//------------------------------//
// Chapter 11 - Midnight snack 
// Story: Parks and Wilderness 
// by stphven 
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I am still Sergeant Glacier. Probably.

Some of my convictions have been shaken by recent events.

Take the human, for example. Expectation: it impales me on its spear, devours my flesh, and raises my desecrated corpse as an unholy thrall. Not necessarily in that order.

Reality: it helps me bandage my leg, and shares its canteen with me. The water wasn’t even poisoned.

So. Yeah. Clearly my life needs some serious re-evaluation.

I shift slightly, wincing as my injured leg brushes the floor. Ow ow OW! Questioning my sanity can come later; I'm way too sore and tired for that. What with all the almost dying I’ve been doing lately.

Hmm. There’s a thought. Maybe I am dying, and this is all just a venom-induced fever dream. Perhaps I'm really just lying on the desert floor, delirious, while the human munches on my entrails. It would certainly make a lot more sense than the last hour or so.

After killing the sandipede, the human and I just sort of stared at each other in confusion for a minute. Then it spoke.

I assume it was speech anyway. Couldn’t understand a word of it. Given the gravity of the situation, I responded with as much eloquence and dignity as I could muster.

“Uhhh… Hi.”

Which wasn’t much. In my defence, I was dying at the time.

The human rumbled some more maybe-words in response, but otherwise didn’t move. It was looking at me with… curiosity? Surprise? Hard to tell.

Seeing as it wasn’t currently trying to impale and/or devour me, I decided I really ought to do something about the whole “dying” thing. Rooting through my saddlebags (though never quite taking my eyes off the human), I quickly dug out my first aid kit.

The universal antidote potion is a marvel of modern magical medicine. While not truly universal, it’s effective against a wide range of toxins, poisons, and even curses. Those it can’t cure, it can often slow or weaken, giving the body a chance at fighting it off, or buying time for a true remedy to be applied. It’s not cheap, but given the variety of dangerous critters PWG regularly face, it’s one of the most important pieces of my kit.

Downing the potion in one go (it tasted of spoiled milk, for some reason), I just hoped it would work on sandipede venom. I know it works on most other arthropods - scorpions, spiders, even manticore stingers - so I'm reasonably optimistic.

The human just stood there the whole time. Watching.

Kiiinda creepy.

Its expression was hard to read. With such small ears and eyes, and no tail, there weren’t a lot of obvious tells. Of course, it’s dangerous to assume you can read an unfamiliar creature’s body language. A gesture can mean one thing among one species, but something completely different among others. Plenty of silly ponies learned the hard way that an animal baring its teeth is probably not smiling at you.

Still, the human wasn’t displaying any of the more common signs of aggression. Its posture seemed relaxed. Its weapon lowered. No teeth visible at all.

So… maybe it wasn’t going to murder me? Sure, it had tried less than an hour ago. But perhaps that was just hunting? And with a fresh sandipede corpse in front of it, the human no longer had any reason to murder me. So long as I kept away from its prize, it might just let me leave un-impaled.

Or at least, no more impaled than I already was.

With the adrenaline wearing off, my injured leg was really starting to hurt. Whatever the human’s deal was, I needed to treat my wounds ASAP. If it wanted to watch, so be it; I could hardly make myself more vulnerable than I already was.

Pulling out bandages, antiseptic, and painkillers, I began inspecting the damage. My rear right leg was a bruised and bloody mess, but thankfully it only felt like it was going to fall off. Some (very painful) cleaning revealed that the sandipede stings had not penetrated all the way through, as I’d initially feared. Still, there was a good inch or so gouged out on either side, and a nasty gash running down to my ankle.

I set about cleaning, disinfecting, and binding the wounds. Tricky work at such an awkward angle. I had to cut away some of the surrounding fur, sawing bloody clumps off with my knife.

My magic gave out halfway through the process. Had to resort to mouth and hooves.

I’ve always said unicorns should be able to get by without their horns. But sweet Celestia, that was a frustrating experience! The taste of blood on my lips. Shaky hooves slipping and fumbling. Every mistake costing blood and pain and tears.

After failing to apply the bucking bindings properly for the third or fourth time, suddenly a pair of long, lithe limbs wove around my leg. Before I could really register what was happening, the human had gently but firmly taken charge. In moments it had bound the wounds and neatly tied off the bandages.

If I weren’t so weak and dizzy I probably would have bucked or bolted in surprise. Instead, I just sat there, incredibly confused as the human finished up and sat down opposite me, inspecting its work.

It had done a pretty good job.

“H-huh. Well, uh... Thanks?”

My voice was raspy and uneven. I could still taste the tang of iron with each word.

The human rumbled something in response. The noise was deep and rough, but it didn’t sound like it was threatening me.

“Uh- cough -just so you’re aware, I have no idea what you’re saying. I assume the feeling is mutual?”

