Freedom of Choice

by Awakened One

Chapter XI: Prairies

Chapter XI: Prairies

Crystal

Lightning approaches Igor. “So, where we’re going to?”

Igor shrugs. “Anywhere.”

His answer unsettles me and triggers my response. “Are you telling us you have no idea of our next destination?”

“Nothing planned. We’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.” He tries to dismiss me with a wave of his hand.

“I hope you at least have a sense of direction, I don’t want to end up walking in circles.”

“Fine!” He picks up his knife, unsheathes it, holding it by the blade and offers it to me. “Hold it.” For a second my heart skips, I take it from him. “Let’s see our luck.” He throws the sheath to the air and it lands.

He leans to Gilda. “So where is it pointing to?”

She looks at it and then at Igor. “South.”

I shake my head. “Are you really playing a luck game?”

He picks it up and I give him back the knife. “We’re not really going anywhere specifically, are we?”

“And it worries me.”

“Is there anything that you don’t worry about? Another addition will be of help.” He offers Lightning his hand and she gives it a bump. “We’ll be safe and sound.”

Lightning gives him a questioning smile. “We’re wandering then? It’s okay by me.”

He replies. “I guess we’re. It’s not so bad.”

I roll my eyes. “Be that way.”

Gilda walks between Igor and Lightning. “Let’s go then.” Lightning walks ahead of us and Gilda follows right by her side.

Igor yells at them. “Whoa, can you slow down?” They both look back and seem to do as he asks. He looks at me. “Let's go.”

We go south. I can’t believe how much we walk, miles in a day? Igor is lost in thought as always and there is some kind of attrition between Gilda and Lightning, they’ve been trading stories of their travels. I’m not sure if it’s a rivalry between Griffins and Equestrians, it’s certainly nothing against ponies, she treated me fairly until now, so that’s the only thing I can assume.

We reach the end of the forest, wasn’t far as I thought. How long we’ve been traveling? Three to four hours. Exiting the forest, we stop at the top of the hill.

“That’s fine, we’ll settle here.” Gilda and Lightning each start to unpack their belongings, Igor takes a deep breath. “I love this place…”

I sit down. “Please, explain.”

He sits by my side and stares into the distance. “Nothing, I just like it.”

Lightning comes to his side. “It’s you who usually collects the firewood, isn’t?”

“That’s me.” He nods.

“I guess we’ll have to spend the night in the dark, most of the fallen sticks are still damp from the rain.” The discomfort is clear on her voice.

“That’s the reason we’re traveling in group. We take care of each other. I expect the same thing from you.”

She sighs. “I guess so. That’s why you carry that weapon around isn’t?”

“That’s the only reason.”

She gulps. “Don’t you think other ponies –”

“People, before we discuss anything, it means a group of persons or individuals.” Haven’t thought about that, that’s how you group different species?

She looks around. “I know what ‘people’ means and it’s the first time I use it. It’s just that… it feels weird.”

He smirks. “It’s two and two. And I refuse to use words like ‘everypony’ and ‘anypony’.”

She shrugs. “That makes sense. What’s wrong with those words anyway?”

“Besides it sounding xenophobic?” We both flinch at his answer. Never thought of that, does it makes other species feel uncomfortable around us?

“Ok then, so, where do I put my things.”

“Pick a place. Feel comfortable to put them anywhere. There is plenty of room.” She snickers while leaving and then he turns to me. “What we were talking about?”

He reminds me. “We were talking about the natural environment.”

“Yes, that. Can you feel the wind, the grass, the moments of peace?” I close my eyes for a few seconds. I feel the wind blowing against my coat, my hooves upon the grass each blade brushing against them. It brings me memories of a simpler time.

“You miss your family, don’t you?”

A bit of sadness floods my heart. “Yes.”

“Don’t you have a hobby of some kind?”

“Not since I closed my shop.”

He snickers. “You like to work don’t you?”

“Not any work, detailed work. I’m a masterwork with jewels, I can probably work with anything that requires precision, the patterns and shapes, I could do anything, even statues, have you seen the ones near the library? They were made by me.”

He smiles. “Congratulations.”

I give him a mock bow. “Thank you.”

“Do you think you could pick some kind of hobby?”

“Maybe I could, when we reach the next town.”

“I know what you would love… a magic cube.”

“What’s a magic cube?”

