A New Beginning in a New Land

by REDACTED99999

Chapter 6

“So… are you Twilights henchma-… woma-… mare?” Jax asked as casually as he could while stumbling over his words in search of the correct term. They were slowly making their way through the forest. Rainbow Dash may have gone in all right, but she was twitching and turning towards every sound made, as if expecting an attack. Jax found it hilarious at first, because the mare had stated with so much confidence that she wasn’t afraid of anything, but decided to distract her with some small talk out of the goodness of his heart. Also, he was curious.

“What?” Rainbow answered, still turning towards every sound, before looking at Jax, realizing what he asked. “No. I’m her friend. Twi wouldn’t even refer to her guards as henchstallions or mares. Why do you ask?”

“When you came for me it sounded like you were ordered by the princess to get me back to her.”

“I wasn’t ordered, I was asked. Friends’ help each other out you know? Plus I’m part of her friendship council” She still seemed a little distracted by the sounds of the forest, but the conversation seemed to have calmed her down a bit.

“Yeah I guess they should… So, you any good in a fight?” He asked, with a distracted tone, as he dropped one of the two shovels he was holding, taking a firmer grip on the one in his hands.

She looked at him suspiciously, landing on the ground for the first time since Fluttershy’s house. Before she had kind of… hovered next to him. “Why do you ask?” Jax could tell that she misunderstood the situation.

“Because we’re surrounded by branchwolves.” He stated calmly.

She looked confused. “Branchwolves? What do you-“She started saying before the first one jumped out from its cover, green eyes looking directly at them, followed by three more around them.

“Oh, timberwolves.” She corrected him, sounding a little nervous but somehow still plenty confident.

“Timberwolves? Oh I get it… Cause they are made out of timber? In the shape of wolves?” He laughed a little at the pun. He should have thought of that! Ah well, too late for that now.

“Yeah… so funny” Rainbow Dash reminded him of the situation at hand. Branch/timber wolves were easy to deal with. The forest was a fairly confined space, so they wouldn’t merge into what he had dubbed 'The super wolf' which he had encountered once in a large clearing, so all they had to do was beat them up, wait for them to remerge, then beat them up again. The second merging took a great deal longer than the first, he had figured out after what felt like their hundredth encounter. After that, one could leisurely stroll away. He readied the shovel in his hand. He knew exactly what was going to happen: The first branchwolf would jump at him, aiming high, the second aiming low. The third and forth would try to jump at him from behind. He could see it in the way they circled him.

“Come at me with everything you have!” He shouted defiantly. He had started to shout before every fight to gather courage. It had been a habit he picked up the minute he decided to fight them instead of running from them. It felt good, he felt more courageous when he did it. Even though Rainbow Dash looked at him weirdly.

He could see the first one laying low, getting ready to jump at him… the timing had to be just right… Steady… he was just about to… NOW!

Just as he readied his shovel for the incoming attack, a rainbow trail flew past him and smashed the airborne wolf into a nearby tree. ‘Oh right. I’m not alone.’ He thought, disoriented. The pattern had been broken, and he didn’t know whether to get ready for the second wolf that looked as confused as him, or the two behind him. Instinct took over and he instantly turned around to face the two behind him.

The first of them jumped at him, and he quickly sidestepped before bashing it with the shovel. The second decided to go for his leg, but was smashed into a tree by a sideway shovel swing. It hurt his shoulder, his wound still fresh, but not so much that he couldn’t take it. He turned around to deal with the last only to see that Rainbow Dash had already taken care of it. So she could fight.

“Well done. Now let’s wait and double tap.” Jax said, going over to the first branch… timberwolf.

“Double… what? Don’t we have a manticore to bury?” Rainbow Dash asked, sounding confused.

“You don’t know about double tapping? It’s a safety measure… If we just leave them they will merge together in a couple of minutes, and most likely follow us. But if we wait a bit, we can destroy them again. It doesn’t kill them, it just gives us a couple of hours until they merge again.” He explained. It had taken him some time to find out about this weakness. Their other weakness was fire, but he didn’t want to tell Rainbow Dash about that time he burned an entire pack. He didn’t know how these equestrians reacted to killing timberwolves, all he knew was that Fluttershy was pretty upset about the manticore.

That reminded him… He forgot to eat the apples she gave. Damn… he was going to get hungry soon.

“Oh… I knew that” She answered with a bad poker face. He raised his shovel above his head, getting ready to beat the wolf that was already remerging.

“What was up with that shout though? You trying to scare them away or something?” Rainbow asked as he crushed the remerged timberwolf’s form.

“It’s… a habit. Even after fighting these wolves a hundred times, I still feel like I need it. It makes me feel… defiant. Like the world wants me to turn tail and run, but I refuse to be the prey. I don’t think you would understand.” She looked at him a second before answering.

“I think I do, though,” Was all she had to say about it.

***

“So…” Dash started. They had moved on after double tapping all the timberwolves, finding the manticore and started digging. They already had a considerable hole. “How did you kill it?” She finished, seeming kind of nervous, but maybe a bit awe struck. He went over to the manticore, taking out his spear of doom from its eye, only to find that the awesome dagger of death had broken. He had expected this, but it was still kind of sad. It had lasted longer than he had thought it would though.

“I was exploring the area, when it appeared out of nothing, like every other god da-… like every creature in this forest. I started backing up, but got backed into that tree.” He pointed at the tree he thought he was going to die by. “With no clear way to escape, I decided to fight. Between its giant paws and stinger, it wasn’t easy, but it seemed to be moving slower than it should. I realize now that it’s because it was pregnant… Anyway, in the end I got an opening and went for it. But it didn’t like that very much, so before it died, it stabbed me with its stinger. If Fluttershy hadn’t found me, I would be dead.” He finished, rubbing his injured shoulder. He was happy Rainbow Dash had gone with him, doing this alone would be even more exhausting.

