Title:           Anon and Amber Eyes 10: In Media Res
Author:          Speaker-to-Birds
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/kNTi2rhS
First Edit:      Saturday 24th of September 2016 05:54:14 AM CDT
Last Edit:       Saturday 24th of September 2016 05:54:14 AM CDT

>"Anon please please please wake up.  Oh bright lady, please wake up..."  
>Someone is shaking you.
>"Go 'way."  you slurr out.  You clumsily swat at the source of the shaking and hit only air.  
>Everything is nice and warm here.  You're lying on something really soft and warm.  It's nice here.  
>It's still shaking you. Why won't it leave you alone?
>"Fug 'ou," you mumble.  Hard to move your mouth for some reason.  You swat at the voice again.  
>"DAMMIT, ANON!  YOU HAVE TO GET UP!  GET UP!"
>Suddenly you feel teeth clamp on your ear.  HARD.  
>"YAAAAAAAAAAAH!"  
>And you jerk completely awake, if not alert.  You're still disorientated, but at least you're nominally conscious.
>You immediately close your eyes against the glare.  "Ahhhhhgggh..." Your head is pounding. AND spinning. Your skin feels like it's on fire, and yet you're freezing.
>Memories of a hundred drunken hangovers spin through your head.  "Ah goddddd..." you moan.  The spinning becomes too much.  You turn your head aside and puke long and hard.
>Salt water.  Oh god, so much salt water.  
>You feel like you're vomiting up your toenails, like your insides are trying desperately to come out to play.  You clutch your midsection miserably as you heave, the taste of salt and copper pennies and old, stale water flooding your mouth and throat.    
>After an eternity, the retching finally ends.
>You finally open your watering, stinging eyes, and fight the urge to slam the shut again.  
>You're lying on your stomach on a blinding-white sandy beach beneath a thunderingly empty blue sky.  Only a few yards away, ocean waves are running up the beach.  
>The sun is blistering, but the wind coming off the dunes ahead of you is incredibly dry, and you're soaked to the skin. And the water is ice-fucking-cold. There's debris, washing up on the beach in each wave.
>There's a small, grey and brown bird pony mare sitting in front of you, her exhausted, bloodshot eyes full of honest fear.  Belatedly, you realize that that fear is for YOU, and that the reason--part of the reason--her eyes are so red is because she's been crying.  Blearily, you stare at her.
>"Amber?"
>Without warning, she throws herself at you, hugging you in so tight you can barely breathe.  "Oh Luna, I was so scared," she said, her voice full of tears of relief.  
>"Whoah," you say, hugging her back.  "Just...ouch, careful there. Something's kinda sore in there and you're a little stronger than me anyway..."  Instantly she lets up a bit
>"Sorry," she says.  "I--I had to get some of the water out. You weren't breathing when I got you to shore, and I had to sort of breathe for you for a little while there..."
>Your chest is unfathomably sore, and it feels like you've been beaten by several very large ponies with very very large clubs.  Or used as a punching bag by Applejack.
>Your shirt is ripped.  You pull it open and see that your chest is covered with huge, dark spreading bruises.  "Before we left, Starlight made sure that I knew how to do it on a human...rescue breathing, I mean..."  She pauses.  "I couldn't find a heartbeat either at first.  So I did chest compressions..."
>Which probably explains why you feel like you've got some cracked ribs now.  
>You look around, trying to shed your disorientation.  You try to recall exactly what happened.  You feel as if the memory is just barely out of reach
>"How the hell did we get here?  Wherever here is?"
>She studies you closely.  "You--you really don't remember?"  You shake your head in confusion.  You feel so slow-witted.
>"What's the last thing you remember?"  
>You remember
>...the Red Sun flock breaking down their tent-city, you marveling at how little space and mass the tents actually took up, organized chaos (you remember making that wry observation, only to have Discord pop into existence next to you, shaking his head sternly, before winking at you and disappearing, leaving you both with peppermint milkshakes and Ball State hats with wings on them).  
>You remember the pair of airships.  Luxor-class. Christ the things were huge. You don't remember boarding them. There's a big [DISCONTINUITY] in your memory there.  
>And then you remember fire, and Aloe and Lotus standing back to back on their hind legs in the middle of the primary deck, throwing punches at armed ponies and minotaurs in black armor.  And there's a [DISCONTINUITY].
>You remember falling through an infinite expanse of blue.  And then waking up on the beach here.
>"I'm...having trouble remembering anything," you say, slowly.  You look around, hugging yourself. Your head is killing you. Your right arm is itching, and you glance down at it. You've been unconsciously scratching at it since you awakened.
