Marks of History
Chapter 1
Into Everfree
“You sure about this?” Thunder Blitz asked, eyes flitting between the massive trees surrounding him as he ruffled his dark grey feathers.
Rising Dawn rolled her sapphire eyes, lit her horn a gentle shade of pink, the same as her coat, and pushed a particularly thick bush out of her way. “You heard what the dragon said.”
“That dragon sounded more crazy than wise,” Blitz muttered, his spiky blue mane getting tangled in a low hanging branch and halting his progress into the dense foliage. With a strangled grunt he pulled himself free, staggering forward. He made it two more steps before his hoof caught on a rock and he was sent tumbling forward, taking Dawn with him to the jungle floor.
“Watch it, Thunder Dunce,” Dawn grumbled, smoothing her yellow mane back into its natural, flat position.
Blitz grumbled incoherently as he pulled himself back up, helping Dawn to her hooves a moment later. When they were both standing Dawn quickly resumed her trek deeper into the jungle. “What are we even looking for in this place?” He asked, following the unicorn.
Sighing exasperatedly, Rising Dawn replied, “I told you this when we left to find that dragon! We're going in there and proving once and for all the ruins exist!”
“Riiiight...” Blitz groaned.“So why do we care if they exist or not?”
Before answering, Dawn stopped her walking and turned on her companion, glaring sharply at him and pointing to her flank. “You see this? This right here?”
Blitz, rather wisely, didn't say any one of the rather perverted jokes that came to mind, instead he said, “What about it?”
“Exactly! To you, or to anypony else, there's nothing missing from this picture! That's precisely what's wrong with society today; nopony cares about cutie marks. Some ponies don't even know what a cutie mark is!” Dawn shouted angrily, motioning to her blank, strawberry coloured flank for a moment longer before whipping back around. “According to the dragon this old civilization had a society built around cutie marks. I need to know more.”
“Dawn, nopony's even seen a cutie mark. The only reason we think they're real at all is because of the dragon spouting his nonsense to impressionable foals like you,” Thunder argued, narrowly ducking under another branch. “It's just some old mare's tale; it's not worth coming all the way into Everfree for. Think about it; this jungle covers half the continent! Even if the rumours of the old civilization are true, there's no way we can find the right spot.”
“Then how do you explain everything the dragon knows? He can accurately describe practically every event in our history books, and even some things that aren't in them!” Dawn countered.
“He knows the history books because he was there; you know dragons live pretty much forever, and everything that's not in our books he made up because he's crazy!”
Dawn didn't answer. Instead, she stopped her trek and looked up at what little of the sky she could see through the dense canopy of bright green leaves. “Look, if you turn back now you'll be out of the jungle by nightfall. If you don't believe in any of this, then go home; I'm going to find the ruins and figure these things out.” With that the unicorn mare started walking again, leaving Blitz behind as the pegasus contemplated going back. Back to his nice, safe cloud apartment. His soft cloud bed. His normal, everyday life. He gazed longingly in the direction he knew he should be going.
Then he turned, watching as Dawn's strawberry coat was slowly engulfed by the all-consuming green foliage surrounding them.
“Aw hayseed,” he muttered before sprinting to catch up, falling into pace behind Dawn, who raised an eyebrow at him. “You know the kinds of things that live in this place; I can't just leave you alone in here.”
The unicorn wore a smug smirk. “Just couldn't stay away, huh?”
“Shut up,” Blitz muttered, lowering his gaze, “or I will go back to my comfortable life in the city.”
“Aw c'mon,” Dawn prompted with an eager smile. “Just admit it; you're as interested in this as I am.”
“Not enough to skip out on working showers...” Blitz grumbled.
-_-_-_-
“Seriously?” Thunder Blitz asked, looking sceptically at the cave mouth before him.
“Yes, seriously!” came the echoing reply from the darkened depths of the cave. “Get in here! You know how dangerous the nocturnal predators are in this jungle!”
“But a cave!? Couldn't there be one of those predators sleeping in there right now?” He asked, glancing around at the darkening trees. The jungle, while dense, was normally fairly bright during the day, but as soon as the sun started setting the jungle went from bright to pitch black. Through the canopy the barest hint of the evening sky could be seen, purples and reds mixing with the blue of day and the black of night.
Rising Dawn appeared back at the cave mouth with a victorious grin. “Nope; I just checked! Now get in here so I can put up the barrier,” she insisted, her horn glowing a light pink as she prepared her spell.
“If you say so,” Blitz muttered before tentatively approaching and entering the cave. As soon as he was clear of the entrance Dawn's shimmering horn brightened before flashing a blinding white. When his eyes cleared he could see the result of the spell; a translucent purple sheet covered the mouth of the cave, separating it from the outside world.
Taking a step back Dawn gave an approving nod to her work. “That should hold until morning as long as nothing too big tries forcing its way in. Come on; it'll be best if we're deeper in the cave where we can't be seen.”
“You know, I woke up this morning in a nice, soft cloud bed,” Blitz grumbled as he followed the strawberry unicorn into the inky blackness. He glanced around himself nervously to no avail; the darkness was much too thick to see anything except the glimmer of light behind him from the entrance. The cave was cooler than the jungle had been, making the hairs on the back of Blitz's neck stand on end. Suddenly, he caught sight of something moving in the corner of his eye, making him stop abruptly and focus in on where he'd seen it.
