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// Chapter 5. I roared.  (Wilderness, Part 5) 
// Story: Meta Gamer in Equestria: Odyssey 
// by reflective vagrant 
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The next few days where solid business, doing further scouting and experimenting with whatever materials I could get a hold of to see if anything could be crafted from them.  Naturally, I failed miserably with the tree, plant and rock bits I could find but I got a better idea of what to look for next time.  
Animal parts would be useful.  I knew sinew was good for string or other ties and fir meant warmth.  But hunting anything besides fish with a stick was a long ways away and I wasn't sure what the zebra thought of it.  Sure, she didn't seem to mind the firs I had covering me, but actively hunting for meat to eat might scare her.  It's not like herbivores could relate to a meat eater's mindset in this regard.  Wasn't worth the risk for now.  Fish was as far as I would go until I knew the local customs.


With my initial scouting of the surrounding area done, I caught a fish at one of the further away fishing spots and looked about for a possible second den to build a bit closer to where I saw the zebra come from.  I didn't want to have to venture back to my only den every night.
A quick but small cooking fire and another dirt hill later, I was well on my way at digging out my initial hole.  I had made a large chunk of progress towards the initial digging of the front most section to where the door would be before my fish meat was cooked.
It was right as I was washing down my second to last bite with a swig of water from my water skin when I heard it.
The forest seemed to come alive as I heard a loud whinny somewhat nearby.  The birds took flight as the cry of pain washed over the canopy.
'She's in danger!'  I thought to myself.  Well, either her or one of her kind, I suppose.  Something told me that she wasn't the only hoofed thing around sporting a brain of that quality.
Realistically, one would run away from danger.  I normally would too, but for some reason my mind flipped a coin, went with "Charge!" and abandoned that last bite of fish right there.


Armed with little more than my fishing spear, I ran as best I could towards the direction that I thought the whinny had come from.  I would have been embarrassed for being a little lost had I not been so worried.
I ultimately only found her because I heard a resounding  *crack* of bone crushing on the other side of some underbrush.
Peaking through, I saw the zebra from before, dirty and exhausted.  Her eyes were closed and her hoof was pressing on what was left of the head of a creature that looked like the cross of a lizard and a chicken.
I saw a good, long, but not deep set of gashes along her flank.  It was about this time I noticed that her flank's stripe pattern broke off to what looked like would have been a decorative design were it not for the gashes.
I softly called out to her as I stepped out, "Are you alright?"
Her bloodied hoof came up right at me almost as if to tell me to stop.  Her ears darted this way and that, listening intently.
Finally, when she was satisfied that there was no further danger, she opened her eyes and looked at me.  Her eyes reflected her tired state.  I couldn't tell if she was or wasn't happy I was there, but I could tell that the forced smile she made still carried no malice.
With the gift basket's cover used as a lining for the otherwise dirty medical kit, I reached for the kit and brought it over to her.
I had intended to treat her wounds myself, but the moment she heard the swirling of bottles in my kit, she practically yanked it from me and somehow used her front hooves to scoop the bottles out.  Looking them over briefly first, she popped open the bottles to sniff at the contents.  Upon opening the larger of the bottles, she gave a nod and pored the liquid inside over her wound.
The process was surprisingly efficient.  She didn't spill hardly any.  Despite using her mouth to pour, she used just enough to clean the wound.  With a grace that would put all but the best brain surgeons to shame, I found her hooves and mouth dancing with the new cloth I had put in the kit wrapping her wounded limb.
With a clean rip and another small dance of her hooves and mouth, she had my medical kit packed back up and was presenting it back to me.
'Well now I know which one is the disinfectant...' was all I could think as I put it back in my pack.


We walked a ways through the forest in the direction she wanted to go.  At first I thought she was just being polite in letting me escort her, as she seemed to hold her self with a kind of pride.  But after a while it was apparent that she wasn't feeling too good.
It was then I realized that while she had dressed the wound, she still wasn't alright.  Whatever had scratched her had left something else in there.  She was poisoned and that poison was starting to kick in.  I could only hope whatever I had in my pack that she used was slowing it down.
She unloaded her own saddle bag and had to lay down next to the bottom of a large cliff to catch her breath.  It looked like she knew what she was doing because she wasted no time in panting as hard as she could and searching through her bag.
I leaned up against the cliff wall with my spear to keep watch and immediately saw a set of eyes in the bush in front of me.
Wolves.  The sent of her blood had attracted wolves.   This is why I never brought any raw meat back to my den and let the crows pick at the bear leg I salvaged before I got back to it.
I was in for a fight and I knew it.  The magical tingling sensation on the back of my neck kicked in and helped me spot the seven wolves that had surrounded us and pinned us against the cliff wall.
The zebra did her best to stand and face the threat with her ears flat and her face befitting a warrior.  This was a little reassuring, despite knowing she wouldn't be able to do much.  Why?  Because I honestly was only about to soil myself and the courage she had helped me remember the wise words of an old Clint Eastwood movie.
"When it gets tough, and you think you're finished, you gotta get mean.  And I mean plum mad dog mean. Because if you lose your head, if you give up. Then you neither win nor live."
That was probably a butchered quote, but the meaning behind it rang true in my mind.  I didn't have much of a chance, but I was going to have to get mean if I wanted to get that chance.
I readied my spear to impale the first one that pounced and snarled at them.


