[Everfree Forest] Eyes Trained Northward [Closed For Now]

[Neoniie]

The clouds seemed to part themselves over the treetops of the Everfree Forest. In the strange self-caring wood, this was not an odd occurrence. In fact, it was almost common place. The rest of Equestria and the Everfree Forest were like parallel opposites. Phenomenon that were considered normal in one could be a practical miracle in the other. For this reason, the true reason for the movement of these particular clouds would have been stranger in the forest than a pony would think. If one looked a bit closer, they would find that the mover of the clouds was a pink pegasus. Though she flew alone, she wore the dark purple uniform of the Shadowbolts. She continued to part the cloud layer, creating smaller and more manageable chunks of cloud. Once there were a considerable number of these smaller pieces of cloud, the pegasus began to move them into a linear course.

The mare was extremely focused, not at all deterred in her task by the flight goggles that she had affixed over her violet eyes. Darkness had begun to settle over the forest, which meant she had to speed up her set-up to compensate. In all her time there, she had noticed that the forest seemed to become darker more quickly than the rest of Equestria. She had just accepted it as another quirk of the forest, but it did admittedly make her work that much more difficult. Once the clouds were in the order she had mentally mapped out earlier, the pegasus circled back to the beginning to begin the payoff for her work.

Flying back slightly to get a sufficient kick-off, the mare took a deep breath and focused herself on the task ahead. With a furious flapping of wings, she was off and already whizzing past the first cloud. She ground her teeth, having already missed the first cloud. Her initial speed hadn't been enough, but she was confident that it would reach the point she needed by the second cloud. Sure enough, this pass made little crackles of energy appear in the heart of the cloud. With a proud grin, the mare raced past the other clouds, the effect replicated in each of them.

With a final circle back, the mare gathered the clouds into one mass of lightning and fluff. Hovering before the massive sphere of cloud, the mare hurtled toward it and travelled through the cloud itself, trails of lightning latching onto her coat. As she emerged, lightning at her hooves, she did a quick pair of loops in the air. Once the lightning was exhausted, the mare stopped a hovered a moment, allowing the clouds to separate and go where they will. Short of breath, but fairly pleased with herself, Firefly landed on the mossy undergrowth of the Everfree Forest for a well-deserved break.

[FlimFlam]

On the forest floor, things were actually quite peaceful. In fact, aside from a few songbirds, it was almost silent, which suited the Peryton walking through the trees. As he continued, he spoke to the fox trotting by his side "Well Volpe, what do you think? A nice change of pace from the usual threats, isn't it? Perhaps he was exaggerating, after all he lived in the forest, but the peace suited him just fine. His companion certainly seemed to think so as well as it gave a chipper mewl in agreement.

The peace was broken as lighting crackled above the trees, and a few of the birds scattered. The Peryton, known as North Star, found this odd. He knew the Everfree ran itself, and the clouds did often form thunderstorms by itself, he had gotten rather skilled at predicting what the whether would look like. Looking up, he also remarked that the clouds were lined up and went off in sequence. He wasn't quite sure what to make of this until he saw a dark purple pony (it was difficult to see accurately from the distance he was at) flew down from the clouds as they dispersed.

Looking at his fox, North Star whispered "Let's go have a look see, shall we?" Luckily, as all Perytons did, North Star possessed quite the gift for hiding and sneaking around, so he was rather confident he could be able to observe this pony without being noticed. This was the Everfree, and no matter how talented a flier a pony could be, it was still dangerous. It took a few minutes, but eventually he was able to find the pegasus, who seemed to be taking a break of all things.

[Neoniie]

Firefly found herself to be more exerted by her stunt practice than usual. Her finale was the last in a string of exercises that she had been performing for most of the lit part of the day. The Shadowbolts were to be holding an exhibition of sorts within a couple of weeks and she, as a starter, had to be in tip-top form. Nearly 0.6 seconds slower than last time, she calculated, mostly on guesswork since she couldn't bring out all the proper equipment for a real measurement on this particular day. The staff at Cloudsdale Stadium usually let her help herself to the stadium and its amenities whenever other ponies weren't in need of it, but today had been busy for them. So, the pegasus had made do with what she could.

