Chapter 14
Confidence Pt.2

I was on my back in a patch of particularly soft grass, Daisy was laying on top of me. One of her hands on my shoulder, the other one in my mane. Her fingers were playing with the short tufts of fur. My arms were wrapped around her waist, holding her against me. She leaned down and kissed me again, her soft lips brushed against mine.

“Feel better?” She asked with a smile.

“Ok, you were right,” I admitted with a chuckle. “I feel much better,” I said with a smile of my own. I’m pretty sure I hadn’t been that relaxed in years, I felt like I could just fall asleep right there with her. I knew better, but it was definitely tempting.

“I figured you just needed to work some stress out,” she said with a soft giggle as she pushed up off me. I reluctantly let her go so she could rise and sat up myself. “I also didn’t think you’d be that much of a cuddler,” she added as she checked our clothes that we had hung from a tree branch in the sunlight.

“They dry enough?” I asked as I got up, feeling myself flush a bit at her comment.

“Part of me wants to say no to see how well you handle being naked around me now,” she commented with a smirk as she felt them. “Still fairly damp, might have to use the spare sets until they finish drying.”

In all the… Excitement, yes excitement is a good word to use. I had forgotten about the spare set of clothes I had brought to the river in the first place. Apparently Daisy had done the same and I hadn’t noticed the clothes she brought.

It took a moment of searching to find the spare clothes I had brought earlier, I had left my armor next to the damp clothes but left my dry clothes several trees away. I glanced over my shoulder as I got dressed, Daisy was watching with a thoughtful look. I raised an eyebrow at her, not really minding her watching, but wondering what she was thinking.

“You got a lot of scars on you for how thick that armor is,” she commented upon seeing my own inquisitive look. “Why don’t you tell me about one or two of them? Like that one on your side,” she commented as she pointed to a scar above my left hip.

“Well,” I started as I pulled the loose cloth around my body, fastening the belt that held most of it together. “I made a lot of mistakes learning how to handle some weapons,” I admitted with a chuckle. I thought of the time I was training with a spear with an instructor at Sanctuary.

“I had made a terrible lunge, lost my balance, and stumbled. The instructor didn’t expect me to lose my balance. Any farther to the left on his part and I would have lost a kidney,” I said as I set my hand on my side and felt the scar under my clothes.

“Well that’s one, what about the rest?” Daisy asked, her head tilted slightly. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who makes a lot of mistakes,” she observed.

“I make plenty of them, most people just don’t notice. I also had a lot of time to make mistakes and learn from them the hard way,” I admitted with a little grin. “I’ll tell you about the others another time, we should go check on the others and make sure Clay hasn’t decided to sacrifice Bryon to the rock or something,” I said as I pulled my armor on with practiced speed.

“Now that would definitely ruin the mood,” Daisy muttered as she rolled her eyes and passed me, already on her way back to camp. Her wet clothes were draped over a stick so she could take them back with her. She glanced over her shoulder at me and smirked.

After getting a stick of my own for my damp clothes I followed her back to our camp. Clay and Bryon were sitting by the fire and talking.

“Finally you’re back!” Bryon called as he rose and took off toward the river. “My turn! good luck with the rock!” He called back as he disappeared into the brush.

The way he said that made me wonder if he was talking about Clay or the actual rock in the fire. I looked at the fire and the chopped logs Clay had prepared to keep it burning all day and night and felt myself sigh. I felt so stupid for buying into this curse and letting this delay happen. I strode over to the fire and jammed the stick into the ground, letting the clothes hang a few feet away to expedite the drying process.

My thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of Patches’ rifle being fired. The distant report echoed through the forest, he had to be at least five miles away by now if not farther. I started in that direction only for Clay to jump up and block me.

“Don’t! He’s too far away! If you head out there the Rock of Death will claim you too!” His arms were raised as if he thought he could actually stop me.

“Clay, I’m not going to leave him out there alone when something’s attacking him!” I responded as I pushed him out of my way.

“For all you know the rock is claiming his life right now and if you go out there you’ll die too! I know what I’m talking about!” He shouted as he grabbed my right wing and gave it a yank to stop me. It definitely hadn’t healed yet…

“M-m-motherfuck!” I spat as I halted. A bolt of pain shot up from the base of my wing to the very tip and arced across my back. I clenched my hands as my entire body tensed up, both of my forearm blades deployed and I felt Clay immediately release my wing. I rounded on him with a look that could have killed.

“Ah! I’m sorry! What was that!?” He asked as he backed away, shrinking as he did.