Swallowing down the anxious lump in his throat, he glared intensely into the darkness, struggling to make out what it was he'd seen move. He quickly realized he couldn't see a thing. “Hey, it'd be nice to see ya know!” He called over his shoulder, not taking his eyes away from the patch of black that had moved.
A small orb of pink light appeared at the tip of Dawn's horn, illuminating a small portion of cave around them. Blitz was staring at nothing but a blank, grey stone wall. “Blitz?” Dawn asked curiously, tilting her head to the side.
“I like being able to see,” he muttered, slowly turning away from the featureless wall and resuming his descent into the cave along side his companion.
Dawn glanced briefly at the wall he'd been so focused on before shrugging the incident away and continuing deeper into the cavern. “Jeez you're whiny. Aren't pegasi supposed to have enhanced eyesight or something?”
“Enhanced, not perfect! I can't see if it's pitch black!” Blitz shouted in frustration, his aggravated voice echoing around the empty cave as they rounded corner after corner, the tunnel beginning to twist back and forth as it burrowed deeper into the earth.
“Shush! I don't know how stable these walls are and we do not need to cause a cave-in,” Dawn reprimanded quietly as they came to a stop in a slightly wider part of the cave. The entrance was nowhere to be seen, and another tunnel lead deeper into the earth at a steep angle. “We can set up for the night here.”
“Whatever you say,” Blitz muttered, reaching back and taking his saddlebags off, setting them on the floor before popping the latch with his hoof. He extracted a small, hollow glass orb, rolling it across the rocky ground to Dawn. “Here, let's get some light in this place.”
Dawn nodded, levitating the glass sphere up and setting it against the tip of her horn. Slowly, her strawberry coloured magic began flowing into the ball, filling it with a pink mass of swirling cloud-like magic. When it was full she set it gently on the ground, surrounding it with a few rocks so it wouldn't fall away. With a tap of her hoof, the magic activated, and the pink mist collapsed in on itself, condensing tighter and tighter until exploding a fiery orange, bathing the room in light from the miniature sun.
With the new source of light the cave became visible, revealing what the shadows had hidden. They were in a circular part of the cave, roughly two ponies in diameter and three ponies tall. The walls, floor, and roof of the cave were all surprisingly smooth, indicating that an underground river had once run through it. There were two tunnels; the wide one lead to the surface, the other, narrower one lead deeper into the earth at an angle too steep to be worth climbing.
Blitz reached into his saddlebags once more, extracting a tightly rolled dark blue sleeping bag. He glanced around for a moment, looking for the softest-looking patch of rock. “I did say I woke up on a cloud bed, right?”
Dawn groaned quietly, having already laid out her sleeping bag on a small patch of dirt. “You agreed to come out here with me, so stop whining already.”
Without a feasible comeback Blitz said nothing, instead opting to grumble to himself while begrudgingly laying out his own sleeping bag on a smooth portion of the rocky floor. “You did at least bring food and water, right?”
“Of course I did, I'm not stupid. Here,” Dawn said, tossing a small plastic bowl over to her companion, filled with what he assumed to be an instant meal of some description.
“I don't want to know what this is, do I?” Blitz asked fearfully, poking the edge of the bowl with his hoof and watching the semi-solid matter jiggle lightly.
Dawn shrugged her shoulders. “The label said it was mashed potatoes.”
“Looks more like half frozen porridge...” Blitz stuck his tongue out in the direction of the meal, sliding it away from him.
“If you don't like it then don't eat it .” Dawn shrugged, levitating a spoonful of the sludge to her mouth. Her face contorted as soon as it hit her tongue and a strangled noise escaped her tightly closed lips. Blitz smirked.
“Don't like it don't eat it, Dawn.”
Swallowing thickly in an attempt to get the food out of her mouth, Dawn shot back, “Har har. It's not supposed to taste good; it's supposed to give us energy, something we need.”
“The least they could do is make it taste good,” Blitz muttered, pulling his bowl back apprehensively and glaring at the “food” held inside. He licked it hesitantly, pulling his head back and smacking his lips thoughtfully. “Oh, that's not too bad!”
“You're kidding, right? You are by far the pickiest eater I have ever met, and you like this... slop?” Dawn asked incredulously.
Blitz shrugged. “I don't control what I like and don't like. It's not the best, but I've had worse.”
“What could be worse than this?” Dawn asked with a doubtful expression.
Blitz tapped a hoof to his chin for a moment. “Asparagus, broccoli, grapefruit... any thing you cook,” he added with a devious smirk.
“Are you ever going to let that go? So I made one meal the tiniest bit radioactive, what's the big deal?” Dawn asked, throwing her hooves in the air for emphasis.
“It was toast,” Blitz deadpanned.
“At least I'm not the freak who likes this stuff,” Dawn muttered in response, cringing as she pulled another spoonful of the “food” out of the bowl. Blitz smile smugly, munching happily on his own meal and allowing a comfortable silence to descend upon the cave, broken only by Dawn's occasional gagging. It kept up this way until a sudden crash rung through the cave, as though a bull had run head-long into a sheet of metal.
Thunder Blitz let out a surprised yelp, dropping his near-empty bowl to the floor and glancing around. “D-Dawn? What.. what was that?”
The unicorn had also dropped her still mostly-full bowl, though it was not a tragic loss in her mind. She looked towards the entrance of the cave. “Something wants in...” she whispered ominously, rising to her hooves and taking a few steps towards the tunnel leading to the exit.
“Hey... hey!” Blitz whispered hoarsely. “You can't go out there! Who knows what it was.”
