Timber

by Wafflicious

Chapter One

It was a good day to be Derpy.

The sun was shining over the Everfree Forest as she flew through the trees and landed onto the ground, humming to herself. Derpy didn't understand why nopony else wanted to deliver this package to Zecora. Sure, she was creepy, and the Everfree Forest was creepy, and there were plenty of horrifying monsters and beasts that wanted nothing more than to devour and eat you alive, but the weather was nice. Derpy calmly and happily trotted through the forest and came to a large, wooden house that had many things in common with a tree. In fact, Derpy was certain that it at least used to be a tree. Still humming to herself, she knocked on the door of the cottage with one of her forelegs.

"I'm coming to get the door," a foreign voice said, "you will not have to wait anymore." The door was opened by a zebra who was about the same size as Derpy. She looked rather friendly as she smiled and greeted, "Hello there, my friendly mailmare, I welcome you to enter my lair." Derpy walked into the building. On the walls were multiple potions and masks from Zecora's homeland. The place looked awfully homey.

Derpy trotted towards a table, then pulled a small package out of her mailmare suit. "Special delivery for Zecora!" she said. Her right eye rebeliously strayed towards a large cauldron filled with a bubbling purple liquid.

"What's this?" Derpy asked as she walked over and reached out her hoof to touch it. Before she did, however, Zecora gently pushed Derpy away from the potion.

"I would recommend not touching my brew," she warned, "it would not go very well for you." Taking that as a warning, Derpy shyly moved away.

"No need to fret," Zecora said soothingly, "that's not a threat. This potion would cause pain on contact, I'm afraid that that is just a fact." Derpy gave a sigh of relief, which caused Zecora to chuckle.

"You are acting rather queer," Zecora observed, "I trust that there is nothing to fear?"

"Of course not!" Derpy over enthusiastically shouted, "you just... well..." Derpy shrugged. "I guess I'm just being weird." Zecora shrugged and got back to her work.

Derpy watched with her left eye as Zecora opened her package, a sweet smell filling the air as a bunch of exotic green bell flowers were revealed. Zecora dumped them all into the cauldron. "You'll have to thank Twilight Sparkle for me," she started as the concoction turned blue, "but I trust you do not work for free?" Not sure if it was the right thing to do, Derpy slowly nodded. Zecora tossed Derpy a bit, which Derpy did not manage to catch. Which is not easy when you have hooves. "Here's a bit to ease your strife, the extra luck may save your life." Derpy shrugged off the fact that that was the most cryptic and threatening thing she had heard all day as she grabbed the bit off the floor and put it in her pocket.

"Oh thank you!" Derpy said cheerfully. "I'm gonna have to go now though, so I guess I'll see you next time!" As Derpy left Zecora's tree cottage, she saw Zecora waving to her goodbye. Doing so was probably easier than thinking of another rhyme.

As she flew above the treetops, she heard a sound. It sounded like a chicken, but louder with a distinctly spiteful tone added to it. It sent a shiver down Derpy's spine as she looked around. Finally, however, she found the source. A large creature with the head of a chicken and a long, scaly body and two immense wings rose from the treetops and gave out another screech. A cockatrice. Derpy turned around and started to fly in a different direction. She could hear the cockatrice screeching from behind her again as she flew as fast as she could. She felt a sudden force slam into her side. She could only guess it was the cockatrice that had started trying to push her out of the air. Derpy continued to look away from it. She had heard that this creature had the ability to turn ponies to stone if you looked into it's eyes. Fluttershy was awfully informative.

Again the cockatrice rammed into Derpy. This time, however, Derpy was knocked out of the sky. She fell down and, crashing through the canopy, eventually hit the ground of the Everfree forest. She was sitting on a sharp piece of wood. She tried to stand up, but a stunning pain in her leg made her fall back down on another sharp piece of wood. A similar pain was in one of her wings. Derpy considered the fact that her wing and foreleg may be broken, which was a bad sign. If she couldn't get up, then she couldn't go back to ponyville, and then the cockatrice would eat-

She shook that though out of her head and looked around. Her mailmare suit was a mess for starters. She noticed that there were many different oddly shaped pieces of wood surrounding her. She saw the cockatrice flying through the air and landing on the ground a good distance away, before letting out another screech searching the ground. It must have not seen where Derpy crashed. However, if Derpy didn't find cover, it would find her. She tried to pull herself up again, but failed. Then, much to her horror, one of the pieces of wood started to move. All of the wood surrounding Derpy, included the one that Derpy was on top of, slowly moved into a pile, which then, slowly, arranged itself into the shape of a timberwolf. Derpy's jaw dropped when she realized that she hit a timberwolf when she fell. She looked up at the creature with her left eye, the only one she had control of. The timberwolf snarled, and stalked over to her, and, raising it's paw, got ready to strike. Derpy closed her eyes and waited for it to kill her. The blow never came. Cautiously, Derpy looked again. What Derpy was expecting to see was a timberwolf about to come in for the kill. What she didn't expect to see, however, was said timberwolf staring at her with two eyes that almost seemed... caring. She did not believe that this was normal timberwolf behavior.

A few minutes of silence passed. Or was it hours? Time seemed to move slower as Derpy stared into the timberwolf's eyes. Eventually, another screech was heard nearby. The timberwolf's ears perked up at this sound. Immediately, it bit the collar of Derpy's mailmare suit and pulled her into a bush. Then, with Derpy hidden, it laid down next to the bush and pretended to be sleeping.

It was only a few panicked moments later before the cockatrice ran by the bush. But it ran back and looked when it saw the timberwolf, which still pretended to be asleep. The cockatrice made another screech which caused the timberwolf to 'wake up'. It stretched out it's front legs and faked a yawn before staring at the cockatrice like a disappointed mother does to her child. The cockatrice simply stared right back at the timberwolf for a while before walking off with less urgency than shown before. It was only then that Derpy realized she had been holding her breath in fear of the beast that wanted her dead.

Author's Note:

Feel free to point out any flaws in the comments. I may have good ideas, but my writing isn't the best in many areas. Or maybe I'm unoptimistic
Anyway, new chapter coming soon if you liked this? What do you guys think about it so far? Should I add the comedy tag? Or possibly the dark tag? I dunno, I'm still an FIMfiction noob.

Comments

[Pony Authors]

Interesting topic. I'll keep my eye on this story. Wait, this is your first story? Good job! It's quite enjoyable so far! Keep it up!
Rock on!
-ThePortalPonies

[Comet Blueberry]

NEW CHAPTER NOW

[Ziper Ace]

Oh my gosh