Lost on the Way to Nowhere

"No need to thank me, I'm just..." muttered Forest Flash as she stirred awake, trailing off in her dreamy mumblings. She blinked a few times, letting out a light yawn and shifting in the bed.

"There she is, returned to th-the land of the living," commented Mender, looking up from his book, the cover of which was so well worn that no title was distinguishable, looking back over at Ocean Breeze, who was now seated on the edge of the bed. As Forest's eyes caught sight of the now-conscious guest, she leaped up out of bed onto all four legs, dramatically puffing up her chest as she planted her hooves firmly on the ground.

"I don't think we've met, stranger, so now it's time for me to introduce myself! I'm the shadow in the trees that all logheads fear, I'm the blur that swings through the canopy, and I'm the lightning that strikes twice! I'm the one, the only, Forest—" She stopped, glaring daggers into Mender, who had started snickering about halfway through. "Mender, seriously, I'm trying to make a good impression," Forest hissed through clenched teeth.

"S-sorry, sorry, but you're just... so... dramatic!" he replied, his snicker turning to a giggle. With a sigh, Forest turned back to Ocean, who was also clearly amused.

"Don't worry. You don't need to impress me. I mean, Mender already told me how you bailed me out of dodge," Ocean said, nodding his head in said pony's direction. "I'm plenty impressed by the fact that you saved my life. My name's Ocean Breeze."

Her prideful posture loosed up, a cocky grin replacing her expression of annoyance. "Right! Of course you are. Who wouldn't be?" Standing up on her hind legs, she stuck out a hoof toward Ocean. "Call me Forest Flash. Good to meet'cha, Ocean Breeze."

Standing up from his seat on the bed's edge and standing upright on his haunches, he found himself wobbling as a sense of balance eluded him. He swung his forelegs around wildly for a moment as he tried to recover from his imbalance and then leaned forward, grabbing Forest's extended hoof in a tight grip as he used it to steady himself. Ocean's face turned a bit red as he gave a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I guess I... don't have great balance. At all." After a second of making sure he wouldn't fall, he gave Forest's hoof a shake. "Good to meet you, too." Letting go, he found himself wobbling again before falling backwards onto the bed.

Forest failed to stifle a laugh, clearly entertained by his floundering. "Oh, man, I don't think I've ever seen a pony flail like that from just standing upright." Mender cleared his throat, glaring at her. Collecting herself, she managed to wipe the grin off her face. "Yeah, sorry. Bad manners. Didn't mean to laugh."

Am I really that bad at standing? Maybe I just.. forgot how to do it properly? Or maybe I'm just tired. His concern must have been betrayed by his expression, because he felt a hoof on his shoulder as the olive-colored pony sat down on the bed next to him.

"Hey, buddy. Don't take it like that," she said, slugging him lightly in the shoulder. "It's okay, I mean, there's plenty of stuff I suck at. For the life of me, I can't plan ahead. Luckily, though, that's his department." She gave a nod over towards Mender.

"I suck at s-stuff too. I've got spaghetti legs," he chimed in, demonstrating his point by flopping a foreleg limply in the air. "See? P-plus, my vision's bad. I can't see much farther than a f-few hoof-lengths away. It's all blurry." Ocean's concerned frown curved into a light smile.

"Yeah, I guess you guys are right. Not a big deal." He paused for a moment. "Hey, by the way, do you know where my saddlebags went, Forest?"

"Your saddlebags? What saddleba—" she began, stopping as a look of realization came over her face. "Oh... Oops."

"What happened to them?" Ocean inquired, squinting his eyes at her slightly.

"Well, y'see, they fell off when I grabbed you. I didn't think to pick them up or anything. Was there something important in them?"

Pressing his face into his hooves as he lay back on the bed, Ocean let out an exasperated groan. The only thing from before a few days ago is gone now. Not just that, but the only thing I had, period. Great. Forest grimaced at his misery.

"Yeah. Sorry..."

After taking a deep breath and letting it out, Ocean replied, "It's fine. Don't worry about it." His face, however, said otherwise.

"We could get him a new set of saddlebags. Right, Mender?" Forest looked over at him optimistically.

"There's... one p-problem with that plan," he answered, his hooves fretting nervously. "We live r-really far away from any towns. From anypony. Really... really far away." He turned his gaze out one of the windows. "A week of walking, even."

"Oh," said Forest, her hopefulness quickly deflating.

"Why are you two so far out here, anyway? How do you get by being so far away from any sort of settlement?" Ocean asked, a perplexed expression on his face.

