The Night Can Change

by BlueyWaifu

Chapter 4

Thump.

A red beanbag was intentionally thrown to the ground close to the board, collecting with two others in a pile on the ground. One red bag sat on its own on the board.

"Alright Restel, twenty to twenty-one. You need this one to at least cancel me out."

"I know!"

Faltic had gotten up from his spot on the log. Partially to stretch, partially to pay more attention to Restel's story, and partially to see who would win on this toss. For the last near twenty minutes, beanbags had been tossed through the air. Throughout it, the accuracy of which they landed on the board became more consistent.

Faltic stood a polite distance from the two and the tense moment. Restel's last blue beanbag was held up to his face, running a million mental calculations, picturing the bag landing on the board. Seemingly, the entire ambience of nature had gone silent. Any questions from the story he had just told were held to the back of both Klaven and Faltic's mind, just waiting for Restel to toss the bag.

Klaven's hoof lightly tapped the dirt impatiently.

After what felt like an hour, Restel reared back his foreleg and gave a sturdy toss. All three pairs of eyes followed the airborne bag as it flew.

...Thump.

The bag had landed just short of the board and had secured the one point victory for Klaven. All three reactions filled the air at once.

"AGH! Come on!"

"Yes! Haha!"

"Oooh, just short."

Restel turned to walk away from his defeat. "Ah I was coming back! You got lucky." He scooped up the well-worn paper brochure of the campground, and briskly opened it in front of his face as he sat back on the log where Faltic used to be.

The night was passing, though it felt slow. Luna's moon hung almost to the center of the star filled sky. Dying embers started to form in the makeshift fire pit despite the flame still burning strong. Sometime during the well matched camp game (and Restel's story telling), a wind had started to pick up, blowing the already frigid air into a more piercing cold. A chill never bothered weathered changelings, so it was understood by two on why Klaven quickly went back inside of his sleeping bag. "Fun though! You played good. Now it's just cold again."

Faltic was the changeling with all the questions now. "How come you didn't get cold while playing?" That wasn't the one he wanted to ask, but it still checked one off the list.

"Well, call it adrenaline, or me just being immersed in the game to not worry about it."

Faltic seemed to accept that answer as he didn't dive into asking how cornhole caused adrenaline. Rather, he returned to sitting on his log seat beside Restel. It was now Restel's turn to have his face hidden by the brochure, and it was also Faltic's turn to speak since he'd been listening the past twenty or so minutes.

"You tell a long story, Restel"

It was just that easy to get Restel to put down the pamphlet.

"Well yeah, you asked for what happened, so I told you everything." The flyer was casually propped up towards his face as he talked, the shifting turquoise tint in his eyes showed he was still idly reading it as he responded.

"So you got a part time job during the invasion?"

"Technically yes, but really no. I never got paid for my time and I didn't see me anywhere on the schedule. I looked. But the guy who I was working as was. Can you believe he works until the AM's?"

Faltic turned his head up to the night sky in an attempt to gauge what time it was exactly. The moon was almost centered above their heads. With a flick of his wrist, and turning his head back down, Faltic looked at his bare foreleg's wrist.

I need a watch.

One of the red beanbags magically levitated over to the tent and came to rest in Klaven's hooves.

"Hey look-"

Both pairs of eyes turned to attention to Restel. He leaned the creased paper towards Faltic and pointed a hoof to the page.

"-There's more to this camp than just here, we could go hiking through it."

Whatever was on the paper was nothing Faltic hadn't already seen. Sure, there were the annoying pictures of happy-go-lucky ponies enjoying themselves, but that seemed to be what Faltic remembered most as opposed to the actual text. However, there was just one piece of text that he wouldn't forget.

"It says right next to where we are, the campgrounds, is the most "flowerful" hiking trail in Equestria."

Mainly because of how dumb it sounded. There wasn't a different way, or other words Faltic could use to describe it.

Klaven returned his attention to idly pondering the beanbag. "A flower trail sounds nice. Different than what we're doing now." What's in this thing?

Faltic didn't look fully amused by the idea. It was different, but the idea of succumbing to an advertisement made him feel all too easily persuaded.

"C'mon-" Restel stood, crumpling the paper up and stuffing it into a leg hole. "-I'll pick you out a flower that looks like you."

Faltic slowly followed Restel's lead in standing back up. "You won't find them here, those only grow in the Canterlot gardens."

"Any garden is the Canterlot garden if you treat it right." Restel walked his way over to the path that laid adjacent to the established camping spot. Faltic followed behind. Klaven, however, was a little lost for action. He didn't want to give up his warm sleeping bag, but walking with it would be a challenge.

"You have get out of that thing to walk you know."

Klaven looked over to Faltic, confident in his next move. "Oh I know, but I'm not leaving it behind."

