Things happen. You know. Like how when you’re craving a nap you think sleeping out in the rain is a perfectly good idea. You go to sleep and it’s fine, but when you wake up the next morning you’re stiff and it’s hard to move. So you stretch out all nice and slow and your back cracks in three spots. The stretching, the cracking, it all feels so good. So you roll over onto your back, stretch your hooves up to the sky and sigh, and at that moment you come to a horrible realization. Your back was completely covered in mud. Mud that, because you had the brilliant idea to sleep out in the rain, was still very thoroughly muddy. And now you’re on your back, which means your bed is completely filthy, as if getting soaked in rain because you didn’t put the tarp over it wasn’t enough already.

I let out a groan as my mind finished processing what I’d just done. I was so dead. Then again, Inkblot had managed to clean my cape. A bed wouldn’t be too much harder, right? Right. Had to be. One deep breath and head shake later, I was busy rolling back over and getting to my hooves. My wings were damp, my back was still wet and muddy, mane too probably. And the bed was… well it was a mess.

Oh well. I’d have plenty of time to find a way to subtly bring it up to her on the trip to Market. For now I had more important things to worry about. Such as, oh, yep. As I looked over towards the storage buildings, I could already see one cart completely packed while some Crusaders were working on packing up the second cart. If we could get a few hundred caps to bring back, it would set us up pretty nicely. Elsewhere the streets were pretty deserted. Well, not streets, really. It was more like a big open area used for exercise and playing. However, that entire area was now pure mud after the rain. My bet was that High Times had been doing something to keep all the foals from going outside and getting into it.

I still had a job to do, though. I stepped off of the edge of the roof and dropped straight down to the door of the building I’d been sleeping on and immediately went straight inside.

“Well would ya look at that! Featherbrain finally woke up.”

I came to a stop before having a chance to close the door behind me, and looked around. “Huh?”

A red earth pony filly was leaning on her counter, forehooves up on it as she used it to support her front half. She liked that spot. Which made sense seeing as how this was her store. Bottom Line snickered at my response.

“C’mon, Featherbrain. It’s noon already.” She lifted a forehoof and pointed around to the other ponies in the store. “The others have been here for an hour and a half.”

I just stared blankly at Bottom Line as she spoke, then followed her hoof when she pointed around. There were others here! Inkblot, Paper Scroll, and Scroll’s little brother Paper Weight.

“How long d- Noon? Wait are we- What?” I looked back at Line then at the other three in the room before my eyes went wide. “Oh! Shopping list! Right! Crap! Uh…” My mind started to swirl as I tried to remember items that needed to be put on such a list, but it was interrupted by a snort followed by voices.

“Close my door, Featherbrain.” I glanced at Line again then turned and did so. When I did that, I heard a bit of a gasp behind me. Again with the gasping…

“Bucky, your back! What happened? Did you roll off the roof?”

My ears perked and I quickly spun back around to face Inkblot. “I uh, long story. Actually. Very lo-”

Paper Scroll interrupted with a laugh, “Yes, so long. He was sleeping in mud. That was where I found him yesterday.”

I shot Scroll a look then started to walk further into the room, closer to the group up by Bottom Line’s store counter.

Inkblot looked at Scroll as he spoke then simply shook her head in disappointment at me. “How can one colt be so consistently dirty?” she asked as she lifted a forehoof up to flick off bits of mud. Her actions mostly just served to smear the mud further, rather than do any actual cleaning.

Paper Scroll laughed again and motioned to me with a hoof. “Think about it. Pegasus, tryin’ to live with the dirt ponies. He’s just trying really, really hard to be one of us. Of course, I’m pretty sure he’s used to faceplanting into the dirt.”

I rolled my eyes at Scroll, but the earth pony’s last bit caught my attention. “An’ what’s that s’posed to mean?”

“It means I heard about you and Powder yesterday. About how good friends you are with the ground. That’s the problem with a tripod, it’s unbalanced.” Scroll had the smuggest of smiles when he finished speaking. Inkblot had reached up to cover her mouth with a forehoof. I was pretty sure she’d be laughing if she hadn’t.

I smacked my lips and my wings flexed a little at my sides, spreading out then folding right back in. The door to the store opened behind us, but I had more important things on my mind. “I might be unbalanced, but I still got one more limb than you got, so suck it.”

Scroll’s smile widened and he started to answer, but stopped when Bottom Line kicked the top of her counter. “Would y’all make out already so we can get a move on with what we’re s’posed t’ be doing here?”

I turned to look back at Bottom Line, only to see Sunny Sea between me and the store’s counter, having just put a cup of juice onto the counter in front of me. The little filly, however, was staring at Bottom Line now. She slowly turned around to look at me and Scroll. “You two are gonna kiss?!”

