//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: A Small Argument 
// Story: The Voyage Home 
// by Warmaisach 
//------------------------------//

Not many ponies walked through the forest, and not one of them would get the idea to start a life inside. Yet, there was a being, that lived there, that resembled a pony quite a bit. It was not a pony but a zebra. A zebra looks similar to an earth pony but has two crucial differences. Firstly, the coats of zebras were not single colored, but consisted of two different colors, creating a stripe pattern. The most common color scheme for a zebra was black and white. Secondly, they were a whole new species due to them having different ancestors than earth ponies. They looked similar, but they were different.

This peculiar male zebra had lived in that forest for quite a time now. He had, like many other zebras, white and black stripes. His striped coat was adorned by many accessories, like golden earrings, hoof rings, clamps, and a strange crest in his mane. His mane was also black and white and was pretty long. It went down the left and right side of his face, extending a little bit over his head.

He currently sat inside his shed, which was in the middle of the Everfree Forest. The shed consisted of wood from the trees of the forest and looked like a typical shed. While he sat in there, he looked intensely at a flower in front of him. The flower grew out of a pretty sizeable pot and looked exotic. Its stem was purple, and its leaves were red with green dots. This coloring would let the plant seem strange at most, but the part that made this plant truly exotic were the yellow sharp teeth it had on its petals. 

The sharpness and durability of those teeth could only be rivaled by teeth of the strongest carnivores of the forest, yet this small plant had them too. There was only one reason why a plant would grow such teeth. This plant obviously ate meat, and judging by the strength of those teeth, it could eat bigger things than just insects. 

The zebra called Abdarul looked intently at the plant. “It seems like it’s ready,” he told himself silently. Looking to his right, he saw the stick and the sack he had readied before going to the plant. The stick was pretty thin and long while the sack had some sticky substance in it. Abdarul took hold of the stick with one of his hooves and dipped it into the substance of the sack. After he had encased the front of the stick with enough sticky fluid, he took it out again.

With intense eyes, he looked at the plant in front of him again. “Alright, let’s get this over with,” he muttered to himself and moved the stick closer to the plant, but suddenly stopped. Quickly raising his second front hoof, he did something fascinating with it. He face hoofed. Shaking his head for a short amount of time, he sighed. “I already talk like him.” He moved his head towards one of the windows. “Maybe it’s time for me to throw him out.” Then he began so smirk. “That little guy is growing on me. We can’t have that.”

With a little shake, he looked at the plant again. “Well, time to get those seeds out of there.” Carefully, he moved the stick towards the core of the plant. He knew exactly how dangerous that flower was, and he also knew how it worked. Just like nearly every other flower, this one had no peripheral sense organ but reacted to its world by a sense of touch. Whenever an animal, insect, or whatever touched one of its leaves, it instantly slammed them together with a never seen ferocity and kept them closed until it finished digesting its prey. Depending on the prey, a full digestion could take up to anything between five hours and two weeks. 

It was a given that Abdarul acted unusually carefully around this plant. Even though, it was not large enough to eat him, it would still be able to bite off a sizeable chunk of his hoof if he was not careful. Also, if it snaps down and nothing is in it, it still would take at least half an hour for it to open again. Of course, he could always kill it and get the core of the plant from the corpse, but then he could only get one. The core itself has no sensors, and with a stick and some sticky fluid, he could touch it and get some of the vital seeds he needed. If he successfully got them, it would only take some days for the plant to grow additional ones. 

This was not the first time he did this, so he was quite used to the procedure. Yet, he still did not let go of his carefulness. One mistake and he would be in a hell of pain. Nonetheless, he moved his stick towards the core and nearly had it. Only a little more.

DUNK

Something heavy hit his door and shook the entire hut. Abdarul jumped a little and felt his muscles tense. As if this shock was not enough already, he also touched one of the petals of the plant. A Bad mistake. The plant instantly bit down and broke the stick into nothing more than chips and also gave the hoof of Abdarul a good shaving. Abdarul, who on top of the slam on his door heard the snap of the plant, instantly felt his hairs standing and tensed up. 

