Exploration

Exploration

A light dripping noise awoke Cole from his slumber.  With a rumbling in his throat, he rose to his feet and shook off the weariness in his muscles, watching them flex beneath his hide.  If he had been in good shape as a human, then it was safe to say his body has managed to transfer over that well-honed conditioning to this odd form.  Realizing that admiring himself was a bit pointless, Cole looked up to see the water dripping from a hanging rock structure.

“Can’t remember if that’s a stalactite or stalagmite,” Cole thought, shuffling his way to the cave entrance.  A light film was covering some of the stones, but whether it was a fungi or moss of some kind, he couldn’t say.  Heaving and pushing the rubble out of the way, Cole walked out and was greeted by bright sunlight, the rays positively bearing down on the landscape all around him.  The grass still had rivulets of water flowing down from the slopes, indicating the rain had not ceased until recently.  Perhaps he had woken up only minutes after it had stopped.

Gingerly stepping down the slope so as not to lose his footing, Cole found himself once again in the middle of the forested area, passing through an oak savanna before reaching the thicker parts of a pine grove.  Wandering through the lower branches with his wings tucked tightly to his sides, he came upon a strange sight.  In the middle of the pine forest, an odd clearing came into view.  Strangely, in the middle of the clearing was an unkempt cluster of trees, though neither pine nor oak in nature.  Bright red apples hung from the branches, each looking rather delicious to a hungry... whatever he was.  Seriously, was he a dragon or a winged unicorn of some kind?

Cole looked cautiously around from the edge of the thicker trees, making sure the coast was clear.  It was evident he still carried with him at least some of his powers, but he wasn’t about to let himself walk into an ambush.  After a few minutes of looking around, he decided the coast was clear and walked out, his head swiveling this way and that every so often.  Reaching the cluster of apple trees, he took one last look around before he heard a growl.  Actually, it wasn’t a growl: more of a grumble, and from its proximity, it was coming from his stomach.

“Well no kidding I’m hungry,” he said to himself, looking down at his stomach.  Walking up to one of the trees, Cole found his arms could not quite reach the apples, even when he stood on his hooved hind legs.  He fell a few times, but after a while he at least learned to balance properly with help from his tail: still, no luck getting an apple.  Growing frustrated, he reached up towards a cluster of fruit with his head, balancing on his tail like it was a massive third- no, fifth- leg.  Surprisingly, when he opened his mouth, his tongue shot out a good foot and wrapped around the apple.  With a tugging motion he retracted his tongue, pulling the apple into his mouth.

“Delicious,” Cole thought, happily munching on the apple.  He didn’t even care that a few leaves had come off with it: he was too hungry to care, and frankly the leaves tasted rather good as well.  His digestive system must have been changed as well, since the last time he had eaten leaves off a tree had been from a dare by Zeke when they were younger: never again, he had told himself.  Snatching another apple and thoughtfully chewing it, Cole looked around and saw the field had not been tended to in some time, with shrubs poking around here and there.  It likely had been abandoned years if not decades ago, but for some reason the grass had been maintained to a reasonable length.

“I wonder what could be doing that.” Cole thought, reaching up and snaring another fruit: they sure were filling.  Maybe he could find something else to eat: surely there were berries in this forest?  Turning around to spit out some seeds, he saw a figure duck behind a bush, causing the leaves to rustle.

“Hello?” he called out, charging up his horn for a possible attack.  “Who’s there?”  For all he knew it could be those strange wood-covered wolves again, or maybe some other strange creature.

A bush rustled and a small goat walked out, quickly followed by a few more.  Well, goat was a bit of a general term: these were clearly mountain goats, judging from their shaggy pelts and larger-than-average horns.  “That explains why the grass is manageable,” Cole thought, sitting down and letting his charged-up horn power down.  Walking along the edge, Cole noticed the sheep didn’t seem to care about him at all.  “Maybe they don’t perceive me as a threat,” he thought, spying a few raspberry plants and eagerly plucking the ripe fruit.  Seeing as he had nothing else to do, and as sheep weren’t exactly the best conversationalists, he soon grew antsy as he finished the last of the berries in the small patch.  He looked back at the large pair of wings on his back, a thought forming in his head.  “I wonder: do these wings actually work?  It would seem to be a cruel trick of fate to have wings that cannot help you fly.”

With a series of experimental flapping and swishing motions, Cole found himself rise off the ground and hover in mid-air.  “Why is it I couldn’t fly back in Empire City or New Marais, but I come here and all of a sudden I have wings?” he thought, soon flapping above the trees.  It was rather effortless, to be truthful: nary a twitch and he was off the ground.  “I mean, Kessler could practically teleport, and both Kuo and Nix could fly.  Hell, even that woman John unleashed back in the clinic could fly.  But no: all I could do was hover and glide certain distances.  It would certainly have been easier to move around the city if I could just leap up and soar away.”  Eventually coming over the tops of the trees, he let the breezes fill his wings, pushing him around the area like an overgrown kite.

“Well, at least I still have some of my powers,” Cole thought to himself, experimentally adjusting the spread of his wings.  The bolts from his horn the night before meant he could still discharge electricity, but to what degree?  Buzzing the tree tops, he soon found the necessary movements for speeding up, slowing down and turning, among other various moves.  Along with that, he sent out a few varied zaps from his large horn: short bursts, streams and large blasts f lightning accompanied his thoughts.  As his method of discharge was so much closer to his brain and so more connected to his body, it would seem he merely had to think what kind of shock or bolt he wanted to expel from his horn.  Frankly, it was an overall improvement over his old body’s need for his hands to discharge the electricity.

