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Chapter 4: "Pears"

After cleaning his cave out of feathers to the best of his abilities, he began to ponder and review the nights activities in his head. Gently beginning to fall asleep he jutted back into consciousness with a simple thought.

The campsite.

The campsite was likely to be property of the Griffin and that Pegasus, releasing that the Pegasus could reveal his whereabouts, he exited the cave and dashed though the Forrest. Rounding trees, bushes, shrubbery and small clearings he came to a sudden halt at the sight of a small orange glow. Lowering himself  to the ground he approached the campsite.

Entering the clearing he once again halted, the sight of the campsites ground was quite sickening. Bottles. Bottles, bottles, bottles.

Every square inch of this run-down campsite was covered with bottles, not to mention a few broken ones too. Grumbling to himself he carefully tiptoed around each bottle, careful to watch each foots fitting and to gently nudge a bottle or two to the site.

Rounding the fire he picked up a scent that caused him to chuckle, he would know that smell anywhere. Picking up the paste he came to a stop at a small tent. A little thing it was, he probably couldn't even fit. That wasn't the appeal, what was inside the tent was.

Blood.

Good old fashioned pools of blood, just smelling its metallic goodness would bring happy days his way. He lowered his head and inhaled its scent for a while, it would bring back memories of his old cave and his old victims, them usually being a diamond dog.

Eyeing up his reflection he began to lap up its remains with his tongue. He was beginning to become lost in the sensation when a sharp pain raced though his tongue, gasping at the sudden feeling he inspected his pulsating muscle. In betwixt the blood lay a small shard of glass, said glass had lightly punctured his tongue. Looking around he noticed that the blood was littered with glass.

He hoped he hadn't swallowed any. Plucking the glass from his tongue it began to drool with its own life liquid. This certain blood was very distinguishable from the natural crimson red. He hated this part, always when he saw what he had become made him angry. The very thought of the actions that transpired to turn him into this thing turned his mood sour.

He began to tear at the tent, ripping it apart piece by piece. He repeated this with the bedding, tools and medical equipment. Not like anyone would need them, and be it far from him too care anyway.

Within a matter of moments the tent lay obliterated beneath his feet. His anger was far from quenched, he kicked and threw the majority of the bottles at trees and other things. He caught sight of the fire, learning from past mistakes that included stepping on small pieces of burning wood which would cause a small annoying burn to proceed to nag him for weeks was not on his schedule. This one on the other hand was not only small enough but had disintegrated to slight embers. Barreling full speed he kicked the remaining wood. There was one other thing that begged to be destroyed. A small tent almost identical to the other sat in the shade of a tree.

The campsite was already a dump so destroying it and everything inside was mandatory.

He approached the tent, beginning to tear at the tents corners something hit him. It was sudden, like it was always coming and decided this would be the perfect opportunity to strike. Looking to the sky he saw it, in its magnificent glory and authority it glowed.

The sun.

It conquered the sky, lighting up the world. He couldn't take the sun. Its shine was blinding and it irritated his fur and skin usually giving him a rash, if he stayed longer he hypothesized that he could die. He wasn't about to put that theory to the test.

This was no longer a good time, he needed to return to his cave. He set off as fast as he could back to his home, all the while the sun looked over in disapproval. Brighter and brighter is became as it raised up into the sky. He could no longer see straight, almost as if he were intoxicated he stumbled and became off-balance.

The suns fury rained down upon him. Sight, mind and movement slowed continuously and thought moved over to instinct. Adrenaline coursed though him as he approached the cave entrance. His fur had begun to burn off, slowly disintegrating in the suns raze. Closer and closer he came until he pierced the darkness.

Landing with a thud he now lay in almost complete darkness. Soaking up the shadows and the unseen he heavily dragged his corpse to the darker depths of the cave, with mentality returning and his fight or flight response dieing down he lay his head within the pitch black of the cave.

He lay, softly he began to slumber to restore his health. Reality blurring behind him he became one with the darkness.

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"Are we there yet?" Walking had begun to tire her, Sign noticed this and offered her to ride in the wagon. She declined this due to sympathy for the old guy, pulling this huge wagon by himself this long. She wished she hadn't.

Feeling her empathy for him drain as she became more exhausted she began to whine, much to Signs discomfort he occasionally told her to 'pipe down' or 'knock it off' but this solution was always temporary.

To add to this all and any answer he would give to her constant questions obviously went ignored as she would ask them again and again. After a while he stopped answering and blanked his mind, trying to force time to pass.

"I said it was over yonder" This response had passed his lips so many times it had numbed and became almost an instinct.

To John's annoyance he gave the same response, like a recording it would be said in the exact tone and she still wasn't close to seeing how long 'over yonder' was.

"What does that even mean!?"

"It means over yonder"  Signs voice would not change tone nor raise or lower in pitch. Oppositely Johns voice would change all though out her sentence's. Like a song out of tune.

"But its always been over that way! If we go any further well reach the other end of the world and come back to where we started!"

