Those Who Wander

"To arms, I say!"

I yell at the top of my lungs, but everypony on the set just looks at me like I'm a crazy pony. This is normal. I'm yelling like a crazy pony. Of course, that's not the reaction I'm supposed to expect, which means I'm now irate at everypony for their inaction in a time of potential crisis.

"Will none of you rise to defend your own bunker? What is the matter? A potential threat looms on the horizon, and we're all in severe danger until we can identify it! So, I say, take up your arms! Our scout shall return with news of this new development, and you must all be prepared to deal with whatever may come! Has each of you forgotten your training, or be this some kind of mutiny against your own heads, and those of everyone around you? Again, I say, to arms, and let nopony leave themselves uncovered!"

The few ponies who were still outside had retreated into their trailers while I was yelling, so I suppose I'm supposed to be grudgingly satisfied with that response. I figure I have plenty of time before she comes back, so I run and get a sword and sheath from the prop-room, but I hold the sword in my mouth intimidatingly until she gets back. I have to wait there for so long, my jaw is already starting to hurt from holding it by the time I see Skywishes flying back toward me. She looks completely exhausted, and she can't even seem to fly straight. I watch her flap her wings as hard as she can before eventually just crashing into the sand, about five yards away. I sheathe my sword and gallop over to her to see if she's okay, and she picks her face up out of the sand and starts panting heavily.

"I... you've... mmhm. You've got to send for help."

"What has happened? Is it dangerous? Are you hurt?"

She starts to stand up.

"It's... I'm fine. I've never... never seen anythi- anything like it. There was a griffin, and she had a spear, and she was... she was fighting th- this... giant.... worm thing. We need to do something, or, or, or she might get killed!"

"I'll go."

"You... you can't go out there by yourself. You'll get killed. This is-"

"If I don't go out there by myself, that griffin will get killed. If you want to bring reinforcements, you'll have to bring them yourself."

I start cantering toward the costume area to get some goggles. If I'm going to be fighting a worm-monster, I imagine there'll be a lot of sand flying around. Also, I'm going to die.

"I... okay, wait. This isn't part of the movie! You can't actually go! You're not a real war hero, and you're going to get eaten!"

I didn't think she'd be able to catch up with me, but I guess she must have regained her breath while we had been talking. I'm not going to pretend that I hadn't hoped she was still trying to play along up to this point, but it doesn't make much difference now that I've made up my mind. I'm fully prepared to save a life or die trying if I have to. Method acting means never going half-way.

I find a good pair of goggles and strap them on. To my surprise, so does Skywishes.

"Do you intend to come with me now?"

"No. I intend to get some help for that griffin and maybe save your life in the process, but goggles are a good idea."

"Hmm. Well, good luck, then, Skywishes. May we meet again."

She starts to object, but I'm already galloping away from her as quickly as possible, and I haven't really been listening anyway. I'm not trying to be rude, but I've got a lot to worry about, and probably not a whole lot of time left. I'm fairly confident this is exactly what the real Fiddler Green would do if he were here instead of me. This desert sure is massive. I wonder if they'll be mocking me or praising me for this tomorrow. I may still be acting, but I'm still laying down my life here, which means my blaze of glory is just as real as anyone else's, right? I wish this had happened a little closer to the set, so I didn't have to run so far, but it's finally coming into clear view now, at least. Oh, wow. It's still quite a way off. That thing is absolutely massive. It's also white, with a greenish tint. I was expecting it to be brown. I don't see that griffin yet. Wait, there she is. She's next to the face area. Huh. Actually, it's looking right at her. How did I miss that? Oh, wow. That thing's still partially buried under the sand, too. I wonder how long it is. I could be galloping on top of it now, for all I know. Just thinking about that gives me the whinnies. Okay, yes. I'm close now. Really, really close. I'm coming to the realization that I have no idea what I'm actually doing. How do I know when to stop running toward it? I guess I'll just pull my sword out and charge straight into it. It hasn't noticed me yet, because of that griffin. It's a good thing she can fly. It doesn't seem to be able to get to her. In fact, why fight it at all? She could just fly away. Actually, now the worm's slamming her into the sand with his forehead, so I guess she can't fly away right now, can she? Okay. I have to stab this thing right now, or it's going to eat her. Here goes.

"YEAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

I try to yell something cool or heroic, but really, I guess noise is all I need, so it's not a big deal when that's all that comes out. I managed to fulfill my goal of distracting the worm-thing from the griffin. Now it's turned around and coming right at me and has a lot of teeth and I'm urinating. My sword is still stuck in the side of this thing, so I take it and move it to the side to leave the equivalent of a particularly nasty paper-cut on the torso-like area, whatever that's called. I don't know giant worm anatomy very well. I don't have enough time to pull my sword back out, so I just leave it there for a while while I try to run far enough away to not get immediately devoured by this thing. It turns out that's a little further than I had anticipated, but I kind of roll to the left as soon as it lunges at me, and I manage to get out of it with just a large scrape along the back-right hoof. I guess I'm actually doing this now, huh? Conveniently enough, after the way it just lunged forward, my sword is now on sticking out of the top of the worm-beast like a flag, and it's pretty close to where I'm standing, so I figure I'll climb up there and get it. The skin is predictably slimy, and it's a little hard to get up to it, but it isn't moving around much right now, so I'm able to get to the top without too much trouble, and retrieve my weapon. Just as I do this, I see the griffin run past me with her spear in her beak, headed toward the head, and motioning for me to follow. I comply. I slip more than once while I'm trying to run on that thing. By the time I catch up with her, we're standing on the head, and she's holding her spear in her talon, out toward me. I'm slightly worried I might slide right into it, but I don't.

"Take this," she tells me. "Jump down there and use it to keep his mouth open until I come back out."

"Wait, you want me-"

"No time to explain!"

She tosses it at me just as he rears his head back to buck us off.I catch it in midair with my hooves, and then she flies around and grabs me before I hit the ground. For one brief second, I thought I was about to die from trying to hold the spear and sword at the same time while I was being thrown into the ground, and now, I find myself flying in the opposite direction, and really more confused than anything else. Then I hear a voice behind me shouting at me, but I can't quite make out what she's saying.

"I can't hear you!"

"I said, 'are you attached to this sword?'"

"No, why?"

And with that, she reaches around and takes the sword from my mouth before letting go of me, right above the beast's mouth. I remember what she said earlier, and turn her spear sideways, so that it can't fall into the mouth. For almost two seconds, everything is a mass of teeth and dizzy, and then I realize I'm dangling right into the mouth from the spear that it can't fit into it, and it could close its mouth and kill me right now. I pull myself up onto the spear just as it seems to have gotten the same idea, but then it twists sideways, and I'm about to get thrown out, so I pull the spear back, and try to stab it in the side of the mouth, and somehow, I manage to land the hit without getting tossed. Then I just stand on top of it, and twist the spear so that it's as upright as it can possibly be. Since it's a little bigger than the opening, I have to stand on the teeth and keep pulling back, but since it's also bigger than me, I don't get chewed up in the process. It's not exactly comfortable, but I keep on pulling with all of my might, ignoring the fact that my hooves feel like I'm standing on razor blades. Then the griffin rears her head again, and with a little trouble, she manages to squeeze past me, into the mouth. I realize that before today, I hadn't ever actually touched a griffin before, but they mostly feel like you would expect them to, so I don't know why that thought popped into my head during a crisis. After about a minute, I don't think I can bear it any longer, and then she says she found it. I feel her come up behind me and ask if I'm ready for the fun part. I don't want to waste any breath by responding, but then I hear a series of disgusting ripping and gurgling sounds behind me that I can't quite identify, and she pushes me out of the mouth, along with her spear. I'm flying through the air again for a bit, and I fully expect her to grab me again, but she doesn't, and when I look back, she's frantically trying to wipe a thick yellow liquid from her wings. Then we hit the sand.

I lie there for a while with her on top of me, and after I'm done thinking about the extreme pain in my own nose, I realize that she's been there for quite a while, and should probably get off. I try to push her off enough that I can turn around and see what's going on. I find her grasping her left wing with a concerned look on her face.

"What happened?"

"I think it's broken. It hurts. A lot."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"Is it dead?"

"My wing?"

"No, that worm thing. Is it dead?"

"Oh. Right. The wyrm. No, it's not dead. It might die soon, though. I don't really know. I'm not a wyrm doctor."

"That sounds kind of familiar. Is that a song reference or something?"

"Huh? Oh, no, I don't think so. It totally could be, though."

"Yeah..."

I was just starting to realize how tired and sore I was from all the fighting, and now it's just dawned on me that I'm supposed to be in character. I kind of messed that up just now... I should think of a good way to cover myself. I let out a yawn. I'm really tired. I can hardly see the sun through these goggles now that they're covered in so much sand and wyrm-slime.

"Hey... I'm really tired."

"Yeah. Yeah, me too. Oh, and thanks, by the way. You saved my life."

"Yeah, don't mention it. What were you doing fighting that thing, anyway?"

"Well, I was just fetching this satchel. It's important. I'll tell you after..." she yawns, "after I've had a nap."

"Yeah.... that's a good idea."

I drift off, and as I sleep, the scene plays in my head over and over again, but it still feels like the best sleep I've had in a long time.