Chapter 2: First Contact

You have been walking for what must to be close to two hours and had maybe gone half a mile. The undergrowth in this part of the woods was thick and looked like it had never been touched by man before. In fact, it was so thick in places that you were forced to change directions, but finally it seemed you were getting close. The sound of rushing water was now filling your ears.

“Must be a pretty big set of rapids nearby for the river to be making this much noise.” You say to yourself more to break the dullness then anything. “Looks like my hopes of find civilization right off the bat are not going to happen, not unless I run into some extreme dare devils.”

Before you stands what you guess to be the last wall of vines, the air is positively soaked with water and you can hear the roar of the rushing water just on the other side of these vines.

So rather than try and circle around this wall of vines like you had with so many other obstacles before you decide to pull out Snaxe’s and just hack your way through. With one good swipe the heavy hand axe blade slices through most of the vines. Another chop and a little shoving and your past the wall.

Before you lay the river like you had guessed, it is positively a monster, at least 50 feet wide and man was it violent. Waves all over the place sending spray into the air up to the leaf line, maybe a good 15 ft high and who knows how deep. There was no way you were crossing that river.

As you stand there and watch the river you catch something on the wind. What was it? The noise, whatever it is seems to just be out of your hearing range. You perk up your ears trying to catch it…what was that noise? You take a few steps towards where you think you hear the noise. Moaning?

Watch out!

Huh…What?

Not alone…..look left

Looking to your left, you don’t make out anything at first. Slowly and carefully you scan the area to your left trying to make sure you don’t miss a thing. Your instincts were never wrong and if they said someone was there then someone was there.

….Nothing….No wait there. Whatever had been hiding moved and now you could pick out its shape. It was odd, the creature looked to be wearing a cloak in a mottled forest pattern and was standing next to a bush which you guess had been the reason you had not seen the creature in the first place.

You must have thought it was part of the bush. The cloak covered most of the creature from head to toe, it was longer than it was tall and you guessed it had to walk on four legs. Looking downward you saw you were right and that its feet ended in hoofs. Maybe it was a small horse you thought, but then who would put a camo cloak on a horse?

The small horse stiffened up, the cloaked head turns towards you. Underneath the cloak you can see a set of huge exotic looking sea green eyes and the end of its snout. The eyes grow wide as it looks at you standing there.

Crap you still had Snaxe out; you must look like a sight. Careful don’t want to scare the horse and don’t want to make the owner mad, let’s calmly put away Snaxe so that the owner does not think I am trying to kill his animal. Ok now if only I could get the owner to show me the way back to town I will be set for- crap the horse is leaving.

The horse upon seeing you put Snaxe away turned around and started walking away. You take a few steps after it, the horse picks up the pace a bit, it is heading back into the tree line. If it gets into the tree line you will lose it for sure, you crank yourself into full gear and hit your top speed in three steps, but that horse easily matches you diving head long into the tree line.

You head after it, keeping track of it mainly through sound rather than sight. You keep up the chase from maybe 15 minutes, but finally you have to admit that you have lost it completely.

Giving up the chase you slow down and stop taking a rest by a tree, taking a look at where you are now. Turns out you’re in a grove of tree and something odd that sticks out is that from the right angle these trees look to have some sort of face on then.

How strange?

Mean looking faces, I know right. Hey we had better get back to the river the sun is starting to set and these are not the faces that I want staring at me in my sleep What, you’re scared brain?

Sorry but don’t see you giggling at no ghosties here pal.

Glancing up at the sky you can see your brain is right and that the sun is starting to dip low into the sky, and those faces were starting to give you the heebie jeebies. So you set off back towards the river…again.

Why did you spend so much energy chasing that horse? It was not like it could have helped you get back to civilization really, the thought that it still had an owner in this forest that you could get help from was a long stretch, right? Logic what do you think?

Well it was a bit of a stretch to think to that yes. The fact you thought you could catch that horse was almost as long. That horse obviously knew its way around this forest and was strong enough to defend itself the local predators. So no I don’t think you could have gotten any help from that horse. That cloak it was wearing though, that is a mystery.

….You're wrong…

Instinct whatever do you mean. It was a horse man; it is not like they can talk you know?

….

Well the past is the past might as well try and make as much time downstream as we can before we have to take shelter.

Why downstream logic?

Because man those rapid where too powerful, the only people who would be likely to bother with that section of the river would be adrenaline junkies, upstream past the rivers will we many different water sources flowing in that river which means choices about which branch we follow and if we pick the wrong one it means we wasted both time and resources first exploring and then backtracking. If we head downstream then water sources will be joining up with our river and making the chances of a town or something being built on it and as bonus if this river has any traffic on it going either way then we are likely to see if coming up stream if downstream and with those speeds any traffic going downstream will likely pass up. On top of that—

OK, OK I get it, thank you logic for your input. Hey, looks like we made it almost all the way back to the river after that explanation.

Indeed after you edge around a dense clump of trees you spot the river again though something seems to be off about it. The water is a lot calmer than it was before. Had you managed to get to another section of the river?

No, because over there you could see where you had used Snaxe to cut open that wall of vine. They hung loosely between the two trees. Odd so why had the river become so still? You strain your ears listing for that sound you heard before.

Nope that was gone too. Maybe the two events had been related? Maybe you had been hearing a old tree coming down and it blocked the flow of the water a bit? Yeah, that would explain both the noise and why the river was not so violent any more.

A quick glance at the sky told you, you had maybe three hours of daylight left before sunset and a quick growl from your stomach told you it was snack time. “Ok quick and easy plan time,” you say, again talking to yourself to break the silence. Pulling out the pack of crackers you open it and pop one into your mouth. This was followed shortly by a swig of water from your canteen.