It took me a second to process what was said, but when I did, I shook my head rapidly. “What? No. No! We ain’t gonna kiss. No. Ew! No!”

Sunny Sea’s eyes grew wider and wider as I spoke and she was gasping and pointing at us by the time I had finished. “You already did! You already did! Aaaaaah!” She put her hoof back down and bolted for the door. “I gotta tell everypony!”

“What?! No!” I reached out after her with my wing, but by the time I’d turned she was already long gone out the door.

“Four ‘no’s and an ‘ew’? Am I really that gross?”

I looked back at Scroll and huffed at him. “Yer at least worth six ‘no’s and two ‘ew’s, but she ran away too fast.” Scroll snorted, but I immediately turned to Inkblot. “Yer th’ oldest filly. That means yer her boss.” Inkblot nodded slowly, still with her hoof over her mouth to keep her from laughing. “Then you need t’ go tell her to stop doin’ whatever she’s doin’.” Inkblot simply shook her head. “What? Why not?!”

Inkblot finally pulled her hoof down, a little laugh escaping as she opened her mouth to speak, “I can’t break that girl’s heart, her hero finally found somebody and she’s so excited, I don’t think I have it in me to try and tell her otherwise.”

I let out a long groan and pulled my wing over my face. “Y’all ‘re awful.”

Bottom Line spoke up again, sounding somewhat disgruntled. “Yes, we are. Now that that’s settled, can we get to the shoppin’ lists? Yeah? Yeah.”

There was a muffled chorus of acknowledgement from the three of us. Scroll’s little brother, Paper Weight, still hadn’t said a word the whole time. Inkblot started first with explaining the shopping list. She handled both the list for herself and her store as well as the overall list for the fillies of the town. I heard her mention thread and fabric, then various foods. Right about the moment she started listing out mare-care products I succeeded in zoning her out entirely. Why? Because I had a cup of juice. And juice was better than hearing about what growing fillies needed for their bodies. I finished rubbing my face then reached out and took the cup Sunny had brought in. It wasn’t very big, but it was enough to quench my morning thirst.

By the time the juice was gone, Inkblot was done and Paper Scroll had started his list. He dealt with the Crusader excursions. We lived mostly off of the things the groups of foals had gone out to scavenge and bring back to us to either use or sell, and they needed supplies for their trips. Weapons, ammo, materials such as saddlebags, armor, and whatnot.

I wasn’t particularly listening to him either, though. No, the door had opened again and let in a purple, nine-year-old filly. I didn’t actually know her name, but I did recognize her as one of the victims of my scaring last Nightmare Night. I was unfortunately a bit too effective, however, and she’d actually been frightened of me for the few weeks since then too. When she spotted me this time, I saw the flash of fear go over her face. I gave her a quick smile then looked back over at my own gathering, pretending to have stopped paying attention to her. It worked, at least, and she started to come in and head straight for the small candy section.

A couple minutes later I glanced back over her way and saw she was actually still there, trying in vain to reach one of the candy bars that was at the top of the section, just out of her reach. My ears flicked back to Scroll. Yep. Still blabbering on about ammo. I turned and walked over behind the filly, then slipped up beside her. “Lemme help.”

The filly drew back when she heard my voice right next to her, but at least she didn’t seem too scared. I flashed her another smile then reached up, grabbed the bar, then dropped my head down and offered it to her. She hesitated once or twice, but then reached forward and took the bar. I smiled again as she took it, then extended out my wing and made a shooing motion. “Go on, I’ll pay.” The filly looked over at the counter, then at me, then the counter, then me, then turned and made a dash back out of the store. I let out an amused snort and just shook my head.

“FEATHERBRAIN!”

The sudden shout made me jump out of my skin and end up hovering in the air right above where I’d just been standing. I looked around, realized everything was still okay, then turned to Bottom Line. “Oh Goddesses do you really have to yell so much? Jeez!”

Bottom line huffed at me. “What did I just say?”

“My name!”

“Before that!”

“Wha- what? I don’t know.”

Bottom Line shook her head slowly at me. It was either in disappointment or anger, I wasn’t really sure. “Have you been listening at all?”

I stared at her for a few seconds wondering what the right answer could possibly be. “Um… uh… yes. No. Maybe. Uh… Just put the candy bar on my credit.”

Bottom Line didn’t say anything, but she did shift over to her cash register and ring up the few caps the bar had cost. “Now what is on the colt’s shopping list, hmm?”

“Uh… right.” Somehow I didn’t expect that question. I really should’ve, but, here we were. I fluttered back down to the ground and landed next to Inkblot.

The next five minutes consisted mainly of me attempting to remember the different types of food the colts had told me they wanted in the next couple of weeks to varying degrees of success. I’d made it most of the way through, but then yet another pony walked into the General Store, this one openly interrupting us.

