//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 - In to Ponyville // Story: Stranger in the Forest // by TrixterCat //------------------------------// “Honestly darling, how could you wear such old clothes? I’m surprised they haven’t been reduced to shreds a long time ago.” Rarity said as she sat in front of her sewing machine, guiding the cloth she was currently working on. It was more to herself, as the creature couldn’t understand her words. The creature was sitting on a huge pillow, waiting for Rarity to make him new clothes. After Rainbow had accidentally made another hole in his shirt, and Rarity calming down, the creature had agreed to remove his shirt and socks. He gave them to Rarity for examination so that she could make him new ones. He had absolutely refused to take off his pants, and had gently bopped Rainbow on the nose when she had tried to indicate he should take them off. After Rarity had taken the necessary measurements to work on the creature’s new shirt, Twilight set out to do an examination on the creature. She measured his height, weight, size of hands, length of legs etc. The creature was feeling bashful about the treatment, blushing at the mare who was examining him with interest. “Why does the big guy have nipples?” Rainbow asked as Twilight was busy making a sketch of the creature. She stopped to look at Rainbow, before turning back towards the creature. “I’m not sure Rainbow. Maybe it’s a female after all?” “I don’t know about that Twilight.” Spike scratched his head. “He seems like a stallion to me. Deep voice, a handsome beard and a mustache.” “We don’t know for sure, Spike. Only way to know would be to find others of its…his species, or to conduct a complete examination.” She said and looked at the creature, who was nervously rubbing his hands together. “And I don’t think his going to allow us to do that anytime soon. As for your question, Rainbow, they could also serve some other purpose we don’t know about.” “Weird.” She said, and went back to watching Twilight draw. Fluttershy arrived a little later, just as Twilight was finishing her sketch. She had initially flown to the edge of the forest, and since she hadn’t found them there, she came back to look for them in the town. The creature was happy seeing Fluttershy again, and she gave him an affectionate hug. After explaining to Fluttershy why the creature was missing half of his clothes, the ponies continued their examination. Twilight and Fluttershy came to the conclusion that the creature must be getting slightly old. His skin was looking a bit dull and wrinkly (as far as they could tell), his beard and short mane were grayish, which they had noticed before, and the creature seemed to carry reading glasses with it, which could indicate poor eyesight due to aging. He certainly wasn’t as old looking as Granny Smith, but maybe he was getting on the years like Mayor Mare. Fluttershy made another observation as she examined the creature’s teeth. “Oh.” She said, a bit surprised. The creature just crossed his arms, resigned to the fact that the ponies were conducting a full physical on him. “He has sharp canines and incisor teeth.” “Really?” Twilight asked as she was writing all their findings on a scroll. “Doesn’t that mean…that he eats meat?” She asked cautiously. Even Rarity stopped her work for a while, ears perked. “Mmhm.” Fluttershy confirmed. “It is probably a part of his diet. But he also has flat molars after them. He can probably eat lots of different things.” She said and took her hoof off the creature’s chin. He closed his mouth, and seemingly pouted at her. She shyly hid behind her mane. “So he’s an omnivore?” Twilight said and took another look at the creature. He certainly didn’t look like a predator. No claws, no huge maw filled with razor sharp teeth, no wings. Nothing to indicate that he was from a species evolved to hunt in the Everfree. “I think so.” “He did eat some of Granny Smith’s cooking when we were at Sweet Apple Acres yesterday.” Rainbow said. “Do you think he can eat gems?” Spike asked. “We can check what he can eat later when we go to town.” Twilight said and continued writing. “Just a few more…aaand…there.” Rarity said as she examined the shirt she had just finished. She trotted to the creature, the shirt levitating behind her. “Here you go darling.” She said and gave the shirt to the creature, who looked at it with surprise. He got up from the pillow, giving a quick once over to the shirt in his hands. It was a dark blue dress shirt, with a small pocket on the left side and gems etched on the collar. The creature carefully put it on and buttoned it up. He smiled