Valentine's Day
Admiral Biscuit
Close your eyes and imagine the most romantic Valentine's Day that you can. Go on, I’ll wait until you’ve got it fixed in your head.
Whatever you’re thinking of, it’s not how KitKat spent her Valentine's Day. Or Hearts and Hooves Day, since she’s a pony.
The morning dawned over the creepy forest as mornings often do. The sky got lighter heralding the coming of the new dawn, and a well-muscled pony who loved Cheez-Its pushed open the flap of his tent.
Buttercup took a moment to enjoy the pre-dawn vignette, then turned back into the tent to wake his traveling companion. Scratch that, his adventuring companion.
Both ponies were adventurers-for-hire. KitKat specialized in general woodsmareship, while Buttercup’s big talent was dealing with unwanted portals. Their mission, removing an unwanted portal in a haunted forest, played to both of their strengths.
(The forest wasn’t actually haunted, it just seemed that was because odd creatures kept coming out of it, due to the portal there.)
“You want hot or cold breakfast?”
She poked her head above the covers and ran a hoof across her forelock as she blinked the last sleep from her eyes. “What’s the weather like?”
“Dark, but it won’t be for long.”
KitKat considered. As soon as she got out from under the covers, she’d be cold and it would take a little while to warm back up. A fire would help with that, but it would take longer and they'd have to leave it behind.
“Might as well be cold.” She pushed the covers back and got to her hooves, strapping her tabarzin across her back before leaving the tent. One never knew; it was best to be prepared.
Oats didn’t take long to cook, and it took even less long to not cook them. Since the pair had economized on gear by cutting back to only the bare necessities, they only had one bowl which they took turns eating out of.
Buttercup graciously let KitKat eat first, while he folded up their tent.
He threw it across his back and then took his turn at the oats while KitKat cleared up the rest of their camp. There wasn’t much; both were simple ponies who were most in their element with the least.
Not to say that they didn’t enjoy the finer things in life (such as Cheez-Its); they both felt that the finer things were made all the more enjoyable when they were rare treats. KitKat, for example, thought back to her last time at the spa as she was bathing in a spring-fed pond whose source could only be a glacier up in the Crystal Empire.
And Buttercup had thought fondly of the last—and in fact only—box of Cheez-Its he’d ever enjoyed, ones which had been brought back from a portal to Earth.
It wasn’t just the taste, when it came to cheeziness they were mediocre at best. It was the satisfaction of a job well done, of addressing the portal that had provided the Cheez-Its as well as the gibbering clerk who had also come through said portal. With a shotgun.
KitKat shook off on the bank, restrapped her saddlebags and bedroll (the tabarzin had stayed on because she knew full well foes wouldn’t be restrained by her bathing. While none had outright attacked her, one fish in particular had been giving her the side-eye) and then stood sentry while Buttercup took his turn.
Only when he got out, completing the morning rituals, did they discuss their plan for the day. Said plan was sketched out in great detail on the bank of the pond, using a found stick. As plans went, it wasn’t much; when it came to planning the fact was that both KitKat and Buttercup were more reactionary ponies, ones who preferred having direction and then they’d just slog their way to the goal, dealing with whatever arose as it came up.
That doesn’t mean that they were stupid ponies—far from it; they were both experienced and skilled at their respective trades. They just weren’t much for planning, and both privately wished that their employer had provided them with more details than a mouth-drawn map that highlighted in broad strokes the general layout of the duchy and had a broad arrow pointed to the forest in question.
It had been useful enough in indicating which forest held the portal, less so when it came to actually finding it.
Eventually, they decided that the best way to proceed was to keep heading into the forest and keep a keen eye out for what direction the monsters came, thus providing them with a direction to the likely source. That had been the same plan they’d had the day before, and in fact was also the same plan they’d come up with even before they entered the forest.
The efficacy of that plan was immediately realized even before they’d both stood up from their makeshift battle map. A flaming arrow flew out from the woods and struck Buttercup directly in the chest. A brilliant shot, to be sure; he just sighed and yanked it out, flinging it back the way it came.