“Relax, I'm just going to make sure the barrier held,” Dawn explained, waving a hoof dismissively as she continued in the direction the noise had come from.
“Dawn!” Blitz called again as he saw the last traces of her blond tail disappear into the darkness of the tunnel. “Oh for-” He stood and trotted hurriedly into the darkness after his unicorn friend. He quickly realized his mistake; without the light from Dawn's magic orb or the sun from outside, the tunnel became pitch black as soon as he turned the corner from their camp.
“Dawn!?” He called quietly, spreading his wings to ensure he didn't walk into either side of the tunnel and kicking his legs out to hopefully stop himself from walking into anything.”Daw- mmph.” Blitz found a hoof shoved in his mouth.
“Shush!” Dawn stressed, slowly removing her hoof from the pegasus's mouth. “Look,” she said.
“At what? It's pitch black!” Blitz argued, though he kept his voice down.
“Ugh... here, gimme your wing.”
Blitz raised an eyebrow at the darkness in front of him where he assumed Dawn to be. Bending his wing forward, he started waving it in the air gently to see if he could feel where she was. He held in a surprised yelp as two hooves clamped down on it, guiding it over something soft.
“Now, follow,” Dawn repeated as Blitz felt the thing his wing was wrapped around pull forward. A moment later he figured out what had happened and followed, his wing draped over Dawn's back as she lead him through the darkness.
They rounded another corner and came to a gentle, shimmering pink light. “Well at least the barrier held,” Blitz muttered, though he was quickly shushed.
The light given off of the barrier spell was enough so that Blitz could just barely make out the outline of the pony under his wing. “Look,” she stressed, motioning with a hoof towards the world outside the magic wall.
After giving a quizzical glance to Dawn, Blitz obeyed and turned to the barrier, straining his eyes as best he could to look out into the darkness. He couldn't see anything; the light of the moon wasn't strong enough to pierce the thick canopy of leaves and the shield's light was less than that of a single firefly. Blitz opened his mouth to voice his answer when, suddenly, a flash of movement caught his eye and he snapped his jaw shut, focusing harder. He could just barely make out something that looked vaguely like a large wolf, a head taller than he was. Only, something was off about the shape...
“Timber wolves?” He asked quietly, marvelling at the distinctly wooden shape of the wolf, small twigs jutting off the misshapen body and random bunches of branches spread across the surface.
He felt Dawn nod excitedly. “Yeah, I saw two others roaming around.”
“But... they went extinct thousands of years ago! How...” Blitz trailed off in aw as the wooden creature walked right up to the barrier, bathing its brown logs in a pink light. Completely made of wood with two green, glowing eyes and sharp wooden teeth, it looked every bit the hunter they were supposed to be before they died out.
“Oh... I wish I had my camera...” Dawn whined quietly. “Or at least some paper to take notes. The professors at the college are not going to believe this.”
Blitz was about to reply when a low, guttural growl sounded from the wooden beast staring intently into the cave. He swallowed nervously. “Dawn... can it hear us?”
The pink unicorn looked over curiously. “It shouldn't be able to: The spell has a sound dampening enchantment woven in. It's not perfect, but as long as we're quiet-” she was suddenly cut off as the timber wolf barked angrily, taking another step towards the field of magic. Rising Dawn's eyes grew wide. “The barrier isn't air tight...”
“W-what? What does that mean?” Blitz whispered anxiously, taking a step back while still keeping his wing around the unicorn's back.
“It means...” Dawn trailed off as the two other wolves she'd seen earlier came up on either side of the one in front of the barrier. “They can smell us...”
“Dawn...” Blitz took another step back. The lead timber wolf, slightly larger than the other two, reared up on its hind legs, placing its front paws against the barrier. Loosing another throaty growl, the beast opened its maw as wide as it could and tried to bite the magical shield.
“It'll hold...” Dawn whispered, legs locked with fear as she stared wide-eyed at the wolves. “It has to hold...”
The other two timber wolves reared up and brought their full weight crashing down on the barrier at the same time. A sickening thud echoed through the cave. Blitz's eyes widened; a small crack had appeared beneath one of the beast's mighty wooden paws.
“Dawn,” he whispered more urgently as he pulled on her with a wing.
“I... I can fix it,” she muttered, taking a cautious step forward and lighting her horn to fix the shield. As soon as she did her face became illuminated with a strawberry glow, and all at once the timber wolves turned their attention to her. A tense moment of silence passed, then all hell broke loose. The timber wolves, having seen their pray, redoubled their efforts with a vigour seen only in the most vicious of predators. Loud barks and growls could be heard escaping their wooden jaws as they pounded relentlessly on the shield, the small crack rapidly growing until the entire barrier was criss-crossed with a spiderweb of fractures.
With a tremendous crash, the magic wall shattered and fell to the ground like broken shards of glass before dissipating into pink smoke. Without the light of the shield, the cave was bathed in an impenetrable darkness so thick the two ponies could not see the hooves in front of them, let alone each other or the three wolves.
“Run!” Blitz shouted, using his wing to forcefully pull a frozen Dawn back and throwing her behind him. He heard her fall to the ground and tumble a few feet away. Spreading his wings he took an aggressive stance towards the cave entrance.
The pain from crashing into the floor snapped Dawn out of her daze. “Blitz!” She shrieked, glancing around the darkness in a futile effort to catch a gimps of something. She heard another growl from the one of the wolves, a sense of dread filling her gut. She charged her horn to-
“Don't you dare use magic!” She heard Blitz order roughly, somewhere in front of her. “If you do they'll see it and go for you. They may have good vision but they still need some light to see; they're as blind as us right now.”