Stepping outside of the bag, a green haze levitated it up in front of Klaven's face. It had caught the attention of Restel, as he had retreated from the marked path to come back and watch whatever his underling was doing. With some creativity, craftsmanship, and a little bit of sharpness to his horn, Klaven pierced four holes and cut circles of them in the flat bottom piece of the sleeping bag. Once the carving was done, the newly ventilated bag levitated open as Klaven tucked inside, filling each of the openings with one of his legs.

Both Faltic and Restel shared a look at each other while a contagious grin spread across their faces. Restel was the first to break their staring silence.

"I want to make fun of you, but this is just brilliant." His good intention jab was followed by a break into laughter, which shared the same contagiousness as his smile to Faltic. "Unbelievable job!"

Klaven only wore a smile, other than wearing the sleeping bag around his body with his legs sticking out. "You two stay laughing, stay cold. I'll be fine walking around now that the Manehattan cold won't be getting to me." With the small and continuous sounds of his new apparel swishing against itself as he walked, Klaven joined the hiking party.

Still recovering from their shared humor, and joined by their walking sleeping bag, the trio returned to the path. The moonlight could only do so much to light up the night. A dense packing of trees hampered the ability for anything to be visible around. While changelings did possess a superior ability to see in the dark than regular ponies, it was still a challenge in the darkest of places. Klaven was the first to notice that outside the range of their fire, it was near pitch black. "You have a light? You kicked our only one over for a fire."

"Yeah I got one." Restel's horn emitted a soft green haze, and a dim light shone on the tip of his horn. It wasn't amazing, but it did enough to make the area around them not completely black from darkness. "There was a map on that brochure too-" Another thing Faltic realized he'd neglected once he heard Restel mention it. "-Just to the left of here, if we follow the path, takes us straight through the flowerful trail."

Faltic firmly placed his hoof on Restel's shoulder and gave him his best stoic look. "If you say floweful one more time, I am going to bury you." Only about two seconds of eye contact was all Faltic could manage before breaking into a smile, shoving himself off of Restel and sharing a laugh with him.

Both Faltic and Klaven followed their guiding light down the path, leaving their original spot behind. The fire was dying, and cornhole wasn't going anywhere. Trees hung low, some almost encroached on the clearance to walk underneath them. The path was swerving left and right, seemingly abiding by the trees and going around their respective spots. As they walked, they could see different tent setups off the sides of the path. None of them showed any activity. Foliage was occasionally dotted alongside the route, but it was agreed among the three that even though there were flowers, it wasn't the flowerful path.

After a little bit of walking in silence, listening to nothing but the shifting ambience of nature, trees gently swaying in the chill breeze, and Klaven's swishing sleeping bag, thoughts of questions returned to Faltic's mind.

"Tell me the truth, was that really the first building you both stumbled into?"

Restel didn't turn his head, keeping the light focused down the path. "Yeah it was. Klaven was there too, he'll tell you." Faltic turned his head to Klaven, who nodded in response.

The path started to take a rise as the group slowly ascended over a small incline. Along the sides of the path, flowers began to appear more frequently in the dim light of Restel's horn.

"I'm just curious. It just sounded too insouciant."

"Insou-what?" Restel's guiding light shifted as he turned his head to give the side eye to Faltic.

Klaven spoke up. "I know what it means."

"Yeah? Then how come you don't ever say it like wise guy here?"

"It's not in my typical vocabulary. There's a lot of other simpler words to use."

"Faltic, what does it mean?"

It would've been easy for Faltic to take a sense of pride in knowing a word Restel didn't, but it was too petty. "It means being casual, nonchalant. It just sounded too easy."

"Noncha-what?"

Faltic heard the walking sleeping bag holding back a laugh and decided to give up. "Oh never mind!"

"Klaven, you should know he gets his fancy sounding words from all the rom-coms he reads." Restel turned his lighted horn back forward down the path.

"Chk- you read rom-coms?" Klaven was eyeing Faltic now. As the topic started to change into Faltic's genre of choice, the incline flattened out, and the trio stood atop the crest of their small hill. After being sheltered by trees and branches, they suddenly all parted and allowed the moonlight to cast its faint light on the area. As advertised, there were flowers. Lots of flowers. There was still the dirt pathing that cut through it all, but on either side was an ocean of flora of all different colors. Restel's light went dark, unneeded as the garden was naturally lit by Luna's grace.

Restel was the first to speak in the basking of the flowers. "Looks flowerful to me."

Faltic snapped his attention to him with a scowl, almost as quick as Klaven turned to him during the Canterlot invasion. "One of these flowers is going on your grave."

"Oh come on-" Restel started walking through the flower ocean on the path. "-Just one?"

Klaven had stopped along the side, admiring some of the green ones that were gently saturated by the moonlight. "I think any one of these flowers would compliment your grave very well."