“Buck? We need to talk.”

I stopped mid-sentence and looked over my shoulder. High Times had been the one to step through that door. “Uh… we’re uh…” I stopped short when I saw the look on his face. One that said he was in a really big rush and didn’t have time for me to slow him down. “Yeah.” I looked back at Inkblot, Scroll, and Bottom Line and gave a shrug with my wings, then turned around and walked over to the door.

High Times led me just a bit outside of the General Store, then stopped and turned back to look at me. “I just saw your name listed as going along with the carts. Why?”

I tilted my head a bit at that question. Really… weird. But easy to answer, at least! “Be… cause?” What? That wasn’t even a full sentence.

High Times let out a somewhat exasperated sigh. “Look, Buck, we’ve seen bloodwings flying around not too far from here. They’re expanding their territory.”

My eyes went wide. “Wha- really? Serious? Who knows?”

“Me, the adults, except for your sister anyway, you, and the Crusaders that saw them.”

“Right, right right right.” I looked away and turned my head to the ground. Bloodwings… That explained the sudden trip to offload excess junk. My ears perked up and I shot my eyes back to High Times. “We’re moving again, aren’t we?”

High Times nodded to me. “Yes, and that means you can’t go on that trip. We need to be packed up and getting the town on the move by tomorrow. You need to stay here and help.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but I couldn’t really get anything out. He was right. If bloodwings were expanding their territory, they could very well smell us or keep expanding. There was no way we could fend off a swarm of those things. We’d have to pack up the buildings and haul them off away. At least this would only be the second time in the last two or three years we had to do so.

High Times reached out and nudged my shoulder with his hoof. “Atta boy. We’ve got the hospital and our building, it’s the rest that needs covered.” With that, he turned and trotted off, heading straight for the hospital.

I continued to stand there for a couple of minutes going over scenarios in my head. Most of them were actually rather gross. Bloodwings attacking, sucking all of our blood and leaving a bunch of husks around. But then I worked my way through to all the possible disasters that could happen with packing, like wheels on the bottoms of buildings falling off and the entire building toppling over…

Well! Aren’t those fun thoughts, huh? I shook my head vigorously and forced myself to stop that nonsense. We had to get the town packed, and that wasn’t going to happen if I sat there all day thinking of what could go wrong. I turned around and stepped half way back into the General Store. Now it was my turn to interrupt them.

“Guys.” Huh… they were still talking. “Yo, guys.” Still talking. “GUYS!” There we go. They all stopped and turned to look at me. “I’m not goin’ t’ Market with y’all. I gotta stay behind and organize… ‘cause we’re movin’ out tomorrow as soon as you guys get back. Whole town’s movin’.” Surprise came over all of their faces in unison, but, much like High Times, I no longer really had any time to waste. I backed out, shut the door, and headed on over to the residential tents to get ponies rallied up for packing.

Coffee does strange things to a pony. Other than make them have to pee really badly. Lots of things do that, coffee isn't special there. Coffee, more importantly, makes a pony wake up. Which is great when you have to stay up all night. The foals, even me, weren't allowed to have coffee. High Times said we had enough energy without it, we didn't need to be drinking it and end up causing him even more of a hassle. This night was different, however. We had things to get done. So while the adults were downing it all night, I also got the privilege of drinking it... and boy did I. Stuff was good! All the rest of the foals worked through shifts so that they could still sleep some of the night while we got packing done, but not me. No, I had to organize the shifts and make sure everything stayed on track.

There's a thing about the sunrise after a night of drinking coffee, too. I was exhausted. And I knew I was. If I had the chance, I could've fallen over in the dirt right where I stood and slept... maybe a whole day. At least. But no, my mind wouldn't stop telling my body to do things. It was tired too! But no, it just wouldn't stop. When I saw the sunrise, though, for a little bit, I didn't feel tired anymore. I actually felt excited. It was a new day, I'd made it all the way through the night, and it was beautiful... Then a few minutes later I crashed again and had to go down more coffee.

By the time two o'clock in the afternoon rolled around, my mind didn't even feel like it had things to do anymore. It just wanted to sleep. I suppose it was good that by that point I'd just finished helping pack up the last of the General Store, which was the last building packed overall. It was a shame, but a lot of stuff had to be left behind. That was also part of my job. I determined what was left behind when we moved town, because we couldn't pack everything. The buildings had to hold the residential tents and everybody's personal belongings, and those always got priority over whatever junk was already in the buildings. I had to determine that, I had to organize who was packing what, where they were packing it, make sure they packed it in a way that it wouldn't all come crashing down mid-trip, and then figure out what all wasn't going to fit and thus would get left behind and not packed.

