Errands

Destiny watched as Ashen used his hoof to draw in the dirt. Nodding in understanding, she looked up at him as he took her hoof and pulled her up. Her cheeks flushed for a moment as she looked down at her hoof in his. Although the redness faded quickly, she guessed Ashen had still seen it. As they began to walk, she smiled gently at him as he helped her keep her balance.

Still feeling dizzy, she kept her eyes locked on the faint path infront of her. Trying not to pay too much attention to how close Ashen was walking next to her. This path obviously wasn't travelled much, so it was barely visible in between the over grown plants. She realised she hadn't been in this part of the Everfree before, but she didn't want to take her eyes away from the path for fear of falling and pulling Ashen down with her, which would just result in a very awkward situation.

As they neared a half open part of the path, with trees on one side and a sheer drop on the other, the dizzy feeling was starting to get worse, she guessed it might be getting worse from dehydration. She was about to stop and tell Ashen when she tripped over a fallen branch and tumbled to the side, knocking Ashen over in the process. She grabbed Ashen by his front legs, flapping her wings to stop them from falling down the sheer drop they were rolling towards. She managed to get them both over flat land before the dizzyness affected her concentration and her wings missed a few beats. They fell a short distance to the ground, toppling over in the process, and Detiny ended up under Ashen.

Staring up at him, she realised he looked dazed, and hadn't really noticed he was standing above her. "Uh Ashen?" She said, trying to catch his attention as he stared down at her blankly.

Following the locomotion of the whole fall, Ashen tumbles along with destiny, he tries to flare up his wings to float but they're already also caught in the tumble and flail uselessly trying to fly. He tries to stand up as they both steadily head to the ground, then dropped with a small thump upon a dryer part of the ground.

He tries to stand back up and shake it off, but ends up falling over from being dazed on top of Destiny. As he opens his eyes, he's directly on her and is looking straight in her eyes. His eyes go wide and his ears prop up, and suddenly-

*POMF* His wings instantly flare up and his face looks..embarrassed. They're close enough for them to feel each other's heartbeats, pumbum, pumbum. Their heart rates growing faster in a matter of seconds. He suddenly darts back being spooked from being so..close.

(...lol )

Destiny's cheeks were a bright shade of rose by the time Ashen had darted back. She lay, semi-frozen on her back for a few minutes, before jumping on to her hooves. Quickly looking up at Ashen she noticed his cheeks had gone red too, just not so much. Her gaze drifted down to her hooves and they stood in silence for a few minutes.

Silently dusting herself off, she raised her eyes to look at Ashen without raising her head. He had come out dustier than her. Walking slowly across to him as he tried to dust himself off, she helped him with her wings. Realising she was too close to him, -yet again- she quickly finished dusting him off and stepped back, standing infront of him. "Sorry about that, are you okay?" After almost knocking him out with a door earlier in the day, she was genuinely concerned she'd done more damage to him.

(Sorry its a bit short, I'm stumped for things to type ._.)

He sees her trying to dust him off and tries to react as thankful, but he's a bit embarrassed and half flinches when she dusts him off a bit. "Yeah, I'm......fine." He slowly looks around with his eyes without moving his head, a slight flush on his cheeks though more died down than her's. He might be trying to focus on something other than what just happened.

"My house should be near here." He looks upward towards the steep ledge they tumbled down. "Or at least near there." He moves his head toward a large clearing, which is surprising with all the dense jungle and muck. As he starts to walk, he takes a look back at Destiny, then seemingly nervously looks back forward. The foliage that Destiny is now stepping seems less..overgrown and wild. Over a large bushel of brush, Destiny can see something pretty out of place; A home in a manually cleared clearing in the Everfree Forest. It's very strange to say a large area lit up without the trees in the way of the sun. It's an astonishing feeling to feel the sun after trekking through such a cold and dark place.

"Well, here's my home. Well, parents home mostly. Don't come here much anymore." says Ashen, along with a half open cheery smile, seems like he's doing it for more than one reason. Suddenly in the faint distance, is a voice coming from some other small housing beside the home, "Hey, I think I got it!" and it sounds make. "Connect this to here and-" Suddenly there's a loud 'boom' that comes from the inside, a large puff of smoke exiting when the front door seems to open. In the doorway is a stallion, aged adult, come out with a layer of soot and smoke on the front of his face and body. He coughs once with a puff of smoke exiting his mouth, holding up some small broken device and looking at it, a bit sad.