”Ah, that hits the spot. Ok the plan, walk until sunset, if I find civilization-win, if not take shelter in a tree for the night. The fact that I am following the river bank should mean I have an easy walk ahead of me. Right?” first talking to yourself and now asking questions of no one, might want to curve that behavior or someone is likely to think that you have gone crazy, you think to yourself as you head down stream.

Boy you could not have been more wrong thinking you were going to have an easy time on this walk. You followed that river for the next three days and the easiest time you had on that “little” walk of yours was those first three hours until sunset on the first day. You finished up you first pack of crackers right as night was falling and debating getting another pack out before or after you took shelter when you felt eyes on the back of your neck. Someone was watching you….

DUDE

….what….

A little warning please

….no danger….

We are in the middle of the woods and someone or something is watch us! Oh please tell me how we are not in any danger here.

….not hostile…..

And how do you know that, hermmmm?

…..

Like man, because you know, he just like does man. It is his thing dude, you feel me.

Heart not helping.

Well then look at it from this point of view, we are lost in the woods, we have no clue where we are going and no clue what to expect, therefore anyone wishing us harm would have a multitude of opportunities to do so. They could easily move ahead of us and set a trap or using the natural terrain ambush us. The fact that they have been following us since we got back to the river means that they at the very least intend us harm in the near future.

Logic you have a way of making me feel so comfortable sometimes, now I am going to be looking for traps and guys with blow darts all day.

But he does have a point and you know it. Now, let us get to bed, we might have woken up late in the day but we have been walking for most of that time.

Fine.

You make your way over to a tree with branches fairly low to the ground. Some jumping, a scrapped set of palms, and a little effort later sees you up the tree. You decide that it will be safest towards the top of the tree because the branches will not support the weight of the bigger predators. You also tie yourself to the tree not wanting to fall out of it like the last time you slept in one.

As a last bit of precaution you make a little bubble around yourself out of the branches binding them together with the rebar ties for that little be of extra protection from a predator that did decide to get you in your sleep. And with that you settle in for a not so restful sleep in the tree.

(several hours later in the dead of night)

THUMP splish splash

THUMP splish splash

“wha…”

THUMP splish splash

Something was moving about near your nest. And that something was Big. There was no need for rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. You were fully awake with that thought. One of your hands was already reaching for Snaxe when you saw it.

YEP, I am dead, Clearly Dead, no doubt about I am dead, I am dead, I am oh so god dead.

Before you waddling out of the forest was a creature you had only read about in myth, a hydra. seven long scaly head came forth from a barrel chest of a body, a long thick tail shot out from its backside and it stomped around on two stubby front feet.

You could make it out by the light of the full moon, it was a sickly looking mud brown color and it’s white fangs shown in the dark, you could see in its eyes a glint of light, the glint of a predator on the prowl and worst of all it was heading your way.

THUMP splish splash

Ok maybe if I say very, very quiet and remain still it might not notice-
One of the hydra’s heads turns to look directly at your little nest bubble in the tree. The head snakes its way closer to the nest, closer and closer it comes, curios about the little deformation.

Ok new plan….I’m so dead.

Well you the plan when we are dead right?

Fuck everything, and make you’re the grim reaper has a huge mess on his hands?

That’s the one!

Heart why are you like this?

Who knows, now is not the time for questions solder now is the time for violence like this world has only seen in a Freddy Krueger meets Hartsfield meets Hulk Hogan mix and match.

With that You heart rate slows, acceptance is one thing that will let you stare death straight in the eye and say fuck it, but a goal work that you set your whole heart on is a whole other matter. If you were going to die then you going take this hydra with you.

Yea that’s right the hydra that was easily over three stories tall, a plethora of heads filled to the brim with sharp point teeth, whose body was about as thick as a semi, and….ya maybe you were shooting a little high there, BUT fuck it you could at least make it work for its human burger.

The head was still coming closer towards your little hiding place. However now that you're looked at it something seemed…off. Compared to the other heads you saw on the hydra this one looked…well, it almost looked kind of….

Oh from crying out loud, we are not about to be eaten by the retarded head are we! Oh the cruel irony that one as logical as I should be eaten by a retarded beast like that. Surely this world we live in is a harsh chaotic one.

And it looks like logic is up. HEY GUYs, nap time is over. Time to get your butts in gear!

….

Great, abandoned by my own self. You know would bet normal people don’t have to put up with as much internal shit as I do.

At this point in time the hydra’s retarded head is less than ten feet away, You can feel its sickly warm breath on you face as it exhales. Exactly what hydra breath smelled like is something you really did not need to know, needless to be said it smelled awful.

Its nostrils start to flair. Did it smell you?

It starts to open its mouth wide and you get a good look down its maw. Your death will apparently involve sliding down this saliva soaked pink fleshy tunnel for a splashdown finish into a pool of acid. Oh joy, maybe if you can cut its neck open with Snaxe you might be able to dilute the acid enough to die of suffocation or even to be crushed to death by its internal muscles.

The jaw just seems to keep opening wider and wider. Why was it not making with the swallowing whole part?

Then its face seems to contract a bit.

What the…? That jester seemed familiar to you but on the face of a 3 story tall giant monster you could not quite place it. Just what on earth was it doing?

It starts to inhale deeply, causing a vacuum to suck in any of the loose leaves. “AHa…AHa”

You did not need any more clue as to what it was about to do. Screw this tree, screw the 30 foot drop, screw the fact that if you did run now the other heads where sure to spot you. You were not about to let yourself be covered in hydra buggers.