Pack. Pack pack pack. That's a funny word, pack. Pack, lack, gak, snack. Ooooh, a snack would be so good right now. C'mon. C'mon, hooves! Let's go get a snack! Come on, don't just sit there and do nothing, move!

My attempted pep talk was cut short by a hoof knocking at the side of my head. I gave a loud snort as I came out of my day-dreaming daze and looked around, quickly finding Inkblot right next to me. "Yer pretty..."

The dark green filly's eyes blinked rapidly and she pulled her head back a little, clearly shocked by my words. Hey, so was I. Couldn't blame her. She started to smile soon after, though. "Really?"

I looked her over quickly. Dirty, dusty from the trip to Market, hadn't taken a bath in a couple days, her mane was actually somehow still styled, not sure how she managed that one. "Pretty ugly..." What?! No! The coffee! My mind knew that was a horrible idea, but my body apparently thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Inkblot's smile instantly turned sour and she gave me a derisive snort followed by a glare. "You idiot." She reached out with her forehoof and gave a strong shove to my shoulder, which, in my state, sent me toppling right over to the ground. I didn't even try to stop it. Or try to get up. I wasn't even mad, totally deserved that one. "You look like you got run over by a manticore. Also I think your black eye got worse, you look like you fell face first into brahmin crap."

"Can I sleep here, Inky?"

"No, no you can't, featherbutt. Get up."

I heard Inkblot walk around me, and next thing I knew she was wedging her head between my back and the ground, and using her magic to help heave me back up onto my hooves. I grunted a couple of times in protest, but eventually accepted the help and popped, clumsily, back up to my hooves.

Inkblot stepped back around in front of me and started to look over my face, her magic going to work to straighten out my mane and pick some of the dirt out of it. "Idiot. You were up all night, weren't you?"

I nodded a little, my eyes falling closed again.
She let out an exasperated sigh. “What have I told you about doing that?”

I screwed my face up as I tried to think of any reasonable response to that, but I was saved by the bell. Or by the boss. One or the other.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything?” High Times was just walking up to the two of us as he spoke.

Once more my mouth spoke faster than my mind could stop it, “We were just ‘bout t’ make out!” About three seconds later my mind finally caught up, right at the same time Inkblot’s hoof connected with my cheek. “Ouch!” Despite the sudden pain, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing as I rubbed my cheek with my wing

High Times stayed silent as he worked on keeping himself from laughing. I didn’t know whether it was at my joke or at Inkblot kicking me in the face. To be honest I probably didn’t want to know. Eventually he did speak, and I finally noticed he sounded as tired as I felt. “Back on topic, good work, Buck. Everything is good to go, I double checked it all, we’re moving out in an hour.”

Those words snapped me out of my weird state of mind, at least long enough to consider one thing. I pulled my wing down and looked around the area. Not spotting what I was looking for, I turned back to High Times. “Is Lily back?”

High Times seemed to have not expected that question at all. He turned and made the same look around that I had just completed then shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen her. I didn’t even think of that. Uh oh…”

Inkblot spoke up from beside us, “She’s already on her way back, has to be, won’t she be able to find us anyway? She knows the place we’re moving to.”

High Times replied to Inkblot, but I didn’t catch it due to my mind starting to drift. Inkblot… well, she wasn’t wrong. Every time we moved to a new location, a team would get sent out to scout for possible new places we could move to during the next emergency. They’d report back, then High Times and Lily would go out a few days later to make sure they were good and pick the one we’d use as our home the next time we had to move. Generally we tried to find some place that was relatively out of the way, somewhere you could see ponies approaching from a distance, and near some source of food and water. Wait.

“Guys. Water.”

Inkblot and High Times both stopped talking and turned to look at me. I looked between them until I caught on that they didn’t actually realize what I was talking about. “Water. She only leaves fer like two weeks at a time. Inky’s right… but she only takes enough supplies fer two weeks at a time, too… She gets her water outta our stuff, I have t’ sign out for it every time she leaves… She has enough ‘ make it back here,” I stomped my hoof on the dirt below me for emphasis, “not t’…” I waved a wing off to the east, “where th’ town’s goin’.” High Times opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted before he could. “I haveta stay behind with some water an’ food fer her. We’ll just catch up inna day or two.”

High Times looked rather shocked at the final words, but eventually he let out a long sigh and gave a slow nod.

Inkblot, however, shook her head. “No, nonono. Why not just leave water out for her here and she’ll find it when she gets here?”

I snorted and my wings flared halfway. “An’ what, what if somepony else comes ‘long an’ grabs the bottles ‘fore she gets there to ‘em? Then she’s still outta water. No. Haveta make sure she gets it.”