“Blitz! What are you planning?” Dawn shouted, her voice echoing around the barren walls of the cave. She squinted into the darkness, hopelessly searching for some sign of movement. The muffled thuds of wooden paws on stone started walking towards her.
“They can still hear me. All I need to do is lead them out of the cave then I can fly and lure them away. So stay quiet!” His voice sounded as though it was coming from everywhere at once. The wooden creature halted its progress at the sound, leaving the cave in pitch black silence for a few seconds.
“But then-”
“Shush!” Blitz snapped angrily. “You got us in this mess, I'm getting us out. As soon as you hear the last one leave the cave you put up the barrier. I'll come back when I've lost them, so wait here for me.”
Rising Dawn swallowed thickly. She could once again hear the muffled thud of wood striking stone from somewhere in front of her, followed shortly by a bestial growl. Before she could argue she heard the sharp clicking of hooves, the sound seeming to get farther and farther away from her.
“Come on!” Blitz shouted in the darkness. “I'm right here!”
An angry bark came from one of the wolves as she heard it charge after the pegasus. Dawn took a tentative step forward, preparing to light her horn and seal the entrance as she was instructed, when a pair of growls came from right in front of her. She sucked in a breath.
Only one wolf had followed Blitz out of the cave; there were two left with her.
“Hey! You really gonna let your dinner get away?” She heard Blitz taunt, his voice quite a distance up ahead.
A large wind was blown over Dawn's body, smelling of rotten wood. It was followed by the low growl of a timber wolf not a foot away from her. Pinching her eyes shut tightly, she took a hesitant step back. “Please... go away...” she thought desperately, holding her breath and keeping as still as possible. She could practically feel the presence of the massive wolf in front of her.
Another gust of wind was pushed past the unicorn, this time in the opposite direction as the wolf breathed in deeply, sniffing the air. Then it breathed out, sending the stench of decaying trees with it once again.
“Where are you?” Blitz called, his voice making the timber wolf in front of Dawn pause.
A bark sounded suddenly from a wolf farther away, about where she estimated Blitz to be, and she heard the one in front of her suddenly turn and run toward the mouth of the cave, followed shortly by the other one that was still nearby.
“Let's go!” Blitz cried, his voice no longer echoing as he exited the cave. Dawn heard the vague sound of flapping wings before she was left with nothing but silence.
Expelling the breath she forgot she'd been holding, the unicorn lit her horn and examined her surroundings. The cave was exactly as it had been when they'd entered. The wolves were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Thunder Blitz.
She rushed quickly to the mouth of the cave, brightening her horn as much as she could and peering into the dark jungle. Somewhere far off in the trees she heard the rustling of bushes and the distant barks of timber wolves, but otherwise the area around her was silent.
“He'll be alright,” Dawn said to herself as she took a step back into the cave, preparing the barrier spell. She felt herself shaking as the dull pink barrier blocked her off from the outside world once more. “He has to be alright...”
She walked a little way back into the cave so she was no longer in the glow of her magic wall and sat back on her haunches facing the entrance. He'd be back any minute now.
Any minute.
Author's Note
And so begins the biggest project I have ever undertaken. Estimated to be over 100 thousand words in length and with a plot for complex than anything I've ever even attempted before.
This, is Marks of History. A temporary name recommended by my wonderful editor SS808, it has since become the project's actual title, and will stay that way until I think of a better one.
As a side note, the tags might change at some point in the future, as I haven't hammered totally decided on some plot points and some are still in flux. At most, I'll be adding a sad tag and maybe a character tag.
Comments are always appreciated and encouraged.
I hope you enjoy.
Marks of History
Chapter 2
The Crystal Ruins
Rising Dawn stared intently into the dark of night lingering just outside the mouth of her cave. From the light of her shield she could just barely make out the trees closest to the entrance, stoic and unmoving in the calm air. She was shrouded in an atmosphere of anticipation and fear as the night wore on longer and longer with still no sign of Thunder Blitz returning.
Her mind taunted her relentlessly with images of her pegasus friend lying in a pool of his own blood, surrounded by a pack of timberwolves. The sound of his screams rang in her ears along with the howl of the wolves as they tore the flesh from his bones. All the while a voice called from within the images, Thunder Blitz's voice, cursing her, blaming her for his fate. Worst of all, she knew he was right; if anything happened to her, the blame rested solely on her shoulders. The images played out on the black wall of the cave, the sounds and voices echoing around the cavern.
“You did this,” he yelled as he flew into a low-hanging branch in the blinding darkness. Falling to the ground in a heap the three timber wolves surrounded him instantly. The wooden monsters growled angrily, slowly approaching Blitz as he struggled to his hooves.
“It's your fault!” Thunder Blitz called again, jumping into the air and flapping his wings to get away. However, before he could get any height on his pursuers, one of the wolves jumped up, catching his tail in its mouth. Blitz was dragged back down, the wolf slamming him harshly against the earth.
“You did this to me, Rising Dawn!” Blitz's scream rang in Dawn's ears as all three wolves pounced on his prone form at once. His cries turned pained and wordless, echoing around the forest and damning Dawn to her fate.
Shaking herself from her fears Rising Dawn felt tears streaming down her cheeks. With a hoof she wiped them away, turning towards the shimmering pink shield she’d conjured nearly an hour earlier. Any number of things could have happened out in that forest, and that last imagined situation was far from the worst she'd had.