Not daring to look at the plant, he firstly gulped and shut his eyes. After a short while, he turned one of his eyes at the plant and saw that a small spot on the front part of his hoof was devoid of hair. He luckily did not see any blood. With a mighty sigh, he calmed himself and swished with one of his hooves over his forehead. “For a short time I thought that I needed to stitch my own hoof back on,” he muttered to himself in relief.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes and looked at the door. With a lifted eyebrow, he slowly walked to it. “Wonder what hit my door that hard that it rattled my whole shed.” Both of his eyebrows lowered again, and he now had a frown plastered over his face. “I bet it’s the fault of that good-for-nothing dragon kid again,” he grumbled while walking to the door. Not long after, he touched the door and wanted to open it. Sadly, the door had other plans.

In a humongous display of irony, the door fell outwards and down on something that lay before it. A painful “oomph” sounded from outside the hut, and Abdarul lifted an eyebrow again. Walking closer to the now on top of an unknown thing lying door, he lowered his head and looked on the thing the door was lying on. There he saw a familiar dragon. With a roll of his eyes, he lifted himself up again, shook his head and turned away from the unconscious dragon beneath the door. “Bucking flankhole nearly got my hoof severed,” he grumbled to himself and walked into his shed again, ignoring the dragon on the ground.

With a sigh, he looked around his now dirty hut. “Well would you look at that. Just cleaned this mess up, and that idiot managed to make all this stuff dirty again. Think that’s a new record.” Annoyance and anger filled the tone in which he murmured this. Muttering several insults to himself, he began to clean his hut, again. 

It took him some hours, but he managed to make his hut clean again. Spike still lay under the fallen door, and Abdarul sighed again when he saw his clean home again. Rubbing some dirt out of his coat, he turned to the fallen door again and sighed. “Well, only one more thing to do.” With an annoyed expression, he walked over to the fallen door with the unconscious dragon beneath it. Stopping in front of the body of the dragon and the door, he took hold of the door and lifted it up.

With a mighty act of strength, he repaired it and put it back on its place in the doorframe. There were some complications in hinging the door again by himself, but he could manage. After he had finished, he stepped back, admired his work, and wiped over his forehead. “Well, seems like we’re finally done,” he told himself in a proud voice. After this, he opened the door, walked through it, and made himself some tea in his hut. The unconscious body of Spike still lay outside in front of the now working door…


Spike was not quite sure how he felt. Of course, nopony immediately knew how they felt after they woke up after an undefined amount of time of sleeping on the ground. As Spike slowly regained consciousness, he felt immense pain coursing through his body. The front of his body felt as if it smashed into something hard… twice.  

Spike wanted to say something, but instead started coughing uncontrollably. Damn, why does this hurt that much? Slowly, Spike tried to sit up, only to let himself fall back down on his back. With a groan, he flopped over and now lay on his belly. Just like three years ago when I fell down that tree after I stupidly stepped on my own tail. I still can’t believe the stupidity I have shown on that peculiar day.

He let out a sigh and just continued laying on his belly. Occasionally he lifted his head and looked around the forest in order to get a feeling for where he currently was. “Looks like forest,” he told himself in a voice that sounded more like a groan than something that can speak in actual sentences. After some more moments of examining his surroundings, he slowly began to realize that they looked kind of familiar to him. With a mighty act of strength, he looked over his shoulder and saw the shed behind him.

“Well, that explains the familiar looking surroundings,” Spike silently whispered to himself, not daring to speak any louder due to the danger of another coughing fit taking hold of his lungs. He tried to stand up again, but failed due to his arms also hurting quite a bit. He tried it another time but failed again. With an exasperated groan, he made his two hands into fists and punched the ground with them, thus giving himself a boost of motivation. “As if a little pain would stop me.”

With another groan, he slowly lifted himself up with his arms and pushed himself a little bit backwards, so he now kneeled on the floor. Letting his hands hang from his side, he took some deep breaths and calmed himself down again. “Well, we made it this far, so the rest shouldn’t be a problem either.” Taking one last deep breath, he lifted his right leg up and stomped down on the floor before him. Instantly, he felt a strange sensation in that leg. 