After making a few rough outlines for further training later on, the mare was content to just stretch her wings and catch her breath for a while. She doubted that anypony would be out in the forest this close to sundown and hopefully she would be in the air again before any of the Everfrees famous dangers made themselves known to her. She wandered vaguely as she unfurled and gave her wings a couple of easy flaps to make sure nothing had been pulled during her practice. To her satisfaction, everything seemed to be in order. that fact, combined with the success of her latest stunts, the pegasus was fairly pleased with her progress that day.

However, while she was pondering this, the pink mare hadn't noticed how far she'd veered from the clearing with a clear view of the sky in which she had landed. The Everfree tended to be very dense in some areas while surprisingly sparse in others. Unfortunately for Firefly, she seemed to have found herself in one of the more closely packed areas. A takeoff from this position would be much more risky than it would be worth. Not really sure which direction she needed to take to return to the clearing, the pegasus squared her shoulders and kept walking onward, confident that she would find a way out eventually.

The continually sinking sun didn't particularly boost her confidence, but the pegasus trotted onward, trying not to make too much fuss about the hisses and growls that were beginning to come alive in the darker edges of the forest. Just as she heard the snap of a twig behind her and turned to see what had made the sound, the pegasus took a step forward and right over the edge of a steep dip in the terrain. Since she wasn't looking in the direction she'd been headed the mare wasn't able to catch herself as she began to tumble and instead fell head over hooves into the darkness below.

[FlimFlam]

North Star continued to follow the pegasus, without making himself known. Really, he felt a bit unfair about the whole thing. It was kind of odd to be following this pony through the Everfree, but he really just wanted to make sure nothing bad happened. Hold up... she seemed to be lost. At least, she wasn't going towards the clearing she had landed in... Perhaps now would be a good time to reveal himself, after all, helping lost ponies was something he had taken up. He was just debating this, when he heard a twig snap right next to him.

Whirling to his left, he saw Volpe looking rather sheepishly at his paw. Beneath it was a small splintered stick, which caught North Star by surprise. Foxes were supposed to be sneaky and light on their feet, weren't they? Giving Volpe a sigh, he turned back towards the pegasus, only to notice she wasn't there. He did here a rolling sound and assuming he was where he thought he was, he reasoned the snap had startled that pony as well. Well, startled her off a cliff...

Without much more of a wait, he dashed down. This particular drop didn't have any paths or shortcuts around for at least a good half a mile, so that left very little options besides falling down himself. Carefully, he walked on to the incline and withing seconds starting sliding down at a relatively unsafe speed. Thank god for wings, he mused as he stretched them out. Sure, he couldn't fly, but they slowed the decent enough for him not to tumble down himself. Once he reached the bottom, he noticed it was to dark for him to see anything. Without eyesight, he was left to call out blindly

"Hello? Are you all right?"

[Neoniie]

The fall wasn't particularly pleasant for Firefly. Since she had been distracted before her stumble, the pegasus hadn't been able to extend her wings in order to brake or even recovery from that initial misstep. So, there was little that she could do but squeeze her eyes shut and hope that she wouldn't end up crashing into some disgruntled creature's nest. Oddly enough, her descent seemed quite a bit slower than she assumed it actually was. Though, she had at that point been turned around so much by her colliding with the cliff face every so often that the mare didn't dare to check more closely.

When she landed with a hard thud on the ground below, she didn't immediately open her eyes and jump to her hooves as she wished she could. It would probably be safer to check for any severe injuries now, rather than later. Though the mare wasn't exactly one for the notion of safe (she was a Shadowbolt, after all), but through that experience she also knew just how crippling an untreated injury could be to a stunt pegasus. When she figured a way out of this, she would prefer to be able to fly again. Though she couldn't asses her possible injuries very well, as she was neither a doctor nor really able to get a feel for her condition with her eyes forced shut and lying on the forest floor, she made some guesses anyway. Probably a couple scrapes and bruises, that's to be expected from any fall. The main thing is...