You try and make a break for it but as you leap you are brought up short by something around your waste. You turn angrily to the offending object to find it is the rope you had used earlier to tie yourself to this tree. Shit

Shit, shit, shit, Ok Snaxe to the rescue.

You raise Snaxe up high planning to chop the rope in one swing and then make a jump for the river, but it too late.

“AH…AHCHOOOOOOO” and with that the hydra lets out a sneeze with the force of a hurricane. We are talking about 120mph winds blowing you and the tree and all your stuff about.
If it had not been for that rope, you would have been blown out of your tree and who knows how far. But this sneeze was not just air, oh no it just had to be accompanied by globs of buggers the size of soft balls. You tried to do your best to avoid most of them but there was only so much you could do hanging by a rope, you ended up taking a glob of hydra buggers to the face, you felt a similar impact on your leg and on your back.

They hurt, not enough that you feared breaking bones but enough so that you knew that you would be walking funny the next day and that you might have a black eye.

One of the other hydra heads look this way at the sneeze and it lets out a loud piercing screech that wobbles in tone. This noise hurts enough to make you try and cover your ears. The retarded head looks up at this noise. It too makes this wobbly high pitched screeching noise and moves back to rejoin the rest of the heads. The retarded head is still sniffling as the hydra moves off back to wherever it came from.

Ok the hydra is gone it is now time to truly panic and then figure out what the hell just happened. The short version goes a little something like this:
Brain…What the fuck just happened

i…i…I don’t know.

Morality was that a fucking hydra just now. A beast out of the very god damned myths and legends. The beast that if you cut off it’s head it will grow two more in its place?

Uhh…it might have been.

There is no might have been that was a goddamn fucking hydra. A... FUCK…ING…HY...DRA…and you Heart you had us already to go ape shit banana on it.

You know the deal solder, all’s fair in love and war. And son let me tell you if in fighting your very life ain't love then it sure as hell be war. And when we go to war, ain't nothing being left at that damn door You hear. NOW AS FOR OUR DESERTERS, BRAIN, SEX DRIVE, AND MORALITY you sick lily livered cowards. I should have you strung up and Flogged for being late to you posts.

Hey Heart that is being a bit unfair, what use is there for morality in a fight with a monster?

I’LL HAVE NONE OF YOUR BACK TALK. YOU ABANDONED US I WILL SEE YOU HANGED FOR INSUBORDINATION YOU YELLOW BELLIED TWO TIMING DONKEY ASS LICKING DIRT MUNCHING COWARD! (This rant at morality goes on for a bit)

Hey bud, sorry for not being there you know it takes a bit to get me going in the morning.

It was a god dam hydra, Hercules fought it and here it is and I am covered in its buggers. I am covered in hydra buggers. What the hell is wrong with this place? Where the hell am I? Clearly I am not on earth anymore because there are no hydras on earth.

Bub you're having a break down like a-

Unless I am in some secret military base or something

Bub you need to stop your acting like a-

AND YOU SEX DRIVE, MORALITY MIGHT NOT BE OF MUCH USE, BUT YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF ENERGY MANAGEMENT, IT IS YOUR JOB TO MAKE YOU WE KEEP OUR STAMINA UP IN A FIGHT. I WILL HAVE NO MORE OF THIS FORAGING WITH THE LADIES OR THIS SLOW TO START BULL CRAP ANY MORE. DO YOU HEAR ME!!!

Hey bub, you know the deal and no one talks to me like that, got it.

In short, you end up spending the next hour or so having a mental breakdown while Heart yells at everyone and Brain is just drawing a blank. What finally brings you out of this is Logic for the first time speaking up since the hydra sneezed all over you.

We need a bath.

The simplicity of this statement seems to shock your whole inner group into stunned silence. It even brought you back from your mental break down a bit. Good old logic could always be trusted to put things into perspective.

Getting out of your tree you make your way down to the river where you clean yourself and your clothes as best you can without any bathroom supplies.

Now, from your time in the boy scouts you knew that you should never bath alone or in unknown waters unless you had but seeing as people where unkindly enough to vagabonds and hitch hikers who were not covered in buggers you did not think being covered in them would improve your chances of getting help so it looked like bath time for you.

You did take the precaution of bathing only in running water to reduce the chance of blood suckers and other undesirables. During your lovely mountain spring cold bath that your learned so many new and wonderful things about hydra buggers that you decided you could have happily sent the rest of your next ten lives not knowing.

They were easy to wash out of your hair but were they came into contact with your skin or your cloths it they stuck fast and harden into a tough shell. Getting the bugger shell thing off was like pulling off super glue, it took a lot of skin with it. Your face was left red raw after the huge amount of effort it took to pull the glob off. You had to use wrench and a nearby rock to crack the globs of buggers that had gotten stuck to your clothing.

All in all bath time took your about 45 minutes about 40 minutes longer than you normally would take for a bath and 43 minutes long then you would have liked in this freezing cold mountain river. You use your blanket to drive off, not having a proper towel to do so, and change into a dry set of cloths. Checking the time, the moon is high in the sky plenty of night left to sleep to but did you really want to do that in this forest with big cats and sneezing hydras?

The sooner we are out of here the better if you ask me

Yah, I think so.

Oh course you do because I just told you what you think silly

Ignoring your brain you start following the river again. You walked from the time you stared almost until nightfall and your feet where letting you know just what they thought about that life choice. It was a mostly uneventful day all things told, you only had to hide from the relatively normal look predators like panthers, lions, and even a bear.

