Rough Edges

by NahB

Chapter Vier

“Well, none of them are dead,” Geoff said, listening to the breathing of a nearby pegasus. Robin huffed in relief.

…What?

“He still out of it?” Geoff asked.

“No, he’s not,” I said, blinking and looking at him. “How the hell did I do that?”

“Hay if I know,” He retorted. “But we should probably get going. Ponies walk this way… they’re going to assume that this is EXACTLY what it is.” He was right. I’d beaten up a bunch of ponies. With them unconscious, there was nothing to say I didn’t just attack them. But… what the buck WAS THAT?

“I’m hungry,” I said as we started moving away from Hoofington. I was – I hadn’t eaten in over a day, and I can’t imagine dragons using little amounts of energy. I walked over and stared at the knife – dragons ate gems. Could I eat metal? Did I want to try a knife?

“Screw it,” I said, and picked the thing up. I chomped the blade off. When I didn’t immediately feel shooting pain as the point dug into my inner cheek, I tried chewing. The blade was ground into a mass of… whatever. Honestly, it didn’t taste bad. It was kind of like bread, but with dirt and blood on it. Blech.

“Did he just eat that knife?” Robin asked, incredulous.

“Yes, I did. I wish you guys would stop talking about me as if I wasn’t there,” I grumped. I may have been grumping, but I’m man enough to admit that I’m grumping. I started walking, and I could tell that they followed when I heard the clip-clop of hooves on the dirt road.

“So… we need to figure out what that was,” Geoff said. I looked at him, using my new, long neck to do so without turning my body.

“You’re still bleeding. Did you buy any-“

“I’ll get it,” Robin said, trotting up to me. I stopped, and she rooted around in one of the bags around my neck. I assume she found what she was looking for, because she stopped quickly. I looked and found her frowning at Geoff, attempting to wrap some gauze around his throat with her hooves.

“Let me,” I said, getting up on my legs and reaching over. “I still have hands.”

I wrapped the gauze snugly against his coat, trying not to choke him. As I worked, he eyed me. I ignored him. He ignored me ignoring him. I ig- buck it.

“I don’t know what it was,” I said as I tied the gauze. “I started getting royally pissed, and then I felt something else within me. I shouted my thing, and then the chicken went flying. Then I was hungry enough to eat a knife. And something else, I’m really hungry.”

Geoff looked at me, a cross look on his face. “What!? I’m seriously hungry. I haven’t touched any food other than that disgusting knife in a day.”

He shook his head. “We’ll get you some food soon. But seriously, you have no clue what that was?”

“Well,” I started. I mean, I had an idea. Two, actually. But both would need trying. “Lemme try some things.”

First, I looked at a tree. Seeking a calm center, I focused and yelled “Fus Ro Dah!” As loud as I could. And was severely disappointed when nothing happened. “Well, I can’t Shout,” I said, frowning.

“I doubted that was it,” Robin put in. “You didn’t use any of the dragon language, you just yelled at him to get off Geoff. Also, it would be incredibly corny and it would get annoying with you shouting all the time.”

I had to agree with her. If not shouting, then maybe my second idea would work. I stopped moving, seeking that calm center again. This time, instead of forcing my energy outward, I built up to it. I steadied my breathing, and eventually felt some sort of power build within me. When I felt that I had gathered myself up enough, I focused my attention on a rock.

“The Game,” I said. With a ‘whoosh,’ the energy left me, and the rock grew to twice its size and turned blue.

“Screw y—woah,” Geoff breathed, staring at the rock. Making sure it wasn’t a fluke, I gathered myself up again, and felt the buildup.

“Cry, baby, cry,” I whispered. The energy left me again, and the rock shot off into the air, letting off little green pulses of light.

“I’m bucking Belgarath.” Shit. Please oh please don’t take that out of context.

“Belgarath?” Robin asked, confusion evident in her tone. Thank God. Or Celestia. Or Chaos. Whatever. Thank God.

“Belgarath. Main character in a series I particularly enjoy. He’s a sorcerer that uses the Will and the Word. Basically, I gather up my will to do something, and speak a word, and it happens.” Gross oversimplification, but oh well.