Inkblot let out an exasperated sigh and turned to High Times instead. “Will you stop him? He’ll listen to you! Look at him, he can barely stand up by himself right now, and you’re okay with leaving him alone?”

Not expecting it to suddenly get turned onto him, High Times took half a step backwards from Inkblot’s little outburst. Before he spoke, however, he took a short calming breath and stepped forward again. “No, Inkblot, I’m not okay with leaving him alone. But do you see another option? He’s right, just leaving water behind is risky. We can’t have a whole Crusader team stay behind, either. We need everyone we can to pull the buildings and make sure nothing goes wrong when we’re on the move.”

Inkblot had her turn to stomp her forehooves into the dirt as she listened to High Times. “Okay. Fine. … Wait. Actually, no.” She lifted a forehoof up and pointed it at High Times. “He stays, I’m staying with him. I don’t help pull the buildings, so there’s no loss.” She then swiveled and pointed her forehoof right in my face. At least it looked like it was right in my face. “And somebody has to be there to make sure you don’t… get lost or get your face ripped off or something because you were too tired to keep watch after staying up all night!”

My eyes went wide and I shrunk back a little as Inkblot started to yell, and while High Times didn’t get startled this time, he was also plainly surprised at how… forceful Inkblot was being. But she wasn’t done yet, as both her voice got a bit louder and her hoof raised up higher.

“Now you go get your stuff! And come back and show it to me so I can make sure you actually got it all and didn’t forget any.” Inkblot gave a strong huff as she finished that time, and let her hoof fall back to the dirt. I, however, was too stunned to think about what she said hard enough to actually move and do it. That was until she noticed I wasn’t moving. “Go, Buck!” My wings finished extending all the way out and I immediately dashed off into the air to head for the rooftop of the General Store. Even with all the packing, all the stuff that I would need was still kept up there.

A sunrise after an all-nighter while wired up on caffeine does things to your mind. Suddenly being deprived of caffeine for three hours straight after drinking it for the entire previous day also does things to your mind. But those things aren’t nearly as nice as the sunrise ones. Not at all.

But that’s where I had wound up. Inkblot hadn’t let anyone give me any coffee after she got back. She took the fact that she had to send me back two times to get more supplies that I had supposedly forgot as proof that I didn’t need help staying up even longer than I already was. Didn’t forget them, though. Just… didn’t need them. Totally. Who even thinks you’d need armor in the wasteland? I definitely don’t… yeah…

Now here I was, wearing it. My leather barding which had been handed down to me from my sister. The nice Crusader cape Inkblot had just finished fixing up was attached over top of it at the neck, and thankfully she’d managed to put the wingholes back into it just fine, so now I could move my wings however I wanted without the pesky cape getting in the way. I was also wearing my saddlebags, which I almost never, ever wore unless going out on a really long trip. They were mostly just stuff with food and water, and some other junk that I’d collected and felt special enough to have to have with me. Lastly I had my trusty lariat. Never left town without it. At the moment it was coiled up on a little hook-like thing that had been put on my armor. It made it so the coiled rope hung down over the hole I’d put my left foreleg through, if I had one.

Inkblot was fairly similarly dressed, actually. The big difference was that instead of a vest of leather barding, she was wearing a shrunken version of the set of stuff all those rich merchants wore, the ones with dozens of pockets all over the barding, for storing stuff instead of protection. Other than that she was wearing the same set of saddlebags as me, and was now sporting the same Crusader cape as me. Unfortunately for me her cape covered up the splotches of black fur over her rump and around the dock of her tail. They were a bit difficult to see sometimes due to her dark green coat, but I’d always thought they were cute. Inkblot didn’t like me saying that, though, because to her it just meant I’d been looking at her butt.

Speaking of butts, mine was planted firmly in the dirt, as I was mostly just too tired to stand unless I really, really had to. Inkblot was standing on all fours right next to me. Both of us were watching off in the distance to the east. The final packing had been completed and the town was moving on out. The land all around us was really flat, so we could see them way off into the distance, but the clouds of dust they were kicking up ended up causing them to disappear from sight long before they actually went off into the horizon.

We’d been sitting in silence, me and Inkblot. Just watching as our home walked off without us. Well, that’s what she was doing. I was too, sorta, but I was also a little too scared to talk. Inkblot had been a bit… mad since she got back. And without the coffee, I just didn’t have the energy to keep up with her. But not having the energy seemed to make her even angrier. Problem was I didn’t actually know what she was mad at. Just that she was mad.

It took about twenty minutes of pure silence while watching the town roll away to finally work up the courage to say something.

“Um… Uh… Inky… are you uh… mad at me?”

I saw her slowly turn to look at me out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t stop looking off after the dust cloud in the distance. “Am I mad at you?”

I slowly nodded. “Y-yeah. Are ya mad at me?”

