Understand Them
In the depths of the Everfree Forest, a cloaked figure ran across the dense forest, evading rocks and branches in her path. Her breath calm, her steps firm, eyes filled with determination.
A branch caught her cloak, revealing the face of a zebra.
Zecora had seen better days; her fur was missing a few locks, her face had a few scars here and there, and she had bags under her eyes due to the lack of good sleep.
Behind her, at a slow but steady pace, they followed her.
Fifteen ponies of rotten flesh, with minds filled with hunger for the living, any kind of living.
Pony, donkey, griffon, zebra, they didn’t care; they only wanted to tear their flesh apart so they could feast on it.
Zecora knew this; she knew what would happen if they caught her, but she also knew that the Everfree has always been a dangerous place. One she knew every trick it had, every wild animal, every poisonous plant, every bad turn a pony could make to secure his death.
Cheating death has been her hobby since she moved to the forest, the fact that now the death walked on four hooves didn’t change much for her.
She stopped at a familiar tree; one she had marked before.
Even if she knew it like the back of her hoof, it was the point of no return. If she continued guiding them down this path; she had to do it without mistakes.
She took a moment to fill her lungs with fresh air, went over every part of her plan again, every step, curve, and risk. The rotten beings came closer, and only when they were just a few hooves away of her, she dashed towards the jungle, evading some trees and finally jumping over a small rock line that marked the perimeter of the “nest”.
Once inside it, Zecora started to clap her hooves as loud as she could.
From the shadows of a nearby cave, green glowing eyes looked at her with anger, annoyed with the intrusion. They started to crawl out of the cave, emanating their distinctively smell.
Timberwolves, beings of wood and magic.
The rotten ponies appeared, drawing the attention of the tree-wolfs.
The undead had no interest in biting the wooden flesh of the Timberwolves, besides the fact that even if they were to tear one into pieces; it could just reform back to normal with their magic. The same could be said for the Timberwolves, except that they were very territorial, and if they see an intruder, undead or not, they would tear it apart on the spot.
Zecora didn’t waste her time and quickly ran away from the battleground, leaving the dirty job to the Timberwolves.
With a howl of the herd leader, the tree-wolfs attacked, tearing apart rotten flesh and breaking bones, showering the floor with putrid blood.
Zecora looked over them form the tree line, the adrenalin of the task fading away. Once she calmed herself, she walked to another marked tree, one that had a wooden mask half the size of the zebra, and a decorative spear whose tip had been sharpened to be able to tear flesh and pierce skull. Old decorations that she had in her hut, now handled like real weapons. She could remember the days of her obligatory service in the warrior tribe, how she hated using these kinds of weapons, but now that knowledge was saving her life.
Memories of her home filled her head, but she casted them away. She had a mission to do, one more important than any distant memory.
She took her weapons and headed back to the previous tree, the point of no return.
While the Timberwolves massacred the undead ponies, Zecora walked right beside them, knowing that they were too focused in the fight to see her.
When she arrived at the tree, she could see her reward for the work of the morning.
A unicorn mare, with blue dots in her blood darkened coat, her mane totally gone, exposing the skull to the morning air. Several bites along her back and flank exposed a constant stream of dark liquid that gave off the smell of death to the public. Her cutie mark had been bitted off a long time ago, along with a good chunk of her throat.
She was alone, hampered by her wounds, perfect for Zecora.
The zebra took two ropes form her saddlebags and put them in the ground, forming two parallel lines. Once done with the ropes, she waited for the undead mare to attack her with her shield-mask up in front of her.
The pounce barely had any strength, making the job so much simpler. Zecora pushed her shield to the side, pinning the mare over the ropes with precision. Then she took the ropes and started to tie the rotten beast to the mask, holding it firmly. When finished, she turned the mask upside down, leaving the mare looking towards the sky.
Zecora checked the knots and then started to pull the makeshift sled through the forest.
The sun was already starting to hover over the horizon when the zebra arrived at her hut. Opening the door with her hind legs, Zecora took her prisoner in, putting her over the cauldron, still tied to the wooden mask.
Sighing heavily, Zecora threw herself onto her bed, letting her exhausted body finally rest. The hard work was not something she was used to, but the time would teach her to endure it.
Once the itch in her muscles faded, Zecora rose up from the couch and turned all her concentration on the undead mare in the middle of her hut.
The pony in question was still fighting against the ropes, trying desperately to bite the zebra in front of her.
Zecora took a bunch of potions, a very old book from her bookshelf, and a box of surgery tools, putting them close to the cauldron so they would be at reach, and started working on the mare.
First, she took some pliers and removed the pony’s teeth’s, ensuring that the procedure could go with minimum risks.