>the intricate scar-pattern where the Az'k'za had burned its way into your skin is sparking fitfully with red and blue light. You extend your arm, and see faint, glowing lines of red and blow sporadically illuminating your arm and hand down to your fingertips.  
>Amber looks at it with you, a look of wonder in her eyes, and not a little bit of...fear?
>You want to start asking questions, figure out exactly what happened to lead you here, but then you realize you have other priorities. Exactly HOW you got here is going to have to wait--you have to know where you are, and what you're going to do, because you're in the middle of unknown territory with no shelter, food, or supplies. "Where are we?" you ask. "Any idea?"  
>"Yeah.  We're on the west coast of Zebrica. I think," she says.  "I can tell north and south.  I don't have to see the sun for that," she says.  I'm not exactly sure where we are, it's not a place I've ever flown over."
>"You guys used to migrate here by wingpower every year," you say.  "How is it you don't know where we are?"  Your voice comes out a little sharper than you intended; you mentally wince when she cringes just a bit.
>"This may be a little hard to explain, but we don't actually HAVE to know where we're going," she says.  "After the flock picks a flight leader, and when the sun and stars are right, they just...know.  The rest of us follow the flight leaders.  But we all know where we're going, more or less.  
>Just like I know the direction to Red Sun Aerie, basically.  It's north and east of where we are.  But I don't know exactly how far we are from there.  All I know is that we're way, way off course..."  she looks at you earnestly.  "And I don't know exactly where we're at--but if we're anywhere near where I think we MIGHT be, we really want to get out of here as fast as we can."
>"Where do you think we MIGHT be?" you ask.
>"Right between the Minow Southern Reach and Northern Marwari. We...had to detour south because of a cyclone. We cut close to Minotaur waters and an airship picket picked us up and boarded. Illegally. There were others with them. You REALLY don't remember?"  She looks at you curiously.
>You shake your pounding head.  Carefully.  "No.  I just...did they survive it?"  
>She nods, biting her lip.  "Yeah.  Just about everyone got through it.  I think.  Thanks to you."  She looks past you, her face full of worry, before you can ask anything else.  "I think we need to get inland.  Away from the ocean," she says.  She points toward the sea with a hoof, and you turn around and look in the indicated direction
>You've gotten used to how sharp your eyes have become, even if right now, you're having trouble with the bright sunlight.  You see, far out near the horizon, a trio of airships and two surface ships moving in what you think is your general direction.
>"I don't suppose those are friendlies--" you say.  And stop, when you finally, barely, make out the symbol of the Minow Empire on one of the ships.  Two of them seem to be deploying what look like gliders or some sort of fixed-wing plane.  
>You've met minotaurs in Equestria.  Most of them were decent folks, if a little intense and standoffish.  Most Equestrian minotaur expats were refugees seeking asylum.  Pinochet and their king would have gotten along famously.
>You'd heard some of them talk about the events that lead them to leave Minow and take up residence elsewhere, and while you'd been interested in seeing it firsthand, you didn't think these guys were interested in giving you a tour of the place. At least not any places you think you'd want to see.  
 
>So, uh, Any ideas up there, Brainnon?
>LEL NOPE
>Well, that was a dry hole, wasn't it?  
>"Then I guess we'd better get out of here," you say.  "Because whatever the hell these asshats want with us, they're willing to kill for it.  And that makes me fundamentally opposed to giving them what they want just on general principles alone. So...our first priority is to get way from the beach.  I guess..."
>Farther up, there are high dunes and rocks.  Slogging up those is going to be a stone bitch.  Amber recognizes your look instantly.  "Hold on, let me take a look.  I didn't have time to scout around before--I was a little busy with--with you..."  She flutters off, and returns just a minute later.  
>"What looks like a path, a few hundred yards north of us.  I didn't see anypony--anyONE else up there other than some flects."
>You start walking.  You really DO feel as if you've been beaten senseless.  Every muscle is stiff and aching, and you're getting incredibly thirsty.  You're sick to your stomach. All you want to do is lie down and go back to sleep. You force yourself to think instead.  You're going to need water, shelter and fire, and you're going to need them soon.  Food is a secondary priority.  You can go without for little while.  
>Amber is fluttering along beside you.  "Flects?"
>She points ahead of you.
>You see the tiny iridescent glints ahead of you.  You look more closely, and you see that each of them is actually a tiny, brightly-colored, reflective triangular wing, angled to catch the sunlight.  One of them flutters up and zooms toward you, stopping in front of your face.  You jerk back
>You'd expected something like an insect, but instead, a gold-colored, surprisingly pony-ish face looks back at you, less than half an inch in size.   It blinks its huge, liquid eyes in fascination and flies a complete circle around you, studying you from all angles.  A pair of quivering antennae poke out through its tiny yellow mane.
