"I spy something... green."
"Is it grass?"
"You got it, Blueberry! Your turn."
"Okay. I spy something... brown."
"Is it the road?"
"Uh-huh. You go."
"I spy something... green."
"It's a tree."
"You guessed it! Your turn."
"I spy something green."
"The grass? You can't pick that! I already picked that!"
"But there's nothing else out here, Pinkie!"
"It's the rules!"
"Okay, fine, I'll pick something else. Uh... I spy something... pink."
"Pink?" Pinkie looked around. She and Blueberry had been trotting for about an hour now, following the dirt road to Ponyville. As time went on, the trail seemed to be stretching longer and the journey got more boring. Pinkie had started a game of "I Spy", but there was nothing to look at besides the grass on the sides of the road, the trees around them, and the road itself. There were no flowers; only patches of dirt where the grass refused to grow, so Pinkie knew whatever pink thing Blueberry had seen wasn't a flower... "Is it a birdie?"
"Nope," Blueberry replied.
"A particularly colorful pebble?" Pinkie guessed, noticing all the tiny rocks in the road.
"Wrong."
"Uh..." Pinkie looked around, and then stopped as realization slapped her, "Wait! Is it me?"
"It was your mane, but good enough," Blueberry sighed, "This game is boring."
"Do you have any better ideas?" Pinkie asked.
"Nope," Blueberry confessed.
"Okay then," Pinkie said smugly, "Um... I spy something b-"
"It's me," Blueberry interrupted.
"I... yeah..." Pinkie sheepishly grinned, "You're right, this is getting boring. How far away are we from Ponyville?"
"Uh, well... it's hard to say..." Blueberry scratched the back of her head, "Maybe... we could be close... but we might not be..."
"You mean you don't know?!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"Of course I know!" Blueberry reassured her, "Well, I mean, I know which way it is, sorta, but..."
"We're lost, aren't we?"
"No! We're not lost!" Blueberry gestured at the path, "If we keep walking down this road, we'll end up somewhere, right?"
"I think we should stop and ask for directions from somepony," Pinkie suggested, "Just to be sure."
"Ask for directions from who?" Blueberry inquired, looking around, "There's nopony around. It's just us."
Pinkie glanced at the sky, "It's going to be dark soon. Are we going to be stuck out here when the sun goes down?"
"Are you telling me you're afraid of the dark?" Blueberry replied incredulously.
"Only a little..." Pinkie blushed.
"Nightmare Moon isn't real, and she's not going to getcha," Blueberry threw a comforting hoof over her younger sister's shoulders, "I promise."
"Pinkie promise?"
" 'Pinkie promise'?" Blueberry repeated. Pinkie giggled.
"Yeah, see, I made up a special kind of promise back on the rock farm," Pinkie explained, "I never gave it a name, but I thought about calling it a 'Pinkamena promise', but that didn't sound right. Now that I have a cool new nickname, I finally found a name for it! A Pinkie promise!"
"So what's so special about a Pinkie promise?" Blueberry asked.
"Here, repeat after me. Cross my heart," Pinkie swiped a line over her heart with her hoof.
"Cross my heart," Blueberry copied the motions Pinkie made with her hooves.
"And hope to fly," Pinkie giggled, flapping her hooves like wings.
"And hope to fly."
"Stick a cupcake in my eye," Pinkie put her hoof over her own eye.
"Stick a cupcake in my eye," Blueberry grinned as she put her hoof over her eye, "You know, it isn't supposed to be 'cupcake'. I've heard ponies say n-"
"Blueberry! Look!" Pinkie gasped, pointing
Blueberry looked down the path where Pinkie was pointing. Ahead, the road took a sharp turn around the edge of a cliff, and then the road continued into a forest. As Blueberry watched, a dark gray-ish unicorn with a purple mane trotted out of the forest and continued down the path, heading toward the two fillies. As she drew closer to them, a puzzled expression emerged on her face and her yellow eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Aren't you two a little young to be out here by yourselves?" the mare questioned, stopping in front of them.