"And I think-" Restel plucked a green flower with his mouth and toted it over to Faltic. Restel's green magic encased the flower as he hovered it towards Faltic's leg. "-Faltic should use this as his bookmark when he reads his next romance." The flower was neatly placed in one of Faltic's leg holes. There was zero amusement in the new flower bearers face. He gave Restel a deadpan look that could possibly wilt flowers on sight. However, it didn't wilt the expression of the gift horse.

Restel turned away, still wearing his proud smile. With just a moments hesitation, he turned his head back. "...Or give it to that girl I've seen you talking to back at the Hive."

"I don't need you as my wingpony!" Faltic's dead expression seemed to lift slightly. He raised his leg to take a look at the flower that had been placed in it. It didn't seem like a terrible idea. Something from outside of the Hive would make a great gift.

Klaven had been walking along in silence for a moment, it was a subject he didn't have much knowledge on. Relationships, that is. Though, he had read just one or two romance books in the past. "I think you should, it'd be cute!"

"Yeah Faltic, wouldn't hurt."

There was a bit of strain to his voice, but he was convinced enough. "Alright! I will! Now both of you calm down about it."

"My lips are zipped!" Restel gave a mock slash across his lips with a hoof, then turned to march back down the path. Before Faltic placed his first step to continue as well, his shoulder was nudged by something beside him. Klaven, who looked at him and motioned to wait, extended his hoof in front of his chest. Ahead, the path took a turn around a corner where Restel disappeared around, assisted by the dense packing of flowers.

"What?"

Klaven lowered his head slightly, speaking in a hushed voice. "You read Changeling Days too?" Faltic's expression immediately lifted, almost gasping at the mention. "Have I? Only four times!" There were only about ten romance/comedy books in the Hive's library, so it was easy to find a common book that somepony else had read. Though, with the dwindling interest to read, making sure somepony else actually indulged was the first step.

"Hah, good. Talk to you about it later, let's catch up." Klaven flicked his head forward and pressed on, followed by Faltic, who had a slightly springier step. In just a few quick strides, they'd rounded the bend and caught up to Restel as if they'd never stopped, and Restel spoke as if they'd never left. "Speaking of romance, Klaven, what happened to you?"

"What happened to me? When?”

"After you left with that pink chick. Did you put on the dress?"

Klaven wanted to bite back with his rebuttal- "Did you get paid for working?"

"Nope! Mentioned that earlier." -but it fell short. Well, if he wanted to know, then tonight would be a night of story telling.

"I'll tell you all about it when we stop again."

Faltic had his eyes the furthest down the lane. "Convenient, because I see a gazebo up ahead." Which there was. The light silhouette of a structure was just ahead. Thin support beams laced the sides, there was a flat roof, and an established floor rose slightly off the ground at the base of it. "Better be flowers on the other side of it, or this is quite a short walk."

"I'm more interested in Klaven's story."

For the time, their voices fell silent during the approach to the gazebo. Upon closer inspection, there were two ways into it, both with two steps to manage before reaching the interior under the roof. Actually, the roof wasn't even a roof. It was the foliage of vines and leaves strung across the top as a canopy. Even in the flower trail, you weren't immune to leaves looming above. Hanging from the wooden frames were two unlit lanterns on either side, just above the steps onto the floor.

"I got it." Faltic's horn lit, and a sizzling pop suddenly sparked a light green fire inside both of the lanterns. With light, the space under the roof was clearer, and green tinted. In the center was a small circular formation of stone, and a miniature statue of Manehattan's tallest building. "To Manehattan's founders." Klaven read the sign that was on the circular foundation of the building's statue.

"Fancy, yeah, but nowhere to sit." Restel was pacing around. "I guess I'll sit here." He said before making his own seat on the floor. With seemingly no other option, Klaven made his own seat as well. As he sat, his sleeping bag had finally stopped making the constant swishing sound, to the delight of two other pairs of ears.

Faltic was the last of the three to seat himself. Only momentarily was he leaning against the fence that skirted the edges of the gazebo floor. The only thing out there were more flowers and trees. Who could've guessed? The flowers were all somewhat recognizable with the moonlight, but once the trees appeared, it dove straight back into darkness.

"Alright dude, story time." Restel had intentionally scooted slightly closer to Klaven, giving him his full attention. Faltic, while his attention was directed to Klaven by his pointed ears, his eyes were looking down at the flower that had been picked for him. It sat comfortably in a leg hole.

"Yeah yeah I know." With some readjustment, Klaven reached into the improvised collar of his sleeping bag and retrieved his red beanbag.

"You carried that with you?"

Klaven's head shifted to Restel as he idly teetered the weight of the bag around in his hooves. "I did, I wanted to eventually find out what's in it."

"Fair enough, but go ahead."

Now that it was time for more questions to be answered, possibly not necessarily the ones he'd like to be answered, Faltic's head turned to the storyteller.

"Okay, so-"

Author's Note:

Ending might be rushed, again I might be saying their names wayy too often.