“I hurt my wing, it hasn’t healed yet. Do that again and I’ll stop thinking of you as a citizen to protect,” I growled as I retracted my blades and turned out toward the forest again. I turned just in time to watch a large old growth tree fall over and land with a crash that could be felt on the ground.

“That was where Patches’ rifle was just fired…” Daisy said quietly, her voice shaking with disbelief or fear, maybe both. She was moving closer to the edge of the trees now as well.

“This is why I didn’t want anyone to leave, it just killed him,” Clay whimpered as he backed away toward the fire. “It’ll kill us all if we leave,” he finished as he squatted by the fire and stared at the rock.

I looked back out at the forest again. Was Clay right? Did Patches really just get crushed by that tree? There’s no way a fucking cursed rock just killed one of the most capable fighters I knew. I didn’t know what to do, if I took off and this really was a curse I’d die, if I stayed here and the curse was just some convincing bullshit Clay had whipped up then I was leaving Patches out there alone with who-knows-what.

“Please don’t leave Alex, we need to stick together if we want a chance of getting out of here alive,” Clay begged, as if he knew I was about to take off again.

“Didn’t you say splitting the group would damn one person in each group?” I asked as I turned to Clay. “If that’s true then one of us is already going to die because of what happened to Patches. We didn’t get the fire going fast enough and now one of us is going to die. Isn’t that right?” I leaned over the squatting pony. “Or are you still fuzzy on all the details?”

Clay’s eyes darted around as if searching for an answer, his mouth hung open slightly as he thought. He looked at everything but me.

“Uh, the um... Shit… I did say that didn’t I?” He said as he looked at me, not seeming to expect an answer. “One of us is going to die whether we stay or not…” He trailed off as he looked at the rock in the fire and scowled at it.

“Well screw you!” He shouted and spat into the fire, right onto the rock of Tartarus. “If you want me dead you’re gonna have to work for it!” He shouted as he inhaled, seemingly for another loogie. There was a hiss and a sizzle, Clay seemed to look past the fire at something and his eyes widened. Then one of the rocks lining the fire pit exploded. The blast sent little pieces of shrapnel in every direction, dust and cinders hit my face along with one of the sharp shards of rock.

Like every typical case of a nearby explosion I recoiled after the fact, cringing as I brought my arms up to shield myself from the blast that had already hit me. I shut my eyes and staggered away, I felt a sharp pain in my left cheekbone and something warm and wet was sliding down my face.

“Holy shit are you ok?!” I heard Daisy shout from behind me, her hoofsteps rapidly approaching.

I opened my eyes and pulled my hands from my face, I was bleeding, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I could see the piece of stone sticking out of my cheekbone in my lower peripheral vision. I gave it an experimental tap with a finger and felt a vibration accompanied with a fresh wave of pain travel through my skull. It had definitely fractured something, I could taste blood. I could feel the edge of the rock cutting into my gums.

I felt Daisy pull my shoulder and I turned with her efforts. “Dammit Alex answer m-” She stopped and gasped when she saw my face and the shrapnel sticking out of it.

“Are my teeth ok?” I asked as I opened my mouth. Talking hurt, opening my mouth hurt a lot, I could feel the rock slicing my skin a bit as it stretched across my face.

She definitely didn’t expect that question from me. “Ah… Alex your teeth are fine!” She said with an exasperated sigh. “A rock just blew up! Shouldn’t you be taking this more seriously?!”

“Making sure my teeth are still going to work is serious!” I protested. “Last thing I need is one of them falling out whi-” I was cut off by a sound that made my blood run cold.

It was the sound of Clay drowning in his own blood.

A large shard of the rock was jutting from his throat, blood wept from the wound and was foaming out of his mouth as his efforts to breathe mixed air into it. His legs pushed weakly against the ground as his trembling hands gripped at the blood-slicked rock.

“Clay don’t!” I shouted as I ran over to him. I dove to the ground to try to stop him, but he finally managed to get a grip on the offending object and he yanked it from his throat. The rock was the only thing stopping him from bleeding out on the spot.

Blood spurted from the hole in his neck with each beat of his heart. I grabbed his neck and pressed, trying to stop the bleeding. His eyes were watering up as bubbles of blood blew from his mouth and nose. The gurgles grew weaker by the second along with his struggling.

Moments later he wasn’t moving, his eyes staring blankly at the sky. I slowly released him, my hands and arms were covered in his blood.

The sand was stained red, soft, wet, and soaked with blood. It was so wet with the substance it had nearly turned to quicksand. Ginger Ember Rustwing stared up at me from the pool of bloody sand, half-buried in the murky sludge along with several other ponies. Their bodies had been mangled by the ambush. Ginger reached up weakly, one of her arms was missing just above the elbow, gashes covered her body and several arrows had penetrated what armor hadn’t been peeled off by the Enforcer’s blade.

