Jason had settled into a fitful sleep, and when he woke hours later his body was sore and stiff. He made his way out to find the sun was just barely beginning to rise. He had it in mind that he needed to find someplace else to go, someplace where he could be safe from the hive. No doubt Queen Nepidae would seek to hunt him down at some point soon.

As he started away, he noticed something from the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to give away he had seen it, so he turned and began to make his way through the trees and brush.

He walked downhill until he came to a beach where he stopped and removed his shoes before making his way to the water and allowed the waves to crest over to his ankles. He closed his eyes and just felt the movement of water flowing and receding, the coldness leaving a small amount of shock at first.

After feeling refreshed and dipping his arms into the water he splashed his face before turning and moving back to his shoes. Once again as he made his way up toward the ground from the white sand, he noticed the movement in a tree yet again.

“Alright, I know you’re there. Did the Queen send you?” he asked as he looked at the trees.

No answer came.

With an annoyed sigh, Jason put his shoes back on, noting how back they looked but put it to the back of his mind. It was something he would have to deal with later.

He walked to the trees where he had last seen the movement and tried to investigate the canopy.

“I know you’re following me, but because you haven’t attacked it makes me wonder.” He said aloud.

There was a rustling of leaves not far away as whatever was there seemed to move.

He moved further into the trees, now realizing they wanted to get behind him so if the only way to get through this was to play along, then he would.

He moved and just caught a grazing of a black chitinous hoof. He turned as he ducked and saw Skitter, an unfamiliar look in her eyes.

“Not talking to me?”

She swung again, not trying to move. Jason grabbed her hoof and allowed his body to move taking her momentum and using it against her swinging her into a tree, though he tried to keep it from being too hard. He wasn’t sure why, but some part of him didn’t want to hurt her.

She struggled to move her body to allow her hooves to stop her, though she scrambled as she did since he still had hold of her one hoof.

He let go as she looked back at him and charged him. He moved to the defensive, trying to keep an eye on her movements so he wouldn’t get struck from a blind spot. Though, he noticed she seemed more to just charge and flail about, not actually fight him.

“What’s wrong?” His mind started to draw away wondering if the Queen herself was nearby or controlling her.

“Why?” Jason stopped one of her punches, noticing for the first time, tears in her eyes.

“Why what?”

“Why did you go against the Queen?”

“Why did you?”

“I… I don’t know.” She admitted as she weakly moved her fists to strike at him once again, he took the hit and noted he barely felt any force from it.

“I have been away for so long, when I came back, I did what she ordered, but there was no longer a connection to her. It left me feeling so alone, but then you…” She babbled a little, using a hoof to wipe the tears away.

“Then you changed, you were no longer her golem, you took back your mind, and then she tried to force you further. The amount of force should have destroyed your mind, yet it somehow did not. Then I acted without thinking and went against her. She then tried to force me as well, but she couldn’t stay in my mind, and I don’t know why or how.”

“Are you no longer a part of the Hive then?” He had heard of a few changelings that had lost a connection when they were weak and were sent away from the hive to die alone. Was this what was happening.

Skitter nodded, and Jason felt a small pain in his chest.

He knelt beside her on the ground as she sat on her haunches.

“Do you think you can stay with me? I could sue an extra pair of eyes or a good ally when she comes after me, not if, but when.”

“I have nowhere else to go.” she admitted.

Jason nodded.

He took some time to gather some materials and set up a rough lean-to for himself before making efforts to gather some food.

“Is there any place we can go to where we might be safe from her?” Jason asked as he ate next to a small fire as evening and clouds gathered.

“There are other places, though the place I was stationed at already has a replacement, it would be a bad idea to return there as we would immediately be under surveillance or even attacked. The only other place would be Equestria. Its not far traveling from this island to the continent by boat.”

“Will there be anyone who could grant us solace, or sanctuary?”

“You would have to find and speak with the princess of Equestria, Celestia.”

“I’m picking up there may be a but in there somewhere.” Skitter nodded.

“I do not know if she would be willing to help out a creature like you- “

“You mean she may not help a human?”

“Yes, plus she is already against changelings as there is another hive there in Equestria and word is from time to time she tries to manipulate or attack Celestia’s land, and ponies.”

“Ponies?” Jason asked curious.

“Yes, Celestia is an Alicorn, and her subjects are Ponies. Unicorns, Pegasus, and Earth Ponies. Each has a unique type of magic and they live in relative peace under Celestia’s rule.”

Jason tossed another large fruit toward Skitter who caught it with her magic before holding it with her hoof and taking a juicy bite.

The fire between the two flashed and danced as a stray wind blew in from off the water. Jason Moved his body to try to block the wind, though it still messed with the firelight. Their shadows danced broken apart by the various trees around them.

“We’ll need to get some rest, but also need to keep an eye out for any drone. I’ll take first watch.” Jason offered.

Skitter seemed to hesitate before settling down and closing her eyes. He watched her body as it rose and fell from her breathing, he wasn’t expecting her to fall asleep, he wasn’t even sure if he could fully trust her. But from their conversation she was completely cut off from the Hive, and had been for some time before she returned. She was a spent asset if Jason thought about it in a way. She had already been doing a job, and possibly was no longer considered as useful until she was called back to train him.

If that were the case then, Nepidae considered her weak and lost, and was going to get rid of her at some point soon.

Jason shook his head as it felt, well for a lack of a better word, fucked up. But he still shouldn’t drop his guard just yet.

It was late, and the moon had seemed to level out above Jason when he laid down, not bothering to wake up Skitter, he would try to sleep, and it would be better for her to sleep all the way through the rest of the night now that she had finally settled down enough to fall asleep.

He was sure he would be restless as he closed his eyes thinking about how it was odd that he remembered the moon had had a strange shadow on its surface but it seemed to be gone now.

