Dreamwalker's Tale: First (and Last?) Adventure

I woke up with a snort. My eyes quickly danced across the room as I tried to secure my position and indeed: I was safe. That moon-butted menace was nowhere to be seen. In her stead, I found Celestia lying beside me as she watched me with a curious and mildly amused expression.

“… what?” I asked as I felt the heat rise into my cheeks.

Her smile grew wider. “Had fun?”

I flushed even more. “S-She tickled me!” I tried to defend myself against accusations that had not even been leveled yet.

The moment I accused her beloved little sister of any wrongdoing was the moment her smile froze and she slowly sat up. Higher and higher did she loom over me, her smile broke apart and fell away piece by piece, until displeased and harsh eyes looked down upon me. “And you seem to believe that just because you managed to escape her, you are free now?”

I gulped. “Y-Yes…?”

She came down with such fierce speed that the only thing I managed to do was press my eyes shut tightly and brace for impact. In that moment, I was certain that she would continue the relentless onslaught I had just barely escaped in the dreamscape. No tickle attack came though. I did not feel her lips brush against my coat or even her body radiating heat. I barely even heard her breathing. After a couple of seconds, I dared to crack an eye open.

We were muzzle to muzzle and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes was all I needed to know. A soft smile graced her lips and with the faintest of touches, she put the ghost of a kiss on my nose. “Good morning, love,” she greeted me. Her voice was so tender and full of love. She would not torture me.

I raised my head to get myself another kiss, but her playfulness returned and she kept herself just out of reach, despite my attempts to capture her. As I started to pout, she stifled a giggle and finally gave in. I raised my hoof along her neck and pulled her down to me with a happy sigh. I did not mind sharing the comfy, warm bed for a few minutes more and judging by her shuffling to make herself more comfortable again, neither did she.

“I take it Luna has managed to deal with the nobles, then?” she asked a while later, her head resting on my chest, her eyes closed.

She merely enjoyed the closeness. My hoof stroked lazily along her neck and through her ethereal, billowing mane. “She was holding out yesterday. But you know her better than I do, she’s a fighter. She went fully in on the offense today. Apparently Fancy Pants is now a freelance Royal Advisor or something. Luna had some correspondence with Twilight, probably slightly panicky, and that seems to have been the result. I think she’ll be fine. Told you she would be.”

Celestia hummed appreciatively as I once again stroked her neck. “Hmmm, yes, you did mention something like that. You put a lot of faith in her.”

I thought about that for a moment. Inspected the notion like some alien artifact. After some consideration, I shrugged and nodded. “I have faith in all of you.” It was not just limited to Luna. And the statement felt true. That was enough for me. More than enough, as I enjoyed that smile tugging at her lips.

We had to get up eventually of course. And after a few more minutes, it became quite apparent what would finally make me take action. I had a full bladder. Admittedly one of the more annoying reasons to get out of bed, but it worked nonetheless. As soon as I excused myself, the spell of this morning was broken and we both started to fall back into other routines. I went to the bathroom, made myself more presentable and when I returned downstairs, Celestia was nowhere to be seen. So I went outside and found her using the assortment of blankets and furniture I had used for our late night dinner to present a more appealing looking breakfast setting. I sat down on my pillow with a smile and looked at the selection on the small table.

A slice of Allfood, of course. A solid foundation for an annoying trek through the jungle. But at this point, it held the same appeal as drinking plain water. It was there, it was nice, it was perfectly serviceable, and it was kind of boring.

I was surprised then to find more than just Allfood in different shapes, forms and sizes. “Are those tomatoes?”

Celestia sat down across the table and smiled with unbridled pride. “Yes. Yes, they are.”

And three bananas. And a single orange. “What the heck. Where did you get this stuff?” She vaguely gestured towards the jungle surrounding us on all sides. “Huh. You must have—“ I cut myself off and thought about this. Yes. She must have been awake for quite some time. Scavenging for these fruits. But for some reason, I had kind of forgotten that she had to get up each and every morning to raise the sun. She apparently had just returned to bed afterwards. But this morning was different. Different — why?

Maybe I had been complaining too much. We had been eating Allfood for what? Two days? That was not so bad, was it? But my enjoyment of the stuff had declined rapidly. Not that I despised it, far from it. But it was a little plain to a tongue that was used to Spike’s cooking, especially.

Or maybe my attempt to work with the stuff had inspired her. Allfood-stew had been a bit of a bust, but the mere act of trying to be creative with it might have sparked some ideas in her?

Whatever the case may have been, I was just glad to see some variety. “It looks delicious. So… let’s dig in?”

She beamed at me as if that had been the nicest thing she had heard all week. Which made me chuckle for a second. “Let’s!” she eagerly replied, and went straight for one of the bananas.

Not to be left behind, I took the second one. They tasted funny. Obviously like bananas, but not quite like the stuff one could buy on a market on occasion. “You know, this isn’t half bad,” I remarked and eyed the third one. “Do you want to share that one?”

