After his family was killed by the local wildlife of the Everfree, a young foal was forced to endure the hardships of living in one of equestrias most feared places.however, the Everfree cannot hide its child forever...
After his family was killed by the local wildlife of the Everfree, a young foal was forced to endure the hardships of living in one of equestrias most feared places.however, the Everfree cannot hide its child forever...
Child of the Forest Chapter 1 “The Everfree is no place for a foal”
I’m sure that you’re all familiar with the land of Equestria. From quaint Ponyville, to the towering spires of Canterlot castle, everypony seems to want a part of the proverbial equestrian pie, and honestly who can blame them. It is a land of colour, friendship, love and most importantly peace. So who can blame Discord for wanting to regain his throne of chaos, and who can blame Queen Chrysalis for wanting to have control over, in the changelings eyes, and all you can eat buffet of love. Truly this is a nation to be envied.
But, despite the apparent peace, which for the most part is true, there is still danger in this land. One such example of this danger is the Everfree forest. This is a place that the ponies of Equestria view with an almost apocalyptic fear, except for maybe three fillies who view the forest as a great opportunity for cutie marks. But their story is for another time, for now we follow a figure that runs through the dark menacing trees of the Everfree. The shadows of the forest are welcome allies to this figure.
The sound of clopping hooves can be heard coming from this shadowy figure, confirming its species as one of the Equine nature, though without the wings of a Pegasus or the horn of the unicorn to aid in its apparent frantic run, It must rely on its earth pony instincts alone to escape its unseen predator.It could feel the vibrations in the earth itself coming from the advancing hoard of hungry predators that as of the moment escaped its sight
This predator soon becomes apparent however as a bone chilling howl pierces the relative quiet of the forest, and the figure turns around in fear to try and spot the creature, but to no avail. The figure can however hear the alarming close breaking of twigs and the rustling of branches. This causes it to increase its efforts two fold and it soon breaks out into a mad gallop.
However, the brave effort of this earth pony is in vain. As it enters a clearing, features of this pony become ever clearer in Luna’s moonlight. A mare with tan fur with a mix of yellow and green for her mane, she collapses out of exhaustion, as she has been running from the predator for a prolonged period of time. She is covered in scars and lacerations, the most apparent of which ran across her flank, cutting a cutie mark of now indiscernible meaning. Should she survive this encounter, the hair and mark will grow back, but the likelihood of that occurrence was becoming more and more slim by the minute.
However, the most important thing on this mares being was a small foal, male and barely a month old it had a darker brown coat colour, with a scraggly brown and green mane. Its eyes shone against the moonlight as it looked around in fear for the unseen predators. It had not yet reached the stage where it could talk, but by now it could virtually take care of itself if needed. This was the reason that the mare was running, to try and get this foal to safety. The mares mate had already been killed by the predator, in a valiant but futile attempt to slow the predator’s advance. Though he managed to stall the beasts, it was only a matter of time before they would catch up the the mare and her precious cargo
The mare looked around frantically for an escape route that would lead her to relative safety, a tree, a house, she would even settle for a hole, but alas the clearing had left her exposed, and the predator had finally caught up. Several pairs of sickly yellow eyes pierced through that darkness of the trees from all directions, and proceeded to surround the mare, showing them to be Timberwolves, predators below only the ferocious Manticore and the deadly Cockatrice. This particular pack was getting quite tired of chasing this illusive meal, and they planned to make the kill quick so they can stalk easier prey.
The mare panicked, and in a mad dash, ran at one of the wolves in attempt to pass it and run back into the relative safety that the foliage offered. However, the wolf simply knocked her back, which had the added effect of knocking the foal into the undergrowth, thankfully out of sight for now. The same could not be said for the mare though, as the wolves closed in on her and make her escapes even more unlikely. Distracted in the moment, the mare did not notice that her foal had come lose and jumped swiftly through a gap in the wolves.the wolves growled in anger and soon took up chace once more.
The foal was watching the scene unravel with wide eyes, and as its mother escaped without it, it was about to cry out for her, before a scream of pain was heard. The foal kept its mouth shut, for fear of being discovered, and spotted a hollow tree trunk it could hide in. the foals brown colouring helped keep it hidden as it approached the tree trunk, and it was practically invisible. The foal was young, but it was well aware of the fate that had befallen its mother, and the triumphant howl of the Timberwolves only further accentuated that fact that it was now alone. The foal curled up into a tiny ball, and closed its eyes, hoping that the wolves would not find him once they were done with its mother, and cried it to sleep.This foal, though it does not know it has a big future ahead of him, and he will have to survive many hardships to achieve this destiny. But first he must survive the night.
