5. Road Trip, Part 1
The sun was shining, providing light and warmth for all sorts of life. Plants used the energy given them to grow. Tall trees absorbed as much as they could in order to grow even stronger. They stood in a tight formation inside a vast sea of colors consisting of the greenest of grasses, and a myriad of flowers.
But not just the plants relished in the sun. Various critters enjoyed the day as well. A few bunnies could be seen hopping around and playing with each other. Birds flew to and from the trees, all the while regaling everyone else with a happy little song.
Amidst them, a pink butterfly which, up until now had been resting on a blue flower, alighted into the air. It flew wherever it wanted to, enjoying the freedom it had. Here and there it brushed upon other flowers, taking in their scent. After a while it spotted something out of the ordinary. It had never seen anything like this before, so it went to investigate.
It flew closer to a long stretch of dirt, all nature seemingly absent from it. Upon it was a wooden construction pulled by the biggest animal it had ever seen. The Butterfly took a daring approach, and perched on the nose of the equine as it’s landing spot. Once again it was reminded how tiny it was in comparison, as it stared up into a huge set of rose eyes. Those giant orbs stared right back at it.
Vibrant Colors was brought out of her mindless wandering when a pink butterfly came to rest on her nose. She had to cross her eyes to take a good look at it and smiled. She had always liked animals, and when she was out painting, small critters like foxes or squirrels sometimes kept her company.
Her nose began to tickle and she had to sneeze. The Butterfly was startled by it, and flew away from her. The green mare followed it with her eyes for a while, until it flew out of sight. Checking the position of the sun, she realized it was almost noon.
She cast a glance back at the cart to find that Alex was still peacefully sleeping. A sigh escaped her lips, the stallion was still a mystery to her. Everything about him was as strange as could be. Starting from the fact that she found him in the middle of some field sleeping, to her finding notes in the guest room implying he was smashing his horn on things to try and reclaim his magic.
Even though he slept for three full weeks, he still slept a lot after he woke up a few days ago. Maybe it had something to do with his amnesia? She was really worried about him, and hoped that they would find some clues to who he was exactly when they arrived in Harvest. Even though Harvest was very small, it was still connected to a trade route. In fact it was the last stop on it. After Harvest you could walk for weeks and not find any signs of civilisation.
Of course you could find a few houses here and there if you knew where to look. Vibrant wasn’t the only one who preferred the solitude for one reason or another.
Her stomach rumbled, signalling to her that it craved sustenance. Once again checking on the Sun's position she decided now would be as good a time as any to stop for lunch. Spotting an indent in the dirt road she was following, a plan formulated in her head. She made sure to align the cart’s left wheel with it and pulled over it. The cart took a hearty jump, shaking everything in it. Including Alex.
A groan told her that it was enough to wake the stallion and she had to grin at the perfectly executed plan. Honestly, she couldn’t comprehend how he didn’t wake up earlier. The dirt road they were travelling wasn’t exactly smooth, after all.
Meanwhile, Alex rose into a sitting position. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he started to stretch, getting his blood to circulate. He looked left and right, and was assaulted by more nature than he had ever seen before. A veritable cornucopia of colors stretched out to either side of him as far as he could see. What's more, the place he found himself in was almost creepily flat. If it wasn’t for the distant mountain range he could see to their front, he’d think he was still dreaming.
“How long was I out?” He groggily asked the mare pulling the cart in front of him.
“Good morning sleepyhead!” Vibrant answered. “It’s almost noon, so i’d say about… seven hours. How do you sleep so much? We went to bed at a reasonable hour yesterday. So you should have slept more than enough.”
She turned around to look at Alex. He had a brutal case of bed head, so she had to snicker. Alex looked at her confused, tilting his head a bit sideways.
“I couldn’t really sleep last night, so I read one of the books you had in your guestroom.” Alex lied.
While it was true that he couldn’t sleep, he most certainly didn’t read a book. He once again spent most of the night experimenting with his magic. Alas it was of no use. He tried everything he could, yet he could not get a single spark from his horn.
“Read anything good?” Vibrant asked while redirecting her view back to the road in front of her.
“ ‘Colorful Flowers guide to colorful flowers’ by… Colorful Flowers.” Alex had to frown at the title of the book. He didn’t actually read it in his time staying at Vibrant’s place, but the title was always an eyesore to him. How could anyone have such little imagination?
“Ah yes, a wonderful guide. I used it as a reference guide quite often when I was just starting out.” Vibrant smiled as she remembered those days long past. “So anyway, it’s time for lunch.”
The mare brought the cart to a halt, not bothering to pull it out of the way. As she started to unhinge herself she continued talking to Alex.
“Our Food supply should be somewhere behind you. It’s in a green saddlebag. Be a dear and take it down, would you. There should also be a picnic blanket next to it.”
Alex turned around and rummaged through the cart’s contents. He soon found what he was after, and picked them both up. He threw the blanket over his back, shortly followed by the saddlebag. Descending from the cart, he looked around to find where Vibrant had gone. After he couldn’t find her in front he decided to go to the back of the cart to see if she was there.
Not finding her there either, he returned to the front, completing a full circle around the cart. he furrowed his brows and decided to call out to her.
“Vibrant? Vibrant where are you?” he shouted, looking left and right.
“I’m over here!” came the answer shortly after.
He turned towards the sound and saw the green mare emerging out from under the cover of some trees. Relieved she hadn’t disappeared on him he started spreading out the blanket for them. He was just about to open the saddlebags to see what she had packed for them as Vibrant sat down next to him.