Inkblot let out a sigh. “Lay down, Bucky.”

My brow furrowed hard. Why was she dodging the question? I finally turned to look at her, but immediately saw the look on her face clearly showing that she wasn’t going to say a word until I did what she said. I gave a huff of my own, but slowly slipped down until I was laying on the ground.

After a moment she followed me down, only she laid down perpendicular to me on my right side, with her front half laying on top of my back. “No, I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at High Times… and the fact that we’re moving. And the fact that you had to stay up all night like that, it’s unhealthy. Don’t blame you for it, though…” She reached over a bit and patted my left side with a hoof. “Put your wing out.”

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t breathe a sigh of relief when she said she wasn’t mad at me, but her request confused me to the point where I couldn’t respond immediately.

Inkblot shook her head after she saw the look on my face and took matters into her own hooves. And magic. She reached over and grabbed ahold of my left wing in her magic and slowly extended it out, then with her hooves and magic started to pick out all the bits of dried mud that had gotten caked into the feathers.

I blinked a few times and shifted a little when I realized what Inkblot was doing. This wasn’t the first time, I just didn’t expect it as an answer to my question. It felt nice… I opened my mouth but immediately shut it again and slowly let my head fall down to the ground. Not having all the coffee may suck, but at least it let me reign in my big mouth before I said stupid things. Instead, I was able to put a bit more thought into it before speaking. “I dunno why yer mad at High… but… we had to move. A team saw bloodwings.”

Inkblot paused her mudpicking. “Wha- bloo- here? Who saw the bloodwings?” For some reason she started to look around in the sky. Wasn’t even close to nighttime yet.

As for her question, though, I didn’t actually know the answer. “Uh… I… didn’t think to ask. High just said some Crusaders did.”

Inkblot continued to look around for a bit before shaking her head and going back to picking mud out of my wing. “Bloodwings aren’t supposed to come out this far. That’s just… weird…”

I gave a little shrug as my eyes started to slowly close. Her preening actually felt really nice.

When my eyes opened again, it was fairly dark. Except, it wasn’t the darkness of evening. The darkness was coming from… the other direction? Oh! Morning! I lifted my head up off of the dirt and started to look around. At some point during my nap I’d gotten rolled over onto my left side, apparently. As I slowly looked around to investigate my surroundings, my eyes eventually fell onto my wing. Hey, neat, I could actually see my orange feathers instead of just brown dirt. It was completely mud-free! Well, almost completely. There was just a little speck of dirt that was still there, but otherwise it was like night and day compared to how it was yesterday.

But why? Oh, right. Inkblot had been doing some magical preening. Which really was the only way she could do it, since I still had never told her where my preening oil came from. Didn’t really want her putting her mouth there when she just decided to start randomly preening me. Speaking of that area of the body, I looked further down and saw Inkblot’s head! She was currently using my blank flank as a pillow. Which was actually kinda nice. But now I knew she was there, and I had a feeling that I would have an… issue… on my hooves if her head stayed there for too long. An active imagination sucked sometimes. Hehe, sucked… Crap.

I looked around again to make sure nobody was looking. Which was a little stupid, given the entire town had gotten up and walked away. There wasn’t anyone around at all. However, now reassured that nobody would see, I started to slowly scoot my body away from Inkblot’s, inch by inch removing her pillow.

It didn’t go quite as planned, though, as when I finally cleared her muzzle, her whole head dropped to the ground with a thud even I could hear. Her eyes shot open and she lifted her head back up quickly, looking around in surprise, trying to figure out what had just happened. I cringed and bit my lip, as not only did that have to hurt, but now I’d woken her up too.

“Sorry, sorry.” I turned around quickly so that I was facing her and laid back down on my belly, doubly making sure that nothing particularly embarrassing happened.

Inkblot looked very sleepy and a bit dazed at her sudden awakening. “Huh? For wha- wait, you’re up? Finally…”

Now it was my turn to be confused. “Huh?”

Inkblot snorted softly and put her head back down, now using my forelegs as a pillow instead. She let out a long yawn and closed her eyes again. “You fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon. I stayed up real late trying to wait for you to wake up so you could keep watch while I slept.”

My ears pinned back and I bit my lip. Crap. “Well why didn’t ya wake me up?

Inkblot shifted some but settled right back to where she had been. “You needed the sleep.”

“Oh, well, I-”

“And I’m sorry about yelling at you.”

My mouth just hung open. Partially due to being interrupted mid-sentence, partially due to hearing her apologize, which rarely happened, and partially due to not knowing what to say back. Eventually I worked out, “It’s fine, Inky…”

“Maybe. I was mad, and you were being forgetful and stupid, but I still shouldn’t have yelled at you so much.” I hadn’t actually minded the yelling too much, at least once I learned that she wasn’t actually mad at me, but hearing her say this made me feel a bit better anyway. I dipped my head down and nosed at her neck softly. “Now keep watch since you’re up so I can sleep more. Lily should be back soon anyway.”