This was her mission, her contribution to the solving of this hellish nightmare. Studying the undead, she could know how to preempt them. But for that, she had to know how the plague worked.
If it was caused by some curse or magical source, the old books from her homeland, filled with legends of necromancy, could help her to reverse-engineer a counter spell.
If the source of the plague was a disease, she maybe could use her potions to create a cure, or some sort of resistance to it so she didn’t turn into one of them. But her efforts didn’t have very good results. The more she experimented on the undead, more questions roamed her head.
What was this plague that could bring the ponies back from the dead?
How did it start?
Why were the undead attracted only to the flesh of the living?
How could they move having coagulated blood saturating their circulatory system?
Where did this unknown plague come from?
She had a lot of questions and no answers, but that didn’t make her surrender. If there were a cure for this plague, she would find it, even if it took her a millennium to do it.
Frustrated with another failure, she killed the undead mare and took her outside, throwing the body in a pit a couple meters away of her hut, where other fifteen bodies lay decomposing.
She looked at the sky, a clear star filled night in front of her eyes.
It looked so peaceful.
She drifted off, seeing the stars, her mind filled with good memories, shared with the ever-silent night.
She always loved the night and its stars. Even when she was little, she would stand in front of her window and look at the constellations. She memorized every one of them, their names and how to locate them in the sea of darkness that was the night sky.
She then remembered how she was forced to leave her home and escape to the Everfree.
Her own people thought of her ways with the alchemy to be some sort of witchcraft.
That, along with her refusal to complete her training as a warrior caused that the tribe chief condemned her to exile, and they even cursed her so she could only speak in rhymes for the rest of her life.
The memories were breaking her calm and replacing it with sadness
Then she remembered how every pony feared her for no reason, until the little Applebloom visited her looking for a cure to the poison joke.
How she grew attached to the ponies once they stopped fearing her and accept her in Ponyville.
How she participated in the events of Nightmare Night, and finally met the mare that created the star filled night that she adored so much.
She recovered a little from her initial depression, but the fact that all those happy moments would never happen again struck her hard.
Zecora fell to the ground and started crying.
She wanted to see little Applebloom again, that Twilight came to her hut looking for advice or just to share some stories with her, to drink tea with Fluttershy in her cottage, to act in Nightmare Night again, having fun with the little ponies.
She would give anything just to see a pony smile again and not trying to eat her.
She wanted her life back, and all her friends with it.
The hours passed, and the tears of Zecora finally stopped. She walked back to her hut and went to sleep.
The next morning, the zebra checked her food rations and found them empty.
With Ponyville now populated by the undead, finding food was a challenge. The last time she tried, she almost got cornered and eaten.
There were plants in the forest that she could eat, but they were too few and she had to roam too much in the wilderness to find them.
But fortunately, she had found a solution.
She checked the calendar in her house, seeing that today her friend would come back from exploring, and quickly went to the river in the middle of the Everfree.
It had been pure coincidence that the two of them met.
She was exploring the old castle of the two sisters, looking for books to help her research, and when she came back, she saw a large creature crying in the river. The first thing she noticed once she came closer was that the creature had violet scales and a pretty orange hair, specially his large moustache.
Zecora asked the sea serpent about its sadness, and he told her about how he was desperately looking for an old friend and her wife. He was worried they could have been caught by the undead.
The sea serpent presented himself as Steven Magnet once he regained his composure.
They started talking, generally about news of the world around them. Steven had been exploring Equestria using the river, informing Zecora about the situation in the rest of the country.
He also brings her food, so she doesn’t have to abandon the forest to look for it. In exchange, she kept him company when he was feeling sad and desperate; convincing him that once she found the cure to the plague, everything would go better.
They also talked about themselves; Zecora didn’t feel too comfortable talking about her past before the Everfree, but she felt that she could trust Steven.
The sea monster had fun telling her about the half million adventures that he experienced in all his life, and she was very happy to finally have someone to cheer her up.
She finally arrived at the river, but Steven wasn’t around. She waited a couple of hours there, taking some wood for her cauldron, but still no signs of Steven.
She supposed that her friend could have found some problems and maybe he would arrive tomorrow, but what could stop a thirteen-meter-long sea serpent?
She thought that maybe the undead could have surrounded him, but Steven was far stronger than them, and could easily deal whit them.
But if they managed to bite him during the fight…
The image of a rotten, blood eyed sea monster appeared on her head, filling her with fear.
Her only friend in this apocalyptic world was now gone.
She shook her head, erasing the thoughts from her mind.
Steven was alive, she knew that, he was just late because he probably found something that took part of his time and he would be here tomorrow, and she would be waiting him.
