Daring Dash and Rosetta Sparkle in the Jungle of Perils

by elPossenreisser

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It felt like Twilight had only just closed her eyes. She felt hardly refreshed at all. In her head, something was going around in circles, something about Rainbow Dash and this story and the feeling of Rainbow’s coat on her face when she fell asleep, but her still-exhausted mind just couldn’t pinpoint it. It was late afternoon. She idly wondered what had woken her as she clearly wasn’t ready to get up.

Luckily, Rainbow Dash cleared that up.

“Stay back or I’ll make you regret it!” she yelled furiously.

Alarmed, Twilight jumped up, still dizzy and sleepy, and looked around. Rainbow was hovering next to her, staring angrily at a group of alpacas that were slowly closing in on them, almost surrounding them against the ravine behind them. They all carried spears and blowpipes. The coat in their faces was covered in white paint, and they had lots of small, colorful beads tied into the long fur on the sides of their necks.

And they looked decidedly unfriendly as they slowly prowled closer, spears raised.

Rainbow Dash, however, would have none of this. With an unarticulated scream, she launched herself at the nearest alpaca, gracefully evading the spear he thrust at her, and hit him in the face with her outstretched hooves. The alpaca grunted and collapsed to the ground. Immediately two more alpacas jumped at Rainbow, grabbing her hind hooves and pulling her to the ground. She bucked like an angry mustang at a rodeo, and one of the alpacas flew against a tree trunk.

The other tried to hit her with the shaft of his spear. Rainbow Dash ducked and jumped back a few times, but couldn’t avoid a painful hit in the shoulder. She groaned, took wing and quickly darted over the alpaca. Before he could turn around and bring is spear to bear, she kicked him hard in the back of his head. The alpaca collapsed as well.

“Who else wants some?” she shouted, panting heavily.

One alpaca who wore a small headdress made from colorful feathers made a hoof gesture, and two more alpacas threw themselves at Rainbow Dash. Twilight gasped, which attracted the very unwelcome attention of another alpaca who immediately pointed his spear at her.

Rainbow Dash awaited the two charging alpacas with a mean grin on her face. Right before the first could reach her with the blunt end of his spear, she quickly leapt towards him, spun around and welcomed him with a bone-shattering buck in the chest. The alpaca was thrown backwards and skidded across the ground a few steps. The other attacker though lunged out at her with his spear shaft and hit her in the back of her head. This time, the pegasus yelped in pain, and Twilight flinched in sympathy.

Rainbow took off again and was about to fly across the latest attacker just like she’d done before when the alpaca with the headdress grunted something that sounded like “¡Dispare!”, and one of the others quickly raised his blowpipe and fired a dart at Rainbow. It struck her in the neck. She brought a hoof to the dart sticking in her coat and tried to brush it off, but her motions quickly became uncoordinated and she just fell out of midair.

“Rainbow!” Twilight screamed.

“Está dormiendo”, the alpaca leader said. “Do you want to surrender, or shall we put you to sleep as well?”

“What have you done to her?” Twilight asked in a high-pitched, panicked voice.

“The darts of our blowpipes bring sleep”, the leader explained. “She will wake up. I ask again. Do you still want to fight?”

Looking around and realizing that at least five alpacas had their blowpipes pointed at her, she just shook her head and slumped to the ground.

The alpacas left her lying, only guarded by one warrior, and started to prepare Rainbow’s transport. They found a large tree branch and tied Rainbow’s hooves to it so that they could carry her dangling upside down. The image of her strong and proud friend reduced to a limp captive made Twilight almost sick. When four of the warriors finally picked up the branch, the one guarding Twilight gestured her to get up with his spear.

Only now did the alpaca leader turn to talk to her again. “Somepony has broken into the sacred temple of Manetezuma and stolen the Golden Princess”, he said in Alpacan. “Until you have proven that you are not responsible for this desecration, you will be our prisoners.”

He led the troupe deeper into the jungle. Twilight followed her captors as if in trance. If only she could at least make sure Rainbow Dash was alright! She was sleeping they had said, but Twilight was still worried about her friend.

It took them about an hour to reach their goal, a small village on a clearing. By then the night had fallen, and the village was easily visible by the soft glow of torches and camp fires. It didn’t look very big. Twilight was positively exhausted after not enough rest and yet another hike, and her worrying about Rainbow didn’t help.

They waited outside while the troupe leader was discussing something with an older alpaca, surrounded by the other warriors. The elder wore a much more elaborate headdress, and most of his neck and chest fur was covered in the typical beads. Twilight concluded that he was probably a shaman or chieftain.

After a few minutes the leader returned. He grunted something unintelligible at the patrol. The warriors picked up Rainbow again, and a spear was poked into Twilight’s flank to get her moving again. They led her across a small central square and towards a hut that was built from very durable-looking logs and had tiny windows. She was pushed inside while they simply dropped Rainbow in the one main room, and somepony threw her saddlebags into the hut. The door fell shut, and she found herself alone in the dark hut. A bar was put in place outside.