She thought about it before shaking her head. “Take it.”

Yet I had seen her enjoy the change of flavor greatly. As much as I did. So without a word or second thought, I took the third banana, cut it in half and levitated one over to her plate. She smiled and took it without a word. But that look she shot me was worth a thousand words. I grinned and busied myself with a slice of Allfood. Fruit was all nice and good. Got a little sugar into the system, great for an early start — Pinkie approved. But to prepare for a trek of some hours through thick vegetation, one needed more than just a quick jumpstart.

“You know, I thought I was going to clean this mess up this morning,” I mused and looked at the pillows we were sitting on, “but I’m not so sure that would be the wisest thing to do anymore. Eating outside is kind of nice. I mean, it’s getting uncomfortably warm now, but we’re kind of late with breakfast anyway. What do you think? Clean-up when we break down camp?”

Just to show off a little, she stretched her wings to their full, quite impressive span. And as it turned out, that was enough to provide some at this point much needed shade for me. She could not keep this up forever, of course. But for a few minutes, that would be enough. And it was a nice gesture. “That does sound lovely,” she replied. “I like this setup as well. But I think it would be wise to continue putting everything back inside after every meal, since we cannot know for certain when it will rain.”

I nodded. “Fair point.”

After we were done with breakfast, we packed things up again and moved them back inside, as agreed upon. “Right, one thing we need to do before we head out,” I started as she already levitated her saddlebags over. She put them back down and turned to me with a questioning look. To answer, I levitated the balm up. “Be a good filly and sit down.”

For some reason, the comment caught her so off-guard that she snorted and continued to giggle. But she was a good filly. And she sat down. I quickly got to work and applied the balm to her remaining freezer burns. I did not know what this stuff contained. But it worked wonders. I had barely felt my own burns all morning and I had a hard time spotting any lasting signs of them in the reflection. After just one day. However, the few patches where the wounds were more severe were a different story. That one spot on my neck twinged a little on occasion, depending on how I turned and tilted my head. Craning my neck actually did hurt. And I imagined Celestia’s wounds were similar to that. Just with the difference that she had a couple more of them, they were smaller and all over her chest.

I was careful in applying the stuff since I did not intend to cause her pain. And I was quite generous with it as well. That is, until she brought her horn to life and took over my hold of the can. “That will be enough,” she proclaimed. Her voice made quite clear that I was better off not arguing. “Now be a good colt and sit.”

I remembered her earlier giggling and had to chuckle myself while I sat down. “Yes, ma’am.”

She took a single look into the can and sighed in mild annoyance before carefully taking a little of the balm of her own patches. Much to my dismay, but again — I could already tell that arguing about that would be futile. So I instead complained to myself and waited until she was done slathering the cooling balm on my neck.

And with that, all of the stuff was gone. No reason to carry an empty can too, so we left it behind on the nearby cupboard. “You know, I found something interesting in Rarity’s stash,” I said as we both rose. “She doesn’t keep a lot of spices around, but she does have these two pottery jars. As far as I can tell, they are salt and pepper shakers. Maybe we can use a bit of that to spice up today’s dinner. And speaking of dinner, our saddlebags are basically almost empty, right? So maybe we can keep our eyes peeled in the jungle and try to find some more food? That orange really was delicious…”

“I could go for some more tomatoes,” she replied with a sly smile.

“It’s settled then. I’ll, uh, try not to zone out too much.” With our bellies filled and our course of action agreed upon, we grabbed our saddlebags and were on our way.

We searched the jungle while making what at least felt like good progress for once, but there was little to be found. Or rather: Everything was a green mess, and it was hard to spot something in it. To be fair, yellow and red should have been a lot more noticeable, but we found neither more bananas, nor more tomatoes. In the end, we went the whole way without getting a single piece of fruit into our saddlebags. “Say, what you had gathered this morning, how long did it take you to find all that?” Three bananas, a bunch of tomatoes and a single orange might not seem all that much. But hours later, feeling hot and sweaty and exhausted, my eyes burning from strain and my head spinning slightly, I was ready to give up on the prospect of a more varied diet.

Celestia sighed, which already announced wordlessly that her answer would not exactly instill me with confidence. “I got up to raise the sun and I returned to bed only half an hour before you woke up.”

So several hours in between. On one hoof, it made me appreciate the work she had been willing to put in all the more. On the other hoof, it made me question her sanity and the apparently vast extent of her boredom. Was I bored enough to search the jungle for hours before finding two or three pieces of something I could both recognize and digest? Then again, that scenario did not seem quite as bothersome when I gave it a little twist: I was searching for hours on end to present her with a treat. To make her smile.

That would be worth it.

I sighed and moved on. I raised my head once more and almost stumbled on a root as I could not believe what I was seeing. “Uh… love? Sunny? What are those?”

