//------------------------------//
// Day 34: For mountains to fall 
// Story: A mare and her dog 
// by cammera 
//------------------------------//

Applejack tightened the rope to her chest, ignoring the pain of it. It wouldn't be too long.

"You ready?" she turned to Nanda.

The zebra finished tightening her own and nodded. Winona sat nearby, intent in displaying what an affront to canine dignity it was to have rope weighting her down.

They watched the bridge for a moment. It was in the first actual mountain they had had to pass, and rather than stretching over empty space replaced a part of the pathway carved into the mountain side that had broken long ago.

Still, equines and canines gave it equally untrusting looks. Several more stretched in the distance, making their path more of a wooden hallway specked by stone than anything else.

Applejack started the walk, more or less pulling Winona during the first meters or so. She had been assigned the center of the rope by mute agreement.

"Wait," Nanda stopped and rummaged in her bags until she found two steel hooks in it, easily thick enough to support a cow's weight "These could be useful"

"Uh, are those...?" Applejack pointed them.

"A gryphon who was convinced I was carnivore gave them to me" Nanda rolled her eyes "Really, foal, must you?"

"Yes"

Nanda grunted, but offered her the hooks anyway, "I don't trust this old wood any more than you do, hook the rope to the handrail if a part is too fragile" she paused for a moment "He should be around here, actually..."

Applejack took them and, after some consideration, used them. The handrail seemed to have been designed with that in mind, at least-- long steel bars anchored to the rock firmly every thirty meters.




-º-




"How long-" Applejack coughed from the stone dust "How long had these things been unused?"

"At least twenty years" Nanda gave a look to the series of collapsed pathways behind them, only the handrails remaining, and gulped "Probably your parents were the last to pass"

"Huh" Applejack pulled herself together and started walking again, carrying a panicked Winona over her back.

"It's the holes. I was used to moving there, and you to minding your step, but most people either breaks a leg in the first day or flies over everything"

"I guess they'll have to rebuild this now, then"

"Thank Rina I am getting away from that place," Nanda sighed "You have no idea of what that forest has coming. Surane and Tharata will spend decades fighting over who owns it, and this will probably take twice that long to be fixed, the idiots. Some crazy Troika descendant will probably join the fray in a few months, too"

"Wasn't Surane..." Applejack paused for a moment "Wasn't Surane nearly at the other side of the mountains?"

Nanda cackled an humorless laugh, "Politics transcend logic, foal. I expected you to know tha..." her laugh had echoed across the mountains, and now there was a rumble of rock directly above them. Both their faces fell.

All she managed to say before being pulled by Applejack was, and Applejack wasn't nearly good enough in Northern Swamp Zebrahic to fully understand it, was "Oh by [thousand multiplier][vague multiplier][cunt?] of your [sister/mother/grandmother?] [???] and the [whore?] who birthed her!"




-º-




"New rule-"

"I'll speak softly. Got it," her gaze moved to Winona, who was a trembling lump pressed against Applejack "And you won't bark, won't you?"

Winona yelped softly and covered her eyes with her ears.

"No cursing, either. I am pretty sure you offended the mountain or something" she scratched Winona behind the ears and pulled her onto her back "If the mountain asks for sacrifices you are it"