//------------------------------// // ...and Found // Story: A Camping We Will Go // by Trinary //------------------------------// & & & The woods were still dark, sunrise still an hour or so away as the cold rain continued to fall. This left the progress of anypony wandering through the forest to be somewhat slow. So Archer and Sweetie Belle had decided upon a game to help pass the time as they traveled. Archer looked around. “I spy with my little eye something beginning with the letter….t.” “Trees.” Sweetie sighed from behind her waterlogged mane, not even having to take a second to think about it. While easily distracted and somewhat of a scatterbrain at times, the rather uniform appearance of their surroundings rendered the game a tad predictable. “Okay…” Archer looked someplace else. “I spy with my little eye something beginning with the letter m.” “More trees.” Came Sweetie Belle’s immediate and weary reply. Even her typically sweet nature seemed to be reaching its breaking point. “Good going!” Archer smiled. “Maybe you’ll get your cutie mark for ‘eye spy!’ Sweetie groaned. “And that’s when I bucked her straight to the moon, your honor…” She mumbled, practicing her defense for the trial. No jury would ever convict her. “Now…I spy with my little eye something beginning with the letter e!” “I give up.” Sweetie pronounced, having had her fill. “Aww, c’mon! Guess!” Archer urged. “This better not be…” Sweetie started, turning her head to look at Archer. Then she sighed when she saw the blue filly’s smirk. It was. “Even more trees!” The two fillies said together. “Ugh!” Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes and thunked her head against one of those trees. “I can’t take it anymore! I want to go home!” Archer looked around. “I think we’ve been wandering around in circles.” “What, weren’t you paying attention during Big Macintosh’s tracking lessons?” Sweetie demanded. “Weren’t you?” Archer shot back. They looked at each other and groaned. There was a sniffle. Sweetie Belle wiped a hoof across her face, wiping tears and rain from her face. “I miss my sister…” She slid down, not caring about sitting in the rain and the mud. Archer walked over and sat down next to her, draping a leg over her shoulder. “Your sister’s Rarity, right?” “A huh.” “I think she spoke to me once.” When Sweetie looked up, Archer explained. “She called my hat tacky.” She grinned at Sweetie Belle’s giggle. “Yeah, that’s Rarity!” She hiccupped. “Just think what she would say if she could see us now!” “She’d have a conniption!” Archer exclaimed, using a word she’d once heard her mother use. “Da-arling, what EVER did you do to your mane? So ghastly!” She swooned, leaning against her unicorn companion. Sweetie giggled. “Don’t you know that mud is sooo last season? Do keep up with the times deary!” She chortled. “Iiideeeea!” Archer proclaimed as she picked up a fallen leaf and put it on top of Sweetie Belle’s head. “How marvelous!” The two fillies collapsed in fit of giggles, successfully forgetting the trouble they were in. “Thanks Archer!” Sweetie laughed. “You’re really funny!” “Better than being funny looking!” She replied, grinning, scooting a little bit closer to the tree so the leaves would shield her from the worst of the rain. She preferred cold bark to being rained on. “Yeah, I guess…heeeeeey!” Sweetie Belle gave her the worst glower she could muster. Archer almost keeled over laughing. Sweetie trying to be threatening was one of the funniest things she’d ever seen. The Cake twins had scarier looking faces than that! “I didn’t mean it like that.” Archer said, her lip trembling. “Honestly, I wasn’t talking about you!” “…really?” “Pinkie Promise.” The blue filly assured her. “Cross my heart and hope to fly—” “I believe you! I believe you!” Sweetie Belle waved her hooves. “No need for that!” “Still spooked by Rainbow Dash’s ghost story huh?” Sweetie Belle shivered. “I am NEVER going into the Cakes’ basement…ever!” Archer shivered too, but for a different reason. “Brrr! It’s cold. I wish Princess Celestia would hurry up and raise the sun a bit early.” She complained, hugging herself as the cold rain and the wind combined to set her teeth chattering. Shaking whatever mud and water she could get from her coat, Sweetie Belle moved closer to Archer and nuzzled her. “Maybe a song will help? I heard this one in a book.” She cleared her throat. Archer wasn’t sure what to expect but what she heard left her spellbound. “Look for me at dawning when the earth is asleep. Till each dewdrop is kissed by the day, 'Neath the rowan and