Spritelight 2, 3

I stared at the slight curl in the mare's tail as it flicked this way and that while she ambled along the road. Soft muttering came from her as she led me down the right road leading for the quickest way out of town, and I shook my head as variations on the same name broke through the silence of the night:

"Turquoise Flyer, Turquoise Speedster, Turquoise Runner, Turquoise Cloudchaser, Tur..."

"Turkey Headless," I suggested, making the mare in front of me stumble over her own hooves and turn back to face me with a flush on her cheeks!

"H...hey, that's not fair," she pouted. "You have a neat name already and I just have my stupid human name that doesn't fit me anymore."

"You do know you don't need to have a colour in your name, right?" I returned to her as I continued walking, passing her by as she worked on a reply to that. "Or have two names, for that matter."

"But you have two names too," the mare protested. "Sprite and Light, right?"

"You might think that," I started, with an annoyed flick of my tail in her direction, "but, contrary to popular belief, it's just the one word; Spritelight. No space."

"And you don't have a family name or something?" came the question as the mare hurried to trot up to my left side.

I shrugged at the question. "Never knew my family."

The mare's head dipped down a moment, and I suddenly found her bumping into my side, her head nuzzling up at the side of my neck. I immediately stopped walking and watched her need another step or two before she did as well.

"What was that?" I demanded, feeling my ears twitch on my head from the strangeness of what had just happened.

The mare scraped a hoof over the ground and shrugged lightly. "I dunno... I felt like you needed some comforting. I don't know how ponies usually do it, but that felt like the most natural?"

I snorted and made a show of stepping around her before continuing on my way. "I did not need any such thing," I dismissed her words, trying to fight back the tears I felt burning behind my eyes. "Don't do it again, ok? Or I may call you Turkeyhead from now on."

There was a stomp of a hoof behind me as the mare clearly disagreed with my words, but then I heard her hooves fall back in rhythm with mine and a meek voice said "Have it your way..."

I nodded quickly to that as I regained my composure, but stopped walking as we reached the crossroads we had been heading for. I looked in all directions, trying to remember what the other mare had told me. "We have to turn right here, right?"

"Left, actually," she mumbled as she moved past, turning for the direction she had said.

"Right," I nodded, falling in line behind her again.

"No, we went left," she corrected me, and I sent a spark of electricity from my horn to her flank. She yelped from the sensation, launched herself forward, missed the step she was trying to make, and fell down on her face.

"Don't be wise with me, you know what I meant," I chuckled, using my magic to help her up on her hooves again.

She smiled weakly at me, and I found I could not but smile back. "Just get us over to the next town before dawn, ok?" I asked, "We'll need to find a shelter there before we can make plans on what to do exactly."

"What do you want to do, exactly, anyway?" she wondered, trotting up to my right side for once and looking sideways at me.

"I already told you; I need to turn the right kinds of people into ponies, so that Equestria and this world can merge, and you all can lead happier lives. The two worlds were torn apart in the past, and nopony has tried mending it before, to my knowledge. It has led to such destruction on Earth, and so much pain. This has to be corrected."

She nodded slowly at that, but I could see she didn't grasp it in its entirety.

"Don't worry, I'll deal with the details," I offered, "You just find us a shelter and whatever else we need along the way."

The mare put her right forehoof up to her head in an awkward salute. "Yes ma'am," she stated, then faceplanted herself on the pavement again.

"And you may want to work on your balance," I decided to add, shaking my head with a chuckle as I lifted her from the floor again.

We walked side-by-side until we got to the highway. We quickened our pace to a canter as we traveled along it, gallopping in short bursts before returning to a canter again to save our energy. The turquoise mare was still trying to come up with a name for herself, and her lack of focus caused her to have to catch up to me more often than not.

We eventually made it to the next town and came to a stop in a copse of trees between the highway and the nearby buildings. I checked the sky again to see how much time had passed, but a mass of clouds had moved in and it was impossible for me to get any hint as to where the moon could be.

"Damn clouds," I grumbled, and sank through my hooves to catch my breath.

"What's wrong with the clouds?" the mare wondered in-between panting breaths.

"I can't see how low the moon is with the clouds hiding it away," I offered, "I don't know how much time we have remaining before dawn breaks if I can't see the passing of time in the sky."

"It's about five," the mare shrugged. "The sun comes up in an hour or two."

"How do you know?" I asked in confusion.

"There's a clock down the road there at the bus station. It says 5:03," she explained, and I stared in the direction she was pointing at.

"Yeah, see, that's not a clock," I snorted. "A clock is round and has two or three horns to point at the time."

"Horns?"

"Or feathers, or fake hoofs. It depends on where they were made," I nodded. "Now what you have over there is just some weird display thing with wobbly lines and scratches over it that I can't make heads or tails of. That's not a clock."

"Yes it is," the mare decided. "What you're talking about sounds like an analog clock. But that there is a digital one. Most clocks around are digital these days."

"Which is why I have to look at the sky for the time," I sighed. "I can't read that digital stuff."

"But you have me now? I can tell you what the time is?" the mare offered, and I smirked back up to her.

"The time, yes. Your own name, not quite."

She huffed and looked away, and I grinned at the back of her head. She was so easy to tease! I was starting to enjoy her company.