As a wise pony one said “The Everfree is no place for a foal”
The Everfree was a scary place at night, which is really saying something about the place as it was scary in itself at daytime. At night the trees all seemed to be reaching out for their next victim, the sounds of the forest seemed to betray the presence of monsters, only for some poor sod who nearly crapped themselves to find out it was only the wind. Now picture this in your head, not a nice place is it. Now times that feeling by ten. This will give you a pretty good idea of what our poor little lost foal felt at the moment.
He had only a little sleep since the Timberwolf attack, and it was not long before Mother Nature or the equestrian equivalent thereof, being the cruel being she was sent a frigid wind through the forest which woke the foal from his tearful slumber. So now the poor little pony was curled up and shivering in the only piece of cover from the gale. Not that it was doing a particularly good job of it either. Another side effect of the wind was it gave the forest an almost constant wispy sound, which did nothing to ease the foal’s frayed nerves.
So, he did what any foal his age would do in this situation, he cried. Thankfully, the wind managed to keep the sorrowful sobs of the foal relatively silenced, so any predators that would have otherwise investigated for an easy meal were none the wiser. The foal cried for his parents, he cried for himself, but nobody would hear him. He eventually wore himself out once again and fell to sleep.
Several hours later
Celestia’s sun rose up over the horizon of the forest, doing little but making the forest floor a little bit less dark and menacing. It was enough however to wake the foal up, and when he cracked open his eyes, he was immediately reminded of his grim situation. He may have begun crying again, but another more important need arose, Hunger.
So, cautiously the foal arose from his wooden shelter, and luckily for him, a tasty looking patch of grass and flowers was not too far from his position. The foals face lit up, as he spotted his meal. So he trotted over, and was about to start eating before he noticed he was also standing in a patch of blue flowers. Something about these flowers seemed off to him, and a nagging feeling caused him to worry for the moment, but eventually, his belly won out, and he began to eat, though still careful to avoid the off-putting flowers. After he had eaten everything but the blue flowers, he found he was thirsty.
He swivelled his ears around to try and hear the sound of running water, but to no avail. His instincts told him to seek out water, but he was reluctant to leave the only somewhat viable shelter he had in the form of the tree trunk. The foal walked back and forth, trying to decide what to do. His musing left a dent in the ground, but he eventually decided to try and seek water. The foal set out, but soon he came across the clearing that he and his mother had been attacked in last night. The foal shivered as he walked through, the event still clear in his mind. Being extremely young, he still harboured hope that his mother had survived. Sadly for the foal, his hopes were soon dashed not fifteen meters from the clearing. The wolves had not left much. Thankfully for the foal, the wolves had moved on.
The foal slowly approached his mother, but found he could not cry, he was simply numb. He sat down next to his deceased mother and nuzzled against her in a way of saying goodbye, completely not aware of the gory mess or the blood that darkened his brown fur. After a while, the foal wished that he could talk so that he could properly farewell her. This thought finally caused him to break down again, his tear marking his cheeks.
The foal ran away from clearing, in a mad dash. Thoughts ran through the foal’s young mind. He did not yet understands that the wolves had killed for food; he saw their act as one of pure evil. The Everfree forest was the one place in Equestria where the non-sentient carnivores hunted, so most foals didn’t find about carnivores before they attend school. The foal continued running, until a sound distracted him. A distant splashing that could only mean water.
He was running purely on instinct now, his emotions drained by last nights and today’s events, soon he was breaking twigs and squashing grass in his dash for water. Soon he broke clear of some trees and saw a raging river that ran through the Everfree. He ran up and started lapping up the water greedily. He felt happy for the second time today, with both his hunger and thirst satisfied; he looked towards the water at his reflection. He barely recognised it. A dishevelled mane and tired brown eyes greeted him. He had several scraped on his face from some of the more resistant foliage from his run. The foal sighed, and then walked further downstream.
He did not know why he continued downstream, he just thought it was a good idea given the circumstances. What he did not expect was for an especially fabulous sea serpent to be heading down the river. The foal quickly dived back into the nearby trees and watched the serpent pass, who appeared to be talking to himself in a less than threatening voice.
“Oh I simply must find myself a new home in the Everfree; the old one was so drab and uninspired I wonder if…….” The serpent’s voice trailed off as he swam into the distance. The foal soon slowly came out of hiding, and watched as the massive purple being played with his hair it became a small dot in the distance. The foal did not understand what the being was saying however, so he was still clueless as to where he was. He knew it was not a good place from his experience last night, but he had no idea how to get home, or where home even was.
So the foal continued downstream, looking for a suitable shelter. It was not until nearly sunset when the foal found a small cave, which was tiny enough not to fit any predators, but big enough to fit him. He was very tired, so he first checked to make sure there were no previous occupants, and then settled down to try and get to sleep.
While he was drifting off, the foal had a distinct memory of the off-putting blue flower from that morning. As he was closing his eyes, he felt quite weird, as if he was being changed by some strange magic. But before he could think about it, he was asleep.
