The trees of the forest swayed in the early morning breeze. Birds sang their praise to the morning sun as a lavender unicorn slowly rose from her slumber, her movements alerted the rest of the inhabitants of the woodland.
"Come on Twilight, I'm starving! Let's get up and go already." A small purple dragon with green spikes on his head was growing exasperated at his travel companion. "I’ve been up since sunrise!"
As the two started moving along, Spike found himself trudging ahead of the downtrodden unicorn. He looked back to see her muzzle almost dragging along the ground.
"I know," she mumbled, glancing up at the dragon before returning to her sulking.
Spike stopped and spun around. He held his clawed hands out in front of him so she wouldn’t walk into him. "Twilight..." he softly spoke, lifting her head up to look at him. "It's been two days since she left us on our own."
She sadly gazed into his eyes; there were tears building up in her own, threatening to spill forth. "I just wish she hadn’t, Spike. I didn't mind it being just the three of us. Now she’s saying that I need to make friends? It doesn't make sense," she exclaimed angrily, pushing past the small dragon and stomping off farther down the path.
Spike sighed and followed after the swishing tail of the upset unicorn.
“It can’t be the three of us forever. We need to get out there and make some cool new friends, and maybe meet a beautiful seamstress that loves gems as much as I do!” he said dreamily, almost floating on air.
“Why do I have a feeling that’s your true goal here, Spike?. Where did the seamstress thing come from anyways?”
“Because seamstresses are supposed to be beautiful 100% of the time Twilight. Get your head in the game!”
“Do you know the odds of us meeting a seamstress—”
“A beautiful seamstress”
“Fine. The odds of us meeting a beautiful seamstress wherever we end up will be?
“The same odds as the seamstress being beautiful,” Spike said with a raised eyebrow that all but said, ‘duh’.
The unicorn stopped in her tracks and gave her companion an ‘are you serious’ face. Of course, he didn’t see it as he continued forward, daydreaming of gems and an elegant, beautiful tailoresses.
With a chuckle and shake of her head, Twilight continued forward with her head held a bit higher and her heart lifted. They might be on their own, but at least they had each other.
As the sun continued its path across the sky their shadows became longer and longer until, at last, night began to settle in. After a long day of walking Twilight couldn’t tell if they were any closer to the edge of the forest or not. But it was dangerous to continue with no light to guide them. With no options remaining, the unicorn and the dragon curled up beneath a tree and drifted off for the third night, alone.
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
Light filtered through the canopy of the trees awakening the lavender pony from her restful sleep. Twilight got up with a yawn, glancing around herself she noticed that her companion was gone.
“Spike?”
“Twilight! Help!” A terrified voice echoed through the quiet morning.
“Spike! Spike, where are you?!”
“Hush, you!” An unfamiliar voice said in a drawled out voice. “Ya wandered into Apple Territory. Who’re ya yellin’ fer, anyways?”
Panicked, Twilight ran as fast as her legs could take her in the direction of the voices.
“Let me go! When Twilight finds me, you’re so gonna get it!”
The voice let out a hearty laugh.“An’ what’s this ‘Twilight’ friend of yours gonna do ta me, huh?”
Twilight crashed through several thorny bushes before she found Spike and the pony that was threatening him. Standing in front of her was a light-orange mare with a straw colored mane. She had a brown stetson laid back high on her head as she stared up at a bag hanging from a branch in the tree.
The mare turned to look at Twilight after hearing the rustling from the bush. She blinked twice at the unicorn before saying. “Ah reckon yer Twilight?”
With a small gulp the unicorn nodded, her stance was guarded and her horn alit with a royal purple hue.
Spike yelled, “Yeah, Twilight! Show her what you’re made of!” He made motions of kicking and punching emphasized by the bag he was being held in stretching. All his actions managed to do was to shake the tree he was being held from.
The orange mare glanced back up at the bag before taking a step towards the defensive unicorn. “Now sugarcube, Ah don’t want any problems,” She calmly spoke, but kept her focus on the magic enveloping Twilight’s horn.
“Y-you should've thought of that before trapping my friend.” Twilight stamped her hoof, glaring at the mare in front of her, forcing the stetson-clad mare to stop her advance.
Twilight was scared. She didn’t know any protection spells or attack spells. But the orange mare didn’t know that, and Spike was in danger. Even with all the time she had spent with Celestia, she only had a hooful of spells in her repertoire, none of which would help in this situation..
Spike let out a nervous laugh. “Y-you do know some attack spells right‽ Please tell me you do!”
“Spike! Quiet! H-he’s joking. Don’t come any closer! I’ll-I’ll zap you and there’ll be nothing left but your hat!”
The orange mare raised an eyebrow and lifted a hoof up to settle her hat back on top of her head. “Ah, uh. Ah won’t come any closer, could you turn that thing off so we can talk like grown mares? Uh… name's Applejack, Ah live on a farm not too far from here with mah family. What’re y’all even doing out here? Don’t y’all know the Everfree Forest is dangerous fer ponies?”
“Hey! I’m not a pony. I’m a dragon! I’m not scared of a forest. And once I get out of here, you’re toast! Dragon toast!” Spike exclaimed as the bag shook with his rage. He was halfway tempted to just burn the bag if only he knew how high up he was.
“It ain’t the forest y’all should be worried about. It’s the beings who live there ya ought to be scared of.” The orange mare glared up at the bag-suspended dragon as if to say, ‘like dragons’.
“Beings? What beings? Spike and I lived most of our lives in the forest with—” Twilight clamped her muzzle shut, staring wide-eyed at Applejack. Celestia had told her not to tell anyone of her time spent with her; that if ponies were to find out, Twilight would be shunned and most likely ran out of town. She didn’t say why though, she just told Twilight that it’d be better that nopony knew.
“You two lived in those woods and nothing happened to y’all? Everypony knows not to go into the Everfree! Once you go in, you never come out., And... y’all lived there? What in tarnation would ya want to live in there for?”
“Well it’s not like we had much of a choice! I mean it’s not like I wanted to live with an all-powerful alicorn or anything. Though I don’t know why she wanted to live in some danky forest.”
“Spike!” Twilight shouted.
“All-powerful alicorn‽” The farmers voice took on a low, dark tone, her stance became rigid and threatening.
Twilight began to back up in fear when she bumped into a tall, immoveable object that definitely wasn’t a tree. Before she could turn around to see what it was, a hard blow to the head sent her to the ground. As her vision faded, she could hear the echo of one last conversation before her world went black.
“Big Mac! Did ya’ just knock her out‽”
“Eeyup.”
“Did ya really have to go that far?”
“Nnope.”