She trailed off at the sound of shifting rocks and dirt. It sounded as though it was coming from the same direction which she had fallen from. Instinctively tensing, she forgot all about her earlier inventory of her physical state. When the sound stopped, a voice called out. It sounded friendly enough, so Firefly opened her eyes for the first time since she'd fallen and saw...nothing. It was too dark for her to make out much more than the whites of two pairs of eyes. Clearing her throat, she still sounded slightly hoarse when she called back, "I'm fine." Of course, as soon as she said that, a twinge of pain shot through her right wing, the one she had landed on. "Well, mostly fine," she muttered to herself, not wanting the ones who found her to know that quite yet.

Before she spoke any further, the pegasus distinctly heard a hiss and something like the flick of a tail that make her slightly apprehensive. In any other case, she wouldn't have minded as much, but she was vulnerable and not in the best shape to fight back, not to mention these strangers' arrival. "Where are you?" she called out, having lost sight of the quick glimpse she'd gotten earlier of the eyes of the ones who found her. She was tempted to ask more about how the strangers had found her, but another hiss from the darkness around her quickly dispelled that idea.

[FlimFlam]

North Star was beginning to feel terribly inconvenienced by the darkness. Even on the darker nights, he still had some vision available to him, but between the trees and the cliff, there was very little light down here. He could still hear fine, so he considered that a plus, and he did hear the pegasus reply. "Oh good, she doesn't seem to terribly hurt, or at least she's fine enough to speak" Trying to pinpoint what exact direction the voice came from, he didn't notice several things he should have picked up on, like a quick flickering motion over in some nearby brush.

When the pony called out again, North Star was fairly certain he was facing her direction, placing himself somewhere between the cliff and the pegasus. "I'm over by the cliff that you.. kind of.. tumbled down. Which may have been my fault..." Star was a bit hesitant while speaking, mainly because he felt rather guilty. He was only trying to help, and it technically was his fox that stepped on the twig, that wouldn't have happened if he made himself known closer to the start. Too late for that, he supposed, he needed to remember how to get back to the top of the cliff, but he couldn't think of anywhere that was a good whiles away.

Then he heard the hiss. Hoping it was Volpe for second, he realized that his fox hadn't followed him down the slope. That did not bode well. At all actually. He was blind with his back to cliff, stuck with something that could make a hissing noise. Perhaps it was something as simple as a snake, but you don't live in the Everfree by not being cautious. "Errrm... I rather dislike trying to worry you, but I have no idea what that hissing noise is, and it doesn't sound particularly nice." He hoped the pegasus was well enough to move rather soon.

[Neoniie]

The stranger's reply was enough so that the mare could figure out his general direction in relation to her position. In the dark, sound was all they had and that was what worried her. As a stunt pegasus, one had to trust their eyes to pull them through daring loops and dives. Instincts were more of a last resort, as they were usually less accurate, but still immensely helpful in a jam. Though Firefly couldn't call this anything but a jam, her disadvantage wasn't a calming factor. Then, she remembered that she was actually supposed to be listening to the stranger. His hesitant admission drew the pegasus' purple gaze in the darkness. Not that he could see, but her eyes narrowed slightly at his words. A rational part of her mind quickly remarked that it obviously wasn't purposeful, but she was still annoyed at the prospect that somepony had just been following her around. The Shadowbolt loved being admired, but this wasn't that sort of star-eyed watching.

Regardless, now was not the time. That hiss hadn't stopped; if anything it was becoming more insistant. Her eyes swivelled around, trying in vain to see something in the dark. She winced ever so quietly as she turned herself to look behind her. Whatever she'd managed to hurt, Celestia forbid that it's my wings, it wasn't being very co-operative with the pressing need to get out of this darkness. Sucking in a deep breath, she pushed herself to her feet, thinking nothing but encouragement as she did. Managing to gain a tentative take in being standing, she eventually answered, "Yeah. Noticed." She spoke shortly, sounding as though all the wind had been knocked out of her.

Still strangey frustrated that she couldn't just take to the air and bedone with this dark place, she slowly and verycarefully made her way toward the area that she had earlier determined to be around the location of the stallion (or so she guessed, based on his voice) who had followed her down the cliffside. Why did he do that? Once she was close enough, or so she thought, to speak in a quieter tone, she said. "You know the Everfree. What hisses and would like to eat a couple of ponies?" Firefly was pleased to note that her occasional sardonic responses hadn't been diminished in the fall, which made her more hopeful as to her overall physical state.

