Crystal friendship

It´s been hours, since two unicorns escaped from Ponyville, but for them it could´ve been minutes or even days. Through the leafes wasn´t sun visible so they had no meaning of knowing, how long they were already walking.

They had a map, but it didn´t help much, because the forest was pictured as a three green areas, without any roads.

“At least it is nice in here.” broke the silence Snaky, as always trying to entertain himself. So far he spended most of time daydreaming, but it started to bore him, some time ago. Deeter wished he had the same problem as him. His mind was filled with worries, not only about Crystal Empire but now about citizens of Ponyville too.

With this problem Snaky prooved himself to be completly useless to help with. Vice-captain remebered his words, not long after they began their adventure in the forest.

* * * * * *

“Aren´t you worried about ponies at all?” asked him angrily, when he saw his friend, beeing completly amused by snake, resting on grass.

“Worried? No, I am not.”

“How can you say that?” Deeter had to admit, that he was kinda jaelous on grey unicorn, how he always found something, which made him smile.

“I simply don´t care.”

White pony widely opened eyes with suprise and immidietly wanted to say something, but Snaky stopped him by putting his hoof to lips.

“Let´s take you as an example. Why do you want to protect Crystal Empire?”

“It´s my duty.” answered him without hesitating. This question was something, what he asked himself a lot.

“Exactly. Now why do you want to protect Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor? You can´t say that it´s your duty, because if you had to choose, you would most likely choosed to save Cadence, rather then a random crystal pony right?”

Deeter opened mouth to protest, but was stopped again.

“You don´t have to answer. For Princess Cadence you feel love of some kind. Like when subjects loves their king. That is is how it is. Now, for the interesting part. What reason do I have for trying to save Crystal Empire?”

“I guess...you don´t want to see Equestria being rulled by Queen Chrysalis.”

“Exactly!”

Snaky happily laught and put his hoof on Deeter´s shoulder and stared him into eyes.

“We are both different in some ways. If we will save Princess Cadence the she will try defeat Queen Chrysalis. Now if we won´t save her, then guess who will fight?”

“Nopony?”

“Wrong. We will have to. Now, I am not saying that we would actually defeat her, but we would have to try. Do you understand, what am I trying to say?”

“Convenience. You want to save Princess Cadence so you didn´t had to fight Chrysalis.”

“Yes! Now, don´t blame me for this, I simply don´t have bounds with her like you do.”

“But this mean that you DO care. And what about other ponies what we are trying to save right now?”

Now he cought Snaky off guard, which made him realize what he actually said at the beginning.

“Heh. A little, I guess. It´s nothing big really. About other ponies, there is few who I really want to save. Others...” Snaky took deep breath and kinda backed up from Deeter. “If they will die, while we are in this forest, then it´s not our fault. Therefore it´s not our buisness. Actually, it would be good, because we would gain time.”

Now he had to spoke.

“What the heck do you mean by this? Are you saying, that as far as the death of ponies isn´t your fault, then you don´t care about it? How can you say that?!”

“Should I care about every pony in the Equestria? I don´t have a reason. You asked me, how can I be so calm. It´s because if I will not, then I would risk life of those who I actually care about!”

“But caring about others is something what everypony should do!”

“Damn it! Since you are failing to understand, let me tell you this straight. If we will go through this freaking forest lost in thoughts about citizens of Ponyville, we will just propably end up in a lair of changelings, without noticing. And then everypony will die, your beloved Princess too, so listen to me friend : Crystal Empire is safe and that is all you should care about, if you want to save other ponies, then we have to be fast and not screw around.”

“It was you who was watching snakes.”

“Because I didn´t know that you are such savior. You want to save everypony? Fine, let´s go.”

* * * * * *

When Deeter thinked about it, he had right, but for some reason, he couldn´t shake off suspicion, that Snaky is hiding from him something. At the end of their conversation he wasn´t just angry – there was pain in his voice too.

Who are the ponies, that he – accordíng to his words – does care about?

What happened, that he lost care about foreing ponies. So much, that he would be willing to let them die, just so his plans worked better? No matter, how good did he mean it, it still was way too coldhearted for Deeter.

Vice-captain shortly looked at him and noticed that he was daydreaming once again. What could it be, that he has to think about it so often.

“Snaky?” spoke carefuly, he was fully determited to ask him about it, but didn´t want to ruin it.

“What?”

“What are you daydreaming about? Like...you do it all the time. In the train, in the forest...”

Quiet laugh.

“Maybe I will tell you about it later, but now we have bigger things to worry about.”

“What things?”

“We reached the swamp, that devides Everfree forest into three parts. And the worst of all, the sky isn´t covered by trees here and there might be changelings patroling.”

It was true, throught the woods shined the sun and both ponies could see dozens of small lakes, all over the swamp. Also few quite big ones.

“How are we going to cross it?” asked Snaky, with worries. Deeter was happy that he, at least sometimes, doesn´t see everything with rose glasses.

“I have an idea, but you will not like it.”

“Oh my Celestia. Last time it was running though group of changelings with weapons. What is it going to be this time?”

Vice-captain leaned to him and whispered his plan. They were talking just normaly so far, but he wanted to be sure, that if there is an anemy listening to them, then he will not know what are they planning.

“You are crazy, crazy, crazy!” told him illusionist, after white pony finished telling the plan.

“Are you into it?”

“Like if I had a choice, but I will not forget it.”

“I am sure you will not.”

Deeter focused and his horn began to glow with magic, then he touched with it the ground and that coused it to shake a little.

“That´s not enough.” spoke Snaky behind him, while he was looking for enemies in the sky. White unicorn tryied harder and next wave of this small earthquake was so strong, that two ponies had to crouch down, for safety and Deeter stopped with his spell.

Few seconds was quiet, but then horrifying scream broke the peace in the forest. From the biggest lake of all in the swamp came giant hydra, seemingly very mad for being awoken. It angrily looked around, until it´s eyes stopped on two ponies and it immediately set of in their direction with very obvious intention.

“Just before we die, thank you for choosing such nice way to do so.” Said Snaky with wide grin on his face, before the hydra grabbed them and two of her heads swallowed both ponies like strawberries.