“Do you still think all of this is... natural?”
Twilight nodded. They had gone back to walking; there was no point in doing anything else.
“I’m less sure than I was before, but... yes. If I...” She made a pause. “I’ve been basing all of what we talked about on the little thing that Celestia told me. But that was years ago, I was younger back then, and Celestia had no reason to believe that it would ever matter. I don't think she lied to me, but she might have left out things. Or maybe she just doesn’t know them. Or maybe I don’t remember them right.”
Above them, three crows were still circling, their occasional cry gradually blending in with the falling of rain as an indecipherable wall of background noise.
“If we’re outside of the world, who knows what is or isn’t here. The crows and the rain... I can’t explain either of them, but do you really think that means that it can’t be there?” She sighed. “Probably not.”
“I just...” Twilight turned her head in time to see Rarity biting her lip. “Please forgive me for saying this, because I know it is a silly thought. One that has no impact on our situation at all. But... I feel as though...”
She paused, giving a sigh so deep that all Twilight wanted to do was to halt and take her into her arms.
“It’s simply... imagine things had been a little bit different. Imagine we had gotten here, but without the rain, and without these uncanny birds. And imagine we’d made it home, and told our friends everything. I couldn’t stop thinking about this ever since the spell. But now...
“I cannot imagine reaching home and telling everyone of our most recent encounters. Because they don’t seem to fit into life as we know it. I feel as though... as though the only solution is for us not to reach home, then nopony will be able to question reality. Then...” Rarity's voice diminished, and Twilight had to pay close attention to hear the rest. “... it does not matter what we see now. It does not matter if it is even possible.”
Twilight grimaced. There was something inside her that refused to think about what Rarity had said.
“We will make it home,” she answered instead, and to her own surprise, her voice was firm. Only after she had spoken the words did she realize that she really believed in them. “No crow can last as long without food as we can,” she affirmed herself. “They may have black blood, but every living creature needs to eat. Unless they all flew out here to die, there must be a source of food nearby. Actually, even if they flew out here to die, there must still be source of food close enough for us to reach. There can’t not be one.”
“Should we not follow a crow, then?”
“I...” Twilight paused. “The... world is circular...”
“Yes, Twilight, but do you not need to rethink what you believed about this place? You said so yourself. And I am not talking about the border, I am talking about the presence of... other things. What if there is a source of food, but it is not in the direction we are heading towards? Be that because what you thought was false, or because we are still inside the world after all.”
Twilight halted in her walk, thinking about it. But there was no complicated answer or explanation.
Rarity was right.
She cast a look upwards. Two crows were left, one flying in an unknown pattern above their heads, the other one hovering.
What if they disappeared now, never returned, and Rarity would eventually die because she hadn’t acted fast enough?
Twilight bit her lip. Lighting her horn, she attempted to cast something more complex than what she would usually dare without preparation, but she found herself driven by a cold and definite precision, and it took her only a few seconds to execute her task to success.
“Tracking spell?”
Twilight nodded. “I’ll know how far it is away and which direction it’s in for over a week. Do you want to follow it now, or see where it flies to first?
The latter seemed to be the more reasonable course of action, and it also was what she expected Rarity to choose...
“Let us follow it now.”
“Really?”
“You said it yourself. There has to be food nearby, or if not nearby, then at least close enough for us to reach it. If we do continue forward, what are the chances for us to get home? Quite good, I would presume, since we are likely close to the border already. But do you really want to gamble our lives on it? – Now, if we follow the crow, it may lead us farther away from the border, but it has to lead us to food. I’d rather spend another week here than risk our lives just to get home faster.”
Twilight felt adoration dwelling up inside her. She may have been providing magical assistance that ate on her strength, but it wasn’t much, and Rarity wasn’t any more athletic than her. She must have felt almost as miserable as Twilight did, and yet...
“There is one problem, though.” It was not an attempt to persuade Rarity, but a reasonable objection, no more, no less. “Crows are omnivores. Whatever we find...”
The fashionista said nothing. For over a minute, they simply stood there, while the rain was pouring down around them.
A sigh, and Rarity hung her head.
“Let us continue.”