"Nevermind!"he yells towards the direction of the house, and glances over towards Destiny and Ashen's direction. "Ashen?" He asks out loud.

Ashen acknowledges him by waving and starts walking towards the house.

(His father's name is Tater, here's his drawing I have of him on my dA account. http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/328/9/8/looking_back_by_thesrd-d5lzkzt.png In this situation however he's not dressed in that outfit. )

As Destiny followed Ashen into the clearing, she flinched slightly at the sudden sight of the sun. The redness in her cheeks had faded. Standing next to Ashen meant he was blocking the sun slightly, so she stepped forward. She stretched her wings to full wing span, letting her self bask in the sun for a moment or two. Then she heard a voice shouting across towards them, and looked at the house in the middle of the clearing. She hadn't really taken notice in how large her wings were until she noticed Ashen looking towards her as she stretched them. As she pulled them neatly to her sides, they made a small noise on impact.

She looked at every aspect of the front of the house in detail. Taking in how...at home the pony looked in the doorway. The pony looked at home, but the house looked very odd in the middle of such a feared forest. She liked the idea of living in the forest, but decided she would probably annoy the resident ponies and wildlife, either that or they would make her too nervous and she'd have some sort of mental breakdown.

Looking at the pony in the doorway, she wondered about the rest of Ashen's family. Having guessed the adult pony was Ashen's father, Destiny began to get nervous. She walked slightly behind Ashen as they approached the house. As they reached the door step, she looked up at Ashen's father. Her nervousness had increased, so she was now standing a step or so behind Ashen. Keeping her distance without making it too noticable.

Her ears flopped forward, which she guessed might have been a weird sight to Ashen and his father, as most ponies couldn't bend their ears forward any more than straight upright, nevermind putting them fully down. She gave Ashen's father a small smile before looking down at her hooves, unsure of what to say or do.

(Sorry for the delay, was shopping for my gf's Christmas present, she's gonna love the diamond pendant I hope. Also have you seen the amount of views our rp is getting? Over 300 views is surprising to me. )

Ashen takes a step forward, questioning, "Uh dad, what's with the..." He gestures the soot over the front of Tater's body, hoping he'll finish the sentence off with an explanation.

Tater looks at his nose and shakes his head, taking a small amount of soot off of himself, smiling and happily explaining, "Oh, well I've been trying to make this!" He holds up the damaged and nearly broken device, looks like a metal box with a handle and button on the side, with a chute on one side and what looks like a targeting reticule angled on the corner. "A device that can fire a blunt weighted spike clear into the sky, attached to over a dozen strings and a deflated latex balloon." He holds it up to the sky and aims it upward towards a cloud explaining onward still with a smile on his face,

"I've been toying with an idea to predict some weather, since we don't have those pegasi in Ponyville to alter the weather. They're too afraid to fly above the treeline, you know." He puts on hoof on the lever and then presses the button, making a semi-loud jamming noise. He looks to it and frowns, his eyebrow aimed up, "But..unfortunately I haven't figured out how to prevent the strings from getting jammed in the cogs." He opens a small hatch on the top and looks inside, a bit more of soot puffing into his face, he looks to them with one of his eyes open.

"Heh, still needs a little tinkering."

Ashen shakes his head a little smiling, amused by his father, looking to Destiny and explaining, "Destiny, this is my father. Tater. Dad, this is Destiny, a friend I met in Ponyville. Is nice that he decided to use the word friend to describe her, Tater turns his attention to her.

"Didn't know ears could bend that way." He seems moderately interested, continuing on with a smile, "Well hello there, names Tater." He holds his hoof to shake and shakes it, glad to meet somepony else as it's a little obvious not many ponies come here. He accidentally gets a bit of soot on her hoof, and apologizes, "Sorry."