"Nope!" Pinkie quickly answered before nudging Blueberry, "Ask her!"
"Ask her for what?" Blueberry mumbled to Pinkie under her breath, "Directions? We're fine!"
"Ask her!" Pinkie repeated firmly.
"Okay, fine. Sorry to bother you, miss," Blueberry began.
"Oh, please call me Shades," Shades interrupted with a little smile.
"Alright, Miss Shades," Blueberry continued, "Could you please tell us which way Ponyville is?"
"Ponyville? It's right down this road. Not very far from here," Shades told them, "Just keep going down this way, and when you come to a fork in the road, turn left. That road leads straight to Ponyville. The other one leads to Ghastly Gorge, and I think the quarry eels are mating, so you'd best steer clear of that."
"Turn left. Got it," Blueberry smiled, "Thank you!"
"Of course. Good luck, my little ponies!" Shades cheerfully bid them farewell before turning and continuing to trot down the road.
"See?" Blueberry smirked, turning to Pinkie, "I was right! I knew where we were going."
"We were lost, and you know it," Pinkie replied, trotting down the road toward the forest. Blueberry quietly sighed in relief that she hadn't gotten them lost before following, and the two fillies slowly entered the forest.
Unknown to them at the time, this particular forest was called "Whistling Wind Woods", named for the soft sounds that the wind made as it curled around trees, making a beckoning whistle that seemed to be calling to travelers who ventured into the forest. However, the wind was silent as the two fillies trotted through the trees. Pinkie nervously admired the trees around them as Blueberry walked ahead of her, focused on following the path. At one point, the road curved, and Blueberry followed the road. Unfortunately, Pinkie was too busy staring at a certain tree that seemed a bit taller than the other ones, and she didn't notice the road curved until she stepped off the path and trotted face-first into a tree.
"Ouch!" Pinkie cried, stumbling back away from the tree and raising a hoof up to rub her snout.
"Are you okay?" Blueberry quickly spun around as Pinkie found her way back to the path.
"I'm fine," Pinkie scrunched her muzzle a few times and then smiled at Blueberry, "The only thing hurt is my pride."
"Pay attention to the path," Blueberry instructed, "There are trees all over."
"It's starting to get dark, Blueberry..." Pinkie noted, nervously glancing toward the sky, "Will we be out of these woods before the sun goes down?"
"Maybe," Blueberry said, looking ahead, "Probably not, unless we hurry."
"A-are we going to have to sleep in the woods?" Pinkie whispered, "With all the t-timberwolves and... and taraxippi... and w-w-windigos-?
"What, you don't like camping?" Blueberry turned around to face her younger sister, "We might have to sleep in the woods with the bunnies and the birdies. I don't think there's anything-"
There came a low howl through the trees, and Blueberry stopped mid-sentence. Pinkie's eyes darted around the trees as the howling turned into a low whistle and then faded.
"I-It was the wind," Blueberry tried to shrug it off, "No big deal."
Pinkie, on the other hand, was petrified. That hadn't sounded like wind... it had sounded more like a wolf or-
"Blueberry! Did you hear that?!" Pinkie gasped, "Hoofclops!"
"What are you talking about?"
"I heard somepony trotting through the trees! Over there!" she pointed at a space between two trees, and Blueberry scanned the forest in that direction.
"I don't see anypony," she said quietly, "It was probably just your imagination. The sooner we get out of here, the better."
Pinkie, frightened, followed Blueberry down the path, but as Celestia slowly lowered the sun to make way for the moon, it became more difficult for the fillies to see in the thick darkness of the forest. Finally, Blueberry sighed and turned to Pinkie, who nearly ran into her sister in the black fog around them. Not even the moonlight could penetrate the leaves overhead.
"Look, Pinkie," Blueberry began, her voice eerily loud in the still silence, "Let's just camp right here. I can't see my own hooves in front of my face! It's too dangerous to keep going."
