//------------------------------// // A mountain of shadows // Story: A shooting nightmare: The tables have rotated // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// "Hu. Ey thought tiny ponies would know how tae walk boiy their birth." "Too bad I was born a human and not a pony, then!" Mathews glared at the blacksmith while the breezies still tried pulling him onto his legs. "And yeh gawt fairies with yeh. They nevehr show themselves tae us. We just have legends. Interestin'." Mathews looked up at the nebwezar with wide-eyes and an expression of bewilderment. "That's your only reaction? WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE CREATURES?!" It took Mathews a few minutes to get on his legs, although they were trembling rather violently. It was as if he had just done some leg exercises and his limbs were telling him to stop before collapsing. He shouldn't be this weak, even as a tiny colt. Maybe he could use his wings? Nah. Best start with ACTUAL limbs before messing with those. The pale breezy, unlike her 'friends', was floating in front of Mathews and laughing her head off. "There's eh fleyh in front of yeh?" Quertix commented. The breezy's face puffed up red in anger, prompting her to immediately float up towards the giant and starts spouting obscenities in whatever r rolling language the breezies spoke. Querthix remained stoic and impassive during her rant. His only response after several minutes of buzzing was to simply blow on her, resulting in the weightless breezy being taken by the current and looping in the air whilst yelling for her life. The resulting travel ended painfully for the breezy as she smashed against one of the wooden poles holding the forge roof up and slowly slid down. Mathews took the opportunity to laugh at her rather loudly just so she could hear, however, his attempts to walk weren't funny at all. He constantly walked with both legs on one side moving forward together. This seemed to irritate Querthix who just exhaled loudly and interrupted the foal's attempts at movement. "No. Yeh ehrn't a cehmel nor are yeh eh biped. Yeh're supposed teh use yehr opposite legs when moving fehrward." Mathews just stared at the giant with confusion. Unlike Crescent, he had trouble understanding their 'super thick' accents. "Walk with yeh're oposing legs. One forleg followed boy theh diagonally ployced one." It took the other breezies to explain it to Mathews with their own movement and demonstrations for him to understand. "Not sure I can trust them considering they're fairies, but Crescent is too obsessed with absolving herself and the creatures here to pay attention to me, so I need to do what I do best: Make do with the situation and get better progressively." Quethix watched him slowly walk forward like a normal equine creature. Granted, he hadn't seen ponies much in his life. In fact, these were the only two he ever witnessed, but he had already seen other quadrupedal creatures and camels who often traveled up mountains for sport after having traveled long distances from across the horizon. "Good. Yeh're getting it weyl. Just eh lettle more and yeh'll be at theh dining hall." The blacksmith watched the tiny foal struggle along the way as he stared at his legs whilst walking. It was...slow. So very, very slow. "This is going teh be eh looooooooong noyt." Meanwhile, at the Dining Hall, the Nebwezar were going ballistic on the food. An enormous, lengthy table of a dark-brown wood stretching from one end of the longhouse to the entrance. It could've easily sat over a hundred ponies. The floors and walls were covered with some sort of vanilla colored clay substance, but pieces had broken off to show the wood underneath. The kitchen was right in front of everyone...or rather, the cooking-ware was in front of everyone. The Nebwezar cook with stone, using stone ovens and smoothed, stone plates atop a fire. Naturally, it was enormous and nearly the width of the table itself, but it was only covered in various vegetables, some of them not even known to pony kind. The walls had no windows or doors. Instead, they were holes covered by two pieces of cloth hanging from a bronze bar embedded within the logs. Unsurprisingly, the Nebwezar were extremely rowdy and rather barbaric when eating their food. The vegetables of immense proportions were placed on several metal trays and slid along the table while Amphoras full of water and fruit juices were placed near the edges of the tables for quick grabbing and drinking. Crescent was the only one standing tall, her head barely rising above the platform. She felt rather uncomfortable. Worse still, she was separated from Mathews again and couldn't leave. She needed to leave, but jut taking her tiny hooves off the table and turning made one of the Nebwezar next to her push her back towards the table and place more vegetables on her plate. "Yeh dun need tae worry. Oy'm cehrtain theh tainy pony is with theh blecksmith." "How do you know where he is?" "Aye was there when yeh arroyved and aye heyrd what yeh we're going teh do after meeting with theh druiadem." "Oh...But I really need to go get him. We've been separated enough as it is and--" "No no. Eat yer vegetables. Weh'll have something for him seeing as heh's eh teeny tiny pony. Prolly be malk ehr something." In front of such a situation of entrapment, Crescent had no choice but to wait at the table and slowly nibble away at her food while her heart thumped painfully in her chest and her mind came up with all sorts of horrid scenarios. Unfortunately, the Nebwezar never said that the feast prior to the 'great day' would last until morning. Many of the got rowdy and started to get into a fight, often throwing each other through the walls while the others watched and laughed. Crescent dropped her head onto the table, grateful of the light weight her armor now had, but still took it off to pass a hoof through her mane. "This turned out to be more of a disaster than I thought. What am I going to do, Mathews? Maybe I should just blast through them? No. They possess magic unknown to pony kind, what with their stupid moons... Mathews, however, was starting to get the hang of walking. He was now going at a slow trot rather than flumping around like a fish on a boat. He was even getting attached to the fae...sort of. He was still tremendously skeptical of them, but if these ones were actually different and just followed a pranking habit, then he could learn to live with them. Why they followed him, though, he would never know. Unfortunately, before he could even think, the sunlight burned his eyes and caught the breezies off guard as well. "Ugh. That stings! What is that? The sun? How did I stay up so long in this tiny baby's body?" Mathews slowly lowered his hoof as the sun was slowly being covered by the fluffy clouds. "Is there anything in this place that isn't fluffy? Crescent's world is really weird." Mathew's thoughts were interrupted by a violent thud that shook the ground and tossed both him and the breezies into the air. Their heads darted around in panic when another thud hit. The sky was getting darker and darker, and when one of the breezies spotted the source of the trembling, her mouth became agape and she poked the foal next to her to look upwards. Mathews slowly looked up, then he too became like the breezy, as did the others. Querthix ran and jumped over them to get a better look at the cause. He pulled his right arm in then threw it upwards and yelled: "THEH YUHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS!"