It only took a few minutes to fly to the Everfree Forest, Eclipse was determined to find Twilight and clear his name. He flew fast and was gliding down by the time Everfree Forest came into view. He landed at Everfree Forest’s border to be met by the looming, evil aura it gave off. Eclipse wasn’t scared by the Forest this time though; his determination to find Twilight conquered his fear.
He strode off into the Everfree Forest and headed directly towards the ruins of the castle; it seemed a logical place to start his search. He walked through the dense forest for what seemed like forever, he had obviously become lost. He continued through the forest and eventually came to a field of bright blue flowers, the flowers all grew together in one large patch and he had not seen any others growing in the forest. Eclipse was tempted to stop and smell the flowers, but pushed the thought aside and strode through the field back into the tangle of trees. He plowed through the thick brush and mud for a few more minutes until he saw a light off in the distance between the vines and trees. Maybe that’s a campfire, maybe Twilight decided to come out here to do some research and has been gone longer than she expected to be! thought Eclipse as he started running towards the light. He broke through the underbrush to emerge into a small clearing. He looked around quickly, hopeful that he would see Twilight.
However, he was disappointed to see that the light was coming from a small house build into a tree, not a campfire. So unless Twilight randomly decided to move into the Everfree Forest it couldn’t have been her. Eclipse did some stealthy ninja moves and made it to the window of the tree house without making a sound. He looked inside and saw that there was a zebra mixing something in a cauldron and singing an enchantment in rhyming couplets. Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light as she added an ingredient to the potion and it caught Eclipse totally off guard. He was shocked by the sudden flash and stumbled backwards only to hit his head on a low tree branch, and then there was darkness.
Eclipse woke up to the face of the striped pony looking directly at him. “Ow, my head hurts. Where am I?” he asked.
“You, my blue friend, are in the home of Zecora” said the zebra.
Eclipse sat up and managed to stand up “Oh, well hi. Who are you though? Why do you live out here?” he asked
“I am different than everypony else, they do not accept me. That is why I live out here where I am free” answered Zecora.
“Different? The only difference is the stripes I don’t see why Everypony wouldn’t accept you” said Eclipse.
“I don’t just have stripes you see, for I am a zebra and they just won’t accept me” said Zecora.
“So just because you’re different they fear you? That seems a bit rude of them, but yea I know how you feel. A lot of ponies somehow manage to mistake me for Nightmare Moon, even though I’m nothing like her, and they get scared of me.” said Eclipse with a slight frown on his face.
“Well looks like we are two of a kind, someone like you, I don’t mind” said Zecora.
“Oh wait, I almost forgot” said Eclipse, “Have you seen a purple pony with a star cutie mark pass by here by any chance?”
“Hmm, there was a pony that came by, but she left for the ruins, I don’t know why” said Zecora.
“Really? She was heading for the ruins? How long ago was she here? Do you know why she went there?” Eclipse blurted out in quick succession.
“You have too many questions for me to bear, she was headed towards the ruins, but other than that I don’t know where” said Zecora.
“Which way to the ruins? I need to find Twilight” said Eclipse.
“The ruins are just to the east, but be careful for the beast” warned Zecora.
“The beast? What is it?” asked Eclipse.
“The beast is but a cockatrice, don’t go near, it won’t play nice” said Zecora
“Alright, thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to avoid the cockatrice” said Eclipse
With a final goodbye and thanks to Zecora for her help Eclipse took off back into the forest in search for Twilight. After his visit with Zecora Eclipse knew where he was going and was sure he would eventually run into twilight if he kept heading for the ruins.
Eclipse walked for thirty minutes or so and the ruins had still not come into view. He trekked through the mass of trees, shrubs, mud, and entangling vines for what seemed like forever. He was beginning to wonder if he was even headed in the right direction when he saw a clearing ahead of him. He picked up speed, happy that there was finally something else to see than then endless expanse of green, leafy, trees and shrubs. Normally he liked being in woods but the trees in Everfree Forest didn’t look like the cheery green trees that grew everywhere else. The trunks of the trees in this forest seemed warped and twisted; they often seemed to form gruesome shapes and figures in the dark. Eclipse finally made it to the clearing and noticed that there was an opening to the sky up in the trees.
Upon noticing the opening he also noticed that it had become dark, and there was no use blundering through the maze of a forest at night. Traveling in the Everfree Forest at night can only result in getting lost, which is probably what happened to Twilight. Eclipse spread his wings, took a giant leap into the air, and he was off into the night.
A short flight through the cool night air landed him back at Fluttershy’s house. He was glad to be out of the Everfree Forest for the night but the thought of not having found Twilight managed to smother any happy feelings of leaving the forest. He walked up the small dirt path that snaked up to the front of Fluttershy’s house and gave the door two firm knocks.