"No it's not! Look!" Pinkie reached into her saddlebag, and a moment later Blueberry squinted as she shined a light in her eyes, "I brought a flashlight!"
Blueberry was unimpressed, "Come on. Let's just sleep here. Did you bring a pillow?"
"No."
"That's okay, just use your saddlebag. We can sleep on the path."
Pinkie, disappointed, turned off her flashlight and lie down on the path next to Blueberry, laying her head down on her saddlebag. Blueberry was asleep almost instantly, as though she were really tired or just used to sleeping outside.
Pinkie on the other hand tossed and turned. A chill ran down her back every time one of those haunting howls whistled through the trees. As Blueberry lightly snored, Pinkie turned her flashlight on and off as she pointed it at the trees, finally pointing the light directly into her sister's sleeping face, sending shadows across Blueberry's face as she snoozed.
"Psst! Blueberry!" Pinkie whispered, "Are you asleep?"
There was a pause.
"Don't say anything if you are," Pinkie whispered again.
There was another pause. Pinkie sighed, realizing that she was, for now, alone. She was about to turn the light toward another tree that looked a bit like a spider out of the corner of her eye, but then a piece of paper sticking out of Blueberry's saddlebag caught her attention and she peered at the paper suspiciously before deciding to pull it out.
As gently and silently as she could, Pinkie clenched the paper in her teeth and slid it out of Blueberry's saddlebag. She shined the flashlight at it to reveal that it was an opened envelope with the Pie Family Rock Farm's address on the front.
"Is this the letter you sent to Dad...?" Pinkie murmured, pulling the letter out of the envelope. Blueberry stirred, moving her hooves, and then fell still. Pinkie, who was forced into a shocked silence when her sister moved, sighed in relief and then shined the flashlight at the letter.
The first thing she noticed was that Blueberry had written it in a sparkly blue ink. The second thing she noticed was that her sister's handwriting looked remarkably similar to her own. Silently, Pinkie began to read.
To Igneous Rock
My name is Blueberry Swirl, and I'm your daughter.
I'm sorry if this comes as a shock; I don't know how else to start writing this. It has been eight years since I was left in the Ponyville Adoption Center, and I've never really thought about you until now. I know you probably had your reasons for leaving me here, and I understand that. I just really want to know what they were.
The reason I was thinking about you... well, I was at school, and it was family appreciation day. The teacher read off my name and told me that I had to bring in a family member the next day, and I had to explain to her that I never knew my parents. The other fillies found me after class and cornered me and called me things like "orphan" and "mistake", but I could ignore them because
Pinkie stopped reading mid-sentence, and blinked at the page, re-reading that sentence. The paper crinkled as her hoof gripped it tighter, and she held her other hoof up to her mouth in shock.
Orphan? Mistake? Was that why Blueberry had been so determined to find the Rock Farm, because she felt she had to prove something to the other fillies? Pinkie felt a strange combination of pity and sorrow for her lost sister.
"Oh, Blueberry..." Pinkie sighed, now overcome with the desire to give Blueberry a hug, just to let her know that she wasn't alone anymore. She resigned herself to finish the reading the letter instead, and turned her gaze back to the paper when she heard a twig snap to her left. Her ears perked up, and her eyes widened. She shined the light in the direction of the sound, and gasped when a large, lumbering shape moved toward her from the trees. She dropped the flashlight in surprise and screamed.
"Hmm...? What..." Blueberry moaned sleepily.
"Blueberry," Pinkie said fearfully, quickly shoving the letter back into Blueberry's saddlebag before shaking her sister, "Blueberry?!"
"What is it?" Blueberry sat up and rubbed her eyes. Pinkie fumbled for the flashlight and shined it in the direction of what she had seen.
"Look!" Pinkie yelped. Blueberry followed the light, and cried out in surprise when the light landed on something that was slowly moving toward the two fillies, "What do we do?!"