She grabbed a piece hanging high above us from a tree and pulled it down with her telekinesis. A couple of seconds later, the thing was floating before my eyes. “That is an avocado,” she announced.

“A… a what now?” It was pear-shaped, but with a rough, dark brown skin. She turned it a little and I noticed a greenish tint to the skin. And after a moment, she opened the thing up. The flesh next to the skin carried the green tint over into the fruit itself, but faded out to an almost beige the closer it got to the center, where a single seed rested, the size of an eyeball.

“Try it,” she encouraged me while she pulled the seed free and dropped it to the ground. Non-edible, I assumed.

I took a bite and quickly learned two things. First off, the exterior tasted awful. The skin was just unappealing in flavor, while at the same time hard to describe. The interior however was quite delightful. “Hmm… that’s good. Really good.” I raised my head and scanned the canopy above us. There were dozens of these things hanging around up there. Almost all of them in that one tree, it seemed. A more well-versed botanist could probably have told me that the other trees were different kinds of trees or that they were the same but did not have any fruit yet because of seasonal cycles or something. For me, the only important thing was how much space we had in our saddlebags. “Is there any reason not to take as many as we can carry?” I asked. I was already thinking about options. Salt and pepper seemed to be just about the only spices we had, but that could already do wonders. And the texture might be a good addition to another attempt at Allfood stew.

“I do not believe there is,” she answered. We gave each other curt nods before we grabbed more and more and quickly filled our saddlebags to the brim. If we actually would not find anything else, we would at least have this.

I had not quite accounted for the saddlebags being a lot heavier now, but we were almost at our destination anyway. A few hundred yards of jungle with the added burden was bearable.

We reached the outer edge of the next structure and I could not help but laugh. Not because of the structure — that seemed to be just another dome-shaped stone ruin. But because of the vegetation surrounding the clearing in which the structure was placed. I saw a lot more avocados. A lot. A bunch of oranges. Some bananas, although they did not appear to be ripe enough yet. Some mangos. A few vines growing tomatoes. And I even spotted a pineapple. Well, several, but one that seemed ripe.

The placement of these trees, vines and bushes was suspicious, though. Everything seemed clustered. Almost arranged, like a garden that had not been cared for in ages. Maybe this had been some kind of plantation a long time ago.

Celestia sidled up to me when she exited the jungle a little bit later than I did and followed my gaze. She was probably curious what had me so ‘amused’. As soon as she noticed, she smiled. Her more restrained reaction was something I should have expected and yet I found myself sighing and shaking my head. “Right. Anyway. We, uh… you can teleport here, right? If we want to get some of this stuff?”

She took the scenery in once more and nodded. “That should be easy enough, yes. I could even fly here, although that would take a little longer.”

“Good, good. Alright. I mean, we have a pantry of sorts now, I guess.” And I quite liked that idea. “I guess we shouldn’t take all the avocados into the trials, though. Let’s put them inside, next to the entrance, and take a look at today’s offering, shall we?” I noticed how her eyes trailed down my neck and came to a rest at the remaining burned patch. She said nothing and agreed with a nod, but I could feel her tense up a little. So I stepped as close to her as our bulging saddlebags would allow and sent a smile her way. “Don’t worry. I like to believe that yesterday was a rare exception. The other two were… well, not exactly harmless, but you know what I mean. It’s a test, right? Not a deathtrap.”

It did not instill a lot of confidence in her. But at least it was enough that she attempted a smile in return. “We will just have to be more careful.”

I was not sure if ‘being careful’ would be enough. We had been plenty careful so far and it had done little for us. But I nodded anyway, if only just to ease her worries a little.

We entered the structure and once again found ourselves confronted with an almost entirely empty room. No statues, no carvings or paintings, no nothing. Just the by now familiar looking pedestal in the middle, with a flat stone bowl on top. And a key lying in it, ready to be grabbed. We put down our saddlebags next to the entrance and walked around the small circular room, inspecting nooks and crannies without hoping to find much. We were not disappointed in that regard — we found nothing.

A minute or two later, we both stood in front of the pedestal, side by side. “Well. That’s totally unsuspicious. We’ll just grab that key and be off, right?”

She picked up on my attempt at humor and mustered her own shaky smile, accompanied by a sigh. “Right.”

“Nooothing’s going to happen once I pick that up,” I said and nodded. “Nothing at all.” I shot her a look. Celestia readied herself for whatever would happen next as best as she could and only after she signaled her readiness did I attempt to pick it up. As soon as my magic touched the key, something drilled into my head.

I dunked my head into the small creek. I had to be careful not to drink from it. Not to let any of it get into my mouth or nose. But it was the best I could do to keep the heatstroke at bay. For a solid minute or so, I kept my mouth shut, held my breath and just hoped that the trickle of water would cool my head enough to make it for a few more hours.

I raised my head out of the warm water, back into the crushing heat of the jungle. And I immediately wrinkled my nose. The stench was overwhelming.