“Come in” came a voice from inside.
Eclipse pushed the door open to find Fluttershy making something in the kitchen. Whatever it was it smelled amazing. The thought of food made Eclipse realize that he hadn’t eaten anything for nearly two days and he was just about starving.
Upon walking into the kitchen Fluttershy turned around with a smile and said “I’m not used to having company over so I decided to go ahead and make some food. Also, did you manage to find Twilight?”
The smile now gone from his face Eclipse said “I looked through as much of the forest as I could cover but I couldn’t find Twilight. I did find a zebra named Zecora and she told me that Twilight had come by and was headed for the ruins. I think it’s the ruins of the castle of the royal pony sisters, or something along those lines; I came across it in a book I read when I was waiting for Twilight at her house.”
“Oh, well there’s always tomorrow to go looking again. Besides its time for food now” said Fluttershy in an attempt to cheer Eclipse up despite not finding Twilight.
“Yea, I’ll find Twilight as soon as I can. I promise I won’t quit until I’ve found her. But now that you mentioned food I really am hungry and food sounds amazing. So what kind of food is it?” he asked.
“Oh it’s nothing special; it’s just a carrot stew recipe I picked up from my mom. I also went ahead and made some apple pie with apples from Applejack’s farm.”
Eclipse hadn’t heard of Applejack, but at the moment he didn’t care. All that was on his mind was the delicious food Fluttershy had made.
Fluttershy had already set the table and motioned for Eclipse to take a seat. He walked to the table and promptly took a seat. Fluttershy came up to the table with a ladle of carrot stew held in her mouth and poured Eclipse a bowl of carrot stew.
“Wow, this smells delicious!” said Eclipse as he took an experimental sip of the stew. “Dang! And it tastes even better!”
Fluttershy, now completely red in the face, said “No really, it’s nothing, just an old recipe. It’s nothing special.”
“Mhm” was all Eclipse could manage to say between mouthfuls of the stew. After two days without food the stew was like a godsend.
Fluttershy joined Eclipse at the table and marveled at the speed at which he was eating. After Fluttershy had finished half of her stew she noticed that Eclipse had finished his completely.
“Do you want more stew?” she asked.
“Ehh, I don’t really want to impose or anything” he replied, despite the fact that he was still pretty hungry. The truth was that he had been running on empty after the night in the ruins and was still awfully hungry; but like he said, he didn’t want to be a rude guest.
“Oh that’s no problem, I made plenty of stew and it would go to waste if we didn’t eat it all”
“Alright, if you say so.” he replied as he took his bowl up to the counter and ladled himself another helping of the delicious carrot stew.
As Eclipse took his bowl back to the table he noticed that Fluttershy had only finished half of her stew. “Something wrong?” he asked, “I noticed that you weren’t eating your stew, is something on your mind?”
“It’s nothing, I’m just not really hungry, that’s all.” she lied, in truth she was worried about Twilight and was wondering if she was ok.
By the time Fluttershy had gone through her thoughts Eclipse had already finished three bowls of the stew and looked like he was about to fall asleep and slump out of his chair.
“You look tired. I think it’s about time for bed” said Fluttershy.
“Hu, what? Bed? O yea. Bed….I suppose I am sort of tired” replied Eclipse, hardly able to keep his eyes open now that he had thought about how tired he really was. Since first waking up to find himself in Ponyville Eclipse had barely slept at all. There was the race which took a lot out of him and then directly after that came a night in the Everfree Forest that had offered him a few meager hours of restless sleep. So he was really tired.
“I’ll show you to your bed” Fluttershy said “It’s not too big of a room. I hope that’s ok with you” said Fluttershy.
“Its fine, I would be happy if you told me to sleep on the floor. I’m dead tired at the moment. I think I could sleep just about anywhere that isn’t Everfree Forest” Eclipse responded. “Oh and Fluttershy.”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for the food and bed and all. I really appreciate it.”
Fluttershy blushed and said “Oh, it’s no problem, really.” Then she showed Eclipse down the hallway to a wooden door leading to a small bedroom. The bedroom might have been small but it was incredibly cozy. The bed was made of wood and looked incredibly comfortable; it had cloud designs on the covers and there were two white pillows accompanying the sky blue bed sheet. The rest of the room also had a very homely touch. There were lively white curtains over the window and a small table with a vase of fresh flowers on it. Next to the bed, up against the wall, was a bookshelf that was no doubt filled with books on animals.
Eclipse, however, was too tired to admire the room as much as he would normally have. After Fluttershy had left he gratefully fell into the soft embrace of the bed. He would have slept under the covers, but he was already asleep by the time he hit the bed.