Away and Afar

by PropsValroa

Chapter 64

Collapse didn't know too much about the dragons, but she did know that there were some cases where a few dragons had been known for far more unique abilities. What those abilities were, Collapse didn't know. She did say to Pebble, that it may have been possible for some rare dragons to have an ability such as her. Collapse didn't know if there were any recorded cases of such a thing, as she's never been to the dragon lands. Collapse did also explain that the Equestrians and Dragons had a long standing peace for decades, coinciding with the ascension of Equestria's current leadership around 50 years ago.

Before then, it was known that not all dragons were as co-operative as they are now. There was one instance in where one of the larger known dragons selfishly took nesting on one of Equestria's mountains, threatening to block the nearby areas over with large clouds of smoke during their long and deep sleep. Although that was long before the current leadership came about, but what Collapse did know is that the Equestrians did convince the dragon to nest somewhere else.

The dragons and the Equestrians largely would respect each other's different ways of life by not interfering with the matters in each other's lands. Instances of trade, and even diplomacy were made on both sides. Collapse didn't know much beyond that, though.

Magloria approved of going to the location with medicine plants first, since it was amazing that they hadn't so far suffered any sort of injury that they would need it for. Jump Start however was concerned over how many different ruins that were scattered around. Perhaps there had been a whole civilization spanning for miles here, like Equestria's.

When Collapse began talking about the dragons, Pebble decided it would be a good time to sit down and get comfortable, since the mare looked like she was going to tell a story. She didn't complain, attentive to the end as it was rare that she was given knowledge from another's perspective.

Jump Start and Magloria however were both confused as to why Collapse had suddenly decided to give Pebble a history lesson. Was it because she was a reptile and would probably understand?

When Collapse was done, the lizard decided to give them a few more locations to mark. 'Places of wonder and beauty' she called them. Not very important, but they were landmarks in their own right. Large waterfalls, pretty rock formations and a crystal cave were among those she listed.

Collapse was quite pleased that Pebble wanted to listen to her there. It was very interesting to be able to explain such knowledge to Pebble, even if she may not understand all of it she hoped that she could find some use for it, someday.

When the other locations were marked, Collapse was quite happy at that. They did indeed could stand to look at some pretty things around here instead of doing work all the time and trying to figure out mysteries. Definitely something that they would hopefully look into in the future.

"Well, once again - we greatly appreciate you pointing these out for us and I am thankful for your help." Collapse concluded, seemingly satisfied by their meeting with Pebble as of yet, unless there was anything else the others wanted to do.

"You're welcome. I'll still be around if you ever wanted to find me again." Pebble replied, standing up again and preparing to continue her journey to wherever she was heading towards. "But until then-"

"Wait, I want to give you something!" Jump Start interrupted, before reaching into her saddlebags and pulling out one of their duplicate tools. "It's quite a tough tool, I'm sure you could make some use out of it." she stated.

Accepting the gift, Pebble pocketed it. "Until we meet again." she farewelled before turning to the jungle, parting the plants and trees as she moved away. Her lizard entourage quickly followed.

"Well, that didn't go perfectly as planned." Magloria said once they were alone again.

Collapse wished Pebble safe travels as she left and was pleased that Jump Start gifted one of the tools to her. How kind of her! That made Collapse smile widely at that. Once Pebble was gone, she looked to Magloria, "Well, yeah, but at least nothing *too* bad happened. Well, shall we take a look a the area with the medicinal plants first? I think we should get that out of the way." Collapse stated, ready to go to that area to recover the plants.

Magloria looked down at the map, right at the spot where the medicine plants were marked. "It'll be another day or so hike, but what place isn't at this point? Not like we can make anything that lets us travel faster."

Checking the position of the sun relative to the map, she pointed out which direction they'd have to head in. "We're going to be travelling this way. On an extra note, we'd be passing quite close to the one she called a big ruin. Perhaps we could check that out at the same time." she said.

Collapse nodded as she looked to the Map. "Well, we'll look at that too. Well, are we ready to go?" Collapse asked, ready to get going and she looked at where it was on the map and turned to walk that way. Unless of course they forgot about anything they needed to go that far.

"Sure. Not like we're going to need planks where we're going anyway." Magloria said as she too began to head toward their destination, Jump Start following behind.

There was very little that they hadn't already seen or dealt with before along the way. They spent a night camping beneath a tree then kept going, until they reached what they thought was the place.