"Oh, pssh, who needs settlements and all that junk?" said Forest said dismissively. "We get by on our own. I go out and forage and get supplies, and he holds down the fort, fixes things, and all the other stuff. I mean..." Her air of pride suddenly lost its energy. "It does get lonely out here. Like, really lonely. You're the first other pony we've met in..." She paused to think, pressing a hoof to her chin.

"F-five years," finished Mender. "It's been five years since it's just been her and I."

"But," started Forest once again, "we don't need anypony else!" There was a fiery defiance in her voice. "Right, Mender?"

There was a pause without any response, and then Mender replied, "Yeah." He sounded none too convinced of the veracity of his answer, however. His gaze turned once again to the window, a longing look in his eyes. "All we've ever needed are these walls and this forest..." Whether she simply didn't notice or it perhaps chose not to, Forest seemed oblivious to his lack of confidence.

"We've always been on our own and we don't need a damned thing from anypony. Period." Forest's expression seemed to darken. "Never have, never will. All we need is each other." After an uncomfortable pause, she spoke again. "I'm going out to get some food." Then she was out the door.

Ocean looked over at Mender. "She seems... angry about something. I didn't realize that question would strike a nerve like that." Mender seemed wholly miserable, a depressed frown clear as day on his face.

"This isolation w-wears on us. There's no way she's willing to admit it, b-but..." he trailed off. "I've suggested in the p-past finally going somewhere else, but she always gets angry and storms off, just like th-this." He let out a heavy sigh.

"How did you two end up here, if it's okay for me to ask?" Ocean asked tentatively, trying to make eye contact as Mender continued to avert his own gaze.

"I wasn't always here," he said quietly. "She was here first. When she was y-younger, a lot younger, her parents... Well, they both left her and went away. She never said why or how, but... after that, she ran away. She was angry. Then, a few years later, she found a little baby colt wandering in the forest..." He paused, a faint smile appearing on his lips. "She took him in, and he was good at fixing things so she called him... called me Mender. I mean, there's more that happened after, but... that's the gist of it." Ocean struggled to make out whether he was happy or sad; the way the two emotions blended together in his face as he spoke made it difficult to distinguish what he was feeling. Perhaps it was both.

"She's always wanted to s-stay," he continued, "and I've always wanted to leave, but I just sit up here all the time because I'm too scared t-to go down there. Not just because of the timberwolves, but because I'm scared I'll get lost and I'm scared I don't know what else will happen if I do." Now, rather than a fusion of happiness and sadness, a distinct misery was evident in his expression. "I want to see the world. I want to learn and explore b-but I'm a coward." His lips parted as if he were going to say something more, but no words emerged.

Ocean sat there, at a loss for how to reply. I hardly know a thing. I doubt anything I can say to him will have any impact. He already knows I can't remember anything. The only response he could force out of his mouth was a simple, unconvincing, "I'm sorry."

Mender seemed to be struck by a sense of self-consciousness. His expression of unhappiness shifted once more to one of nervousness. "I'm... s-sorry. I shouldn't have dumped all that on a s-stranger. I realize that you can't stay here forever, s-so... we'll think of something." He gave a faint smile, but his heart didn't seem in it.

Although Mender seemed inured to the depths of boredom that came about in the small, plain treehouse, Ocean Breeze was most certainly not. As the hours ticked by, he found himself growing restless.

"Would it be alright if I, like... went for a walk, or something?" Ocean asked after a few hours of nothingness, growing antsy from the unstimulating nature of his environment. Mender looked at him as though he'd asked for chainsaws to juggle.

"Y-you can't just go down there," Mender said, clearly discomforted by the idea, setting the same book he had been reading earlier in his lap. "I mean, no way I'm going down there and it'd be d-dangerous if you went on your own. With a sigh, found himself laying back down in the bed, staring up at the plain, uninteresting wooden ceiling, noting all the minute details—what few there were to be noted, anyhow.

It was only so long before Ocean turned to Mender again. "Hey, Mender, maybe I could... borrow that book of yours?" Mender pursed his lips, eyeing the book for a moment before giving a reluctant nod.

"S-sure, just... be careful. It's the only book I have." He held the book out in a hoof. Pleased that he might finally have found something with which to occupy himself, Ocean eagerly took the book from his extended hoof and flipped it open to the first page.

A moment passed, and then another. Ocean stared at the first line of the first page, his grin slowly transitioning to a confused frown. He looked over at Mender, and then back at the book. "This is... Equestrian, right?"

"Y-yeah, why do you ask?" Mender raised an eyebrow at him curiously.

"Well..." he stared at the book for another few seconds, squinting at the words. For some reason, none of the letters seemed to make any sense to him. "I can't understand any of these words. Or these letters. These.... are letters, right?" A familiar feeling of dread manifested itself in his chest.

Did I forget how to read, too?