I fell out of my seat to the carriage floor, as well as a few others, as the feeling of dread loomed over me. "Why are we stopping?"
We flooded out of the cramped, little space. "Dear lord, Bats, you trying to kill us?" said a little older than mature unicorn mare.
"I couldn't help it..." Said a short, slightly chubby pink bat pony, taking off of the reins. "It was too heavy, I'm not exactly the strongest flyer, yet alone the strongest mare in the world."
"But your our only flyer," Sighed Tea Rose. "Now we're stranded in the middle of no where in the middle of the night, with dead ponies lurking who knows how close."
"I... I'm sorry..."
"Does anypony know where we are?"
I looked around the path clearing. a simple stone path, but somewhat a bit... messier. Then I saw it, something that worried me would bring back memories I didn't want to see. "There's a library, just south of here... or a general store to the east down this next road..."
Tea Rose looked at me. "How do you know?"
"I have a feeling." I sighed, glaceing down at the ripped open bottom half of a pony, as much as it sickened me. Though it had rotten away, I would recognize that cutiemark anywhere. After all, it had been the main focus of my never ending nightmares for the past few weeks.
Tea Rose rolled her eyes. "Come on, then. Let's check out the general store, it might have a map or... something."
"I got the cart," said the grey mass of unspeakable description at the time, which still baffled me. "It'll be fast, yes."
"Let's just get somewhere before we get eaten alive by the undead," Tea Rose frowned, shuffling us into the carriage again, shortly after which we were off.
I didn't want to be with Rose. I didn't even want to see her. But, then again, what was I supposed to do? aimlessly walk through the forest, probably get eaten alive because I had literally nothing but a blue hoodie? I hated the recent turn of events, but figured I might as well stick with the group since we were going to be heading toward Ponyville anyway. In the short trip, I looked at my new "carriage mates" or at least temporary party members. Excluding Rose, the bat pony, the grey creature, and I, there were two others, an average height yet willowy stallion unicorn and a short yet thick unicorn mare who had some years on her, though not to much older than me, more like the age of my mother. At that thought, the mere thought of remembering my mother, that would be opening a can of worms I wasn't ready to face.
Before I could desperately search another, brighter thoughts to think about, I gasped, the air nearly being kicked out of me, as we suddenly stopped at what I assumed was our destination. I also began to assume that perhaps the strange, grey creature had never pulled a cart before, or at least one filled with LIVING creatures. I laughed in my head at how used I was getting to being tossed around like an intense hoofball in the middle of a big game. I grimaced and left last, Tea Rose peaking in and glaring at me, noticing my absence because I was zoning out yet again, going off in an internal tangent.
"Oh dear..." said the bat pony, looking at the old general store. The outside were bound with blood splats, the windows broken and the door nearly off the hinges. "That doesn't look that safe..."
"Doesn't matter," Said the older mare, with a thick colorful accent I associated with something like Manehatten. She opened her large sheaved container attached to her back with a light turquoise shimmer, pulling out a heavy metal baseball bat. "If anything is live'n in there, it won't be much longer."
I noticed that the others were prepping themselves in the muted darkness, just barely a glow from the translucent glimmers of magic. I felt a little flustered, being the only one unarmed, and most likely the one with the least fighting experience. I backed up.
"No need to feel sorry for yourself. You can hate your insecurities later," Rose whispered. "Here, if worst comes to worst, use this." She floated over a thick tree branch. "It's not perfect, but it's something. If we find anything better, you could try that." She picked her gun back up, similar to a gun I saw in Cherry's armory but with a different... thing on it. Rose noticed my confusion, but shook it off. "If there are zomb's in there, hit them in the head. And hit them hard."
"What if I miss?" I said, though muffled by having a branch in my mouth she seemed to get the jest of it.
"Don't."
We slowly moved towards the general store, obviously no ponies in the general area or they would have been well aware of our appearance. The grey creature glanced into a broken window, and relaxed. "If someone's here," he said in a grumble. "They're dead."
"Like... 'dead' or 'undead'?" I said through the wood.
"Dead."
