//------------------------------//
// Introduction 
// Story: Raising Hope 
// by albutus 
//------------------------------//


Rising Hope


“Get out of here, you queer.”
The dark green pony was jeered out of yet another community
“Forgive me, your highness,” a sales pony mockingly bowed to the buyer with a deep blue mane striped with cream, “My goods are not of high enough quality for you.”  He said before evicting Hopeful from an establishment.
“Stop trying to be something you’re not.” An unmarked teen hooted from a second story window as Hopeful passed by dejectedly.  “Use your magic for something besides trying to become an Alicorn.” The teen stated before magicking filthy water over the Alicorn shaped cutimark.
“Unicorns are not allowed here” an earth guards pony stated blocking the gate to yet another city Hopeful had tried to seek employment, bits, or a new life.

All of those voices followed the diminutive unicorn wherever Hopeful went.  Hopeful’s cutimark had come in shortly before turning fifteen.  The unicorn’s family had despaired of him ever being able to use magic, but with the appearance of a cutimark they held a Cuti-ceañera.  The absence of his ability to utilize magic, even with a Cuti-mark, had him ousted from the family home.
Hopeful was ground bound, so he couldn’t take Pegasi jobs, to weak to complete most earth pony tasks, and had too little or no magical power to speak of.  Most others saw him as a charity case and refused to deal with him.  After time had passed word was spread about him and others had pre-decided to ostracize him from their communities.  In effect Hopeful the unicorn was banished to the fringe of civilization.  He was finally able to start a new life separated, and buffered, from unkind normal ponies.
Hopeful was able to find a niche for himself in a border town called Rickety Chance.  A small town located within a gorge abruptly formed within an abnormal forest.  The forest was unaffected by weather Pegasi, grew without help from earth ponies, and immune to magic from unicorns.  In essence the perfect place to live with other outcast and undesirable characters.

. . . .

The evening sun was setting down while trudging hoof steps carried the downcast unicorn towards his destination.  The lonesome pony was heading north along the half beaten path that skirted the outreaching effects of Everfree forest.  As the wind picked up, stirring some leaves into dancing across the path, Hopeful looked down the bluff towards the town of Rickety Chance.
The town was etched out of a gorge jabbing into what once had been woodland.  As more and more ponies settled near the eerie forest the quicker it seemed to withdraw.  The founding members had established the first homes against the side of Everfree forest before finding the unique characteristics that made it one of a kind.  Now twenty years later, the forest had receded half a mile away from the fringe of civilization.  Shaking his head at treasures lost.  Hopeful followed the bend on the rail as it took him west alongside grain fields waiting to be harvested.
Being the only pony with a reliable, functional, wagon he was usually tasked with bringing in the harvest to winter storage.   Many a pony had chosen to rather use his contracted services than purchase or trade for a wagon themselves.  This suited him just fine, as he could acquire bulk grain rather then raise his rates to purchase similar quantities.
Having gauged the upcoming harvest season’s readiness status, Hopeful turned at the last farmed plot heading into the renowned Everfree forest, towards his own workshop to prepare for the bountiful harvest to come.  Which happened to be owned by the local gelding.
“Get off my land ye varmint,” a cranky, dirt brown color, blind pony hollered upon hearing hoof steps.  “Move along before I take it upon myself to stop your curse from spoiling ma fields.”
“Easy there Oatis,” Hopeful called out while coming to a stop, “It is just me, passing by.”
“I reckon to know you,” Oatis squinted through milky orbs, "You’re that hope less yokel from high society.”  He cackled, emphasizing on the hope, “Get going” he shouted while agitating his rocking chair.
“Than-“
“I’m not kidding,” Oatis cut in while groping for his double barrel shotgun leaning near his chair. “I have a hankering of fixing my troubles before too long.”
“Your oat harvest seems to be a bountiful crop this year also”
BLAM
“Stop moving, damn eccentric youngster,” Oatis paused to reload his slugs.  
“You Shot At ME!”  The dark green pony cried out as he passed the blind elders rickety porch.
“Get going before you cause ma field to catch afire and burn me to cinders, ye hopeless idjut.”  Oatis shouted after the fleeing unicorn after finally closing the breach and searching for his next target.

. . . .