“What were you doing over there?” Alex asked with an inquisitive look.
“It’s considered bad manners to ask a mare that.”
Alex nodded in acknowledgement. “Well if you’re going to take a piss next time, how about you tell me? I was worried you disappeared on me.”
Alex never was one for good manners.
Vibrant pouted a bit but let it slide.
“Alright, alright. Who’d have guessed you were this jumpy? You worried I’d ditch you in the middle of nowhere or something?”
“Well I’ve only known you for a few days, so I’m more scared you’re going to sell me into slavery or something.”
Alex took out two sandwiches from the saddlebag and gave one to Vibrant.
“I sure hope you don’t though.”
Vibrant shot him a deadpan look, but took the sandwich from him anyway.
“You were sleeping in my guestroom for three weeks straight. Who’s to say I didn’t take out and sell your kidney in that time?” She smirked while taking a bite out of her sandwich.
“Well I have no incision scars for one. That and I would very much like to give you the benefit of the doubt.” Alex was munching on his own sandwich at this point.
They fell into an awkward kind of silence after that, and Alex took the time to look around once more. He noticed it at Vibrant’s home too, but everything in this world seemed more colorful somehow. Maybe it was the absence of grey stone buildings. Maybe it really was more colorful. With no way to compare he'd simply have to guess.
After thinking for awhile, he came to the conclusion that the colors here were most likely more saturated. Zeus’s letter mentioned they created this space as true to the show as possible. So the show being a cartoon, it made sense that everything would look… better. More ideal.
While he was pondering the intricacies of this world he now inhabited, he spotted a fox slowly approaching the both of them. He was curiously eying the food they were both eating. So he decided to break off a piece of his sandwich, and threw it in its direction. The fox cautiously approached the morsel and sniffed it.
After a while he looked up towards Alex again, as if weighing his options. Alex just waved to him and smiled. Apparently it decided the piece of bread was safe to eat, because after eying him for a moment he ate it.
The fox cautiously approached. When he was close enough Alex offered him another piece of bread in his hoof. It didn’t hesitate this time and immediately swallowed the whole thing. Alex patted him on the head a few times, careful not to hit him with his hoof. It leaned into him and yipped in thanks.
Shortly after, the fox left. Going to do fox things, Alex presumed.
“Did you SEE that?” Alex whisper-shouted barely able to contain his excitement.
Back in Alex’s hometown you could consider yourself lucky to even see a wild animal. That and he just petted a wild fox. Something he thought he’d never get to do.
“Yeah I did. Nothing special. The animals around here are pretty friendly, and they provide me company when I’m out drawing.” Vibrant deadpanned. “Come on, finish your sandwich. It's time we continued on, we’re burning daylight.”
Vibrant stood up, grabbed the saddlebag and threw them back on the cart. She turned around towards Alex and looked at him expectantly. He scarfed down what was left of his food, and picked up the blanket. Trotting past Vibrant he threw it next to the bags.
He started hooking himself into the cart, remembering his promise to switch after lunch and started pulling. After a few steps he noticed the suspicious absence of a second set of hooves beside him and turned around.
Vibrant was sitting on the cart sporting a smile as wide as a mile. Alex huffed and faced forward again, continuing to pull the cart.
“You know. I should have seen this coming.” he said.
“Yes. Yes, you should’ve.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.022 seconds
Total duration
883 users online
1,312,774 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I can't contain my excitement right now, I love this story. Keep writing, Orthoros!
I expect to see more of you~!
7058376 glad to hear you're this excited :D i try to update at least once a week, and up to chapter nine is written, so expect moar!
7060406 Aye, I've seen it happen before... English is a second language to me, and I'm trying my hardest to get better at everything, from grammer to descriptions.
Thanks
Well let's see if he gets sold into slavery and loses a kidney, triggered some flags maybe? Haha.
I'm trying to decide if this is immersion breaking or just outright off thing to say. If this is a preindustrial Equestria, say around the time of its founding and before Discord showed up for his party, then her comment is very strange, considering organ removal (without killing the subject) wasn't really practiced at all before the industrial revolution, and I'd assume, even considering magic, given the seeming technological status of ponies of this period, that organ removal still wouldn't be a thing anyone but psychopaths and torturers would even bring up.
Or it could be implications of her being a psychotic murderer who decided to repeatedly remove his kidney during his time asleep and his immortality healed everything, and now she's just playing nice.
Regardless, at first glance, this is a very odd, very modern joke to make that doesn't seem like it would fit with the seeming culture and advancement of ponies at this time period...I think. Still too early for me to say definitively how advanced ponies are in this story at this point in time.
7461058 Counterpoint, they shouldn't be speaking English either. Or share the same written text. The thing is, the gods made this after a cartoon and that probably includes references that the theoretical viewer would get even if the natives wouldn't logically use them themselves once in awhile.
7060478
Good for you!
You need more commas in here.
The fox, the most majestic creature of them all
You have just became my favorite author by using one of my favorite words; myriad, rapacity, despotic, and iniquitous are the currents.
Why did she deadpan? That doesn't fit at all unless she's an ass.
Okay I had a bit of a coincidence I had a add of ZEUS slots appear when ifninsihed the chapter. I honestly thought it was a imported image
The whole idea of them creating a cartoon world just for entertainment as they put him there actually sounds like something some bored immortal Greek gods would do
Food shouldn't be capitalized.
Should have a full stop separating it.