For her part, KitKat followed it, unstrapping her tabarzin even as she weaved more arrows that followed the first (on its initial journey, not its return). Every day that she got to wade into combat was a good day in her book.
A thunder of hooves behind her as Buttercup came up on her tail, taking an arrow to the knee (which didn’t stop his adventuring days) before they were on the band on archers.
None of them had effective melee weapons, which was a shame—for them. In less time than it takes to write, KitKat and Buttercup had ruthlessly dispatched all of them. In another adventure, they might have taken time to pick through the remains to see what they could find. Currently, they weren’t lacking for bits or equipment, and since they knew their end goal, there was little they could learn from the corpses.
By noon, they’d dispatched a squad of sassafrass spiders, one lone lobstrosity, and they’d successfully scaled a rock face that was between them and their goal. Or at least they assumed it likely was when an eldritch horror fell off the edge and splattered into rank ichor on the rocks below.
They could have walked around it, but both KitKat and Buttercup were direct ponies who didn’t like overthinking things too much.
Up top was another Lovecraftian horror who was smart enough to not fall off the edge but not smart enough to realize that two relentlessly adorable equine adventurers were a genuine threat. It met the same fate as its companion, although in a different way; it was not still a going concern when what was left of it went over the edge.
There was nothing more fitting than eating their lunch on the churned-up forest floor where the battle had just taken place. Nothing more fitting than sharing dense travel bread and a few thin slices of emergency cheese, flavored with dirt and sweat. Nothing better than a brief interlude as a roc dove for them and only tasted the sharp edge of a tabarzin and a pair of steel-shod hooves.
“She came from the southwest, too,” KitKat observed after they’d finished eating their lunch.
Buttercup nodded. He had a hoof pick in his mouth and was cleaning his hind hooves.
“You want a bandage for your rump?” The roc had managed to rake him with a talon as he’d bucked her away.
“Nah, it’ll heal quick enough.” Buttercup looked into the woods, then around their temporary dining spot. “Looks like there’s an animal trail we can follow, at least at first.”
KitKat nodded. “Been a few monsters along it, too, judging by the broken limbs and stuff. You ever wonder why monsters always seem to want to attack ponies, or eat them? Or both?”
“Guess if they were just after plants we wouldn’t consider them monsters, would we?”
“That makes sense.”
“Tree might tell a different tale.” He pointed to a splintered trunk, victim to one of the eldritch horrors. “You wanna lead for this leg, or you want me to?”
“Might as well be me,” she said. “I got better distance vision.”
It wasn’t just monsters that they faced. A ‘haunted’ forest is a dangerous place, as is a normal forest. There were plenty of rocks that could injure a hoof or animal burrows that could turn a pastern. There was also a stream to cross, and of course no bridge.
That left them with the choice of either trying to walk over it in a conveniently-fallen log, or ford through it.
Each option had its advantages. Buttercup set his hoof on the log, which was rotten and thick with moss and slime. “I”m not sure it’ll hold my weight.”
“I could go across first,” KitKat offered. “Even carry your gear to lighten you.”
“You with my gear is just as heavy as me without my gear.”
“I can set my saddlebags on the other side, then come back.”
Buttercup shrugged. It was a decent plan.
The first crossing went without incident, and on the other side KitKat unstrapped her saddlebags and bedroll and let them fall to the ground.
Going back was easier, and she got complacent on her third crossing—-this time burdened with Buttercup’s gear—and almost slipped off.
But she didn't.
Just as she set hoof on the other side of the creek, the moleponies attacked.
A Good Fight (or a series of them, culminating in an epic battle and then dinner around an open fire)
Valentine's Day
Admiral Biscuit
Buttercup tentatively placed a hoof on the rotten log, keeping his eyes down to make sure that his footing was good. He had broader hooves than KitKat, which would make the log more challenging.
Then he heard her shout, and looked up just in time to see her get molepiled by a multitude of moleponies (they may be beneath you, but nothing’s beneath them), and any consideration of footing vanished in the urgency of the moment.
