Far Away

CHAPTER VII

Morning came soon. The night seemed like a dream to Jack. It was so… well… unprecedented. That was the word he was looking for. He slowly rose to find himself in the grasp of Daring. She looked much more beautiful when she was sleeping. At least she didn’t scowl during her slumber Jack had thought with a chuckle. He checked his saddlebags for anything to quench his thirst and hunger. What he found was a can of oats and a few water skins fully loaded. No wonder the saddlebags were do heavy. Jack took a gulp of water followed by the uncooked oats. He put the two items away as he had to conserve the food for the adventure.

Daring started to stir at around 6:30am judging by how far the sun was up in the sky. The sun usually rose at around 5:30am. Daring slowly sat up and grumbled about how she had the worst dream. She described last night’s events as it had been a dream. Jack was curious to see her act in such a way. Jack thought it was a good time to ask as any.

“So, how do you feel about last night?” Jack asked in an offhand way.

“What happened last night that made it so special?” answered Daring blushing a bit.

Daring knew exactly what happened but did not want to admit what she felt for the brown stallion. She was sure that Jack knew too but she didn’t want to discuss it just now. The time is not ripe.

“Let’s start exploring, how about that?” she asked Jack.

“Okay.”

The companions set off into the dense jungle foliage. Daring held out her small knife in front of her, cutting thick vines and leaves out of the way. Jack was tasked with looking at the map. She explained that they entered through the east of the jungle and told Jack to keep track roughly of their position.

They trekked for hours until they planned to stop for the time being. Suddenly, the companions heard a barely audible rustling of the leaves. They jumped up to their feet, holding out their weapons. “Who’s there?” shouted Daring as she cocked her revolver with a small, electric click.

Suddenly. They struck. The Timberwolves who lived in this harsh jungle environment. There were about twelve them. Outnumbered one to six, Jack whipped out his revolver quickly instead of the big, cumbersome but powerful rifle. He fanned the magazine into six of the Timberwolves in front of him. Jack took stock of the situation. Four shots successfully struck home and killed but the other two merely wounded the Timberwolves.

Daring was having about as much luck as Jack was having. She killed five with her semi-automatic revolver but left one as angry as ever. The wolf pounced onto her. “JACK!” she yelped as the wold bit at her neck.

Jack spun round after having reloaded his revolver quickly and put a shot into the wolf, trying to kill it. This action put himself into danger. ‘Well, at least I can claim to have saved the most famous adventurer in the world’s life,’ thought jack as the two Timberwolves behind him tore his back viciously. The brown trench coat was covered in claw marks and stained with blood, his back now a glistening red mess.

“Nooo!” shouted Daring as he took Jack’s rifle from his back and shot one of the wolves. The bullet gouged itself in its head as it exploded, causing s small crack in the wolf’s skull. She quickly reloaded the rifle, the empty cartridge fell onto the ground with a patter. She took aim at the wolf and pulled the trigger. She fell backwards as the rifle fired, the bullet smashing into the wolf and this time, exploding his head clean off his neck.

Blood splattered everywhere as the destructive weapon was put to use. Jack was wide eyed at his companion using the rifle. This was the first time he saw a rifle fire high-explosive incendiary ammunition. The wolves were scorched by the bullet and on the ground scattered the many corpses.

“Turn onto your back,” Daring huffed as she slammed a forehoof onto Jack’s knees causing them to give way. She ripped the medical supplies out of the saddlebags and found the antiseptic. Jack moaned in pain as she cleaned her hooves before setting out to work on Jack’s back. She took off the trench coat as softly as possible. She started using a sterile cloth to clean Jack’s back of the dried blood. The claws tore deep into his back.

Daring then took her antiseptic and rubbed it on Jack’s back. He grunted in agony as the antiseptic touched his wounds. She then found some gauze bandages and wrapped them around Jack’s body.

“T-thanks Daring,” muttered Jack through gritted teeth.

Daring grinned at him holding a hoof to his lips. She just stared into his eyes before looking through the saddlebags again.

“Can you keep on going?” asked Daring. She knew what she was asking him to do was selfish

“Y-yeah, sure!” replied Jack, standing up trying to hide his wince of pain.

Daring instantly spotted his pain.

“Maybe we should just set up camp here for tonight then, hey?” she asked in a friendly tone.

“That’ll be fine for me,” said Jack thankfully.

She collected the firewood. Jack tried to protest, saying that he could help too but ended up only using the flint and steel to light the straws that she took with her to start fires. Before too long, the sun had started to set and the jungle started to become dark. The fire was cackling merrily, but the ponies sitting around it were the exact opposite of that.

“I’ve never really been attacked by feral animals before, much less killed one,” she talked in a conversational tone.

“Well, it’s a necessary evil,” said Jack.

Tears welled up in the mare’s eyes. You would think that somepony wandering by themselves would have seen themselves through these moments before. Daring certainly wasn’t one of them. As a matter of fact, in her novels, she never talked about killing but talked about being killed. Being hunted. She was not the hunter, but the hunted. Jack thought about this for a period of time at night but couldn’t sleep due to how uncomfortable his back felt. Daring seemed to take notice and walked over to him. Her purple eyes glistening, she snuggled comfortably next to Jack.

Before long, she was fast asleep. ‘Sleeping like a log, eh?’ thought Jack. He chuckled and tried unsuccessfully to fall asleep himself. He found himself unconsciously stroking Daring’s mane. This was the first time he had a good look at her features. On prominent one was a scar she had on her right foreleg. It nearly stretched down the whole length of the limb. Jack felt strangely comforted by the mare sleeping beside him. He felt safe. He never felt like this in his life before…