Now all they had to do was find what they were looking for. It's a plant, so it should be easy.

Collapse had spent the night as she usually would. Snuggled up against Jump Start, although she wasn't as close to her as she wanted due to the general heat of the jungle. But when they sent off in the morning, Collapse would keep an eye out for the plant. Provided if they successfully found the plant, she would begin harvesting it and collecting it. That was, if it looked like something that could just be harvested without much issue. It may be more complex.

Well they certainly found a plant that they hadn't seen before, but there was a problem. There were several that they soon discovered laying around the area. After Collapse had already gathered some, parts of an oddly tall bush with blue flowers and red thorns, they found other kinds when searching for more.

"Why didn't we ask her what the plant looked like?" Jump Start complained as she looked at a clump of yellow tubular flowers, each growing from a thin stem.

"For all we know it's a root, vine or fungus." Magloria added as she gently poked at a brown and orange mushroom, thin sheets of it growing out the side of a half dead tree. "Say Jump Start, couldn't you figure out which one it is?" she asked.

Jump Start looked confused. "Why me?"

"You're an earth pony, aren't you more in tune with plants, and such?"

"Yeah, but not like that! I never took any herbology lessons, or medicine... my parents tried to get me to join the wilderness fillies, but I didn't want to. Forests were too scary." Jump Start explained.

Collapse softly chuckles. "Maybe you should have joined the Wilderness fillies, then. It would have prepared you for this - I feel like I may have more of a clue, I did grow up on a Cherry farm after all, and had more experience with plants than most Unicorns would...as I was not like most unicorns, but then again, my experience usually dealt with *one* particular plant. The Cherry." Collapse said back to Jump Start.

"Well, you've already beaten all those wilderness fillies anyways. Giant snakes, bottomless pits, Panthins, massive whirlpools..." she pointed out, before looking to the plants she had in her magic.

"So what should we do to figure it out then? Taste test them? See what has soothing sap or fluid, maybe?" she asked curiously, trying to come to an answer.

Jump Start didn't look pleased at the way she had beaten her similar age kin when she was young. She didn't want to do it *this* way, not at all. "I don't think these are cherries, Collapse... These are... pretty much the complete opposite of cherries." she said.

Magloria looked between the plants they had. "I never was much of an alchemist, but I do know a few things about how to determine uses for reagents. First step was to..." she paused, trying to remember, "...rub a little bit on your skin, I think. If it has a bad reaction, it's harmful to us. Next step if there is no reaction was to lick it, and *then* taste a bit."

"Biggest problem is we don't have any injuries at the moment, so we wouldn't know if it was even doing anything."

Collapse looked to them and grinned somewhat. "I-I mean, it's not like I am here with two really strong ponies who could easily injure me just specifically so we could test to see which plant works, I am totally not insinuating you two to injure me just to test out the plants..." Collapse joked, but it was hard to tell if she was being serious or not, based on her character thus far.

"But we can probably do the small testing before we do anything *too* drastic." Collapse's eyes narrowed slightly.

Magloria carefully watched Collapse, attempting to discern whether the mare in front of her was suffering from any form of sudden tendencies towards self-harm that could otherwise cause a problem later... or if she was just into that. *"Nah, she's just into that."* Magloria thought.

"Yyyeeesss... let's just do the skin test first, shall we? And since you're volunteering hold out your hoof." Magloria instructed.

Assuming Collapse did this, she would mark several small locations on Collapse's lower foreleg. Taking some small samples from the nearby plants, she then rubbed a bit into each of the areas.

It didn't take long for the one with the blue flower to start itching and turning red. Good thing they hadn't *immediately* used the first plant they saw.

Collapse held out her hoof so Magloria could put the markings on it, and she looks at her hoof and sees the itching spot. "Heh, that itches. Good thing I didn't eat it." she chuckled casually at this as she watched Magloria rub each of the samples into her hoof like that. She stood still with her hoof raised so they could watch to see what happens.

The flowers, stems and mushrooms started to itch. Only circles didn't have a reaction that was obvious, that being the yellow tubular flower and the weird mushroom.

"I don't know about you, but I don't think that Pebble was talking about a mushroom when she talked about medicine plants. Are mushrooms even called plants?" Jump Start asked.