I relaxed, or at least as much as I could being surrounded by rotting guts, as did most of our group, besides Rose. She took the lead inside after quickly holstering her gun, and glared around the insides, glowing up with her magic like a small flashlight. I came in after her, fallowed by the others. The inside was at least somewhat less gory, but still unnerving, carefully trotting around broken glass. I took in the shape of the room as Rose stopped at a counter and lit a small lantern, capturing a flame of magic. I grimaced.
On the floor in front of the counter was a small colt, killed what seemed like only a day ago, starting to rot, but not quite rotten enough. His head had half of it gone, bashed in with some kind of blunt weapon over and over. He had a dark bite mark on his forearm, and the stallion sighed. "Poor kid," he said, "They must have killed him back when they though zombie bites were contagious..."
I went wide eyed. "Z-zombie bites DON'T turn you into them?"
He giggled lightly to himself, but not out of joy, more in a 'can you believe this mare?' kind of way. "No, they don't. We thought they did at first, but they don't."
"Then what does?" I set my branch down.
"Death, of course." He sighed. "Bites aren't good, but it's not impossible to survive."
I pondered this as I tried to keep my mind off of the dead colt rotting in front of us.
"Someone must've been here recently." I said. "He's barely even rotted here."
"Well, then I guess his party didn't know." His horn lit up, and I noticed that the magic was in the small coat on the colt.
"What do you think your doing?!" I glared.
"I'm seeing if he had anything on him." He grimaced. "Ugh, just an old book."
I was intrigued. "A book?"
"Want it? You can have it." He levitated out a pocket sized hard cover book in a shoulder bag. "There's paper and pens in there, too, but don't know how you'd..."
"I'll take it all." I said softly. "The bag, too."
"So much for 'lil' miss morality', eh?" He sighed, giving me the bag.
I sat behind the counter as the older pony and stallion decided to take the body out the door. Out of sight, right? But not quite out of mind. I settled on opening the bag as the others tried to at least make it a little less uninviting, the bat pony taking a left over broom from the cleaning department and sweeping up the stray broken glass. I guessed when this placed was raided over by wanderers the past few days, cleaning supplies would be the least of their worries.
I opened the bag, and fount a couple small cheap note books and a worn pencil with a blue pen, as well as a book like a mini pocket text book. This was a school bag, I realized. I looked at the text book, "Using Magic: A Starter's Guide to Tricks and Techniques For the Young Unicorn ". "Long title." Said Tea Rose, looming over my shoulder.
I jumped slightly. "I guess."
"I remember reading that when I was a little filly at the magic class."
"Hmm." I muttered.
"I guess you could use it for fuel if we need a fire."
"It's a book!" I said in shock.
"So what are you gonna do, read it?" she looked skeptical.
"It's a book. You normally read them, right?"
"If that's what you want to do, be my guest."
I sat in silence for a minute, opening the book and flipping through it, realizing that Rose was staring at me, probably wondering what to say. I also wondered what I was going to say. I closed the book and set it aside. "I'm sorry."
"One thing we have in common, but I guess we both are a bit stubborn."
"I'm sorry about Stone Whooves."
"Me too." She smirked. "But my home is still destroyed."
"Sorry about that, too."
"Not your fault Luna called Ink-butt and the watcher to Canterlot. Besides, I was planning on leaving the whole time anyway, I just needed the opportunity." She glanced away. "Sorry for getting you into this mess."
"No problem, hey, if you can't forgive somepony for filly-napping them and drugging them, planning on selling them to a stranger, what can be forgiven?" I said with a bit of spite.
"That was more Champagne, not me." She glared away. "I didn't want to bother you again.
"How did you figure out where I was?"
"Ponyville was the closest place, it was a lucky guess."
"But... who was looking for... me?"
She frowned. "He didn't say his name. Flashed Champagne some serious bits though. Those little coins don't really matter anymore, though..." She shook her head. "He was some big fella, olive green coat, graying carrot mane, sound familiar?"
"Er... what was his cutiemark?"
"Don't remember exactly, but I think it was, as strange as it sounds, wheat."
"Wheat?"
"Could have been corn."
I groaned. "Doesn't ring a bell."
She frowned. "Well, he KNEW who you were. He seemed to think that Champagne was a mare who could get things done. Unlucky for you, he was right."
"I see."
There was a long silence. "So..." She started eventually. "Why are you wanting to read about magic?"
"Hey now," I smiled. "Just because I can't use magic, doesn't mean I can't learn it."