"Run!" Blueberry yelled at Pinkie, throwing her saddlebag at the figure, "Go! Get out of here-!"
"Hey!" the figure said as the saddlebag hit him, "That hurt, kid!"
"What...?" Blueberry snatched the light from Pinkie and pointed it at the dark figure. A stallion with a brown coat and white mane blinked and squinted in the light, shielding his eyes with a hoof.
"Don't point that thing at me, kid, it's bright!"
"It's a stallion," Blueberry said in disbelief.
"Who are you?" Pinkie called to him, hiding behind Blueberry.
"My name is Barker, kid," the stallion held up his hooves in mock defeat, "I surrender! Don't throw any more backpacks at me!"
"Barker Kid is a weird name..." Pinkie giggled.
"What are you doing all the way out here?" Blueberry asked, lowering the flashlight, "You scared us. I can still feel my sister trembling..."
"I'm not 'trembling'!" Pinkie scowled.
"My, uh, friends and I were camping over there," Barker pointed through the trees, "I saw your flashlight and came over here to check it out, and I was wondering... ah, do you two want a warm place to sleep tonight? We've got tents... and sleeping bags... and hot cocoa..."
"Sure!" Blueberry accepted the offer.
"No thank you..." Pinkie said quietly at the same time. The two sisters looked at each other for a second with Barker watching in amusement.
"Could you please excuse us for a second?" Blueberry politely asked Barker, who nodded, and then pulled Pinkie out of earshot before whispering in an urgent voice at her sister, "How can you say no?!"
"He seems really nice and all," Pinkie whispered back, "But I don't trust him. He... he scares me. These are huge woods, and he just happens to be nearby? You don't think-"
"He said he saw your flashlight," Blueberry interrupted, "Were you awake and shining it around?"
"Uh... maybe..."
"Look, Pinkie, this stallion seems like a nice guy, and we'll only stay with him and his friends for one night. Then we can get back on the road to Ponyville. Deal?"
Pinkie looked uncertain, but she slowly nodded her head, "Okay..."
"Okay, Mr. Barker," Blueberry said to the stallion with a sweet little smile, "We'd love to camp with you and your friends tonight."
"Excellent," Barker said, turning away from the two fillies, "Follow me, kid. It's not that far. Right this way..."
~~~~~~
Barker's campsite was huge.
Blueberry and Pinkie were expecting maybe a few tents for two or three ponies apiece and a campfire. Barker led them through the trees into a clearing that had two smaller tents facing one enormous white tent that towered over the fillies, looking like it could hold more than twenty ponies. In the middle of the tents was a large campfire. Three ponies sat around a folding table near the campfire, playing cards when Barker and the two sisters arrived. There was a large, lumbering, gray unicorn stallion wearing a black fedora over his black mane sitting between another stallion with a scar over his left eye and a mare with a cherry-red mane and too much makeup. This fedora-wearing unicorn slammed his cards down on the table, and the other two ponies groaned. The mare let her cards drop out of her hoof onto the ground as she slumped back in her seat, and didn't seem in a hurry to pick them back up.
"That's Mendax," Barker pointed at the victorious unicorn, "He's in charge around here."
"What's in that big tent?" Pinkie asked.
"Just a few supplies," Barker gave her a crooked grin, "C'mon. Follow me."
Barker led the two fillies right up to Mendax's table, where the burly unicorn squinted at them, sizing each of them up in turn. Something about the stallion made Pinkie very uncomfortable. She glanced at Blueberry out of the corner of her eye, and though Blueberry didn't seem concerned about meeting strangers, she wasn't smiling and looked more serious than Pinkie had ever seen her. Despite her enthusiasm for coming here, she obviously sensed something wrong about Mendax. (Something besides the fedora.)
"Ah. Barker, did you know you were followed?" Mendax said, raising his arms in greeting at the two fillies, "Who are these two lovely foals?"
"I found these two in the woods," Barker explained, gesturing at them, "This is... uh..."
