End Of The Arrow

"Equestria, right...where's that?" Lane asked.

Flo opened her mouth to reply but stopped upon realizing that she had never asked, or had been asked such a question. Truthfully, she lacked an answer for the human and herself as well; which made her reflect on her life in reclusion briefly until a cough from Lane pulled her from her thoughts.

"Umm...to be honest, I'm not exactly sure," Flo confessed with a blush. The fact that a deer was blushing at all only added to the amount of nonsense Lane's brain was trying to process.

"Don't you live here?" Lane crossed his arms.

"I've never been outside of the forest before," Flo circled her hoof against the ground. "Now I don't have any choice, I need to find an alicorn named Celestia."

"Right, because I can help with that," Lane said dismissively with an eye roll before walking off, dusting his pants and shirt free of the caked mud that had gathered on him.

“If you don’t know where Equestria is, than how did you get here?” Flo pressed him for answers.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Lane shrugged. “Maybe I’m near death and this is all just a result of the meds they give you, maybe this is real and I fell through a wormhole or something, I can’t really say.”

Try as he might, Lane couldn't remember much of the previous day at all. The last thing he remembered was taking his dogs out like he always would, going about what needed to be done, but those events weren't from yesterday or last night. It was as if an entire day had simply vanished from his memory, no matter how had he tried to recall what could have brought him here.

"What kind of necklace is that?" Flo asked once Lane's shirt no longer covered his body.

Lane cocked an eyebrow at her before glancing down at his chest, taking note of the small object dangling from the looped string that circled his neck. "It's just a dream catcher, my girlfriend gave it to me, being into the spiritual stuff."

"Girlfriend?" Flo mumbled.

"Yeah..." Lane shook his head as if attempting to free himself from some sort of dazed state. "I guess it's been a while since she made it."

Lane heard something break as he started to take off his shirt to wring it out. He looked down beneath his feet to notice a piece of dried clay. While it didn't seem too out of place at first, it was the shape and markings that held his focus. At first glance it looked like a clay arm of some sort of doll.

"I hope this wasn't yours," Lane said, forgetting about his shirt and necklace for the moment, picking up the broken arm.

Flo cautiously approached the human to study what he was presenting to her. As her attention shifted completely on the clay object, she realized now that was what she had heard last night.

When this human appeared she had heard the familiar sound of pottery or glass breaking. Why it had come from such a creature she didn't know, but she was certain her ears hadn't deceived her last night, and seeing it now only confirmed what she had heard. Seeing what had shattered did little for her curious mind, however, and only added more questions to the ones she already had.

The longer Flo stared at it the more uneasy she felt. It was as if she was doing something she wasn't supposed to do. The feeling continued to swell within her, until she forced herself to look away.

"You okay?" Lane asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," Flo replied.

"Cool," Lane said before carelessly chunking the piece of clay over his shoulder.

"What are you, dense!?" Flo shouted as she rushed to try and retrieve the fragment of her attacker.

"What, it's just a broken clay doll, what's the deal?" Lane asked.

"That, good sir, was part of my attacker!" Flo fumed.

"No foolin?" Lane asked halfheartedly.

“Do humans take anything seriously?” Flo asked.

“In case you haven't noticed, I'm a five foot nine inch human in the middle of who knows where, talking to a deer who claims to have been attacked by pottery,” Lane replied. "What part of this do you expect me to take seriously?"

Flo seldom wanted to resort to violence to solve problems, it simply wasn't her way of dealing with things. She preferred logic and reason, like many of the friendly unicorns that had once lived with her tribe did. This human, however, was pushing every last nerve the doe had.

Still, Flo was a mature deer. This human seemed to be mature as well, age wise anyways, and was just confused. She simply had to get through to him and calm him down a bit.

"I get it, you're out of your comfort zone," Flo said trying to remain calm. "But like it or not this is path fate has led you to. You can either sit here and sob like a fawn, or follow me out of the forest."

Lane quietly crossed his arms once more. He hated when a woman was right, what made this worse was that it wasn't even a real woman, it was a deer. He hunted these things for food and sport, and here he was being talked down by one. If the roll reversal wasn't shameful enough, this glaring fact just added insult to injury.

"How do I get home?" Lane asked.

"I don't know," Flo replied. "But, Celestia might be able to help, she may even know where you come from."

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Lane groaned after a long pause before throwing on his shirt. "Lead the way."

