Hunting Hope 11

>Her muscles still ached painfully, Hope confirmed as she slowly woke.

Ugh. That had been a terrible night.

>She rested under her blankets, eyes still shut against the light that endeavoured to force its way through.

>Hope pushed resentfully against her consciousness, turning her head away from the light and keeping her eyes squeezed tight.

>She was safe now. In the wilderness where nopony would come to find her, and kept safe by some guardian who, upon seeing her awake, would certainly have questions.

Better to stay asleep.

>"Unless," a snarky unsettling voice inside her head silently whispered, "the reason you can't hear any sound right now is because your savior has left you, and is running to the authorities at this very moment."

Thanks, subconscious.

>Hope's eyes snapped open, and immediately noticed that something was, in fact, amiss.

Well, shit.

>The sky was purple, sparkly, and distorted as if seen through thick curved glass.

>Hope launched herself onto her hooves, pains and soreness forgotten in an instant of adrenaline-fueled terror.

>She whipped her head around as she drew in the nature of the situation, fuzzy ears alert and swivelling as well.

>The campsite was mostly unchanged, although it looked very different in the light of the unnatural twilight that the feeble sun overhead failed to penetrate.

>In fact, the entire camp was enclosed in a semi-spherical bubble of violet magic, pulsing with a slow rhythm.

>A gust of wind heralded the arrival of a wild tumbleweed, which bounced off the shield with a ping.

So it was solid.

>Comfortingly, the gust of wind passed through, ruffling Hope's hair and causing the pipes dangling from her neck to hum dejectedly.

Well, at least that's one thing I don't have to worry about.

>As her thoughts of immediate escape faded from her animal mind, Hope's exhaustion struck her again and she collapsed back onto her blanket, now facing the embers of a burnt-out fire.

>Another gust of wind whistled through Hope's hair and pipes, producing a pure, quiet note as Hope stared frustratedly at the empty clearing opposite the firepit.

>A pair of enormous eyes wavered into focus as she stared, observant but otherwise expressionless.

>"Aaakg!" exclaimed Hope, floundering backwards as her hands scrabbled in the dirt for a weapon and her hooves tingled in preparation for an attack.

>The yellow-rimmed eyes recoiled as well, but didn't even blink as they continued to stare openly at Hope.

>Hope shook her head and stared incredulously, before finally blinking away the last scraps of heat-borne insanity and seeing quite clearly a pegasus pony with a delicate pink mane, and behind her five others.

Odd that she hadn't seen them before.

>Then recognition struck her, as the names of the six ponies flashed at her from countless memories.

>Rainbow Dash; who had slain the Windigo lord singlehoofedly, lay snoring back to back with the notorious Pinkie Pie; a trickster on par with the mythological Pan.

>Next to the slumbering heroes, another three legends sat, quietly conversing without even a sideways glance towards Hope.

>Their conversation was too muffled to make out clearly, but the ponies were in plain view, and Hope instantly recognized the most famous of the bunch.

>Twilight Sparkle appeared deeply engrossed in a small pile of books, and was without a doubt the caster of the spell which held them all shielded within the small camp.

Or imprisoned.

>The goddess among ponies was being engaged in conversation half-heartedly by two other ponies, one the famous fashion designer Rarity, the other the legendarily humble Applejack.

>Finally, Hope looked back down towards the closest pony.

>Tallest of the group with her head as high as Hope's belly button, Fluttershy also had the fewest impossible achievements to her name.

>Fluttershy continued to stare Hope dead in the eyes without so much as a sound.

>Suddenly, a flash of recognition flashed through her eyes and she called out without breaking eye contact, voice muffled but now audible to Hope's alert ears.

>"Twilight? She's awake... and I think she's noticed us"

 

Since this is Hope's half of this small stretch of time, and I won't be writing the Six's side right now, there is a clarification that I probably have to hamfistedly make about this segment.

There are two fields around the ponies.

The outer one is physical, purple, and keeps Hope contained.

The inner one is not and keeps the ponies invisible and inaudible, but seems to be failing at a rather inopportune moment.

 

More later, and I really am sorry for the cliffhanger. Finally, I've changed around my method of spacing while writing.

This means the pacing is more unified over a similar number of lines, but as a downside the break between the two or three posts that it'll take to put it all up doesn't synch up with the natural breaks in the story.

Hopefully the advantages of the increased level of detail and description balance out the slower pace of actual plot progression.

I'll continue to work the balance between the two with some regard to your responses; more detail makes for a more nicely told story, but as a trade-off fewer things happen per update, which means that it'll be that much longer before key plot developments actually occur.