"Blueberry Swirl and Pinkie Pie," Blueberry introduced them, "Nice to meet you."
"Blueberry and Pinkie... which is which?" Mendax joked, and then straightened up, "Right. Barker, good job bringing them here. Are you two cold?"
"A little..." Pinkie admitted. Sleeping without a blanket had been rough on the filly, but she suspected that Blueberry knew a little bit about sleeping outside.
"Would you two like some hot chocolate?" Mendax offered, "We got amazing hot chocolate. Warm ya right up. Angel, get these two fillies some cocoa."
"Cocoa?" Blueberry repeated as the mare nodded and trotted away from the table, leaving her cards lying in the grass. Mendax nodded vigoriously.
"We pride ourselves on serving very special hot chocolate," he told a skeptical Blueberry and wonderstruck Pinkie, "That's what we do out here; make hot chocolate powder and send it off to places in a few cities."
"What's so special about it?" Blueberry asked.
"Find out for yourself," Mendax said as Angel returned, dropping two small glasses of a warm, rich brown liquid in front of them. Pinkie took one almost immediately, and Blueberry took the other to be polite, "It's a very popular drink in Manehatten, Ponyville, Fillydelphia... the cocoa beans we need for it only grews out here in Whispering Wind Woods, you see..."
"It tastes fine," Blueberry sipped her cocoa. It was smooth, but Blueberry had never been a fan of warm drinks.
"It isn't the taste that's so special," Mendax smiled, "It's what it does."
"What it does?" Blueberry repeated, puzzled, "What do you mean by that?"
"Isn't hot chocolate like this more of a big deal in colder places?" Pinkie smacked her lips together as she set the empty glass on the table, "It was tasty but I feel like it could have-"
Pinkie collapsed.
One moment, the pink filly was talking, and then she was lying on her side in the dry, patchy grass. For a crazy instant, Blueberry thought she was dead, but then realized that her lips were parted slightly, and saw that she was breathing. Blueberry stumbled back, away from the table. Her head started to pound. The glass fell out of her hoof, hit the ground and bounced, and landed on its side, spilling its contents into the dirt. Mendax pointed at them, and Angel and the stallion moved around the table toward them, following their leader's unspoken command.
"Great work, Barker," Mendax's voice was monstrously distorted in Blueberry's head, echoing in her ears and leaving behind the ghost of a growl as the filly moaned, struggling to stay conscious as she fell onto the ground. Dark shapes began to fill her vision as her head split in half, and she was faintly aware of the stallion lifting her into the air and carrying her away from the table. She could hear Barker reply to Mendax, but his voice was distant and so hard to hear that it felt like another language. Blueberry's body slumped as the filly finally lost consciousness and fell into the black abyss yawning before her.
~~~~~~
"What... nngh... w-what happened...?" Pinkie moaned as she struggled toward the light of consciousness, "Where... ooh, where are we...?"
Pinkie tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea swept over her and she fell back to lying on her side in the coarse dirt. There was a sweet smell in the heavy air, and she was faintly aware of Blueberry lying on her back in front of her. As Pinkie blinked her way back to the real world, half of her mind remained in her dream. She had been having such a lovely dream. In her dream, there were cupcakes everywhere and soothing voice that seemed to be coming from the moon overhead told her not to be afraid.
But as she returned to reality, Pinkie knew she had plenty of reasons to be afraid.
The white tarp surrounding her alerted her to the fact that she was in Mendax's huge tent, and judging from the dark crates stacked up around them, the group used it as storage. The entrance to the tent was hidden behind a large row of crates, but the sound of the tent flap being pushed aside alerted Pinkie to the fact that somepony had just entered the tent.
Her head felt like it had been cracked in half, and she tried to raise a hoof up to rub her forehead, but when she tried to move she became aware of something squeezing her hooves. She glanced down and gasped in surprise when she saw that her front hooves were tied together, as were her back hooves. Upon closer inspection of her sister, she saw that the same had been done to Blueberry.