A she began to drift off, he shrugged it off thinking his mind had been playing a trick on him that the shadow held a definitive shape of a horse head with a horn.

He began to wonder how they would get to this Equestria place, and remembered the other inhabitants on the island and thought perhaps if one of them had a large enough boat perhaps he, or maybe they if Skitter was to stay with him, could stow away.

Jason struggled as light focused on him, opening his eyes slowly, he noticed the sunrise, and noticed Skitter was sitting at the edge of the tree line watching the sunrise.

“Something wrong?” he asked as he checked one of the left-over fruits from the night before. He wiped away the ants on it before taking a bite.

“No, I just, never took the time to watch a sunrise.” Skitter said before turning around as the sun quickly rose above the horizon.

“I still think it is so weird how fast the sun rises here.” Jason commented.

“That is because Celestia raises it.”

“What do you mean Celestia raises it?”

Skitter looked at Jason for a moment before slowly closing her eyes and nodding to herself. “Celestia is powerful and has a connection to the sun. When day breaks, she uses her power to take hold and raise the sun. Since the banishment of her sister, Celestia also raises the moon at night as well.”

Jason shook his head, “So what there is like a ritual she performs in front of her subjects and pretends to raise the sun? Or like she ACTUALLY uses powerful magic to manipulate the sun.”

“That,” Skitter said pointing a hoof at him.

Jason looked in the direction of the sun without looking directly at it to save his eyesight best he could. “Well, I am surrounded by creatures of magic and talking shape changing insects, sure why not.”

“Well, the question now is what do we do? I was thinking we could try hiding ourselves on a boat if one of the other races has one and making our way to Equestria.”

“That’s not a bad idea, the sooner the better.”

Jason nodded in agreement. He took a second to kick at the lean-to he had made the night before, and then kicked some sand and dirt over the ashes of the campfire.

Once they had enough to eat, they immediately set out looking for signs of one of the other races. They found one tribe of minotaur’s who used boats, as Griffons just used their own wings to fly.

Unfortunately they did not have large ships, instead they had smaller fishing boats that had two rooms under the deck, one for the minotaur, and one for fish. Jason and Skitter waited until night when the Minotaurs started to settle in for the night, around a large bonfire, luckily they were celebrating a large haul and none were paying attention to the boats.

Especially not to one that was being slowly pushed out into the water. Jason pushed the boat, swimming and working to keep his head up above the water as he continued to push the boat out further and further into the water. Skitter used her magic to help steer the boat toward Equestria before they felt they were far enough away to not be heard and she helped Jason up onto the deck of the small boat.

“We’ll have to be careful since these boats are not made for crossing oceans.”

“Yeah, well as long as mother nature doesn’t throw a surprise at us.”

“The closer we get to Equestria the better. The Pegasus ponies control the weather in and around the continent. Mostly though they keep to where other ponies live; a few smaller cloud cities work the edges of the landscape.”

“Of course, flying horses control the weather,” Jason said with a derisive laugh.

“You will see.” Was all that Skitter said as she settled herself at the far front of the boat while Jason sat in the middle using the oars to push them along the water. He had to take frequent stops to rest his body as it came further and further into exhaustion from a different kind of workout.

During this time, to help their chances of not being caught out in the middle of the ocean, Skitter would use her magic on the oars as well, though she tried not to spend too much energy just in case there came an emergency.

It took a couple of days for them to reach a coast where trees stood far from land and seemed to be halfway sunk into the water. Jason sighed as he spotted green around the trees, moss or lilypads. They were headed toward a swamp area.

“Let’s go around this, I don’t want to deal with any of the inhabitants here.”

This took an extra half day to go around until they found a beach to the North side of the swamps. They came to a stop and jumped off the boat.

“I feel a little bad a minotaur is having a bad couple of days.”

“Most likely they will think the boat sank and the village will gather together to make a new one for the minotaur.” Skitter said knowledgeably.

“Alright, so where do we go from here, and how far is it to reach Celestia’s place?”

“I’m not entirely sure since I have never been here myself for sure. But if we can get to a city not far from here, just on the otherside of the bay, we can catch a train straight to Canterlot. It won’t be easy, but this might help.”

In her magic, floating towards Jason was a small necklace. Engraved on it was the symbol of a Mintotaur, actually it looked like the astrological sign of Taurus.

“Put it on, and it should help.”

Eying Skitter for a second, Jason put the pendant on and shrugged, “now what?”

She motioned to the water and as Jason stepped toward what he thought would be his reflection, he was somewhat surprised to find a small somewhat thin Minotaur looking back at him.

“That will only work outside during the day. It uses the sun and magic to cast an illusion over you.”

“Ha! Nice.”

Turning back, Jason was able to watch Skitter change her form into a young-looking pony with light green fur, but dark green mane and tail.

“By the way, my name while I look like this is Aloe.” She explained as she pointed to the shape of an aloe plant on her flank.

With the two in agreement and ready they started off. It took a few days as well as the effort of wading across a river to find a city following the bay. They were able to get a couple of tickets and board the train with some ‘coins’ Skitter had. Which was some rocks that had fools gold mixed in and Skitter used her magic to turn them into some bits. Once finally on the train and on their way, the two checked their tickets and settled on a seat across from each other and settled for the long ride and some well needed sleep.

They were able to have one of the older pony staff of the train to agree to wake them when they were close to Canterlot.

It had been a strange and long journey, but Jason hoped things would work out for them.

Author's Note

Hey all. I am still not sure if this means my dry spell of writing is over. But I wanted to write something and got this short sort of chapter for yall. I hope you all enjoy it. I know, my writing wasn't up to snuff before, and now it may be even worse but I hope you all still enjoy and are willing to continue the journey with Jason and Skitter.