“I don’t mean to sound whiny… but seriously? You’re a dragon who can fly and use magic and still have hands, and we get stuck as ground-pounders?” Geoff asked, incredulous.

“I’m pretty sure it’s probably something Chaos cooked up to keep us separate,” I responded. I mean, it sounded just like the spirit of discord would do. Spin up some deep jealousy, et cetera et cetera.

“I mean, you’re right, but that doesn’t make it much better,” He grumbled.

We walked a bit more, talking about our old lives. It surprised me how we were all taking this so well. I think that’s a part of being a Brony. We all look at Equestria and say “My, it would be wonderful to live there,” and fantasize endlessly about it. We love the show, we love the characters, and we love what everything represents. Even when the Equestria you end up in is a horrible, twisted and dark version of the one you knew, it’s still sort of a dream come true.

We were walking a while before I asked for the map. Geoff took it out of a pocket and handed it to me. I was surprised at it. It only showed Hoof County, with quite a few towns around greater Hoofington in the middle of the map. Crescentville was located on the map, and I was astounded. It was fairly close to the city on the map, but it was taking us the better part of half a day to reach it at a walk. It meant that Equestria was large- huge even. I couldn’t wait to get my claws on a full map of the world, see if Equestria was the planet or the country.

We kept up our conversation as we plodded along. Robin, as it turned out, was only 17 years old, her birthday only having been a month ago. She had been attending high school, focusing on science classes. Fairly normal girl, overall. Liked her family, had lots of friends, et cetera.

Geoff, on the other hand, lived a different life altogether. He had an apartment of his own and worked as a desk jockey in some company I’d never heard of, grossing a nice salary with commissions. He’d only recently gotten into the brony fandom, and was riding that high we all got into, devouring fan fictions and watching episodes over and over.

“What about you?” Robin asked me as we made our way past Crescentville. We’d considered finding a place to stay there, as the sun was lowering in the sky, but decided that the residents might not find our presence very pleasant, considering I was a dragon and we all were worth quite a bit of money.

I laughed. “Me? I’m not very interesting. Average in high school. I was in college, studying for a computer science degree when I woke up in that room. Complete nerd. Video games, books, internet, card games… the only thing I don’t do is TV. Nothing good on it, anyway. 18 and going nowhere fast.”

“Amen to that,” Geoff laughed.

We walked a while longer, finally deciding to look for a place to stop when the sky took on a reddish hue.

“We should probably find someplace a little off the road. In case somebody is travelling at night,” Robin suggested. Geoff and I agreed. We moved a little off, finding a clearing to sit in.

“There’s a little chill in the air,” Geoff remarked as he hunched up. We sat in a triangle, looking at each other.

“Let me fix that,” I said after a moment. I lumbered off looking for some deadwood. No reason to kill innocent trees.

It also gave me some time to think. What should we do once we found Sam and Chrissie? What could we do? I mean, we weren’t WANTED, but our very presence here in Equestria put us in danger. Geoff and Robin didn’t have anything holding them here. We could look for a way to go back.

“Unlikely,” a voice behind me said. I whirled around, but nothing was there. I’m not stupid.

“Chaos,” I responded in greeting, turning back around. I began to pick up some pieces of deadwood.

“Ah, Jason. Or Zweilous now? Humorous. It’s really unlikely that you’ll find a way back to earth.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” I asked as I scanned around. Fire would be good. Keep the chill away, as it were. I couldn’t feel it, likely because of the fire inside me, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t help.

“There are very few beings who can do it. One thinks it’s funny that you’re here causing trouble. The other two, well, it looks like they put a bounty out on you. There’s a fourth, but he wouldn’t think twice about you. There are maybe two or three others, but they don’t have a freaking clue about HOW.” He sounded amused.

“Mmhmm. Looks like we’ll have to appeal to one of them,” I answered disinterestedly. That might be another piece of firewood.

“You know, you shouldn’t ignore me,” He said, appearing in front of me. I really don’t know what I expected. He looked exactly as discord had. I dropped the firewood I’d been carrying, irritated.