“Get a hold of yourself, Dawn,” she muttered to herself, blinking a few final tears from her eyes. “He'll be fine. Any second now he'll be back, and he'll be just fine.”
She blinked, the darkness seaming to grow darker as she waited.
“Any second,” she repeated, looking eagerly into the bushes she could just barely make out, expecting Thunder Blitz to pop out.
Time passed, and still there was no sign of a deep grey pegasus with a spiky blue mane. Nothing moved in the darkness.
“He has to come back...” Dawn whimpered, tears blurring her vision.
Suddenly – finally – the barest hint of movement rustled a bush deep in the overgrown jungle. The sound was muted by the shielding spell, but the motion was unmistakable; there was something trying to push through the leaves. Rising Dawn's eyes grew wide as the branches were parted and a large figure emerged, shaped vaguely like a pony, with bulges on either side of its torso.
“Dawn?” The figured whispered, sounding muffled through the shield as though heard through a pane of glass. Its voice was easily identifiable.
“Blitz!” Dawn cried happily, bolting up from the floor and rushing towards the mouth of the cave as Thunder Blitz entered the small ring of pinkish light. With a flash of magic the barrier was lowered and the pegasus was forcefully pulled inside before the shield was raised once more. “What took you so long?” she demanded, leading them deeper into the cave and back towards their camp.
Thunder Blitz chuckled nervously. “Well... I had to lose those wolves...”
“That took you over an hour!?” She asked incredulously as the rounded the final corner, entering the circular cavern, still lit brightly from her glowing glass sphere.
“Well... I kind of... got lost...” he admitted sheepishly, cringing away from the incoming barrage of ribbing and laughter.
“Got lost...” Dawn deadpanned, whirling around and facing him.
He laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. “I couldn't find the cave again after I lost them.”
“Oh never mind,” she sighed, shaking the thought from her mind and lunging forward, throwing her hooves around the pegasus before her. “You're back now and you're safe.”
“Really?” Blitz asked dubiously, not quite ready to accept the offered hug. “Not even gonna crack a joke that I got lost? No snarky comment? No snide remark?”
“Keep talking and I might change my mind,” Dawn muttered, squeezing a bit tighter and banishing her imaginings to the farthest depths of her memory. None of that was real; Blitz was fine, and he was right there in her hooves.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Rising Dawn?” Blitz asked with a chuckle, getting a grumble out of the mare.
“Either hug me or you're sleeping outside the cave!” she barked, getting an instant reaction from him as he wrapped his own two hooves around her shoulders.
Smiling somewhat smugly, Blitz asked, “happy?”
“Shut up, Thunder Dunce,” Dawn growled, releasing her iron tight embrace. “Come on; let's get some sleep. It's going to be an early morning tomorrow!”
Blitz groaned, looking towards the sleeping bag and noting that it, unlike a certain bed in his house, was not made of cloud. He also noted the two bowls of cold instant-mashed potatoes left on the floor. Before he could even mention them they were gone in a puff of pink smoke to parts unknown. “Er... do I want to know where you send dirty dishes?”
“I'm not going to waste perfectly good bowls,” Dawn quipped sarcastically. “They're over there. We can clean them when we find some fresh water – hopefully tomorrow,” she explained, motioning to the two bowls stacked against the wall of the cave.
“Right.” Nodding slowly, Blitz trudged over to his sleeping bag, grabbing the zipper in his teeth and opening it before slipping inside. “Wait,” he said suddenly, sitting upright and dragging his bag with him. “What happens if those wolves come back? Can't they still smell us?”
Dawn shuddered imperceptibly at the memory of the timber wolves. “Not this time; I've added another enchantment on top of the shield to block out anything except pure air. We're pretty much undetectable now.”
“Are you sure?” Blitz asked uneasily, throwing a glance down the tunnel towards the shield. “I don't need to wake up surrounded by those things.”
“You could always stay up all night and make sure the shield holds, but I won't be carrying you through the jungle tomorrow while you get the sleep you should have gotten tonight.” Dawn said, rolling over and putting her back towards Thunder Blitz. “Now go to sleep!” With that, she lit her horn briefly and snuffed out the light from the glass orb, bathing the cavern in darkness.
The sound of ruffling material filled the air as Blitz shifted to the most comfortable position he could find on the rocky ground beneath him. “'Night, Dawn,” he muttered as his body settled into a groove in the rock.
“Goodnight, Thunder Dunce,” Rising Dawn replied quietly, staring off into the infinite blackness around her. “I'm glad you're alright,” she added in a hushed whisper.
“What was that?”
“Nothing... Goodnight.”
“Rise and shine!”
Thunder Blitz groaned, rolling away from the noise that was far too cheery.
“C'mon; the sun's gonna be up in twenty minutes, and we still need to eat!” Rising Dawn insisted, jabbing a hoof into the lump huddled deep inside the blue sleeping bag.
“It's not even morning yet!” He barked, swatting a uncommitted hoof at the one prodding his shoulder.
“Oh come on; nopony's ever discovered ancient ruins by sleeping in!” When no response came, Dawn sighed, taking a step back. “Either get up now or I'll bring you outside and drop you in a lake.”
Blitz snorted. “You don't even know where a lake is around here,” he replied sleepily, yawning and curling further into himself.
“I'll find one,” Dawn said flatly.
“I'll take the risk.”