“I wonder if I can do anything else,” he thought, landing back in the apple tree meadow.  Feeling a bit tired, he opened his mouth to yawn.  At the same time, he felt a burp come from his stomach.  But what came out was no simple gas bubble; a burst of blue fire shot out, sending a plume several feet into the air.

Cole quickly clasped his pseudo-hand over his mouth.  Well, it was not so much a mouth as more of a snout, but it didn’t matter: he had just breathed fire.  “Don’t want to burn the whole place down,” he thought.  Even with the rain storm the place could still burn like crazy; pine sap and needles had that kind of quality.

“I better look for some different food,” he thought, making his way through the meadow and out into the forest.  Berries and apples were good and all, but maybe there was something else out there he could munch on: like some nuts or mushrooms.  For some reason, he didn’t feel like killing an animal: it just felt odd in this body.  Of course, that could be from the confusion of being in a new place and in a new body: highly understandable.  Ahead of him the small goat herd from before bleated as they made a path through the underbrush and up onto the mountainsides.

“At least that explains why those wolf-like things haven’t eaten them all yet,” Cole thought, wading up to a small brook.  Up in these mountains water seemed to be everywhere, and he’d especially have to be careful.  Walking along the banks, he looked over his shoulder to make sure he was alone and saw nobody was following him: a good sign.  He turned back just in time to walk right into an exposed log.  Losing his balance, Cole fell off the embankment and rolled into the stream.

“This is it,” he thought as his body hit the water.  “I am so dead.”

With a large splash he plummeted into the icy cold brook, the water sloshing over his back.  He opened his eyes to see no lightning sparking anywhere or a sense of pain.  “What in the world?” he thought, quickly scampering out of the water.  “How come I didn’t short out?”  He looked down at his wet underside, his fur matted down by the sudden submergence and reemergence.  He and water had become enemies since the day he had received his powers, so why was this such an extraordinarily fortunate change of events for him?  “Maybe this body doesn't have the same limitations as my old one,” he muttered.  With cautious steps he made his way back into the water and stood there, feeling the coolness seep into his skin.

“Ah,” he sighed in pleasure, lowering his body into the water until only his head was visible: even with his wings tucked to his sides, he could feel the water rushing over all of him.  “I haven’t had a bath since before the Ray Sphere.”  There he sat for a while, noticing how he wasn't even getting that cold: perhaps this body was also more tolerant of the elements?  It would make sense: all of the legends he had heard in English class had noted that dragons usually had impenetrable hides, with the weakest spots usually being the eyes and underbelly.  Then again, he was nothing like the dragons he had heard of: maybe he was some kind of hybrid or something?  Dragons didn't exactly have fur or hooves, unless you counted all those weird creatures from the mythological textbooks Trish had been fond of when they were younger.

Soon after, Cole grew bored once more, having waded through the stream and eaten a few walnuts strewn along a bank: easy enough to eat, as he first roasted them with his fire breath.  Leaving the stream behind, he made his way up onto another bank and shook off the excess water like a dog, the droplets flying this way and that.  Looking around, he saw the small stream led out of the woods and into what could be a new area.  Walking along, he found it soon joined a larger and larger series of brooks, eventually forming a large river that cascaded over boulders and old logs alike.

“I wonder where this could lead?” he thought, the roaring of the water drowning out pretty much all other noise.  Making his way through the trees, he came upon a small waterfall.  Opening his wings, Cole gently glided down alongside the rushing water, finally coming to a stop near an opening.  It would seem the waterfall continued as another river through a dark and mixed forest.

“There should be some shelter for me eventually,” he thought, walking along the river.  “I could always fly back to that cave, but it seems nicer here.”  Maybe it had been the blue glowing mushrooms: those had been weird enough to see, never mind sleep by.  So through the woods he traveled, avoiding several deep pitfalls and thick underbrush.  Finally coming to a break in the tree line, he saw off in the distance a winding road working through long groves of trees.

“A road?” he thought, stepping out onto it.  Roads do not suddenly appear out of nothingness: there were no road plants that grew roads in the right conditions, and there were no such thing as road-making squirrels or birds.  “If there is a road, then somebody must have built it.  That at least means there is an intelligent form of life in this odd world.”  With that thought in mind he started to walk down the right side, searching for the kind that created the dirt road.  It was densely packed beneath his feet though soft enough that he left slight tracks as he made his way along its route.

The slightly damp road made his footsteps awfully silent.  A slight rustling of the leaves meant he had entered a natural wind corridor, though thankfully it didn't seem too blustery that day.  He could hear something, but over the leaves, it was nothing more than the barest of sounds.  It grew louder, and yet Cole had no idea what it was.  He stopped, intent of finding out the source of the noise.  Hearing a series of increasingly close creaks, Cole turned in time to see a carriage barreling down on him.

“Look out!” shouted a colorful pony atop the carriage, but the warning proved to be too late.  With a smash the carriage clipped Cole, sending him flying into a tree.  Smashing into the tree head first, Cole felt his concentration flutter and finally begin to slip away, leaving him still somewhat conscious.  That, however, was not going to last for long.

The last thing he heard were two pairs of footsteps and a young boy’s voice say: “Oh my gosh!  Is it hurt?  Is it...  What is it, Twilight?”

The other replied: “I- I’m not sure, Spike.  We’d best bring it to the Ponyville Hospital.  I’ll levitate it onto the carriage: move my things out of the way, please.”