• Published 25th Jun 2018
  • 431 Views, 32 Comments

A Tempest Tossed - LotusTeaDragon



Violet Tempest must stop a violent storm from destroying Equestria!

  • ...
0
 32
 431

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven
City of Manehattan


The effect was immediate. Violet found her entire body waterlogged, the rain scouring her fur as she was shoved hard into the brick siding. It was a corner wall of the building in which they had taken shelter the past few days.

The iciness of the wind, it's howling rage, all of it assaulted her from muzzle to tail, daring her to defy its roaring command for submission.

Her eyes had squeezed shut, and her ears folded down to keep out the driving rain. The unfortunate side effect of that was it made her deaf and blind to everything going on around her. She couldn't have seen her hooves right in front of her, though, even if she'd had her eyes wide open.

'Ponyfeathers!' she swore to herself. She had already lost count of how far they'd moved. Was it 5 paces? 10? 20? She didn't know, because the effects of the storm had been so immediate and so drastic a change from their haven, that the resulting confusion had caused her to stop counting.

The only thing she was certain of at the moment was that her right side was being pushed against the hard grit of the wall, and her left side was being buffeted by the angry storm. She began to wonder how she ever thought she could take all of this on by herself.

She felt a hard tug on her foreleg.

Except, she remembered, as she felt the tug once more, that she wasn't by herself. She had Candela, she had a friend who was going to help her get to the heart of this absurd mystery so that they could go back to their respective homes, safe and sound.

She tugged back against the rope in response. She felt herself being pulled forward, slowly, and she followed that pull, knowing her friend was at the other end of the rope, guiding them both forward.

The winds were merciless. Every step was an effort, the fat drops of rain shaped more like arrowheads as they smacked into her face, her withers, and her barrel. At one point, a sudden gust caused her to stumble, and in doing so lost the grip on her stick, and could feel it torn from her, instantly becoming yet more debris.

They continued onward, taking refuge against anterior walls, concrete steps, and anything else that provided even a momentary shelter against the raging gale. Before long, Violet lost count of the steps, and could no longer recall how long they had been out in the storm. All she knew was that she could feel the rope pulling her forward, and her left foreleg crying out in pain as she forced her weight onto it each step.

Finally, she felt the rope slacken, and she stopped. A flit of panic raced through her chest as she wondered if Candela had lost her step, or worse that they were now lost amidst the raging winds, prone to exposure and doomed to wander out in the open until they lost consciousness and succumbed to the storm.

For a moment, she imagined that she had heard something, and tentatively swiveled an ear towards the sound. The deafening winds overrode almost everything, but she could definitely hear something happening. It had sounded like steel grating on concrete.

Her heart leapt in her chest. They had made it to the first shelter on their route. If she was right, this was the bunker.

She carefully opened an eye, and amid the driving rain, fog, and darkness, she could make out a faint glow. Blocking much of whatever light source created it was the silhouette of her friend.

She felt the tug of the rope, and started moving forward, squinting hard to keep the wind and rain out of her eyes as she partially tripped over the raised lip of an entryway.

"Be careful, Violet, there are shallow steps ahead," came Candela's voice, just in front of her.

She opened her eyes wide, allowing them to adjust to the faint light. She felt the rope tug again.

"Hold on a second, while I lock the grate back in place," she heard from behind.

'When had she moved behind her?' Violet thought to herself.

A few moments passed as she heard grating steel on concrete, and then there was nothing. Violet took a moment to exalt in it, thankful that the shrieking winds had been silenced for the moment, and that they were safe from the storm.

She felt the rope move once again, and followed it along what appeared to be a narrow, squat hallway. It was apparently a short one, as once they rounded a sharp corner, they were in an open chamber.

It had a low ceiling, ran about 8 paces in each direction, and was lit by a single emergency luminance crystal, bathing the room in a reddish color, almost like rust.

Still, light was light, and a lack of wind was a lack of wind. Violet wasn't going to start complaining about it now.

She could see Candela moving about in the small space, rustling around in her saddlebags.

"So this was one of the old bunker's used during the Mage war," Violet commented as she looked about at the bare concrete walls, and scuffed floor.

Candela looked up at her, pausing in her search. "You sound disappointed."

Violet shrugged, a physical gesture that was probably pointless in the low, ruddy light. "I don't know," she remarked, shaking her head, "I guess I expected to see old posters on the walls, or ancient equipment lying in a corner. This looks, well..."