Another rumbling response. Shorter this time.

The human seemed lost in thought for a moment. Muttered something to itself. Then, pressing a hand to its chest, it looked me in the eye and started speaking slowly.

I still couldn’t recognise any of the words, or even the language. But it repeated the final word a few times. Pronouncing it carefully, tapping its chest with each repetition.

Was it trying to teach me something? Its name? Its species?

I attempted to mimic the word.

“Ahnarnam… Anornahym... Arnorn, err...”

I rather butchered the pronunciation. Pony lips and vocal cords don’t seem perfectly compatible with human speech. (Or at least, that's what I tell myself.) Still, the human seemed to find my attempts acceptable. Nodding emphatically, it tapped its chest and repeated a simplified version of the word:

”Anon.”

Fantastic. Now I had a name for my super persistent nightmare predator.

This whole encounter was getting really surreal. Though, honestly? I was also getting kinda intrigued.

Sure, the human - Anonawhatever - was still intimidating as heck. A creepy, lean, relentless predator, its beady eyes gleaming in the flickering firelight. Luna’s sake, I’d just seen it effortlessly kill an adult sandipede moments before.

But despite its appearance - and reputation - and previous aggression - it was now inexplicably friendly. Even outright helpful.

I was clearly missing something.

And I wanted to find out what.

And hey, in my current state, it’s not like I could follow my “run away from the human” orders anyway. Might as well take advantage of the opportunity to indulge my curiosity. Maybe I’d even figure out how to communicate “Please don’t eat me, I’m really not that tasty.” Vital information, that.

Mimicking Anon’s gesture, I pointed a hoof at my chest:

“Glacier. Glaaacieeer”

”Guurraiichii... Gura- Graychior? Graykior?”

It seemed to have just as much difficulty with pronunciation as I did. Oh well. I could be “Gray” for the time being.

“Gray,” I nodded, again mimicking it. I wasn't exactly sure if nodding meant confirmation. For all I knew, nodding was how humans expressed amusement. Hopefully it would understand I was just trying to reciprocate.

”Gray,” it repeated, pointing at me. “Anon,” pointing to itself.

Progress! We were definitely exchanging information. A big improvement over the whole “trying to murder me” thing.

Anon said a few more words, unfamiliar to me, though I caught “Gray” again at the end.

“Er, it’s... nice to meet you too, Anon? So... cough Now wh- cough cough.”

With all the more pressing issues, I’d forgotten just how parched I was. Running through a desert and fighting for my life is thirsty work. All this speaking was irritating my already dry and scratchy throat.

Lifting my canteen, I was dismayed to find it practically empty. Only a few tantalising drops trickled to my lips. I groaned.

"Oh no... Not again."

I couldn’t survive another day in the desert without water. I’d have to find some. Tonight! While it was still cool.

And of course, chances are I’d never be able to spot any signs of water in this darkness. No, I’d have to go aaall the way back to the one place I knew had water: the valley I’d just spent the last hour running from.

Dropping the empty bottle, I let out a pained whinny. Seriously? More walking through the desert? And this time on an injured leg?! The thought was almost enough to bring me to tears. Celestia, Luna, was it too much to ask for a break?

”Gray.”

Blinking moisture from my eyes, I looked up at Anon. Its arm was outstretched towards me. And in its grasp was something dark, round, and sloshing gently as it moved.

Reverently, as though receiving a blessing from the Sisters themselves, I took Anon’s canteen with my hooves. It was almost full!

A small part of me wondered if this was a trap. A much larger part didn’t care.

I took a slow, deep mouthful. Let the water seep into every parched corner of my mouth and throat.

Beautiful, delicious relief.

Thank you, Alicorns! Oh, and the human too, I guess.

“Ahhhh… Thanks, Anon. You’re a lifesaver.”

(Also my attempted murderer.)

(I let it slide for now.)

I was sorely tempted to finish off the whole bottle, but that would just be rude. Instead, I decided to respond in kind. After returning the canteen, I started delving through my saddlebags, soon emerging with a pair of ration bars.

“Here, try one of these.”

I held a bar out to Anon. The human stared a moment before carefully taking it.

Its fingers accidentally brushed against my hoof. I was half expecting it to be cold as the grave, or have razor-sharp claws, or something. But no. Just a brief touch of warmth. The rough skin on its fingers almost felt like we were bumping hooves.

After unwrapping my own bar, Anon seemed to catch on, quickly and excitedly tearing off the paper. It inspected the bar briefly, smelling and licking it, before biting off a big mouthful. I followed suit.

“Blech,” we said in perfect unison.

We looked up at each other. Then started laughing our asses off.

It wasn’t even all that funny. But after all the stress and weirdness of the last few hours, bonding over mutual dislike of PWG field rations seemed the funniest thing in the world.

