My little Zebra

by Uncle Knot

part 1

O’ most gracious and cordial Princess Celestia, my 9,978th letter in 831st YR

What a marvelous thing it is to fly, the pegasi are most fortunate to possess this ability. I am writing you from the gondola of a flying ship, at an elevation of 3000 meters, traveling over the Morogoro area, following the Rufiji River, with the Mbarika Mountains to the south west. I will send this letter using the usual means once we land, since fire is ‘verboten’ aboard the air ship. Our investment in Halter Zeppelin’s device promises to bring new lands and resources within our reach. Halter is a bit long winded and pompous, and coming from me that should scare you. As you know I have commissioned this expedition in my quest for another dragon egg. The air ship has remained in visual range with an ideally mated pair of dragons, and while winds sometimes push us off course, we have luckily remained close enough to maintain contact.
However, even with the best of planning, we made an un-expected stop. Halter’s sharp eyes detected a zebra foul in serious jeopardy. It had been days since we remember seeing any zebras, and we both know that without any social reinforcements that the lone zebra mare would perish. Upon landing the zebra was in such a poor state that she fainted from shock. We took her aboard, at Halter’s insistence, yet this places me in the uncomfortable position of being responsible for her. Halter identified her as belonging to the Selous tribe as opposed to the Grevy zebra tribe, not that I would know the difference. Halter says that the Grevy have narrow stripes while the Selous have the wider stripes. Oh, if you should wonder, they are white stripes on black, not black on white.

With water and oats, my little zebra, recovered. She was full of glee about the airship, and (I presume) questioned us about everything for we didn’t know her language. She bonded to me quickly, and calls me Knotty or papa, since she had trouble pronouncing ‘uncle Knot’. Taking care of a child is not my forte, as you well know; however, Halter thinks me a natural (and really doesn’t have any time to provide care). She introduced herself as Zecora; I hope my sound based spelling of her name is accurate, although Halter finds it a bit simplistic.

Zecora seems to have excellent night vision, and prefers the dark, so Halter ‘commissioned’ her as night watch lookout, which renewed her joyous glee. I do enjoy her serious outlook and commitment to learn, and already she is beginning to understand much of what we say. She has also been helpful with some of the locals (as we did search for her tribe). The Grevy tribe would not take her, and the Selous could not find her immediate clan, besides, she seemed to prefer my company. So I have decided to adopt her, she has proven to be a good assistant.

Unfortunately our dragon egg quest is a bust. An unexpected storm forced us far away from our dragons and out to sea, thus we have lost them. Zecora was amazed at the endless water. We are returning to Star Swirl’s house, where I will continue Zecora’s studies, with an emphasis on herbs and remedies, which she has an excellent nose for. She will have need of them when I return her later to the Selous tribe. Of course I must return her; she would stand out even more than I do. Think of her as a potential ambassador to the zebras.

Sincerely, with all my humor, kindness, loyalty, honesty, and generosity, Sum-po-neigh Knot Yew.

Comments

[Bad Horse]

Zecora is ancient?

I like the start, and the narrative voice. There are some inconsistencies in voice (eg "should scare you", "was a bust"), some vague statements that could be more specific (" in serious jeopardy"), and a lot of grammatical errors. A whole lot of grammatical errors. But the structure is sound. The lack of a hook is problematic for a fan-fiction, but standard for a 19th century novel of letters.