Lutscintorb

by Mary Sue

Moving Forward

“The day is still young,” Sharp Tack said. He kept one hoof over his eyes as he glanced up at the sun, sitting just barely in the western half of the sky. “We’ll be lucky to make twenty-five miles today. But if we hurry I’m sure we can get to Portsmouth by Sunday.”

“Good enough for me,” Whiskey muttered. He hefted a wood board up against the exposed doorway of the stagecoach as a cheap way to make sure nothing fell out while it was moving. With his magic he held it in place while he hammered nails into it with a hoof.

“What happened to your stagecoach?” Sparkler asked. It reminded her of a rotten pumpkin starting to collapse in on itself.

“It broke,” was all Whiskey said, deadpan.

She gave the carriage a quick look, skeptical of its capacity, but the annoyed response she received told her it wasn’t a matter worth pursuing. She pulled on the strap of her satchel so it sat more comfortably at her side, and she walked around to the front of stagecoach. There she found Sharp Tack starting to hook himself up to the harnesses, which had two sets of reins attached to it.

“Anything I can help with?” she asked.

“Do you want to help pull now or later?”

“Eh, later works.” She twisted her head from side to side and popped her neck. “I’m still feeling a little run down from this morning, honestly.”

“Alright,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Hop on if you want. It’s going to be a couple hours before the first stop.”

She glanced at the driver’s box of the carriage, which was currently occupied by a bunch of miscellaneous tool and wood scraps, and nodded. “Okay,” she said, and lit her horn.

Sharp Tack did a double take as she disappeared in an audible flash! of red-pink light. She reappeared right on top of the carriage roof. She quickly found her footing uneven and stumbled, causing the stagecoach to twist with her, but she soon settled down on a relatively flat and stable surface. He wrinkled his nose at her and went back to securing himself to his harness.

From on top of the roof, Sparkler could get a much clearer look of the land. She reached into her satchel and produced the pair of binoculars and her compass.

Off to the west, the Windhurst Mountains reflected their gray stone in the afternoon sun. They were tall and thick, the peaks tightly packed together across the whole range as it spanned the horizon. They were mostly bare of snow except for the tallest and thickest of peaks, which resembled little teeth scraping at the sky.

A few spindly clouds were rolling in from the south, but otherwise the sky was as clear as the mountains. The Green Stretch had its fair share of hills, despite being mostly flat by what she could see. Small pine forests dotted the landscape all around, which helped give her some measure of distance. But from the north to the south, that’s all there was to see.

The east, however, carried an unusual outcropping of thick, gray clouds, partially obscured by one of the patches of small, thick forests. Her binoculars didn’t clarify much for her, but she could see enough that the clouds were churning end over end, as if rolling up a hill. She stuck her tongue in her cheek and looked down at the two stallions, who were now both hooked up to the reins and whispering to each other. Whiskey, unsurprisingly, looked the more frustrated.

Sparkler hummed something and returned her belongings to the satchel. She then reached for an apple, which she quickly discovered there weren’t any more of. She also found soot stains all over the satchel, now that she was paying attention.

“Stupid,” she muttered, closing the satchel up and laying down in the most comfortable position she could manage. Not a second later, the stagecoach lurched forward. It groaned defiantly at first, but soon the squeals disappeared and they drove forward north along a dirt-grass path that was hardly there.

Comments

[JustAnotherTimeLord]

The scenery description was very nice towards the end. Gotta love it when a picture can be very easily formed, and in detail.

[Emotional Flight]

Sharp Tack did a double take as she disappeared in an audible flash! of red-pink light.

Well, she certainly has a lot of magic if the tendencies from the last few chapters are to be believed.

[Revan]

Sounds like Sparkler is suffering from magic overload.