Lost in a Natural Stateby SolomonCaineChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 1The woods were getting dark. Solomon had never really practiced lighting magic, and now was too late to learn quickly. He had no idea how they had gotten there, but there they were, smack dab in the middle of the Ever Free forest. He strained for a bit, focusing hard on the tip of his horn, sending energy there from the rest of his body. It was tiring him more than he would have expected. After the third try, he was able to cast a moderate blue glow on a limited amount of their surroundings. He was able to make out Northern’s silhouette a few paces ahead of him, every bit as lost as he. “Are we speaking yet?” he asked her tentatively. As far as he could tell, she was mad at him for getting them lost. Solomon was a book worm, not really very experienced in the way of, well, experience. This was his first attempt at trying to get farther out into the world beyond his books. It wasn’t going well. She remained silent for a moment, and he began to think that the answer to his question was no until she spake. “We’re going to have to bunk down for the night. We won’t be able to see much longer in this light, and your blue light won’t work for us much longer.” She said it so coldly. He wondered vaguely if she knew just how much it was taking from him. He fought against the urge to just hang his head in shame at it. He was useless outside of his library, and he knew it. “Stay here,” Northern said sharply, “Don’t want you getting lost out there while looking for a safe place for the night.” With that, she left him. Solomon didn’t know what else he could do, other than sit back on his haunches and wait for her to return. The light quickly faded from his surroundings not covered by his faint blue light, and the details inside his aura faded to obscurity. Trees quickly gained the features of his nightmares. He knew that it was one of the horrors of the forest that it personified itself with a miasma of penetrating fear, and that was what struck him now. The wind blew through the brush behind him and he could imagine the creatures of horror that could be lurking within. The sun set fully, dousing the last of the light. He didn’t even know how long Northern had been gone, but he was imagining that the time had just gone into another dimension and he was waiting hours and hours on end for her to return. His rationality, what little of it that remained, said that he had only been waiting for nearly forty minutes, but his fear of what might have happened to her overrode that rationality and he leaped to his feat, fixing to go searching for her when a twig snapped behind him. He jumped, not expecting the sudden sound to see Northern walk out of some bushes. He nearly cried in relief, but he held himself at bay, rationality returning to him. He realized at that moment that he was not scared for himself, but for Northern. He had gotten her into this mess, and he didn’t want her to suffer for his mistake. “And where do you believe you are going?” she asked him with scorn. Evidently the walk through the woods only worsened her mood. Too much time to think about why she was here. Because of him. It only made him feel worse, and his ears fell flat against the side of his head in shame as he cringed away from her. She sniffed in dissension of his apparent cowardice. “Come on. I found a place for the night.” And she turned, her gray coat easily allowing her to disappear into the darkness. He surged forward, not wanting to lose her, and nearly ran over her in the process. She whirled on him, anger glowing in her eyes. “Watch it!” She didn’t shout, and he probably would have preferred it that way, but she kept her voice low. Even though, he could still feel the heat of that anger in her glare and in her words. He could hear the shouting that those words implied. He shrank back against the ground, not wishing to anger her farther until she turned her angry gaze away. He then walked beside her, slightly back so that she wouldn’t glare at him again. He could feel radiating off of her the anger at him. They walked for a few minutes in absolute silence and he could slowly feel her anger cooling. No longer the absolute anger that it had been when she had first started hating him, but more of the silent heat that could flare again at any moment. Solomon walked up beside Northern, keeping a steady pace beside her, not saying anything, but he picked his head up a little. He wouldn’t lie. These woods scared him. The blue light from his horn faded a little. He was getting tired from having to keep the light up for so long. He’d never had to keep magic going this long. He put some more focus into the light and their aura brightened back again, but at a much greater cost to him now. Then things got worse. He felt a drop of rain fall on his flank. Then another on the tip of his nose. And another and another. He nearly shouted out in frustration at this latest development. Northern looked up at the sky and didn’t so as well as he had at containing herself. She shouted and cursed at the weather of the forest, not controlled by the pegasi as the rest of Equestria was. “Come on,” she said at last, picking up her pace and was soon at a canter. He followed her closely, nearly running over her in order to not lose her. Unlike the previous time though, she didn’t lash back at him. She must have realized that he didn’t want to lose her and needed to be this close in order to not do that. In another minute, they were within sight of a small cave. She broke into it just in time to not get soaked by the sudden downpour that soaked Solomon. He was only a second behind her as well, barely stopping in time to not run headlong into the wall that came up quickly on him. Then it once again got worse. His horn went out. They were cast into an impenetrable darkness. The sound of the downpour outside drowned out all else that he might have heard. He felt a small well of panic in his chest as he foolishly thought that Northern had gotten lost, despite the fact that he knew better. He had seen her in the cave a mere second ago. He quashed the fear thinking it silly. A flash of green in the cave and then orange light suffused the small cave, and started, yelping out before he could stop it. Luckily, Northern didn’t hear it over the rain outside. She had lit a small fire from dry tinder in the center of the cave and it crackled cheerily. He took a moment to study his home for the night. It was indeed, a cave. About ten feet deep, not very much at all. It was narrow as well. He could have reached out both hooves and touched either side barely if he stretched. And if he jumped too high, he would crack his head on the ceiling. In the middle was the fire, four and a half feet, five feet from the outside of the cave, and on the other side of that stood Northern. Her gray coat slightly wet from the rain, her flanks heaving minutely from the sprint into the cave. Her tie was tattered slightly from being in the woods and her glasses needed to be straightened. There were a few leaves stuck in her shortened brown mane. She used to have it longer, but she didn’t anymore, saying she preferred it the way it was now. He wondered why he thought of that now. She was being much braver than he was. But her anger was back. She was glaring at him evilly. No doubt in his mind, thinking of horrible tortures that she would inflict upon him later. “Well, look at the mess you have gotten us into!” she shouted at him. That strangely made him feel better, but he didn’t show it. “We’re lost in the middle of the forest, it’s raining, the temperature is dropping,” wait, what? She continued to rant at him, but he was lost now from the conversation. Besides, everything she was telling him, he already knew. He focused more on the feelings from his surroundings. The temperature wasn’t dropping. The wind was picking up. He leaped in front of the still fledgling fire, blocking the sudden gust that would have put it out, catching cold water drops and even colder wind on his own flank so that their fire wouldn’t go out. It didn’t stop though. The wind kept up for several long seconds before finally dying down a little, still leaving breeze enough to threaten the fire should he move from his spot. Solomon grinned sheepishly and probably foolishly at Northern, but instead of returning it, she returned her features to a hard and cold stare at him. But he still caught it. The look she had been trying to hide from him. She was scared as he was. She just didn’t show it as much. But then, she didn’t also have to be afraid of herself. He didn’t show that he had seen this, and instead laid his ears back and fell back into a depressed look. “Get some sleep. I’ll keep watch here for the night,” he said, barely audible to her over the falling rain and blowing wind as he let his gaze fall. She was already curling up in the back of the cave. He let his magic flair again, stirring the fire a little, allowing it to grow hotter and brighter. Shortly afterwards, he heard her fall into the deep steady breathing of deep sleep. He let his ears prick up and he turned around. The fire wasn’t really bright. It cast lights out only to the edge of the clearing. In the woods, he could barely made out some dead wood small enough for him to pick up at a distance. Using his magic, he pulled it into the cave, arraying it around the fire as he had read in his books to let it contain the fire and dry out quickly so that he’d be able to use it later. He turned his back to the fire, his work completed for now and just watched out into the night. The cold rain ensured that it would be a long one. Chapter 2He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. The miserable cold and rain and wind lashing at him made him think that time took longer than it ever did. It felt like days. He would turn every so often, trying to make it regular, to check on the fire and on Northern as she slept. Her ears flicked back and forth in her sleep and he vaguely wondered what she was dreaming of. Probably her warm bed, the same one that he had made her miss that night. He would then turn back towards the night, plaguing himself with the guilt of what he had done. Eventually the rain slacked off and the wind died off. Not long after that, the rain stopped completely He heaved a sigh of relief. His back was almost dry from facing the fire the entire time. He stepped out of the cave and stood a little ways away before he shook himself off, flinging his mane back and forth, sending small droplets of water scattering in all directions. He was mildly damp by the time he got dizzy from shaking. He stepped back into the cave and stood by the fire, instead of in front of it now, allowing it to dry him off the rest of the way. He would occasionally walk to the other side of the cave and the fire, letting himself dry evenly. He would also use these occasions to check on Northern and stoke the fire. She shivered once, whether from the cold or not, he couldn’t tell. He wanted to share his own warmth with her, but he knew that he still was wet enough to be cold to her, and would likely do more harm than good for her, so he bit his lip to stop himself and turned back to the outside, once again moving to the front of the fire. He used the opportunity to pull in more wood from outside the cave. There was more light now. He guessed that the clouds were clearing and the moon was shining down on them. He could see more dead wood to pull in. He turned around and felt an itch. It was a strange itch, not really there, but still there. He ignored it while he arranged the wood around the fire again to dry. The itch got worse as he did this. It became nearly unbearable. He then realized what the strange itch was and he snapped his head around to look for whomever might be watching him. He didn’t see anything. He suddenly had the feeling that maybe the cave belonged to something else. He looked back at the cave, scanning the ground to see if he’d be able to see anything that would suggest that his hunch was true. He hadn’t any such luck. Either there was nothing to see, he couldn’t see it, or their presence had erased all traces. That shot him with panic. He looked up from his frantic scanning to Northern to see her still sleeping peacefully. He wouldn’t wake her for some sleep deprived paranoia, without evidence. She was mad enough at him already. But the feeling of being watched, that infernal itch, it still remained with him. He couldn’t stand it. Whatever was out there knew that they were there. He wanted to know what it was. Looking around warily, he stepped out into the clearing, looking around warily, his ears well open and focused, as he fought past his sleepiness. He was exhausted from his vigil, and for a moment, he wished that the rain and wind was back. It was so much easier to stay focused and awake when you were uncomfortable. Now that he was drier and warm, he could easily go to sleep, but he couldn’t allow himself that luxury now. He stopped right in the middle of the clearing, looking at all sides, one by one. Somehow, this made him feel a little more awake, but he knew that it wasn’t enough. He’d been awake too long. He was definitely going to miss details at this point. He hoped that being out in the open would just make him a much more tempting target than the cave and its occupant. He hated waiting, but that’s exactly what whatever it was that was tormenting him was doing now. If it was going to kill him, let it kill him now! He stood there, slowly turning in his circle for maybe half an hour when he found himself facing back towards the cave when something happened. He heard movement from directly behind him. Adrenaline shot through his heart, waking him immediately by a little bit. He swung his head around quickly, possibly giving himself whiplash, and running things through his mind. He knew what he did wrong and he blamed his sleep deprived brain for allowing him to do it. He shouldn’t have turned his back on the clearing. A perfect shot that nopony would have been able to resist if they were going to attack him. When he came to a stop, he saw nothing. There was nothing. He couldn’t believe it, and his mouth hung open in wonder at that fact. He turned back towards the cave, then into the woods again, settling back on the cave, making sure that nothing had moved in there. Something had moved. Northern was awake now, and looking at him, one eyebrow raised in question at what he was doing. Her eyes still didn’t hold the anger they had last night, but he didn’t hold any delusions that she had already forgiven him. She just hadn’t remembered that she was angry at him. He shook his head slightly to clear the sleep from it, and listened again. He couldn’t hear anything besides the normal sounds of the woods. And the itch was gone. He wasn’t sure if that was good or not, but he shook his head again and walked back into the cave. “I don’t know. I thought something was out there,” he said, a little disappointed now that there wasn’t anything. She stood up from where she had lay and walked to the front of the cave. “You’ve been awake too long. You’re starting to imagine things. Go get some sleep or you’ll be even more useless than usual.” And suddenly the hardness that she had had before was back. She remembered that she hated him. Ears back, Solomon went to the back of the cave and fell asleep. It wasn’t nearly as easy as he had thought it would have been. The warmth of the fire on his flank was only on one side. It caused him to be cold on one side, and he now realized why Northern had been cold. The ground was uncomfortable and hard. Unyielding to his shape, making it hard to sleep upon it. Eventually, the peace of unconsciousness and sleep yielded to his attempts to achieve it. But even then, it wasn’t restful. It was broken by him surfacing into the realm of semi consciousness. He’d hear Northern pulling wood in and placing it by the fire. Such a smart filly. He then fell back into sleep. Later he woke up to the sound of Northern pacing around the entrance, the sound of her hooves on the stone there somehow soothing to him. It meant that she was still there and alright. He was lulled back into his sleep. He slept longer this time and he woke with a jolt at his name. “SOLOMON!” Northern was yelling. She wasn’t at the entrance to the cave. She was in the clearing, a chimera attacking. Shock drove him into a fully awakened state, hopping to his hooves before he even knew what he was doing, charging out to take on the beast that was attacking. He didn’t know how to attack a creature like this though. Before he could even get close to it, the snake head lashed out at him, biting at him but missing and impaling its nose on his horn before knocking him back to the edge of the clearing. Northern shot a lance of green from her horn, but before it reached the chimera, it dissipated to nothing. Solomon quickly searched his mind as he forced himself back to his hooves. He needed to resort to the only thing that he had in abundance, and that was his knowledge. Chimeras where large three headed creatures. Yep, he could see that very well from here. A lion head and a goat head sat on its shoulders then a snake head that swayed back and forth for the tail. He was on the right path then. He charged forward again, stopping at the extreme edge of the snake head’s reach as it struck at where he was going to be in the next moment. He leaped upon its neck and ran up towards the base where it connected with the rest of the body. The chimera consisted of balance in three aspects. Physical from the lion, magic from the goat (how they got that however, was beyond him) and vigilance from the snake. He finished this thought as he reached the base of the snake tail and moved onto the chimera’s back. It bucked, trying to dislodge Solomon from its back. He flew through the air to the front of the chimera, landing a few feet in front of it. A few more bolts of Northern’s green magic dissipated before they hit the chimera, but now Solomon could see why. The goat head was sending out miniature blasts of magic, causing the larger ball of magic to be destroyed. The chimera has three minds and hearts. As long as one head lives, the chimera lives. He had no clue how he was going to fight this thing. He scrambled back onto his hooves once more, placing himself directly between the chimera and Northern. “Run!” he yelled over his shoulder at her. He didn’t wait to see if she’d comply with his directive, but charged the lion’s head, trying to jab it in the throat with his sharp horn, like he had to the snake’s nose earlier. He didn’t get close enough to the lion before it smacked him with its paw, sending him off towards the clearing again. He was left viewing Northern turning about and running as darkness ringed his eyes. At least she’d get away sa- ‘why is the chimera chasing her instead of coming after me?’ He wondered, a fresh stab of adrenaline shooting through his heart, driving the darkness away from his eyes. He was up on his hooves once again in a blur, giving chase to the chimera. Northern stumbled on the ground, and Solomon could see why. He wanted to kick himself for not noticing it earlier. Her leg was gashed. He truly hoped that it was the lion’s claws and not the snake tail. He was sure that the chimera had a poison bite. Speaking of, the snake took that moment to strike at him as he was beginning to catch up with the chimera as the chimera was beginning to catch up to Northern. Solomon ducked into the mouth, jabbing his horn deep into the tissue at the roof of the snake’s mouth. He then dragged his horn through the soft tissue, ripping and tearing it as he pulled his head out of the snake mouth, carefully avoiding the fangs. The snake flung its head back, blood falling from its mouth in great globs. But the snake was the only part paying him any attention. The lion and goat were still attacking Northern for some reason, despite him being the obvious threat. At least Northern was still able to keep out of reach of the lion’s claws, and kept throwing her magic at the goat to keep it distracted. But how much longer? Solomon wished that he knew more magic at this point, but he didn’t. He’d have to make due with the magic that he did know. He shook his head to get the blood out of his vision and summoning his magic, started shooting rocks quickly out at the base of the snake tail. It was the limit of his magic, but he made due with it. The rocks split scale and started cutting into the muscles and sinews. It was tiring him out more than it should, and he realized that he was getting the attention of the goat. It was trying to stop him from hurting the snake. But the snake was losing too much blood now. It flopped to the ground and thrashed. This halted the chimera’s advance, but immediately turned its attention upon Solomon. He was instantly swiped back into a tree by the lion’s claw. The claws bit into his skin dragging across his chest and forelegs, causing them to burn greatly as if on fire. He cracked his head against a knot in the tree. His vision swayed and doubled. A ringing filled his ears and he began to lack in his ability to comprehend what was happening. He closed his eyes and tried shaking his head to clear it, but all that did was cause so much pain that he wanted to throw up. Nothing in his stomach to throw up though. He opened his eyes and he could briefly see just a single chimera before it split into three. It was coming closer to him, dragging its dead snake along with it. The snake made it move slowly, maybe he could use that to escape. But even as he tried, he felt nothing but pain. He was moving just as slow as the chimera now, but the chimera wasn’t hindered in its ability to attack. Solomon was. Onto his hooves, he started limping away from the chimera, looking over his shoulder to watch it. It felt strange to him, to watch and see the chimera moving, and knowing that it made noise, but only ever hearing the sound of ringing in his head. He really hoped that it would clear up soon. He found it annoying. The lion’s mane was suddenly aflame. While the goat was distracted from her, Northern had used her magic without its interference. Now the lion wouldn’t be much good either as it thrashed, beating at itself with a single paw, but unable to reach the spot that was on fire. Chimera roared in its pain and frustration at the two ponies as it started to move off into the forest, away from the ponies that were causing it pain. A chimera left alive can return killed or damaged parts of it to life with time. Well, at least his mind was starting to sort itself out. Northern stood farther away than the chimera had started from when it had come after Solomon. She was breathing heavily, but she was safe. The adrenalin running through Solomon’s system ran out. Darkness quickly closed in around him and he fell to the ground. A second later, Northern stood over him, with concern on her face. She was safe, that was good. She was trying to say something, but he couldn’t hear her. All he could hear was the ringing in his ears and the pound of blood being pumped through his body as it stabilized itself. He rolled his eye away and he saw the first rays of the sun pierce through the vale of the forest canopy. He felt no fear as the darkness overtook him. Chapter 3Later, Solomon had no way of knowing just how much later, he could feel consciousness creeping back up on him. It felt like pain. He honestly hurt everywhere, but not as much as he did when he had blacked out. Did that mean he was dead? No, he didn’t think so. He was sure if he was dead he wouldn’t have felt anything at all. Cracking open an eye, he studied his surroundings. There was light. It pierced straight down, lancing into his eye, causing a migraine to start, though it never manifested. It settled down after a second into a dull throbbing headache. He noticed that his ears weren’t ringing anymore. That was good. There was also something tight around his chest. He imagined that it might have been blood coating his chest from the chimera’s scratch. His head had a similar feeling, and he remembered the chimera blood from when he had stabbed it in the mouth. The blood had no doubt dried in his mane, matting it horribly. If he made it back, he would have to have his hair cut to remove the mats and blood. His eye rolled around in its socket, trying to get a better image of where he was. He had been looking straight up, through the top of the trees. The sun was there, which was why it had been so painful to look. By that, he could guess that he’d been out for quite some time. At least six hours. He was on the edge of a clearing. Not the same one that they had slept in in the night, but another one. He was nestled underneath some low hanging branches, leaves were piled around him, possibly under him as well, but he couldn’t feel them. He hoped that wasn’t a sign of something worse. He couldn’t see Northern anywhere, and for a moment he worried that she might have left or been caught by the chimera when it came back, or maybe something worse. Solomon tried to calm his over active imagination. She was probably just fine. He just couldn’t see her from his position just by rolling his eyes. It wasn’t going well. He couldn’t calm himself completely from just rational thought. He needed to see her. So he tried raising his head up. It caused his headache to double, and his neck muscles screamed a protest, but he ignored them, as he lifted his head tiredly and got a better look around the clearing. It was small, but one rarely expected to find a large clearing in the Everfree, though it was possible at times. He could hear a stream nearby. So Northern had moved him. He craned his head around, searching the clearing for her. Few branches littered the ground here and a small blackened area indicated where a fire had been built. A pile of wood was stacked near it and a ring of wood piled around it. But he didn’t see Northern immediately, bringing back his anxiety. Then he saw her. She was up against a tree not far away from where he lay, asleep. Relief swept through his body, making him relax muscles that he had been clenching instinctively to fly after her. A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Anxiety resolved, he turned his attention back on himself. He wanted to know just how far the damage had gotten on him. Confusion grabbed his thoughts for a second as he tried to make sense of what he was looking at when he looked down. It soon made sense to him though. His chest was bound with a thick moss, that was spotted with red in a few spots. He had evidently been bleeding more than he had thought he had. The moss however was staunching the blood flow now. He looked at what was holding it on and found Northern’s tie wrapped around the top of the moss. Moisture held it to the bottom of his chest and his own blood was holding it to his center. A bit of a morbid thought, but it was nice of Northern to have lent him her tie. His head wasn’t nearly as matted as he had thought. It was wet, like it had been washed. Northern must have tried washing the blood away in order to see if he was bleeding badly. To be honest about it, he couldn’t have said for certain about all the blood being the chimera’s either. The crack to the back of his head might have broken the skin. His wounds established, he carefully pulled his hooves under him, pulling against the moss so delicately held in place. Pushing up, he carefully made it to his feet. Head throbbing, he shuffled out of where he had been laying, despite the want to return to it. He didn’t want to be fighting against the pain, but he knew that he had to. He needed to make sure blood continued to flow, or he ran the risk of becoming locked up. He had already started becoming stiff, and he needed to move around to get his blood flowing through him again. He walked slowly over to where Northern lay. Her flanks moved rhythmically, slowly. He moved down to where he had seen her gash earlier. It was covered with moss as well, but something was wrong with it. He sniffed at the moss curiously, wondering what made him feel so wrong. It wasn’t the moss. It was the same moss as what he was wearing. It smelled slightly of antiseptic as well. Whether that was her intention or by accident, Solomon didn’t know. He brushed aside some of her coat to look farther up on her leg. Veins bulged out going up, and had turned a sickly green. It hadn’t really gone far past the moss wrap on her leg yet, but he could see that is was spreading. She had gotten bitten by the chimera’s tail. Now poison flowed through her veins and would eventually stop her heart if he didn’t do something. Whether she knew it or not, the antiseptic in the moss had probably saved her life. He let her coat fall back into place, turning to begin his search. Chimera and manticore share a similar venom gland, despite them having different methods of delivery. Trace differences in the poison make the chimera more deadly, but not as fast acting. Manticore venom paralyzes, chimera venom kills. But they both have the same cure if you find yourself in need of an antidote to it. “So you’re up,” he heard the voice from behind him. Tired. He turned to see Northern looking at him, a slight smile at her mouth. “I thought that you’d be a goner. It’s good to see that you pulled through.” She tried to stand, but Solomon was by her side in an instant, pushing her back down with his forehead on her shoulder. He could feel the heat of her fevered skin now. He also made her lay back down easily enough. She looked at him incredulously, but he could see the fatigue in her eyes. “The snake bite is venomous. I need to get something for it. It’s my turn to take care of you,” he spoke softly to her. His own voice was tired, he realized. He wasn’t really in any shape to go taking care of others. He was barely standing as it was. But if he didn’t help her, they might very well both die. He would need to hurry to get the cure. Every moment he wasted was more time that she’d suffer from the effects of the venom. She nodded, grudgingly accepting what she said. He admired how stubborn she was, but even though, she was accepting that she was poisoned and needed help in this. “So what are we looking for?” she asked, attempting to stand again, only to be pushed back down by Solomon again. Admirable stubbornness. “You are looking for more of that rest you were getting before I disturbed you,” he said, weakly smiling at her. He didn’t need her moving around, increasing the flow of the venom. And sleeping would slow the blood pumping even more. That is what he wanted. It gave him more time. “I’ll find it. Don’t worry.” She glared up at him, but she didn’t try to get up again. “You’re going to get lost again,” she accused him. Admirable stubbornness. “Mark a path as you go so that you won’t,” she surrendered. Or was it merely surrender? She seemed to be growing more tired by the second. Her own body was helping him now, making her drowsy so that she would sleep. “No problem.” And with that, she laid her head down and fell asleep. Now, what was he looking for? Walking through the woods, he searched again for the antidote. Why wasn’t it in the same book as the chimera venom? He’d send a scolding letter to the author of the book when he got back. If he got back. He searched through his stores of knowledge again, quickly finding what he was searching for. The name was blurry in his mind, but the entry said that it wasn’t an uncommon tree to be found in the Everfree Forest. He needed the bark from a root of that tree, water, and Earth moss. A spasm from his chest made him stop and look down. In his searching of what he needed to know, he had picked up his pace, nearly causing his scratches to reopen. He forced himself to slow down and took this moment to scratch a tree with his horn, marking that he’d been here and this was the way for him to come back as well. Looking up, he saw something that made him think again. He’d need something for the water. How would he draw it up? He shook his head and started reciting in his mind how to make a wicker bowl. He’d have to make a few points of change in the design, but he was sure that he’d make it work. With all these things occupying his mind, he set off again, looking at the bark and leaves of every tree that he passed, carving a scratch into every fifth tree that he passed. He found the moss first, thickly coating the ground and trees around it. He took a large swath of it from the base of a tree when something suddenly came to light in his minds eye. Looking up, he saw the leaves of the tree and the identifying bark of the tree he was looking for. Pawing the ground hard, he quickly found the tree’s root. He used his magic to peel the bark away from the rest of the wood. Solomon draped the thick and heavy moss over his shoulders and carried the strips of bark using magic. Along the way, he picked up sticks in his mouth, the grainy dirt falling on his teeth and tongue. But he endured. Following his marks, he quickly found himself back in the clearing. The entry in the book came to preparing the antidote. Grind bark into fine powder using any means that you have. Solomon stared blankly at that entry in his archives of knowledge for a second, wondering how he’d be able to do that. He had an idea, and he was glad that Northern was asleep for this. He walked off into the woods a second time, finding the moss that Northern had brought for use as a staunch for their blood. He grabbed a mouthful of it and brought it to the stream with him. Moving into the faster water, he started soaking the moss, dipping it several times, cleaning out the dirt in it. Hesitantly, he started to chew on it, pulping it down into a paste. It tasted like it smelled, like antiseptic. He gagged and nearly vomited, but he spread the juices over the inside of his mouth. He decided then that he would never tell anypony about this. No matter if they asked about it. It didn’t matter that his mouth was clean now, it was still gross. Spitting out the excess into the stream, he went back onto the bank and started breaking the sticks he had brought with him into the proper size and bending them into the proper shape as he chewed on the bark. It tasted worse than the moss did. Further, he couldn’t even identify what it tasted like. He shaped the sticks into a vaguely bowl like shape by the time the first leaf of bark had been completely pulped. He didn’t swallow any of the juice that had come from the bark, making sure to not lose any of the pulped bark by placing it on a large flat rock. He didn’t want to take another leaf, but he did, pulping it while doing his best not to gag on it. Meanwhile, he retrieved leaves from the top of a tree. The leaves were very large fronds that he weaved into the sticks, closely overlapping them, making them tightly grip each other in order to hold the water. It wouldn’t hold water indefinitely, but any of the methods that he had for that took too much time. He finished the first of layers at the second bark pulp. He added the second to the first, the sun’s heat already in the process of drying it out. He was trying hard not to think about what the sun was drying out of it. It would be better to not know. He continued the process until he had pulped all the leaves of bark. The bowl was rough, but it would hold water for a little bit. He waded back out into the middle of the river, the fast moving water being cleaner than the stagnant pools, and filled the bowl, holding it there with his magic. Filled, it started leaking quickly, but stalled itself, the pressure of the water against the leaves causing them to retain the water. It would leak, but slowly. Holding the bowl was easy for him. It barely weighed more than one of the encyclopedias. He reopened the entry in his mind, looking at the next step. Take the ground bark, and mix it into the earth moss, then soak it in