Seriously how could one forest hold so many different apex predators? Other than that one horse you saw yesterday all you had seen where meat eaters. It puzzled you enough that you were able to keep you mind busy most of the day coming up with theories about the food chain here and how other creatures of myths and legends might fit into it.

So barring the 3 times you had to hide from these predators you thought you were making relatively good time and even during those times you sought to use your time effectively writing the off as resting periods.

Half a pack of crackers when the panther has chased me up a tree, rest of that pack of crackers when the lion as me trapped behind some rock cover, back up the tree to rest your feet when the bear takes interest and a whole wonderful pack of crackers for dinner yum. After last night’s encounter with the hydra nothing much about these real predators was phasing you.

That night you made your nest in a tree again this time choosing to include a floor and more solid walls and roof so that if you needed to you could beat a hasty escape by jumping out of said tree. Luckily you had managed to find a tree leaning over the river so you would not risk breaking your leg in such a stunt. So with a feeling of self accomplishment you nod off to sleep.

And of course with the falling of the sun and the raising of the moon all the monster decided to come out to play. This night instead of being visited by your hydra friend from last night you are instead awoken to the sound of some dandy complaining over his hair.

Actually, when you are first woken up to this noise you're still thinking like you're back home and the upstairs couple is going at it again. You try to turn over in your sleep and yell at them to shut up.

The dandy pauses at this noise and you wake up fully remembering that you are not in fact back at your apartment but instead lost in the woods looking for a way back to civilization. And here was another civilized being just outside of your nest making a fuss.

OH, what luck I have, here is someone who can lead me out of these woods, yes, sweet, awesome, ok first apologizes for telling them to shut up and then-

What are you going on about now man.

Oh hey brain, good news someone is outside the nest.

Umm what?

Yah, some sort of dandy is out there in there right now, they can lead us out of here, don’t you get it brain.

Yah, I think I do.

OK great so let’s go out there and see them.

Right lets go out there into these monster filled woods and meet not a woodsman or other wilderness type folk but someone who described as a dandy.

Ok, we will check first to see if it is safe, then we will go see if the wonderful person who likely knows where we are.

That is all I am asking.

Peeking out of your little nest you see not a person, but a purple sea serpent coming out of the river. it takes to a moment to actually figure out what your looking at past that. Said sea serpent has perfect long bouncy golden yellow covered hair that streams from his head.

Its scales are all the same shape and size and even form a perfectly uniform pattern that flows all the way down his body, he also has perfectly manicured nails and a bountiful mustache of which one side matches his hair and the other side is a deep majestic purple.

Odder still was when the sea serpent spoke and the dandy voice issued from its mouth. “What is someone there. AH don’t look at me, I’m positively hideous.”

…umm what…

Ah instinct what is going on?

…umm…

Thought as much.

You decide it is best to remain quiet and not responding to the sea serpent it was big enough to eat you whole and no matter how white those teeth did not negate the fact that they were longer than your arm.

“Odd I thought I had heard someone? Must have been a voice in my head caused by all this stress I am under. IF ONLY I could find something to fix these eyelashes of mine. They just don’t flutter right and they are full of cropped ends. OH WHOA IS ME, WHATEVER SHALL I DO?” that last line is accompanied by the sea serpent putting the back of his wrist to his forehead and taking an overly dramatic pose.

Surely this guy is not for real right?

The sea serpent keeps going on and on about how horrible his eyelashes are and even managed to bring himself to tears and as he starts crying, his body is quivering with his built up frustration. This causes the whole river to become a mass of violently churning waters just like how you had first seen it.

Oh come on this has to be some kind of trick right?

We should go help him out.

What are you crazy, he is a sea serpent, sea serpents eat people, as for proof of this fact his teeth are longer than my arm and likely as sharp as one of my knifes.

You know we can’t stand to see someone crying and more importantly it is the right thing to do. What kind of man of honor would we be if we could just past by someone so obviously in distress.

Need I remind you what happened last time we helped out someone in distress and how we spent the next three years paying for it.

Did you regret taking that action?

....Well no, not really, even if my life was hell. I think I would still do what I did.

And the fact that we are already climbing down the tree means..?

Shut up morality I hate you so much sometimes.

You know you would hate yourself without me.

And it was true, you were proud in the fact that even in this day and age you felt that you could hold yourself to the higher standards of yesteryear. I had made this vow as a little kid not even realizing what it would mean at the time or the amount of trouble it would cause you down the road but the act of doing what was right, noble and just always gave you that warm feeling inside. Still what you’re sense of justice was telling you to do right now had to rank up there among the stupidest things you had ever done in your life.

“Umm, excuse me, but I could not help but notice you crying there. This there anything I can do to help you out.”

“Hmm, oh so someone was there after all.” The sea serpent says as he tries to wipe the tears away.

“Yah sorry about not speaking up before, I was just…..taken in by your regal appearance.”

Thank you brain for that one.

Welcome, but you know morality is going to win us a very odd and painful death.

The sea serpent seems to cheer up a bit at your words though and flattery never hurt anyone, so…

“Oh yes. You have quite the look of a gentleperson about you. It is clear to see that you take a lot of care in your personal look. Your nails are pristine and I have to ask how in the world you got your hair to have so much bounce in it. It looks amazing.” You say in almost sing song manner, while mentally you are thanking your high school drama teacher for forcing you to work part time at the local theater doing make-up and costume.

The sea serpent is…well the only word you can think of is preening under your compliments. “Yes it is true, my nails are fabulous I spend 2 hours every morning shaping them on the rocks at the bottom the river. As for my hair,” he leans in secretive like,” would you believe me if I told you I used hydra snot to give it its life. Oh wait, yes, yes you would I can see it in your hair now. Isn’t if just the most wonderful thing in the world.”