Quickly, she lit up her horn and used her magic to carefully undo the knots that bound Rainbow Dash to the tree branch. The pegasus was still fast asleep and didn’t react. Twilight examined the two bruises on Rainbow’s shoulder and the back of her head, but neither looked really dangerous. Besides, she didn’t have any medical supplies with her anyway.

With a sigh, she sat down against one of the walls and carefully placed Rainbow’s head in her lap, extinguishing her magic light. The weight and warmth of the pegasus were comforting. She smiled a little at how great it was to be with Rainbow Dash on this adventure. There was no better pony she could wish for as a companion – the pegasus was brave, strong, and resourceful, and she always made Twilight smile, even in a rather desperate situation like this. She didn’t even care anymore about the rather rude way Rainbow had convinced her to continue with the adventure. Absentmindedly she started stroking Rainbow’s mane.

It was nice to spend so much time with Rainbow. Granted, ever since the pegasus had first taken an interest in reading, the two of them had spent quite a lot of time at the library, reading together. Sometimes Rainbow would just drop by to hang out, chat with Twilight, or take a nap on her sofa. They enjoyed each other’s company, but hanging out for an afternoon was just not the same as spending several days on a trip to the Neighcaraguan jungle.

Rainbow had even shown her a vulnerable side Twilight hadn’t really known before when she’d spoken about her fear of losing her friends. Twilight had suspected that there was more to the daredevil than her usual air of bravado and coolness, but Rainbow was very careful to keep it to herself, even in front of her closest friends. That she had opened up to her, even just for a short time, made her unreasonably proud, and the memory brought a smile to her face.

Without a conscious effort, this memory was replaced by Rainbow’s face in the soft light of the burnt-down candles in the cute little restaurant in Marenagua. With closed eyes she reveled in the mental image of those deep magenta eyes, the wonderful feeling of Rainbow holding her under her wing on the way home. The sensation of her lips touching Rainbow’s muzzle as she had kissed her.

She held onto the memory for a moment. She still suspected that friends normally didn’t kiss, but it was part of the story after all. The sensation that she and Rainbow Dash were quickly becoming more than friends kept getting stronger – with the way the usually so brash pegasus had opened up to her, and after falling asleep right next to her, and of course with having her head in her lap right now.

Her musings were interrupted by Rainbow suddenly starting to stir in her sleep. She groaned something incomprehensible and opened her eyes. “Twi”, she mumbled with a raspy voice. “Where are we?”

“In the village of the alpacas”, she answered, not ceasing to stroke Rainbow’s mane. “They hit you with a tranquilizer dart and brought us here as prisoners because they suspect we have something to do with the Golden Princess being stolen”, she explained. “How do you feel?”

Instead of an immediate reply, Rainbow groaned and squinted her eyes shut. “My head hurts”, she finally said. “But I’m quite comfortable right now, thanks”, she added with a clearly audible smile. Twilight felt her cheeks heating up. ”So, how do we get outta here?”

“I can probably lift the locking bar on the door”, Twilight mused. “We just need to check if there’s a guard.”

Rainbow jumped up. “Then let’s do this!” She trotted over to one of the tiny windows and peeked outside. “Nopony to see.”

“Alright then.“ Twilight took position at another window and bent her neck to get the locking bar into view. She concentrated and tried to move it, but it was blocked. In the glimmer of her magic encasing the uncooperative bar she could see an iron chain and a padlock. She wondered where the tribal alpacas had acquired it, but it didn’t really matter. Instead she refocused her magic on the padlock in order to open it, but to no avail. She groaned in annoyance.

“Ugh! Rosetta isn’t really good at telekinesis. Normally I should be able to crack a primitive padlock like this without breaking a sweat, but now it feels like the lock is filled with, I don’t know, applesauce, and I can’t seem to grasp the bolt.” She turned to Rainbow. “If only I had a picklock.” She looked at her saddlebags which had clearly been sifted through by greedy hooves, but she knew there was no picklock in there.

To her surprise, Rainbow flew over to her and reached around her head. Her mane which she had still in Rosetta’s habitual bun suddenly became loose. Grinning, Rainbow held a hairpin in front of her face. “How about that?”

Twilight chuckled, grasped the pin in her magic, and levitated to the padlock. Controlling the pin was easier than trying to grasp the bolt inside the lock, and after what felt like an eternity of wiggling, thrusting, and pushing, the padlock finally snapped open. She quickly seized the locking bar and lifted it. “Let’s go!” she said, grabbing her saddlebags as she left the hut.

Carefully they sneaked outside. The village was completely quiet and only illuminated by a few torches. The canopy above the clearing was still dense enough to block out all the light from the moon and the stars, so outside the small islands of light around the torches it was almost pitch black.