"You two awake yet?" Barker's voice rang out, and then the stallion appeared from behind a few crates. He peered at the two sisters, "Good."
"What is this...?" Pinkie whimpered.
"He lied to us," Blueberry said through her teeth, "The drinks were drugged."
"Well, I never said any lie to you, kid, but yes. The hot chocolate was drugged," Barker shrugged and then grinned, "You ain't the first fillies to fall for that. A scared little foal, cold and lost in the middle of Whispering Wind Woods, is always eager to accept hot chocolate... even from strangers."
"What are you going to do to us?" Pinkie asked, afraid to know the answer, "Please, let us go-"
"You'd be surprised..." Mendax's voice sounded as the tent flap was pushed aside. A moment later, Mendax appeared behind Barker, the ugly fedora still on his head and a lantern clutched in his hoof, "...at how many ponies in Equestria are willing to buy a foal. You just gotta know where to look for 'em."
"You're SELLING us?!" Blueberry's eyes widened, "You can't do that! You can't sell foals!"
"We can, will, and have," Mendax sneered, making Blueberry shiver with his hungry gaze, "You two just have to sit tight and wait for a buyer. It might take a week, a month, or maybe Barker will have some perverted stallion outside tomorrow, but don't worry. A buyer will come, and you two fillies are outta here."
"You're a monster..." Pinkie sobbed as she started to cry.
"A monster with more bits than you'll ever see," Mendax replied as he set the lantern down next to the crates so the two fillies could see and then turned and left with Barker following right behind him. The two stallions disappeared behind the crates once more, and the sound of the tent flap being pushed out of the way was heard again as they trotted out of the tent, leaving Blueberry and Pinkie tied up, helpless, and afraid.
~~~~~~
"B-Blueberry?"
"Yeah, Pinkie?"
"I-I... I'm scared. That stallion... he's crazy..."
"Just stay calm. We'll find a way out of here, just stay calm. I promise you that I'll get us away from Mendax and Barker if it kills me."
"I haven't been this scared since I was really little."
"When you were sick? And thought you'd die?"
"I don't even remember that. I was waaayyy too young to remember that."
"Well, what happened?"
"I remember Dad took us to Granny Pie's house once. She lived in this cozy little house near Los Pegasus, on the edge of White Tail Woods. It was the first time I ever rode the train because Granny Pie usually came to visit us. I really liked her house and Granny Pie is really cool, but..."
"...but what?"
"The... the forest. It was the forest. I was outside playing Hide and Seek with Marble and Limestone in the woods. Dad told us not to stray too far from the house, but I didn't listen... I thought for sure that Marble was that way..."
"You got lost in the woods."
"Yeah... but I wasn't scared yet. I knew all I had to do was retrace my steps and find my way back to Granny Pie's house. I started walking, but the trees were so tall, and they all looked the same, so I didn't know if I was going in the right direction. Before I knew it, it was night and I was more lost than ever, and in that darkness... I saw things."
"What kind of things?"
"It looked like all the trees were monsters. The wind rustled their branches, and I thought they looked like spider legs trying to grab me. I couldn't stop thinking about those stories about foals being lured into the woods by the tall pony that takes them away, and it got even worse. It was so dark, and I-I... I got so scared..."
"How'd you get out of the woods?"
"I heard Dad calling for me, and I ran to him. I think he was scared because he thought I was gone for good. He scolded me, asked me what I was thinking, told me never to do anything like that ever again, but I couldn't stop crying because of the trees."
"That's horrible..."
"But when I got inside, Granny Pie saw how scared I was, and she pulled me aside and we had a talk. She told me that crying and screaming and hiding wasn't the way to deal with my fears. She said I had to stand up tall and learn to face my fears, and she taught me that if I'm ever afraid of anything, I just have to laugh at it and it won't seem as scary, y'know?"
"Huh."
"Yeah. Granny Pie was always full of that 'old pony wisdom' and stuff."
"Seems like good advice, but I don't see how it helps us now."