the water. The bark was dry enough that it was easy now to mash it into a powder. As long as he didn’t think to hard about it, he didn’t get sick. The taste and texture of the bark was still in his mouth. After washing the moss out, he sprinkled bark powder on it. He placed the bark powdered moss in the bowl and floated it over to where Northern lay and went back to his entry. Make a cut on the leading edge of the poison flow, then wrap the wet moss around the wound, powdered side down. He really didn’t like the idea of cutting Northern, but he did what he had to. He quickly located the leading edge of the poison, which was now moving close to her haunch now, leaving maybe an hour left to wrap it up or he’d have to make a larger gash, larger wrap, and more bark, and brought his horn down, making a slight cut right at its edge. And was caught completely off guard by the hoof that caught him upside the head, making it ring again and causing him to be dizzy and fall on the ground, rolling to his back. Head spinning, he looked up at Northern, glaring down at him accusingly. “I had reasons,” he said lamely. “I’ll bet,” she raised a single eyebrow at him before turning her head to look at the new cut on her hind leg. It was clean and smooth, not likely causing her much pain. It would easily heal cleanly without leaving a single mark on her. It welled blood. “I assume it’s to apply the antidote directly to the absolute of the poison, letting it move backwards in my bloodstream to purge it from my system without endangering me further by allowing some poison to move farther along in my body, making it harder for the antidote to catch up with it.” His mouth, he could feel, was open. Either the poison was making her think clearly, or she was much sexier than he had thought of her before. He had a sudden tightness in his chest from her saying that. And “I think I love you right now,” came slipping out of his mouth before he could stop it. He could tell now that he clearly had suffered brain damage from something. He never would have said that before. He would have looked at the words first. But when she looked away, blushing lightly, Solomon knew that maybe he’d be perfectly okay with speaking his mind this way. He rolled to his hooves as Northern picked up the moss, her green aura’d magic wrapping around the moss, starting to place it on her freshly bleeding cut. “Turn it over.” When she glared at him he ducked his head, but maintained eye contact with her. “The bark is the main part of the cure.” She stared for a moment before turning it over. He walked over, helping her spread it across her leg, making it wrap around her leg completely, overlapping the moss’s ends. They’d hold better. “You could have said something to me,” she said at last, holding the moss in place with her magic. Solomon put his horn on the moss, and welled up his energy. A gray ribbon formed around the moss to hold it in place. She let out a small start in surprise as it appeared and tightened. Solomon knew that creating something from nothing was supposed to be a difficult sort of magic to accomplish, but he’d never found much problem in doing it. Possibly because he cheated in doing it, but he kept that a secret. It was the other magics that he couldn’t find shortcuts in to do them. “I know, but with somethings, its just easier to get them over with before you lose the nerve to do them. Like cutting you. If I had taken the time to ask you if it was okay, I’m not sure if I would have been able to go through with it after. I’m sorry.” He was weak, and he knew it. But she nuzzled him. He could feel his face turning red. He hadn’t expected that kind of a reaction from someone that he assumed still hated him. He would have jumped away if he hadn’t been better at controlling himself. “Are you feeling okay?” he asked her, placing his head against hers. She was still fevered. “You have a high fever. You need to get back to sleep to l-let that antidote t-ttake e-e-effect.” A stutter? He hadn’t stuttered since he was a young colt! And never had it been that bad. She was having a real effect on him. “A stutter. How cute,” she teased, taking evident delight in making him blush even harder than before. “But the doctor’s given orders. I’ll follow them. Don’t you work too hard either. You’re not exactly in top physical condition either,” she gestured to his own moss wrapped front. He had her tie securely in place still. “Don’t worry. I’ll get my own s-sleep, b-but I’m still going to prepare a few things b-before I sleep.” She smiled at his apparently adorable stutter and laid her head back down to sleep. He headed back down to the water, picking up some more of his sticks in preparation to make another bowl. This one he shaped to be larger and deeper, more of a vase than a bowl, but with the wide rim he gave it, it was definitely a bowl. As he worked, he looked into the sky, marking the passing of the sun. He had been awake for six hours since he had awaken from fighting the chimera. Twelve hours since the actual fight. It would soon go dark again. And they were still stuck in the forest. He sighed in dismay as he finished the bowl. He put his horn to it and focused. He cheated in this magic because he used something that was already there to create it. Particles in the air could work with small things like the ribbon, and they were easy, but he preferred to have a base already constructed for larger items like the bowl. He could do it with the convergence of particles in the air with the bowl as well, but it was harder to do. He soon had a large clay bowl. It was much heavier than one of his encyclopedias when he filled it with water, but he’d be able to move it back to the clearing. Whenever they awoke, there was no doubt that they’d be absolutely parched. Even now he could feel a need to drink. With his work done, he set the bowl down on the edge of the stream again. Looking down, he saw the stone that he had used to dry the bark. He suddenly felt ill again, and his gag reflex acted up. He retched, bile filling his mouth and throat, but he had nothing to bring up. They’d also need to eat when they woke up. That was mandatory. But he wouldn’t be able to find any food at this time. He’d wait for the morning and he’d look for some with Northern as they found their way home. In the meantime, he used his magic and threw the flat stone into the middle of the stream, erasing it from his vision. With that taken care of, he washed the bile from his mouth and drank deeply. His stomach took a moment to accept it, but he made it stay there. His thirst slaked, he picked up his clay bowl and brought it to the clearing, placing it near Northern’s head. She looked up at his approach. “Sorry to wake you. I brought water. Since you’re awake,” he gestured at the bowl, “you need to drink,” he said, kindly. She smiled at him. “Yes, doctor.” She stretched her neck out and drank deeply from the bowl’s rim. A drop of water escaped past her lips and ran down her coat. Solomon followed it with his eyes as it made its way down her neck to her chest and farther. Northern stopped drinking, and he looked away, blushing at the fact that he had been watching, but Northern seemed to not have noticed. “Thank you,” she muttered as she lay back down. “It was my pleasure.” Again saying without thinking, he had been trying to be pleasant, but with his current thoughts, she would no doubt think him trying to be seductive or something, since there was no doubt in his mind that she could read him like a book. He tried not to let anything show on his face, and she made no comment on what he said. She was clearly trying to put him in an even more awkward position. He turned to go to another spot to sleep but she stopped him. “Wait,” she had said, and he had turned without thinking about it. He tried to make it logical as to why he turned, he was the only pony around, so she had to be talking to him, he was getting used to her voice, ect., but the truth of the matter was that the feelings that he had felt for her earlier were still there. And now she had stopped to nibble on her lip. “Yes?” he prompted her when she continued to hesitate. She seemed to be struggling with how to say something. What, he couldn’t think of. “It’s almost dark. The night’s get cold here. And tonight we don’t have the luxury of the cave to keep us warm with the fire. Would you care to come sleep by me tonight?” She was asking him to snuggle? This raised all sorts of alarms and emotions in him. He wasn’t entirely sure how to react, so of course, his new brain damage decided to act for him. “Of course, I’d be honored.” The rest of his mind cursed the new paths that had formed in his mind. He felt warmth spreading through his body, no doubt a full body blush. Maybe she wouldn’t notice it, but of course she would. She could read his mind, and all the thoughts running through it now. Shut the thoughts off, shut them off! He stalled a minute, “Let me just get a fire going.” I can just put my face in there and watch it burst into flames, the way you’re making me feel right now, he thought, never letting a word of it touch his lips. He gathered up wood at the edge of the clearing, piling it up into a fire pile that would last for a few hours, before he had to succumb to his traitorous mind’s vows. He placed his horn into where the heart of the flame would settle in the wood and concentrated on the particles in the wood, trying to get it to vibrate at a fast rate and create friction. With that one thought, his concentration nearly faltered, but he didn’t allow it to. The wood soon burst into flame, and they had a cheery little fire to burn into the night. Now there was no excuses. He turned to her and he almost stumbled a step, she had the sweetest smile on her face now. His head suddenly swam. Why did she have to do that? It made it hard to think. He looked down a second to make sure that his suddenly pounding heart didn’t pump blood through the gashes in his chest. The small spots of blood in the moss hadn’t expanded, so he decided to take that as a good sign. Trying to regain what little composure he had against her onslaught of making herself adorable, he casually walked around to her other side and settled down, his hooves underneath him. She then snuggled closer to him, sharing their warmth. And ensuring that if he got up, she would most definitely know about it. They sat and stared at the fire for a few moments longer before she laid her head down and slept. He shortly could here the steady intake of breath of her deep sleep. He continued to stare at the fire and listen to the relaxing sound of Northern’s steady breath. He laid his head down, and went to sleep with the sun. He was still scared, but he knew that with Northern with him, he’d be able to make it. Chapter 4It wasn't the sun that woke him up. It was at his back, so it wouldn't be able to shine in his eyes unless it was nearing dusk again. What woke him was a clawing need to eat. His stomach rebelled at him for not eating sooner. He wondered what he had been going on up until this point. He didn't really have any reserves that could be tapped. He felt weak, lifting his head up off of the ground. No real surprise there, much had happened in the past two days to them. As he raised his head, he felt Northern stir beside him. It was comfortable where he lay, and he didn't really want to move, for more reasons than the comfort if he was honest with himself, but his stomach was not giving him an option in this matter. He nudged Northern lightly in an attempt to wake her nicely. Her mane smelled of the earth that they had lain in for the night. She stirred again, but still didn't wake. He smiled and shook his head. It occurred to him that it might be the poison, and he sniffed at the poison's edge. It didn't smell sick anymore. Using his horn he moved the moss away from where he had made the gash. It was a stretch for him, as he didn't want to upset Northern and wake her before she wanted to. He imagined that her own stomach would wake her just as his had. The moss removed, he saw that his gash was gone. That baffled him. He couldn't understand it. The moss didn't have magical properties as far as he knew. But the tree might have. He didn't know the name of the tree or really anything about it, besides what it looked like. And that it was a cure. Ruffling the coat allowed him to see the skin underneath. There was no signs of the poison that had been in her veins just a few hours ago. It was gone. She'd be safe. At least from the--NO. he wouldn't think of anything else that would come up. She'd be okay as long as they were together, right? That's what he was determined to believe. He lifted his head away from her leg, straightening himself back up. To find that Northern was awake now and watching him. "You look pleased. I take it that I'm going to live?" she asked, a smile playing across her features. It nearly made his heart melt to see it. But he stalled answering it to feel her forehead, checking her temperature again. The fever had broken in the middle of the night, from what he could tell now, and her temperature was regular. So why was she still being like this to him? When did he start grinning like an idiot? "You're going to do better than live." Why did he say that? Oh, right. He had brain damage. But now where did he go with this? "We're getting out of here today." Why did he feel so right in saying that? The sound of running water began a thought process that the rest of his mind had already put together. The part of his mind that was running ahead of him gave him a small nudge in the right direction. The river runs right out of the forest. If they follow it "What makes you so sure that we're almost out?" Northern interrupted his thoughts, but allowed him to feel the rightness in what he had said before. "The river. Unlike everything else in this forest, it makes sense. The river runs straight between Ponyville and Canterlot before turning towards the ocean. If we follow downstream, we should be out of this forest by the end of the day." Solomon explained it as he nudged her, helping her get onto her hooves, before he followed. She stretched out her neck and legs. She had been laying down for over a day. To now be allowed to move without endangerment of herself, she took advantage of the situation, stretching everything that she could in order to loosen herself up from her long rest. "I think I have sleep sores," she murmured, more to herself than Solomon, though he could hear her, while she craned her head around, rubbing at a spot that she'd been lying on the entire time. Solomon stood to follow her, stretching out the muscles that had stiffened from the cold ground. His stomach growled, reminding him of his priority. They'd need food before long. "I'm hungry." He was certainly surprised that he was the first to say anything. But he felt that it was something that needed to be put out there. "We should look for something along the way-" he cut off as Northern had already taken off towards the river. He had no choice but to follow her. They walked along the river bank for a good while. Solomon reckoned a few hours. He had spotted a berry bush a while back that had been full of ripe berries. There they had eaten their fill, Solomon stopping them before they reached a gorge. There were dangers involved in eating too much when they had gone as long as they had without eating. Forcing themselves away, they continued on their trek. They had been traveling for a spell when Solomon took notice of the river. It was no longer flowing as quickly as it had before. He knew that there was something significant to that, but now he struggled to remember what it was. What was it? And a sound on the edge of his his perception jogged his memory, and he groaned. "A waterfall." Northern looked around at him with a look of apprehension on her face a moment before it cleared. "Well, we're not in the water, so that shouldn't worry us, right?" she asked, a small hint of doubt creeping into her voice as Solomon continued to appear worried about it. "I don't know yet," he said in a tired voice. "A tall waterfall could prove problematic, but a short one is easy to deal with." They were soon to find out which fall it was. The waterfall wasn't as expected. It actually turned out to be a cascade of several smaller waterfalls, falling only a few feet each. Solomon and Northern easily bounded down them, for once ending without some disaster befalling them. But if he were to be honest with himself, Solomon would have actually said that he wanted something bad to overcome. It made things more interesting. And he had come to almost expect the tragedies to befall their travels. Not to mention that they usually got him to be close with Northern. The way she sounded as she breathed, and the smell of her mane as he slept beside her. He tried to muddle his thoughts, but unsuccessfully, not really wishing for them to continue down this path from the consequences that might arise from it. He paused in his trek, realizing that Northern wasn't walking beside him. A slight skip hit his heart at this realization and he turned around, searching for her. He saw he sitting on the ground staring back up at the falls, seeming at peace, despite where they were. Solomon soon found himself trotting back over to her and sitting down, staring up at the falls. The realization of why she stopped hit him at that moment. They were a wondrous sight. Who knew that something like this had existed in the forest so close to home? The water came down in several steps, a shimmering and clear blue over a muted gray rock that suddenly became a glistening stone under the water as it rushed by. The mists kicked up by the falls caught the light at the right angle, creating a rainbow that shot out for several feet before fading with the mists. A single flower bloomed on a slight craggy outcropping in the middle of the cascade. It was a wondrous shade of pink that faded at the edges