Zecora went back to her hut and took her tools, ready to get another pony for her experiments.
The sun was starting to fall when she arrived at the limits of the Everfree, looking for a group of undead ponies to lure into her trap. But suddenly, she heard some noises coming from her right, and decided to investigate.
Once she arrived at the scene, she saw that a Cockatrice was “fighting” a group of undead.
She was amazed that the creature could turn the ponies into stone. She had tried to use poison joke on them, but it didn’t have any effect, maybe because the undead didn’t have a sense of humor.
The Cockatrice ended up surrounded by the ponies and they teared it apart in a matter of seconds, feasting on his flesh.
Then, Zecora finally reacted to the scene like she should; the undead were invading the forest!
She turned around, only to have her path blocked by three putrid stallions, one of them taller than the other two. Cursing her lack of attention, Zecora charged towards the larger one, piercing his eye with her lance, and then shoved the next one with her shield, allowing her to escape.
The sound of her hooves on the dirt was starting to attract the undead around her.
There was more than she had ever seen; probably most of the population of Ponyville was roaming the forest.
She continued running until she could see the tree of no return, signaling the territory of the Timberwolves.
The zebra continued until she crossed the line of rocks and then clapped her hooves, just like the other day, but there was no response.
She tried again, but the cave remained silent, no Timberwolves came to greet her.
The undead ponies were getting close, attracted by the sound of her hooves, so Zecora left the cave, wondering why the Timberwolves would leave their territory.
Then, the realization hit her.
They were escaping from the undead; being too much of a threat to their home, they decided to migrate to some place away from them.
She tought of leaving the forest too, if the Timberwolves considered the forest insecure because of the undead, then she was in more danger than usual. But she couldn’t leave, she had a mission here, and it had to be completed. If the Timberwolves were leaving, she just had to invent a new way of capturing the undead for her studies.
She would have to capture a Cockatrice too, seeing how their petrification magic could stop the undead.
Zecora reached her hut and secured her in, locking the door and window. She then started to think about what she saw in the forest.
The Cockatrice look could stop the undead; she had to study the magic of their eyes.
Maybe she could use the eyes to make a potion with the same effect? No, that seemed impossible, besides the fact that she would have to kill hundreds of Cockatrices just for the eyes.
Maybe just train the beasts and use them as an attacking force? It could be a way, but she didn’t know how to even start taming them.
If only she had Fluttershy around to give her some advice.
Her belly grumbled, asking for food she didn’t have.
She needed to eat to remain strong, so Zecora took her weapons, unlocked the door, and went looking for some plants she could eat.
It took her half of the day to find some miserable plants that didn’t feed her too much, but it was something.
When she was coming back to her hut to rest for another day, she could smell the rotten flesh of the undead, and when she finally reached her hut, she found it surrounded by at least a hundred ponies, which looked at her with hunger in their eyes.
It was impossible, how could they reach so deep in the forest in only a few hours?
Was there nothing within the forest that could stop their advance?
Did the threatening life of the Everfree simply surrendered to the undead?
Zecora was in shock; her hut was unreachable now, lost to the dead ponies. All her work this far, along with the knowledge and tools to maybe develop a cure was now in undead hooves.
The grunting of the ponies snapped Zecora back to reality.
It wasn’t over yet; she could always restart her research. She still knew of one weakness in the undead, and the castle of the two sisters was still available for her to live in.
This was only a step back, not a full retreat.
Zecora turned back and started galloping towards the river, the first step to get to the castle.
The undead followed her, slow but steady.
The zebra tried to make the path difficult for her chasers, throwing down rocks and branches behind her.
Suddenly, a sharp paw slapped her right in the face, throwing her to the floor.
As an act of reflex, Zecora rolled on the floor away from her attacker, and got up, ignoring the pain in her face.
One of the claws had cut right over her left eye; half-blinding the poor zebra, but luckily, the rest were just simple scars with no repercussions.
Zecora looked with her good eye towards the enemy and stared in fear.
A large Manticore stood right in front of her, clearly angered by her presence.
Manticores weren’t as territorial as Timberwolves, but they still posed a great threat when angered, and this one looked like it had a fight with some other creature before meeting Zecora.
The zebra doubted between confronting the beast or trying to escape it.
If she ran, the Manticore would chase her, and easily catch her. She had to face the beast, no matter how unfair the battle would be.
She raised her shield to protect her from another blow from the Manticore, and then countered with her spear, piercing the beast shoulder.
Furious, the Manticore bashed Zecora with both paws, destroying half of her shield. The zebra fell back and throwed her spear to the creature’s head, piercing its right eye.