"I'm scared now, and I know you are too; you just don't want me to see."
"So why aren't you laughing?"
"...I'm too terrified to laugh."
~~~~~~
"There has to be SOME way out of here," Blueberry mumbled to herself, glancing around the tent for what seemed like the hundredth time. She and Pinkie had been sitting in Mendax's tent for what felt like hours, but also felt like seconds. Time didn't exist in the tent, but Blueberry was sure that it was still night.
"Even if there was, we're still tied up," Pinkie moaned, "And even if we weren't, they're probably watching the tent. For all we know, they're listening to us talk right now."
"Don't lose hope," Blueberry said, biting at the knot in the ropes, "We can still get out of here. There's always a way out."
"I don't think you can untie that rope with your teeth," Pinkie sighed, "Y'know, it was nice of them to leave us the lantern. Now we can see. I mean, we've been foalnapped and we're going to be sold to somepony to keep us prisoners forever and ever, but at least we can see-"
"Wait," Blueberry dropped the knot and bolted upright, her wide eyes staring at the lantern, "The lantern! That's it!"
"What?" Pinkie tilted her head to the side as she looked at the lantern. A single golden flame burned brightly inside. Back on the farm, Igneous caught fireflies and put them in the lantern, but Mendax must have decided catching fireflies was too much work and just used their impressive campfire to light the lantern.
"It's next to the crates!" Blueberry squealed excitedly, "The crates are made of wood! Wood can catch on fire! Fire can burn through these ropes!"
"You're going to light the crates on fire?! You don't know what's in them!" Pinkie protested as Blueberry shuffled over to the lantern as best as she could with her hooves tied up.
"This is the only plan we have, Pinkie!" Blueberry grunted as she manuevered herself onto her back beside the lantern, "If we don't get out now, we might never get out of here!"
"I... okay. Let's do it quickly," Pinkie said, a tone of urgency in her voice. Blueberry nodded, and then reared her back legs back before kicking the lantern into the crates. The lantern glass shattered and the crate caught on fire immediately. Fortunately, the wood was dry from being safely shielded from nature's rain in the tent. A small flame steadily grew on the side of the wooden crate, and Blueberry was quick to hold the ropes over her front hooves over the fire. Once the ropes had blackened, she quickly pulled her hooves apart and the rope broke. She was free.
"Hurry, Pinkie!" Blueberry called to her as she untied the ropes around her back hooves. Pinkie found it difficult to move with her hooves bound, but she managed to crawl close enough to the fire to hold the ropes over it.
"It's hot!" she gasped.
"Pull the ropes apart!" Blueberry urged her as the ropes started to blacken. Pinkie moved her hooves apart with all her strength, and the rope snapped off. She began untying the ropes around her back hooves as soon as Blueberry had finished untying hers.
"Now what do we do?!" Pinkie yelled, standing up as she freed herself. The fire that they had started was now growing alarmingly quickly, "It's out of control!"
"We need to get out of here!" Blueberry grabbed Pinkie and the two started to back away from the blaze, "When they come in here and see the fire, we're going to have to run past them-"
The crates exploded.
Blueberry and Pinkie couldn't have known it, but while some of the crates were empty and some were filled with cocoa beans and other hot chocolate supplies, the rest contained small glass vials of a liquid drug. The tent became an inferno as the fire reached whatever drug was in the crates. The drug, the same knockout substance that Angel had slipped into the sisters' hot chocolate, was an incredibly flammable liquid that only fed the flames into growing into a behemoth, a column of blazing orange, yellow, and red that exploded and destroyed the crates. The force of the explosion threw the two fillies backwards, and their hooves left the ground as they hit the side of the tent, tearing through the tarp as the tent itself caught fire. The blaze inside only found more crates filled with the drug and more explosions boomed in Pinkie's ears in addition to the crackling of the flames as they reached for the shiny night sky.