She’d carefully picked her way across the log, testing with each step to make sure that her hoof was secure. He crossed at a full gallop, ignoring the splintering cracking sounds from the log under him. It didn’t matter; he could run the last few ponylengths in the air if he had to.
Buttercup entered the fray with a flying leap, forehooves already targeted. He heard bones splinter as he landed, and twisted to kick out at another, sending it flying.
He ducked down as KitKat’s tabarzin whistled by his head—she was no shrinking violet; she might have gotten ambushed and might be outnumbered, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
This was what he loved, being in the thick of it. Just doing without having to think. There had been ten moleponies alive when he landed, and now there were only seven.
Six—one staggered off, grievously wounded.
He knocked a pair of heads together, taking down another pair, and with only four left standing, the duo was able to make short work of the quartet.
After making sure that they were all dead, KitKat and Buttercup washed their weapons (her tabarzin and his hooves) in the stream, and then they washed themselves. So much for walking across the log and staying dry.
“Do they count?” KitKat asked.
“I dunno, they’d have had to come through the portal and then dug tunnels.”
“Coulda come through a while ago, and then dug their tunnels.”
Buttercup nodded. “Couldn’t cross the stream, wanted to set up camp next to it. Lotsa things probably cross on the log.”
“Not anymore.” The log had broken when Buttercup had jumped off it—that last application of force had been too much for it. One half was still on the bank, its splintered end trailing in the water . . . and next spring, when the snow melted and the water levels came up, it’d be dragged in and make its way downstream, only to jam up somewhere else.
That was the circle of life; it might have started out as an acorn that a squirrel buried, and then been the habitat of squirrels and birds, and then it was a home for grubs and stuff, a food source for woodpeckers. Then it had fallen over and been a bridge, and now it was a nice sunning spot for turtles, or maybe a launch ramp for otters.
They continued their trek southwest. A few more random encounters with monsters didn’t account for much. Well, except that on the way back they could follow the trail of corpses, which was almost as good as breadcrumbs.
Scratch that, it was better. Birds might eat the breadcrumbs, but while some of the corpses they left behind were almost surely being pecked at by scavenger birds right now, there was no chance that they’d eat all of it before they’d found the portal and dealt with it.
A strange stillness had overcome the forest, an unnatural quiet. There was still the rustling of leaves, the occasional snap of a stick as the two of them walked, but all the normal animals were silent, or gone.
Understandable; most forest dwellers wouldn’t be interested in staying around the source of all the monsters.
Most. The two of them paused as an opossum snuffled across the path, paying them no mind as it went on its way.
The forest was nearly silent, and then there was a strange magical tinkle and a distant flash, as imagined as seen. To KitKat, it wasn’t worthy of note; it had passed just below her consciousness.
To Buttercup, it might as well have been a flashing neon sign. He stood stock still, ears locked on to the distant noise, the fur on his back standing straight up.
KitKat might have been oblivious to the noise of a rogue portal vomiting out another monster, but Buttercup’s sudden statue stop was unmissable.
A lesser pony might have asked him if he was okay, or if she’d noticed his ear lock, asked him what he heard. She did not; he was still listening and he’d tell her in time.
She kept her ears swiveling, just in case something more immediate was sneaking up on them. It wasn’t time to draw her axe, not yet.
“We’re close,” he said, lowering his head and returning his ears to a neutral position. I felt it, I heard it. Be ready.”
KitKat was ready and willing. KitKat was eager. It had been a while since she’d been more than a glorified foalsitter to some employer—it felt like years. (And then there was the Wizard, but she tried not to remember those times.)
Walking through the woods was nice. Visiting a pub was nice.
Being in battle was fantastic, and this mission had delivered. Especially today; everything had been really well paced, just enough time between encounters to cool down and relax a little, and then they were in it again.
A few easy scrums, and a few more challenging. Her shoulder throbbed from where a molepony had bitten down, and she was sore from using her tabarzin—the good kind of sore.
She shivered as a chill wind blew through the forest, an out-of-place arctic breeze, bringing memories of crisp fall days, or a winter overstaying its welcome.
“It’s big.”