Once again, she went unanswered. 'Whine, whine, whine. All this girl know how to do is complain. Should have left her, even then she could have found someone in that town I left, it was even closer to us then the town were headed to'.

Eventually they stopped. Darkness had begun to fall so Sign suggested it was wise to settle down for the night. He pulled the wagon over from the road and set it down. Luckily for them a small gathering of apple trees resided nearby, clouds had become dark a while ago but to their pleasant surprise no rain had fallen as of yet.

Setting a few lanterns on and laying out a blanket Sign continued on his merry little way. John wanted to help but she constantly got in his way so she decided to sit still. Sign continued setting up a small assortments of luxury items that made the area feel slightly more home like, with the inclusion of a basket.

Opening said basket he produced, to Johns surprise several pears. Pears had to be shipped into this part of Equestria since they were mass produced somewhere else. They sold for more than apples did so most people settled for apples. Most preferred them too.

Sign noticed John doing literally nothing, looking at the near by apple trees he stopped what he was doing and headed back to the wagon. Cascading though all his 'junk' he pulled out a hook. Not just any hook, but a hook with a long pole tied to it.

"What's that for?" John had been watching the whole thing and was curious and worried about what a rusty hook was used for, besides other things.

Spitting out the pole Sign fixed John with a smile.

"Well, you're not just gonna sit there and let an old jack do all the work now are yer? I thought you could shimmy your way down to those trees and start cutting em down".

John turned to the apple trees, their distance some how had doubled. Switching glances back to Sign then the trees she rose to her hooves and picked up the pole with her mouth. Turning back to the trees she began to walk slowly over to their looming trunk's.

Sign watched her go, he stared intently at her. Something was off about her, she seemed really familiar to him. Was she from the other town? Pony something it was called, if she was then why is she not trying to return? Not only that she came along with a complete stranger, she didn't know me and I think I didn't know her before either. Or did she?

He figured he would ask around the approaching town later, but for now he needed to get the small camp ready. Searching though his basket he continued to bring out pear related produce. Pear jam, pear juice, pear sandwiches. Not that he loved pears, just he had a lot of tem and letting them go stale was a waste.

After a while John had come back with only a few bruised apples, Sign exclaimed that it was OK, and threw the apples away, to John's dismay. If you were asked 'John' what the highlight of the evening was, she would probably answer with pears and pears. The whole evening revolved around pears, she asked why he had so many pears. He asked if she wanted another useless limb.

Conversation died down around that time.

The lanterns began to die down and darkness prevailed against the light. Sign has suggested 'John' should sleep and she obliged. Except she didn't.

Although her eyes were closed she lay awake, how could she sleep with so many things on her mind. The murderers, running from the murderers and now this donkey. A very colourful one he was, but that scared her. Not that he was colourful, just what colours he had. She didn't know whether she wanted to stay long with Sign. To her he was like a time bomb just waiting to blow, just when was the question.

John decided it was about time to check her arm. Squinting her eyes under the darkness she tried to focus. It seemed OK but in this light she couldn't be sure. Laying her head once again attempted she sleep. With little luck.

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It was dark. This was not good.

From what they were able to gather the 'beast' was big, and dark. Twilight had mulled over what this thing could be over at her library. Some animals matched but a new sliver of information would say other wise and she was back to square one.

There were many theories to what is could be, a Diamond dog, wolf or manticore. Even a small drake but speculation was getting them nowhere. In order to gather more information about the creature they tried to squeeze information out of the young Pegasus so that they could make an accurate hypothesis.

Then they got something very peculiar. She had stated that it lacked eyes, it could easily could have been a predator who lost their eyesight but it not only could it not see, it lacked the organ entirely. No eyes what so ever, Nose, mouth, ears but no eyes. This gave Twilight a clue that might solve what type of animal they were dealing with.

Where would something without eyes flourish? An environment without light. Gathering her books and searching each cover for a familiar tome she remembered reading. The search had turned up nothing so she decided to send Celestia an urgent message.

Within an hour a scroll and a large dusty tone had been regurgitated by Spike. Complaining about the taste of dust he retreated into the kitchen for something to wash out the taste.

The scroll contained a slightly angry letter on how not to use the spell at this time of night. It also had a section dedicated to letting her know how the other ponies, specifically the librarian, had to spent that time looking for a 'dusty old train wreck', and how that was in the librarians words.

By the time Spike had returned Twilight had begun to read a section on a particular species of animal. She was sure now, it had to be apart of this spectrum of organism. Rounding up the other elements, including a very down-beat Pinkie Pie who insisted she had ME.

She mulled it over with the girls and asked their opinion. Rainbow Dash wanted to 'show it who's boss', Rarity requested she wear something to protect her mane. Apple Jack pretty much agreed with Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy only wished she could reason with it. When asked Pinkie pie stated, 'all of the above'.

Twilight would have to ask her what was bugging her later, but now she needed to round up all the capable ponies in Ponyville and organize a search party.

Doing it at night was out of the question.