Foreign Land: Arrival

by BoganBrony

Chapter 3

Jake had finally reached the outskirts of the trees that were near the town. To his pleasant surprise he found that it was actually an orchard full of apple trees and without hesitating, he quickly plucked one of the fruits within reach and sunk his teeth into it. The taste was extraordinary and it caused a shiver to go down his spine as he wasted no time in devouring the juicy fruit. The trip over from the stream had been mostly uneventful, and to help pass the time walking towards the town Jake indulged himself with fantasies of having hot food, a hot shower, and a soft bed to sleep in for that night. What dominated his mind the most however was what everyone must be thinking. Did they think he was dead? Was that why he hadn't seen any rescue teams or search parties.

More than that what happened to the pilots? Admittedly he hadn't thought about them much as when he wasn't able to initially find them his thoughts strictly turned towards keeping himself alive. Thinking about it now, he started to feel sick. It had been days where he left since he first woke up and if they were still somewhere out there, he may have unintentionally left them to die. Sure he at least made an attempt to look for them but he couldn't shake the feeling that he should have spent more time looking around before heading over to the mountains.

Why was there no signs of a crash?

Marching on, Jake continued to try and figure out the enigma of how he ended up where he was but to his frustration he still couldn't remember anything past him getting on the helicopter. It had been bothering him relentlessly, and It was as if the time between then and when he became conscious again in the desert had ceased to exist.
While he continued to ponder about it, a soft thumping noise coming from up ahead brought him out of his thoughts. It sounded as if something was striking one of the trees in the orchard. Making his way towards it, what he saw stunned him.

It appeared that making the noise was a tiny horse looking creature that was kicking the tree. What was strange about it however is that it had a white coat of fur but with a mane that was cherry red. He could also see a picture on it’s flank which looked like a single cherry.

Jake stared at it for a few more moments before looking down at the nearly finished apple that was in his hand.

Ok... so either these apples have been laced with Acid somehow... Or someone with paint and too much time on their hands got bored.

If it were the latter, he had to commend them in particular on the artwork. The picture was very crisp and precise and as he painted models himself, he could imagine that doing kind of high quality art work on a live animal would be difficult.

Well I guess I better go and introduce myself to the locals

As Jake approached the foal, he saw that it was kicking the tree in what seemed to be in an attempt to make the apples fall down. When one finally did it stopped to gently pick it up in its mouth and then taking it over to a nearby wooden bucket, dropped it inside.

“Wow. Smart horse”.

Speaking aloud got the foals attention and it turned to look at him. While they both stared at each other Jake saw that aside from its strange colours, its eyes took up a huge portion of its head and that it also it didn’t to have as an elongated face as a horse usually should. Suffice to say he'd never seen anything like it before.

“Well you're definitely the strangest thing I've ever seen”.

Upon saying this however the creature slowly started to back away in fright before bolting away from him. To add to the surprise the creature had already gave him, it sounded like it was screaming something as it ran off.

Did that thing just scream out “MONSTER”?
_____________________________________________________________________________

It was another bright sunny day at Apple Loosa. Dozens of the towns inhabitants, all Earth Ponies, were busy harvesting the forest of apple trees that had finally bore the fruits of their labour. It had been over 2 years since the first settlers arrived bringing with them hundreds of trees to be planted for the then newly forming community, and although things hadn’t gone as smoothly as possible given the troubles they had experienced with local buffalo tribes, it was now transforming itself into a thriving and prosperous town with many of the excess crops from the orchards being traded with Dodge City that lay towards the east.

The ponies who were all working together like well oiled machines, gossiped with one another as they continued to harvest the seemingly endless amount of apple trees that surrounded them. Off in one part of the orchard however the calm serenity of the environment was shattered by a childish voice followed by the galloping of tiny hooves, as a small filly raced towards one of the stallions working to clear his section.

“BRAEBURN!”

Not not hearing her the stallion continued kicking the tree that he stood under which in turn caused all of the apples from it to fall down into the carefully placed buckets underneath it.

“Braeburn!”, the filly yelled at him again this time getting his attention.

“Well, howdy there Pip! How goes yer pract-”.

