//------------------------------//
// Aint no rest for the weary 
// Story: Child of the Forest 
// by Eeyuppers 
//------------------------------//

Child of the Forest 

Chapter 2

“Aint no rest for the weary”

The Everfree was a scary place at night, which is really saying something about the place as it was scary in itself at daytime. At night the trees all seemed to be reaching out for their next victim, the sounds of the forest seemed to betray the presence of monsters, only for some poor sod who nearly crapped themselves to find out it was only the wind. Now picture this in your head, not a nice place is it. Now times that feeling by ten. This will give you a pretty good idea of what our poor little lost foal felt at the moment.

He had only a little sleep since the Timberwolf attack, and it was not long before Mother Nature or the equestrian equivalent thereof, being the cruel being she was sent a frigid wind through the forest which woke the foal from his tearful slumber. So now the poor little pony was curled up and shivering in the only piece of cover from the gale. Not that it was doing a particularly good job of it either. Another side effect of the wind was it gave the forest an almost constant wispy sound, which did nothing to ease the foal’s frayed nerves.

So, he did what any foal his age would do in this situation, he cried. Thankfully, the wind managed to keep the sorrowful sobs of the foal relatively silenced, so any predators that would have otherwise investigated for an easy meal were none the wiser. The foal cried for his parents, he cried for himself, but nobody would hear him. He eventually wore himself out once again and fell to sleep.

Several hours later

Celestia’s sun rose up over the horizon of the forest, doing little but making the forest floor a little bit less dark and menacing. It was enough however to wake the foal up, and when he cracked open his eyes, he was immediately reminded of his grim situation. He may have begun crying again, but another more important need arose, Hunger.

So, cautiously the foal arose from his wooden shelter, and luckily for him, a tasty looking patch of grass and flowers was not too far from his position. The foals face lit up, as he spotted his meal. So he trotted over, and was about to start eating before he noticed he was also standing in a patch of blue flowers. Something about these flowers seemed off to him, and a nagging feeling caused him to worry for the moment, but eventually, his belly won out, and he began to eat, though still careful to avoid the off-putting flowers. After he had eaten everything but the blue flowers, he found he was thirsty. 

He swivelled his ears around to try and hear the sound of running water, but to no avail. His instincts told him to seek out water, but he was reluctant to leave the only somewhat viable shelter he had in the form of the tree trunk. The foal walked back and forth, trying to decide what to do. His musing left a dent in the ground, but he eventually decided to try and seek water.
The foal set out, but soon he came across the clearing that he and his mother had been attacked in last night. The foal shivered as he walked through, the event still clear in his mind. Being extremely young, he still harboured hope that his mother had survived. Sadly for the foal, his hopes were soon dashed not fifteen meters from the clearing. The wolves had not left much. Thankfully for the foal, the wolves had moved on.  

The foal slowly approached his mother, but found he could not cry, he was simply numb. He sat down next to his deceased mother and nuzzled against her in a way of saying goodbye, completely not aware of the gory mess or the blood that darkened his brown fur. After a while, the foal wished that he could talk so that he could properly farewell her. This thought finally caused him to break down again, his tear marking his cheeks. 

The foal ran away from clearing, in a mad dash. Thoughts ran through the foal’s young mind. He did not yet understands that the wolves had killed for food; he saw their act as one of pure evil. The Everfree forest was the one place in Equestria where the non-sentient carnivores hunted, so most foals didn’t find about carnivores before they attend school. The foal continued running, until a sound distracted him. A distant splashing that could only mean water. 

He was running purely on instinct now, his emotions drained by last nights and today’s events, soon he was breaking twigs and squashing grass in his dash for water. Soon he broke clear of some trees and saw a raging river that ran through the Everfree. He ran up and started lapping up the water greedily. He felt happy for the second time today, with both his hunger and thirst satisfied; he looked towards the water at his reflection. He barely recognised it. A dishevelled mane and tired brown eyes greeted him. He had several scraped on his face from some of the more resistant foliage from his run. The foal sighed, and then walked further downstream.

He did not know why he continued downstream, he just thought it was a good idea given the circumstances. What he did not expect was for an especially fabulous sea serpent to be heading down the river. The foal quickly dived back into the nearby trees and watched the serpent pass, who appeared to be talking to himself in a less than threatening voice.

“Oh I simply must find myself a new home in the Everfree; the old one was so drab and uninspired I wonder if…….” The serpent’s voice trailed off as he swam into the distance. The foal soon slowly came out of hiding, and watched as the massive purple being played with his hair it became a small dot in the distance. The foal did not understand what the being was saying however, so he was still clueless as to where he was. He knew it was not a good place from his experience last night, but he had no idea how to get home, or where home even was. 

So the foal continued downstream, looking for a suitable shelter. It was not until nearly sunset when the foal found a small cave, which was tiny enough not to fit any predators, but big enough to fit him. He was very tired, so he first checked to make sure there were no previous occupants, and then settled down to try and get to sleep. 

While he was drifting off, the foal had a distinct memory of the off-putting blue flower from that morning. As he was closing his eyes, he felt quite weird, as if he was being changed by some strange magic. But before he could think about it, he was asleep.