"Bare?" Candela filled in after Violet's momentary loss for words.

Violet nodded and laughed ruefully. "Yeah, I guess."

Candela smiled, her facial features coming into sharp relief as she lit the salt lamp she had pulled from their supplies.

"Well, not everything can live up to a pony's imagination," she said as she laid a small sheet on the ground, and removed two sandwiches from the pack.

"Here," she said, "take a seat and have a bite. It's egg salad."

Violet took the proffered sandwich, and with Candela's assistance, sat down on the little sheet. She could feel her bones protesting the action, and she hissed as a sharp pain lanced along her barrel.

Candela had noted her difficulty in sitting, realizing in that same moment that Violet's crutch was missing.

"What happened to your stick?" she asked, concern pushing aside the exhaustion evident in her voice.

Violet shrugged. "It's a lawn ornament somewhere in the Greater Manehattan area by now," came her sullen reply, as she bit into her sandwich.

She stopped eating.

"Um... Candela?" she asked, trying to speak around the egg salad in her mouth.

"Yes, dear?" came the reply.

"Where did you, um, get this egg salad?"

Candela shrugged. "It was in one of the cans I found in the supply room back at home base." She continued eating. "Why?"

Violet gently lifted a corner of the bread and looked at the egg salad itself.

She froze.

"I don't think we should eat this."

"Why not?"

"It's moving."

"Wha?"

"It just moved."

Several seconds were spent in panic as each pony spit the offending filler out of their mouths, each grabbing her own canteen of water and swishing as quickly as each could.

"Ew! What was it?!"

"I don't know! I can't see very well in the dark, but it moved!"

"Your eyes were playing tricks on you, they had to be!"

"I swear on Celestia's royal rump it was moving. I think it looked at me!"

A skittering sound could be heard. Both ponies stared in shock at one another, and began scraping tongues against hooves. The two mares once more took a swish of water from their canteens, desperate to remove any remnants of whatever it was they had been eating.

Their dinner complete, they quickly packed their things and prepared to leave the bunker behind.

After making certain the rope was securely fastened to their respective hooves, and Violet assuring Candela she could make it to their next stop, they pushed their way out and back into the maelstrom.

The journey was without incident, if one could call being blasted in the muzzle by 250 kilometer per hour winds, and rain drops the size of a tennis ball occurring 'without incident.'

The cellar of the general store appeared to be a much better hiding place, as it contained a few extra supplies the pair could use to continue their sojourn to the library.

Candela looked about the shelves, grabbing extra cans of fruit, and capsules for the salt lamp, while Violet managed to find an old cane and modify it to act as a new crutch.

"Do you think we have everything we need?" Candela asked as they began to look over their equipment one last time.

Violet nodded. "I think we're ready for the last leg of this trip, and I will be quite happy to make that happen. I just want to get help. Celestia only knows what has happened to the crew of the Mare Nobilium after all of this time."

Her eyes were downcast as she began to dwell on the fates of her shipmates, and especially Twilight, whom she missed most of all.

Candela leaned in and put her foreleg around Violet's withers. "They'll be fine, Violet, I promise you. You said Twilight was an alicorn princess?"

Violet nodded morosely.

Candela smiled. "Then she must be very resourceful to have gained such a position, don't you think?"

Violet thought on it a moment, and then replied. "She's brilliant in so many ways, and has enough book knowledge to put the Canterlot Library to shame, but..."

"Yes?" Candela prodded when Violet had fallen silent.

"For all I know, she could have been knocked unconscious like I was. She could be..." and she swallowed in an attempt to keep the rising sob, "she could be..."

Candela pulled her into a full embrace. "Don't even say it," she whispered into Violet's ear.

Violet hiccuped, "but she could-"

"No!" came Candela's firm reply. "You don't say it, don't even think it. The only way we're going to make it to the library alive, the only way we're going to recover the crew of your ship, and the only way we're going to stop this storm is if you believe in yourself, in us, and in Twilight's ability to think on her hooves."

She gave Violet's forehead a tender kiss. "Have faith, sweetheart."

Violet returned the embrace, her heart lighter, and her cheeks much warmer than they had been a moment ago.

"Now," said Candela, after a few more moments comforting one another, "we should get going."

They released the other from the hug, and grabbed their equipment, securing it firmly, and giving everything one more brief glance before heading for the steps that lead to the ground floor of the general store.

The last leg of the journey was just ahead.

/)*(\