Suddenly there's a voice in the direction of the home calling out, "Oh no, I got it!" Suddenly a purple pony pops out from the doorway of the home, with a saddlebag with a medical cross on it, prancing over to the three. She reaches out into her saddlebag with a wipe and hands Destiny one, and then cleans the soot off of Tater's face, seeming like she's taking a closer look.

"You must be careful, you could get really hurt with these 'inventions' of your's hun." She moves his head to the side a bit, Tater a little surprised, but then followed my a warm smile. "Nonono, I'm fine Jade, it's just a little- ow." He flinches a bit and his left ear twitches. He lowers it and looks to the left, seeing she put a bandage on a small cut.

"Hmmph." She smiles with her eyes closed, knowing he was holding out on a tiny injury. She turns to Destiny, saying, "Hello dear, and who might you be?" She seems nice, and strangely sounds slightly regal like Rarity, though not as strong.

(Tater can fly, but he has bad memories with flying which is why he won't fly to set up a weather balloon himself. Don't think I'll explain it all, not relevant at the moment anyway. Jade's reference photo, just re-uploaded on my dA account. Her cutiemark is a medical white cross in a heart. http://thesrd.deviantart.com/art/Ignore-this-again-342306156 )

Destiny didn't really notice the soot on her hoof untill Tater apologized. Quickly wiping her hoof in the grass she gave Tater a faint smile. "Its f-fine, nice to m-meet you." She decided to stop talking there, not only for the fact that she was extremely nervous, but also the fact that her stuttering seemed to make most ponies dislike her.

Her head turned immediatly in the direction of the new voice as she heard somepony shouting. She kept her ears flopped forward as she watched this new pony -whom she had guessed was Ashen's mother- clean up Tater. The mare took great care when cleaning up Tater, Destiny guessed she was trained for this sort of thing. As the mare turned towards her, Destiny took a slight step back.

Ashen's mother seemed polite, this fact made Destiny loosen up slightly. "I'm Destiny." She was planning to say more, as Ashen's mother had asked who she was, not her name, but she didn't really know what else to say. She was simply Destiny.

(Sorry it took me so long to reply, been busy with homework and just general life problems. And yeah, so many views o_o Also, sorry its short ._.)

(Is fine if you were busy.)

"Jade Cloud, nice to meet you Destiny." Jade gives a glee smile to Destiny, happy to meet her. "You kind of remind me of a mare I knew in Canterlot, just a bit more..unique." She pays Destiny a compliment, in her own way. Ashen speaks out toward his mother, "Mom I got you what you asked me to get." He bumps the box upward and into the air, Jade catching it and replying with a thankful smile, "Aww, thanks hun. Good to see you took some time off work to help get something for me." Tater hangs back on saying anything, though still wanting to explain more of his inventions' uses, as he doesn't get to that often with his son in town almost all the time and his wife so against his 'dangerous' experiments. Ashen's ears prop up suddenly, his eyes going wider, remembering something.

"Wait." He says quietly to himself, slowly looking to the sky and to the position of the sun to check the time, thankful that the trees have been cleared from the area. "Darn it!" he says out loud to himself, catching the attention of the other three. His wings flare up suddenly, making a small gust of wind blow to the three as they unfold. He suddenly dashes up and zooms into the house and back out, stopping clear above them to explain quickly. The gust of quick air just blowing past them then quickly back. It's just a bit unusual how fast he went back and forth.

"I have to go remove a beehive from Twilight's tree, they keep stinging the filly's that play by the library. I completely forgot." He dashes clear off into the direction he and Destiny came from, weirdly not saying another word.

Both the parent's, and possibly Destiny's mane, are pulled towards that direction and ruffled. Jade says while trying to fix her mane, "Well that was..short lived." Tater says to the two, "I guess I'll get back to my duties. Well, hobby. Was nice meeting you Destiny." He gives a happy nod before slowly walking back to the little workshop by the house.

Jade looks towards her, finished on fixing her ruffled hair and says, "I'll walk you out of here, since he left in a hurry. Come on." She gestures to start heading in the same direction as she starts walking. She pulls back a bit of her mane and Destiny can see she has a horn under that thick mane and is a Unicorn. First it was unusual to see one pony living here, but to see a small family here is pretty strange. Especially since Jade, as sweet as she seems, is offering to guide her through the forest seemingly unhindered by what could possibly be skulking around or watching from the darkness.