Rising Dawn huffed, rolling her eyes as the pegasus started letting out overly-loud fake snores. “Fine, have it your way,” she deadpanned before lighting her horn. In a pink glow Blitz's sleeping bag was lifted from the floor with the pegasus still inside.
Thunder Blitz yelped in surprise as he was turned upside down. His wings tried to snap open on instinct, only to be caught by the bag still holding him. “Dawn!” He snapped as he slipped out of the end of the bag, falling the short distance to the ground in a grey-feathered pile.
“Oh good, you're awake,” Dawn said sweetly, tossing the bag to the side. “Help me pack up camp; we'll be leaving as soon as the jungle is bright enough.”
Groaning quietly, Blitz rubbed his head tenderly as he regained his orientation after being flipped upside-down. The cave was exactly the same as it had been the previous night, once again well-lit with the aid of Dawn's lighting orb. “How can you be so cruel?” he asked rhetorically, trotting groggily over to where his sleeping bag had been thrown and beginning the surprisingly difficult task of rolling it up.
Dawn smiled at him, magically packing up her own, red sleeping bag and shoving it into one of her saddlebags. “Aw, I wouldn't be me if I wasn't cruel, now would I?”
“Heh, maybe that's what your 'cutie mark' should be,” he noted snidely. “If they even exist.”
“If that's mine then yours would be being a pain in the flank, Thunder Dunce,” she shot back, giving a smug smirk as Blitz struggled to get his sleeping bag small enough to fit into his own pack. “You can't even fold a sleeping bag right.”
“Hey!” He snapped, taking his eyes off his work, currently half-way into his saddlebag. “It's a lot easier with magic! You try doing it with hooves.” He turned back just in time to see the sleeping bag pop free, unravelling completely and lying across the top of his bag.
Dawn gave an over-exaggerated sigh as she went over. “Here, since you're such a pain in the flank,” she quipped, easily compacting the sleeping bag down and fitting it neatly inside the pack. “Now let's get some breakfast before we have to go.”
Grumbling quietly to himself, Blitz strapped his bags closed and dragged them over to where Dawn's strawberry bags were before joining the mare in the center of the cave where a bowl filled with more unidentifiable white slop waited.
“Seriously?” he asked, raising an eyebrow toward the goop. “More mashed potatoes?”
“Scrambled eggs, actually,” Dawn muttered. “Though if the potatoes last night are any indication, these aren't going to taste anything like eggs...”
With a begrudging look, Thunder Blitz sniffed at the bowl. “Well the potatoes weren't so bad; how bad could these be?” he asked, sticking out his tongue and taking a tentative lick. His head shot back up away from the bowl, his face going a greenish-pale. “Bad...” he gagged, much to Rising Dawn's amusement.
“I don't get it,” he cried, throwing the bowl to the ground and watching the “eggs” jiggle. “These are supposed to be magically-dried food, made from the things they're supposed to taste like, right? Add a bit of water, and instant meal! How can they taste so bad?”
“Because most of the flavor is sucked out along with the water,” Dawn answered with a shrug, taking a taste of her own breakfast. Her eyes lit up in surprise. “Oh, that's not so bad.”
Blitz stared at her bemusedly. “Of course you'd think that.”
The rest of breakfast passed in silence, bathed in the light from their false sun. Before long bowls were emptied and stacked with the dishes from the previous night before being sealed in a bag and shoved into Dawn's saddlebags. The last thing to be packed away was the orb holding their miniature sun, the light being snuffed before it was placed in Blitz's bags, padded by his sleeping bag.
“Big day today,” Dawn announced as their cavern was bathed in darkness, lighting her horn and guiding the duo to towards the exit.
Blitz yawned widely, blinking blearily into the dim light provided by his friend's magic. “How are you so chipper? Do you have coffee or something that you're not telling me about?”
“You know I don't drink coffee,” Dawn said as they came to the entrance, the pinkish shield holding strong as the first rays of light began to pierce to jungle. In a flash of magic the barrier dissolved into pink trails of magic before scattering in the gentle breeze rolling through the trees. Light fell in beams through the thick canopy, illuminating a layer of fog resting on the ground of the overgrown jungle, thick enough to hide the forest floor from view.
“You also don't seem to understand that a pony needs a certain amount of sleep to function properly,” the pegasus grumbled, passing through the mouth of the cave and glancing around the surroundings. “Do you even know where we're going?”
Rolling her eyes, Dawn fished around in her saddlebags until she pulled out a small compass on a loop of string. “Home is north of here, and there's a river to the south. The first set of ruins that we know of are about five miles downstream,” she explained, checking the compass briefly before dropping the string around her neck.
“Five miles isn't so ba-”
“The river is about twenty miles that way,” Dawn announced, pointing off into the jungle briefly before marching into the trees. “If we hurry we can get there before it starts getting dark.”
“Twenty five miles!?” Blitz exclaimed, watching as his companion was swallowed by the thick fog, the mist crawling up to just below her flanks.
“Yep. Should only take six to seven hours if we don't stop too often,” she called back. “Of course, you could always turn back and go home; it's a straight shot north to get out of Everfree.”
Blitz groaned, kicking his hoof into the dirt. “I really should just go home,” he told himself. However, he was unable to convince himself, as before long he was racing to catch up with the mare who had disappeared into the trees.
Dawn smiled at him as he fell into step beside her. “See; you can't resist this stuff.”
“Yeah yeah, I'm just here in case you attract any more attention. Do I need to remind you about the timberwolves last night?”
“You're never going to let me forget that, are you?”