>"It's okay, they're harmless," she says.
>It continues to fly circles around both you and Amber, examining you both in detail, before it chitters something  completely unintelligble. Amber chitters back at it.
>"You can understand it?"
>"Yeah, kind of," she says.  "They speak a kind of pidgin.  She asked what you were.  I told her you were something like a chimp.  They're not, really, uh...sophisticated.  I asked her if there was fresh water around here.  She thinks she remembers seeing a river once when she was a nymph, a little north of here.  But she doesn't remember for sure.  She's spent most of her whole life here and her memory isn't that good."
>"How long do they live?" you ask, curious.  
>"About a year."  
>The little creature flies up to your hair and sniffs.  After a second, she recoils with a tiny noise of disgust.  Well fuck you too, runt, showers are kind of hard to come by out here in the sticks.
>Presently, she zooms back to the rest of her--flock? herd?--her curiosity apparently satisfied.  Or maybe she just forgot about you.  
>In spite of your situation, you find yourself fascinated by them. They're grouped on the beach, each of them an almost fixed distance from each other, their wings angled to catch the rays of the sun just so.  As each wave comes in, they skitter back from it, and then race back when the wave retreats, at all times staying exactly the same distance from one other.
 
 
>You walk carefully through the flock--the flects scatter as you pass through them, and regroup behind you as you pass, and you can barely hear their high-pitched chatter.  You reach up and make sure the graphite earbead hearing-aids are still in your ear canals, and you're relieved to find they've remained there through everything. that's happened.
>Whatever Equestrian company makes them, you're going to buy stock in it when you get out of this. You firmly insist to Brainnon that the correct word is "when," not "if" when he tries to correct you.
>You suddenly hear an incredibly high-pitched squalling shriek ahead of you.  You jump at the noise, startled, and then you see a few yards ahead of you something that looks amazingly like the uglier, mutated crossbreeding of a carp with a very large catfish has abruptly gallumphed its way out of the surf and onto the beach, and in its mouth, it has a flect.  
>The little creature is screaming, while around it flutter its flockmates, clearly at a loss about what to do about the situation.  The ugly fish is moving backwards as fast as it can into the surf with its prey.
>You stand there frozen for a moment before instinct takes over.  Darting forward as fast as it can, you charge into the surf after the fish.  You barely hear Amber yelling at you to be careful.  Before it can manage to escape, you've got your hand on it-
>And then burning pain lances through your hand.  FUCK!  In spite of the pain you tighten your grip on it and haul it bodily out of the water, until you can prize its jaws open.  Dazed and sputtering, the flect falls out of its maw, and Amber catches the little creature with a hoof.  
>the fish stares at you with dull-eyed malice, trying to free itself from your grip, your own blood pouring down your arm. You see that there's a ridge of barbed spines along its back, and that's what you felt when you seized the little shit. With a yell, you finally manage to pull your hand off the fish, transferring the strugging thing carefully to your other hand.
>"For that you're going to be supper," you murmur. Hot, burning pain fills that hand, and you feel...you feel.
"Oh my luna," Amber says.  "Let me see it." She grabs your hand, which for some reason, you can't feel it.  It huts, but you can't..."oh no...oh no.  oh shit..." she's saying over and over again.    
>Wait, the arm is going numb.  You start to ask her what's up with--
>You're still talking when you feel your legs suddenly going numb, and you're barely aware when your face hits the sand and everything goes black
 
>Be Amber Eyes.  
>You're shaking Anon and screaming his name, and cursing yourself for not warning him not to touch the Sea Caltrop with his bare hands faster.  You knew the tartarus-damned thing's venom worked fast, but apparently humans were even more vulnerable to it than the average pony.
>A few yards away, the repellent thing is grunting and trying to slowly lever its bulk back to the ocean, but almost the entire flock of flects is mobbing it, chittering and screaming at it angrily as the bludgeon it with their tiny hooves.  
>Individually, they're almost too small to be felt, but there's enough of them to cause real damage to the horrid thing if they worked at it long enough. the ones not so engaged are examining their wounded, shaken flockmate or you and Anon.
>"Big-stink be okay?" one of them asks in her own tongue and you recognize the tiny mare you'd spoken with earlier.  "Big-Stink save Brightbright. Big stingfishie. Be he okay?"
>You press your good ear to his back, trying to hear a heartbeat, and you can.  It's fast and thready, and it's getting weaker by the second.  But it's there.  And you suddenly realize your OWN heartbeat is just as fast and thready.  And then you feel his heart shudder to a stop.
