Stuck Together

Chapter 3: the Great and Magical Pebble!

The evening in Equestria was a truly beautiful event, as Celestia’s sun starts to make way for Luna’s moon and stars. With the first constellations of the night shining over the land along with the setting sun, and the singing of the early woken night time birds in the air, it was truly a sight to behold and feel. Unfortunately, near the Everfree Forest, it was a lot less charming affair. The wildlife of the forest, which had been suspiciously quiet ever since the rain storm, seemed as they had decided to make up for their previous silence by creating an extra-terrifying cacophony now that the sun was setting, and the dark of the night was rising. The forest was filled with distant roars, whoops, snarls, howling, and other, less identifiable voices. It was quite terrifying…

…But sadly, the Scary Cacophony© lost a significant part of its fear effect as a song could be heard from one of the two figures trotting along the edge of the forest towards what they assumed to be civilization.

“When I was a little filly, and the sun was going doooooown-“

“Oh God.”

“The darkness and the shadows they would always make me froooown-“

“Please don’t.”

“I'd hide under my pillow from what I thought I saw-“

“I really don’t think you should-“

“But Granny Pie said that wasn't the way to deal with fears at aaaall-“

“You’re not even listening, are you?”

“She said: Pinkie, you gotta stand up tall, learn to face your fears
You'll see that they can't hurt you, just laugh to make them disappear
HA HA HA!”

“Nope, you’re not listening.”

“Sooo, giggle at the ghostly
Guffaw at the grossly
Crack up at the creepy
Whoop it up with the weepy
Chortle at the kooky
Snortle at the spooky
And tell that big dumb scary face to take a hike and leave you alone and if he thinks he can scare you then he's got another thing coming and the very idea of such a thing just makes you wanna... HAHAHAHA...heh...
LAAAUGH!”

At this point, the smallish blue unicorn that had been singing inhaled for what seemed like twice the air his lungs should be capable of holding before he started to giggle slightly as he walked along. This changed quickly, though, as he saw his companion’s deadpan impression…

…At which point he started to laugh out loud.

His companion, a strange, large cat/pegasus hybrid, just kept his neutral impression, until the unicorn had stopped laughing. And when the unicorn did, the creature smacked him slightly to the back of his head with its forepaw.

“Did you even consider what that song might cause?” Hexus asked with just the slightest hint of a snarl in his voice, still holding a deadpan look on his face.

“Aaaww, come on! You can’t say that isn’t an awesome song!” Starshine replied, still grinning widely despite just having been smacked to the head.

“I’m not saying it isn’t an awesome song. That would be blasphemy. What I’m saying is what if somepony had heard you singing it?” Hexus said, his anger replaced by anxiety. “I mean, how would you have explained it?”

“Well, I guess I could have said that I had heard it somewhere before, and that I felt like singing it. I don’t get why you get so upset about it, it’s just a song.”

“What I really mean with this is that we need to be very careful about what we say and do here. We can’t just go and tell everypony about the show back home. Nor should we say things we’re not supposed to know. They would think that we were crazy! Or worst of all, they might believe us, and that might cause even worse trouble,” Hexus concluded with a worried expression on his muzzle.

“Well what you think we should tell them, then? Like you said back there, we need a backstory. Well technically you said that I needed a backstory,” Starshine said with a thoughtful expression, “but that was before you were coming to whatever town is ahead of us. And you’re still coming, RIGHT?” Starshine gave Hex a sideways look, to which he simply sighed.

“Yes, I’m coming with you. God only knows how badly this will end up for me…”

“Oh lighten up, will you?” Starshine said with a little exasperated sigh, before continuing, “So, about our backstories. What should they be?”

“...Don’t look at me, I don’t even know what I am. I really can’t come up with any real story for myself before I know at least that. Which is just one more reason why I don’t think I should come with you to the town ahead of us...“

Starshine frowned a little, his own cheery mood slightly downtrodden by Hex’s constant pessimism. Honestly, how negative could one person be? All that Hex was missing was some black eyeliner, shredded black clothing and continuous whining about how all life was suffering.

…And with that mental image the frown that had started to settle upon Starshine’s face was driven off by the grin caused by the said mental image.

“Well, maybe you can just wing it if you need to. But what about me, then?”

“What if you came from Trottingham? Just traveling around?” Hexus proposed.

“Naaaw, I don’t have the accent. Manehattan would be much better. I could say I was tired of big city life, and wanted to start fresh somewhere else.”

“And exactly how many fics have had that exact backstory…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Riiight.. Well anyway that’s probably more than enough we need right now.” Starshine said smiling, before he suddenly became more serious than he had been all the time Hex had spent with him (about 3 hours, give or take). “But now, I think we need to focus on a more pressing matter. Something that might be the very thing that either saves or sinks our backstories,” Starshine continued with grim expression. “And that thing would be my…” he paused for a moment (for dramatic effect), “Magic.”

..And his serious expression was shattered as he immediately gave two snorts in a rapid succession.

Hex elected to respond in a similarly elegant and sophisticated manner. In short, he facepalmed, with a groan. (It’s the groan that made it elegant.)

“You just had to do it, didn’t you?”

“Eeeyup.” Starshine replied with an even wider grin.

*Sigh* “So what you really meant with that was that you need to learn to use your magic, right?”

“Yep. I mean, it’d be pretty damn weird if a unicorn of my age wouldn’t know how to use magic, right?”

“…You never said how old you are, by the way. Even though I asked.”