“Usable?” Celestia asked me. She stood somewhere behind me.

Despite better knowledge, I sighed. It was a waste of breath. And we had to conserve our energy. And water. And everything else. “No. Compass?” We had not been fortunate for days. The water was spoiled or rotten or poisoned. Every creek, every river. And with no means to make a fire, we could not boil it. Then again, we did not know what made it foul to begin with. Maybe boiling it would not even do anything.

She stepped closer to me and showed me the compass. The needle was still helplessly spinning in all directions, quivering a little in one, before turning wildly again. I looked up at her. My love was still beautiful. Despite the grime, the dust, the sweat. We both looked worse for wear. And I still grimaced, like I did every time, when I saw her bandaged wing. That had been one heck of a tumble. On one hoof, I was glad that so many branches had been in the way to slow down her fall. I was not sure if she would have survived otherwise. On the other hoof, a pegasus with a broken wing was basically an earth pony without magic. But she kept her spirits high. Somehow.

We had enough food and water left for one day. With no signs of anything other than more jungle.

After we had become lost searching for that stupid trial site, we had tried, of course. We had tried to find our way back to camp, but to no avail. It was as if the jungle had swallowed it whole. Or maybe it had just swallowed us. Celestia had attempted to rise above the canopy once. And she had seen the jungle endlessly stretch in all directions. Before something hit her. Just remembering her yell made my hair stand on end. I had tried to catch her, but with her velocity…

Despite the jungle’s unforgiving heat, I stepped up to her and embraced her. Just a moment, but I had to. She wordlessly accepted it. We were both sticky. Sweaty. Goodness, we could use a bath. But for a brief moment, I reveled in her being here with me.

Once I pulled back, we both attempted a reassuring smile to bolster the morale of the other. At the same time no less, which made us grin for a moment. I nodded in one direction and she agreed with a nod of her own. And we moved on.

Our pace had become somewhat sluggish. We had been careful about rationing our supplies from the start. We were two smart ponies, after all. As soon as we realized our situation, we bit the bullet and used as little as possible. ‘One day worth of water’, under the given conditions, meant ‘just about enough to keep the heatstroke off for a day’. Our throats were tight and dry. Thirst was a constant companion. We had long since crossed the line of hunger. That point where our stomachs just shut up and stopped growling all the time, realizing that we were in a dire situation and no food would be forthcoming anytime soon. It was miserable.

Less food, less water, more heat, more walking. Our reserves slowly drained away. And deep down, we probably both knew: The jungle would outlast us. There would be jungle for another day. And probably another week, but… that one day more was all it would take to kill us.

I regretted coming out to this forsaken place. Even more so, I regretted dragging her into this. And I could not even remember why we were here anyway. Maybe a side effect of my brain slowly getting cooked.

We stumbled our way through more greenery for another hour or two when Celestia suddenly put her good wing up to signal ‘hold’. I stopped immediately. She slowly angled her wing to point in the direction of a massive tree. It was not all that different from the other ones surrounding us, but a thick carpet of moss and vines hung from its trunk and… now I could see it.

I saw some colors other than brown and green. Gold, maybe. But it seemed like whatever it was, it was in a small alcove beneath the tree. Barely more than a hole in the dirt, but with a nice, lush curtain. We slowly closed in on the position. A quick, shared glance to make sure the other one was ready and she pulled the curtain back.

Much to both our surprises, there was a pony in there. His eyes were closed and the rustle of the curtain did not wake him. We both slipped inside, even though it was rather crammed now, and inspected our find closer. A middle-aged earth pony stallion. Gray-brown coat, dark gray mane with some brighter stripes. A golden skull as a cutie mark, with a ruby filling one of the eye sockets. He wore a vest, but it was badly damaged. Singed in several places, torn in others. All the pockets were empty. He wore a neckerchief. No saddlebags, no tools or other gear, nothing. And despite us prodding him a couple of times, he did not wake up.

We both realized why though.

His breathing was flat. His heart was thumping away, heavy and strained. He was in no better shape than we were. Out of food. Out of shelter. Most importantly, out of water. And a couple of burns on his back.

I could see it in Celestia’s eyes. She recognized him as much as I did. Though to be fair, I had never expected to stumble into one of A. K. Yearling’s Daring Do-novels. But she had always had a penchant for dragging real life into her adventure stories.

Before us lay doctor Caballeron. Once a proud and acknowledged member of the Royal Society of Archeology. I only knew about him what Daring Do knew, or rather what A. K. Yearling had written about him. Meaning I had no idea what made him go rogue. But at some point, he did. He left Canterlot. Left the esteemed social circles he was used to and built up a life as a looter. Always hunting for the next treasure, frequently crossing paths with Daring Do. From the occurrences in the books — the ones I could remember —, he seemed like a stallion one should be wary around. He was not evil, per se. But he was a self-serving opportunist.

Which presented quite a predicament for us.