It felt like there was a large sack of salt in it and felt an unbearable tickling sensation. Gritting his teeth together, he deeply inhaled without parting them and punched his leg a little bit. After some moments, his leg woke up again, and the sensations disappeared. “I hate it when my limbs fall asleep.” Pushing himself upwards with said leg, he put pressure on the second one and felt that it also fell asleep. After some uncomfortable moments, he also managed to wake up that one and finally stood fully upright in front of the shed.

Feeling a short sting of pain in his abdomen, he put his right hand over it and rubbed over it. “Stupid pain. Why do I even feel that shit?” With a groan, he walked to the shed and stopped before it. With two claws from his right hand, he pinched his nose and sighed. “Why did I run into that door?” He asked himself, but just as expected, he did not receive an answer. Raising his hand, he knocked three short times at the door and then opened it. 

Inside the hut, he saw Abdarul standing in front of a table, mixing potions. When Spike saw him, he frowned. With a little more power than normally in his step, he walked up to the zebra and stopped behind him.

“Glad that you woke up,” Abdarul said, not turning his head to the dragon that now stood behind him. “An unconscious body in front of my hut could have lured some predators in here.” Putting one of his flasks down he continued, “it would have been a bother to scare them away again.” Abdarul now fully turned around and looked at Spike, a gigantic smirk plastered over his face.

Spike’s jaw clenched shut, and he narrowed his eyes at the zebra. For some time, he seriously considered hitting the zebra in front of him, but there were two aspects that spoke against this. Firstly, he was not a guy that hit ponies or zebras just because of some witty comment. Secondly, he would get his ass kicked by that zebra. It was just not worth it. So instead, he simply continued looking at the zebra with a hateful gaze that could drill holes into stone.

The zebra did not care in the slightest, or just managed to suppress his reaction perfectly. He just continued to smirk at the dragon with his cocky grin. Spike could practically feel the heat of his anger and heat boiling inside of him. Why that cocky, condescending, arrogant, smug, dirty, prime example of a prick!

“What happened? Why don’t you answer? Timberwolf got your tongue?” Abdarul asked with his quite typical smug tone. 

One day! One day I will make you eat your own words! Spike still did not answer the smug zebra and continued trying to drill holes into Abdarul’s eyes with his gaze. After some more seconds, he finally opened his mouth. “Why did you let me lay unconsciously outside your hut?” He asked with a serious and angry voice. 

Abdarul’s expression quickly changed to an overly done bewildered one. “Oh, you were in front of my hut? I didn’t see you there,” he told him with a voice that apparently bathed in sarcasm.

Spike’s left eye twitched due to the anger inside his soul reaching new heights. He clenched his hands into fists and subconsciously made all his muscles tense. He hadn’t been this angry in months, but he still knew that there was no sense in trying to hit this zebra. With a snort, he turned around and walked towards the other side of the hut to a makeshift bed. 

“And good work in finding that flower. Haven’t actually thought you were able to find one,” Abdarul shouted at him from behind. Instantly, Spike stopped. That flankhole looted my unconscious body! That was too much. His anger exploded, and he turned around. With a scream, he charged at the zebra, hate and anger filling his eyes. Spike quickly was at his side and took a swing at his head.

Abdarul simply jumped upwards over the arm of Spike and pushed himself away from the arm, which was now beneath him. In no time at all, he was now behind Spike. Spike realizing that he could not see Abdarul anymore, quickly turned around to the zebra, just to see that the zebra comfortably walked away from him, back facing him. Spike felt the anger inside him as it reached new heights and charged again at him. How dare he turn his back at him like this?

The Zebra simply rolled his eyes when he heard Spike charging at him with another shout. Abdarul could easily predict what the dragon would do, even without looking at him. This was not the first time he managed to anger Spike like this, and he always attacked the same way. A charge with a wide swing from his right hand. 

Abdarul had no means of seeing or feeling Spike while he was behind him. This was none of those ninja pony comics that the young ones read these days. Yet, without hesitation he simply turned to his left and took some quick steps. Behind him, he heard the swing that missed him, and he had to roll his eyes again. How can he fall for the same thing every time?