“I’ll go first, so it doesn’t get you.”
Buttercup scoffed.
Even to a pony who didn’t know much about portals, it was obvious that this was where the portal was.
Or maybe not; after all, they were on a mission to find (and close) a portal in a ‘haunted’ forest, so it was natural to assume that anything unnatural was a portal. Well, except for the molepones and lobstrosity and eldritch horrors and so on—KitKat was biased to assume that anything that wasn't a creature and didn’t belong in a forest might be a portal, or near a portal. If portals could vomit out any number of monsters, they could also potentially eject a 1969 Chevrolet C-10 pickup.
The giant circle of snow didn’t belong, nor did the chill wind emanating from it. That was, to KitKat’s mind, a pretty good clue that they’d found the portal.
An even bigger clue was the giant skeleton guarding it. Or perhaps he’d just emerged from it.
Or she; gendering skeletons was beyond KitKat’s ken.
A wiser mare might have turned tail and galloped off. KitKat pulled her tabarzin out of its sheath and charged into battle.
To say that the battle was epic would be an understatement. Had there been witnesses to the battle, it would have rated at least one ballad.
The one advantage that the undead had was that they were already dead. While both KitKat and Buttercup knew plenty of ways to turn something living into something dead, those methods were far less effective against something that was already dead, and could not be hindered by becoming deader.
A wizard (NOT The Wizard) could have cast a spell to explode it, or a cleric could have banished it, but neither KitKat nor Buttercup had much in the ways of wizardy, nor were they skilled in clerical work, so they did what they did best, waded in and started whittling the skeleton down to a manageable size.
KitKat was light on her hooves and maneuverable, something that worked to her advantage as she juked a strike from an axe which was the grandsire of her tabarzin.
Buttercup was not light on his hooves, and he took the flat of the axe directly to his side, launching him off his hooves and through a tree. He shook the stars out of his vision and charged back in—Buttercup was a very durable stallion.
Each of them chipped off bones as they could, both knowing full well that there wouldn’t be a coup de grâce on a skeleton. KitKat darted in and ducked back out, working her tabarzin, while Buttercup bucked and bit, shattering its bones with his heavy steel horseshoes.
The battle lasted into the evening, and they finished the fight as the daylight faded into darkness, the melee only illuminated by the faint flickering light of the portal.
And then it was done; the skeleton’s bones were scattered all around, each of them twitching as it tried to reform itself into its full form. Given time, it would.
They both knew this.
Fortunately, a solution was at hoof. They tossed the bones, one-by-one, back into the portal. Everything except the skull, they kept that behind.
Once that was done, Buttercup worked his magic on the portal itself. He tore it out of the ground and folded it over on itself, sweat pouring from his brow as he worked.
Finally, it was crumpled down into something that could be held in one’s hoof, certainly compact enough that nothing could get through except for wasps and spiders.
Compact enough that it fit into a magical jar which Buttercup carried in his saddlebags for this very purpose. Some portals could be crumpled up and tossed back into themselves, but this wasn’t that kind. This one needed a different kind of disposal, and they’d deal with that later. For now, it had been found and neutralized and all that was left for them was to walk back out of the forest—now assuredly not haunted—and collect the second half of their pay (both of them were experienced enough adventurers to demand half pay up front).
That was a problem for tomorrow. As the stars spread overhead in the dawning dark, KitKat and Buttercup set up camp in the churned-up snow. He pitched the tent, and she started the fire, piling on plenty of wood.
They cooked their dinner first, and both ate in silence. Taking turns at the one bowl that they had—they both preferred to pack light.
Once they were finished they looked up at the stars for a while, or the sparks drifting up from the fire, and then KitKat grabbed the skull and tossed it in the fire.
It glowed like molten steel and then the flames changed color, bathing them in harsh electric blue light. And then it was gone, and the two ponies watched the fire burn low and then crawled into the tent, bundling themselves under their blankets.
It was the best Hearts and Hooves day that KitKat had ever had.
Author's Note
No notes at this time, sorry! No pre-readers, either.
Address all complaints to the Monsanto Corp.