Hopeless was just an average pony, of unicorn breed, but without any magical connection.  As a young colt, he had aspired to be a talented magical pony whom would assist with every pony’s needs.  The fateful moment happened on his Cuti-ceañera, all the well wishers and congratulators stopped mid-sentence upon seeing his once bare flank.  Instead of a practical, or even specialized to his talent, his flank exhibited one Cuti-mark that baffled all whom saw it.  Shortly afterwards, with a lack of magical prowess, several of the others ponies had decided that Hopeful was using his limited magic to forge an audacious fake mark.
Being as he couldn’t prove his destiny, nor become an Alicorn at will, the citizens of his home town decided to have nothing to do with a lying pony.  Shortly after being ostracized at the age of 15, for an Alicorn shaped Cuti-mark, he found a way into a neighboring community.
The unicorn’s luck held out, as within months, he was yet again forced out into the wilderness.  After a year of wandering through most of Equestria, and several towns, H was able to settle down near a small community called Rickety Chance.  A home for dubious characters, don on luck ponies, and hard frontier attitudes.  Settled on the edge of Equestria’s most well known unknown forest.  Everfree.
After learning, through hardships, Hopeful was finally successful in leaving most of his past behind.  After successfully establishing himself a home, in Everfree Forest, he was able to live near a community without being banished.  Most of the other locals wanted nothing to do with the unusual forest.
With hopeful’s lack of magical control, weak when compared to the strength of earth ponies, and no wings like the Pegasi, he was an all-around oddity.

. . . .

“Excuse me, ‘Your Highness’,” another dirt brown colored stallion chortled after sending Hopeful into what was likely a tangle of poison joke.  The huge specimen to all ponykind was called Braeburn.  A sensible, down to earth, pony of grand stature and harvest yellow mane.  
A higher pitched echo of “Highness!” sounded as the diminutive unicorn shook off the ditch debris.
“Oh, my local Alicorn wanabe, I have yet to show you my darling foal.”  Braeburn put words into action pivoting around to present his left side which held said foal in saddle pack.  “I have courted a local Pegasus, and behold, the fruit of our union.”  To Hopeful, the nonchalant attitude was wearing, about as much as the itchy vines that were now causing his own hindquarters to twitch uncontrollably.
Braeburn as an individual was not what one would consider a jerk.  The earth stallion had the cutimark of plow and was the local resource for the plowed fields.  If Braeburn were in immediate vicinity of family, his awareness of the outside world diminished to tunnel vision.  Breaburn’s adorable two year old daughter was indirectly the cause of the current ditch meeting.
“I have no idea of why my dear Siri would choose to be my suitor, but it suits me.”  He told Hopeful as his brown and red foal climbed up his mane and draped her striped hooves over her father’s eyes.  “I don’t know how an earth pony like me caused her to land for me so hard, but I don’t regret her asking for my hoof in marriage.” His oversized face barely large enough to uphold the foal in her position.
As hopeful pulled leaf litter out of his mane, which distracted the foal to no limit, a creamy white Pegasus gently landed behind her mate.  Siri flashed a Cirrus cutimark as she tucked her beige wings, which matched her mane, before sidling up toward her mate that was twice her size.  “I Think that something to do with his plowing got my attention,” she smirked as the blue mane unicorn couldn’t show the blush.  “And what are you doing with my child, showing her to all the weirdoes around here?”  Siri asked Braeburn before nipping him in the flanks with a jesting smile.
Startled, Braeburn pivoted back around and would have knocked heads with Siri if his larger stature easily cleared her upheld head.  “I wasn’t up to nuttin” he protested, letting his southern accent slip out.  “Just showing our little you around da valley before yeh came home.”
“As I can see for myself,” Siri said sliding her creamy side against him in an attempt to tip over her hulk of a mate.  “And now we have to hurry home before Bonfire here misses her din-din” Siri gathered up the foal in her wings before nodding into Hopeful’s direction.  “Whenever you feel like it, please stop by and visit, our daughter has already had her Cute-ceañera, before even turning two.”
As he watched the happy family trot on down the road until a bend took them out of view, and being sure no one else was going to see him, Hopeful carefully navigated around a few trees until his hidden trail was finally visible to him.  As a social pariah, he had learned to take measures to protect his home, which also meant no visits from friends, if he had any.
After getting off of the beaten path he continued over a trio of boulders, each the size of a comfortable bed, before continuing up an inclined log and across a bubbling creek.  Walking on the rocky beach, he continued east, away from the setting sun, before coming onto a waterfall with a covered entrance before going through and coming out the other side in a secluded bowl.
Hopeful was finally home, a rock outcropping with an outlaying vein of coal running into a formation of slate.  Little by little, Hopeful had hallowed out the outcrop to form a rudimentary cave home.  The running stream along the south western edge of the bowl gave him clean water, trees gave him shelter, and the bowls walls the privacy he desired.  It had taken him almost a year of wandering before finally finding a safe place to settle down at.