I still am not sure what happened.  I don't know if it was my snarl that set them off or what, but that battle was on us like white on rice the next moment.
I did manage to impale the first one, and lost my spear in the process.  Another two cornered me with two more cornering the zebra.  I wasn't exactly sure where the last ones were though.  Probably ready to pounce should something get lose from the other four.
I could feel the teeth through the thick fir as they bit down on my arms.  It was all I could do to keep them on my arms and not anywhere else.  My arms were bleeding, but they hadn't done any crippling damage.
The magic tingle happened again as one of the wolves on the zebra lunged but fell flat on the ground as if it had tripped.  The zebra took this opportunity to smash the bottle she had in her mouth hard on the beasts snout.
The creature yipped in pain and started to get back up, only to find itself suddenly falling asleep.  It was at this time, however, that the other one on her took the opening she had to leave to attack its ally to jump on her.
As I saw her weak form crumple under the wolf like a thin paper cup under a brick, something inside me snapped.  I wasn't playing a balancing act with defense and offense anymore.  I went pure offense.
I visualized myself biting down hard on the wolf that had my right arm, next thing I knew my muzzle was around the creature's shoulders and I was tossing it like a rag doll to the side.  By the time I had heard it yelp from landing, I saw a strong right paw swipe into the head of the other wolf latched onto me, knocking it into the other wolf that was on the zebra, though not enough to fully dislodge it.
As the wolf that was on top the zebra looked up, I glared right at it.  I came up on my hind legs, and roared at them.  I think the stone behind me echoed and enhanced it, because I could have sworn I had created thunder just then, I was so loud.


It was only after the wolves rand off and I was licking the zebra's face that I realized I was a bear.  And I don't mean I was a big cuddly and/or powerful hunk of a guy.  I mean I was a bear, an Ursa. A muzzle, paws, around four hundred pounds of muscle, fur covered bear.
I was relieved when the zebra not only opened her eyes but recognized me with that same uncertain smile.  She put away what looked like a totem of some sort she had in her hoof, but only after dimming its glowing red eyes.
She pulled out a bottle and quickly drank from it... and then nothing happened.  At least not at first.
She was still sitting there panting with a few new scratches on her.  I was about to nudge her belly to pick her up and carry her, but she only shoved me away.  I could have forced it, since she was weak and I was raw muscle at that point, but I decided she had a reason.
Finally, after a minute or two, I started to see her breathing slow and her posture improve.  I didn't know what was in that bottle, but apparently she knew it would help.  With her stamina renewed, we headed out.


It was weird being a bear.  You'd think I'd be as freaked out by it as I was discovering a talking zebra, but nope.  First, I had gotten over some of my freak out willies with the whole not being in my own body thing as well as with the aforementioned talking zebra.  Second, I started my discovery on an adrenaline high, making it not all that impacting compared to the threat at hand.  Third, it only took me an entire fifteen seconds at most to recognize what had happened.
Unlike the zebra that had no explanation for her ability to talk and behave like a person, my sudden transformation did have an explanation.  Moss, the character that my water genasi form had been modeled after, was a druid.  Well he did dabble in other classes, but he had taken more than one level into the druid class.  One thing that any druid could do after reaching level two was shape shift into wild animals.
It was one of the tactics I used commonly in my D&D sessions with Moss.  It also lasted an hour at what I believed to be his current level.  Even a master druid could only maintain it for ten hours without renewing it.  So if I was back to normal by morning, I'd know for sure.
I mean if I knew how, I could shut if off manually, or I could reduce my borrowed form to zero health to revert back... but I figured it was best just to check it with the timing.


It was a little less than half an hour after we departed that we arrived at a tree re-purposed into a hut.  I was glad we had come across it too, because the zebra was looking pretty out of shape again.  Whatever that bottle she drank was, it was clear now that it wasn't a proper antidote, just a stop-gap treatment.
I watched from the doorway as she applied a paste to the wound on her flank and drank two or three gourds worth of  water she had stored in her hut.  She then crawled up to a bed, gave me a genuine smile and nod of gratitude, then laid down to rest.
It wasn't long after she had laid her head down that my form reverted on its own.  It was funny because I could feel like a small chunk of stamina was missing somewhere, but not the same lack of stamina I was feeling in my muscles, lungs or eyes.
"Huh... I finally started getting into character," I said to myself as I sat down just inside her door to keep watch and dress the wounds that were still on my "natural" arms.  Had I not been through a life or death experience that left me exhausted and worried, I would have laughed.
Instead all I could do was contemplate. 	'And that pretty much confirms what that feeling is at the back of my neck I get when I'm in a pinch.  Now if I could just get his darn spell casting to work, I'd be set!'