[FlimFlam]

North Star looked around through the darkness. With any luck, he would be able to see the pegasus, but he was mainly looking for that hissing sound. The longer it seemed to go on, the more frequent it became, which did not bode well. His eyes were starting to adjust to the shadows, but not nearly enough to see much of anything, so he was going to have to play this through memory. It would be safe to just follow along the cliff, but that certainly made it difficult if that hissing thing followed. He couldn't see what it was yet, which meant it probably wasn't smart to go off into the forest. So that pretty much left the first option.

He perked up when the pegasus spoke. "Well, I suppose it could be a snake, but they rarely get large enough to eat ponies. I suppose it could be a cockatrice..." At this, North Star paused in thought "Wait, can cockatrices hiss?" If it did turn out to be that, the darkness probably helped out there, after all you can't stare into something's eyes if you can't see it. Of course, the Everfree was big, and it could very easily be something else. Snapping back to attention, he called out

"You know, I don't really want to stick around to see what it is. Now would be a good time to follow me. Hurry please!" North Star was rather anxious. He still didn't know how injured the pegasus was (although she seemed fairly ok to him at the time) but it was now or never. Hoping she could follow the sound of his voice, he started quickly walking along the cliff face. If they could escape the hissing noise and get to some light, perhaps he could get some bearings and find a better route back to the clearing.

[Neoniie]

The mare, despite the direness of the situation, took a moment to roll her eyes. She knew that it was really just a reflex, but it was slightly vexing that the stranger had asked her whether cockatrices can hiss or not. True enough, she had traversed the forest to a certain extent, but she was more familiar with its skies than its ground. Beyond that she'd doubted that, if the cockatrices were anything like the stories told, anypony would know if cocktrices could hiss and been able to tell the tale to somepony. So, she hissed, "How in Equestria am I supposed to know?" It was, on her part just as it had been on his, more a stress reaction than something done in earnest.

Even with her annoyance, she pushed passed it when he spoke again. The hissing had persisted and not done much to calm the usually iron-nerved Shadowbolt. As much as she pretended to be nothing but a flying machine, she was prone to the same fears as anypony and a threat that you couldn't see was definitely one of those. Besides, she rationalized, she wasn't about to let such a creature affect the flight abilities of a stunt pony as magnificent as herself, regardless of whatever damage had been done already by the cliff-side. "Agreed," was her terse response before gritting her teeth and following behind the stranger.

It wasn't pleasant, but Firefly managed to keep herself at a distance to the voice that she assumed was appropriate. Everything seemed to hurt, since neither her internal senses or external ones were much help in gauging the exact specifications of her injuries. However, she insisted against any weakness in herself. She'd had enough of that in her past, and she wasn't particularly fond of letting this stranger see any weakness on her part either. The hiss didn't stop, but it did seem more distant, which was comforting to a point. However, it was almost certain that the sound would catch up to them once more when it realized what they were doing.

[FlimFlam]

North Star flinched a little when the pegasus hissed at him. He supposed it was the stress of the situation, so he tried not to make to much of it, but it still caught him a bit off guard. Shaking his head, he decided not to reply. Anything he could have added would do nothing but keep them in the same place. The longer they stayed in the same place the more likely they were to find out what was making the hissing noise. He certainly figured remaining silent was a better alternative to that.

After a good minute or so of walking, North Star noticed two things. First, his eyes were finally starting to adjust to the light. He still couldn't see clearly for more than five or so feet, and he need to focus a bit to actually see anything, but just this fact alone gave him hope. The second thing he noticed concerned the hissing noise. It seemed to get quieter the first couple moments, but now it just seemed to stay at exactly the same sound. Which clearly meant it was following them. Which was bad.

Turning around, motioned to the pegasus, saying "Well, our friend back there seems upset we're leaving. We could either hurry it up and try to lose it, or I could stall for a minute or so then catch up to you. Your tumble, your choice after all." North Star tried to be as happy toned as he could. He certainly didn't want to do anything that upset the pegasus, because that would be a blunder he wouldn't forget for a while. Giving a choice seemed like a simple enough solution to that one.