to an iridescent violet while the center seemed to be made of gold. The pestles protruding from the center where a muted silver. It was framed by a cloudless and majestic sky above and slight vegetation all around. It really was a marvel of their fair land. But after viewing it for a few minutes, the rainbow disappeared as the light moved on. They had passed it at the exact right moment to catch it at it's most splendid, but now they were merely wasting time. They had to move now, else they risked spending another night in the forest. Solomon turned and nudged Northern, getting her attention. Her ears had gone back when the rainbow had gone. Evidently she had come to the same conclusion that Solomon had. It was time to go. Northern looked to Solomon with soft eyes. "This place isn't so bad, once you get to really see it," she murmured softly, almost at the point where Solomon couldn't hear it over the sound of the falls. He agreed with her, but he remained silent. His chest still hurt because of this forest. It might not be bad, but it still made him wary. Northern waited expectantly for him for another moment before frowning slightly, only for a moment, and continuing walking. That frown hurt against his heart, unexpectedly painful. He knew that he had disappointed her. And he also knew that it was because he hadn't said anything. But he couldn't say anything now, so he moved to follow her, stopping again, briefly to look back one last time at the water's cascade. He noted the direction that they fell in, and a smile crossed his face. They fell to the north. He decided to call them Northern's Cascade. With that, he turned and followed Northern. Chapter 5They walked for a while longer in a peaceful silence. Northern didn't have the disappointment in him any longer, but the thought still nagged at him. He didn't want to disappoint Northern in any way. And he knew that they agreed on this point. His thoughts raged on what he should do, not wanting to come together to form a unanimous consensus. The damaged part of his brain soon got tired of his thought war and decided to take over again. "This place has a certain majesty about it that's hard to describe." At those words, Northern glanced in Solomon's direction, but looked back quickly. But her glance told him that she was interested in what he was saying. He let his brain damage continue talking. "It's, hmm, I don't really know. It's a type of natural beauty. It doesn't follow the rules that we have come to expect. It engineers the beauty on its own that we have come to expect on a regular basis, and its irregularity makes it more attractive." Northern was now looking directly at him as he spoke, paying attention to him. So he plowed on. "Moreover, it orchestrates its beauty in a way that we can't replicate. I suppose that it has had more practice than our artisans have had, but I don't think that it's merely the skill difference that defines the beauty, but the art itself. Our artists actually have their art look like it's been made, whereas this is like an accidental beauty. Beauty without effort." The brain damaged part of his brain seemed to have calmed down now. And it had placed his thoughts so well. Northern smiled at him now. He beamed with pride at his mind. Even if it was because of that damage that he felt the courage to say something. Northern just continued on in silence, but it was enough that Solomon knew that he had made up for his past disappointment. Then something horrible happened. Something that he should have seen coming. "Just like something else that I can see right now." He clamped down on this new disastrous course, but it was already too late. He was grinning like... he wasn't even sure what he grinned like, but he was sure that it wasn't good. Northern gasped at this compliment and he could see her blush a deep red underneath her coat and she turned away quickly so that he couldn't see her expression. He was sure that it was one of horror. If he had been in his own right mind, his would have been. He wasn't a flirt! He had never flirted before in his lifetime. And now he was doing it to somepony that he had just earned the respect of with that cheesy line? It wouldn't be any wonder if she never spoke to him again because of what he just said. He wrestled with his separated mind, trying to get it under control again so that he wouldn't have to worry about it saying something else, but it remained stubborn with him, refusing to stay under control, until something he didn't expect happened. "Well, you're not bad looking yourself," Northern stated in a matter of fact voice as she fluttered an eyelid at him. His heart skipped a beat as she walked away. Shaking himself, he followed her. There wasn't any way that that had just happened. And yet it had. And now, he gained control of his mind again. He controlled the shock that had developed well. He tried to put what had happened just now behind him, and hoped that she would. The more he thought about it, the less that it made sense. He knew that she wasn't like this, and neither was he. What was happening now? The more he tried to think about it, though, the more his mind veered away from it. His chest was giving him problems again, becoming sore and itching. It emphasized the fact that they needed to get out of here. There wasn't much to tell on whether or not Northern's poison was completely gone. She might still be ill with the poison, as the antidote might have just slowed it down, not cured it. He couldn't tell, and that was worrying him. Something else was bothering him as well, and it just wasn't clicking yet. He'd figure it out in just a short while, he was sure. Why was the river rushing? It clicked. A cascade sometimes precluded a larger waterfall. This was the case. Shortly in the distance, the world ended. He could see straight into the sky for quite a while before a tree, taller than the rest, ended his unimpeded view. He stopped right on the edge of the fall to look down. He instantly felt vertigo overcome him as he stared down at the tops of the trees. "Solomon!" Northern screamed as he felt himself begin to pitch forward, dizzy at the heights. A stinging sensation in his tail told him that Northern had lunged forward and grabbed him by that to stop him. He was pulled back onto the solid ground and fell flat on his rump. He breathed hard as his heart attempted to beat out of his chest, fear gripping him in its terrible claws. "Thanks," he gasped to Northern. He still felt dizzy and pain was at his chest. He looked down to see that he had broken the matted moss on his chest, exposing his deep scratch again, and it was bleeding once more. Northern saw as well. It seemed to cause her more concern than it did for him. How strange. "Stay here and don't move," she ordered him. "I don't want you bleeding yourself dry again." And so he sat while she bounded off into the woods. She wasn't gone long before she was back. "There's a cliff not too far over to that side. We're stuck here." Well that was great. His brilliant idea had backfired on him. He could see the river traveling into the distance, through the trees. If he really strained himself, he could see the edge of the forest. Then they would be free and they'd find themselves home. But first they had to find a way down the side of the waterfall. Northern was checking over the side of the cliff now, this time she was doing it more intelligently than he did, crouching to the ground before leaning over the edge and peering down. He could tell that it caused her to have a moment of vertigo as well, but she got over it in a moment. She hadn't run the risk of falling over the edge because the ground helped her with her stability. He was washed over again with dizziness and he checked himself again. He wasn't bleeding freely, but it was enough to coat the front of him with blood. Down at his hooves, the ground was starting to be coated with the red fluids. "We have to get down there for some of the moss to patch your wounds," she said when she looked back at him and noticed the blood. Worry etched her face as she noticed how much blood he was loosing. "You won't be able to climb down like that." She could climb down that steep grade? There was more to Northern than Solomon had thought. She bounded back into the wooded area briefly, coming out a moment later with a. Where did she find a rope out here? On a second glance at it, Solomon saw that it was green and slick. A vine then. "You stay here!" she demanded of him. Like he could go very many places anyway. "I'll be back. Don't move too much. I'd prefer to have a living librarian when we get home." She worked while she talked. With the vine, she had tied a few knots and looped it over her shoulders as a harness and when she finished speaking she shot over the edge. Solomon jumped to stop her, but a bout of dizziness took him to the ground. The world spun around him vaguely and then went dark. He was afraid. To face the dark now, he felt fear. It wasn't so bad when he knew Northern was near, but now he didn't know where she was. And that made him fear. He awoke with a start an undefined amount of time later. Looking around for Northern, he couldn't see her. There was pain in his chest still, but that didn't concern him. The fact that Northern wasn't here did. What concerned him more was that there was only half of her vine here as well. Solomon felt the pit drop out of his stomach as he found the severed vine lying near the edge of the cliff. Northern could still be alive though, at the bottom of the cliff, but hurt and needing attention to those wounds. In a panic, he limped into the woods, not paying attention to his wounds, despite their ache. He knew that he wouldn't make it down the mountain in one piece if he just tried it like this, but he was determined to get down there. Northern needed medical attention. Searching around, he found the things that he was looking for. Cobwebs and a vine. It was the woods, there were plenty of cobwebs everywhere. He used them like the moss before, stuffing them in the wound. They quickly turned red, but the blood flow stopped completely. Unfortunately, the cob webs were merely sitting on his chest without binding, and they weren't big enough to be tied with Northern's tie, nor the vines. It would have to do for now. He had to get down to the ground. As he held onto the vine with his teeth, and tied the end of it to the severed vine at the edge, he vaguely realized that he wasn't very good a listening to what others told him to do. He also realized that he didn't much care when someone else was in danger. Holding the vine tight between his teeth, he crept to the edge, cautiously peering over it, wondering if what he was fixing to do was a good idea at all. Probably not. He wrapped the vine around his torso, making a harness out of it in the same way that he had seen Northern do it earlier, though using an alternate method that he had seen in a book and slipping it farther down his torso in order to not put too much strain on his chest. Again he came to the edge of the cliff and looked down. He didn't like his idea and he was beginning to reconsider it, feeling his heart beating harder and harder as he contemplated what he was fixing to do as he stared down at the ground. Or rather at the tops of the trees. They were thick against the side of the mountain, completely obscuring his view of the ground. Thinking on it, they might even break his fall enough that he'd live if he just jumped straight down. He still decided against it, in a fear that that wouldn't be all that the tree broke on the way down. He swallowed loudly, not wanting to let the fear take him before he leaped, so closing his eyes, he stepped over the edge. It only hit him then to wonder how long the vine was supposed to be. His eyes snapped open, suddenly realizing his error. He didn't know if Northern had taken into consideration that particular fact either, but he hadn't seen her do any type of measuring. He was quite possibly falling to his demise, and he was worrying about Northern, he dimly realized in the back of his mind, but it only lasted a second as the vine snapped taut and he hung in the air for a fraction of a second, the wind being jerked out of him as the vine tightened around his midriff. He felt pain shoot across the scratches in his chest and his vision dimmed briefly from the pain, but he shot back into full awareness when the full impact was over and he started swinging back towards the cliff face. Another thing occured to him in that short span before he realized that the cliff was incoming was that he was faced in the wrong direction to stop himself from hitting the cliff. He slammed full against the rock wall, the wind having never come to him from the first shock, he didn't lose it this time. The harness pulled against him and it started slipping up farther towards his gashed chest. He moved to turn around so that he could use the cliff face to pull himself farther down, having hit the end of his tether, but he didn't move before the vine crossed the lowest of his gashes. He hissed a breath through his teeth, not letting the pain blind him, despite the blackness that ringed his vision. He looked on the bright side of things. At least it helped him gain his breath back. He finished turning himself around, breathing a sigh of relief, in his pain's spite. He now felt more secure, as he gathered a few hoof holds, having something solid under his hooves, so to speak. Grabbing the vine above the harness, he gave it a yank, hoping to loosen it so that he could continue his climb down. On his first tug, he felt slack enter the tether, but something wasn't right. the slack kept coming and coming. He saw the reason as his knot fell past him towards the ground. A slight tug hit him through the vine as it came to its full extension. His full weight was now on his hooves, and by extension, on his chest. The cobwebs wouldn't be able to stand on this strain for long, he knew. He would need to get down quickly, or he would risk reopening his wound. He would be risking it anyway, as he went down, the constant moving as he found a way down being enough to agitate his gashes and loosen the cobwebs placed to stop the bleeding. As soon as the cobwebs disintegrated, it would be a race against time to get to the bottom before he lost too much blood. But he was no athlete. He wouldn't be able to climb down the side quickly. Even sitting here for a few minutes with all his weight on his hooves, he could feel himself getting tired. A race against time and fatigue. He looked down. He was just above the tree line now. He guessed that the tree was about sixty feet tall, and he was about five feet above the tree, so that would mean he had sixty-five feet to the ground. Maybe a little more. He swallowed again, not entirely sure that he'd be able to make it, but determination to find Northern would keep him going. He found his first hoofhold, moving his back hoof to it and placing weight on it. So far, so good. Now to continue on, he moved took another 'step' down, moving from hold to hold. He felt more confident, and only three more feet to the trees. He placed another step, and his hoof slipped from the rock and he wasn't able to regain his hold as the rock his front hoof had been on broke away from the rock wall and he felt himself falling free. Shock crossed his face as the impact of what was happening hit him. He was fixing to fall to his demise, and there wasn't anything that he could do. Fear clenched at his heart as he realized that Northern would also fall with him. Her death was as certain as his was, and it was all because he failed to reach the bottom of the cliff. Time seemed to slow down for Solomon as he dropped away from the rock wall. He saw his life flash before his eyes: When he got his cutiemark, how he had blackened his hoof, the friends he had made, his first love, his heartbreak, the Grand Galloping Galla, his library, and more. He realized that most of it was spent in a library, but he had no regrets about that. He felt the first brushes of the leaves against his back and time sped up again. The small twigs pulled and scratched against his back arms and legs, but he felt himself being slowed down by how many of the small branches there were. It still hurt when he hit his first large branch, though, but it broke under his weight, throwing him into a spin that was stopped by another branch. There were more stops along the way, every one of them, turning him a new direction and causing him more pain. He finally felt something wrap around him and he was jerked to a halt, pain enveloping him once again. He opened his eyes and looked down, only a few inches from the ground. And alive. Shock was his first reaction to not being dead. He had survived. His second reaction was embarrassment that he had been scared that he would die. The third was shock again, when he heard a familiar voice. "You don't listen very well. I told you to stay put, and now look at you." His head jerked up in astonishment, looking at Northern before him, a thick matting of moss on her back. "You're bleeding everywhere." He realized that her voice sounded far away. Her voice was just barely on the edge of his hearing and was almost overwhelmed by the sound of his heart beating. He knew that that was important, but he couldn't think why. His head was too fuzzy now to remember. "Well let's get you patched up." When she said that, the vines holding him up were suddenly severed and he flopped to the ground. He tried to say something, but his mouth felt full of cotton and he couldn't form words, so he was merely just flapping his gums uselessly. Northern turned him on his back quickly and pulled him to a tree, leaning him up against it. "Now, focus on me. Listen to my voice and don't go to sleep. And quit mouthing things at me." He did as he was told, but now that she said it, he really did feel tired. But he knew that she was right. He couldn't sleep. At least his heart wasn't pounding as hard, now.