“Wait, I didn’t? I remember that I did.”

“Well, you didn’t. So, just how old are you?”

“18.”

“Are you..? Really?”

“Yeah. Why, did you think I was older?”

“Actually, I thought you might be closer to being 14…”

“Hey!”

“Well I’m sorry, but I did! I mean, with all that.. giddiness of yours, and the jokes, and the fact that your about half of my size…”

“..Well I guess I can understand that reasoning. I really just can’t help it, I’m just feeling so happy right now!” Starshine exclaimed, making a small leap in the air without landing on his face (practice makes you perfect).

“We have realized this.” Hex replied with a slight smirk that did nothing to shrink the huge grin on Starshine’s face.

“But! So. Magic. How do I use it?”

“Maybe… What’s the word?.. Visualizing? Yes, maybe it’s about visualizing what you want to happen and then concentrating on it? I don’t know, I’m just throwing suggestions here.”

“Might as well give it a try. Now is there anything that I could.. Aha! A pebble!” Starshine exclaimed loudly as he came to a sudden halt with an unusually determined look on his face, staring intently at the small rock next to his hooves.

A moment passed. Besides Starshine’s face going through a range of different expressions (most of which could be associated with constipation) nothing happened. But just as Hexus was about to make a sarcastic remark about the situation at paw/hoof, the small piece of rock started to glow blue. And in the next second the afore mentioned pebble started to raise slowly upwards.

Starshine opened his eyes, and a wide grin was soon plastered on his face, just as Hexus swallowed the sarcastic remark he had been preparing, opting to simply nod with approval.

“How exactly did you do that?” Hex then asked curiously, craning his neck this way and that to get a better look at the pebble which was now gently floating in front of the unicorn’s face.

“Well at first I was thinking of how to make this happen and I thought it might work if I just thought that it should start floating, but nothing happened, so I tried again, only this time I imagined how the pebble would raise of the ground, but that didn’t work either, so next I- “ inhale, “got frustrated, and started concentrating on both the pebble and my horn. And although that kind of felt right, like it’s something I should have done in the first place, nothing still happened, so next I concentrated on my horn, and the pebble, and I imagined how the pebble would rise up in the air. And that worked!” Starshine explained in a single exited rush, paused only by his restricted lung capacity, all the while the afore mentioned pebble was floating still right next to Starshine’s ever smiling face.

“So concentration and visualizing are the key for unicorn magic?” Hex muttered, still staring at the pebble. “What else could you do with it? What about enchanting something? Creating something out of thin air? How about illusions? What about the more rare magical abilities like teleporting? Or maybe…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up there, you’re getting all scientific and analytical on my sorry plot AGAIN.” Starshine said with a slight worry in his voice, dropping the pebble as he spoke.

“Oh. Umm, sorry.” Hex replied with an embarrassed smile, his long ears once again flapping down against his skull.

“But anyway,” Starshine quickly continued in an effort to cut of the awkward silence that was already descending upon them, “ I’m not so sure that I can do any of those other things you mentioned. I mean, I’m no Twilight Sparkle, after all!” He chuckled lightly. “And anyway, why would I even want to do something drastically powerful like teleporting or something like that?”

“To get us to that settlement over there before the sundown,” Hexus countered with a deadpan impression while pointing with his left paw towards the distant outline of a town or village showing off clearly in the light of the setting sun. “The sun is nearly down, and we’re still way too far away to get there before dark. Not to mention we’re too close to the forest to feel comfortable.” There was a particularly loud roar coming from the afore mentioned forest, showing that at least some creatures there had an excellent sense of timing.

Though what the two travellers assumed to be a settlement had been just a few lines of smoke in the distance (visible only to the Hexus) when they had scrambled first out of the forest, it had since steadily grown in size until even Starshine was able to see the silhouettes of the seemingly multiple storey buildings. Buildings that were not of human design, or at least no human design either of them knew of or recognized. Firstly, the buildings were not shaped like most human buildings, that is to say, like a box. There was no glimmer of vast amounts of steel and glass, and there was far less smoke rising from the town when compared to how many buildings there seemed to be in it. Secondly, there was no noise associated with most human settlements, only the sound of an entire forest full of creatures doing their very best to scare the living daylights out of anyone or anypony unfortunate enough to be in it’s vicinity coming from their right.

“Well, okay, we’re still pretty far of, but I think that if we just leg it, we’ll get there just at the nightfall. Oh, and you should probably try to get those wings of your working as we move. C’mon, Hex! Let’s get galloping! Allonsy~!” And with that sentence, Starshine was running fast towards the settlement, with a goofy grin on his face and a laughter on his lips, leaving a very confused Hexus behind him.

“But- How did- Why would you- WHAT!?” Hexus stammered for a moment before running (and stumbling) after his travelling companion. “Starshine! You crazy-“ Hexus continued his sentence with a quite a lot of foreign sentences as he started running after the erstwhile unicorn, in a tone that could have hinted that the words he was spouting might not have been the kind to be recited in polite company.

The only answer he got was a bright and clear laughter over the sound of their hooves, as the two of them kept running.

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AUTHORS NOTES:

Sorry for both the Chapter lenght and how late it is. Got to take care of some urgent stuff. Plus I got a slight writer's blog. But anyway, New chapter! and I got the next chapter pretty much figured out! Enjoy!

Oh, and there will be better story image incoming courtesy of yours truly. That is, me. Keep well, my minions!