happily as he looked at his new shirt. “Wow Rarity, you did an amazing job for something you have never tried before.” Twilight commented. The new shirt looked good on the creature, and fit perfectly. “Heh, looking good there big guy.” Rainbow smiled and nudged the creature. “Now if I only could say the same of his pants…” Rarity lamented. The ponies and the dragon looked at the dingy looking pants the creature was wearing. When he noticed where they were looking, his happy expression morphed in to a light frown. He gently bopped each of them on the nose. “Okay okay, we get the idea…” Rainbow muttered with her face scrunched. ******************** After Rarity had made the creature a pair of socks too, they decided to get something to eat and show the creature their town. Now that the creature knew where Ponyville was, he could come here whenever he wanted, and it would be good to show him around so that he wouldn’t get lost. After doing that, they would take him to Twilight’s home where she could conduct a few tests on him. Twilight placed the creature’s camouflage clothes in her saddlebags, and while Rarity was horrified by the mere thought of it, they also put his previous shirt and socks with them too. The four ponies led the creature out of the boutique, with Spike riding on Twilight’s back. The creature smiled widely at them, and looked like he was about to burst in to laughter. They decided to head to the market square to eat in one of the cafés or restaurants near it. They would go through the less busy areas of Ponyville, so that the creature wouldn’t get overwhelmed by having too many ponies around him at once. Of course, they couldn’t avoid all of them, and they crossed paths with several ponies doing their chores. As with before, many stopped to look at the strange being that four of the six element bearers were escorting. “What’s that?” Cloud Chaser, one of Rainbow’s colleagues from the weather team asked as they walked past her. “This is the creature from the Everfree forest. You know, the one from few weeks ago that Fluttershy saw.” Rainbow said as she landed next to her. “Turns out that he’s completely harmless.” “Oh.” She said, and hesitantly waved back when the creature raised its hand and waved. “Yup. And now we are kinda showing him around.” “What do you mean showing him around?” Fast Glide, another pegasus, asked. “He seems to be a very friendly creature, and likes to interact with ponies. He travels in and near the Everfree, and might make his way in to Ponyville in occasion. It would be good to show him around, in case he comes to visit.” Twilight replied. “Okay…if you say so.” Fast Glide said and looked up and down the creature, who was rubbing his hands again behind his back. The group continued on their way towards the market area and met several more stares on their way, but none stopped them, except for a single guard. “Miss Twilight. Is there…something going on?” The guardsmare asked her as she raised an eyebrow at the creature. He waved at her, which she didn’t return. “All is fine, miss Stalwart. I informed the guard three weeks ago about a potential monster sighting. This is the said creature, although there has been no indication that he is of any danger to anypony.” Twilight explained. The guardsmare scrutinized the creature for a few more moments before turning back to Twilight “As you say, miss Twilight.” The guardsmare saluted, and continued on her way. The creature again looked like he was about to have a giggle fit for some reason. The group walked around a few more buildings and finally emerged at the edge of the Ponyville market square. As with most days, there were quite many ponies walking about, buying their groceries, or just talking to their friends. They decided that they would stay at a nearby café for their lunch. As they sat down around the table outside, they noticed how the ponies on other tables were following the creature with curious eyes. A friendly smile and wave of hoof from either Twilight or Rarity caused them to stop outright staring at the creature, but they still kept sneaking glances at him and their conversations turned to hushed whispers (not that you noticed with all the noise from the market next to them). With so many ponies looking at him, the creature kept his gaze either at the table or one the others sitting on the table. “Ah, good day to youuuuu…” The happy smile that was on the stallion waiter’s face turned in to an unsure look as he approached their table, spotting the creature. “Good day. We would like to place our orders.” Rarity replied, quickly bringing the stallions attention away from the creature. “Y-y-yes…of