Chapter 1The woods were getting dark. Solomon had never really practiced lighting magic, and now was too late to learn quickly. He had no idea how they had gotten there, but there they were, smack dab in the middle of the Ever Free forest. He strained for a bit, focusing hard on the tip of his horn, sending energy there from the rest of his body. It was tiring him more than he would have expected. After the third try, he was able to cast a moderate blue glow on a limited amount of their surroundings. He was able to make out Northern’s silhouette a few paces ahead of him, every bit as lost as he. “Are we speaking yet?” he asked her tentatively. As far as he could tell, she was mad at him for getting them lost. Solomon was a book worm, not really very experienced in the way of, well, experience. This was his first attempt at trying to get farther out into the world beyond his books. It wasn’t going well. She remained silent for a moment, and he began to think that the answer to his question was no until she spake. “We’re going to have to bunk down for the night. We won’t be able to see much longer in this light, and your blue light won’t work for us much longer.” She said it so coldly. He wondered vaguely if she knew just how much it was taking from him. He fought against the urge to just hang his head in shame at it. He was useless outside of his library, and he knew it. “Stay here,” Northern said sharply, “Don’t want you getting lost out there while looking for a safe place for the night.” With that, she left him. Solomon didn’t know what else he could do, other than sit back on his haunches and wait for her to return. The light quickly faded from his surroundings not covered by his faint blue light, and the details inside his aura faded to obscurity. Trees quickly gained the features of his nightmares. He knew that it was one of the horrors of the forest that it personified itself with a miasma of penetrating fear, and that was what struck him now. The wind blew through the brush behind him and he could imagine the creatures of horror that could be lurking within. The sun set fully, dousing the last of the light. He didn’t even know how long Northern had been gone, but he was imagining that the time had just gone into another dimension and he was waiting hours and hours on end for her to return. His rationality, what little of it that remained, said that he had only been waiting for nearly forty minutes, but his fear of what might have happened to her overrode that rationality and he leaped to his feat, fixing to go searching for her when a twig snapped behind him. He jumped, not expecting the sudden sound to see Northern walk out of some bushes. He nearly cried in relief, but he held himself at bay, rationality returning to him. He realized at that moment that he was not scared for himself, but for Northern. He had gotten her into this mess, and he didn’t want her to suffer for his mistake. “And where do you believe you are going?” she asked him with scorn. Evidently the walk through the woods only worsened her mood. Too much time to think about why she was here. Because of him. It only made him feel worse, and his ears fell flat against the side of his head in shame as he cringed away from her. She sniffed in dissension of his apparent cowardice. “Come on. I found a place for the night.” And she turned, her gray coat easily allowing her to disappear into the darkness. He surged forward, not wanting to lose her, and nearly ran over her in the process. She whirled on him, anger glowing in her eyes. “Watch it!” She didn’t shout, and he probably would have preferred it that way, but she kept her voice low. Even though, he could still feel the heat of that anger in her glare and in her words. He could hear the shouting that those words implied. He shrank back against the ground, not wishing to anger her farther until she turned her angry gaze away. He then walked beside her, slightly back so that she wouldn’t glare at him again. He could feel radiating off of her the anger at him. They walked for a few minutes in absolute silence and he could slowly feel her anger cooling. No longer the absolute anger that it had been when she had first started hating him, but more of the silent heat that could flare again at any moment. Solomon walked up beside Northern, keeping a steady pace beside her, not saying anything, but he picked his head up a little. He wouldn’t lie. These woods scared him. The blue light from his horn faded a little. He was getting tired from having to keep the light up for so long. He’d never had to keep magic going this long. He put some more focus into the light and their aura brightened back again, but at a much greater cost to him now. Then things got worse. He felt a drop of rain fall on his flank. Then another on the tip of his nose. And another and another. He nearly shouted out in frustration at this latest development. Northern looked up at the sky and didn’t so as well as he had at containing herself. She shouted and cursed at the weather of the forest, not controlled by the pegasi as the rest of Equestria was. “Come on,” she said at last, picking up her pace and was soon at a canter. He followed her closely, nearly running over her in order to not lose her. Unlike the previous time though, she didn’t lash back at him. She must have realized that he didn’t want to lose her and needed to be this close in order to not do that. In another minute, they were within sight of a small cave. She broke into it just in time to not get soaked by the sudden downpour that soaked Solomon. He was only a second behind her as well, barely stopping in time to not run headlong into the wall that came up quickly on him. Then it once again got worse. His horn went out. They were cast into an impenetrable darkness. The sound of the downpour outside drowned out all else that he might have heard. He felt a small well of panic in his chest as he foolishly thought that Northern had gotten lost, despite the fact that he knew better. He had seen her in the cave a mere second ago. He quashed the fear thinking it silly. A flash of green in the cave and then orange light suffused the small cave, and started, yelping out before he could stop it. Luckily, Northern didn’t hear it over the rain outside. She had lit a small fire from dry tinder in the center of the cave and it crackled cheerily. He took a moment to study his home for the night. It was indeed, a cave. About ten feet deep, not very much at all. It was narrow as well. He could have reached out both hooves and touched either side barely if he stretched. And if he jumped too high, he would crack his head on the ceiling. In the middle was the fire, four and a half feet, five feet from the outside of the cave, and on the other side of that stood Northern. Her gray coat slightly wet from the rain, her flanks heaving minutely from the sprint into the cave. Her tie was tattered slightly from being in the woods and her glasses needed to be straightened. There were a few leaves stuck in her shortened brown mane. She used to have it longer, but she didn’t anymore, saying she preferred it the way it was now. He wondered why he thought of that now. She was being much braver than he was. But her anger was back. She was glaring at him evilly. No doubt in his mind, thinking of horrible tortures that she would inflict upon him later. “Well, look at the mess you have gotten us into!” she shouted at him. That strangely made him feel better, but he didn’t show it. “We’re lost in the middle of the forest, it’s raining, the temperature is dropping,” wait, what? She continued to rant at him, but he was lost now from the conversation. Besides, everything she was telling him, he already knew. He focused more on the feelings from his surroundings. The temperature wasn’t dropping. The wind was picking up. He leaped in front of the still fledgling fire, blocking the sudden gust that would have put it out, catching cold water drops and even colder wind on his own flank so that their fire wouldn’t go out. It didn’t stop though. The wind kept up for several long seconds before finally dying down a little, still leaving breeze enough to threaten the fire should he move from his spot. Solomon grinned sheepishly and probably foolishly at Northern, but instead of returning it, she returned her features to a hard and cold stare at him. But he still caught it. The look she had been trying to hide from him. She was scared as he was. She just didn’t show it as much. But then, she didn’t also have to be afraid of herself. He didn’t show that he had seen this, and instead laid his ears back and fell back into a depressed look. “Get some sleep. I’ll keep watch here for the night,” he said, barely audible to her over the falling rain and blowing wind as he let his gaze fall. She was already curling up in the back of the cave. He let his magic flair again, stirring the fire a little, allowing it to grow hotter and brighter. Shortly afterwards, he heard her fall into the deep steady breathing of deep sleep. He let his ears prick up and he turned around. The fire wasn’t really bright. It cast lights out only to the edge of the clearing. In the woods, he could barely made out some dead wood small enough for him to pick up at a distance. Using his magic, he pulled it into the cave, arraying it around the fire as he had read in his books to let it contain the fire and dry out quickly so that he’d be able to use it later. He turned his back to the fire, his work completed for now and just watched out into the night. The cold rain ensured that it would be a long one.
Chapter 2He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. The miserable cold and rain and wind lashing at him made him think that time took longer than it ever did. It felt like days. He would turn every so often, trying to make it regular, to check on the fire and on Northern as she slept. Her ears flicked back and forth in her sleep and he vaguely wondered what she was dreaming of. Probably her warm bed, the same one that he had made her miss that night. He would then turn back towards the night, plaguing himself with the guilt of what he had done. Eventually the rain slacked off and the wind died off. Not long after that, the rain stopped completely He heaved a sigh of relief. His back was almost dry from facing the fire the entire time. He stepped out of the cave and stood a little ways away before he shook himself off, flinging his mane back and forth, sending small droplets of water scattering in all directions. He was mildly damp by the time he got dizzy from shaking. He stepped back into the cave and stood by the fire, instead of in front of it now, allowing it to dry him off the rest of the way. He would occasionally walk to the other side of the cave and the fire, letting himself dry evenly. He would also use these occasions to check on Northern and stoke the fire. She shivered once, whether from the cold or not, he couldn’t tell. He wanted to share his own warmth with her, but he knew that he still was wet enough to be cold to her, and would likely do more harm than good for her, so he bit his lip to stop himself and turned back to the outside, once again moving to the front of the fire. He used the opportunity to pull in more wood from outside the cave. There was more light now. He guessed that the clouds were clearing and the moon was shining down on them. He could see more dead wood to pull in. He turned around and felt an itch. It was a strange itch, not really there, but still there. He ignored it while he arranged the wood around the fire again to dry. The itch got worse as he did this. It became nearly unbearable. He then realized what the strange itch was and he snapped his head around to look for whomever might be watching him. He didn’t see anything. He suddenly had the feeling that maybe the cave belonged to something else. He looked back at the cave, scanning the ground to see if he’d be able to see anything that would suggest that his hunch was true. He hadn’t any such luck. Either there was nothing to see, he couldn’t see it, or their presence had erased all traces. That shot him with panic. He looked up from his frantic scanning to Northern to see her still sleeping peacefully. He wouldn’t wake her for some sleep deprived paranoia, without evidence. She was mad enough at him already. But the feeling of being watched, that infernal itch, it still remained with him. He couldn’t stand it. Whatever was out there knew that they were there. He wanted to know what it was. Looking around warily, he stepped out into the clearing, looking around warily, his ears well open and focused, as he fought past his sleepiness. He was exhausted from his vigil, and for a moment, he wished that the rain and wind was back. It was so much easier to stay focused and awake when you were uncomfortable. Now that he was drier and warm, he could easily go to sleep, but he couldn’t allow himself that luxury now. He stopped right in the middle of the clearing, looking at all sides, one by one. Somehow, this made him feel a little more awake, but he knew that it wasn’t enough. He’d been awake too long. He was definitely going to miss details at this point. He hoped that being out in the open would just make him a much more tempting target than the cave and its occupant. He hated waiting, but that’s exactly what whatever it was that was tormenting him was doing now. If it was going to kill him, let it kill him now! He stood there, slowly turning in his circle for maybe half an hour when he found himself facing back towards the cave when something happened. He heard movement from directly behind him. Adrenaline shot through his heart, waking him immediately by a little bit. He swung his head around quickly, possibly giving himself whiplash, and running things through his mind. He knew what he did wrong and he blamed his sleep deprived brain for allowing him to do it. He shouldn’t have turned his back on the clearing. A perfect shot that nopony would have been able to resist if they were going to attack him. When he came to a stop, he saw nothing. There was nothing. He couldn’t believe it, and his mouth hung open in wonder at that fact. He turned back towards the cave, then into the woods again, settling back on the cave, making sure that nothing had moved in there. Something had moved. Northern was awake now, and looking at him, one eyebrow raised in question at what he was doing. Her eyes still didn’t hold the anger they had last night, but he didn’t hold any delusions that she had already forgiven him. She just hadn’t remembered that she was angry at him. He shook his head slightly to clear the sleep from it, and listened again. He couldn’t hear anything besides the normal sounds of the woods. And the itch was gone. He wasn’t sure if that was good or not, but he shook his head again and walked back into the cave. “I don’t know. I thought something was out there,” he said, a little disappointed now that there wasn’t anything. She stood up from where she had lay and walked to the front of the cave. “You’ve been awake too long. You’re starting to imagine things. Go get some sleep or you’ll be even more useless than usual.” And suddenly the hardness that she had had before was back. She remembered that she hated him. Ears back, Solomon went to the back of the cave and fell asleep. It wasn’t nearly as easy as he had thought it would have been. The warmth of the fire on his flank was only on one side. It caused him to be cold on one side, and he now realized why Northern had been cold. The ground was uncomfortable and hard. Unyielding to his shape, making it hard to sleep upon it. Eventually, the peace of unconsciousness and sleep yielded to his attempts to achieve it. But even then, it wasn’t restful. It was broken by him surfacing into the realm of semi consciousness. He’d hear Northern pulling wood in and placing it by the fire. Such a smart filly. He then fell back into sleep. Later he woke up to the sound of Northern pacing around the entrance, the sound of her hooves on the stone there somehow soothing to him. It meant that she was still there and alright. He was lulled back into his sleep. He slept longer this time and he woke with a jolt at his name. “SOLOMON!” Northern was yelling. She wasn’t at the entrance to the cave. She was in the clearing, a chimera attacking. Shock drove him into a fully awakened state, hopping to his hooves before he even knew what he was doing, charging out to take on the beast that was attacking. He didn’t know how to attack a creature like this though. Before he could even get close to it, the snake head lashed out at him, biting at him but missing and impaling its nose on his horn before knocking him back to the edge of the clearing. Northern shot a lance of green from her horn, but before it reached the chimera, it dissipated to nothing. Solomon quickly searched his mind as he forced himself back to his hooves. He needed to resort to the only thing that he had in abundance, and that was his knowledge. Chimeras where large three headed creatures. Yep, he could see that very well from here. A lion head and a goat head sat on its shoulders then a snake head that swayed back and forth for the tail. He was on the right path then. He charged forward again, stopping at the extreme edge of the snake head’s reach as it struck at where he was going to be in the next moment. He leaped upon its neck and ran up towards the base where it connected with the rest of the body. The chimera consisted of balance in three aspects. Physical from the lion, magic from the goat (how they got that however, was beyond him) and vigilance from the snake. He finished this thought as he reached the base of the snake tail and moved onto the chimera’s back. It bucked, trying to dislodge Solomon from its back. He flew through the air to the front of the chimera, landing a few feet in front of it. A few more bolts of Northern’s green magic dissipated before they hit the chimera, but now Solomon could see why. The goat head was sending out miniature blasts of magic, causing the larger ball of magic to be destroyed. The chimera has three minds and hearts. As long as one head lives, the chimera lives. He had no clue how he was going to fight this thing. He scrambled back onto his hooves once more, placing himself directly between the chimera and Northern. “Run!” he yelled over his shoulder at her. He didn’t wait to see if she’d comply with his directive, but charged the lion’s head, trying to jab it in the throat with his sharp horn, like he had to the snake’s nose earlier. He didn’t get close enough to the lion before it smacked him with its paw, sending him off towards the clearing again. He was left viewing Northern turning about and running as darkness ringed his eyes. At least she’d get away sa- ‘why is the chimera chasing her instead of coming after me?’ He wondered, a fresh stab of adrenaline shooting through his heart, driving the darkness away from his eyes. He was up on his hooves once again in a blur, giving chase to the chimera. Northern stumbled on the ground, and Solomon could see why. He wanted to kick himself for not noticing it earlier. Her leg was gashed. He truly hoped that it was the lion’s claws and not the snake tail. He was sure that the chimera had a poison bite. Speaking of, the snake took that moment to strike at him as he was beginning to catch up with the chimera as the chimera was beginning to catch up to Northern. Solomon ducked into the mouth, jabbing his horn deep into the tissue at the roof of the snake’s mouth. He then dragged his horn through the soft tissue, ripping and tearing it as he pulled his head out of the snake mouth, carefully avoiding the fangs. The snake flung its head back, blood falling from its mouth in great globs. But the snake was the only part paying him any attention. The lion and goat were still attacking Northern for some reason, despite him being the obvious threat. At least Northern was still able to keep out of reach of the lion’s claws, and kept throwing her magic at the goat to keep it distracted. But how much longer? Solomon wished that he knew more magic at this point, but he didn’t. He’d have to make due with the magic that he did know. He shook his head to get the blood out of his vision and summoning his magic, started shooting rocks quickly out at the base of the snake tail. It was the limit of his magic, but he made due with it. The rocks split scale and started cutting into the muscles and sinews. It was tiring him out more than it should, and he realized that he was getting the attention of the goat. It was trying to stop him from hurting the snake. But the snake was losing too much blood now. It flopped to the ground and thrashed. This halted the chimera’s advance, but immediately turned its attention upon Solomon. He was instantly swiped back into a tree by the lion’s claw. The claws bit into his skin dragging across his chest and forelegs, causing them to burn greatly as if on fire. He cracked his head against a knot in the tree. His vision swayed and doubled. A ringing filled his ears and he began to lack in his ability to comprehend what was happening. He closed his eyes and tried shaking his head to clear it, but all that did was cause so much pain that he wanted to throw up. Nothing in his stomach to throw up though. He opened his eyes and he could briefly see just a single chimera before it split into three. It was coming closer to him, dragging its dead snake along with it. The snake made it move slowly, maybe he could use that to escape. But even as he tried, he felt nothing but pain. He was moving just as slow as the chimera now, but the chimera wasn’t hindered in its ability to attack. Solomon was. Onto his hooves, he started limping away from the chimera, looking over his shoulder to watch it. It felt strange to him, to watch and see the chimera moving, and knowing that it made noise, but only ever hearing the sound of ringing in his head. He really hoped that it would clear up soon. He found it annoying. The lion’s mane was suddenly aflame. While the goat was distracted from her, Northern had used her magic without its interference. Now the lion wouldn’t be much good either as it thrashed, beating at itself with a single paw, but unable to reach the spot that was on fire. Chimera roared in its pain and frustration at the two ponies as it started to move off into the forest, away from the ponies that were causing it pain. A chimera left alive can return killed or damaged parts of it to life with time. Well, at least his mind was starting to sort itself out. Northern stood farther away than the chimera had started from when it had come after Solomon. She was breathing heavily, but she was safe. The adrenalin running through Solomon’s system ran out. Darkness quickly closed in around him and he fell to the ground. A second later, Northern stood over him, with concern on her face. She was safe, that was good. She was trying to say something, but he couldn’t hear her. All he could hear was the ringing in his ears and the pound of blood being pumped through his body as it stabilized itself. He rolled his eye away and he saw the first rays of the sun pierce through the vale of the forest canopy. He felt no fear as the darkness overtook him.
Chapter 3Later, Solomon had no way of knowing just how much later, he could feel consciousness creeping back up on him. It felt like pain. He honestly hurt everywhere, but not as much as he did when he had blacked out. Did that mean he was dead? No, he didn’t think so. He was sure if he was dead he wouldn’t have felt anything at all. Cracking open an eye, he studied his surroundings. There was light. It pierced straight down, lancing into his eye, causing a migraine to start, though it never manifested. It settled down after a second into a dull throbbing headache. He noticed that his ears weren’t ringing anymore. That was good. There was also something tight around his chest. He imagined that it might have been blood coating his chest from the chimera’s scratch. His head had a similar feeling, and he remembered the chimera blood from when he had stabbed it in the mouth. The blood had no doubt dried in his mane, matting it horribly. If he made it back, he would have to have his hair cut to remove the mats and blood. His eye rolled around in its socket, trying to get a better image of where he was. He had been looking straight up, through the top of the trees. The sun was there, which was why it had been so painful to look. By that, he could guess that he’d been out for quite some time. At least six hours. He was on the edge of a clearing. Not the same one that they had slept in in the night, but another one. He was nestled underneath some low hanging branches, leaves were piled around him, possibly under him as well, but he couldn’t feel them. He hoped that wasn’t a sign of something worse. He couldn’t see Northern anywhere, and for a moment he worried that she might have left or been caught by the chimera when it came back, or maybe something worse. Solomon tried to calm his over active imagination. She was probably just fine. He just couldn’t see her from his position just by rolling his eyes. It wasn’t going well. He couldn’t calm himself completely from just rational thought. He needed to see her. So he tried raising his head up. It caused his headache to double, and his neck muscles screamed a protest, but he ignored them, as he lifted his head tiredly and got a better look around the clearing. It was small, but one rarely expected to find a large clearing in the Everfree, though it was possible at times. He could hear a stream nearby. So Northern had moved him. He craned his head around, searching the clearing for her. Few branches littered the ground here and a small blackened area indicated where a fire had been built. A pile of wood was stacked near it and a ring of wood piled around it. But he didn’t see Northern immediately, bringing back his anxiety. Then he saw her. She was up against a tree not far away from where he lay, asleep. Relief swept through his body, making him relax muscles that he had been clenching instinctively to fly after her. A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Anxiety resolved, he turned his attention back on himself. He wanted to know just how far the damage had gotten on him. Confusion grabbed his thoughts for a second as he tried to make sense of what he was looking at when he looked down. It soon made sense to him though. His chest was bound with a thick moss, that was spotted with red in a few spots. He had evidently been bleeding more than he had thought he had. The moss however was staunching the blood flow now. He looked at what was holding it on and found Northern’s tie wrapped around the top of the moss. Moisture held it to the bottom of his chest and his own blood was holding it to his center. A bit of a morbid thought, but it was nice of Northern to have lent him her tie. His head wasn’t nearly as matted as he had thought. It was wet, like it had been washed. Northern must have tried washing the blood away in order to see if he was bleeding badly. To be honest about it, he couldn’t have said for certain about all the blood being the chimera’s either. The crack to the back of his head might have broken the skin. His wounds established, he carefully pulled his hooves under him, pulling against the moss so delicately held in place. Pushing up, he carefully made it to his feet. Head throbbing, he shuffled out of where he had been laying, despite the want to return to it. He didn’t want to be fighting against the pain, but he knew that he had to. He needed to make sure blood continued to flow, or he ran the risk of becoming locked up. He had already started becoming stiff, and he needed to move around to get his blood flowing through him again. He walked slowly over to where Northern lay. Her flanks moved rhythmically, slowly. He moved down to where he had seen her gash earlier. It was covered with moss as well, but something was wrong with it. He sniffed at the moss curiously, wondering what made him feel so wrong. It wasn’t the moss. It was the same moss as what he was wearing. It smelled slightly of antiseptic as well. Whether that was her intention or by accident, Solomon didn’t know. He brushed aside some of her coat to look farther up on her leg. Veins bulged out going up, and had turned a sickly green. It hadn’t really gone far past the moss wrap on her leg yet, but he could see that is was spreading. She had gotten bitten by the chimera’s tail. Now poison flowed through her veins and would eventually stop her heart if he didn’t do something. Whether she knew it or not, the antiseptic in the moss had probably saved her life. He let her coat fall back into place, turning to begin his search. Chimera and manticore share a similar venom gland, despite them having different methods of delivery. Trace differences in the poison make the chimera more deadly, but not as fast acting. Manticore venom paralyzes, chimera venom kills. But they both have the same cure if you find yourself in need of an antidote to it. “So you’re up,” he heard the voice from behind him. Tired. He turned to see Northern looking at him, a slight smile at her mouth. “I thought that you’d be a goner. It’s good to see that you pulled through.” She tried to stand, but Solomon was by her side in an instant, pushing her back down with his forehead on her shoulder. He could feel the heat of her fevered skin now. He also made her lay back down easily enough. She looked at him incredulously, but he could see the fatigue in her eyes. “The snake bite is venomous. I need to get something for it. It’s my turn to take care of you,” he spoke softly to her. His own voice was tired, he realized. He wasn’t really in any shape to go taking care of others. He was barely standing as it was. But if he didn’t help her, they might very well both die. He would need to hurry to get the cure. Every moment he wasted was more time that she’d suffer from the effects of the venom. She nodded, grudgingly accepting what she said. He admired how stubborn she was, but even though, she was accepting that she was poisoned and needed help in this. “So what are we looking for?” she asked, attempting to stand again, only to be pushed back down by Solomon again. Admirable stubbornness. “You are looking for more of that rest you were getting before I disturbed you,” he said, weakly smiling at her. He didn’t need her moving around, increasing the flow of the venom. And sleeping would slow the blood pumping even more. That is what he wanted. It gave him more time. “I’ll find it. Don’t worry.” She glared up at him, but she didn’t try to get up again. “You’re going to get lost again,” she accused him. Admirable stubbornness. “Mark a path as you go so that you won’t,” she surrendered. Or was it merely surrender? She seemed to be growing more tired by the second. Her own body was helping him now, making her drowsy so that she would sleep. “No problem.” And with that, she laid her head down and fell asleep. Now, what was he looking for? Walking through the woods, he searched again for the antidote. Why wasn’t it in the same book as the chimera venom? He’d send a scolding letter to the author of the book when he got back. If he got back. He searched through his stores of knowledge again, quickly finding what he was searching for. The name was blurry in his mind, but the entry said that it wasn’t an uncommon tree to be found in the Everfree Forest. He needed the bark from a root of that tree, water, and Earth moss. A spasm from his chest made him stop and look down. In his searching of what he needed to know, he had picked up his pace, nearly causing his scratches to reopen. He forced himself to slow down and took this moment to scratch a tree with his horn, marking that he’d been here and this was the way for him to come back as well. Looking up, he saw something that made him think again. He’d need something for the water. How would he draw it up? He shook his head and started reciting in his mind how to make a wicker bowl. He’d have to make a few points of change in the design, but he was sure that he’d make it work. With all these things occupying his mind, he set off again, looking at the bark and leaves of every tree that he passed, carving a scratch into every fifth tree that he passed. He found the moss first, thickly coating the ground and trees around it. He took a large swath of it from the base of a tree when something suddenly came to light in his minds eye. Looking up, he saw the leaves of the tree and the identifying bark of the tree he was looking for. Pawing the ground hard, he quickly found the tree’s root. He used his magic to peel the bark away from the rest of the wood. Solomon draped the thick and heavy moss over his shoulders and carried the strips of bark using magic. Along the way, he picked up sticks in his mouth, the grainy dirt falling on his teeth and tongue. But he endured. Following his marks, he quickly found himself back in the clearing. The entry in the book came to preparing the antidote. Grind bark into fine powder using any means that you have. Solomon stared blankly at that entry in his archives of knowledge for a second, wondering how he’d be able to do that. He had an idea, and he was glad that Northern was asleep for this. He walked off into the woods a second time, finding the moss that Northern had brought for use as a staunch for their blood. He grabbed a mouthful of it and brought it to the stream with him. Moving into the faster water, he started soaking the moss, dipping it several times, cleaning out the dirt in it. Hesitantly, he started to chew on it, pulping it down into a paste. It tasted like it smelled, like antiseptic. He gagged and nearly vomited, but he spread the juices over the inside of his mouth. He decided then that he would never tell anypony about this. No matter if they asked about it. It didn’t matter that his mouth was clean now, it was still gross. Spitting out the excess into the stream, he went back onto the bank and started breaking the sticks he had brought with him into the proper size and bending them into the proper shape as he chewed on the bark. It tasted worse than the moss did. Further, he couldn’t even identify what it tasted like. He shaped the sticks into a vaguely bowl like shape by the time the first leaf of bark had been completely pulped. He didn’t swallow any of the juice that had come from the bark, making sure to not lose any of the pulped bark by placing it on a large flat rock. He didn’t want to take another leaf, but he did, pulping it while doing his best not to gag on it. Meanwhile, he retrieved leaves from the top of a tree. The leaves were very large fronds that he weaved into the sticks, closely overlapping them, making them tightly grip each other in order to hold the water. It wouldn’t hold water indefinitely, but any of the methods that he had for that took too much time. He finished the first of layers at the second bark pulp. He added the second to the first, the sun’s heat already in the process of drying it out. He was trying hard not to think about what the sun was drying out of it. It would be better to not know. He continued the process until he had pulped all the leaves of bark. The bowl was rough, but it would hold water for a little bit. He waded back out into the middle of the river, the fast moving water being cleaner than the stagnant pools, and filled the bowl, holding it there with his magic. Filled, it started leaking quickly, but stalled itself, the pressure of the water against the leaves causing them to retain the water. It would leak, but slowly. Holding the bowl was easy for him. It barely weighed more than one of the encyclopedias. He reopened the entry in his mind, looking at the next step. Take the ground bark, and mix it into the earth moss, then soak it in the water. The bark was dry enough that it