Flo nodded in approval and motioned with her head for the human to follow her. In truth, she was only following her mother's instruction on how to leave the forest, and once they left the woods, she would have no idea where to go from there. Still, the human was calm for now, and he had proven to be effective against whatever those monsters were.

With the lingering possibility of another attack, his presence was appreciated. Flo felt confident with him around, even if it wasn't a buck, beggars couldn't be choosers in terms of some form of defense.

The two continued to travel in relative silence for a while, the only audiabkle confirmation of the human's presence were the heavy foot falls, and snapping branches. The longer Flo silently observed Lane, the more comfortable she became with him. Surely such a lumbering creature couldn't possibly cause harm to her, and even if he tried, he could never catch her.

"So," Lane spoke up, ruining her train of thought. "Care to explain this magic stuff? Since god only knows how long I'll be here."

"Well," Flo started. "For my tribe, our magic is influenced by the aura that flows through nature. We can't manipulate the lifeless objects like unicorns can."

"At this point I'm not going to question the possibility of unicorns," Lane mumbled to himself.

Flo shrugged, which disturbed Lane even more, as well as raised more questions about what else she could do that other deer couldn't. The doe continued with her explanation, going on about numerous factors that related to magic. After the first five minutes, Lane's selective hearing kicked in and allowed his mind to wonder off.

Lane drifted in and out of focus from listening to Flo, retreating back to his own thoughts when the wonders of this world started to sound a little too far-fetched. He was suddenly brought back to reality at the sight of several rows of burnt trees.

Flo had also noticed, and had come to a complete stop, shaking occasionally as her wide eyes took in the sight. The doe crossed the much shallower section of the river to the other bank, leaving Lane to play catch up with the agile deer.

"Whoa," Lane said in a hushed voice as he stopped by Flo's side, observing a rather unsettling sight.

Before the two of them were miles of scorched earth. There was nothing left but dried remnants of what had once been a proud, mighty forest. Quiet crackles of flame within the darkened wood could still be heard, even as some of the trees crumbled in places.

"They...destroyed everything," Flo said quietly, her ears drooping as she spoke.

“Not everything, but it looks like a good chunk of this forest is gone,” Lane sighed. “Whatever did this must have started a wild fire.”

“They were made of fire,” Flo said. “Monsters, made up entirely of fire…but the one chasing me changed when it touched water. I thought it would extinguish the flames and stop it, but it just kept coming."

“And then I stopped it?” Lane asked.

"More like fell on it, but close enough," Flo said, her ears lifting a bit.

"Let's keep moving then," Lane said. "This will all grow back, someday."

"I know," Flo nodded sadly as she followed the human back down the hill.

Celestia was pacing, Luna knew took this as a terrible omen before she even addressed her sister. Celestia was not one display stress, even in the privacy of their rooms. Whatever was on her mind must have been eating away at her throughout the day.

"Sister," Luna spoke up after a long period of silence had passed. "You're pacing."

"I am not pacing, Luna," Celestia replied. "I'm simply trying to think."

"Which is what one would consider pacing, would they not?" Luna asked.

"An entire forest, an entire population doesn't just go up in flames without cause or reason. The woods were is season, yes, but the deer would never consider such a vast amount of purging. Even if it was an accident, that doesn't explain why we haven't heard from any of them," Celestia said. "This does little to ease the cutie mark predicament, which we still have no reasonable cause or solution."

"Perhaps it wasn't an accident?" Luna offered.

"No pony in their right mind would dare harm Whitetail Woods," Celestia replied.

"Then it is another anomaly than?" Luna asked.

"I wouldn't go that far, but with Discord...hibernating, we can't know for sure," Celestia sighed. "Right when he could prove useful, he decides to take a nap."

"It may be nothing," Luna started, gaining her sister's attention. "But I did hear a new voice among those that sleep last night. It started after the fire had spread, the most I can do is try to find it's owner tonight."

"There's something else, isn't there?" Celestia asked, knowing when her sister was holding back.

"The presence I felt from it was...different from our own," Luna confessed. "But it was still able to catch my attention above all the others. There's something very strange about whoever, or whatever this dream voice belongs to."

Celestia closed her eyes in thought. It was a stretch to place blame on whomever this might be based on a hunch, but such destruction of their land would not be tolerated.

"Luna, I know it's much to ask this of you, but I need you to seek out this voice," Celestia said. "If it turns out it is responsible, do whatever you can to stop it."