He would die here.

As would we.

I sighed. I would have liked to pretend for a little while longer that there was a choice to be made here, but in truth… there was not. I looked at Sunny and waited for her to come to her own conclusion. Once her expression finally settled into determination, I loosened my saddlebag, put it on the ground and opened it up. Out came the one Neverend bottle that did not quite live up to its name anymore, and the few scraps of Allfood we had left. She did the same, revealing the small can of balm.

Neither of us hesitated a second to apply the balm to his wounds while he was still unconscious. We had no use for it anymore anyway. And it would at least ease his pain. We had considered eating the stuff, but a quick taste test had been quite convincing to never try that again. This way, it could do some good, at least.

But that left the matter of our other supplies.

The jungle was dense. We could see the final tree line any time. Or never. The edge of the jungle could be right there. It could be. And with what little we had left, we could make it. Maybe.

Maybe.

But he would not.

To conserve breath and moisture, we refrained from actually talking. We instead tried to convey what we needed to make clear by just gesturing and intense staring. Despite starting with a similar opinion, it took us some time to come to an agreement. We mostly disagreed on how to proceed with our supplies. Sunny wanted to share, yes — but she wanted to keep some for us as well.

I saw no use in that anymore. I had not given up on life just yet, mind. But when we started to think about dividing the half of a pea in half, it became ridiculous. He was worse off than we were right now. I sighed and cited an old song I had dug up from the Archives a year or so ago. “What appears as mine, 'tis thine as well.”

She was not happy with my choice. But she ultimately relented. I suspected that she was just preserving energy and tried not to fight about something that would most likely not make much of a difference anyway. So I took the bottle, carefully tilted his head and gave him little gulps to drink. With the last drops of water the bottle had to offer, he opened his green eyes.

He seemed shocked to see other ponies at first. Then he tried to sit up. I gestured for him to be careful, but he did not notice it. He looked around and quickly spotted the little pieces of Allfood. I traced his glance and invited him to eat with another gesture.

What little we had left was gone. Everything was gone.

In a strange way, it felt like a relief. I had expected despair, but I found it easier to breathe instead.

“Why?” he asked with a dry, raspy voice. “Do you even know who I am?”

I nodded. “An honor to meet you, doctor,” I croaked.

He stared in disbelief for a moment before he sighed. “Are you just after an autograph or something? Because I fear I might have lost my pen.”

I ignored the sarcasm dripping from his voice. “We didn’t know you were here. You had luck. See my pegasus friend over there? She spotted you. Without her, you’d be dead.”

He shuddered a little at my blunt words. But he was armed with sarcasm and I saw no reason to sugarcoat anything. He was a villain, after all. But even if we would die out here in the jungle — we would die as honest and good ponies. And despite his failings, he was one of us. Heck, even that would not have mattered much. He could have been a dragon or a griffon for all I cared. It would have made no difference.

“I was… visiting an old sacrificial site,” he started to explain. I honestly did not care all that much, but I was not about to stop him either. After all — maybe there was something useful in his report. And I saw no reason to call his obvious lies. We both knew what he did for a living, no matter what he deigned to call it. “With a few… associates of mine. We weren’t aware of Ahuizotl and his minions guarding the site. They busted our camp that evening, scattered us into the jungle. I got separated. They chased me for days. I had some close calls.” Only now did he seem to notice that we had cared for his burns. He looked in my direction. “Did you—…?”

Again, I redirected his attention outside. “She did most of the work. You really should thank her.”

He nodded. “I will. Thank you, too.” I shrugged and gestured for him to continue. “Not much else to tell. Some of the great cats he commands can be quite fierce with their sharp teeth and vicious claws, but it’s the little ones you have to look out for. One of them apparently breathes fire. Somehow. There’s some weird cats in this region. Anyway, I quickly burned through all of my supplies just to get here. And seeing as you don’t have anything left yourself, I’m not sure we’re going to make it.” I nodded with a serenity that still gave me the chills. “Listen, the jungle edge is less than a day from here.” And suddenly, he had my rapt attention. My ears swiveled around, my eyes shot straight up and I almost glared at him. But he just held up a hoof in front of himself, almost defensively, and nodded. “It’s true. I managed to reach a clearing less than a day ago. I still had my map at that point. It should be that way.” He pointed it out.

Less than one day.

We had rations for one day.

I sighed, yet I still felt no remorse. No regret. “Thank you. Guess we should get moving then. It’s not going to get any better here.” I stood up and slowly moved towards the exit.

“You should. I hope you kids make it.”

I was surprised to suddenly find him smiling wryly once I slowly turned back and furrowed my brow. “When I said ‘we’, I meant ‘the both of us, and you’,” I clarified. Apparently, that had not been obvious?

But his smile persisted. He tried to stand up and his leg gave in at the same moment a painful hiss escaped his throat. I hurried to catch him and managed to do that just in time. “I think my ankle might be broken,” he explained. “I’m not going to make it.”

