To Each Their Own

by Wheller

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Lyra was feeling much better now. It was a week into January, and she finally felt back to a hundred per cent. Bon Bon, who hadn’t had as much as she did, had recovered the day before. It was a good thing too, because the easy part of their journey was nearing its completion.

They were a day from the edge of Whitetail Wood. From here, the quickest way to Manehattan was across open countryside, walking the road would add another month to their journey, as it bobbed and weaved around the countryside. Trooper Willoughby had been extremely annoyed with the lack of a simple and efficient road system that lead to the city, he heavily criticised the road to anyone who would listen, and continued even when nopony was listening.

Lyra was only half paid attention, randomly catching words that she was unfamiliar with, such as federal, motorway, dingo, Kambera, and National One. Eventually, Willoughby’s ranting ran out of steam, and the kangaroo returned to silence.

Thank Celestia!

“Something tells me that he’s been walking around with more frustrations than that,” Bon Bon whispered to her. Lyra nodded, she had a point. Willoughby was a kangaroo after all; he was different in pretty much every way except for diet. They were all herbivores here.

Willoughby had insisted on taking march up front, when Lyra asked him why, he had refused to give her a straight answer.

“He’s hiding something,” Lyra said. “I don’t like it, how well do we really know any of these kangaroos anyway?”

Bon Bon shrugged. “I’ve spoken to McNair and Vickers. McNair seemed all right, Vickers was weird. He kept going on about the ‘thirty seven’ like he was in love with it... whatever that is.”

“37 millimetre anti-tank gun, It’s the main armament on our tank,” Willoughby called out from the front of the line. He turned around and looked at Lyra and Bon Bon; he pointed to his left ear and said: “Really good ears.”

While he didn’t call Lyra and Bon Bon out on anything, it was enough for them to shut up about it. He’d clearly heard the entirety of their conversation, even though they’d tried to be quiet about it.

...

They walked a few more hours, almost there. Almost out of Whitetail Wood, Willoughby had become visibly more agitated. He wanted out of these woods, and Lyra was at her wits end about it. He’d refused to tell them what was going on, and at their last water stop, Lyra planned to confront him about it.

Derpy agreed with her that something was up, and agreed to Lyra’s plan of action.

Lyra walked up to Willoughby, a scornful look on her face, she was getting answers from this marsupial.

“Tell me what you’re keeping from us. Right now or we’re not moving a millimetre further,” Lyra said.

Lyra looked to Derpy, who nodded at her, Braeburn, who had been the one pulling the cart at the time, detached himself and sat on the ground, indicating he wasn’t going anywhere.

Willoughby grew flustered, he looked towards Vinyl Scratch for support, but to his dismay, she sat down too. None of them were moving until he talked.

No point in keeping it a secret any longer, he needed them to get to Manehattan, and they didn’t know it, but they needed him for protection. These ponies had all been brought up under the impression that the world was a safe place. He was about to shatter that delusion for them.

“All right,” Willoughby said with a sigh. “You want to know what the secret is? There’s a gryphon in these woods.”

Vinyl Scratch stood back up in surprise and shock, she was the only one of this group of ponies that fully understood what that meant.

“We need to go, and we need to go right now!” Vinyl said, panic filling her voice.

A rustle came from the trees, everypony held their breath. Willoughby silently slid the kangaroo submachine gun from his pack, pointing it towards the point of the rustling. He raised a finger to his mouth, parsing his lips and gave them an inaudible shush, and stepped quietly towards the tree line.

A figure leapt out of the trees, roaring loudly and charging down the kangaroo. Willoughby pulled the trigger, filling the air with a series of quiet pop! noises that sent the gryphon reeling, it screamed in pain and rushed back into the tree line.

“I’m going after it,” Willoughby said. “Everyone stay here.”

The kangaroo hopped off into the tree line. They stayed put.

...

Night fell, and several hours later, Willoughby returned to find that the caravan had made camp just off the side of the road, hardly an ideal spot, as the area was thick with trees.

Lyra looked up from her spot, watching as Willoughby approached the fire. “Did you find it?”

“No,” Willoughby said plainly. “I followed the blood trail as far as I could, but it dead ended... I don’t think we have to worry about it anymore though.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow. “How do you figure?”

“I shot it, a lot, the rate it was losing blood, that thing will have been dead a few hours by now.”

Lyra gasped in horror, as did everyone else sitting around the campfire.

“No more secrets,” Willoughby said. “That thing wasn’t a gryphon, not anymore. That was pure wild animal.”

“How did you know it was here?” Lyra asked.

Willoughby frowned. “I was... warned,” Willoughby explained to them his meeting with the apothecary, Nightshadow, who had followed them to warn him of the impending danger of wild gryphon, including the part about threatening to shoot the unicorn should he continue to follow them.

“That creep?!” Bon Bon exclaimed shuttering in anger. “I’ve seen him around town. I’ll be going somewhere, and he’ll just be there, eyeing me up.”

“Ah seen him wanderin’ around the farm at night sometimes,” Big Macintosh said. “Out in the far fields, light ‘o his horn glowing like somethin’ else. Seen him through mah binoculars, every time I go out there, he’s done gone, like he knew ah was comin’ and then I’ll go into town ta confront him, and can’t ever find him.”

“He’s always at Twilight Sparkle’s Library,” Derpy said, “He tells her about getting letters from his brothers, but I’m the only mailpony in Ponyville, and I’ve never delivered anything to him.”

“Trixie has spoken to him on several occasions,” Trixie said. “Unicorns have the ability to detect magic that resonates in other unicorns. Every time I’ve spoken to him, I couldn’t pick anything up.”

Vinyl looked at the other ponies and frowned. “Hey, just because somepony is odd doesn’t mean something’s wrong with them!”

Derpy in particular looked extremely guilty, she was practically in the same place Nightshadow was, and here she was bashing somepony she didn’t know. Just as everypony else did to her.

“Vinyl’s right,” Willoughby said. “That unicorn helped us... and I know that the first thing I’ll be doing when we get back to Ponyville is finding him and apologising.”

Everypony else nodded.

“We should all turn in, we lost a lot of time today, so we need to get up early and try to get back on schedule,” Vinyl said.

Everypony agreed, each of them said goodnight to the others and turned in.

...

By nine o‘clock the next morning, the caravan had gotten back on schedule, they had exited Whitetail Wood and were now crossing open countryside on a beeline for Manehattan.

Big Macintosh and Braeburn were having difficulty with the cart, but refused to admit it.

Willoughby had never particularly paid attention to it before, but now that they were crossing open countryside, it had become a major hindrance.

“What’s in the box?” he asked Derpy when they stopped for the night.

“I don’t know!” Derpy reported. “I never know anything about what I’m carrying. It would be illegal for me to open a package that’s not mine.”

Willoughby understood the reasoning behind it, he respected it, after all, the post office in South Island worked the same way, but something didn’t feel right about it. Here was this big wooden box that they were supposed to be transporting across hundreds of kilometres of open countryside that no one knew anything about, that was suspicious to him.

A great debate was going on inside the mind of Trooper Willoughby; his naturally suspicious mind was getting the better of him. The package had to be legitimate, after all, who was insane enough to try and use the post office to carry out some clandestine, malevolent agenda? Despite his rational mind’s attempts, it had lost. His curiosity had gotten the better of him.

He had to know what was in the box.