Astray Antagonism: Chapter 1

“Owwwwwwwwwwwww,” Scoootaloo groaned loudly as consciousness returned to her. Since the train car fell off the cliff it also fell to it’s right side throwing all the ponies to the right wall, which was now where all four ponies lied. The teenage pegasus filly was now squishing Rumble, with her back on his stomach, while Diamond Tiara and Featherweight were still side by side.

“Scootaloo…can…you…get…off…of…me,” Rumble grunted.

“Sorry,” Scootaloo said as she rolled off him and flopped to the floor.

Rumble shakily got up on his hooves. He spread his wings and shook them off when he got up. After shaking all the dust off him he looked around at the place. He noticed both his saddlebags somewhere to his right and walked over to pick them up. After picking them up he looked at the three ponies still lying on the ground.

“Is everypony ok?” Rumble asked. “I brought a first aid kit if anypony needs it.”

“As ok as possible,” Scootaloo answered as she finally got up. She saw her saddlebag within reaching distance of her mouth so she grabbed them and placed them on her side

Diamond Tiara groaned, opened her eyes, and got to her hooves. Featherweight also got up with her. “I…guess I’m ok,” Diamond Tiara said. Realization hit her as she looked up at her head. “My tiara!” she whined.

“Is your stupid tiara really that important right now?” Scootaloo asked.

But despite Scootaloo’s words Featherweight found Diamond Tiara’s tiara and returned it to her. “Thanks Featherweight,” Diamond Tiara said as he gave him a quick smooch, causing him to blush.

At first Scootaloo groaned but then she realized something of her own. She reached up to her right ear to make sure her broach was still there. Touching the metallic object she breathed a sigh of relief, but those actions were not lost on Diamond Tiara.

“Is your stupid broach really that important right now?” Diamond Tiara echoed.

“H-hey,” Scootaloo stuttered. “This was a gift from Rumble. That he got for me with his hard earned money. Unlike you, he didn’t get his daddy to buy it for him.”

Rumble and Featherweight both facehoofed at their fillyfriends behavior. “Anyways,” Rumble said. “It looks like we’re all fine. And luckily the windows didn’t shatter at all. That’s pretty good, ‘cause otherwise we’d be swimming in glass and probably much worse off.”

“The glasses for the windows here were made by unicorns that specifically made it so it wouldn’t break easily,” Diamond Tiara explained. “To break them you have to do a special trick, otherwise they’re impervious.”

Everypony except for Featherweight looked at Diamond Tiara with surprise. “I’m going to inherit my father’s company someday,” Diamond Tiara explained herself. “I have to know these kinds of things.”

“So the legendary Smart Diamond Tiara is true then,” Rumble joked.

Diamond Tiara, Featherweight, and even Scootaloo gave him a questioning look. “It’s…just a joke that’s been running around the ponies my grade,” Rumble explained himself, while looking away in embarrassment. “Just…never mind.”

Rumble walked over to the door, which was now a couple of feet in the air, and flew up to take a good look outside. After seeing all he needed to see he turned around and jumped back down to tell the rest of them what he saw.

“Alright, from the looks of things one of the chairs fell out of the car,” Rumble said. “I’ll fly out and push it closer to the door so the rest of you have a soft landing when you jump out.”

“You sure about that?” Diamond Tiara asked.

“Just so long as you can jump it,” Rumble answered.

To show his point Rumble jumped out of the train car in one leap with a smile on his face as he was jumping. Scootaloo rolled her eyes but followed suit a few seconds after giving Rumble enough time to get the couch in position. Diamond Tiara and Featherweight both jumped out of the car at the same time, Diamond Tiara actually jumping while Featherweight was fluttering up and down.

Outside they noticed the train was lying parallel to a large cliff face that went high into the sky. It seemed that the train continued on for a while after falling down because the edges of the cliff face weren’t visible to any of the ponies. Beyond that it was a flat plain of grass that stretched for everywhere else they could see.

“Great, there’s a whole lot of nothing around here,” Scootaloo said.

“I’ll head into the sky and see what I can find,” Rumble said. “You guys wait here so I can figure out where to land.” He spread his wings and flew into the sky.

The three of them waited somewhat patiently down below for Rumble to return, Scootaloo and Diamond Tiara curbing all impulses to bicker with each other. After a few minutes Rumble flew down in front of the three ponies. Once down there he stretched his wings before placing them in a resting position once again.

“So what have you got?” Scootaloo asked.

“We were really lucky,” Rumble said. “That cliff is really high. And at the top of it’s a dense forest. If the train derailed any farther along the track it would have ended up in the forest and we would have been smashed to bits and our fall off would have been a lot worse.”

“I’m amazed we survived anyways,” Scootaloo mentioned. “If we fell down from that high up how the heck are we still talking about it?”

“Because we didn’t fall from that high up,” Rumble answered. He turned around and pointed parallel to the cliff in the south direction. “There was a much smaller cliff face over that way that we fell down on. Once again, if we got thrown off anywhere else we probably wouldn’t have survived. We were really dang lucky if you ask me.”

“That’s comforting,” Diamond Tiara said.

“Anyways, we need to figure out what we’re going to do,” Rumble said. “Staying here isn’t really a good idea. The cliff face sort of blocks anypony from seeing us from the air. When I flew over to take a look I couldn’t see you guys or the train car at all.”

“See anything that could help?” Scootaloo asked. “Like a town or something?”

Rumble shook his head. “Nope. I didn’t see any town. I did see the railroad tracks though. Way I see it, we’ve got two options here.” Rumble pointed in the opposite direction of the cliff. “We could try heading that way and hope that maybe they’ll see us better and find us if they send a search team. Or…” the teenage pegasus colt turned around and pointed up the cliff. “We could try heading around and see if we can find a way back up this cliff and to the train tracks. Problem is though, it’d be best to walk along the cliff side for a while and if they do send a party to search for us they wouldn’t see us at all.”

Featherweight sat down and motioned with his hooves. “So the question is whether anypony will be searching for us or not,” Diamond Tiara translated for him.

“We’re not expected back for the next few days,” Rumble said. “We weren’t going to stay the entire time but we were spending a few days at the festival.”

“No pony’s going to be searching for us anytime soon either,” Diamond Tiara said. “We were expected to be there for the entire Crystal Fair. Daddy won’t send anypony to look for us for a week.”

“Well then, I guess we should head back up the cliff and see if we can get back to the Crystal Empire,” Rumble said as he looked up the cliff. “Might take a couple of days though.”

“Do we have enough supplies for a couple of days?” Diamond Tiara translated Featherweight’s question. “I know we only bought food for the train ride and that’s it. We were planning on getting most of our food there.”

“You’re going to have to get used to energy bars but yeah, I brought some extra supplies,” Rumble said. “I don’t care whether I have a job now or not, there is no way I’m going to buy the fair’s food. Way too expensive for me.”

“And I’m sure Scootaloo’s too cheap to buy you anything even though she’s adopted by two Wonderbolts,” Diamond Tiara grumbled, looking directly at Scootaloo.

“Or maybe I just don’t want to use my parent’s money like it’s mine,” Scootaloo responded. “I’d rather use money I actually earned. You know, like a normal pony would. Unlike you, I don’t let having rich parents go to my head.”

“This is going to be common between these two isn’t it,” Rumble mumbled softly so that he couldn’t be heard.

“Anyways, we should get moving,” Rumble said as he walked along the edge of the cliff and motioned for them to follow him.  “The sooner we start traveling the faster we can get some help.” Everypony began following him.

“What are we going to do for nights?” Diamond Tiara asked. “If it’ll take a couple of days we’re going to run into the night aren’t we?”

“We could walk through the night but I think it’d be better if we just sleep it through,” Rumble said with a smile on his face. “That way we can conserve our energy for when we start walking the next day.”

Diamond Tiara stopped cold in her tracks. “Sleep? You mean, on the ground?” the teenage earth pony filly asked.

“Yes, on the ground,” Scootaloo responded without stopping her march. “Unless you can somehow find a bed in the middle of nowhere.”

“But…I can’t sleep on the ground!” Diamond Tiara whined.

“Just think of it as camping or something. You know, roughing it.” Scootaloo finally stopped and looked back at Diamond Tiara. “Or have you never been camping before?”

“…No I haven’t,” Diamond Tiara admitted.

Scootaloo turned forward and walked forward again. “Pfft, I feel sorry for you,” she said. “Never been camping before. Camping is awesome.”

“Well then consider this your first advent in camping,” Rumble said cheerfully. "Don't worry, I go camping with my family all the time, so I'll lead you though it."

“But what about the tents? The sleeping bags? The blankets?”

“It’s more natural this way,” Rumble said. “It’s just like how ponies used to sleep.”

“You guys almost sound like you’re happy this happened,” Diamond Tiara groaned.

“Yes Diamond Tiara,” Scootaloo said with dripping sarcasm. “We’re completely happy that we’re lost in the middle of nowhere with limited supplies and nopony to notice we’re gone. Just ecstatic.” Scootaloo shook her head. “We’re just trying not to bum ourselves out. Some of us would actually not want to be depressed.”

“You could have said that so much better,” Rumble mumbled under his breath after rolling his eyes.

Featherweight walked up to Diamond Tiara’s side and placed a wing over her for comfort, as if to say “everything will be alright,” and “I’m here for you.” Diamond Tiara took a deep breath at her coltfriend’s sign of comfort. “Thanks for that Featherweight,” Diamond Tiara said softly to him. “I really needed that.”

“Well crew, let’s head off!” Rumble announced as he went from walking to running.

“Running?” Diamond Tiara asked. Scootaloo also jumped off and started running after him. “H-hey you guys, don’t leave us behind!”

Diamond Tiara and Featherweight both pushed off to run after the two pegasi already running ahead.