“What, do you want me to look you in the eye? Here,” I said in a voice that made my sound as if I was speaking to a small child. “What is it you want, mister Chaos? Do you want me to be irritated with you? Here,” I finished. I put a little pout out, and gave him a stern look. “Mister Chaos, please don’t try to mess with my feelings. You’re wasting soundwaves.”

He laughed at that. “Oh, Jason, I knew you’d be fun, but not this much! If sarcasm could kill, I think I’d be a puddle of mush by now.”

“Now, if you’ll be so kind, leave me alone so I can make a fire to warm up my friends.” I gathered up the firewood again and brushed past him, lumbering off on two legs.

I just heard a laugh that echoed through the woods.

Robin and Geoff were silent as I entered the clearing again. I dropped the firewood down and began to arrange it into a nice pattern. I glanced at them, and knew that they’d heard the laugh. I didn’t want to talk about it. No matter how much I wanted to look away from it, Chaos had gotten to me. His mere presence was enough to ruin my mood. Nothing had ever been able to do that to me before.

I didn’t like it. “You guys mind finding some rocks to go around this fire? I don’t want to do any more damage to the ground than we have to.”

They got up wordlessly and walked to separate parts of the forest. They didn’t seem to want to talk, either. I’d address it in the morning. I managed to make a nice teepee of sticks. The two equines were back quickly, and deposited some rocks at my feet. I frowned at them, but set it up. They were being a little ungrateful, but I let it go. I encircled the pile with the stones and prepared myself. I inhaled and coughed a little fireball. Soon, the teepee of sticks blazed up in a mist of silver flame, spreading the clearing in light and warmth. I stared into the depths.

I was living the dream. In Equestria, travelling around, with people who got my references for the most part. I could protect myself, I could fly (once I learned how), and do magic. We were safe for the time being, and we had sort of a plan to find the rest of us.

So why did I feel like crap all of a sudden? Was it that Chaos was using us somehow? No, I didn’t care about that.

The fight. The wagon.

I stared into the fire with its strange, flickering silvery light. I’d come to a place that I thought would be the most wonderful, peaceful place in the multiverse. Instead, I’d been dropped into an unforgiving land full of creatures that were more outright hostile that humanity. At least humans gave off a façade of civility and were occasionally nice to each other. The only kindness shown me was Rarity back in the Hoof when she had a short conversation.

I was not, by nature, a violent person. I quit playing football because smashing myself bodily at another person brought me no pleasure at all. Even when I play RPGs, I do my very best to help people and avoid fights because I can’t bring myself to be a bad person, even against virtual lines of code.

And now, I’d witnessed a bunch of ponies dragged off by a group of vigilante zebras and beaten up a gang of pegasi. I hadn’t batted an eye. I had marked it up as to delayed panic or shock, or perhaps some sort of ‘high’, but no.

Fighting back had been my first reaction. When the pegasi attacked, I should’ve tried tact. I should’ve tried guile to get away from the bounty hunters. But instead, I had attacked. I had forced my way on them, forcing them to get out of my path.

I scowled at the fire, noting that Geoff and Robin were lying on their sides, sleeping peacefully. I’m a big, bad dragon. I fight ponies and don’t afraid of anything.

I reached in and grabbed a small stick out of the fire, noting the pleasurable warmth that went with it. I turned over the small piece of wood in my claws, examining the burning bark. It was so beautiful. The blackened bit of wood surrounded by the ghostly aura of fire, playing off the violet scales of my claw.

I crushed the thing, letting the ash fall through my claw.

No more. I had hurt ponies. With these claws. With the power within me, I had nearly killed another. It won’t happen again.

Comments

[theRedBrony]

Deep stuff, bro.

[omega-ze-wargod]

love it deep keep it up i want MOAAAAAAR

[Pentel123]

look forward to seeing more soon.

[MyLittleBurger]

[NahB]

If y'all are wondering what I was referencing with the "Will and the Word" and "Belgarath," I strongly urge you to find and read the book series called the Belgariad. It's one of my all-time favorites.

[krazybender]

Hehehe I like the Zelda reference there