I flopped to my side, ignoring the pain from my leg while I let out great heaving laughs. Anon was leaning back, its laughter a deep, gravely cackling, almost barking. Eventually, the two of us caught our breaths, and returned to our meal. But the tension between us seemed to have diminished.

Anon looked more relaxed, leaning back and happily chewing its ration bar, while I started to feel a little safer, too. I still didn’t exactly trust this Anon, but for the time being I didn’t feel I was in any danger.

After finishing off its rations, Anon seemed to have an idea. Speaking to itself, it stood up and walked into the sandipede's cave. It spent a moment inspecting my enchanted fire, which was still burning merrily against a wall. Still chattering away, it started looking around at the walls and floors. Eventually it picked up a large, flat stone and placed it partially in the fire. It then walked out again, past me, towards the dead sandipede. After giving the lifeless pile of chitin a few cautious kicks, Anon casually hoisted the massive thing by the tail and dragged it back into the cave.

My snout wrinkled in distaste as I guessed where this was going. Sure enough, after a minute or so of examining the carcass, Anon draw a knife from somewhere and started butchering it.

I'm hardly a squeamish pony. But watching a carnivore feed is never exactly pleasant. Still, I was curious about the process. And I was actually starting to get a little cold.

Yes, me, proud northerner that I am. Normally my thick coat would suffice to keep me warm, but it was still soaked with sweat, which had long since cooled. And losing all that blood certainly didn’t help. So, somewhat reluctantly, I ended up following Anon into the cave. Though this time I made sure to check the walls and ceiling first. Thoroughly.

Laying down by the fire, I watched with morbid fascination as Anon methodically disassembled the carcass. Soon, several strips of pale flesh were sizzling on the cooking stone, while a small mountain of discarded bits was piled outside. The acrid stench of burning insect juices mingled with the slightly sulphurous tang of the magic-fueled fire. Not a very appetising smell, but even after finishing my ration bar I was still a bit peckish.

Academically, I knew ponies could eat meat. Our teeth and stomachs aren’t properly equipped for it, but it can be done. Some coastal ponies even make a habit of it, supplementing their diets with seafood.

But a giant bug? One that tried to eat me not an hour ago? Urgh. This day is just weird.

Anon seemed unfazed. After a few minutes of turning and prodding, the meat was eventually deemed ready. Spearing a slightly smoking strip with its knife, Anon offered me first taste of the... questionable meal.

I eyed it suspiciously.

Burnt bug was not at all appealing. Buuut… I could probably digest it safely. And I really needed to replenish my energy. My one remaining ration bar wouldn’t go very far. Plus, I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

Grimacing, I gingerly took the knife and took a very reluctant bite. Hot, disgusting juices spilled into my mouth. The parts which weren’t burnt to charcoal tasted… not terrible, surprisingly. Sort of nutty. But the texture! Sweet Celestia, that was awful! Slippery, rubbery; like soggy cardboard, but far worse.

I gagged, but refused to spit it out. Lacking a carnivore’s incisors, I had to mash and grind the unpleasant mulch for far too long before I could swallow. Feeling it slide down my throat was almost too much to bear. By the time I’d finally finished the horrid thing, Anon was already starting on its third serving.

I politely but firmly declined the offer for seconds. One taste was enough, thank you very much. Laying my head down, I watched the human continue to eat. While it didn’t seem particularly thrilled with the taste either, that certainly didn’t stop it from going back for fourths, or even fifths.

Heh. No wonder Anon had chased me so persistently: it was ravenously hungry.

Despite the after-taste, it felt good to have some hot food in my belly. With a warm, crackling fire beside me, it was hard to keep my eyes open. For the first time in hours, I felt safe enough to let them close.





Now here I am.

Drifting in and out of fitful sleep. Body aching, but grateful for the rest. Wounds pulsing with a steady but manageable pain. Mind replaying all of the day’s adventures. Trying to make sense of it.

Sometimes I wake up in a panic, matted in sweat, while some shadowy nightmare fades from memory. Instructors shouting for me to run. Looming figures I can’t escape. Coiled monsters skittering towards me.

I roll over to my other side, trying to clear my head. Next to me, the fire has dwindled to a few gently glowing ruby shards. They just barely keep the cold at bay. On the other side lies Anon, sleeping. Judging from the sudden flinches and occasional cry, its sleep is just as troubled as mine.

For several minutes I just lay there. Watching Anon’s quiet breathing.

Chest rises. Pauses. Falls.

Rises. Pauses. Falls.

Seeing it asleep somehow ends any mysticism I felt about the human. Anon’s no longer some unstoppable mythological horror. It’s just… another creature. Needs food, and rest, just like me.

A dangerous creature, no doubt. But I’ve worked with dangerous creatures for years. I can work with this one.

I close my eyes, and soon return to sleep.