“Alex,” she barely managed a whisper. Her voice soft and weak.

I stooped and extracted her from the mess, my own hooves sinking deeper into the wet, bloody sand. It took more effort than I thought it would to lift her from the sand, it had started to envelop her body and was conforming to it. The strain of pulling her out of the suction caused her to cry out weakly as the opposing forces pulled on her wounds.

The bloody sand was everywhere. A dark, stinky mess. It coated my arms and the front of my body, my stomach was doing backflips and I would have thrown up had it not been for the emptiness of my stomach.

“Alex.”

We didn’t make it far before I had to set her down, the pain of being carried was nearly too much for her to bear. Her essence had coated my entire front during the trip away from the ambush zone. She was getting cold and was visibly weakening. She grimaced and looked up at me, she wouldn’t make it back to our forward position. All I could see in her eyes was pain, she was begging me without speaking... She wanted it to end.

“Go to the stars, rest your weary mind and body, go from conflict, and find peace…” Her eyes closed at my words and let out a shuddering final breath. I slowly raised my hands, they were covered in dark, coagulated blood and sand.

“Alex!”

I felt Daisy tugging on my shoulder. My hands and arms were covered in a much brighter blood now, the sand was gone.

I inhaled sharply and turned to face Daisy, taking a step back from her.

“Are you ok? You just kind of checked out just now,” she said with a concerned look.

I nodded before looking back at Clay. I still couldn’t believe what had just happened. Blood was forming a deep pool around his body and running into the fire pit where it sizzled loudly.

“Did you see his face right before it happened?” I asked, looking back at Daisy. “He looked like he saw his own killer coming right before that rock exploded,” I finished.

“I didn’t see much from behind you, are you sure you’re ok? There’s kind of a piece of rock still stuck in your face,” she said with a cringe.

“I’m aware of it, but it’s lower on the priority list right now,” I murmured as I ignored the pain and followed Clay’s gaze. He had been looking at the treeline when his eyes widened. I spotted a black rock about the size of a head, it was perfectly round and smooth and had imperfect zig-zag purple streaks across it that resembled those on a watermelon.

I felt an unnatural chill run down my spine as I looked at it, it was the same way I felt when I was holding the rock of Tartarus. I felt that basic instinct telling me to run away, like I was being eyed by some kind of predator.

“Daisy we need to take care of Clay’s body,” I said suddenly as I started grabbing the chopped up blocks of wood and laying them around Clay. “If we bury him there’s a chance he’ll get dug up and eaten, let’s just burn him and get out of here.”

“Yeah,” she responded absently.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see her standing perfectly still, staring at the rock.

“Daisy, go get Bryon and pack all your stuff up. We’re getting out of here as soon as we can!” I called to the stunned Deer.

She was still for another moment then shook off whatever hold the stone had over her and ran off toward the river.

I dealt with Clay’s body as quickly as I could before cleaning the blood off my arms and face. I pulled a gauze pad out of my pack and yanked the shard out of my face, quickly pressing the gauze to the open wound.

“Rrrrghfuck!” I grumbled and fastened the gauze to my head with a strip of cloth and began gathering everyone’s gear. I distributed Clay’s pack as evenly as I could amongst our own and loaded myself down with the extra.

“Ounces equal pounds,” I muttered to myself as I stuffed my pack as tightly as i could. “Pounds equal pain,” I finished as I cinched the straps down as tightly as I could, making the pack smooth. Neat, tidy, orderly. At least something was… I noticed the straps were different lengths and gave the shorter one a tug to even them out. It snapped just short of the fastening clip, now it would never be able to hold more than what was packed into it.

“Can’t we just catch an honest break?!” I yelled as I threw the useless strap in frustration and took a few steps away from the pack. I wanted to kick the damned thing but I figured that would cause something else to break with the way our luck had been running lately.

“Something else happen?” I heard Bryon ask as he and Daisy approached. “Daisy told me everything that happened, are you alright Alex?”

“Just broke a strap is all, I’m fine,” I said as I knelt and retrieved the strip of tightly woven material. It was long enough to be used to fasten a splint or bandage so there was some sense in keeping it for now.

“I heard you sort of… Had a moment there,” he said with a noticeable amount of uncertainty in his voice. “Are you sure you’re ok?” He asked as he picked his pack up.

“Your concern is noted Bryon, but I’m fine. Now lets get moving, we need to catch up with Patches,” I said as Daisy put her pack on as well. I could hear Bryon sigh a little at my dismissal of his concern but decided to ignore it.

