//------------------------------// // 11. The Monster - Part 2 // Story: The Legend of Friendship - Outcasts // by Danieru //------------------------------// The forest in the southeast of Equestria was known to be very dangerous. Most ponies avoided ever setting hoof inside of it because of the ferocious animals that lived inside of it. However, despite how dangerous the animals were, among themselves was no hostility. Snakes befriending squirrels, wolves spending days with deer, owls sharing the forest with mice, and much more. Unfortunately, most ponies were not aware of it because everyone who entered the forest was considered an enemy and got attacked by the animals. This not only made it hard to find out much about the forest and that was much to the liking of the animals. But one day, things changed... Crying could be heard inside of the forest. Crying that came from a little pony baby, left alone in the middle of the forest. Naturally, the animals investigated and found the little one. It had a pear green coat color and a little dark green mane. They were confused how this pony got so deep into the forest. Somepony must have left it there but not a single animal noticed how someone entered the forest, let alone leaving this crying baby. If it would have been any other pony, then the animals would quickly agree to scare it away but right now, that was not an option. In front of them laid a pony but they didn't treat it as one. Right now, it was not a pony but rather...a child. A child that was crying and had no one who would take care of it. No matter how protective the animals were of their forest, they could not have left this child. They agreed that someone had to take care of it. And that is exactly what they did... Years later, the little baby pony grew up to a lively little colt. The animals treated him as one of their own. The fact that he was a pony was quickly forgotten. He was no pony but instead, another animal that now lived inside of the forest. He knew how to communicate with them and how to take care of himself on his own already. But still... He knew that he was different than all the other animals around him. He was no wolf, bear, or anything else in the forest. He was the one and only pony. Soon, he was wondering why there was no one of his kind in the forest but the animals were taking so good care of him that he didn't mind most of the time. He was too young to realize whenever some ponies entered the forest but now he was old enough and more aware of everything that surrounded him. Soon, an opportunity presented itself in the form of some visitors that entered the forest. The animals that took care of the pony, as usual, would try to scare any visitors away from their forest but this time, the pony showed curiosity towards the visitors and wanted to see them. The animals knew that eventually, the pony had to meet other ponies and fully supported him when it came to leaving the forest to return to his kind. