[Silver]

“I think this is it,” Midnight said, looking directly down at the map.

“Well doy,” Prism said, rolling her eyes.

They were standing in front of a huge tree, no doubt signaling that they had made it to the rainforest. It didn’t take her a map to see that. Midnight was always overly cautious, though.

“Now be nice,” Cider said, giving Prism an elbow to the side. They were going to have to go at this cooperatively to be successful, and she already didn’t want to listen to Prism’s sarcasm the whole way there.

[Silver]

“Wow these trees are pretty big, huh,” Sunrise said, looking up at the canopy. It seemed impossibly far away. She had grown up in the city, and found all of this wildness stuff rather unsettling.

“I could take you up there to take a look if you want,” Prism offered, floating over the top of Sunrise and grabbing her sides.

“N-no!” Sunrise shouted. “No, really, I’ll be fine, here, with my hooves on the ground.”

“If you insist,” Prism shrugged.

[Silver]

She genuinely thought she had made a good offer there. Who didn’t like flying? She loved it!

“One can only wonder what variety of horrible, poisonous snakes must be hiding in those leaves,” Inspire shuddered. She, too, was more of a city girl.

“Well,” Whisper said, touching her chin with her hoof. “In places like this, usually the snakes are not venomous, but instead they are large constrictors, preferring instead to squeeze their prey.”

“Oh that’s so much better,” Inspire said with a shiver. She didn’t even want to think about it.

[Silver]

“Oh I’m sure we won’t be strangled and eaten by a huge snake, that would be craaaaazy!” Maggie said with a giggle. No doubt whatever she was picturing was not too close to reality at all.

“Let’s focus,” Sunrise said, becoming annoyed by all of the chatter going on.

“What about that device they gave you, Midnight?” she asked.

“Here it is,” Midnight said, pulling it from her bag. She held it out so everypony could see. “He said we should put the crystal in here, then it will collect the magic.”

[Silver]

“Cooool,” Maggie said, poking the device a few times.

“How d’ya think it works?” Cider asked, tilting her head to see it from a different angle.

“I’m not sure,” Midnight said. “It is not emanating any magical energy, and it is unlike anything I have seen before. I guess we just have to test it and see.”

“Well, here goes nothing,” Sunrise said. She pulled an empty crystal from her bag and carefully lined it up with the device.

[Silver]

She pressed it into place, then automatically flinched as if she expected it to explode or something.

“Well, I guess it works, then…” Whisper said quietly, though nobody else had come up with anything to say.

“Now what?” Prism asked. She was already getting bored. This adventure better become exciting quickly, because she didn’t want to be this bored forever.

“He said we should explore the rainforest, and that the crystal would collect the magic, and I guess… activate the device?” Sunrise said, inspecting the device and poking it a bit.

[Silver]

“Did anyone, uh, actually understand what he was tryin’ta say?” Cider asked. She definitely didn’t understand magic that well, but she always assumed Midnight and Sunrise had it. She had faith in her friends.

“Yes yes of course, you just click it in here, and woo, the magic all goes inside,” Midnight said with a sheepish laugh. Prism raised an eyebrow but nobody jumped in to correct her. They were just going to have to see what happened.

[Silver]

“Well, what’re we waitin’ for?” Maggie asked. She bounced into the brush and disappeared behind a large fern. Prism flew off after her, and the rest of the lot followed in line.

“Hey, do you think… do you think it might be dangerous?” Sunrise asked Midnight in a low whisper.

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. I think he really does just want us to collect the magic. I am still trying to figure out how it works, but without seeing it in action, I don’t think I can do anything else.”

[Silver]

“That’s reassuring,” Sunrise said with a sigh. Then she caught herself and backpedaled. “No, I mean, it’s just… it’s a little concerning that we can’t know without trying. I don’t… it’s not your fault or anything, I mean.”

“It’s going to be okay, Sunny,” Midnight said softly. “Everyone is here, and we’ll work together through whatever happens.”

Sunrise nodded, but she didn’t know if she believed it fully. She hadn’t been as close with everyone as Midnight was.

[Silver]

She still felt like an outsider, and they had done so much without her. It was hard to believe they would have her back if the going got tough.

“Don’t frown so much,” Inspire said, walking up beside Sunrise. She didn’t know what they were whispering about, but she wanted to cheer her up. “You’ll get wrinkles if you do that,” she laughed.

“Oh yea, because everyone is so concerned about wrinkles,” Cider chimed in, rolling her eyes. She had been doing a lot of that today.

[Silver]

“Don’t be like that, Cider,” Inspire chided. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Would you look at that,” Whisper said from behind them. They all turned around to see what she was looking at. “It’s a bird-eating spider. They call them that because…”

But she didn’t get to finish what she was saying. Inspire screeched so loud that everypony had to cover their ears at once. She jumped up and landed on Cider’s back, trembling and staring at the ground.

[Silver]

“Bird-eating. Bird-eating!?” she screeched. “There’s no way I going back down there with the bird eating spiders! How big must a spider be to eat a bird!?”

“Oh that’s good news, actually,” Whisper said. “Because they don’t live on the ground, they actually live in trees.”

Whisper’s bright blue eyes turned upwards and she looked up into the tree. There was one of the spiders they were talking about up there, spinning a large web and minding its own business. She smiled, and made a mental note to jot it down in her notebook later.

[Silver]

“Eeek!” Inspire squeaked again, this time diving onto the ground and hiding underneath Cider. Cider, of course, simply rolled her eyes. They were going to roll right out of her head at this point.

“Get it together, Inspire,” Cider said firmly. “Ya knew that forest would be full of creepy crawlies, didn’t ya? It’s not a palace!”

“I would much rather we had to gather magic in a palace, wouldn’t that be lovely?” Inspire said, still shaking a bit.

“As nice as that would be,” Cider said, “It ain’t what’s happenin’ so let’s get on with it.”

[Silver]

“Alright then,” Inspire said with a sigh.

“It’ll be okay, Inspire,” Maggie said. “You’re still a lot bigger than a bird.”

Maggie laughed and hopped forward to the head of the group. She continued to bounce around through the leaves with a huge grin on her face. This was actually kind of exciting!

The girls were quiet for a while, each one of them considering what was happening in their own heads. Prism wondered how long it would be before they could go back home and take a nap, Whisper kept stopping briefly to look at strange creatures she thought she saw, Maggie was just happy to be there, and Cider was trying to keep everyone else’s spirits up.

[Silver]

Midnight and Sunrise continued to pass the device back and forth, each one of them looking at it and how it changed (or more likely didn’t) as they headed into the heart of the rainforest.

“Do you think it’ll do something cool when it’s all filled up?” Maggie said, jumping in behind Sunrise.

“Aah!” Sunrise said, nearly dropping the device in surprise.

“Oh, sorry,” Maggie said.

“It’s… alright, I’m just trying to concentrate.”

“Hey why do we all need to be here, anyway?” Prism asked. She wasn’t actually doing anything.

“It could be dangerous,” Midnight said. “I just… feel safer with all of you here.”

“Aww,” Whisper said, leaning her head into Inspire standing at her side.

Inspire couldn’t help but to smile as well. She did like to feel like she was helping, even if she didn’t know how. She would be there for her friends, no matter what, even if there were huge spiders wandering around.

[Crystal Synthesis Complete]