After all those hours helping the girl actor get ready you knew just how to deal with this kind of person. Miss Stewart if I ever see you again I am going to give you the biggest dam hug ever.

“Yes it is quite enchanting isn’t it? But ho, what have we here,” pause for dramatic effect, “Oh my your eyelashes what have you done to them, they are all wrong.” Yeah, this was the same old game even if it was with a sea serpent. A round of complements, a bit of gossip, a slight slip about ones of the other persons shortcomings, giving the other person the excuse to be all overly dramatic like they wanted to be. Cue dramatic sea serpent in 3…2…1.

The sea serpent launched itself away from the shore, “oh it’s true, it’s true. My eyelashes are the ruin of my glorious face. Whatever shall I do, oh whatever shall I do?” yep exactly the same, except for the part where the sea serpents dramatics caused a tidal wave that almost drowned you and knocked you off your feet.

Spitting out water and regaining your foot you declare, “Oh my, now this cannot stand, this will not stand, not if I can fix it.”

Being a bit over dramatic there pal don’t you think?

Shut up, sea serpent, you have to play to the crowd remember.

The sea serpent scoops you up and gives you a great big hug. “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you again.” He was careful about that action but that did not stop you from seeing a few bits of your life flash before your eyes. He is just as careful when he sets you back down on the shore.

Ok now time for the small chat if we are following the pattern. “So I have never seen a creature quite like you before,” the sea serpent says in an offhand manner as you go and collect your bags.

“oh really, that seems kind of odd considering to my knowledge humans cover the entire surface of the planet, well short of a few isolated spots that is. But I guess fair is fair since I have never seen a creature like you before either.” You reply offhand, while you are pulling out one of your pocket knives. His eyelashes were huge, they were about as thick as our pinky finger; you needed the knife to cut them straight.

“strange, I did a lot of traveling when I was younger, went around the whole world in fact, oh the fun I had in Great Bridal when I met the Queen, and after that was a quite hop and a skip across the pond to the fabulous city of Fillyris where I got the most exquisite facial, the one and only place for fashion you know, but my point is I never saw a human in all my travels.”

Ok beyond weird, just where were you? A world without humans apparently. Ok that is a fail at small talk if you had ever heard of one. Ok so what did that mean, no humans means something else had to take their spot right? Could be the monsters from your earth myths?

Were you on a different world in the same universe, a parallel world, maybe a different plane of existence, or maybe you had somehow managed to slip onto the anti-matter mirror version of your world. Either way time to chat up your new friend and see what you could learn about this place.

Oddly enough you were not able to get any real useful info out of him. Ok so maybe it had been a few years since you had played the social game, come on you had stuff like college and what not to deal with right. So what if you were a little rusty at this, that or he was purposefully dodging the questions you were asking because he seem to always either turn the question back on itself to you or link it to some sort of fashion related topic.

By the end of your little chat you had learned way more than you needed to know about his personal grooming techniques, the names of 98 different salons that could cater to oversized customers, who owned those salons and who to ask for when you went to them for what kind of treatment, and that the reason for his two toned mustache was because a very generous friend gave him her tail after part of it had been ripped out by this lands princess.

However useless this information seemed now Brain dutifully filled it all away. Though you really had to wonder what kind of situation would require you to know to ask for someone called Gewn at the hoof and claw salon on south baker street in some place called Hoofington, if you needed a facial made with only herbal ingredients.

Something a bit more useful was that this friend of William’s (the sea serpent) lived not too far from here in a town just outside of the forest in fact. Her name was Rarity and he had nothing but praise about her sense of fashion and her generosity.

Pity he didn’t have more to say about what she looked like.

Be nice you.

During this entire chit chatting process, you managed to trim his eyelashes to what he called a dashing look and even helped with their fluttering issue thanks to the simple application of rebar ties and Duck tape. Ah duck tape, in the hands of an engineer is there no problem you can’t fix. When you finished he took a moment to stare at his reflection in the river and the declared your work to be “other worldly.”

IF ANYONE MAKES A GODDAMN COMMENT ABOUT THAT LINE YOU WILL BE IN FOR THE WORST PUNISHMENT OF A LIFE TIME.

Luckily your inner group thought better then to test you on that end.

“So Elag, where are you heading, there HAS to be some way I can repay you from saving me from that awful crisis.”

“Well after such a rave review I am quite interested in meeting this Rarity. If you would be so kind as to show me the way to her place that would be great.”

“oh absolutely, why don’t you hop on and I will give you a ride there.” More than grateful for the offer you accept the ride from your new friend. No walking and you had a giant sea serpent to scare off anything that might want to try and make a meal out of you, it sounded too good to be true.

What did I tell you?

Yah, ok you were right.

(next day around about noon)

Yeah you told me alright thanks a lot morality.

It was raining heavy, and when I say heavy we are talking the rain is coming sideways with a good sized helping of cats and dogs to boot. You sea serpent friend had left you at the first signs of rain. He simply had to go take shelter from this awful rain or else it would mess up his bangs. So he dropped you off on the side of the shore and told you that you should be out of the forest by night fall.

With giant serpent buddy gone and with rain on the way you debated maybe finding shelter until the storm passed. On the one hand if you took cover now it would mean dry cloths and you would not risk the storm and the dangers that came with that but it would mean spending another night in these woods.

On the other hand you could risk the storm deal with wet cloths and likely end up sleeping wet that night but you would be out of these woods. That was a tough one and you were to have to think on it. Or at least you would have if something hadn’t just sent a cold chill down your spine. Someone was watching you again.

Uh guys?

Oh hey look morality he noticed them again looks like I win the pool Bubs.

Dam you sex drive, you had to have helped him out. Dam it five more minutes and we would have been on my time slot.

….wow….

Har har, well, gents that is what you get when you bet against my solder. Still son, don’t tell you only just noticed them. They have been following us since we chased that horse. If you’re ever going to be a dependable man you’re going to have to work on your non-sensory based perception skills.

Yah? And just how am I supposed to do that?

Well the solution to that is quite simple really, all you have to do is hang out with Instinct more of course.

Let's chalk that up and the to do later list, whoever is watching me is really starting to creep me out. Can one of you at least tell me where they are watching me from?

…ghost…

Instinct is right man. Whoever is watching you is not showing any signs of physically being here. Or if they are then they are surely the best damn woodsmen in any world and we should really be trying to copy them. But for now lets just get out of these woods.

Brain had a point, so for now you start walking. Whoever was watching you would either act and you would handle the situation when they did so or they wouldn’t. The ball was in their park and there was nothing you could really do without seriously tripping up your sense of right and wrong.

You might as well try and keep calm. That was a task easier said than done since you hated when other people full control of your near future options. Got to get your mind onto a different topic.

Uhg, you really hated wet cloths, wet socks being the worst they made your feet uncomfortable in your shoes and let out that really annoying sound every time you took a step.

Speaking of your feet they decided to let you know that they had liked the rest they had gotten during your ride on William. They were also demanding to know why you were walking again. Yep this was going to be a wonderfully fun day.

Well it seemed like someone up there was at least looking out for you because as you exit the forest proper around about dark you spot a travelers willow. Its long drooping branches dip all the way to the ground and its dome interior is nice and dry. You even found some firewood let there by a previous traveler and enough sticks to get a fire going.

It was simply the most beautiful sight you had seen all day. You vowed to find out which god/deity/nature sprite/ or whatever that had lead you to this find and you were you going to shout their praise until you were blue in the face.

Getting the fire going you set your damp cloths out to dry by it you take inventory of your stuff. Everything thing seems fine the knives needed to be taken care of so they didn’t lose their edge or rust. The box of crackers had somehow managed not to get wet from the drenching, but you had to set out you blanket and bed roll to dry by the fire with your cloths. Rolling out your meditation mat, to give you some protection from the ground, you set about taking care of your knives and other tools.

The knives had to be sharpened but you didn’t have your wet stone. A dull knife was a dangerous knife your grandpa had always told you, glancing at your stuff your eyes fall on Snaxe. Trying to use a metal wet stone to sharpen another piece of metal was not going to be a fun task but the principle was sound.

Rub one hard object across an even harder object at an angle to produce and edge and Snaxe was made out a very hard bit of unknown metal your dad had brought from his government work job as a birthday gift when you turned 21.

Ah good old dad, you missed him so much. He was the only one in your family that even tried to keep you in the loop about what was going on with your family. Not that you were on bad terms with your family. You loved them very much and would do anything for any of them, it was just they never seemed to have time for you.

You had always been told that it was the price of being the oldest kid, you got to do everything first but were always ignored because everyone wanted to play with your baby brother and sister. Honestly, you felt like you had been forgotten when you were in a kind mood, when you were in a bad one you felt like they were trying to bribe you with toys and responsibility and other fancy big words just to get you to shut up and go play by yourself in the corner like a good unwanted child so that the adults could play peek-a-boo with the baby.

But the babies grow up and then became the terrible teen minces that got into trouble at every turn, getting into fights at school, getting expelled, hanging out with the wrong crowd, bring drugs into the home and stinking up the entire place with their smell. And again you were left in the corner to do your own thing because mommy and daddy had to deal with delinquent son and just really didn’t have any time for you and your AB honor roll party.

At least you and your sister could get alone but with an age gap of 8 years and with her being a completely different gender you two didn't really have too much in common growing up, hell she didn't even face the same social issues as you so you couldn't fill the role of helpful older sib. As for your mom she always had something from work on her plate it seemed, looking back you had to admit you hardly knew her, she was a feature in your life but not really as a mom or not as what you saw as a mom.

And that was your direct family life though college, hell you couldn’t complain and likely you didn’t have a right to complain, you had been friends with a lot of kids who had it way worse off then you did, still you thought the biggest reason for you inability to complain about the situation was that if you did, you would be getting in someone’s way and bothering them with your problems something you had been taught never to do.

Not to say it was all like that, visits with your indirect family was great, you loved seeing them and each time you did they would teach you something brand new or introduce you to a new side of life you had never consider before.

From Grandpa, you learned how to fight and about the military. He taught you to value your honor and was the one who introduced you to the martial arts. You were hooked instantly partly because you were an easy target for bullies and partly because something just clicked. Considering this happened when you were about 5 and had no clue about the different styles and disciplines you thought that they where all the same thing and tried to study everything from Chinese kung fu to Irish brawling to judo. Ancient or brand new, armed or unarmed, stances or free flowing you wanted to learn it all. The bookkeeper got so used to you coming in almost every weekend with some sort of cut or bruise that he started to give you packs of band aids with each book on martial arts you bought.

Your other Grandpa, Grandpa Lou, had introduced you to the advanced levels of thinking and problem solving and reasoning skills about this time as well, mostly in the form of college level math and physics not that it seems like that to you Grandpa Lou just want you to tell him where you basketball would land if he bounced it off each wall in the back yard or some other such thing.

Your uncle taught you about firearms and you learned about machines and robotics form one of your cousins. Your aunts and grandma taught you about baking, cooking, sewing, knitting and other very useful skills normally passed on from mother to daughter.