"I think the yellow flower is it. A mushroom isn't a plant, Jump Start. It's a fungus." Collapse narrowed her eyes slightly at how Jump Start didn't know something like that. "But the flower is it, what do you think Magloria?" Collapse asked.

"I know that, but I was just wondering if Pebble knew that mushrooms aren't plants." Jump Start replied in an attempt to cover up for her mistake.

Magloria spent a minute looking around the jungle around them, trying to see if there were any other plants that they hadn't seen before. She eventually returned her gaze to Collapse. "Well I don't know what else it could be. I guess this is it." she said.

Collapse rose an eyebrow. "You think a lizard that has been around here for decades, if not longer would not tell the difference between a mushroom and a plant." she smirked and gave Jump Start a pat on the shoulder for her mistake. "It's okay, don't worry." she whispered before looking back to Magloria.

"Well, I guess that's it. Let's collect a good supply of it for our saddlebags." she spoke, and then would begin doing so.

They agreed to start gathering the flowers. It was quite easy to get sizable number of them, given that they grew in small clumps, almost like a grass of sorts.

Jump Start pouted, a little frown appearing on her face. "Hey! She might not know! She doesn't look like someone who would attend an Equestrian school where you learn the difference, does she?" she huffed.

Eventually after an hour of foraging around they had an entire saddlebag full of the flowers, split amongst all of them. That would probably be enough for now.

Collapse didn't reply to Jump Start when she pouted like that, she honestly found it just adorable how she pouted like that. Not that she would say that, of course. When they had a sufficient stock of the flowers, it looked like they had enough.

"Well now what do we do? Check out the ruins?" Collapse asked.

Magloria nodded. "We can figure out exactly how to apply these flowers as we walk." she said, looking at their position, and the ruins position on their map. "Should be another day or so of walking, so we'll have plenty of time."

Jump Start sighed. "And then we explore the old, and very spooky ruin where things definitely won't be fine, right?"

"Right." Magloria agreed.

"Yup." Collapse agreed and followed them off towards the ruins, smiling at the thought of the yellow flowers. "Well I am curious about the ruins for sure. I really do believe there was a civilization here a really long time ago but then something happened to them, and they abandoned their areas. But from what we've seen, they haven't exactly shown signs of habitation, but then again, it likely has worn away over the years..." Collapse pondered.

"Do you think the tunnel that leads to the surface from the Luneshine forest is artificial, or was it natural?" she asked. "Well, they did furnish it either way."

Magloria looked right at Collapse, an expression on her face as if Collapse had told of a grand truth that no one else could've figured out. "No, you don't say? The buildings that are covered in vines, crumbling to pieces and have no living thing in sight... had a civilization which then abandoned them? Who would've thought!" she sarcastically said. "I thought they were natural! Like treehouses and clocktowers. Everything has changed now!"

Jump Start tried to ignore that, and instead focused on the rest of Collapse's words. "I don't know. It could've been natural in the beginning, but over time it might've been made bigger artificially, especially if those panthins decided it's a place they should keep going."

Collapse rolled her eyes in a fairly annoyed fashion, and gave Magloria a death stare. It was not often that Collapse showed signs of anger but that was one of them. If everything she says could be taken like that, why bother speaking? Either way, she went silent - a clear sign that she didn't want to speak further. Regardless, she pressed on, her demeanor and manner of walking was definitely different than normal. It was as if what Magloria said *really* rubbed her the wrong way.

Magloria looked back over to Collapse, seeing her attitude and scoffed. Sometimes it really was like she was looking after children. Not that she'd tell that to her crew, regardless of how many are left.

There was nothing but jungle around them for the next couple days. At one point they encountered another river, perhaps the same one but further up stream. They all got a little bit too close to a crocodile that was resting on the river's edge, and had to make a detour as fast as they could away from them so they wouldn't get bitten.

The morning of the last day looked like it would foretell a bad day ahead, for ponies that don't want to get soaked at least. Dark grey clouds loomed overhead from a massive raincloud, and even before they fully woke up they could already feel the bare trickles of water coming down. A sign of what was to come.

Throughout the next couple of days Collapse remained remarkably stoic and silent in most cases. She only spoke if she was talked to and even then, she didn't randomly ramble on about various things she normally did. It wasn't just something that would go away in an hour or so, it was something that she stuck to. Whether it was a mask, or if that's how she actually felt - was unclear.