“You saw that tree fall didn’t you Alex? It was right where we heard Patches’ ri-” Daisy started.

“No, I refuse to believe a falling tree killed Patches. Of all the ways to go there is no way he’d let a damn tree do him in,” I asserted as I started along the trail Patches had blazed for us. “Now come on! We have a lot of lost ground to cover!”

/ / / / / / / / / / / /

It took nearly two hours to make it to the felled tree’s position, it was late afternoon by then. At first all we could see was the trunk of the large tree that had toppled over the trail Patches was making. The trunk was nearly as wide as I was tall. Looking to the left I could see the massive root system that had torn the earth up with it, forming a large natural wall. When I looked right I could see part of the trunk, the rest of the tree was obscured by the rest of the brush and smaller trees it had crashed through on the way down.

I gave the log an experimental tap, then a push. It didn’t budge one bit. Good, stable. I jumped up onto the log and looked down the length of the trunk toward the canopy of the tree. I could see a considerable bloodstain on the left side of the trunk. The side we couldn’t have seen before crossing.

“Oh fuck…” A wave of panic washed over my mind as I leapt down and ran over toward the massive bloodstain. The closer I got the more I could make out of the scene, there were entrails and feathers scattered around the area of impact. “Nonononono! PATCHES!”

“WHAT?!”

I immediately froze, then turned away from the bloodstain. Patches’ face was poking out of a bush, he looked like he had just woken up.

I looked back at the stain on the trunk and the mess around it, then back at Patches.

“But… Uh… What?!” I pointed at the stain while looking at Patches. “If that’s not you then what the fuck is it?!”

“Vamp was following me, I shot it in the leg, tree tagged in for the pin,” he said with a little smile. “I WAS enjoying a little nap before you so rudely ran over and woke me up,” he added with a little pout.

“The red feathers?” I asked, pointing at them for emphasis, they were enormous feathers so they had to be his.

“I was preening afterwards?” Patches said with a shrug. “What do you want from me, a freaking play-by-play? Why are you here anyways? I thought you were in the whole camp out and appease the rock party,” he added.

Daisy and Bryon had caught up with me and we brought Patches up to speed with the situation back at the camp.

“Shit, Clay was an annoying guy but he didn’t deserve to go like that. Also pretty creepy to consider that cursed rock thing wasn't a load of crap,” Patches said with a sigh as he rose from the bushes he had been sleeping in. “We gonna keep going till sunset?” He asked, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb in the direction we had been traveling.

“That’s the plan,” I responded as I set off through the forest. The trio followed close behind.

“You’re not gonna fall apart on us are you? I might have some glue but I’m no miracle worker. I mean, you’re gonna be ugly regardless,” Patches teased as he gestured at the bandage on my face. “It kinda reminds me of this guy I met awhile back, it was the other side of his face that got fucked up though, and he always wore this blue face paint so you pretty much couldn’t tell his face was falling apart,” he added.

“I appreciate your strange brand of concern. I’ll be fine until we can find someone in town to stitch it back together properly,” I responded.

“Uh, I can stitch it back together properly,” Patches said with a little wave. “How deep does that cut go?” He asked, leaning down.

“Almost fucked my teeth up, the piece of rock cut into my cheekbone,” I explained. “Feels like shit.”

“Well it’s gonna get worse, but I can at least get some work done. Put your face back together, keep it from getting infected,” he said as he set his pack down, intent on stopping us long enough to treat me.

“Since when did you become a medic?” I asked.

“Since I started living alone in a remote area and needed to know how to treat various injuries. Not like I lived close to a hospital out in the forest ya know? I had a lot of time to read up on a lot of topics and get some practice done,” he said with a smirk and an arched eyebrow.

One medical treatment later…

The overall completeness of Patches’ medkit caught me by surprise, he was prepared to treat just about any kind of injury. After seeing his hideout though, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by his preparedness.

Patches actually did a decent job of stitching the skin back together and applied a topical painkiller on the gash in my gums. Those stitches fucking sucked. He gave me some of the more mild painkillers we had, I didn’t want them but he told me he wanted me to be able to sleep and the pain in my mouth would keep me up if I didn’t use them.

He was right. When we finally stopped and made camp that night I couldn’t get comfortable enough to fall asleep. Patches noticed and scolded me for not using the painkillers and told me he’d force them down if he had to.

I must say painkillers make damn good sleep aids.

Author's Note

Well, I got it out. I haven't been sleeping much lately because I've been busy and having a tough time managing my time. But I got this chapter done! Hope you all enjoy!

Oh yeah, that's right. The sex is between chapters. Well, maybe next time.

-Jake