Again you had nothing in your life you had a right to complain about up until college, during one of your few father son fishing trips with just your dad. He said something that really hurt. You had gotten up the nerve to ask him about your delinquent brother this time.

There had been a huge fight upstairs last night and you had been wondering what had happened. He had let out a heavy sigh, and ask you where he had gone wrong. You never had seem him look so browbeaten before, you looked up to your dad he was strong and kind and always could make you or anyone laugh, he was also not a guy you want to get on the wrong side of because if you did his determination to do what was right could just as easily be used to make sure you tried to wrong him again.

You asked him what he meant and he told you that out of all three of the kids brother delinquent was by far the smartest one of the bunch… Brother….brother was the smartest in your father’s eyes…you had worked your butt off day and night at school…you had made at least AB honor roll 90% of the time and unless you were so sick that someone forced you stay in bed you would be at school or wherever you need to be. In your spare time you studied everything you could get your hands on and you had even got the hang of seeing things from other peoples point of view and thinking five steps ahead with their mind.

But it was your brother, the kid who was to stupid to consider jumping out a window as a bad idea just because he was told he could do, the kid currently in danger of failing a grade and being held back, and even worse the kid who wasn’t in jevie right now only because the judge had let his parents handle the matter privately so long as he submitted to drug tests regularly, he was the smart one in your dads eyes. It had not been a fun fishing trip after that to say the least.

A few years after that trip the man you knew as your father died, he slowly started to forget stuff, dates and meetings and other small stuff like that, but it just kept getting worse and worse. He was eventually bed ridden and everyone in the family seemed too pulled together, setting aside all our other baggage just for dad.

You wished you could have visited him more then you where able to but because of your job being a couple states away and being topic secret government work, you where limited in how often you could see him. And with each visit his just kept getting worse. Sister ended up moving back in with mom to help her out and you even saw brother now and again. He wasn’t even baked a few of those times.

Then that visit happened, you opened the door to his room, ready to spend the whole afternoon trying to get him interested in this new breakthrough in electrical design and failing that just sit and watch the fishing network with him, when he looked up from his bed, looked you straight in the eyes and said,” oh hello, who are you?”

It was too much, you could not handle it so you did the only thing that came to mind at the time, you fled. Out of the room, down the hall, out the door, got in your car and just drove. You just drove not know for how long and with no direction in mind you just simply drove away from that house with the bed that held that thing that had used to be your father.

Eventually the ringing of your cell phone awoke you from the state you where in. it was sister trying to find out what had happened and why I had left the house in such a rush almost three days ago. No one had heard anything from you in the time and everyone was really worried. You had stopped and asked the clerk at the gas station just where you were only to find out you had manage to most of the way across the country in that state of mind.

So after that visit, the number of trips you made to see dad became less and less, sometimes he would be better and recognize you on sight and other times he would stare at the wall or whatever someone put him in front of last or yet still there were times like that visit.

Those times hurt the worse, but each time you visited it felt like someone was plunging a dagger into your heart and slowly twisting it in deeper and deeper as your visit with dad went on. After all the funeral was almost a mixed blessing, freeing the wonderful memories you had of your father from that utterly stark grim fate that had befallen such a towering figure in your life.

Your family just kind of drifted apart after that. You hadn’t seen your mom or your brother since the funeral and as for your sister you two tried to keep in touch with each other over emails and the like but even those messages started to become few and far between. At least you knew you was doing well and was happy since she had sent you pictures of her at her wedding with her new husband.

And that seemed to really strike home that you had lost almost contact with your family since you hadn’t even know that she was seeing anyone in the first place.

Suddenly you feel something plop onto your lap.

You practically spring into the upper branches of the traveler’s willow. Heart is trying to beat right out of your chest. What the hell just happened. you look down from your preach some 15 feet off the ground to see that in the middle of your campsite is a pretty big tortoise with a set helicopter blades attached to its shell.

It was currently digging around inside your backpack looking for something. Had you really been that deeply lost in thought to not only not noticed the thing enter your camp but to allow it to walk right up to and try to use you as a footstool to get at your backpack? The tortoise stopped digging around in your pack and started to drag your box of peanut butter crackers out.

“Hey there fellow, would you like some crackers?” you say to your unexpected dinner guest as you climb down the tree. Why is getting up a tree always so much easier then getting back down. You manage to get down the tree and over to your new pal just in time to stop him from getting into trouble with the plastic packaging. Counting the remaining mini packages quickly you find that you have 7 left.

Saving three of those as a just in case ration you split the remaining four packs between you and the tortoise and pull out your bowl and will it with water for him. Man you had been on a downward depression spiral there, providing a meal for the guy who snapped you out of it, was the least you could do you thought. That and watching the tortoise eat those crackers was entertaining on some primal level.

So after tending to the fire, it had gotten dangerously close to burning out during your trip down memory lane, you settle you back up against the tree open up your two packs of food. To be honest thought you were not to happy at the sight of crackers as a meal again maybe you had something you could use to spice this meal up a bit, ok for food you had water and crackers….not a how lot there.

Ok around you was; some dirt, fire, the tortoise, your gear, and this tree. Again not a lot…that is when an idea struck you. Maybe you could get some sap from this tree to go with the crackers so you pulled out the bit set and attached a boring head and got to work tapping the tree for some sweat delouses sap. And so about about 10 minutes of work and another 10 minutes after that you can see little droplets of sap coming out of the hole you made.

You swipe these drops up with your finger and spread them over one of your crackers and pop it into your mouth. Not bad, not great and it leaves a earthy bitter after taste in your mouth but by god it is not orange peanut butter crackers and for right now that is more then enough for you.