Spike was mad. He just tried to punch that zebra, but it simply sidestepped his swing without even looking at it. How did he do that? Does he have eyes on the back of his head? Narrowing his eyes at the zebra, he jumped forwards again and tried to take another swing, and this time, the zebra did not evade to the side. 

Instead, Abdarul simply ducked under the swing that was obvious to come. While he was under Spike’s missing swing, he simply moved his left back leg a little to Spike’s left leg and made him stumble like this. 

Spike was running too fast, and when he tripped over that hoof of Abdarul, he could not save himself anymore. He lost his footing and practically flew over Abdarul. Looking to where he flew towards, he saw the wall and put his hands in front of him. With a mighty "THUMP", he hit the wall, and a similar sound followed after he hit the floor.

Abdarul did not even look at him and let out a sigh. When he heard Spike getting on his feet again, he told him something. “You know, young dragon. I told you this multiple times already, and you still don’t seem to get it. Feelings of anger only cloud your judgment and dull your movements.” 

Abdarul turned around to Spike and looked at the dragon who now rubbed his arms because of the pain that was coursing through them. “You always attack with a wide swing from your right. I didn’t even need to look at you to know how you would attack,” Abdarul told Spike, and for the first time of that day, Abdarul sounded sincerely annoyed. Slowly, he walked closer to Spike who now looked at Abdarul with unsure eyes.

“Do you honestly think that you will survive out there if you do not know how to defend yourself?” He asked but did not give Spike any time to answer. “You told me of your plans, and by the sound of it you do not plan to stay inside Equestria.” Spike now had time to answer, but he didn’t. He just did not know what to say. Abdarul was inching closer and closer.

“Do you even know ANYTHING about the world outside of Equestria?” Abdarul nearly shouted, and Spike flinched a little at the sudden loudness of his voice. He did not know what to do. He never saw Abdarul this angry before. Why was he this angry?

“I have trained you three years! Three full years! I gave you knowledge about a flank full of herbs, trees, plants, and animals. I even gave you some hints for combat, and look what you have actually learned!” Abdarul pointed with one of his hooves to the old position of Spike. “You learned nothing! I tried to teach you enough things so you could survive on your own, without anybra keeping your small hand!”

“I thought you might be able to learn enough about herbs in two weeks and enough about fighting in six months, but look at how long you have been living here already!” Abdarul was now pointing at Spike and his voice got even louder and angrier than before. “Three warden-damned years! You already learned under me for three years, and regarding your capability in self-defense, you would need an additional nine years to get to the point where I can let you go without constantly thinking that you will get killed by the next chicken that crosses your path!”

Abdarul was now breathing heavily, and for the first time in three years, there was real anger in his voice. “I can’t comb with my conscience if I send a young dragon at the world that can’t even defend himself against some lousy timberwolves! The world outside Equestria is more dangerous than the Everfree Forest. There exist monsters that would make an Ursa Major cry out in fear.”

Abdarul shook his head. “While you would have no problem going through Equestria, I can’t let you leave just yet. I doubt that you would find a pony capable to train you on your journey before you leave Equestria. And when that happens, you will be in a huge amount of trouble! While the griffon lands are still passable for ponies, the minotaur lands are already way too dangerous, and that is not even the end. There are even worse lands beyond that you don’t hear off in Equestria because there is no sense in going to a land that will surely end your life!” Abdarul took a massive breath and let out a long sigh. 

Spike only looked at him in shock. He never received such a talking in his life. The pure amount of unfiltered information overwhelmed him. He knew that his journey would not be easy, but he didn’t anticipate it to be that hard. Also, was he actually that inept in learning how to fight? He thought back to the moment where Abdarul exactly told him how he would attack and realized that he was right. Spike sucked in combat. Is this true? Is this journey honestly this dangerous? Should I even consider going now?

Abdarul put his hoof to his face and sighed again. Then he slowly moved his hoof on Spike’s shoulder and looked at him. “Sorry for that. I don’t know what came over me.”

