in our step. Our next stop was the ferry dock, a little ways north of Glean. It was roughly the same distance as the checkpoint where I had travelled to when I was on my way to Pivot with Lyra and the others, so it was late afternoon by the time we reached it, but the rain had lessened considerably, so we were still feeling good when we did. 

The dock was a relatively uninteresting point at the edge of the Neptune, the vast lough in the centre of the country. It consisted of the ferry keeper’s house, a barn for storage and the jetty that led out to the large ferry. It was mainly used for transporting goods from places like Glean and Timber to Breakwater and vice versa, but ponies were allowed to ride on it so long as they didn’t disrupt the work of the ferry keeper. There was a little picket sign a few metres from the front of the house with the travel times written in peeling paint.

We were lucky, the ferry only set off from the dock twice a week as it took three days to travel over there, deliver its load and travel back, with Sundays off. We went up to the barn where we could see the rough stallion hauling out crates that were presumably to be loaded onto the ferry.

“Hello! We need to get a lift on your ferry, pretty please!” Pinkie begged, zooming over to him and leaning right into his face.  

“Good timin’,” the stallion replied gruffly, scratching his beard as he squinted at the sun poking through the clouds. “I’ll be headin’ out pretty soon, you can ride if you’ve got the bits, but I give a discount to anypony who helps me load the ferry and get out of here early.”

“Say no more!” Pinkie declared.

Pinkie pressed both her hooves to the side of the particularly large and heavy looking crate the stallion had been struggling with when we arrived, and with surprising strength pushed it all the way over to the ferry in less than a minute without breaking a sweat. Fluttershy and I helped out with some of the smaller boxes, me using my magic and Fluttershy flying them directly to the ferry without having to walk around the house. It only took several minutes with our combined effort and the stallion’s directions to have the ferry fully loaded.

He gave a low whistle when the job was done, looking pleased with the results.

“You girls sure made me feel old,” he commented, although he sounded amused rather than annoyed at that. “We’ll make good time, and like I promised, you can ride for only five bits each.”

As we paid up and boarded the ferry, the stallion went into his house, coming back out with an old navy captain’s jacket and cap. Once he locked up his house and joined us over by the ferry, he introduced himself as Salty, we told him our own names and simply that we were on our way to Olympus, although we didn’t get into why.

“Olympus?” he repeated. “Good luck up there, from what I hear it’s madness.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t handle,” I commented wryly as I made eye contact with Pinkie Pie, who returned my confident smirk.

“Yeah, you’re talking to bona fide Wonderbolts!” Pinkie declared.

“Yeah, that’s… wait, what?!” I exclaimed as Pinkie pulled out a familiar gold pin.

“See, we’re totally Wonderbolts… Hey!” Pinkie exclaimed when I snatched the pin off her.

The pin was in the shape of a single bolt of lightning with two pegasus wings spreading out of either side, it was definitely the one I had seen that stallion at the inn holding up to the light when he was talking to the mare.

“You stole this from the stallion at the inn!” I hissed at Pinkie so Salty wouldn’t hear.

“Technically it was never his, so I didn’t steal it,” Pinkie argued calmly. 

I thrust it back into her waiting hooves, and she grinned at it before hiding it within her mane.

“If it wasn’t for the fact that we don’t have time for backtracking,” I began in an irritated tone. “I’d make you return that. You said you didn’t kill ponies who didn’t deserve it, surely the same rules apply to stealing.”

“Implying he didn’t deserve it?” Pinkie questioned.

“You think he did?” I retorted as Salty finished the preparations for setting off from the dock.

“I told you Rarity,” Pinkie Pie said, giving me an enigmatic grin. “I have a sense for these things.”