The roads leading out from Feltlocke were not all too different from those he had walked within the little hamlet or around its outskirts. Though, if there was one thing he did notice, was the distinct trails left upon the cobblestones formed from iron ringed carriage wheels. It seemed that Feltlocke wasn’t so off the map after all, for evidence of many travellers were here upon its roads.

He had also learned from Dracon the griffon during their long talk the night before his departure that Feltlocke had a surprising amount of commerce roll through. The man knew this to an extent, having met a merchant once or twice on the road, such as the one he had traded some goods for cider that he had already drunk. But Dracon did not brag about a merchant here or there, he talked of the town’s soil. Mostly of the soil of its forests.

Amongst the shady broadleaves and the tall oaks and birch there rooted alongside it’s larger brethren were trees known as ‘Craksnaps’. Relatively short and thin in the trunk, they made up for their thin, almost flimsy, bodys with wide, thin mobs of branches that grew low and wide along the ground. All things considered, by the man’s standards they barely qualified as trees. And he was told that they produced all year around, berries, called ‘Snapberries’. They were often used to make wines and fruity drinks, and were typically exported to places such as Canterlot and Ponyville for quite the sum.

This had brought out a few questions from the man, such as the reasoning for a cash crop such as these to not have the town growing and blooming with wealth, and why they weren’t cultivated, seemingly at all from what he had noticed. Dracon had explained to him simply this: no Craksnap would grow within two to even three hundred yards of each other. And so even in the expanse of the forests surrounding Feltlocke, they were a rare thing among the choking oaks and ferns. As for cultivation, noone in the entirety of the region could even dream of owning enough land to grow enough Craksnaps to make it a profitable venture, and Dracon doubted anyone less than a noble from Canterlot or a big name industrialist from Manhatten could even afford so much land. So Snapberries were a profitable, but rare treat for anyone who came across them.

It was for all these reasons that he was thankful for standing before one of said trees. Exactly as Dracon described the plant, it’s leaves were thin and long, looking almost like they were grown and died in a drought, but not as sharp and thin as pine needles. They all had a strange cyan, almost teal color as well. But the biggest eye catchers were the berries themselves: growing out of green pods almost like pecans, these grape sized, purple berries looked almost identical to their vinegrown competitors.

The man had been a day out from Feltlocke, and he had decided that perhaps taking a quick cut through the forest would save some time, considering the road where he was to turn south towards Los Pegasus was a near 90 degree change in direction, it only made sense to him. He had camped only once in the forest so far at midday earlier, and he was making good time, he figured. But now he had encountered one of the ‘frequent stops’ he had predicted.

Eyeing a cluster of berries, he set down his heavy pack and reached out for a few. They were firm, yet had a good deal of give to them. Dracon had described their flavor as being quite bitter for a griffon, similar to hops, but that ponies found them to be hearty and sweet. Hearty was not a word the man often mixed in the same sentence as any fruit outside of mangos or other more solid types. Hell, the only thing Dracon had told him about the berries themselves besides their flavor was how to know when they had ripened, and from what the man understood these in his hand seemed ripe enough.

Curiosity overtaking his urge to keep these to sell, he dropped one into his mouth and it popped like a cherry in his mouth. The flavor was...strange. It was almost tangy, but rolled over his tongue and the flavor changed to a bit of sweet, then to a bit of sour. It was not something he was expecting from a berry that was considered edible; sour, at least to him, meant to spit that shit out and toss it away. And perhaps he was right. To test his theory, he pushed past a few wads of Craksnap branches and spotted another cluster. Picking them, they resulted in the same sequence of flavors, tangy at first, then sweet and sour.

He shrugged, and started picking them in droves. He didn’t take all of them no, he didn’t want to rob Feltlocke of their income, even it if was unlikely that a forager would come this far out of town in search of berries, but he didn’t want to be responsible for starving the hungry, so he left quite a bit, including the hundreds of pods that were out of reach of him, where a pegasus could easily get to themselves. Soon, he had quite the pile of berries on the dirt forest floor, as well as a couple handfuls in his coat pockets. They were firm enough that they didn’t even so much as bruise during his twisting and turning during his harvest.

One thing he was uncertain of, however, was their shelf life. He didn’t have any ice for keeping them cool, nor did he have any special enchanted equipment for storing fresh foods over long distances as he had seen many merchants use, and many appliance stores advertise. He moved over to his pack, unzipped it, and fished around. Out he pulled many of the jars he had bought to hold extra water, eight in total. They were large mason style jars that could easily hold a liter of water each, and with the amount of berries he had collected, he figured he could sacrifice a few of them in the name of potential profit. And if they spoiled, he could just dump them and use the glass jars for their intended purpose.

Placing the small things into the containers, he walked over to his larger pile, reminding him of some paintballs someone had spilled all over the floor, he started collecting them; shaking off what dirt and mineral stained them, he soon found himself with three full jars of Snapberries, easily worth triple their weight in coin. A thought that brought a smile to his grizzly face.

Placing the jars delicately into his pack, he zipped up the hulking bag of fabric and plastic and rested up upon his back once more, his pots and pans clashing noisily against each other, disturbing the peace of the forest. With a stick in hand, he continued on.