“It’s nothing related to magic, mind you, that’s just the name. I don’t think they have those here. But the concept is simple, a cube with nine squares on each side, each line rotates horizontally and vertically. You paint each side with a different color, scramble it and then try to match it back.”

I tilt my head, trying to imagine it. “It seems interesting.”

“It is pretty cool. I never managed to put more than five sides of the cube though.”

I give him a perplexed look. “But a cube has six sides. The way you explained it, it’s impossible to match…” A grin spreads on his face. “Very funny.”

He snickers. “Got you. Do you think you can draw the schematics?”

“I’m confident.” Nine squares, six sides… one cube with fifty four squares. Sliding mechanism for proper rotation, how to hold it all together? Perhaps I should use a socket?

“That’s the spirit.” He opens his bag, picks a journal and a strange pencil. “Here, keep them.”

I take them from him, the journal is made of flexible white paper, full of lines made to improve writing, but the ‘pencil’ intrigues me. “How does it work?”

He takes it back and presses the end of it. *click* A metallic end appears, my eyes widen in surprise. “It’s a pen, you can use it to write, or you can just keep making the noises.” *click… click-click-click-click* He gives it me back. “If it runs out of ink, just open it and pour more into the tube.”

I mimic his action. *click-click-click-click* I like it…

“I’ll put my things right… here.” He places it a few steps away from me.

I take a look at our small camp. Gilda is sitting at her place, frowning over something. Lightning is massaging her legs, probably not used to all the walking, not the way we walked. She’ll have to exercise her legs more. Igor is… thinking? By the look of his face I can guess what.

“Hey Lightning, we have to talk over something.” Yes, he’s doing it.

---

Lightning

Wow… alien or legend? Or is he both? From what he told me, he felt like the need to lie. I can’t blame him though, if I saw an alien or a legendary creature armed, I would’ve taken him down. But still… why did he tell me the truth?

“Why did you tell me the truth? It’s not like you owe me anything.”

He crosses his arms. “I just don’t want to cause any… inconvenience between us. But I also ask you to keep it a secret. It’s my place to decide to who I tell it.”

Politeness… “You didn’t have to say it anyway.”

“I wanted to tell you, okay? I don’t like to lie, but I’ll do if I have to.”

An idea crosses my mind. “What if I want to tell it to somepony?”

He smirks. “It’s also a thing I don’t admit. Traitors. Best case scenario, I tie you upside down and you’ll have a human hand as a cutie mark.” Crystals snorts something and Gilda laughs at me. “Worst case scenario, you may need my help in the future and you won’t have any. And you won’t see me ever again.”

I expected a more aggressive approach from him, he looks pretty passive. “Are you threatening me?”

“Me? Threatening? Why would I do such a thing to someone who can’t even defend herself?”

I huff in annoyance. “I can defend myself at any time.”

He gets up from the ground and points at me. “I bet you can’t even lift me!”

He’s getting on my nerves! “Yeah? I bet I can!”

He walks to me sits atop of me. “I bet you can’t even do five!”

“You’re a featherweight! I can do fifty!”

I start doing pushups. One… two… three… four... fi- he starts to tickle my sides. I fall to the ground and he pins me down with no intention in stopping the tickling.

“Stop it!” I try to demand, but I’m laughing and crying so hard I can hardly breathe. “Plea—” I take sharp breath. “Stop!” This time he hears me and stops. “Don’t do that ever again!” I try to glare at him, but my face is paralyzed with a smile.

“It’s your own fault.” He starts to creep towards me, showing his hands, I push him. “Ouch… that didn’t even hurt.”

“Go buck yourself!”

“You can buck yourself too.” The others are laughing at us.

I shake my head in disapproval of him. “Funny.”

He shows his tongue to me. “You asked for it.”

I gather my breath and recompose myself. “You’re crazy.”

He gets close to me this time. He looks me in the eyes and offers his hand. I take it and he pulls me up. He starts to take of the dirty from my coat. He gets close to my ear and whispers. “I won.”

I give him a tap. “Alright, you won this time.”

The time I spent with him at the inn I could pick some things from him, he’s serious and funny at the same time, not a trait you find on ponies or griffons. A human he says.

“Tell me, what if more humans came from where you’re from?”

He sits and concentrates. “A difficult question… how many humans does it take to make first contact?”

Oh, I know those jokes. “You tell me.” But I’m not playing.

“It takes around two hundred human leaders. A hundred welcomes with open arms, the other hundred disagrees with the first party. We wait for the war to end and the response of the victorious.” He keeps smiling to me.