Suddenly they heard hoof steps behind them. Before they could react, somepony yelled out something in Alpacan and started galloping at them. Startled, the two ponies jumped behind a hut, but the alpaca had seen them and skidded around the corner of the hut, blowpipe raised.

“Run!” Rainbow shouted and darted towards the alpaca.

Twilight galloped into the opposite direction, barely able to see where she was going in the sparse light, and almost crashed into an unlit tree. Behind her she heard a dull thud as Rainbow Dash knocked out the alpaca warrior.

But his cry had already alerted more alpacas. There were hoof steps coming closer from at least two different directions. One of the attackers on the right carried a lantern in his mouth, casting a wildly swaying light on him and a second warrior. Whoever was closing on them from the left stayed hidden in the dark, but they didn’t seem to know exactly where Twilight and Rainbow were either.

Rainbow, now carrying a spear, silently landed next to Twilight and dragged her into the dark, hopefully away from the advancing alpacas. They ran as fast as they could, and as soon as the alpacas could locate them exactly, they started running at them as well, yelling furiously. The jungle a few dozen meters ahead of them looked like a black wall. The alpacas were much closer behind them than that.

All of a sudden they heard the unmistakable pfff of a blowpipe, and Twilight felt the impact in her right side. “I’m hit!” she cried. Another pfff, and a second projectile hit her. She continued running, waiting for her legs to lose power, for her mind to become dizzy –

… but nothing happened.

“Go on!” she shouted at Rainbow. The pegasus grimly shook her head and once more flew off into the darkness, in the direction the shots had come from. There was a loud crash and a yelp of pain and before more than a few seconds Rainbow was back at Twilight’s side.

They shot through a narrow alley between two huts, now almost at the edge of the village. A shadow suddenly stepped into their way, growling something in Alpacan that Twilight didn’t understand, not with the adrenalin rushing through her ears and the angry screams of their chasers. Rainbow didn’t even slow her pace, but instead dove to the right in the last instant before she hit the blocking alpaca, and extended the shaft of her spear to the left, swiping the alpaca right off his hooves.

Now there were only alpacas behind them, and they soon found themselves within the impenetrable darkness of the jungle. As soon as the dark green had swallowed them, Twilight tugged on Rainbow’s tail to slow her down, and led her in a right angle to the left.

“Let’s not go where they expect us to”, she explained. With great care, they sneaked through the jungle, trying not to be heard by the alpacas. But with the noise the angry alpacas made, trampling through the jungle and screaming out their anger, they were hardly in any danger.

Had the jungle been a little disconcerting during daylight due to all the strange noises, it was actually pretty scary at night. No light whatsoever made its way to the ground, and since Twilight didn’t dare light up her horn while they were still too close to their haunters, they bumped into trees and bushes more than once.

Their plan seemed to work out though, as they clearly heard the alpacas moving further and further away from them. After about ten minutes of sneaking, the noises of the alpacas fell silent in the distance, and Twilight finally made some light.

Immediately they were surrounded by a cloud of insects, mostly harmless moths, but also a lot of mosquitoes. At least they could see where they were going and didn’t run the risk of walking into, say, a waterhole inhabited by crocodiles. The thought made Twilight shiver.

“Seems like we lost them. Are you sure we’re going the right way?” she asked Rainbow.

The pegasus shook her head. “Not a clue.”

“Then let's find a place to sleep somewhere nearby and continue on tomorrow”, Twilight suggested.

“Yeah, I could use a little nap, too. Being drugged is exhausting!” She yawned.

They found the hollow trunk of a tree that had fallen over. It wasn’t the most spacious location, but thanks to some shrubs growing next to the trunk it was nicely secluded. They huddled down next to each other. Before she extinguished her magic light, Twilight examined the spot where she felt she had been hit by the blowpipe darts. What she saw made her shake with suppressed laughter – the darts stuck in the bands of her saddlebags, not even two inches apart. She pointed them out to Rainbow Dash, and the pegasus’ eyes grew wide.

“Whoa, that was close. Good thing you brought them!”

“Yeah.” She yawned. “Let’s get some sleep. Night, Rainbow.”

Rainbow leaned her head on Twilight’s shoulder. “Night.”

Comments

[Pop chatters]

my only commentary at this lovely chapter:
"“Then don’t let’s walk too far. Let’s see if we can find a place to sleep and go on tomorrow”, Twilight suggested."
that sentence is.... quite odd. It doesn't really seem correct either.

[vader10001]

They hit you with a dart that was poisoned with some kind of narcotic

Are you sure that you don't mean tranquilizer instead of narcotic? Also, they are lockpicks, not picklocks.

[mayrothwell]

Cwl cnt w8 2 c wht happns next

[Phoenix Flames]

Yep at first its a life or death chase then they're saying good night to each other.