A Journey of Bonding

by PurpleFire18

Chapter 3: Unexpected

Souvenir woke up in her tent covered in clothing. She had had a good night sleep and could have sworn she was home already if it wasn't for the tent reminding her she was still in the middle of a journey. It was then when she realized that it was early in the morning, and she was puzzled since she was never one to wake up early. As she wondered the reason behind this, she heard a noise outside that made her ears hurt. Sounds like someone is stepping on a cat...no, a lot of cats. She covered her ears and slowly came out of the tent to see, to her dismay, her companion sitting outside the tent playing a strange instrument that was no doubt the source of such dreadful noise. "ALASTAIR!" she shouted.

Alastair stopped playing and looked at her. "Ah, you are awake finally," he said with a smirk, "did you sleep well?"

"What the HAY is that?!" Souvenir pointed at the instrument.

"My bagpipe. The sound is amazing, is it not?"

"It sounded like the 'Dying Cat Parade'! Did you wake me up with that on purpose?!"

"It actually was the 'Victorious Noble March'...and yes, I did, we need to get going before the bears decide to go to the river we need to cross." Alastair carefully put his bagpipes into his bag in Souvenir's cart. "You did not wake up when I tried talking to you so I had to resort to this."

"Ha ha, funny." Souvenir began taking down the tent and putting it back into her cart. I'm really starting to actually hate this guy. Who does he think he is?

They left the cave the same way they had started the journey, not talking to each other. They walked through the woods, picking fruits whenever they had the chance and avoiding places the wild animals used as hunting grounds. While neither of them was interested in the scenery, they both admired how it looked. It was natural for Souvenir since she had never been there, but it was the first time Alastair actually walked through the woods instead of flying above them. It was almost as if the calm nature made them forget they disliked this journey.

"We're here." Alastair stopped in front of a river.

Souvenir stopped beside him and was surprised to see just how big the river was. She had expected something small and easy to cross, but the distance covered by the waters was roughly twice the size of her house in Ponyville, and it was a big house. She noticed there was no bridge and thus no way to cross. "Well, now how are we going to cross?" she asked, expecting a relatively simple answer from Alastair.

"Well, I could fly you and then the cart to the other side."

"NO!" Souvenir's face was pale and her tone was that of a scared filly. She slowly calmed down and looked at Alastair. "I...how do I know you won't drop me when we are halfway across?"

"As tempting as that would be, I am not going to drop you, that would simply be cruel." Alastair tried to sound as convincing as he could, but he knew the reason behind Souvenir's reaction wasn't fear of being dropped into the river.

"Well, I'm not sure if I trust you, let's find another way!"

Alastair lost his patience. He got Souvenir to stop pulling the cart and, pulling it himself, ran towards the river and jumped. He opened and flapped his wings to fly across the river with the heavy cart. It worked almost perfectly, the only flaw being the cart's weight, which hurt Alastair's back. He ignored it and went back to the other side.

"How did you...?" Souvenir was quite impressed, she herself knew the cart was heavy enough to give her problems pulling it.

"Now you have no choice," said Alastair, "either fly to the other side or try to find another way before the bears get here."

Souvenir began to panic again. She looked at Alastair, then at the river and then at the woods, repeating for about three minutes. She really did not know what to do. She could try to swim but she didn't know how to swim, she could let Alastair fly her to the over side but she was really afraid of flying, and she definitely couldn't wait for the bears to show up. Suddenly a noise from the woods startled her and she impulsively took a long tree branch from the ground. She then pushed Alastair into the river and got on top of him before he could react, using him as a boat while rowing with the tree branch very quickly. It was either luck or her speed induced by the scare, but Alastair did not sink or drown and she got safely to the other side, but even that was not enough to calm her down and she ran into the cart, knocking it down and causing some of the things in it to fall out.

Alastair stood up, he was wet and still trying to understand what had just happened. He shook his head and glared at the pony. "What the bloody hell was that?! Was it really necessary!?" he shouted.

Souvenir finally calmed down and realized what she just did. She looked at the items and bags that had fallen off the cart and Alastair, who simply stood in front of her with a glare that seemed to make his orange eyes become fireballs, the only thing not covered in water in his whole body. She smiled nervously, letting out a very weak giggle. "Heh...sorry..."

Alastair simply brought his palm to his face and sighed. "Alright, let's place these back into the cart." He began to pick up the items and placing them in the cart, but quickly stopped when he saw his own bag had fallen very close to the river, open. He ran up to it and took it out, it was wet. He looked inside and was shocked by what he saw. "My bagpipe!" He took out his instrument, it was just as wet as he was.

Souvenir was now really afraid of what he would do to her, it was the final nail in the coffin. "Well...on the brighter side...you won't be killing cats anymore!" She slapped herself for saying something so ridiculous. She sat there, trembling as Alastair began walking towards her. He's going to behead me! He's going to cut me up in little pieces! He's going to behead me AND cut me up in little pieces!

Alastair looked at the face of the pony who was likely fearing for her life and then grabbed her hoof. He lifted her and threw her into the river and she fell right into it, struggling to get out until she finally could.

"Hey! I could have drowned!" she said, trembling because of the cold water.

"On the brighter side, we are even!" Alastair began laughing heartily.

Souvenir was confused, she did not expect Alastair to have a sense of humor in such a situation, and soon found herself laughing with him, though at first she did not understand why. They laughed both at each other and themselves for a long while, and when they continued their journey they were still laughing at what happened.

Author's Note:

I promise I will someday improve my writing.

Comments

[zuzu55]

Would be nice if these chapters would be longer and less simple