The pink filly landed on her back in a heap in the dirt. Mendax's campsite was on the other side of the tent, so she was safe for the moment as she groaned, panting heavily as she climbed to her hooves.
"Blueberry?!" Pinkie coughed. Smoke began to fill her vision, and she waved a hoof in front of her face as she coughed again, "Where are you?!"
"I'm over here!" Blueberry shouted from behind a large rock, "Pinkie, run! They're coming-!"
Pinkie yelped as she was suddenly lifted off the ground by the scruff of her neck. She kicked, and heard Mendax's voice behind her.
"You little shit!" Mendax hollered in her ear, and she flinched at how loud it was, "Barker went into that tent to get you out! He's in there now because of you-!"
There was another explosion that rocked the Earth itself, and Mendax stumbled. The tent collapsed, each side falling in on itself and serving as something more for the fire to devour. Mendax stopped, staring at the remains of his tent with his mouth open wide. Pinkie felt his grip on her loosen.
"Barker..." he breathed, and then he let out an "Oof!" as Blueberry slammed into his side. Pinkie fell to the ground again as Mendax dropped her and tumbled to the ground where Blueberry delivered a sharp kick to his side.
"Don't you ever touch my sister!" Blueberry screamed as she kicked him again, "Do you hear me?! You leave us alone!"
"Blueberry!" Pinkie grabbed her sister's shoulder before she could kick him again, "Come on! We need to run! The fire is getting worse!"
"I..." Blueberry blinked, and then started following Pinkie as the two galloped away just as Mendax lunged, grabbing nothing but air as he tried to catch Blueberry. The two fillies raced around the side of the tent-turned-bonfire, and Mendax clumsily gave chase, still off-balance. Flaming pieces of the wooden crates, thrown by the force of the explosion, littered the clearing where they had established their camp, and Mendax couldn't manuever himself around the fires as well as the two agile fillies could. The fires only grew, feasting on the dry grass and stiff leaves. Smoke drifted into the sky, obscuring their view of the stars as the clearing itself began to burn.
Mendax could only watch helplessly as Blueberry and Pinkie got closer and closer to the forest until he finally threw his head back and uttered a cry of rage, a cry that was as savage as a monsterous dragon.
"I'll kill you!" Mendax shouted, the flames raging on behind him as he stood in the middle of the flaming wreckage, "Do you hear me?! I will find you, and I will KILL you! BOTH OF YOU!"
Blueberry and Pinkie disappeared into the trees as Mendax slammed his hoof into the ground furiously. He bellowed out another dragon roar as his fedora fell off his head, drifting to the ground where it landed next to a smaller fire that quickly engulfed the fedora and reduced it to ash. His roar echoed through the trees, and though the two sisters could run from him, they couldn't escape the raw hatred in his shout as they tore through the trees, not stopping until the fire behind them was lost and they were again surrounded by the gray light of dawn as the sun started to rise.
Blueberry and Pinkie slowed down, panting and gasping for breath as they looked around. Pinkie grabbed Blueberry's arm and pointed through a few trees were a road was visible, and the two fillies hurried over to the road.
"...we did it..." Blueberry sighed, her face breaking into a wide smile.
"Yeah..." Pinkie said, chuckling even as she struggled to breath, "I'm so tired..."
"Where are we?" Blueberry glanced both ways down the road, "Which way do we go?"
"There's a sign," Pinkie nodded in the direction of a wooden post, and Blueberry trotted over to it where she turned around to face it, squinting as she read it.
"I don't believe it. Look!" Blueberry started smiling as Pinkie slowly made her way over next to her where she read the sign.
"Ponyville... only three more miles! We're not far!" Pinkie thrust her hoof into the air victoriously.
"Come on," Blueberry grinned, reaching up and playfully ruffling her sister's mane with her hoof, "The sign is pointing this way. If we hurry, we can be in town this afternoon!"
"Let's go," Pinkie laughed as she trotted after Blueberry. Both fillies were filled with energy as they started down the path once more, their destination finally in sight.