In front of him lay a small family of rabbits three in total , who had entered the small cave that he was sleeping in for shelter from the rain that had started when the foal fell asleep, they sniffed the air cautiously , trying to sniff out any threats, but when the caught the foals scent, they relaxed. Small amounts of daylight shone in the cave, indicating it was early morning. They had nothing to be wary about with a pony, or so they would have previously imagined….
As the foal caught sight of the rabbits, be saw red. Some instinct, one that shouldn't have been there kicked in, and he started creating a sound similar to a growl, but coming through the mouth of a pony, it sounded unnatural and strange. His vision was sharper, and he could more clearly make out the scent of the intruding rabbits, and something in this new instinct wanted them gone.
A small part of the foals mind was questioning why he had such a deep hatred of the rabbits, and why he felt compelled to hurt them, but he was no longer in control of his actions. The rabbits tensed at his aggressive behavior, and were ready to flee in a second, but the largest of the group was confused as to why a pony would act this way. Sure none of them were nearly as kind as Fluttershy when it came to animals such as itself, but he had never seen a pony, let alone a foal act outwardly aggressively. These thoughts caused the rabbit to step forward, if only to see if the foal was scared or hurt
The foal however, saw this as an act of defiance, and thoughts ran through its head telling it to attack, and he listened to his instincts.
The other rabbits acted first, diving out of the cave when the foal leaped forward towards them, maw agape. The large rabbit was still, staring in shock at the teeth of the pony. Where there should have been the teeth of a herbivore, sharp canines existed, and they were headed straight for the small creature. The rabbit tried desperately to dive out of the way, but the pony caught it in its maw, teeth ripping into flesh.
The foal continued to bite down on the rabbit, the blood dripping on his tongue, driving him further into his frenzy, and the rabbit gave one last pained squeak of pain, the rabbit went limp. The foal did not stop however, and he begun to eat his prey. It was during this, the foal snapped out of his frenzy, and he looked down at what he had done.
His eyes had shrunk to the size of pinpricks, as he looked at the blood that soaked his brown coat. The form of the rabbit dropped from his mouth, and he fell to his haunches. He could feel the blood in his mouth, and his now heightened sense of smell was overwhelmed.
The overwhelmed foal ran outside to the river, desperate to get the blood of his coat and the metallic taste out of his mouth. As he exited the darkness of his cave, he searched his mind for what could have caused him to attack something most ponies would want to hug. As he reached the water, he looked into his reflection, looking for any physical differences besides his teeth. He went over his mental checklist, coat, same if slightly more blood soaked, mane, check, hooves check, eyes….
As the foal stared back into his reflection, he was horrified to see that his brown eyes had changed into pupils yellow orbs, not unlike the predators that had killed his parents and almost him as well. He stared in horror at his reflection, willing the soulless orbs to disappear. He hit the water in anger, in his eyes he was no better that his parent’s killers, he was a monster. Angry tears stated to stream out of his eyes as he retreated back to the cave. He picked up the rabbits corpse, with the intention of putting it into the river, only for his new predators mind to once again take over and cause him to continue eating.
When he snapped out of it again, he was angrier than before. He cursed in his mind to whatever force had changed him. The foal did not know it, but the culprit, a jokester of a flower had not only changed him into a predator, but it had also given him the mind of a predator as well, but still in the body of a newborn, and unfortunately, unable to speak beyond growls and yells. In aspects outside of hunting he retained his foal intelligence as well. He may have cursed the source of his changes, but it will keep him alive in this dangerous forest
The foal moved the remains of the rabbit to the river, and setting it to go downstream. The foal knew this was hardly a proper burial, but it would have to do. After that, he jumped into the water and attempted to clean to blood, with little success, which left him in an increasingly foul mood. He jumped out of the water, and lay down on the cold grass to dry off. He stared up into the sky, even in the brightest part of the Everfree; a canopy of trees blocked most of the light and heat, so the foal took a long time to dry off. He did not mind though, as he had nowhere else to be, and he was too deep in his sorrow to try and do anything productive.
While he was lying there, he had a brief moment of horror, he wondered if he would still be able to eat the diet of a herbivore, or if he was stuck being a carnivore. He sincerely hoped not, as he would most likely have another instinct attack if he were to become hungry again. So, he rolled on to his haunches and bit a mouthful of grass. The first thing he noticed that the grass no longer tasted as good as it used to, and that he already found himself craving meat. But, he persisted, trying to stomach the grass. He swallowed, and for a second he thought he had managed to eat it.
He briefly smiled in victory, as he thought he would no longer have to eat meat, no matter how much better it tasted, but just as he was about to stand, he started to heave, and soon the grass was back on the ground were it originated, albeit slightly more digested. Begrudgingly, he decided that he would have to continue to hunt to stay alive. With this grim thought, he retreated back to his cave, guilt for the rabbit still playing with his mind as he slept.