The tortoise looks up at you from its meal. Even after all this time it still had three crackers left, man this guy was slow. “hey you want one with sap on it buddy?” it oh so slowly nods its head yes. You pick up a cracker and repeat the process of applying sap to cracker and then out it out the tortoise. It slowly extends its long neck opening its mouth wide as it does so, grabs the cracker from you and retract its next.

It was utterly comical, you could almost swear that the tortoise was making a joke about its own slowness. Glancing over at your new pal he looks very please with himself. And then you spot something else, his helicopter unit looks a bit off, it was covered in quite a few dents and you could even see a few loose wires sticking out of the bottom. You reach over to the unit and give it a little shake and hear parts rattling around inside. The Tortoise looks you directly in the eyes at this.

“Ops sorry about that, may I take a look? I might be able to fix it.” The tortoise nods its head giving you permission to remove the unit. You unbuckle it from his back and take a closer look at it. Nothing really distracts you more then something broken or when something someone has clearly put a lot of time, effort, and love into doesn’t make since. This is doubly so when the item in question falls under both categories.

This helicopter until looked like it was cobbled together out of kitchen supplies once you got its vanity cover off. The wiring looks like a bird’s nest and…is that supposed to be a gyro stabilizer in the bottom section, where on earth is the battery pack for this thing? You give the device a little shake and hear something rattling near the top of the unit. You shake it a little harder and out pops a glowing pink crystal.

Picking this new piece to this puzzle up to examine it closer you can see it giving off a soft pulse of light at somewhat odd intervals. “Hey what is this?” you ask the tortoise holding the crystal up.

For its part it stops eating, takes a look at it, and goes back to eating. As if to say, “I have no clue.”

Ok so time to revise engineer this oddity. You break down the helicopter unit into the basic systems and pieces, the “gyro disk,” fan blades, vanity cover, motor, wires, etc. the only thing missing from what you could figure was the power source so either that had fallen out or the crystal was the power source.
Either way you now had the thing figured out, time to get to work fixing it. You take your hammer to dents and bang them out first and then it on to that gyro disk. The thing had to have been made out of the bottoms of a couple frying pans they were horribly misaligned and so badly miss balanced you had to wonder why who ever built this thing had put it in there.

Throwing a few more logs on to the fire you stroke it a fairly hot flame, then you put this “thing” into those flames and go get you wrench from your pack. Once you see that the piece has gotten a nice cherry red you pull it out and start working it into a more suitable shape using Snaxe’s surface in place of an anvil. Forming those pan bottoms in to a more reasonable shape it was not perfect but it was leaps and bounds better than what it had been before.

Next you tackled the motor, it was not that badly damaged so you did your best to clean it and realign the piece that had become off center. After that it was the blades themselves who ever have made this unit had used flat and level strips of metal to make them, this would work but it was really poor power to lift ratio, with your tools you bent them into a slight angle so that would they would better scoop the air up as the spun. Then on to the little bits on odds that normally came with such devices which took you all of about 5 minutes to check them out.

Leaving only that birds nest of a wiring system, there was easily 4 or 5 times as much wire than there needed to be and so you began cutting it back and cutting it down until the system was all nice and neat. Which left that crystal it had some power left you could tell that much thanks to the pulse but it looked almost dead so how to charge it?

You pull out your extra set of batteries for your flashlight and using some of the extra wires you rig up a short circuit between the battery and the crystal. The crystal started to glow a bit brighter so you assumed that it was charging and started putting the whole thing back together while you waited. Picking up the one of the last pieces, the vanity cover, you notice some writing on the inside, however it seems to be written in another tongue.

No help there so you finish putting that unit back together the crystal is now shinnying very bright to your guessing that means it is fully charged and slot it into place. The tortoise seeing the helicopter pack nearly put back in one piece, heads over to your backpack and starts rummaging through it.

“hey pal what you looking for?” it withdraws its head and has a sharpie in its mouth….had that been in there this whole time? The tortoise starts making its way over to you and in the effort to save time you meet him halfway. He wanted you to do something with that pen for him so what was it?

The tortoise bumped the end of the pen against the vanity plate and this started shaking its head in a weird pattern, which made it look like it was drawing on the vanity plate. “You want me to sign it?” the tortoise nodes its head yes. But, if you signed it you doubted the people here would be able read anything written in English since you could not read their writing, what to do?

Finally after a bit of thought you go with a simple cartoon strip about the events that had happened to the helicopter unit. You showed the tortoise your masterful stick figure art work and it simply nodded again. Then you scraped the unit back onto the tortoise and stepped back.

Success the whole thing worked and the tortoise was hovering in the air about you. It nods goodbye to you and you wave back before it flies away.

“Nice guy but I wonder who would build a helicopter pack for a tortoise?” you tummy let a large rumble, in the interest of invention you had totally forgotten about your crackers. Looking around you spot the packs on the flood empty…That flying tortoise had snatched your dinner….that little sneaky thief.

“Well that was bemusing to say the least” you say as you pull out another pack and eat it. You spend the next few minutes cleaning up your camp and storing the scrap material you had gotten from the machine before noticing how late it had gotten. “Oh well time for bed,” and with that you unroll you bed mat and lay down it covering yourself with the blanket.

Author's Note

And Chapter 2 is done. fair warning i write only in my free time and between my work load, school, and insane family that does not leave a whole lot of time to write so the time in between chapters might be a bit long. This chapter i had to get some things off my chest so no real story development yet but i promise that the next chapter will have action and more ponies in it. by the by anyone guess at whole made an appearance in this chapter.