The Wizard of Whitetail Woods III
Chapter 1
Admiral Biscuit

KitKat paused, her ears swiveling. Somewhere ahead, she’d heard the dull crack of a twig, and possibly what were several scuttling feet against the mulchy forest floor.

The Wizard also stopped in his tracks, readying his wand. Just in case.

For a minute or two, all was silent in the forest, and then KitKat nodded. “I think they’re passing south.”

“You sure?”

“Not entirely. The winds aren’t in my favor, but that’s where I heard the noise.”

“Fair enough.” The Wizard put his wand away and adjusted his belt, then the two intrepid adventurers continued on. KitKat carefully placed her hooves; the Wizard shambled along like a shoggoth.

They were far enough north of the wandering band of trilobites that didn’t matter.

Probably.

💦

“So now what?”

The pony and human stood at the bank of a river. Wide, it was, and raging. Both of those thing were odd, given that the river was running through a nearly flat forest, and also that it wasn’t marked on the map KitKat had.

“This river isn’t on my map,” KitKat muttered, looking at the map again to be certain. “Dammit, I knew I should have bought a new one.”

“A new map?”

She nodded. “On account of how natural features change over time.”

“Geological time; that’s centuries or millennia.” The wizard glanced at the map. It looked antique, but then nearly everything in Equestria did. “You didn’t steal the map from a museum, did you?”

“I sent away for it. A dozen box tops from Cheerilee-Os.”

“Anything you send in boxtops for isn’t worth the stamp,” the Wizard said wisely. “Trust me; I got a pair of X-ray glasses once and all they did was give me a headache and the unending horror of knowing that every person I met had a skeleton hidden inside.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s why I came here, you know. To get away from the skeletons.”

“Monologuing won’t get us across the river,” KitKat observed. “A boat would be smashed to finders if we tried to cross. There aren’t any dead trees we could fell, and the mossy rocks look slippery. Dangerously slippery.”

“What about building a bridge?”

“You took any civil engineering classes? Because I haven’t.”

“I had a merit badge in basketmaking, and what’s a bridge but a big basket?”

KitKat blinked several times as she parsed the Wizard’s statement, then shook her head violently in an attempt to dislodge the stupid. “Have you been licking toads again?”

“You’re not my Mom.”

“Okay, then.” KitKat regarded the raging river while the Wizard examined his hands. In her mind, half-forgotten potamology lessons were running through her head. “We gotta go upstream. There’s gonna be some kind of dam or restriction to the flow, and a head of water above that.”

“Upstream, yeah.” The Wizard looked down at his hands again. “Hey, how come you have hooves?”

“I’ll tell you if you promise to STOP LICKING TOADS.”

“Whoa, don’t be all shouty about it.”

Indeed, damn beavers had been hard at work building a beaver dam. The damn dam consisted mostly of mud and sticks, since that was what beavers generally worked with. Concrete would of course have been a better dam material to use, but KitKat knew it was practically ungnawable.

To be precise, the damn dam had a big damn hole in it. Dozens of beavers were frantically working to dam the damn dam, dragging hastily gnawed-down trees into place and then backfilling with mud and moss and leaves and other forest detritus.

KitKat took in the scene, identifying the big beaver—that was who she’d want to talk to, after all. He was easy to spot; he wore a white hard hat.

The Wizard kept to himself, mostly mentally composing inappropriate beaver jokes.

“Puhutko hevosta?” KitKat shouted.

The big boss beaver looked in her direction and nodded. “Ya, speak a bit of Ponish, eh. What you want?”

“We cross river,” she said, gesturing to the turbid tempest. “Is easier upriver or can we cross dam?”

“Damn dam’s unstable, don’t you know?” the beaver said. “Laiska kirjailija put a hole in it, eh?”

“I’m sure-footed like a mountain goat,” KitKat replied. “And he’s—DAMMIT STOP LICKING TOADS.”

“Best to hoof it upstream, river’s wide and shallow.”

“Kiitos.” KitKat bowed her head to the beaver and then grabbed the Wizard’s belt in her teeth and dragged him along with her.

They still had a magical macguffin to look for, after all.

💦

They made camp on the far side of the stream. As the big beaver had indicated, beyond the dam impoundment caused by the damn dam, the river was wide and shallow and easily fordable. KtiKat only got wet to her gaskins; the Wizard had longer legs and didn’t even get his zatch wet.

A small fire was the first order of business, and once they had an ample supply of deadfall, KitKat sparked her shoe on a rock and got it going.

They laid their bedrolls out on either side of the fire, KitKat took off her saddlebags; to everyone’s good fortune the Wizard didn’t take off his robe.

“We need to put our food up to keep it safe from bears.”

“Bears?”

KitKat nodded. “Bears. Were-bears, Owl Bears, Space Bears, and boring ordinary Bears.”

“Are there really bears in these woods?”

“There are psychotropic phrogs, so of course there are bears.” KitKat looped up a piece of rope and wrapped it around her saddlebag. Those carried most of their food, because the Wizard didn’t have a backpack, and because his robe also didn’t have pockets.

Granted, there wasn’t all that much food. KitKat mostly grazed on the available flora, while the Wizard preferred to snack on whatever fauna he could catch. In case he couldn’t catch enough fauna to satisfy his hunger, he’d slipped several wheels of emergency cheese into KitKat’s bag.

“I’ve never understood why hanging food up is a way to keep it safe from bears.”

“Really? That’s basic woodsmareship.”

“I mean, I get that they can’t reach it, but then they’d just see us lying on the ground and figure we’d be a good bear snack.”

“You’d think that we’re a good bare bear snack, but it’s a well-known fact that bears are obsessed with piñatas, and when they see food hanging up, they try their best to break the bag open with a stick.”

“You’re bullshitting me.”

“Am not.” KitKat tugged the bag up and tied the rope off to a convenient bollard on the tree. “Find a nice, straight stick you can leave by the bag to use as a piñata whacker, and just make sure it’s not long enough it’ll actually hit the bag.”

💦

As dusk fell with a gentle clatter, the two adventurers laid snugly in their bedrolls. The Wizard had his wand out and was perusing one of his many spellbooks, while KitKat idly worked a hoof pick around her frog. She looked over in his direction for a moment, and once she realized he had the centerfold out, went back to minding her own business. Nopony wanted to see that.

💦

It was midnight in the small glade where they’d set up their camp. All was silent, save for a boring bear futilely swinging a piñata smashing stick at the supply saddlebags. He’d eventually give up and shuffle back off to shit in the woods, as bears do. Honestly, he’s not really important to the story.

KitKat was sound asleep.

So was the Wizard.

💦

Unbeknownst to both of them, one of the duo sleepwalked, and it wasn’t KitKat.

Author's Note

It all goes downhill from here, kids.