I rolled my eyes and gave her neck a bite in response to that, only to end up sputtering a bit as I tried to get hairs from her yellow mane out of my mouth. Her comment about Lily hit me just after, though. “How do you know she’ll be back soon?”

“Last time I asked, you said she’d been gone thirteen days, right?”

“Uh… that’s… totally what I said…”

“It is. And two weeks is her limit. And that was three days ago.”

My head slowly tilted to the side. “Coulda swore that was yesterday…”

“That happens when you don’t sleep.”

I stuck my tongue out at Inkblot, though she couldn’t see it. “Wait. If two weeks is her limit, and it’s been… sixteen days? Something’s wrong.”

“Possibly. Or maybe she just got held up…”

“Inky, that means she’s already outta water. She had enough supplies fer th’ trip, not fer th’ trip t’ last three days longer than planned. That’s th’ whole reas-”

A tiny bit of movement off to the south caught my attention. I picked my head back up and narrowed my eyes some as I looked off that direction. After a minute, the most I could gather was that it was a bit of a travelling dustcloud, the type a roaming group of ponies makes. Could be one of the groups that stopped through our town and obviously didn’t know about our move yet. Couldn’t have possibly been Lily, she always travelled alone unless I was with her.

“Get distracted by something shiny, featherbu… bu…” her word was interrupted by another long yawn.

“Somethin’ dusty, actually.”

That got Inkblot to open her eyes again. She shifted and lifted her head up, looked at me, then followed my gaze off to the south. “Huh. Merchants? Do we go say hi and tell them we moved, or do we hide and make sure they’re merchants first?”

I raised an eyebrow then turned to look at Inkblot. “If that is yer question, th’ answer is obviously hide first an’ make sure. Cause what if they ain’t merchants an’ ya jus’ go up an’ say hi? Bad things…”

Inkblot snorted and looked back at me. “Bad things? What might those be.”

“The bad… filly-eating… things… that make you the featherbutt instead of me.” I reached out a wing and poked her with it before getting up to my hooves.

Inkblot batted my wing away with a hoof before getting up after me. We stood there together and looked off into the distance. They were still far enough away that we could only see the small dust cloud behind them.

“Did ya bring… like… binoculars er somethin’?”

Inkblot started to open up her saddlebags but stopped and shook her head. “No. I don’t even have any.”

“Right… We should prob’ly hide.”

There was a moment of silence before Inkblot asked in a rather incredulous tone, “Where?”

I turned away from the dust cloud to look at her, then started to scan the area around us. We’d picked this place because it was open and had a lot of room for the foals to play around in. But it was pretty barren. Mostly just dirt and small rocks in the dirt. Not even really any big boulders to hide behind. It was, however, a bit darker this morning than it had been the previous morning when I’d gotten to see the sunrise. There were a lot less openings in the cloud cover today. We could totally use that, right?

“Can you carry me?”

I stopped looking up at the sky and looked instead to Inkblot. “Uh… should be. Ya ain’t that heavy.” Inkblot pressed her lips together as I spoke. “Ya know. Fer a gi-” Her lips got tighter. “I mean… Yeah. Yes. I can carry you. Just prob’ly not too far an’ not too fast.”

Inkblot smacked her lips as they relaxed again and looked back to the dust cloud. “Good, because that’s probably our only option. Unless you see something else we could do.”

I bit my lip and looked around again quickly. No, I really didn’t see anything. But then again, I wasn’t liking the idea of having to carry her, either. She wasn’t big, but I wasn’t strong. My wings were strong, that was the only hope I had of actually carrying her. “Nope.”

“Alright then.” She let out a sigh and lowered back down to the ground on her belly. “Let’s go.”

I looked back to Inkblot and watched her. Right, gotta pick her up… gonna be rough. I moved around and stepped behind her, then stopped just short of actually straddling her, and just stared at her withers and the back of her head. My active imagination was starting to go again.

I let out a raspy cough then quickly moved back to where I had been and lowered myself to the ground. “Other way. It’s… better. Trust me.” Well, at least I wasn’t lying. As it was I wasn’t even sure if I could hold her up using just my legs. At least now my whole body would be lifting her up.

Inkblot raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. She silently got up, stepped over, then laid down on top of me. After a moment of shifting to get comfortable, she wrapped her forelegs around my neck. “Let’s go.”

I took a few deep breaths as she got on, trying to not grunt from supporting her weight. She had to weigh about the same as I did, despite being shorter. Carefully I started to lift up and get to my hooves, wobbling a bit from being so top heavy, but I was able to do it.