Spike simply looked at the zebra with a mixture of hurt, guilt, and sadness. His anger had entirely evaporated minutes ago, and he started to realize one after another that Abdarul was right in everything he said. Spike put his claw over the hoof of Abdarul and also sighed. “It’s okay. I understand that.” Slowly, his expression changed to a sad smile. “I really do suck at fighting, don’t I?”

Abdarul also smiled slightly now. “Well, I can’t say that you are fit for it, but I think if we put a little bit more work into it, we might be able to get you ready in some time.” He looked into Spike eyes with a smile and Spike answered with his own. He never met anypony like Abdarul. He was the first being he ever met that he liked. 

Suddenly, there was an extremely loud sound, like something heavy hit the shed. Both jumped back in fright, and the hut shook for a little time. Both of them looked around the hut and searched for any kind of damage. They didn’t find any. “What was that?” Spike asked with a nervous voice. 

Abdarul giggled a little bit nervously. “That sounded nearly the same as you running against my door,” Abdarul stated, and Spike frowned at this. 

Spike looked at Abdarul with a deadpan look. “Haha,” he flatly stated, and Abdarul reacted with an honest eyebrow raise.

“No, I really mean it. It honestly sounded the same.” 

Now it was Spike’s time to raise an eyebrow. He turned his head towards the door. “Well, then I think we should look for what crashed against your home, shouldn’t we?” Spike asked and started walking towards the door. 

Abdarul looked at Spike strangely and followed him. What would be so stupid as to run against a big hut inside a forest? By the sound of the impact, it likely was quite sizeable, with the size of something as weighty as a manticore, or it impacted with incredible speed. Both instances were not exactly likely. A big creature would be heard way before it hit the hut, and something fast would likely hit some trees before it would come to the hut. The whole situation just seemed senseless.

Spike opened the door and peeked out. He did not see anything out of the ordinary. He then fully stepped outside and started to circle the hut. After some steps, he saw something lying on the ground beside the hut. Spike narrowed his eyes at the thing and tried to guess what it was.

It was a body. It had a purple coat, and it seemed to be lying on the floor without moving. A slight bit of broken wood was three meters over it on the shed. That was probably the spot it hit. Judging by the size of the thing, it did not weigh more than Spike. In order for that small thing to create such a loud noise, it must have been pretty damn fast. Spike walked closer, and he saw something that showed him what this thing was and how it was able to generate such velocity.

Wings. This purple coated animal had wings. Judging by the size and form of the wings, this was a pegasus. When he walked even closer, he could see the face of the pony. The pony was male, and he had a spiky black and blue mane. The color of his mane looked similar to Shining Armor’s and the color of his coat similar to Twilight’s. He essentially looked like a combination of those two, just with wings instead of a horn.

Spike looked closer at him and saw that he was badly injured. Not badly as in “he just ran head first into a wall”, but badly as in “he had a serious crash and could very possibly die in the near future”. Spike instantly turned to his side and saw Abdarul walking around the corner. “This pegasus here is badly injured. He needs help immediately!” Spike shouted and at this, Abdaruls eyes changed from surprised to serious. Not wasting a second, he galloped over to the pegasus and Spike.

Spike learned a lot about medicine and herbs from Abdarul. That was one of the positives about him living with him for such a long time. Spike pointed with one of his claws at the bloody muzzle of the pegasus. “He has a broken muzzle and can only breathe with difficulty.” He then moved his claw to the chest. “I can also see several broken ribs.” Claw to the wings. “Both his wings are broken pretty badly.” Then Spike made a short pause. “But the thing surprising me the most, is the fact that he has multiple heavy burns all across his body.”

Abdarul nodded. “We need to help him. Run into the house and get me some Greg’s Herb, Waternilli, Savariah, Branzel Flower, Timber Blood Essence, water, and towels. I will carry him inside,” Abdarul ordered, and Spike nodded. Quickly turning around, Spike dashed into the hut. Grabbing the corner of the door, he pushed himself through it and looked at the bed of the hut.

“Hurry up and get the plants!” Abdarul shouted from beside the bed where the pegasus lay. Spike turned to the door and then back to Abdarul and the pegasus.

Dafuck?