Lost in a Natural State

Later, 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.