This forest did not actually have a name, from what the man understood. His maps gave it no designation, and Dracon nor anyone else had mentioned it specifically. And to be fair, he doubted that many people, much less travellers and merchants who stayed for little more than a few days in town, even so much as thought about the place. But to the man, forests and woodlands had always been a good contrast to the rolling prairies and hillands he had been so used to for many years. It was always a special time to be within a world of wood, and it all seemed almost magical. Considering where he currently was, it easily could be magic.

But these thoughts were pushed aside quickly, it was a quiet moment, and though he often found an abundance of them during his travels, this time seemed different. As he stood silent in the shade, the sun high with rays casting down here and there, barely penetrating the thick canopy, with the only sound being those of the distant birds fluttering and chirping their sweet songs, and the bugs crawling and burrowing their way to safety from others that would seek their demise, it was almost as if he was the center of the whole universe, and that should he take but a simple step, that the earth would crack and shatter before him. And it did.

A resounding boom echoed in his ears, and with each fumbling step the earth split and tore itself asunder, trees felled and were cast into the exposed depths, and the sun was suddenly upon his pale flesh, nearly boiling with its heat and intensity. He dropped his stick and huddled a tree that stood among the carnage, saving him from a horrible, melting death. But the tree was suddenly seemingly not a tree at all. He felt fur, a brilliant violet and soft with a smell of lavender, he looked up and the pony looked down upon him with a stern and scowling look, her purple mane casting a deep shadow over her muzzle, her fiery amethyst eyes blazed with a look of disapprovement.

“Why did you leave?”

No, no, no. Not her.

She leaned her neck down, her eyes squinted in anger.

“I could have helped you.”

He let go of her legs and covered his ears.

“We all could have helped you, but no.”

Not listening, not listening.

Her breath he could feel through his long hair, tickling his beard and his hands, and the air seemed to chill at it’s touch.

“You were always a stubborn one. A prideful one.”

He wanted to close his eyes, the earth was on fire, cracks split the earth where lava rose and melted all life. He could feel the sting of its heat on his cold flesh, and her words stung like ice against a sore and bruised muscle.

“And now look where you are.” She rose away from him, and humphed, “Wallowing in the dirt, no better than an animal.”

He grit his teeth, and he felt them shatter in his mouth, the shards flying and ricocheting into his tongue and gums and down his throat.

“To think, if only you were a little more patient, if only you had a little more faith…”

His eyes widened, “Shut up.” He muttered with a hoarse throat.

“...you would be with her again already.” She leaned down once more, “But you’re not, and you never will be.”

He roared out, and turned on her, his fists blazed with the fire of his hatred, and the pony didn’t so much as flinch as he struck her. The impact shattered bone and rended flesh sending what grotesque mass that was left soaring through the air, where it rained down blood and guts upon the land, steaming in the fires and choking the earth. He stood there on his knees, sucking in breath as if each were his last, and he looked over the carnage that he had wrought.

But then, he noticed something more than just out of place. A deer, tall and proud in it’s posture, it’s beady black eyes looked upon him from its place perched behind a tree, it’s rack large and spoke of its age and experience. It slowly walked along through the fires and the piles of flesh and purple fur. Seemingly uncaring of the world around it, or of him. And he suddenly had a moment of clarity. The fires receded, the earth reformed itself, trees regrew mighty and strong, animals lived and breathed again, and the masses of flesh and rivers of blood dried and melted, and he was left in the forest once more, his breath ragged, and his brow drenched in a cold sweat.

Frantically he jolted his head around, everywhere he looked he found no signs of the world he had left, and he felt his head rest against the trunk of an oak, and he breathed air not choked by fire and blood. And oh, how sweet it was.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, his hands on his lap, his eyelids shut over his weary, bloodshot eyes. A gentle breeze blew softly and swayed the leaves and branches of the trees, throwing their shadows upon the land in a chaotic dance, and through lidded eyes he peered upon the brilliant orange sky as the sun lowered itself over the treetops. His eyes flew open. He had been here a long time, many hours at least, time that he did not have.

Standing on shaky, wobbly legs, he scanned the ground for his stick and pack, and found them said in the grass a few yards away. He seemed to have stumbled around during his breakdown, and ended up quite a ways away. He opened his pack and spotted the jars of berries, and scowled at them. Every nerve in his body told him to toss them now. But, that would still be such a waste. He doubted they caused the worst trips imaginable to everyone, cause otherwise there was a whole town just a dozen miles away that was infested with drugs. Surely they only did that to humans? Or maybe just him? He didn’t know, and he really didn’t care to find out.

He simply took a long swig from his canteen, nearly emptying it, and zipped the pack up once more. He found his stick and dusted it clean. It was looking like a walk through the night would be in order to make up for lost time. He doubted there was anything willing to jump him here in this small patch of woodland, so he didn’t feel entirely inclined to camp.

He kept his hand in his coat pocket just in case.

Author's Note

Might do a double post, one chapter today, one tomorrow, depends on how I feel.