was easy now to mash it into a powder. As long as he didn’t think to hard about it, he didn’t get sick. The taste and texture of the bark was still in his mouth. After washing the moss out, he sprinkled bark powder on it. He placed the bark powdered moss in the bowl and floated it over to where Northern lay and went back to his entry. Make a cut on the leading edge of the poison flow, then wrap the wet moss around the wound, powdered side down. He really didn’t like the idea of cutting Northern, but he did what he had to. He quickly located the leading edge of the poison, which was now moving close to her haunch now, leaving maybe an hour left to wrap it up or he’d have to make a larger gash, larger wrap, and more bark, and brought his horn down, making a slight cut right at its edge. And was caught completely off guard by the hoof that caught him upside the head, making it ring again and causing him to be dizzy and fall on the ground, rolling to his back. Head spinning, he looked up at Northern, glaring down at him accusingly. “I had reasons,” he said lamely. “I’ll bet,” she raised a single eyebrow at him before turning her head to look at the new cut on her hind leg. It was clean and smooth, not likely causing her much pain. It would easily heal cleanly without leaving a single mark on her. It welled blood. “I assume it’s to apply the antidote directly to the absolute of the poison, letting it move backwards in my bloodstream to purge it from my system without endangering me further by allowing some poison to move farther along in my body, making it harder for the antidote to catch up with it.” His mouth, he could feel, was open. Either the poison was making her think clearly, or she was much sexier than he had thought of her before. He had a sudden tightness in his chest from her saying that. And “I think I love you right now,” came slipping out of his mouth before he could stop it. He could tell now that he clearly had suffered brain damage from something. He never would have said that before. He would have looked at the words first. But when she looked away, blushing lightly, Solomon knew that maybe he’d be perfectly okay with speaking his mind this way. He rolled to his hooves as Northern picked up the moss, her green aura’d magic wrapping around the moss, starting to place it on her freshly bleeding cut. “Turn it over.” When she glared at him he ducked his head, but maintained eye contact with her. “The bark is the main part of the cure.” She stared for a moment before turning it over. He walked over, helping her spread it across her leg, making it wrap around her leg completely, overlapping the moss’s ends. They’d hold better. “You could have said something to me,” she said at last, holding the moss in place with her magic. Solomon put his horn on the moss, and welled up his energy. A gray ribbon formed around the moss to hold it in place. She let out a small start in surprise as it appeared and tightened. Solomon knew that creating something from nothing was supposed to be a difficult sort of magic to accomplish, but he’d never found much problem in doing it. Possibly because he cheated in doing it, but he kept that a secret. It was the other magics that he couldn’t find shortcuts in to do them. “I know, but with somethings, its just easier to get them over with before you lose the nerve to do them. Like cutting you. If I had taken the time to ask you if it was okay, I’m not sure if I would have been able to go through with it after. I’m sorry.” He was weak, and he knew it. But she nuzzled him. He could feel his face turning red. He hadn’t expected that kind of a reaction from someone that he assumed still hated him. He would have jumped away if he hadn’t been better at controlling himself. “Are you feeling okay?” he asked her, placing his head against hers. She was still fevered. “You have a high fever. You need to get back to sleep to l-let that antidote t-ttake e-e-effect.” A stutter? He hadn’t stuttered since he was a young colt! And never had it been that bad. She was having a real effect on him. “A stutter. How cute,” she teased, taking evident delight in making him blush even harder than before. “But the doctor’s given orders. I’ll follow them. Don’t you work too hard either. You’re not exactly in top physical condition either,” she gestured to his own moss wrapped front. He had her tie securely in place still. “Don’t worry. I’ll get my own s-sleep, b-but I’m still going to prepare a few things b-before I sleep.” She smiled at his apparently adorable stutter and laid her head back down to sleep. He headed back down to the water, picking up some more of his sticks in preparation to make another bowl. This one he shaped to be larger and deeper, more of a vase than a bowl, but with the wide rim he gave it, it was definitely a bowl. As he worked, he looked into the sky, marking the passing of the sun. He had been awake for six hours since he had awaken from fighting the chimera. Twelve hours since the actual fight. It would soon go dark again. And they were still stuck in the forest. He sighed in dismay as he finished the bowl. He put his horn to it and focused. He cheated in this magic because he used something that was already there to create it. Particles in the air could work with small things like the ribbon, and they were easy, but he preferred to have a base already constructed for larger items like the bowl. He could do it with the convergence of particles in the air with the bowl as well, but it was harder to do. He soon had a large clay bowl. It was much heavier than one of his encyclopedias when he filled it with water, but he’d be able to move it back to the clearing. Whenever they awoke, there was no doubt that they’d be absolutely parched. Even now he could feel a need to drink. With his work done, he set the bowl down on the edge of the stream again. Looking down, he saw the stone that he had used to dry the bark. He suddenly felt ill again, and his gag reflex acted up. He retched, bile filling his mouth and throat, but he had nothing to bring up. They’d also need to eat when they woke up. That was mandatory. But he wouldn’t be able to find any food at this time. He’d wait for the morning and he’d look for some with Northern as they found their way home. In the meantime, he used his magic and threw the flat stone into the middle of the stream, erasing it from his vision. With that taken care of, he washed the bile from his mouth and drank deeply. His stomach took a moment to accept it, but he made it stay there. His thirst slaked, he picked up his clay bowl and brought it to the clearing, placing it near Northern’s head. She looked up at his approach. “Sorry to wake you. I brought water. Since you’re awake,” he gestured at the bowl, “you need to drink,” he said, kindly. She smiled at him. “Yes, doctor.” She stretched her neck out and drank deeply from the bowl’s rim. A drop of water escaped past her lips and ran down her coat. Solomon followed it with his eyes as it made its way down her neck to her chest and farther. Northern stopped drinking, and he looked away, blushing at the fact that he had been watching, but Northern seemed to not have noticed. “Thank you,” she muttered as she lay back down. “It was my pleasure.” Again saying without thinking, he had been trying to be pleasant, but with his current thoughts, she would no doubt think him trying to be seductive or something, since there was no doubt in his mind that she could read him like a book. He tried not to let anything show on his face, and she made no comment on what he said. She was clearly trying to put him in an even more awkward position. He turned to go to another spot to sleep but she stopped him. “Wait,” she had said, and he had turned without thinking about it. He tried to make it logical as to why he turned, he was the only pony around, so she had to be talking to him, he was getting used to her voice, ect., but the truth of the matter was that the feelings that he had felt for her earlier were still there. And now she had stopped to nibble on her lip. “Yes?” he prompted her when she continued to hesitate. She seemed to be struggling with how to say something. What, he couldn’t think of. “It’s almost dark. The night’s get cold here. And tonight we don’t have the luxury of the cave to keep us warm with the fire. Would you care to come sleep by me tonight?” She was asking him to snuggle? This raised all sorts of alarms and emotions in him. He wasn’t entirely sure how to react, so of course, his new brain damage decided to act for him. “Of course, I’d be honored.” The rest of his mind cursed the new paths that had formed in his mind. He felt warmth spreading through his body, no doubt a full body blush. Maybe she wouldn’t notice it, but of course she would. She could read his mind, and all the thoughts running through it now. Shut the thoughts off, shut them off! He stalled a minute, “Let me just get a fire going.” I can just put my face in there and watch it burst into flames, the way you’re making me feel right now, he thought, never letting a word of it touch his lips. He gathered up wood at the edge of the clearing, piling it up into a fire pile that would last for a few hours, before he had to succumb to his traitorous mind’s vows. He placed his horn into where the heart of the flame would settle in the wood and concentrated on the particles in the wood, trying to get it to vibrate at a fast rate and create friction. With that one thought, his concentration nearly faltered, but he didn’t allow it to. The wood soon burst into flame, and they had a cheery little fire to burn into the night. Now there was no excuses. He turned to her and he almost stumbled a step, she had the sweetest smile on her face now. His head suddenly swam. Why did she have to do that? It made it hard to think. He looked down a second to make sure that his suddenly pounding heart didn’t pump blood through the gashes in his chest. The small spots of blood in the moss hadn’t expanded, so he decided to take that as a good sign. Trying to regain what little composure he had against her onslaught of making herself adorable, he casually walked around to her other side and settled down, his hooves underneath him. She then snuggled closer to him, sharing their warmth. And ensuring that if he got up, she would most definitely know about it. They sat and stared at the fire for a few moments longer before she laid her head down and slept. He shortly could here the steady intake of breath of her deep sleep. He continued to stare at the fire and listen to the relaxing sound of Northern’s steady breath. He laid his head down, and went to sleep with the sun. He was still scared, but he knew that with Northern with him, he’d be able to make it.
Chapter 4It wasn't the sun that woke him up. It was at his back, so it wouldn't be able to shine in his eyes unless it was nearing dusk again. What woke him was a clawing need to eat. His stomach rebelled at him for not eating sooner. He wondered what he had been going on up until this point. He didn't really have any reserves that could be tapped. He felt weak, lifting his head up off of the ground. No real surprise there, much had happened in the past two days to them. As he raised his head, he felt Northern stir beside him. It was comfortable where he lay, and he didn't really want to move, for more reasons than the comfort if he was honest with himself, but his stomach was not giving him an option in this matter. He nudged Northern lightly in an attempt to wake her nicely. Her mane smelled of the earth that they had lain in for the night. She stirred again, but still didn't wake. He smiled and shook his head. It occurred to him that it might be the poison, and he sniffed at the poison's edge. It didn't smell sick anymore. Using his horn he moved the moss away from where he had made the gash. It was a stretch for him, as he didn't want to upset Northern and wake her before she wanted to. He imagined that her own stomach would wake her just as his had. The moss removed, he saw that his gash was gone. That baffled him. He couldn't understand it. The moss didn't have magical properties as far as he knew. But the tree might have. He didn't know the name of the tree or really anything about it, besides what it looked like. And that it was a cure. Ruffling the coat allowed him to see the skin underneath. There was no signs of the poison that had been in her veins just a few hours ago. It was gone. She'd be safe. At least from the--NO. he wouldn't think of anything else that would come up. She'd be okay as long as they were together, right? That's what he was determined to believe. He lifted his head away from her leg, straightening himself back up. To find that Northern was awake now and watching him. "You look pleased. I take it that I'm going to live?" she asked, a smile playing across her features. It nearly made his heart melt to see it. But he stalled answering it to feel her forehead, checking her temperature again. The fever had broken in the middle of the night, from what he could tell now, and her temperature was regular. So why was she still being like this to him? When did he start grinning like an idiot? "You're going to do better than live." Why did he say that? Oh, right. He had brain damage. But now where did he go with this? "We're getting out of here today." Why did he feel so right in saying that? The sound of running water began a thought process that the rest of his mind had already put together. The part of his mind that was running ahead of him gave him a small nudge in the right direction. The river runs right out of the forest. If they follow it "What makes you so sure that we're almost out?" Northern interrupted his thoughts, but allowed him to feel the rightness in what he had said before. "The river. Unlike everything else in this forest, it makes sense. The river runs straight between Ponyville and Canterlot before turning towards the ocean. If we follow downstream, we should be out of this forest by the end of the day." Solomon explained it as he nudged her, helping her get onto her hooves, before he followed. She stretched out her neck and legs. She had been laying down for over a day. To now be allowed to move without endangerment of herself, she took advantage of the situation, stretching everything that she could in order to loosen herself up from her long rest. "I think I have sleep sores," she murmured, more to herself than Solomon, though he could hear her, while she craned her head around, rubbing at a spot that she'd been lying on the entire time. Solomon stood to follow her, stretching out the muscles that had stiffened from the cold ground. His stomach growled, reminding him of his priority. They'd need food before long. "I'm hungry." He was certainly surprised that he was the first to say anything. But he felt that it was something that needed to be put out there. "We should look for something along the way-" he cut off as Northern had already taken off towards the river. He had no choice but to follow her. They walked along the river bank for a good while. Solomon reckoned a few hours. He had spotted a berry bush a while back that had been full of ripe berries. There they had eaten their fill, Solomon stopping them before they reached a gorge. There were dangers involved in eating too much when they had gone as long as they had without eating. Forcing themselves away, they continued on their trek. They had been traveling for a spell when Solomon took notice of the river. It was no longer flowing as quickly as it had before. He knew that there was something significant to that, but now he struggled to remember what it was. What was it? And a sound on the edge of his his perception jogged his memory, and he groaned. "A waterfall." Northern looked around at him with a look of apprehension on her face a moment before it cleared. "Well, we're not in the water, so that shouldn't worry us, right?" she asked, a small hint of doubt creeping into her voice as Solomon continued to appear worried about it. "I don't know yet," he said in a tired voice. "A tall waterfall could prove problematic, but a short one is easy to deal with." They were soon to find out which fall it was. The waterfall wasn't as expected. It actually turned out to be a cascade of several smaller waterfalls, falling only a few feet each. Solomon and Northern easily bounded down them, for once ending without some disaster befalling them. But if he were to be honest with himself, Solomon would have actually said that he wanted something bad to overcome. It made things more interesting. And he had come to almost expect the tragedies to befall their travels. Not to mention that they usually got him to be close with Northern. The way she sounded as she breathed, and the smell of her mane as he slept beside her. He tried to muddle his thoughts, but unsuccessfully, not really wishing for them to continue down this path from the consequences that might arise from it. He paused in his trek, realizing that Northern wasn't walking beside him. A slight skip hit his heart at this realization and he turned around, searching for her. He saw he sitting on the ground staring back up at the falls, seeming at peace, despite where they were. Solomon soon found himself trotting back over to her and sitting down, staring up at the falls. The realization of why she stopped hit him at that moment. They were a wondrous sight. Who knew that something like this had existed in the forest so close to home? The water came down in several steps, a shimmering and clear blue over a muted gray rock that suddenly became a glistening stone under the water as it rushed by. The mists kicked up by the falls caught the light at the right angle, creating a rainbow that shot out for several feet before fading with the mists. A single flower bloomed on a slight craggy outcropping in the middle of the cascade. It was a wondrous shade of pink that faded at the edges to an iridescent violet while the center seemed to be made of gold. The pestles protruding from the center where a muted silver. It was framed by a cloudless and majestic sky above and slight vegetation all around. It really was a marvel of their fair land. But after viewing it for a few minutes, the rainbow disappeared as the light moved on. They had passed it at the exact right moment to catch it at it's most splendid, but now they were merely wasting time. They had to move now, else they risked spending another night in the forest. Solomon turned and nudged Northern, getting her attention. Her ears had gone back when the rainbow had gone. Evidently she had come to the same conclusion that Solomon had. It was time to go. Northern looked to Solomon with soft eyes. "This place isn't so bad, once you get to really see it," she murmured softly, almost at the point where Solomon couldn't hear it over the sound of the falls. He agreed with her, but he remained silent. His chest still hurt because of this forest. It might not be bad, but it still made him wary. Northern waited expectantly for him for another moment before frowning slightly, only for a moment, and continuing walking. That frown hurt against his heart, unexpectedly painful. He knew that he had disappointed her. And he also knew that it was because he hadn't said anything. But he couldn't say anything now, so he moved to follow her, stopping again, briefly to look back one last time at the water's cascade. He noted the direction that they fell in, and a smile crossed his face. They fell to the north. He decided to call them Northern's Cascade. With that, he turned and followed Northern.