course…” He said and took their orders on a notepad. They ordered 5 sandwiches with different fillings on them, so that they could check which one the creature would like, as well as a serving of hay fries for Spike and some cool water to drink. The stallion hurriedly went back inside the café as soon as had the order. The creature looked disappointed for having elicited such a reaction from him. “Maybe eating out wasn’t such a good idea after all.” Twilight remarked to the others. Fluttershy moved closer to the creature to offer comfort for him, who smiled back at her. The creature kept his gaze downwards, despite having been excited to see everything when they first arrived in Ponyville. “Ponies are staring at him quite a lot, he must be a bit unnerved.” Rarity agreed. “Perhaps we should head to your library as soon as we have finished our lunch.” She continued, noticing yet another pony stopping to look at the creature, but who quickly kept walking as he noticed Rarity staring back. “Oh, I hope he is not feeling scared because of them.” Fluttershy said and petted the creature’s leg with her hoof. “Silly Fluttershy, ponies are not scary.” Pinkie suddenly bounced from behind the creature, and landed between Fluttershy and the creature. The creature only flinched a bit from Pinkies sudden appearance. Fluttershy almost fell over from surprise. “Oh, hi Pinkie.” Fluttershy said meekly. “Hi Fluttershy. Hi everypony. Hi mister.” Pinkie said and smiled brightly at the creature, who smiled back despite Pinkie’s rapid-fire greetings. “Hey Pinkie. What’s up?” Rainbow asked. “Clouds.” She giggled back. Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I was heading back from my break and saw all of you, so I decided to come and say hi.” “We were just going to have lunch ourselves.” Twilight said. Pinkie turned back towards the creature, who was looking at her poofy mane. He looked like he wanted to immerse his hands in it. “So you are the creature from the Everfree who has everypony scratching their manes.” She said and smiled again. “Don’t you worry about it, I cause that a lot too.” She grabbed one of the creature’s hands with her hooves and shook it. “I’m Pinkie Pie, but most of my friends call me Pinkie, and since I know we are going to be the bestest of friends, you can too!” She almost bounced up and down on the ground from excitement and the vigorous hoofshaking. “Pinkie, he doesn’t-…” “What’s your name?” Pinkie asked, completely ignoring Twilight. The creature, getting his hand free, patted Pinkies head and smiled. This caused Pinkie to giggle again. “Pinkie, we don’t know if he has a name.” Rainbow said and smirked a bit at Pinkie’s wagging tail. “What?!?” Pinkie cried and turned towards the others. “But…but he must have a name!” She exclaimed. “Maybe. But none of us can talk to him, so we can’t ask.” Fluttershy said. “Oh yeah, he doesn’t speak our language.” Pinkie suddenly seemed to remember. “Wait! If I can’t ask him his name, then how can I throw him a welcoming party?” She asked with desperation in her voice. “I can’t have a ‘Welcome to Ponyville The One Whose Name I Don’t Know’ on the banner!” “Well maybe you can call him ‘big guy’ like Rainbow does?” Spike said. The stallion waiter returned to their table, setting their orders down, and hurrying to the next table. “Hmm…” Pinkie hummed. Twilight levitated the plates in to a row, and presented them to the creature. She pointed at the sandwiches and then at the creature, indicating he should take one. He scratched his head a few times, before understanding that she was asking him to choose one, and the others would take the rest. He looked like he was about to shake his head, but then sighed with a small smile and took a closer look. He skipped over the ones with flowers in them, before choosing from the rest a sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and mayonnaise. The ponies (except Pinkie) divided the rest of the sandwiches and everyone went silent as they enjoyed their food. “I need to go now.” Pinkie finally said. “I need to get back to Sugarcube Corner before my break time runs out. And you, mister.” Pinkie turned towards the creature with a serious expression. “I’m going to come up with the most amazing name for you ever, so that I can give you a welcoming party, and it’s going to be amazing and funny and everypony is going to be invited!” She cheered and there was a sudden shower of confetti around them, which startled the creature. “But now I need to go. Bye!” She waved and started hopping back to Sugarcube Corner. “Bye Pinkie.” The others said after her, the creature unsurely waving his hand.