I keep a straight face. “I think I get it, but it’s a bit dark.” Okay, it was funny. I just don’t want to give him the impression.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugs.

His joke brings another topic to the board. “Just a question, what’s your problem with the princesses?”

He gives me a serious look. “Manipulators, both of them, maybe even all four.”

I can see he doesn’t like the monarchs, or leaders, whatever he call them. “Which?”

“It’s flaring butt and satellite ass.” Celestia and Luna. The camp breaks into a laughing fit, except him, he’s serious… and funny.

“By the gods, you’re gold!” Gilda exclaims.

Again I have to recollect my breath. “Are you serious?”

“I’m deadly serious.” We all calm down at his response. “A piece of advice from me, don’t trust them. If you knew what I know, you wouldn’t think any different from me.”

He made his point. Being forceful with him isn’t taking me anywhere. I can see he takes no pleasure in speaking about them in anyway, so I just drop the subject. There is just one thing bugging me.

“Who’s taking the night watch?”

“First!” Igor raises his hand. I facehoof, no more questions for him. “You have nothing to worry, I’m all about honesty.”

Crystal whispers to me. “You can trust him.” He reassures me.

“After all, it’s not like we would kill the other one while they sleep, right?” My heart starts to pump at Igor’s remark. Calm down Lightning, he’s just joking… isn’t he? I just crawl into my bedroll and try to keep the thoughts away.

---

Gilda

And I take the last watch as always. I sigh. Why Igor is even accepting everyone that comes his way? Well, almost everyone, I’m positive he doesn’t want anything with royalty because of what he saw, he only mentioned that he’s an alien, not that he knew about this world. But the way he said those words, it was in an even angrier way than when he was hit by the pegasus with the chair, it was just like the anger when he left Northtrot, a controlled anger. Don’t trust them. What they did to deserve that opinion from him?

The sun is rising. I stretch my wings and legs, letting out a loud yawn. What’s the good side about traveling with other people? More sleep and security for me.

I decide to wake up Crystal first. He’s sleeping with chest up and his head tilting to the side. I nudge him a few times. Soon enough he’s up.

“Gilda.” He gets up start to do his things.

“Crystal.”

Second one Lightning. She’s sleeping with her chest and head turned up, she’s was also drooling, I nudge her just one time and she’s awake.

“Good morning.” She yawns and keeps looking at the sky.

“Morning.”

Last one Igor. I hesitate at the moment. There’s something different about him. His face is… the word… serene it is. Yeah, that one, he looks serene. Crystal walks to my side and looks at Igor.

“He looks so peaceful.” He whispers.

“I thought the same thing.”

“Aren’t you waking him up?”

I shake my head. Soon enough Lightning is by my other side and she lets out another loud yaw. Crystal hushes her.

“What’s the idea?” She whispers.

“Look at him.”

She watches Igor for a few seconds. “He looks happy.” We all nod at this, perhaps this is the reason he likes to sleep so much? “Wake him up already.”

They both look at me. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

He’s curled to one side, chest falling and raising. I give him a little scratch to his cheek and he scratches it back. Lightning starts to snicker. Have patience Gilda. I grip his shoulder and give him a light shake.

He starts to move and then he opens his eyes. “What?” He says with a drowsy voice and a mute yawn.

“Sun is up.” I tell him.

“Fine…” He starts to pack up his things at a slow pace.

When he’s finally done I ask him. “What took you so long?”

“Nothing, I’m just feeling sleepy.” Another mute yawn leaves him. “Lead the way.” He places his weapon on his shoulder.

I look to the sky. Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. South we go. We go through the depression and then we reach the top of the second hill. We see a farming community just a few paces from it. We didn’t even walked half an hour since we left the camp.

Lightning grunts and stomps. “I could’ve slept in a bed!”

“You did.” Igor answers.

“That’s not what I meant.” She looks at him and rolls her eyes. “Ah, yeah, it’s you.”

“What did you meant by that?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you think they have chickens?” She widens her eyes. “Calm down, I just want the eggs. I would love to eat some eggs.”

The conversation is over. We walk downhill and in a few minutes we reach a dirty road path. The path weaves between the crops, it’s probably harvest season, never paid much attention to it. At the entrance of the town we see a plaque.

Igor comes to a stop. “Welcome to Prairie Ponies. Does the name of every city ponies live, include a pun?”

Everyone stops and looks at him. “I never noticed that, weird.” I say.