When the crocodile came about she had momentarily got startled and an away with the others, but proved able to control her emotions. This was a dangerous jungle. Of course there would be crocodiles waiting about and other such things. It was something to expect, so that when it actually happens - she won't be so terrified. It made the most sense, to expect the unexpected.

Collapse would sleep alone the next few days. There were no comments about her being extra giddy to cuddle the both of them or even any indications that she felt that way about them. Upon feeling the rain drops on her, Collapse's eyes would open in sheer disappointment.

Magloria snorted away the wetness she felt on her nose as they rose from beneath a low tree that they had found. Several branches had been tied up overhead to form a makeshift shelter before they went to sleep to keep them better protected, but it didn't stop the traces of rain seeping through.

"Well let's hope that we manage to find this place before the weather gets really bad, otherwise it'll become almost impossible to keep going." Magloria said, looking around the jungle to make sure which direction they were going to keep heading in.

"And if we don't?" Jump Start asked.

"Then we'll be stuck hiding under whatever we can find until the rain stops." Magloria responded, getting up to start their travels once more. "Now come on, let's not waste any time. Eat something along the way if you must."

Collapse gets up and would follow along. She walks alongside Magloria and Jump Start. Honestly, she did sort of enjoy the rain in a weird way. It was calming. "The rain is relaxing. Let's hope it stays that way." Collapse sighs, yawning at how her sleep was interrupted. Now she regrets not sleeping with Jump Start for those few days. The soft warmth of Jump Start honestly did make her sleep better.

"If it gets really bad we'll have to hope we can find an overhang or something, perhaps there is a tunnel in the ruins that leads somewhere. Who knows, but I am a little excited." she smiled, her tail wagging a little bit at that statement.

"Even a big enough tree maybe, if we get really desperate and can't find anything else. I hope it doesn't come to that, but at least we won't freeze." Jump Start commented as the light drizzle of warm rain continued to fall on their coats.

But the relaxing nature of the rain wasn't made to last. While they searched it grew to a proper drizzle, then a light rain, then eventually full raindrops pelted them down from the center of the raincloud, drenching them constantly.

Magloria, frustrated at the uncomfortable feeling of wetness, was about to call off their search and get them to seek shelter when Jump Start pointed to a spot off to the side. "What's that?" she squinted her eyes, trying to see through the rain. "Looks like a... really big rock. But it doesn't look like one either."

Collapse would raise a magic barrier around herself. If the others accepted, she would raise it around all of them. It was a thin magical bubble. Merely intended to stop them from getting soaked. If Jump Start remembered, it was somewhat similar to the one she used down in the caves. Specifically when they were fighting off the Spiders and Lobsters.

Collapse turns her gaze towards the object Jump Start saw. She squints her eyes, trying to get a look at it. “I don’t know but we should get a closer look. Maybe it can provide us cover from the rain, could also be the start of the ruins. Kill two birds with one stone, shall we?” Collapse asked as she would lead them over towards what Jump Start saw. Hopefully it was indeed the ruins, and also something they could wait out the storm under.

Jump Start agreed to having a barrier conjured around herself, and thanked Collapse for it. Magloria however didn't, knowing that it would be far more draining on the mare to sustain 2 individual shields, let alone 3. The rain, while annoying, wasn't worth exhausting themselves over.

Jump Start looked confused, and slightly disturbed. "Kill 2 birds? I thought the saying was cook 2 cakes with 1 tray? Or cut 2 planks with 1 saw?" she stated.

Passing through the dripping trees, they got a better view of the object that had been spotted. It definitely *looked* like it should be a building of sorts. A large amount of stones had been put together forming a big wall of bricks. It looked terrible from the outside though, with many bricks heavily weathered down or covered in plantlife.

[09-Apr-22 03:56 PM]
Collapse was sure to keep the barriers around themselves quite think as to not wear herself out too quickly. It was only to keep the rain out and nothing more. She could easily have lowered the barrier around Magloria if she wanted, but she didn't want any of them to get soaked by the rain.

Collapse shrugged at Jump Start's statement. "Same meaning, but that's how it always was for me - maybe it's something to do with the more rough nature of the ponies in Dodge Junction." she suggested as they got a better view at the object that lay ahead.

"Looks like we are at the ruins now. This is probably part of it. What do you say to hunkering down and waiting out the rain? Better check it out first though." Collapse stated, and would proceed to check out the place carefully, being careful of any animals who may have taken refuge inside. Hopefully not.