Smiling wickedly, Blitz shook his head. “I'll take what I can get. Now we have the radioactive toast incident and the fact that you lead a pack of timberwolves straight to us.”
“Shut up, Thunder Dunce, or do I need to remind you that somepony got lost?”
“Hey, getting lost is totally understandable; it was pitch black out there and I didn't exactly have a compass or a map to go off,” Blitz shot back defensively.
“Actually that's a good point... how did you even find the cave again? This place isn't exactly easy to navigate.”
Blitz shrugged casually. “Good sense of direction and a little luck I guess. Once I lost the wolves I started flying back where I came from, but I kept going in circles. Eventually I just went up above the trees and flew around until I spotted the glow of your shield. It was pretty easy to spot when the rest of the jungle is pitch black.”
“Huh... guess you're not as dumb as you look,” Dawn quipped, continuing before Blitz had the chance to offer a response. “Come on; we're losing daylight and if we don't make it to the ruins today we might not be lucky enough to find another cave like that.”
“Just how much food did you bring anyway?” Thunder Blitz asked breathlessly, stepping over a root as he struggled to keep up with the endlessly energized mare in front of him.
“Enough,” Dawn replied, stopping for only a second to check her compass before resuming her seemingly endless trek into the dense foliage. Bushes and shrubs surrounded them on all sides, with the massive branches of the impossibly old trees hanging just overhead and blocking out the sky from high above. “Unless you eat it all.”
“How can I eat it if you never give me a chance to!?” he exclaimed, frustration mixing with fatigue in his voice. “Excuse me for being a normal pony with normal needs, like food and water.”
Dawn rolled her eyes, clambering through a thick bush and glancing around. The bush had lead to a large, circular clearing. The circumference was lined by tall trees and thick shrubs, but the sun was sitting directly above the gap in the canopy, allowing the clearing to be as bright as an open field. “We can stop here for lunch,” she announced as Blitz stumbled clumsily through the bush after her.
“Thank Libra,” he moaned, taking a few more steps before collapsing onto the soft grass covering the ground.
“Don't be such a baby,” Dawn scolded, taking her saddlebags from her back and setting them down. “It's only noon.”
Blitz groaned, crawling a little further into the warm sunlight streaming through the clearing. “It feels like I've been walking for days. My hooves are killing me.”
Rolling her eyes at the exaggeration, Dawn sighed and rummaged around in her saddlebags for a second before pulling out two bars wrapped in plastic. “Here,” she said, tossing one onto the sprawled out pegasus's back. “Eat this.”
“What is it?” He asked, craning his neck and looking at the suspect object on his back.
“Granola bar.” Dawn answered as she continued digging in her bag. She gave a cry of success as she pulled out two sports bottles, one blue and one pink. “And some water.” The blue bottle was rolled across the ground, coming to a rest next to one of Blitz's hooves. When the pegasus failed to respond, Dawn added, “We have fifteen minutes before we start walking again. We should have less than ten miles to go for the river, and we can stop there to fill up on water and rest.”
Blitz sat up sluggishly, the granola bar sliding from his back into the grass. “I swear you're going to be the death of me one of these days,” he grumbled, blindly searching behind himself with a wing until he found the bar. Pulling it in front of him, he eyed the rather small snack. “This is it?”
“I'm not letting you eat all the food on the second day in this place. I know you, and I've made the mistake of letting you raid my fridge before; it's not happening again, and certainly not out here,” Dawn explained around a mouthful of granola bar.
“Hey! I didn't eat all your food,” Blitz protested. “Just... most of it...” he added quietly.
“Which is exactly why you're not allowed in my kitchen anymore. Now hurry up; we don't have all day.”
Sighing, Blitz nodded complacently, unwrapping his measly bar and munching on it. It wasn't the greatest food he'd ever eaten, but at the very least it was better than most of the instant-meals Dawn had brought with her. As the last little bit of the bar disappeared Blitz sighed quietly, holding a hoof over his empty-feeling stomach. “How long do you plan to be out here anyway?”
“Hopefully it'll only be a week,” Dawn replied, only half way through her own granola bar. “The place we're looking for is supposed to be built into the side of a mountain, about three days in if the reports are anything to go by. We get up there, take a few pictures, then return home with enough proof to get a real expedition out here funded. If all goes well, we should find the place tomorrow.”
“Great... a week of nothing but terrible food and measly snacks... I think you're finally going to kill me,” Blitz muttered, uncapping and guzzling down a quarter of his water before pausing to take a breath.
Dawn chuckled, finally finishing her snack and taking up her own bottle of water. “Aw, I think you're a little more resistant than that.”
Sighing, Blitz capped his water bottle and set it down in the grass before flopping down onto his back, staring up into the bright blue sky between the thick green canopy. “I wouldn't be so sure...”
“Come on, even you have to admit it's an exciting prospect to be the first ponies to officially discover these ruins. We'll probably get to lead the full-scale expedition too, and then we'd be published in a whole bunch of fancy journals, we could do interviews, maybe even-”
“You're seeing stars again, Dawn. Let's just find the place first, alright?”
Dawn's lips twisted into a pout. “Hey, it doesn't hurt to think of the future.”
“No, but it does hurt to think of the future when we're not even sure these ruins exist,” Blitz shot back, folding his hooves behind his head and closing his eyes in the bright light shining through the clearing.
“How could they not!?” Dawn exclaimed, throwing her hooves out widely. “Do you know how many other ponies have reported seeing them? Not to mention everything the dragon says! He couldn't just make those things up!”
