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// Chapter 1 
// Story: The Manticore and the Filly 
// by InsaneJustin 
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	You wake up and flex your massive paws followed by a huge yawn showing your fangs. You go through your morning routine of waking up your muscles. It wouldn't be proper for an ancient and powerful apex predator such as yourself to fall in battle due to a silly pulled muscle. 

Time to begin another day keeping your territory safe, Timber wolves had been encroaching upon your territory  lately, namely your hunting grounds. Its time to see if you can put an end to that, or them.

Time to do your thing. You leave your cave and set off toward your hunting grounds. In the distance you hear a familiar growling and howling sound. Timber wolves...It sounds like they found prey, In your Hunting Grounds!

You break into a sprint and quickly arrive at a clearing. You can see them eating two pony corpses while another checks a small carriage. Wasting no time you release a loud roar to announce your presence. The Timber wolves cease eating to look at you.

Its go time.

You charge at them and quickly dispatch two of them with a pounce and smash attack with your massive tail. You learned the hard way poison doesn't affect them. You have the scars to prove it. You quickly recover and spin around to see the others backing off... With the freshly killed prey. You weren't having any of that, any prey found in your hunting grounds was rightfully yours, whether you killed it or not.

You charge at them causing them to drop the bodies and flee outright. You smirked at the timber's cowardice and released another loud roar to shout your victory. You finish by going to the corpses and eating them whole, bones and all.  Ponies were more of a snack than a meal, due to your massive size. 

As you finish chewing you look to the carriage and your curiosity peaks. You peer inside and see a small pony. A filly you think its called. Whatever, just another easy snack you think. You open your jaw's to eat when you hear a giggle. You leave your mouth open for a moment in shock, in that moment something taps your fang and the giggle is heard again.

"Kitty go rawr! Make mean doggies run!"

You close your jaw and stare at the small filly. She smiles at you

As the top predator you couldn't let a single pony, let alone a filly not fear you! You take a deep breath and roar as loud as possible directly at the small filly. Good you think, now it would start crying and you could eat...

"Raawwrr!" The small filly ends her own roar with a light giggle as she reaches out to you.

Impossible she roared back and laughed! This filly was made of some tough stuff. You were impressed. So on a whim you pick her up and place her on your back. Life is about to become a little more interesting you think.

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You bring the small filly back with you to the cave. She seems to have fallen asleep. You wonder how old she is exactly. She seems to not care her parents were gone and dead. Hell you ate the dead bodies as she watched probably. Perhaps she wasn't old enough to grasp such concepts? And why did you take her with you instead of just eating her?

Whatever, perhaps she will bring a change to your boring life style. She was fearless as far as you could tell. Perhaps you could raise her as a manticore? Finding a female was hard enough as it is during mating season. The thought of feeding her crossed your mind, Would you have to extend your hunting grounds to include the farms outside the forest and into that pony town?

This whole ordeal was starting to become an annoyance and you contemplated just eating her, When you reach the cave you hear a small snoring sound. Was your back really that comfortable? No matter, you take the filly off your back waking her up. You set her down next to a pile of bones.

To your surprise she begins to rummage through the pile and finds a large pony skull. She puts it on and smiles at you.

"Rawr!" Seeing this sparks something within you and you smile back at her. 

The moment was quickly ruined however when her stomach growled. Now you have to go find food for her. You didn't know of any fruit trees besides the ones the ponies are farming in that apple orchard a way's away.

As you ponder the possibilities of what to do you grab a bone from the pile and begin to gnaw upon it.

'Too much damn work, why should I...' your thoughts are interrupted as you hear a strange sound. Almost like the sound when your molars are crunching bones, but lighter. The spark is re-lit as you see this small filly mimic you in gnawing on bones. 

It was decided, time to raid an apple orchard. 

You gathered together some branches and leaves. Its been awhile since you last made a nest, but this should work. Hopefully it will prevent the filly from leaving the cave while you go out for food.. After the rough nest is done you place the small filly inside of it with some of the bones for her to play with.

The filly tilts her head as she looks at you.  You make a motion with your paw for her to stay. She promptly sits down and you nod your head and walk out the cave entrance.

The only hard part about this plan was gathering the apples, You weren’t quite sure how to do it. The easiest way would be to just uproot the entire tree and take it back to the cave... yeah, if you brought back the whole tree you could leave the apples on it and they would last longer that way. 

With a plan in mind you travel toward the edge of the forest toward the pony town.