>you're feeling incredibly numb and faint, and there's the weirdest feeling of **drawing** from you--  
>--And you scream as burning pain thrills through you.  Seconds later, Anon gasps and heaves.  "What in the hell--" he begins, and then abruptly loses consciousness again.
>You find yourself screaming in pain again, and suddenly he's awake.  Again.  "What the fuck is--" and he's out again.  
>"P-please..." you gasp.  You're lying on your side on the beach.  You're not sure who you're talking to.  Your foreleg is blazing with numb, icy pain. You feel as if something is being *drawn* out of you from places you've never even imagined existing.
>Every few seconds, Anon jerks awake, gasping or screaming, disorientated.
>the flect flock has mostly ceased in its efforts to beat the Sea Caltrop to death, and they're flying around you and Anon. A group of of them lights on his outstretched hand and arm, examining it closely, and another group is looking into your eyes.  
>You can barely make out what they're saying.  "Heat.  Big-Stink-Green-Skin need much morewarm.  Stingfish sting need sunwarm, stop hurt.  We give sunwarm on my sayso, others give much heartwarm--NOW!"
>And their wings begin to beat into a synchronized blur.  You can feel intense warmth pouring off of them--in spite of the heat of the sun overhead, you feel cold, icy, and the warmth they give off seems to soak right though you, into your bones.  You're aware that there's a half-dozen of them sitting on you too, their fluttering, irridescent wings a blurr.  More and more of them are joining them.
>One of them, the mare you'd spoken with, looks you earnestly in the eyes.  "Little Bird sicksick too.  Big-Stink need much moremore heartwarm than she make. She need, we give."
>The lazy warmth that begins to fill you reminds you of the times when you were a filly, nestled against your mama's chest under a blanket.
>The feeling of burning, cold *draw* begins to ebb away, replaced with lazy, drowsy warmth, and as you drift off to sleep, without knowing or understanding exactly how, you feed it to Anon.
 
>Be Anon.  
>You're staring into the westering sunset sky blankly for what seems like hours before suddenly reality comes slowly oozing back.  
>There's a pair of flects staring into your eyes, anxiously, and your vision finally focuses on them.  One of them is standing on your face, its weight almost imperceptible.
>You find you actually feel slightly better than you did when you first woke up on the beach.    
>the flect on your face smiles and chatters something.  You hold up a finger to it, and it closes its eyes and nuzzles against it.  It feels slightly fuzzy against your skin.
>"He asked, 'Stinky-Greenie feel better?'" says a sleepy voice next to you.  You realize that Amber is lying curled against your side, her head on your chest, and you're both completely covered with leaves and grass.  You realize you actually feel kind of..comfortable, for the first time since you got here.  
>Other than being thirsty--wait, no, that's gone too.
>You realize you're up the beach a bit from where you were.  You look at your hand, and see the swollen, reddened puncture marks on it. Yeah, you've got a pretty good idea what happened here.  "So, uh, on a scale of 1 to 10, just how dumb WAS I?" you ask
>"Oh, about 54," she says, chuckling a bit. "Most ponies who get popped that good by a Sea Caltrop pretty much die on the spot unless there's somepony handy with an antidote.  At this point, you're either the luckiest po--person alive, or the UNluckiest."  She looks into your eyes.  "You really...REALLY need to start being more cautious.  This isn't Equestria. We got lucky.  There's things out here that will kill you before you can so much as blink.
>You remember prying open the thing's jaws to get the little flect out.  "Is the one I saved--"
>"Yeah, she's fine, mostly.  They said she's just bruised a little.  They hardly remember what happened.  Like I said, they're pretty simple.  But I think you're alive because of them.  Sea Caltrop venom can be neutralized by heat, if you're fast enough if you only get a little onboard. But I guess our little buddies can work with that."
>"I told them we needed to keep from being seen.  So they helped move you and covered you up."  She lays her head back on your chest, humming softly. the air outside of your little nest is surprisingly cold, and you sense rather than see movement around you.
>You lift some of the leaves, and the golden-brown eyes of flects look quizzically back at you, their wings fluttering a bit.  Apparently the whole flock is in here with you.
>You look away from a pair of them apparently rutting away in the back there without a care in the world.  They may not mind, but you still feel like a voyeur.  Carefully you lower the leaves, covering them all back up.  
>the wind is cold, but it's warm in the little nest you're in and you're too tired to want to move.
>"One question.  And this is important," you ask.  Human imperatives come to the fore.  "The fish, this sea-caltrop thing..."
>"Yes?"
>"I have to know:  Is it still alive?  
>"I dunno.  They beat it up pretty thoroughly and it's been on the beach for a while, but they're pretty tough, why?"
>This is a moral and ethical imperative.
>"Because we're gonna eat the fucking thing for breakfast."