“Okay… no way I can walk, but let’s see…”

I took another breath as I extended my wings out, then started to flap and slowly lift off from the ground. It took a few more flaps and a lot more effort, but I was able to start hovering just above the ground. I could hear Inkblot gasp softly as we lifted off and all I could do was smirk. Too bad I couldn’t give her a really fun flight. We were going to be stuck to flying slow.

At first I started to fly off to the east, away from where the dust cloud had been heading. I stayed just a couple feet off of the ground. Flying any higher would’ve definitely gotten us spotted, but this low we still blended into the ground. Even after just a few minutes, though, I could really feel the effect of the extra weight. My wings were straining harder and I had to slow down for a minute to catch my breath. Once I had, I turned and started to fly south. Eventually I could see that we had passed the dust cloud going in the opposite direction, and at that point I pulled up and started to fly higher up into the air.

Almost immediately I felt Inkblot tense up on my back. Her hindlegs started to squeeze my flanks and her forelegs cut hard into my neck. It wasn’t bad at first, but as we got higher, she only tensed up more and more, to the point where it got hard for me to breath.

I levelled off in the air and managed to rasp out, “Ink… Ink…”

Inkblot had ended up with her head buried in my mane and pressed against the back of my neck. “Wh-wh-what? What?”

“Can’t… breathe… legs…”

“What? Wh- oh!” Her legs loosened, but then suddenly tightened again for a few seconds before they loosened up more, just enough to let me actually breath again.

I gasped in air when I finally could. “Okay… okay. Inky, hold on, but don’t choke me. Yer not gonna fall.”

“Why do we have to be so high?!”

“Because…” I turned our hover slowly in the air until we were facing the little group travelling on the ground. “There’s two places a travellin’ group never constantly checks. Where they just left… and up. An’ now we’re behind ‘em and up.”

“Why don’t they look up?! I always look up!”

I let out a snort. “Cause they don’t get bombed from above every Nightmare Night like you do.”

Inkblot just let out a bit of a whimper in response. I took that to mean she was done for the moment, then started to fly after the group. I approached slowly, both because of Inkblot on my back and because I didn’t want to make any sudden movements that would draw their attention up to us. It took awhile, but I eventually got close enough to actually make out the ponies that were travelling.

There were seven ponies total. They didn’t have a cart, so I was pretty sure that blew Inky’s idea of them being merchants out of the water. Maybe a group of mercenaries? They looked armored, so that could fit. Maybe scavengers. Wait… I started to descend to get a bit of a closer look. One of them… was really small. Looked like a foal. And the foal didn’t have armor on. Neither did another one of them. I could see the big one without armor was purple. Had a cutie mark of… of a…

“No. No… no no no no no…”

Inkblot pulled her head slightly away from my neck. “What is it?”

I couldn’t stop staring at the purple mare. I knew it was a mare. “They ain’t merchants.”

“How do you know?”

“They’re slavers…”

“What?!”

I turned a bit to give Inkblot a better angle to look and stuck out my forehoof to point down to them. “And they have Lily.” I’d never been more thankful in my life that ponies never looked to the skies for threats than I was right then. As I stared longer, I could start to make out the chains around Lily’s fetlocks as well as the foal’s.

Inkblot was quiet as she worked up the courage to actually open her eyes and look down at the ponies I was pointing to. “A-a-are you sure?”

“She has a lily as a cutiemark. It’s Lily. I’m sure.” I took a deep breath then started to gain altitude as quickly as I could.

Inkblot let out a little yelp and put her forehead back against my neck. She tightened around me again until I stopped gaining height and hovered once more. “What are we going to do? How many were there?”

I closed my eyes and just continued to hover there, thinking over Inkblot’s question. I didn’t have an answer for the first one. “Five. There were five…” A couple more minutes passed in silence before I turned my head and asked, “Inky… did you bring yer gun?”

I could feel her face scrunch up against my neck. “Yeah… you’re not thinking of-”

“No. We can’t take on five… but I gotta know anyway.”

Inkblot gulped and shook her head as much as she could in her current position. “What are we going to do?”

“We gotta… we… we gotta… Follow them. Follow them until tonight. They have to stop going at some point, right? Yeah… Then, maybe… I… I don’t… I don’t know… But they don’ get t’ have my sister.”

What to do later was a problem for tonight. For now, there was only one thing we could do. But I also knew I couldn’t fly the entire day. I started to glide back down out of the sky within sight of their dust cloud.

We were going to follow them until tonight. And I was going to get my sister back.

Author's Notes:

Big thanks to Scrap Metal, Kibu, and No One for helping me out with catching any errors in plot or grammar and spelling thus far.