Before he could say another word though, Pip cut him off and blurted out in between breaths, “There’s a .... monster ….. in ….. in the … orchard”.

He looked at the young pony for a few seconds before blinking once. “What in tarnation are ya talking about. You know we don’t get any critters wandering around this close to town”.

But Pip was still keeping a serious look upon her face. “It’s true! It walked on two legs, and was so big that it could pluck the apples from the trees, and it had no fur except for on the top of its head, and it wore clothes, and...”

Braeburn looked a her with confusion and disbelief as she continued to go on about the ‘monster’ that Pip saw. It sounded like nothing he had ever heard of before but he knew that the other fillies and colts living in the town liked to get into all kinds of mischief.

“Now are ya sure that it ain’t any of yer friends foolin with ya?”.

“I know what I saw!” Pip shouted back causing Braeburn to wince slightly at the volume of her voice.

"Alright alright, just calm down for a second."

There was definitely something about the look on young Pip’s face and the way she spoke that made him believe she wasn’t fooling around.

Well somethin’s definitely spooked her.

He thought for a few moments before sighing. Although it might put his schedule back a couple of hours he couldn't just ignore the terrified filly. “Alright. Show me where you saw it”.

Wasting no time Pip quickly took point and lead Braeburn towards where she had been practicing harvesting. After following her for short while they eventually came to a clearing where Pip's buckets still sat where she had left, one half full with apples. The 'monster' however was nowhere to be seen. Her eye's started to water. "But... but it was right here. I swear...".

"Now hold on. I'm sure it's just wandered off someplace else", Braeburn said reassuringly. "Let's just have a look around here and find out where it might have gone."
_____________________________________________________________________________

You've gotta be kidding me

Jake stared in disbelief at the scene that was in front of him. Walking around all over the town were more of the strange horses like the one he saw earlier.
He was just about to stroll on into the town before the spectacle had frozen him in his tracks and now all he could do was stand near the edge of the orchard as his mind tried its hardest to somehow come up with an explanation for what he was now witnessing. All of the creatures wandering the town each appeared to have their own different color scheme with only one or two he would consider normal. If that wasn’t enough many of them appeared to be wearing hats, vests, or some other kind of clothing, as well as each of them having a different picture on their flanks.
But perhaps what mind boggled him the most was that although he couldn't quite hear them, these creatures seemed to be talking with each other. In fact, he swore he could make out one going over to what appeared to be a stall which another one of the creatures was standing by, then handing over what appeared to be a coin of some kind before taking some apples from the stall and then walking off.

Witnessing all of this, Jake’s brain seemed to stop functioning as he slowly backed off in a daze to one of the trees that surrounded him before plopping down against one and just staring out into space, completely oblivious to everything around him, and to the two creatures coming through the orchard that were now approaching him.

Comments

[Kunnka-Kun]

It starts up pretty slow, but hopefully the action will pick up now. I also have to say you do pretty good work with sentence structure with a good mix of simple and compound sentences. Can't wait to see where this goes.

[2D]

So little attention!

Well, I must say that I think you sir are going places! This
fiction could go so many ways... I want to see which ones it
decides to go.

Thorn

[totallynotabrony]

A good first story, if a little boring. I've seen plots like this many times before. Your writing is high quality, though, so I'll watch it and see where it goes.

[Pixels]

replygif.net/i/688

[RagingCacti]

Im impressed, please keep it up!

RagingCacti

[BoganBrony]

Thought I'd finish it for you.

lol thank you

Thanks for the feedback guys. Working on the 4th chapter now.
It'll still take a bit more time for the action to build up but rest assured I will be putting more in as the story progresses.

[Malesur Darkhoof]

Hm, interesting story you got here so far. Good introduction, good pace and such. Although, there is one thing I noticed. During the conversation with Pip and Braeburn, you switched between describing Pip as female and male, since you used 'him' several times when it came to Pip. I actually had to doublecheck to make sure that Pip was supposed to be female, since it confused me in the beginning.

Except for that, good story. Keep up the good work.

Ps: Have a moustache.

[BoganBrony]

1775436

Yeah originally I had Pip as a male but then changed my mind. Seems I missed out a few references.
Thanks, I'll sort it out shortly