(At this point it'd be good for Destiny to ask questions about them and/or Ashen, given her curiosity. )

Destiny was about to fly after Ashen, or just fly off somewhere else, but the sudden realisation of how weird it was for a family to be living in the Everfree grounded her. So many thoughts as to why they lived here reeled through her head at once, that she didn't really hear Tater's farewell. Get a hold of yourself Dest. She barely managed to calm the reel of thoughts enough to hear Jade's offer to walk her home, or rather order to walk her home.

As dumbstruck as she was, Destiny pushed all the thoughts in her head away, making sure she would never think of the worst possible reasons why they lived here ever again. She was sure there was a reasonable explination. Knowing she would get carried away on that subject though, her curiosity took over another subject. Ashen. The reasons why he happened to pop into her head at that moment were unknown to her, but she was sort of thankful for what she guessed would be an easier subject to start off with.

She let them walk quite a bit from the house in silence, her mind having a battle with itself on what to ask. As they walked she took in the scenery. It didn't look the same as before, either she was losing it, or they were walking on a different path. There was no cliff face, although she guessed by the slight up wards tint of the wind that it was to her right, and the bushes looked slightly greener. It may have been the fact that this path was lighter, or maybe they were different types of plants.

"So, uhm..."Think of something to ask about him!Annoyingly her mind settled on what she guessed was a rude thing to ask, but her mouth was quicker than her brain."If you d-don't mind me asking, w-why does Ashen always have b-bandages around his legs?" Damn you brain, damn you. She felt like it might be a private thing, and readied herself to fly off if Jade's emotions took a turn for the worse, although Jade seemed a little too nice to start acting agressive. Dest didn't like that her instinct always took over, she guessed she looked rude now, asking personal questions, readying her self to fly away...She decided she was probably going to change the subject quickly after Jade answered, that is, if Jade answered.

Jade stops dead in her tracks, the light smile on her face seems to instantly disappear. She looks ahead of her and slowly turns to Destiny, seemingly just angrily staring at her. Jade just seems to peer at her, her expression seeming all but asking, 'How dare you ask about that?'.

Suddenly Jade stands on both hind legs and in a quick moment swipes at Destiny, but not at her head, she wraps around Destiny's neck and pulls her to the ground. Jade quickly goes 'Umph!' as she lands on Destiny, she quickly turns her head to behind her and the action is soon followed by hissing. Something tried to leap at Destiny.

A komodo dragon looks at them both, quickly darting it's long and slimy tongue outward and quickly back in. Is a medium sized one, but still gigantic compared to either Jade or Destiny. As Destiny is about to react, with whatever reaction, Jade puts her hoor to her front and says, "Back." She nudges Destiny to the side and focuses clear on the gigantic lizard. Several thoughts are going through her head, such as the komodo dragon's mouth for one. She knows about them and very clearly remembers their saliva, riddled with nasty bacteria which can be lethal if some pony is bitten by it. Jade peers at the komodo dragon, slowly stepping to the side and closer, scanning it's interest.

The komodo dragon is eager to pounce on either one of them, but is drawn towards Jade, being closer. It flicks it's tongue, 'smelling' it's prey. It takes an awkward step forward, as such a gigantic lizard would do and looks ready to prey on her. It takes a charge and goes for her legs, with it's horrifyingly gaping mouth open.

Jade slowly closes her eyes seemingly relaxed, Destiny just watching as it looks like she has no chance whatsoever, and them both not being within calling distance of either Tater or Ashen.

Jade opens her eyes suddenly and a bubble of energy emits from her horn and encases around her, stunning the komodo dragon as it rams it's face into the bubble shield, rapidly stepping back and shaking his head, having bit his own tongue by mistake. Jade takes the opportunity to step back, slowly shaking her head, not being used to having to use her magic that much.

"J-Jeez." She feels her head, discomforted from having to make the shield withstand such a charge. The komodo dragon looks like it's regaining it's balance, and hisses out loud again.

(I apologize for the late reply.)