Someone Came With Her, Part 15

	He looks back at Big Iron.  “Oh, and did you see Habanero anywhere?  I swear, if he's napping again...”

	Big Iron shakes his head briskly.  “Fortunately, no.  I met with our feathered friend on the way here, in fact.  He shall meet us at the ranch.”

	“Ah, good.  That should be everything, then,” says Fairweather.  “What about you, Sonora?  You ready for this?”

	“Ready as I'll ever be,” you reply.  In truth you don't think you'll ever be “ready” for hunting down a bunch of magical stone heads, but you figure you'll manage.

	“Then let's get going!”  Fairweather says, leaping off the porch and onto the hard-packed desert floor.  He hits the ground running, his hooves carrying him at a respectable gallop. Big Iron runs along with him, his tank-like body taking several seconds to build up speed.

	You find yourself a little more interested in the two stallions' well-muscled hips than you would have liked.

	“You coming or not?” calls Fairweather, slowing down to look back at you.   The realization of what you were just doing makes it hard not to groan.

	“Sorry, just got a bit distracted,” you say distantly.  Drawing in a deep breath, you step off the porch and follow your two companions to what you hope will be the turning point of your struggle against Trask.


	The three of you gallop your way to the ranch mostly in silence.  You have to keep forcing yourself to relax your muscles, which continually get bunched up like knotted steel cables.

	This isn't going to be hard.  You'll just watch Fairweather and his friends curbstomp some evil critters, and then hopefully you'll leave with a better idea of how to use combat magic.  You're not going to get hurt.

	But as you think about it, you realize it's not the fear of bodily harm that's getting you tense.  It's a feverish hope that you'll get a chance to make yourself useful.  You're getting increasingly exasperated with your role as the clueless newcomer, and you want to finally start showing everyone that you can stand on your own.

	Daydreams creep into your mind as you near the ranch.  You envision yourself howling in defiance as you unleash a seizure-inducing blast of energy, vaporizing a swarm of snarling stone heads with Trask's likeness.  What if you have some huge source of inner power that your anger can unlock?  Sure that would be kind of stupid, but at least it'd be satisfying.  You imagine Big Iron and Fairweather staring at you with gaping mouths, rendered speechless by the sheer awesomeness with which you saved their lives.  You imagine Fairweather--

	You're broken out of your reveries by a brassy drawl.

	“Y'all are nothin' but a buncha slowpokes,” taunts a red pegasus lounging on a low-flying wisp of cloud. The chili pepper on his side marks him as the same pony Big Iron was sitting next to in the bar earlier today—this must be Habanero.  “Gotta admit, I was startin' to wonder if y'all were pullin' somethin' on me.”

	“Such a prospect can be tempting at times,” notes Big Iron.

	Fairweather rolls his eyes.  “Save it for later, boys.  We've got a ranch to save.”

	“Hey, we can afford a lil' joshin' now and then, right?” grins Habanero, disappearing into the cloud and poking his head out from the underside.  “'Sides, I did some scoutin'.  There's only six Trail Heads, all grouped up on a path by the well.  Easy pickins, if you ask me.”

	“Where's the well?” asks Fairweather.

	“Oh, I don't think you'd understand.  I think it'd go...well over yer head.”

	Habanero snickers as he dodges a magically hurled rock.  “Okay, okay, that one was a groaner.  Anyway, we just need to make tracks straight north from here—the well should be easy to spot.”

	Without further argument the four of you make your way to a dusty, desolate northwards path.  It's hard to imagine what the appeal of having a ranch around here would be.  It has a splendid view of the harsh, beautiful desert that surrounds it, but there's something strangely depressing about this place.  It doesn't feel rustic or serene.  It just feels...dead.  Like what little life it had before has been sucked out of it.

	Your walk continues for several more tense minutes, and you find yourself struggling to keep up the pace of the rest of the group.  The sooner this hike ends, the better.

	“Habanero?  If this is another one of your dreadful excuses for a joke,” Big Iron growls as the four of you trot down the seemingly endless dusty path, “So help me Celestia, I will--”

	A chorus of bestial voices interrupts him. "Nyearghh! Grrr! Hraagh!"

	Up ahead, visible now that you've cleared a small hill, you can see the monsters.  Six stone heads hop up and down and chase each other in a hypnotic circle, their granite faces locked in menacing snarls.

	In a strange way they almost look -cute-, with comically exaggerated mouths and big awkward noses that droop like overripe pears. Stone eyes dart back and forth suspiciously under heavy, overstated brows.  They look like misplaced decorations from a haunted house ride, desperately searching for a way back home.
	They speak an incomprehensible language that consists mostly of grunts and snarls, carrying on some conversation that you suspect could be summarized as, "Duhh, we wanna stomp around and bite stuff."
	Fairweather leans close, and suddenly your heart beats a bit faster.  But to your mixed relief and disappointment, his only intention is to whisper something to you.

	“Ugly little things, aren't they?  Trail Heads.  See the way they've picked out this particular place as their territory?  Right next to the well?”

	Indeed, the Trail Heads are only about a stone's throw away from a small well.

	“That's what they've gotten infamous for.  They always stick to paths and trails—hence the name—but they have a knack for finding the most inconvenient and frustrating spots imaginable.”

	“Any idea why?” you whisper back, still gawking at the bizarre stone beasts.