alder a vigil I'll keep, Every moment that you are away…” Archer felt water trickle down her face, even though the rain had stopped. Wiping it quickly away with her hoof she gave Sweetie a smile. She was about to compliment her on her awesome skills when the little unicorn suddenly looked away. “Hey, what’s that?” Sweetie Belle pointed at a sudden bright, white glow in the distance that cut through the trees. “It’s too early to be morning.” Archer realized. “Maybe it's a rescue party come to look for us!” “Let’s go!” The two fillies cheered as they ran towards the light. In another part of Whitetail Woods, three ponies were kept cozy and dry in a magic weather-proofed tent that kept the cold and moisture out. The atmosphere inside however, was stormy enough. The Great and Powerful Trixie had been certainly surprise to see two lost little foals in the middle of the woods at night, in the rain. But when she recognized Snails as one of her two biggest fans from Ponyville—and the indirect cause of her unceremonious ejection from town—her surprise became anger. “The Great and Powerful Trixie cannot believe this!” She pulled her hat down over her eyes as if trying to climb inside it. “Of all the misbegotten, foalish---gggrr!” Trixie couldn’t even finish her thought and descended into stomping her hooves. As angry and bitter as she was, even she couldn’t throw out a foal into the rainy night. That didn’t mean she had to like it though. Snails crouched down on the tent floor as if trying to sink through it. Silver Spoon, huddled up in a blanket, sat off to the side and watched. When she had explained that they had gotten lost after a bear had wrecked their campsite Trixie snorted and pointedly looked at Snails—who guiltily flinched—and said: “Hmm, why is Trixie not surprised?” She had begrudgingly tossed them each a blanket and an apple before sitting down to sulk and brood. Silver Spoon fidgeted uncomfortably. “So what are you doing here?” “The Great and Powerful Trixie is supposed to be meeting a…friend here.” “In the middle of the woods?” Silver Spoon blinked behind her large glasses. Trixie hmphed but couldn’t help but admit that had been her initial reaction as well. “So, you’re not living here?” That made Trixie regard the silver filly oddly. “It’s just that after your carriage got crushed no pony knew what happened to you and some ponies thought that you didn’t have a home and would have had to go live in the woods and…” She trailed off under Trixie’s horrified and insulted look. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is no vagabond! While my…ordeal and loss of my carriage was a setback, it was merely that: a setback.” She crossed her hooves across her chest. “That’s good!” Snails piped up, giving her his biggest smile. Trixie countered with a look of cold fury that had him shrinking before her. “No thanks to you! If it were not for you Trixie would not have been forced to flee from Ponyville in shame with her home and her possessions destroyed!” “Hey! You leave him alone!” Silver Spoon shouted at her. “It’s not his fault he believed you! You didn’t have to make up a bunch of stuff about being better than anypony else in order to impress ponies!” “Trixie IS better than anypony else!” The showmare raised herself, the top of her hat brushing the roof of the tent. Silver Spoon just squared herself and looked back up at the older pony with all the defiance, certainty and well-crafted arguments of a school filly. “Are not!” Thus challenged, Trixie marshaled her own carefully constructed rebuttal. “Are too!” “Are not!” “Are too!” Trixie’s horn flashed, lighting up the whole tent into a bright beacon of light. “Trixie is the greatest, most talented, show-stopping pony in all of Equestria!” She raised her forelegs in the air as if she were on stage. She shut her eyes. This is the part where the fireworks and spinners would light up and the audience would appreciatively oooh and ahh at Trixie and…and…she let her forelegs drop, her entire posture drooping. It was all gone now. She sank to the floor, her eyes screwed shut and her teeth clenched. “This wasn’t supposed to happen to Trixie.” The not very great or powerful feeling Trixie murmured resignedly. “She was supposed to performing to packed audiences in Manehattan and Las Pegasus. She should be living in splendor, wanting for nothing! Not spending the night in a tiny tent to meet some stranger she never met before at the behest of a pony who loathes her.” Silver Spoon didn’t catch much of that and so she didn’t say anything. Snails hung his head as if there were something fascinating about his hooves. She looked to Snails and to the glowering Trixie and back again. Silver Spoon saw how Snails just seemed to shrink and collapse into himself under her glower. This pony was arrogant, obnoxious, and completely full of herself. She had managed to alienate everypony around her…Silver Spoon blinked, for a moment she saw her face and colors in place of Trixie’s. She rubbed her glasses with her hoof and squinted at her. “What are you staring at it?” Trixie demanded, whirling on the filly. ‘The shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?’ The quote from Charles Docken’s A Hearth’s Warming Carol sprang into her head without warning. She shivered from nose to tail. “M-myself.” Trixie tossed her mane. “Hmph. You wish, filly.” “Not really.” Silver Spoon bit her lip. “I used to be…I was really mean and rude to a lot of ponies in my class. I mean, this was just this week! I thought because I’m really classy and my family’s rich that everypony should like me, so I didn’t need to be nice and anypony who *didn’t* like me was just jealous. But when I stopped being selfish and acting like a jerk, ponies started to really like me! For me! I started having lots of friends again, for the first time in a long while!” She met Trixie’s eyes, soft purple meeting hard blue ones. “I thought that I was perfect the way I was but couldn’t figure out why I only had one friend…but now I want to be different. I-I want to be somepony else…because I don’t want to be like you.” Trixie wanted to be angry, but the gray filly wasn’t angry or spiteful…she sounded sad. Unsettled, she whirled around letting her cape flow dramatically as she stalked off to her corner of the tent and sat down, brooding. Snails looked up as Silver Spoon walked over. “T-thank you.” He stammered. The silver filly gave a little smile. “Well, I meant it.” She sat down next to him. “I’m tired.” Her eyes drooped. “I’m achy and I just wish somepony was here to take us home.” Sleepily she started murmuring as she rested her head against his shoulder without really realizing she was doing it. “I’m glad you’re here…I don’t want to be left alone with Trixie.” Her eyelids fluttered. “Thinks she’s so great…you’re a better pony than she could ever be.” Screwing up his courage, Snails gave her a shy nuzzle. “So are you.” The peaceful moment was all too suddenly interrupted as several things happened at once. There was shouting coming from outside the tent which made Trixie leap to her hooves and run for the tent flap. It opened just in time to be barreled over by Archer and Sweetie Belle who liberally draped Trixie with mud and rain and small twigs and leaves. Trixie’s shocked and annoyed shout only redoubled when two more ponies, burst in. Rainbow Dash shook her head as she scanned the inside of the tents. She saw four of her lost campers plus one all too familiar pony she wished had STAYED lost. “You!” Trixie shook her cape trying to get the debris off it when she looked up. “Me?” She blinked when finally recognized the rainbow-maned pegasus. “You?!” “Who?” Big Macintosh looked from one mare to the other. “Her?” “Her.” Rainbow Dash said curtly, attempting to see if she could make Trixie spontaneously combust if she glared at her hard enough. “Him!” Snails exclaimed see Big Macintosh squeeze himself into the now properly crowded tent. “Us!” Archer and Sweetie Belle chimed in as they ran over and tackle hugged Silver Spoon and Snails. “You!” They exclaimed in joy. “Us!” The fillies returned. “Them!” “Uh, pronoun!” Sweetie said when she couldn’t think of anything else to say. “What are you, a dictionary?” Silver Spoon looked at her over the top of her glasses. “ENOUGH!” Trixie stomped her hooves. “What is the meaning of all this?! The Great and Powerful Trixie demands to know!” Rainbow Dash sped over, shoving her head against Trixie’s. “The Puny and Lame Trixie better explain why our campers were in your tent and if I don’t like the answer then I’m going to feed you your own hat!” Rainbow seethed. Trixie shoved back with her own forehead. “Trixie warns the silly little filly not to cross her unless she wants to be dried off with a little lightning!” “Why don’t you just go and pull a rabbit out of your hat? I’m sure he’d be braver than you!” With a furrowed brow, Big Macintosh waded in between the two “That’s enough ladies…and ah use the term loosely.” He glared at Trixie, silently promising all sorts of horribly fates if she ever threatened Rainbow Dash again. Trixie let her eyes wander over the giant red stallion and felt her own resolve weaken. Rainbow Dash humphed and looked at Big Mac. “I don’t need your help, you know.” “Trixie thinks she certainly needs help of a *professional* nature.” She snorted. Big Macintosh held up a hoof hold on there Dash, don’t go lettin’ this snake-oil salespony get you all het up over nothing. ‘Sides, we got to look at the big picture.” He indicated the huddled group. “We’re still two campers light.” Rainbow Dash’s wings flared out in distress and anger. “Dinky! Pipsqueak! They’re still out there! We have to find them!” “Be Trixie’s guest. Feel free to take the rest of your little herd with you when you go.” She turned around. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has had enough headaches for one night.” “Not so fast there little lady.” Big Macintosh stepped in front of her. “We ain’t about to drag four little ponies back outside in the woods, not knowing where we’re going. They’re staying put right here.” Rainbow Dash looked horrified. “Mac! We can’t just leave them with her!” She pointed an accusing hoof at Trixie. “This is a pony known for running off whenever things get too hot for her!” Macintosh nodded. “Ah know. But think about it, she’s a unicorn. Ah’m willing to bet she can cast some sort of spell that’ll help us find Dinky and Pip, cain’t ya Miss Trixie?” He turned to address her. “Of course Trixie can. It would be a simple matter of using a locator spell. Even if that were to not work—not that any of Trixie’s spells have ever failed, mind you—any lost pony would be able to see the brilliant shine of the Great and Powerful Trixie’s horn!” She whipped off her hat to display her glowing horn. “That is how you found Trixie’s tent, is it not?” Rainbow Dash gave an irritated scowl at Trixie. If the showmare radiated anymore smugness it would ooze from her like so much smooze. “All right then.” She relented, if unhappily. “C’mon oh Great and Powerful one. Let’s go find some foals.” Big Macintosh held out a hoof, blocking her path to the tent flap. “Not so fast Rainbow.” “Those words never go together in a sentence.” She moved his hoof away with her wing. “And why not?” “Because we cain’t just leave them all alone while we go out searching.” He nodded towards Archer, Silver Spoon, Sweetie Belle and Snails. “Somepony has to stay behind and watch them.” Her eyes narrowed. “Fine, then YOU stay. I’ll go with Trixie and keep an eye on her. I’m faster than you anyway.” “But ah’m more durable and yer hurt.” Mac explained. “So are you!” Rainbow countered. “You need t’rest more than ah do.” Knowing she would undoubtedly complain, Big Mac offered another explanation before Rainbow Dash could object. “And if you went with Trixie the two of y’all would be bickering and a feuding so much that it’d only slow things down.” Macintosh explained evenly. “You know it’s true.” Rainbow Dash’s whole body seemed to quiver in anger and frustration. As much as she would have loved not to, what Big Mac said made since. And since articulating her own counterarguments was not one of Rainbow’s strong suits, she went back to her old standby: turning away and crossing her legs over her chest and sitting down angrily. “Just a moment!” Trixie objected. “Trixie never said that she WOULD go out into the dark searching for little ponies that you two Ponyville rubes had lost. Why should Trixie go along with—OOF!” She suddenly found herself shoved against a tent pole by a furious looking Rainbow Dash. Trixie hadn’t taken her eyes off the fiery pegasus, nor even blinked. One instant she was on the far side of the tent, the next minute she was simply…here. Rainbow Dash shoved her snout into Trixie’s, her hot breath blowing onto Trixie’s face. “You’re going because I *said* so! There are two lost little ponies out there, one of whom is the daughter of one of my good friends and calls me her ‘auntie’ and the other is a sweet little colt and I would rather have every feather plucked from my wings than see anything happen to either of them.” She jabbed her hoof meaningfully into Trixie’s chest to accentuate her point. “You’re going because you’re our best bet of finding them. And if you don’t…” She flared her wings out, growing larger in front of the increasingly terrified unicorn. “There will be no corner of Equestria where you’ll be safe from me. I am Rainbow Dash and I am the fastest thing alive. You won’t be able to run, you won’t be able to hide. And I will never, ever, *ever* stop hunting you if you leave those ponies out there on their own. Got it?” Trixie gave a little nod and squeaked. & & &