Nothing's More Important

The great thing about being an alchemist is that you don’t need a horn to do it. You just need a keen mind for science, some patience for experimentation, and of course, the right ingredients.

Of course, it’s that last bit that always causes all the trouble, especially when your usual suppliers decide they don't want to go traipsing into the Ghost Haunt Woods after your herbs anymore. It’s not like they are accurately named or anything!

Justin Thyme trotted down the path slowly, slow enough to almost be a walk. He wanted to be quick about it, but the woods always made him a little nervous, even if he argued against it out loud. "There's nothing that bad about these woods. I mean, they're not the Everfree…"

Indeed, there were not monsters attacking, or even as much as bandits. There was, however an odd noise coming from a cave a few dozen hoof lengths from the path. They sounded inexplicable, perhaps even ghostly. But there was surely a logical explanation, like the wind through an oddly shaped hole or something. Surely. All it would take is a small amount of looking about in a dark cave... it might even have some useable fungi for his experiments!

Justin licked over his snout as he peered towards the cave. "There's nothing to be worried about." He threw up his nose in defiance and approached that ominous opening before his head fell and he began to creep despite his brave words. "If there's anyone scary hiding in here, you better watch out! I'm ready!"

The weird noises responded. His imagination insisted it sounded kind of like it said "oh no!" in a very long drawn out moan. With his ears flickering, he pushed past his fear. It was his mind playing tricks on him, or was that somepony that needed help? Either way, he advanced into the darkness, squinting for sight.

It got quiet as he made his way deeper, as though the noises were hiding from him. As he got deep enough that the natural light was all but gone from sight, and his vision was adjusted to the darkness, his eyes noticed the cave ahead slightly brightening again, the shadows showing the new light source was behind him somehow. Before he could turn, a new sound pierced the air, sounding decidedly like a girlish squeal of delight.

He yelped with all the bravery that he didn't feel and span around towards the source, his eyes contracted to little dots in the sudden bright light. He couldn't see what made the noise, blinded by the very same light that would allow it. "W-who is that?! I'm an alchemist, don't think I'm entirely defenseless!"

The light itself seemed shaped like a young, hornless minotaur or the like. Perhaps even a human? Whatever it was, it reached out to envelope him in... a hug? It made his nerves freak out where it touched his fur, not seeming to apply any real pressure. Quite the opposite, in fact. He felt something like a vacuum engulf him entirely, robbing him of breath!

Justin tried to draw a breath quickly as he entered the second stage of panic. His rear-left hoof reached up and clumsily toyed with his supplies, doing little but knocking a bottle of antacids to the floor to shatter in a display of tactical genius.

His mind was flooded with the memory of smoke, for some reason, his analytical mind desperately insisting he never smelled this particular variety of smoke before, but it cleared away as the stars started to shine down on him. Which was very wrong in and of itself. The cave was gone, replaced with burned wood outline an unreasonably tall house's charred remains. The fireplace stands, blackened but unharmed, something bright and orange catching the eye within.

Justin spun around in a wild examination of his surroundings. He wasn't dead, or suffocating. These were good things, very good, yes… He took a slow breath and nodded. "You're letting yourself go. Jumping at nothing!" Oh but something was glowing? He had to know and proceeded towards it despite his near death experience. "A new plant?"

The orange object stopped glowing as he approached, the supernatural light fading away. But it was still easy enough to find. Aside from the soot on it, it was a small figure of an earth pony, orange of fur and mane, with three red apples depicted on each flank. The material was some odd, hard substance other than the mane, which was some kind of thin strings. The craftsponyship was impressive.

Little else appeared to have survived whatever fire had claimed this place, along with its surroundings.

Justin carefully lifted up the little figure of a fellow earth pony. Why did it seem faintly familiar? It wouldn't do for alchemy at all, however. He smiled at the cute thing and tucked it away into his bags carefully before starting to sniff around. The day hadn't been fully spent yet! "Maybe there's some mandrake root around…"

The stars above disagreed with Justin’s assessment, proving how wrong they were. It was nearly noon, it was entirely unseemly for all these stars to shine down on him at a time like this! At least they were plentiful enough to cast the area in a dim luminescence that let him see… well. Going beyond the remnants of the structure, he could see several more such burned out husks in the distance in most directions. To his left, the hilltop glowed a flickering orange, tracing a lighted outline in the otherwise dark night, fresh smoke making its way upward from beyond the far side. To his right, in the distance he could make out a distant treeline that appeared to still have foliage, suggesting it had somehow been spared the flame.

The foliage called to him, but that glow… "Another little pony?" Curiosity won out over practicality and he took off at a hasty trot. His mind wandered back to the vision of the female and her smothering hug, but he hadn't been hurt. "Is this… a gift?"