Chapter 5They walked for a while longer in a peaceful silence. Northern didn't have the disappointment in him any longer, but the thought still nagged at him. He didn't want to disappoint Northern in any way. And he knew that they agreed on this point. His thoughts raged on what he should do, not wanting to come together to form a unanimous consensus. The damaged part of his brain soon got tired of his thought war and decided to take over again. "This place has a certain majesty about it that's hard to describe." At those words, Northern glanced in Solomon's direction, but looked back quickly. But her glance told him that she was interested in what he was saying. He let his brain damage continue talking. "It's, hmm, I don't really know. It's a type of natural beauty. It doesn't follow the rules that we have come to expect. It engineers the beauty on its own that we have come to expect on a regular basis, and its irregularity makes it more attractive." Northern was now looking directly at him as he spoke, paying attention to him. So he plowed on. "Moreover, it orchestrates its beauty in a way that we can't replicate. I suppose that it has had more practice than our artisans have had, but I don't think that it's merely the skill difference that defines the beauty, but the art itself. Our artists actually have their art look like it's been made, whereas this is like an accidental beauty. Beauty without effort." The brain damaged part of his brain seemed to have calmed down now. And it had placed his thoughts so well. Northern smiled at him now. He beamed with pride at his mind. Even if it was because of that damage that he felt the courage to say something. Northern just continued on in silence, but it was enough that Solomon knew that he had made up for his past disappointment. Then something horrible happened. Something that he should have seen coming. "Just like something else that I can see right now." He clamped down on this new disastrous course, but it was already too late. He was grinning like... he wasn't even sure what he grinned like, but he was sure that it wasn't good. Northern gasped at this compliment and he could see her blush a deep red underneath her coat and she turned away quickly so that he couldn't see her expression. He was sure that it was one of horror. If he had been in his own right mind, his would have been. He wasn't a flirt! He had never flirted before in his lifetime. And now he was doing it to somepony that he had just earned the respect of with that cheesy line? It wouldn't be any wonder if she never spoke to him again because of what he just said. He wrestled with his separated mind, trying to get it under control again so that he wouldn't have to worry about it saying something else, but it remained stubborn with him, refusing to stay under control, until something he didn't expect happened. "Well, you're not bad looking yourself," Northern stated in a matter of fact voice as she fluttered an eyelid at him. His heart skipped a beat as she walked away. Shaking himself, he followed her. There wasn't any way that that had just happened. And yet it had. And now, he gained control of his mind again. He controlled the shock that had developed well. He tried to put what had happened just now behind him, and hoped that she would. The more he thought about it, the less that it made sense. He knew that she wasn't like this, and neither was he. What was happening now? The more he tried to think about it, though, the more his mind veered away from it. His chest was giving him problems again, becoming sore and itching. It emphasized the fact that they needed to get out of here. There wasn't much to tell on whether or not Northern's poison was completely gone. She might still be ill with the poison, as the antidote might have just slowed it down, not cured it. He couldn't tell, and that was worrying him. Something else was bothering him as well, and it just wasn't clicking yet. He'd figure it out in just a short while, he was sure. Why was the river rushing? It clicked. A cascade sometimes precluded a larger waterfall. This was the case. Shortly in the distance, the world ended. He could see straight into the sky for quite a while before a tree, taller than the rest, ended his unimpeded view. He stopped right on the edge of the fall to look down. He instantly felt vertigo overcome him as he stared down at the tops of the trees. "Solomon!" Northern screamed as he felt himself begin to pitch forward, dizzy at the heights. A stinging sensation in his tail told him that Northern had lunged forward and grabbed him by that to stop him. He was pulled back onto the solid ground and fell flat on his rump. He breathed hard as his heart attempted to beat out of his chest, fear gripping him in its terrible claws. "Thanks," he gasped to Northern. He still felt dizzy and pain was at his chest. He looked down to see that he had broken the matted moss on his chest, exposing his deep scratch again, and it was bleeding once more. Northern saw as well. It seemed to cause her more concern than it did for him. How strange. "Stay here and don't move," she ordered him. "I don't want you bleeding yourself dry again." And so he sat while she bounded off into the woods. She wasn't gone long before she was back. "There's a cliff not too far over to that side. We're stuck here." Well that was great. His brilliant idea had backfired on him. He could see the river traveling into the distance, through the trees. If he really strained himself, he could see the edge of the forest. Then they would be free and they'd find themselves home. But first they had to find a way down the side of the waterfall. Northern was checking over the side of the cliff now, this time she was doing it more intelligently than he did, crouching to the ground before leaning over the edge and peering down. He could tell that it caused her to have a moment of vertigo as well, but she got over it in a moment. She hadn't run the risk of falling over the edge because the ground helped her with her stability. He was washed over again with dizziness and he checked himself again. He wasn't bleeding freely, but it was enough to coat the front of him with blood. Down at his hooves, the ground was starting to be coated with the red fluids. "We have to get down there for some of the moss to patch your wounds," she said when she looked back at him and noticed the blood. Worry etched her face as she noticed how much blood he was loosing. "You won't be able to climb down like that." She could climb down that steep grade? There was more to Northern than Solomon had thought. She bounded back into the wooded area briefly, coming out a moment later with a. Where did she find a rope out here? On a second glance at it, Solomon saw that it was green and slick. A vine then. "You stay here!" she demanded of him. Like he could go very many places anyway. "I'll be back. Don't move too much. I'd prefer to have a living librarian when we get home." She worked while she talked. With the vine, she had tied a few knots and looped it over her shoulders as a harness and when she finished speaking she shot over the edge. Solomon jumped to stop her, but a bout of dizziness took him to the ground. The world spun around him vaguely and then went dark. He was afraid. To face the dark now, he felt fear. It wasn't so bad when he knew Northern was near, but now he didn't know where she was. And that made him fear. He awoke with a start an undefined amount of time later. Looking around for Northern, he couldn't see her. There was pain in his chest still, but that didn't concern him. The fact that Northern wasn't here did. What concerned him more was that there was only half of her vine here as well. Solomon felt the pit drop out of his stomach as he found the severed vine lying near the edge of the cliff. Northern could still be alive though, at the bottom of the cliff, but hurt and needing attention to those wounds. In a panic, he limped into the woods, not paying attention to his wounds, despite their ache. He knew that he wouldn't make it down the mountain in one piece if he just tried it like this, but he was determined to get down there. Northern needed medical attention. Searching around, he found the things that he was looking for. Cobwebs and a vine. It was the woods, there were plenty of cobwebs everywhere. He used them like the moss before, stuffing them in the wound. They quickly turned red, but the blood flow stopped completely. Unfortunately, the cob webs were merely sitting on his chest without binding, and they weren't big enough to be tied with Northern's tie, nor the vines. It would have to do for now. He had to get down to the ground. As he held onto the vine with his teeth, and tied the end of it to the severed vine at the edge, he vaguely realized that he wasn't very good a listening to what others told him to do. He also realized that he didn't much care when someone else was in danger. Holding the vine tight between his teeth, he crept to the edge, cautiously peering over it, wondering if what he was fixing to do was a good idea at all. Probably not. He wrapped the vine around his torso, making a harness out of it in the same way that he had seen Northern do it earlier, though using an alternate method that he had seen in a book and slipping it farther down his torso in order to not put too much strain on his chest. Again he came to the edge of the cliff and looked down. He didn't like his idea and he was beginning to reconsider it, feeling his heart beating harder and harder as he contemplated what he was fixing to do as he stared down at the ground. Or rather at the tops of the trees. They were thick against the side of the mountain, completely obscuring his view of the ground. Thinking on it, they might even break his fall enough that he'd live if he just jumped straight down. He still decided against it, in a fear that that wouldn't be all that the tree broke on the way down. He swallowed loudly, not wanting to let the fear take him before he leaped, so closing his eyes, he stepped over the edge. It only hit him then to wonder how long the vine was supposed to be. His eyes snapped open, suddenly realizing his error. He didn't know if Northern had taken into consideration that particular fact either, but he hadn't seen her do any type of measuring. He was quite possibly falling to his demise, and he was worrying about Northern, he dimly realized in the back of his mind, but it only lasted a second as the vine snapped taut and he hung in the air for a fraction of a second, the wind being jerked out of him as the vine tightened around his midriff. He felt pain shoot across the scratches in his chest and his vision dimmed briefly from the pain, but he shot back into full awareness when the full impact was over and he started swinging back towards the cliff face. Another thing occured to him in that short span before he realized that the cliff was incoming was that he was faced in the wrong direction to stop himself from hitting the cliff. He slammed full against the rock wall, the wind having never come to him from the first shock, he didn't lose it this time. The harness pulled against him and it started slipping up farther towards his gashed chest. He moved to turn around so that he could use the cliff face to pull himself farther down, having hit the end of his tether, but he didn't move before the vine crossed the lowest of his gashes. He hissed a breath through his teeth, not letting the pain blind him, despite the blackness that ringed his vision. He looked on the bright side of things. At least it helped him gain his breath back. He finished turning himself around, breathing a sigh of relief, in his pain's spite. He now felt more secure, as he gathered a few hoof holds, having something solid under his hooves, so to speak. Grabbing the vine above the harness, he gave it a yank, hoping to loosen it so that he could continue his climb down. On his first tug, he felt slack enter the tether, but something wasn't right. the slack kept coming and coming. He saw the reason as his knot fell past him towards the ground. A slight tug hit him through the vine as it came to its full extension. His full weight was now on his hooves, and by extension, on his chest. The cobwebs wouldn't be able to stand on this strain for long, he knew. He would need to get down quickly, or he would risk reopening his wound. He would be risking it anyway, as he went down, the constant moving as he found a way down being enough to agitate his gashes and loosen the cobwebs placed to stop the bleeding. As soon as the cobwebs disintegrated, it would be a race against time to get to the bottom before he lost too much blood. But he was no athlete. He wouldn't be able to climb down the side quickly. Even sitting here for a few minutes with all his weight on his hooves, he could feel himself getting tired. A race against time and fatigue. He looked down. He was just above the tree line now. He guessed that the tree was about sixty feet tall, and he was about five feet above the tree, so that would mean he had sixty-five feet to the ground. Maybe a little more. He swallowed again, not entirely sure that he'd be able to make it, but determination to find Northern would keep him going. He found his first hoofhold, moving his back hoof to it and placing weight on it. So far, so good. Now to continue on, he moved took another 'step' down, moving from hold to hold. He felt more confident, and only three more feet to the trees. He placed another step, and his hoof slipped from the rock and he wasn't able to regain his hold as the rock his front hoof had been on broke away from the rock wall and he felt himself falling free. Shock crossed his face as the impact of what was happening hit him. He was fixing to fall to his demise, and there wasn't anything that he could do. Fear clenched at his heart as he realized that Northern would also fall with him. Her death was as certain as his was, and it was all because he failed to reach the bottom of the cliff. Time seemed to slow down for Solomon as he dropped away from the rock wall. He saw his life flash before his eyes: When he got his cutiemark, how he had blackened his hoof, the friends he had made, his first love, his heartbreak, the Grand Galloping Galla, his library, and more. He realized that most of it was spent in a library, but he had no regrets about that. He felt the first brushes of the leaves against his back and time sped up again. The small twigs pulled and scratched against his back arms and legs, but he felt himself being slowed down by how many of the small branches there were. It still hurt when he hit his first large branch, though, but it broke under his weight, throwing him into a spin that was stopped by another branch. There were more stops along the way, every one of them, turning him a new direction and causing him more pain. He finally felt something wrap around him and he was jerked to a halt, pain enveloping him once again. He opened his eyes and looked down, only a few inches from the ground. And alive. Shock was his first reaction to not being dead. He had survived. His second reaction was embarrassment that he had been scared that he would die. The third was shock again, when he heard a familiar voice. "You don't listen very well. I told you to stay put, and now look at you." His head jerked up in astonishment, looking at Northern before him, a thick matting of moss on her back. "You're bleeding everywhere." He realized that her voice sounded far away. Her voice was just barely on the edge of his hearing and was almost overwhelmed by the sound of his heart beating. He knew that that was important, but he couldn't think why. His head was too fuzzy now to remember. "Well let's get you patched up." When she said that, the vines holding him up were suddenly severed and he flopped to the ground. He tried to say something, but his mouth felt full of cotton and he couldn't form words, so he was merely just flapping his gums uselessly. Northern turned him on his back quickly and pulled him to a tree, leaning him up against it. "Now, focus on me. Listen to my voice and don't go to sleep. And quit mouthing things at me." He did as he was told, but now that she said it, he really did feel tired. But he knew that she was right. He couldn't sleep. At least his heart wasn't pounding as hard, now.
