Starlight

Chapter 6- Twigs and Branches

Starlight and Sunny had been traveling the remainder of the day along the road. Recently, instead of housing, a dim forest had appeared on their right. To their left, vegetables and fruit trees were ordered in rows. Tall fences prevented entrance. Starlight checked the time. "It's getting pretty late, we should probably stop soon." Sunny looked up from staring at the ground, where she had been counting heart shaped rocks. Currently she was at 27. "How about up there? It looks green, and maybe flat." Compared to the rutted dirt road they had traveled for hours on, some place grassy and flat sounded heavenly. Starlight squinted. "I have no idea how you can see that far, but it sounds wonderful." Sunny nodded in agreement.

Finally, they reached the spot Sunny had pointed out. The dense forest usually stuck close to the road, but here, it relented a bit. Tree stumps were littered about, revealing the place was once cleared for firewood. Sunny immediately threw off her flats and flopped down on the grass. It was so soft... Starlight tried to hide a giggle. "What?" Sunny asked. "You've got antlers!" Sunny felt around in her hair and noticed there were twigs stuck in it. They were sticking out at odd angles, which did in fact, resemble antlers. Sunny now looked mischievous. "You do too!" Sunny quickly stuck twigs in Starlight's dark hair. After staring at each other for a moment, Starlight processing what had happened, and Sunny trying to keep a straight face, they burst out laughing. Once they pulled the twigs (and leaves, in Sunny's case) out of their hair, Starlight and Sunny started setting up Spring Camp.

Nick had seen Starlight stop a while ago, so he had been walking around on the side of the road, searching for a place to strike camp. He just needed someplace flat, with two spaced trees... After a while, Nick tired of searching, and decided to just use branches instead of trees. The forest was too dense, and it was just flat out creepy. Oh well, sleeping next to the road couldn't be too bad, could it? After stabbing 2 branches into the ground, he tied a rope to the top of one, then to the other, pulling it taut. Then, he threw his tarp over the rope, and secured the corners with rocks. "Eh, not too bad. How does dinner sound?" Misty looked up, expecting carrots. "Don't you eat grass?" Misty glared at Nick, then pointed a hoof towards the sparse grass along the road. "Alright alright, here's your carrots." Nick sat down in his tent, opened his backpack, and pulled out a bunch of carrots. "Here you go." He said, tossing them on the ground. Misty munched on them hungrily, while Nick broke off half his bread, which he later realized was stale. After dinner, Nick pulled out a blanket and fell asleep on the hard ground.

After Spring Camp was up, the blankets laid out, and the fire started, Starlight rummaged in her backpack to find something to eat. She hadn't exactly brought many dinner-appropriate foods, but eventually she found a fresh loaf of bread. But there wasn't any jam, and personally, Starlight believed that was the only and mandatory thing that had to go on bread. "Sunny, did you pack any jam?" Sunny looked around inside her backpack. "Roll of bandages, butter, a fork, wait, two forks, never mind, three forks, hair pin, three metal bowls, hairbrush, egg noodles, salt shaker, a bottle of powder labeled "Dust Cloud (Throw to Activate)"? Umm, you know what, I have no idea what your mom packed, but I'm not seeing any jam. Wait! Maybe she packed a magic wand!" Starlight eyes had widened with every odd object her mother had packed. Wait, what were they even looking for in the first place? Oh right. Hmm, there were always blackberries around this time of year, maybe there were some in the weird looking forest. After only walking a few steps into the forest, she spotted a bush full of them. Once she picked a good amount, she placed them in one of Sunny's bowls and mashed them up with a fork. Finally, blackberry jam! When the bread was done toasting over the fire via sticks, Sunny spread the jam on them. "Mmm, this is good Starlight! I should suggest this to our cook! One gets tired of gourmet after a while." Sunny complimented before taking another bite. After eating, Sunny noticed dark clouds in the sky. "It looks like rain. Should we take our things in the tent?" Starlight nodded, and they brought everything inside. The rain started soon after, and they fell asleep to it peacefully dripping on the tent.

Nick awoke to something dripping on his face. He opened his eyes to see rain blowing in his tent. Well, it would probably stop soon, so he just pulled the blanket over his head. Suddenly, thunder crashed, clouds thickened over the sun, and the rain went from a drizzle, to bucketfuls. In the next few minutes, the downpour filled the ruts in the road, till they overflowed in rivers straight towards Nick's tent. "Agh, no!" He frantically picked up his backpack, trying to keep it dry, but it was already too late. Now his blanket was getting wet too, and he jumped up. But he forgot how short his tent was, and ended up collapsing it on himself. Wonderful.

Starlight awoke to the birds chirping a happy tune. Sunlight filtered through the tan walls of the tent, and when she unzipped the tent door, the smell of fresh rain wafted in. The wet grass twinkled in the sun. After Sunny awoke, she changed into a peach dress with a pale pink jacket, while Starlight changed back into her ombre blue purple dress. For breakfast, Starlight brought out apple turnovers, and Sunny took out butter. As Starlight bit into her apple turnover, it reminded her of home. She missed home, tweaking inventions, trying new pastries... But now she was trying to find a mysterious crown to save the kingdom. And to think that was all only a few hours ago. After breakfast, Starlight rolled out the map. "Hmm. After we travel down this road a bit, we have to cross through the..." Starlight leaned in closer to see the small handwriting. "CanisLupus Forest. Huh, that's odd. If I remember correctly from my Guide to Galactia's Native Wildlife, that's the scientific name for a wolf." "Wait, you think there's wolves there?" Sunny asked fearfully. "I hope not, but at the same time, I'm not sure." Sunny smiled. "Well, we won't find out if we never go in!" After packing up Spring camp, they set out down the road.

After not getting any sleep since the downpour, Nick tiredly crawled out from under the tarp, which was barely supported by the rope. He had fixed it during the "night", but it had sagged because the rope had become slick from rain. He was soaking wet, from head to toe. Mud streaked his originally white and gold uniform, and was also stuck in his tangled hair. At least the sun was warming him up a bit. He dragged his backpack out onto the wet ground. Looking inside, he discovered almost everything was just as soaked as he was. His extra clothes, handcuffs, bread, the list went on. The only thing untouched by the rain was his canteen, which was on top. Great job rain, a waterproof item. Pulling out his bread from the bottom, he realized it was not only wet and stale, but also muddy. Yeah, he might have been hungry that morning, but not that hungry. After throwing it into the forest, he hung his spare clothes out to dry on a tree branch. As he was hanging up his wet socks, he saw Sunny and Starlight, riding away! Nick facepalmed. "How does this happen again?!" Nick grumbled, annoyed with himself. After packing up his wet belongings as fast as he could, he jumped onto Misty, and rode after them.