It was a bit of a trek, but Justin didn’t have anywhere else to be urgently. The air grew less pleasant, the closer he got, though not enough to choke him out, or his curiosity. Topping the small hill, he got a great view of… miles and miles of roaring flames. They were still distant, thankfully, down the slope ahead, which they had already consumed. From here he could see flashing lights in places on the far side of the flickering flames, and make out distant shouts. Somepony was in front of the flames! Many someponies, by the sound of it.

Justin broke into a full gallop even as he fished out a precious vial. Fires were something he was unfortunately familiar with, having faced more than his share of, uh, unfortunate consequences of ingenuity, yes, he stuck by that. With the flask of flame retardant powder in his teeth, he raced to reach the ponies before they became crisped. "I'm coming! Keep shouting!"

The shouting continued, though it seemed to be backing up as he approached, staying ahead of the flames. As he got close enough to hear them through the wall of flames that now towered over him, he felt steam wash over him rather than only smoke, and could make out that the shouts seemed to be orders and reports, coordinating between the ponies beyond as they tried to beat back the flames. But where were their weather pegasi? Some rain would clear this right up!

A shout of alarm rose up from his right after a surprisingly strong gust of wind from that direction. This seemed to be creating new activity from the shouters, but much of it included words not fit for polite society. Were they sailors?

Justin pushed through the steam and smoke. "Take this! Pour it on the source!" Wait a moment… "Is anypony trapped?" Would that he could fly and get a better view of what was going on, but he shouldered forward with all the stubbornness his tribe was known for. "I'm here to help!" He shook lightly as some of the things he carried heated up in the journey, but he hadn't gone close enough to the live flames to cook yet.

Somepony managed a somewhat surprised sounding “yes” before a fit of coughing overwhelmed his ability to speak. Water had been spraying in his vacinity, but that was suddenly replaced with a wild deluge of water splattering all over the flames and sizzling off, too poorly concentrated to deal with this inferno. It seemed like at this point he might be closer to this side of the wall of fire than where the others were still making a fighting retreat.

Justin Thyme felt like he was put there just for that moment, and bull rushed the inferno with a mighty cry born of one who spends most of their days cooking exotic ingredients. He tossed his head and scattered the flame fighting powder in an arc, fighting to make a path to escape through and reach the poor pony that he assumed was trapped inside.

His dramatic rescue proved complicated when he arrived to find his would be rescuee unconscious in a circle of damp grass amidst the flames. The water had worked to buy a bit of time, but hadn’t saved him from smoke inhalation. Also, his rescuee was not a pony. He looked to be a biped, about six hooves tall, and covered in clothing made of material resembling the little pony miniature, only yellow in color. All of it flexible like cloth except the hat. But pony or no, this person was clearly still in desperate need of rescue!

Who was that? What was that?! There was no time to wonder either of those things. With his flame retardant powder making a narrow walkway, Justin rushed through and snatched up the fallen soul, clenching at their clothes in his teeth as he ran right back out again and into the foggy smoke. "You're OK!" Was Justin OK? No time to check that!

Once they were clear of the flames, Justin had a moment to appreciate how well those odd clothes did at repelling the flames on the sides of the path where he had to unfortunately be dragged through them. Nice! And then Justin noticed that his own fur was regrettably poorer at repelling flames, and had actually caught a bit of the stuff.

Justin set his rescue target down with a smile before he noticed he was actually on fire and squawked. Falling to the ground and rolling in the dirt like any trained pig, he worked to put himself out as soon as he could. "Next purchase, fireproof coat."

His rescuee thanked him by coughing heavily, proving he was still alive. Yay! Unconscious, but alive. Something Justin could certain claim some credit for. There seemed to be nopony present and conscious to claim that credit from, at the moment, as the flames and shouts were moving farther away.

Justin rolled up to his haunches and slid up closer to the injured… whatever it was. "You're in good hooves." He reached out and began feeling over the, uh, thing, looking for the usual signs that he was breathing well like a pony would be, and that he'd be alright. He was no doctor, but the basics he knew.

He was coughing from time to time, and the area was heavy with smoke… cleaner air would certainly do them both good, but otherwise he showed no signs of immediate danger. At least nothing an alchemist could easily discern, even given his years of experience with fire. Determining this, Justin hefted up the limp form onto his back and began forging his way through the smoke that stung at his eyes, slowly and carefully moving for where the fire had already torn through things.

Once he had gotten back over the hill, the air was nice and fresh-ish. Certainly a dramatic improvement! The distant treeline looked like it might be even better, but the pony needed to catch his breath himself after that exertion. Time seemed to fly by as he enjoyed some good old fashioned breathing, until the rescuee mixed up his routine of coughing and regular breathing with a deep, dramatic gasp and sat up!

Justin looked up from where he lay, ears perking at the sudden movement. "Are you alright?" What are you? He wondered it, but saved that question for later. "You're safe."

After a couple more coughs, he answered “yeah, I’m fine. Still alive, anyways. Pretty thir-” At this point he had turned his head enough to see who was talking. “Nevermind. I’m hallucinating. Can you just call me an ambulance?”