Neither Sunny nor I had noticed that additional injury. But then again, we were both battling thirst, hunger, heat and exhaustion. Adding to that, even given this information — of what use was it? We were out of everything. No bandages, no wonder-balm or other medicine. “Sit down,” I ordered him and went outside. Sunny stood nearby. I stepped up to her side and she quietly sighed. “You heard,” I assumed.

A curt nod confirmed as much. “We committed to this,” she replied with an almost mournful tinge in her voice. “Thus we should try.”

Despite the desolation of our situation, I found it surprisingly easy to smile. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, love.”

“I will be with you to the end,” she said.

Yet despite how her dedication warmed my heart, her fatalism was something I was not willing to endure. Not now. “Good to know. I’ll remind you of that in a few decades, when we are both old and grumpy and gray and shriveled.”

She smiled this time. And I captured her lips for another, more proper kiss.

We both turned and went inside the small dirt hole to retrieve our new comrade. We took a solid few minutes to figure out how to best do this. It was clear without trying that none of us was in any condition to carry him. However, if we walked slower — even slower than we already were —, then one of us could support him. The good doctor would lean against his support and this way, he would not have to use his injured leg.

‘Less than a day’ suddenly seemed like quite a lot.

We slowly got moving again with Sunny quickly scouting ahead of us. Her injured wing and his injured leg made them incompatible. Which meant I was support. All the way through to the end. Ahhh well…

“We still have to look out for those pesky felines,” the doctor said. Much to my dismay, as he was wasting energy, breath and moisture. “They won’t give up as long as we’re still within the jungle!”

Then again, having a heads-up did not hurt. I was just stumped on what to do with it. Besides hoping it would not gain any relevance. But that was a futile wish, as it turned out. Because of course it did. What did Applejack say in situations like these? Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

It started with a feline yell and growl. Two very distinct sounds from two very distinct directions. They were clearly communicating with each other, coordinating their efforts. And I gleaned from the recurring sounds that they were closing in fast. “Sunnyyy, help!” I yelled despite my painful throat reminding me why I kept my mouth shut most of the time. She came back from the front, we quickly exchanged a couple of glances before she nodded and fell back to cover our retreat.

I could already see the exit. The tree line. The edge of the jungle. There was blue. A vibrant, enticing, welcoming sky blue between the trees. We were close, so close.

And then I heard Sunny scream. It was a throttled sound, between surprise and pain. I stopped immediately and frantically looked behind us, scanning the jungle for any signs of her white coat, her feathers, her magenta eyes, anything.

“Listen, boy,” Caballeron said, “I’m very grateful for all that you two have done for me. But you gave everything you had. I can’t ask for more and I won't. Go get her and get out of here. I’m sure I can buy you some time! They want me after all.”

Pressure. It was all I could feel. A vast energy trying to worm its way to a vent, any vent. I felt myself shift. Forward, backward, any direction. Pick. Choose!

I could not see Sunny. She had screamed. She had screamed.

I squinted and took a deep breath in a futile attempt to calm myself down at least a little bit. Keeping a cool head under these circumstances was impossible. And quite an ironic expression to boot.

“She’s fast,” I told myself. “She’s experienced and fast. And we committed.” I turned back around, grabbed hold of Caballeron and moved as fast as I could. “Move your lazy ass, doc!”

She’s fast, I repeated in my head, She’s fast.

Please be fast, love.

He tried to protest. And I kicked his leg for it. He yelled in pain and despite everything, my satisfaction outweighed my bad conscience. He shut up and moved and he did not try to protest again.

And goodness gracious, I could not put into words the relief I felt when Sunny stormed up to my side. “Poison darts!” she warned despite her dry throat. Her voice sounded strained. From pain. I could see a small little projectile protruding from her wing. She must have tried to shield herself with it now that it was less useful than ever before.

We tried to hurry as fast as we could, but we were not quite fast enough to escape without one final onslaught. Caballeron had been right. We had given all we could. Our medicine. Our food. Our water. Our time and effort, our strength. I was not sure if we were willing to give our lives for him. Ideally we would not have to, obviously. But two more darts plunged into Sunny’s wing. This time, she knew what she had to expect. She did not scream. But that prolonged whimper of hers broke my heart nonetheless. And soon enough, I felt it myself. A couple of darts hit my rump. Searing, scorching pain went down my back legs and made them buckle. It took me tremendous effort to keep moving. To keep them steady. To even continue standing. We hobbled along as fast as we could and I could already tell that it was only a matter of time before my legs would give out.

The pain surged upwards, along my spine. My front legs started to feel tingly, before becoming numb. Sunny mewled behind us as she caught another couple of darts with her wing.

And then the air suddenly shifted.

My vision had become blurry as the pain pushed tears into my eyes. I had stumbled more than once and every time my heartbeat surged for a second in sheer panic. I knew that if I were to fall now, this was over. I would not get back up again in time.