“That’s kind of… cool.” She looked at him with a smile on her face before it turned thoughtful. “Sad, but cool. Don’t tell Fluttershy I said that. She’s very sensitive about stuff like that, but I know how tough a manticore can be. If you managed to beat it, that must mean you’re even tougher.”

It seems like he had earned some of her respect. It was good to know that not all of the equestrians would react the same way to the information. Although ‘cool’ wasn’t the word he would use. He just remembered something he forgot to ask before, because of the timberwolves.

“Rainbow Dash? What’s the friendship counsel?” Rainbow Dash kept digging while she answered.

“Tirek took everypony’s magic, we stopped him, a castle appeared and now we spread friendship.” She looked at his confused face. “Well that’s the short version anyway. I’m sure Twilight can explain more, or you can read that book she wrote.”

By now Jax could tell that he needed to see this Twilight to get any answers. The pegasi didn’t seem big on the whole explaining thing.

***

“Thanks for the help Rainbow Dash” Jax said as they finally decided the hole was big enough. Jax was aching many places, he was hungry and thirsty and his shoulder was burning. Thank god Rainbow decided to come along, he really hadn’t thought this through. It would have taken longer and hurt more if he had been alone. They had gone out late morning, and it was now early evening.

“We’re not done yet, we still need to get it down into the hole.” Rainbow Dash said, motioning from the manticore to the hole. “That thing is huge. It must weigh a ton, and we still need to get back to Pinkie’s party. No offence, but you don’t exactly look your best, covered in dirt. I think the only one that will mind is Rarity though. Anyway, let’s just push it in, cover it up and get outa here.”

Jax sighed. This had taken way more time than he thought, he didn’t mind being late to the party though. Maybe he could be so late that the party would be cancelled? It was an enticing thought but he doubted that. The mare beside him with the rainbow coloured mane (which was still weird but whatever,) would make sure he got there. He didn’t mind the dirt so much, the others could think what they wanted.

“Okay, let’s push at the same time.” They were both tired, but managed to push the manticore into the hole, and started filling it dirt again.

“By the way Rainbow Dash, I need to make a stop at my camp after this. It won’t take long, I just need to take a few things, then we can be on our way.”

He had originally meant to tell her to go back ahead of him while he went to the camp for his stuff, but by now he didn’t care. He was tired, aching all over, and he doubted Rainbow would go ahead of him anyway.

Rainbow looked a little grumpy at his suggestion though.

“Sure! Why don’t we stop by and get a hayburger on our way as well. Now that we’re at it, lets go take a dip in the lake!” Her sarcasm was real, but her suggestions were pretty good

“Actually… I am hungry, and I could use a bath. Although, are hayburgers made out of hay?”

She looked at me like she would come with some sarcastic answer, but she just deflated a little.

“Yeah… me too. And yes they are. Delicious, delicious hay…”

***

They covered the hole and made their way toward the camp by the striver. It was slow going since they were both exhausted.

The camp had evolved since his first day here. He had made a permanent fireplace, a roof using branches with leaves, which he had planned on making into a house when he had the chance, and the beginning of a small boat, which he never got to finish. The entire camp was surrounded by thorn bushes, which he had placed with much difficulty. He normally climbed up into a tree with branches that extended past the barrier, to get in and out. Furthermore tools like his axe made from flint, his spare dagger of indestructible power, and some flint to make a fire, lay spread about. He gathered all three of the tools, put the flint and flint dagger into the remains of his pockets, and looked a little at his axe, and his mighty stick of awesome, which he had brought along from the manticore burial.

“Err… You seem nice and all, but go into town with an axe and stick covered with blood, and ponies are going to be afraid. It’s bad enough that you look like a wild, dirt covered animal.” Rainbow stated truthfully. “No offense.” She added sheepishly.

Jax had to agree. He was taking it too far, his dagger would be good enough. He had to rename it though, it wasn’t his spare anymore… Well just “dagger of indestructible power” would do. He laid down the axe and went over to the striver to wash his face and hands. ‘Eh, what the hell’ he thought, as he jumped in instead, mighty stick still in hand. A few moments later Rainbow Dash joined him, by doing a triple backwards flip from the air. He got the feeling she liked showing off, but she seemed like a nice person… or pegasus rather. She had helped him with a rather unpleasant task, without a word of complaint after all.

“Impressive.” He said as she resurfaced. She gave him a cocky smile. “Rainbow Dash, I have to thank you for helping me out.”
“No need to thank me twice, I heard you the first time. Don’t worry about it, I took it as a workout. We really need to get going though. Oh and… What was your name again?”

“Oh right,” He answered as he facepalmed, ”I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Jax. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand towards her, and after hesitating shortly she extended her hoof so he could shake it.

He drank some water from the striver, looked his mighty stick over, noticing that most of the blood had been washed off, laid his axe under the roof, and looked at the camp. It might be a while until he got back here, maybe he never would. He wanted to thank every single flint stone on the beach for being there, the fish in the striver for swimming in it, the berry bush nearby for growing there… All off them helped him survive to this day.

He turned around and followed Rainbow, who was waiting for him.

Author's Note:

I had some trouble here with Rainbow's reaction. Also, I am running out of premade chapters :/ I have written one and a half more, but there's a very real chance that I will take longer than a week to upload chapters after those are done... but I'll try to do it :)

Comments

[zaku666]

teh fuck is striver? stream/river thingy right?

[Nataniel]

be the pray

prey

[AzureShade]

Dagger of power.

I approve.

[Bossypants]

Woe, striver be upon ye!