After a few minutes of pondering your thoughts, you come to the conclusion that staying here in this sparse clearing isn’t the best idea. But, it’s not the worst idea; you can only imagine the horrid things that would have taken place if you had ventured into the thick and overgrown forest, or what evil things could have lurked into the area from there. With a dry sigh, you begin to trot out to the recently traveled exit. Before you do, you stop back at the pond and take one more swig, soothing your throat to where it feels almost comfortable to breathe. Feeling prepared to venture out, or as prepared as you’ll ever be, you finally embark on the journey.

The exit to the circular field was airy and loose, if you had to describe it. It didn’t feel daunting or intimidating in any sense of the word, but welcoming and receiving. The late afternoon blue sky was still visible through the branches above the path. Before you step through, a twig snaps in the far distance, near the other exit from what you can tell. As you whir your head around, a hooded figure, about as tall as you and with an equine body and piercing yellow eyes, meets your gaze from afar. The cloaked menace raises a hoof and points directly at you. You think it might be saying something, but it’s too far away to make anything out. It lowers its hoof and starts walking towards you. You, on the other hoof, sprint out of there like a bat out of hell. If you were staying in the clearing or were perhaps traveling down that path, you may have had to deal with it but it’s none of your concern now.

You thrash through the underbrush as you make your hasty escape, ignoring the twisting and winding path leading around trees and other obstacles and focus on a linear trail of your own design. You’d think being the ghostly pale one would be more frightening than a shrouded being, but these are strange times. You check back to confirm whether or not it’s following you. Thankfully, for your sake, it isn’t. However, your muscles begin to tense as you keep galloping. It appears that you must have been in that area for longer than you initially thought, or rather, didn’t think. A searing pain shoots up all four of your legs and you are forced to come to a screeching halt. A fit of hacking and wheezing replaces a series of screams of agony. It doesn’t hurt (not enough to impede your traveling anyways) to walk, but rushing out of there was probably not your best plan. The time between your last series of movements must have been a good amount for your muscles to cramp in such a way.

Why didn’t I think about how long I had been there?

Thankfully, all that running did put you close to the edge of the forest, and you manage to walk out of the mess alive. The canopy had blocked out most of the light from the time, and you were running like mad, so you didn’t notice the sky changing to a swirl of luminescent oranges and reds. Looking up at the evening atmosphere, you notice the clouds above painted a picture that only true Romantics could ever appreciate. And you might appreciate that too, if you could remember what a Romantic was. Although it was beautiful in its own right, it was your only source of light and you needed to find something out here to help you. Sky gazing would have to wait.

The very first helpful thing to assist you is the comforting fact that the path was only a few feet away from where you exited. Looking down the trail, you also notice a thin blue line in the distance that possibly represented a river, which was also good.

Not a bad start…and where there is a river, there has to be a civilization of some sort.

Observing the river from both visible ends, you take note that there are mountains off in the north. The sun’s angle caused a freakishly long shadow to shoot out from in front of you, signaling that it was setting in the west.  You were heading east, but you should follow the river south. You somehow remembered that streams all normally start in the tops of mountains and flow down to the sea, and along said flow, there were often towns or farms that needed its vital resource.

Admittedly, there wasn’t very much going on as you paced yourself, walking towards your next destination was simple if not slightly uncomfortable. The ground left tiny tufts of dirt where your hoof prints were, the air cooled to a chillier temperature, and your hooves hurt from the strenuous running. The path wasn’t very long, or at least to the body of flowing water. If you had to guess, it was approximately half a mile.

By the time you finally arrived, there was only a few minutes of raw daylight left. The sky was slowly being replaced with a thousand shimmering stars as the hues of the day receded into the horizon. Lapping up some cool water, you cleared your throat and finally felt convinced it would no longer hurt to try speaking. To test this theory, you take a deep breath and attempt to talk clearly.

“Finally, some-“

Before you could finish your first sentence aloud in who knows how long, a feminine shriek wailed from across the river. You turned to locate the source, and a lone pony about half your size was staring intensely at you in fear. You would have diagnosed her colors, but it’s too dark to tell whether it would be entirely accurate.

She probably thinks I’m sort of apparition and that I’ve come to haunt her. Well, I can’t blame her for that seeing how even in this twilight I’m still painstakingly white.

You stare at the filly, unsure of how to proceed. You take a moment’s pause and review the possibilities:

I could try to convince her that I’m not a ghost and maybe even get her to lead me to some sort of shelter. No child would be out here alone. I could probably even get her to point me in the right direction, or better yet, she might know somepony who could assist my condition.

I could pretend I am a ghost and make her flee and then follow her. I’m not sure if it’s the best idea right now to spill the beans that I know nothing about anything, and since she’s young it won’t leave any mental scaring about seeing a ghost. Her parents will probably brush it off as nothing serious, and I keep the element of surprise which could come in handy later.

I could just ignore the kid and keep following the river. Sure it might be dark, but as long as it’s not a new moon tonight I should have enough light to at least see a little of what’s in front of me. Sure I may meet something good here, but what if I could have met something better down there?