But the air shifted.

And we stepped out.

Even despite my blurry vision, I could see such a hard line that it was frankly ridiculous. The jungle just ended and a neatly trimmed lawn started. The air was considerably cooler, fresh. Not nearly as humid. And not a single tree far and wide.

I fell to the ground with a whimper and cared little about Caballeron’s hiss of pain. And with all the energy I could muster, I grabbed Sunny in my telekinesis and pulled her out of that forsaken green wall. Right next to me. And without thinking at all, I quickly rolled onto my belly, pulled her wing out with my magic and blindly nosed through her feathers. The poison on those darts tasted bitter and vile, but I plucked every single one out of her wing as fast as I could, hoping that it would make any difference.

We stood in the dome-shaped structure. Dazed. Both of us were very much dazed.

I slowly tilted my head and dared to look around. The room was circular. And aside from our bulging saddlebags next to the entrance and the pedestal in the middle, it was empty. And my memories quickly rushed back to me. We had bananas for breakfast. That seemed like it had been days, nay, weeks ago…

“I’m starting to hate this place,” I announced. My throat felt incredibly dry. I walked over to my saddlebags on rather wobbly legs and rummaged around in them until I found one of our Neverend bottles. They were full. I took a deep, long gulp before levitating it over to Celestia. She slowly turned and took the bottle to drink a good deal herself.

“I can understand why,” she replied with a carefully measured voice. She slowly extended her wing. The one that had been hit by eight darts. Eight that I had been able to find, at least. “I can still feel it,” she whispered.

The same way I still felt the heat, or the hunger, or the thirst. Or the burning ache in my back legs. “Me too,” I replied. A part of me was very grateful that this room was empty. The pedestal was a part of the floor. Kicking that over would take tremendous strength. The stone bowl on top was probably movable, but a less desirable target. My impulse to destroy this room had nothing of value to aim at. I briefly considered asking Celestia. She could redirect the full force of the sun and burn this entire dome to little more than slag. I had seen that happen before. I knew it was a possibility.

But this place was ancient. A relic of a long-forgotten history. And yet despite that, these trials were still intact. The enchantments still worked. It would be a shame to damage anything. At least that was what my more scholarly side said. Until a sudden, loud crack startled me and I witnessed the stone pedestal fly across the room and shatter on impact with the dome’s wall.

Celestia slowly stroked her back legs with her wings. And I could not help but grin. “Feeling better?” I dared to ask.

She furrowed her brow and regarded her handiwork. The pedestal was utterly broken. “A little,” she answered. And for just a moment, I felt like I could see her. Sol Invictus. The Unyielding Light. The force so many had rightfully feared many, many years ago. When Celestia entered a battlefield, it was a grim day.

I did not know for certain how heavy that stone pillar had been. My best guestimate was ‘very’. And she kicked it with ease. Sent it flying. There was a small hole in the ground where the floor tiles had given way. And a grim satisfaction surged through me when I cast yet another glance at the broken pillar.

Serves you right.

“Do we want—“ I started.

A bright yellow flash and we stood in front of our tent.

“… to head back?” I finished and chuckled a little. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” I was about to enter the tent when I stopped and grimaced. “Shoot. I forgot to pick up the key.” Celestia smiled however. Her usual, serene smile. The one I did not like very much. And one that given the circumstances unsettled me a little right now. She levitated the key over and I stored it away in my saddlebag. “Sunny? Are you alright?”

She stopped and sighed. “I… I am not sure,” she admitted. “I will freely admit that this trial has not been the worst we have been through. And yet I feel very conflicted about the ease with which this enchantment trapped me and made me think of myself as a pegasus.”

That was a point I had not considered all that much yet. After that first challenge, we had both taken a few hours to calm down and sort through what had happened. And I had to admit at least to myself: I had not even considered what had troubled her at that time. As an alicorn, she was powerful. As the entity Celestia, not bound by flesh and bone, she was even more powerful. And yet these trials forced her to play along.

“To be fair, we can hardly say how easy it is for these enchantments to work,” I weakly objected and walked over to her. “But I understand that that won’t be much of a help. If you feel uncomfortable, you don’t have to take these challenges with me.”

It was a stupid offer. One brought up in good faith and with good intentions, but stupid nonetheless. One not fully thought through. Or thought about at all. It became apparent even to me as soon as I had spoken. But before I could apologize for this idiocy, she softly shook her head. “Do not apologize. However… while I have not made my decision yet, I feel I must ask you something.”

“Everything,” I quickly answered.

That at least got her to smile a little. “If I were to ask you to quit this endeavor and come back home with me — would you?”

I sat down on my haunches, despite the unrelenting afternoon sun burning my pelt to a crisp. And I regarded her for a short while. She wore her mask, unwilling to let me gauge her emotional state right now. And I had to remind myself yet again what all this was for.

A Hearth’s Warming present for Twilight.