“I don’t get it.” Lightning says.

Crystal narrows his eyebrows. “That was an interesting observation.”

Igor sighs. “Let’s continue.”

The town square is full of ponies setting up their stalls. What do you do when you see a griffon, a human, a crystal and pegasus ponies? You get confused. Their curiosity is getting best of their fear, so no problems until now. At the town board is the town map, I usually go there instead of asking for location. The inn is… at southwest sector of the town. We reach it, Silent Stallion’s Sleep. Yeah, I guess they do puns without noticing.

Inside we’re welcomed by a unicorn stallion: black mane, grey coat and a musical note for a ‘cutie’ mark, it’s so fun to Crystal’s reaction when he hears that word. “Welcome to Silent Stallion’s Sleep. My name is Silent, how may I serve you?”

Igor is the first to speak. “Breakfast please.”

“Right this way.” He motions us to one of the tables.

Each of us sits at the table. The unicorn levitates a quill and notepad. “What will it be?”

Crystal is the first. “Please, I would like some hay and milk.”

“I want scrambled eggs and some cider.” I order.

“Double her order.” Lightning doubles me.

Igor is thinking. “Bring me bread, scrambled eggs and ale.” The unicorn goes off.

Crystal is put off. “Really? The sun is not even high in the sky.”

“That’s the best time to drink! I’ll have plenty of time to digest the alcohol before sleeping.”

Crystal huffs. “Sometimes I think you do those things just to spite me.”

“It’s done, I won’t order anything else.”

A few minutes of chatting to pass the time and our request is done, he places the plates in front of each of us. “Enjoy.”

We start to eat. Crystal and Lightning are eating moderately. Igor is juggling the knife in one hand and holding an egg sandwich in the other. I call the ponies and point to Igor, he’s not even paying attention. He takes a bite, puts it down, picks the cup and then takes a sip. Crystal rolls his eyes and keeps eating.

“So Igor,” Lightning starts a conversation. “what do you think of Equestria?”

“I love this place! I come here. I see crystal pony and griffon and ride pegasus. This place has everything!" Crystal chokes on his food, Lightning and I are laughing at him.

“Wow.” I wipe a tear from my eye. “I bet you don’t have any plans to the future.”

“A very loose one, but I have it.”

“Care to share?”

“Step one: go to Equestria. Step three: be happy!” He says with enthusiasm.

I notice a thing. “Step two?”

He stops playing with the knife. “Ah, that’s the loose part.”

“So it’s basically a big whatever?”

“Whatever I want to do is fine. There is nothing and no one holding me back.”

We go back to eating with smiles plastered on our faces. Is there a single moment when he isn’t happy? Sometimes, he’s upbeat, not annoying happy as a pony I met once.

“Why the frowning face Gilda?” He asks me.

“Nothing.” Calm down, inhale and exhale.

“Uh… okay.”

We keep eating and then feel the unexpected. It feels like an earthquake, but I for all the time I lived in Equestria I never felt one. Ponies are screaming, things are falling and the inn owner rushes to barricade the door? Igor is helping him pushing things into the door.

“Help me block the entrances!” Silent yells.

The rest of us rush to the windows. “What’s happening?!” Crystals asks.

“They’re back!” The door bursts open to reveal a swarm of prairie dogs. I don’t know anything about farming, but when those things start to swarm places, someone will have problems.

I’ll just sit here. There isn’t much we can do. They’re toppling the chairs and climbing at the tables, eating the food. The ponies are trying to push the animals outside. Igor is just watching it, I guess he never saw anything like that.

“Oh no, you don’t!” I hear Igor shouting and then I see his knife flying.

I see where it lands, on a small skull. The other prairie dogs see this and scatter. The unicorn sees the mess and runs out. We all keep looking at the body on the top of the table. Crystal is displeased with it, but not angry. I can hear Lightning’s stomach burbling, she runs outside, probably to hurl. Igor goes to the table, picks his knife and cleans it on the clean table.

I walk to his side. “You screwed big this time.”

He eats and drinks the rest of his food. “I know.”

End of Chapter XI

Comments

[Scarheart]

“I love this place! I come here. I see crystal pony and griffon and ride pegasus. This place has everything!" Crystal chokes on his food, Lightning and I are laughing at him.

I have a wonderful idea for a recipe! Take two changelings. Two eggs. Seperate eggs. Beat the changelings....er...or was it...? Eh! Details!