“Eye for an eye, a fair trade that you can’t deny”
She said before turning around to escape, but when she did, she was face to face with an undead stallion with half of his face missing, along with a good part of his torso.
The dead pony didn’t give her time to act and jumped for the kill.
Zecora raised her hooves to defend herself, and the undead bitted hard on her right foreleg, making the zebra scream in pain.
Zecora started to hit the stallions head with her other hoof again and again until the rotten pony freed her hoof. Once free, she stood away from the stallion, her eyes staring at the wound in her foreleg.
The undead pony tried to bite Zecora one more time, but the Manticore attacked him, bashing his head against the ground. More undead ponies were coming, and the Manticore started fighting them, seeming to forget the scared zebra not too far from him.
Zecora couldn’t believe she got bitten so easily, caught off guard like that when she had been outsmarting them for weeks.
She didn’t want to turn into one of them, she still had things to do, and she had to solve this whole mess.
With a strange combination of both fear and determination, she took what was left of her shield in her mouth and spred her bitten leg on the ground. She aimed the best she could, and then brought the shield down with force.
The broken wood wasn’t sharp enough to properly cut the flesh, but she didn’t have anything else.
Her shouts of pain were muffled by her grip on the shield, her teeth digging in the wood.
She hacked with the shield again, and again, and again, until she heard the bone cracking. A new shot of pain rushed through her, making her drop the shield.
There were still a few tendons connecting the infected hoof with the rest of her body, so she planted her other hoof over it and quickly pulled her leg, finally amputating the infected flesh.
Zecora was going to collapse due to the pain she was feeling, but she had to keep going.
The undead were surrounding the Manticore, but thankfully none of them seemed to notice her.
She stood up and started to slowly walk away, trying not to use her wounded leg.
She didn’t stop, even when her whole body wanted just to fall to the ground and rest.
She reached the river, hoping that once she crossed it, the undead would lose her trail.
She also would give anything to see her friend Steven appear in the water and help her, but no one was there, only her.
She dived into the river, getting pulled by the strong current, but she managed to swim across to the other shore.
Once on the other side, she looked back waiting to see the undead chasing her.
But no one came.
She was alone again, back at the beginning, only with fewer tools, resources, and even body parts. But she remained determined, she would keep looking for the cure, she was going to find it, and she was going to put an end to this madness.
So she kept walking, slowly getting out of the forest and finally looking at the castle of the two sisters.
Her leg was starting to feel numb, but she ignored it.
She crossed the bridge over the pit that separated the forest from the castle and bitted the ropes until she brought the whole bridge down. Now the undead would never get to her.
Her stomach cried for food, but she ignored it.
She walked to the castle, tired, and in so much pain, but relieved that the nightmare was finally over.
Her vision started to blur, and she started to feel really tired all of a sudden.
She forced herself to climb the stairs to the gates of the castle, but she collapsed midway.
“It’s okay everypony, I will find a cure to all this, just hang in there a little more, I just need, a little rest, and I will start to work nonstop, until I cure all of you.”
She thought while her eye slowly closed.
She also thought about her home, her family, her friends, and the good old times, until she finally fell asleep.
The blood from her wounded leg started pooling around her, until it finally stopped flowing.
“Are you sure your friend will come?” asked Cranky while stopping his raft.
“Oh absolutely, we just arrived a day late to our usual meeting, but I’m sure she will come back tomorrow morning,” said the sea serpent with both confidence and worry.
“It’s just that I’m not comfortable standing so exposed to those things”
“Don’t worry Cranky, we are safe with Steven. Besides, we cannot leave a friend alone in the forest,” said Matilda.
“Oh, of course, don’t think I'm suggesting leaving. We will stay until your friend comes,” the donkey said quickly, trying to correct his words.
“I know you didn’t say that with that intent Cranky, and I know I’m putting both of you in danger, but Zecora is my friend, and I need to know that she is okay.”
“I know, I would do the same and more for my love here.”
“Not in front of Steven,” she said giggling.
“Anyway, how did she survive here? This place is beyond dangerous, even without the undead”
“Oh, she is a very resourceful zebra, that’s why I think she can find a solution to all this mess.”
“I hope she can, this nightmare has to end one day,” said Matilda while she looked to the grim and hostile forest.
They kept waiting, and waiting, until Cranky jumped off the raft to the river shore.
“I will go look for her. You two wait here.”
“Cranky, you don’t have to; we can wait here,” said Steven, clearly preoccupied.
“Hey, you helped me find Matilda in all this mess, the least I can do for you is help you find your friend”
“Be careful Cranky,” said Matilda with more worry than Steven.
“I will, take care of her while I’m gone.”
“We will be waiting right here!” shouted Steven as he saw Cranky disappearing between the tree line.