“Of course he could; you were hardly even paying attention to him. You were so lost imagining things I doubt you even remember his name.”
“Hey! I do too remember his name!” Dawn snapped defensively.
Blitz smirked up to the sky. “Then what's his name?”
Dawn faltered, biting her lip. “It's... uh... ummm... well, he had these... spike-things so... Spiky?”
“Ha! That's a stupid name!” Blitz laughed, flipping over onto his stomach and looking up to his companion.
“Sh-shut up! You couldn't do any better!”
Blitz raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“His name's Vetus,” Blitz deadpanned with a victorious smile.
Dawn's jaw dropped for a split second before she quickly recovered. “Yeah right, you just made that up!”
Blitz rolled his eyes. “He said, and I quote, “I have been known by many names over the years, much like Libra, but most of your kind know me simply as Vetus”. Ring any bells?”
“Well... shut up!” Dawn muttered, turning her head away. “So what if I forgot his name? I've always been bad with names; do you remember how long it took me to remember yours?”
Blitz snorted. “You didn't call me anything but Thunder Dunce for nearly two months, and that was after a month of awkwardly avoiding using my name.”
Looking up to the sky, Dawn packed away her water bottle and stood up. “Well, it's time we get moving again; we can take another break when we get to the river.”
Blitz groaned, refusing to stand up. “Five more minutes?”
“Nope!” Dawn called cheerily, a devious smile adorning her lips. “Let's get going, Thunder Dunce.”
“This is because of the name thing, isn't it?”
“Call it divine punishment.”
“Be honest with me, Dawn,” Blitz deadpanned, looking over the unicorn's shoulder at the compass held in her magical grasp. “We're lost, aren't we?”
“No!” Rising Dawn snapped quickly, staring intently at her compass. “We're just... a little off course...”
“And how, pray-tell, did that happen?”
Dawn's muzzle scrunched up into a frown. The compass needle kept spinning, refusing to sit still. And even when it did stop for a few moments, it was always in what should have been the wrong direction. “Agh! This stupid thing doesn't work!”
Thunder Blitz lifted a hoof, delicately rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You're telling me that for the past two hours we've been following a broken compass?”
“Hey, it's not my fault the stupid thing broke!” Dawn shot back defensively. “I don't see you doing anything to help!”
“What would you have me do?” Blitz asked, throwing his hooves up in the air and motioning to the canopy. “Fly up above the trees and look for something? Do I need to remind you how thick this jungle is? Even if I managed to get through the leaves up there, and even if there was a clearing large enough for me to find something, I'd never find my way back to you. So either you find a way to fix that compass, or we're stuck wandering around until we get lucky or die.”
Dawn sighed, tapping the faulty compass with a hoof as the needle continued to spin. “If I could...” she paused, ears perked up and swivelling. “Can... can you hear that?”
“Hear what, the sound of us being hopelessly lost?” Blitz spat sarcastically, looking around in the thick jungle surrounding him for some kind of landmark.
“No.. it's more like...” Dawn turned her head, trying to hone in on the sound. Eventually her eyes fell on a large fern resting between two trees. “Water... this way!”
“Water? What are you- hey! Wait for me!” Blitz cried, sprinting after the unicorn as she was swallowed by the jungle. “Dawn? Dawn!” He called, scanning the dense foliage around him, struggling to catch a glimpse of his companion's strawberry coat.
A rustling somewhere ahead of him was his only clue as Blitz hesitantly moved forward, ears standing on end and tracing the sound of stomping hooves. Within seconds of searching he started to hear the distinct but faded sound of rushing water, just barely audible over the sound of his rustling as he forced his way through the resistant underbrush. The sound of Dawn's own push through the jungle began to fade as the rushing water grew louder and louder until all that could be heard was the violent turbulence. The noise echoed around him, filling the forest and masking any other sounds.
Finally, he saw it; between the trees and bushes and vines lay rapids, with a current stronger than anything he'd ever seen before. A couple more bushes later and he forced his way out onto the bank of the raging river, just a meter wide with deadly waters on one side and just as deadly jungle on the other.
“Dawn!” Blitz hissed angrily, spotting the unicorn kneeling next to the edge of the heavily-eroded river bank. “What the hay was that! You just left me back there!”
Rising Dawn glanced up from the water, rolling her eyes. “You're not lost, are you? I don't see what your problem is; you seemed to find me easy enough. It wasn't exactly hard.”
“That's not the point! I-” Thunder Blitz trailed off, eyes growing wide and staring off into the distance.
“Whatever; at least we're here. The ruins should only be a little farther away, depending on how far we strayed off course because of the compass. If we can find them, I should be able to make a new one... Blitz?” Dawn asked, noticing the pegasus' slack-jawed expression. “Hey, you listening to me Thunder Dunce?”
Blitz swallowed, raising a hoof and pointing down the river. “I... think we're pretty far off course...”
Dawn raised an eyebrow, slowly turning her head towards where Blitz was pointing. Her eyes grew just as wide as his as they fell on a large, light-blue tree made of pure crystal with darker blue crystal leaves. Instead of dropping, her jaw stretched into a wide grin. “We found it! The Crystal Ruins!”
Author's Note
It's been a while, hasn't it? Between my other projects, one editor being too busy to edit and the other dropping off the map, it took a while to get this thing into working order. I did it, finally, and I'm glad with the results. This thing probably won't update very fast, as I have many other projects I want to focus on, but this will always be sitting on the back burner.
As always comments are much appreciated.