It was quite ridiculous, was it not? All this… for an admittedly very joyful squeal and a bright smile. Something I could encourage, no, guarantee in probably a myriad of other ways.

This. None of this was strictly necessary.

My curiosity for working with a new metal I had never laid hoof on before. My wish to present Twilight with something truly unique. My attempt to spend some quality time with Celestia. And what quality time was that? Trudging through the jungle, with a half-baked brain, moaning about the heat? We could have had an entire week in Canterlot. Shopping. Visiting the orchestra. A couple of visits to the Tasty Treat and Saffron, just to indulge in some nostalgia. And really good food. She could have tried to rope me into pranking Luna. And Luna would have tried to rope me into her revenge pranks. We could have visited Ponyville for a day or two.

What I had, after several days out here in the jungle, was a saddlebag full of avocado and a bunch of weird old keys I actually did not even know what to do with yet.

I sighed again. Maybe this had been a stupid idea from the start. I did not belong out here. And everypony had just been kind enough to support my delusions.

But even all that put aside. Even if I tried to imagine this was the most fun I had in ages. This was totally worth it, every second of it. And there was such a spectacular prize waiting at the end of it all. If she asked me to quit, would I?

There was only one honest answer I could give. And maybe I should have been ashamed of it. Maybe I should have been worried about that. “In a heartbeat,” I gave my reply. She did not want a fanatic. A worshiper who would try to read her mind and every thought and wish to please her. And yet I found myself asking: Was I any different? Did I not do almost anything she asked of me? Did I not try to anticipate her wishes and desires? And did I not try to fulfill them?

My chain of thoughts was broken when she leaned down and nuzzled me before she placed a soft kiss on my lips. “You are overthinking again. I can see it.” Her soft voice was without accusations. No reprimand. Just a reminder that to her, I was an open book.

I felt the heat rise to my cheeks. “Was not,” I mumbled in a meek attempt.

She just smiled in this utterly disarming way. “Let us head inside before you get a sunburn. We could both use a bath right now. And maybe I know a trick or two to take your mind off things.”

My ears perked up and the heat in my face intensified a little more, but I was all too eager to follow her inside. Soon after, we made a bit of a mess in the bathroom. Which was quite the problem, as it quickly turned out. The entire thing was still a tent after all. I did not claim to understand how the internal structural integrity worked, but the fabric floor being drenched was a problem. Luckily Celestia knew quite a lot of handy spells for such predicaments. And drying stuff was kind of her specialty, amongst other things.

After the bath — and the sex and the subsequent clean-up —, we retreated to the bed for a while. We just lazed around. I infrequently talked a little bit more about last night’s escapades and Luna’s current plan of action, as far as she had shared it with me. And on one occasion, Celestia shared her worries with me that these temples or trials or whatever they were might have been constructed either by another immortal, or at least by someone who had intimate understanding of immortals. It was as good an opportunity as I would get, but she just told me that she still had not decided if she wanted us to return home or not.

When evening came around and the sun started to set, we once again put all the stuff outside. This time however, we decided to work hoof in hoof. She peeled and cut the pineapple we had gathered and I busied myself with transforming several avocados into a lightly salted and less lightly peppered avocado crème. Dinner was ready soon after and we once again enjoyed our meal a lot more than those first two days. “You know, it’s funny,” I started to share my observation and pointed down the hill, “you can almost watch the jungle reclaim the land. There are little green patches here and there in places that were charred and dead a few days ago. In two or three weeks, this entire hill will be green again, I think.”

She nodded. “Jungles are quite sturdy in that regard. Fire rarely affects such a humid region to begin with and even if it does, life is strong here. It quickly reclaims whatever was lost.”

“It’s impressive,” I concluded and shoved another piece of pineapple in my mouth. It was sweet without being overbearing, with just the right amount of underlying sourness. I picked up another piece and gulped it down and only after my plate was almost empty did I start to wonder. “Say, uh… you don’t like pineapple?”

I had seen her eat a piece or two. But I was almost certain that those had been the only pieces she had taken for herself. I was even more confused when her calm, warm smile suddenly gained a sly edge. “Oh, I do quite appreciate the flavor, believe me.”

“Alright? Then… why did I eat most of it?”

Her smile grew into a smirk and she slowly stood up. “It is an experiment of mine, you could say.”

I tilted my head slightly and tried to make sense of that. Had she infused it with magic? Was ‘enchanted pineapple’ even a thing? Could it be? What for, though? “Okay, I, uh… before I confuse myself further — I don’t get it.”

She had reached my side of the table by now and sat down beside me. Despite my current confusion, I sighed happily just because she was close. “It is said that consuming certain quantities of pineapple has specific repercussions for other flavors.”

“Uh-huh. Still barely following.”

She giggled. “That is quite alright. Let me show you.”

All in all, it was a really nice evening. And I quite liked pineapple. Such a nice flavor.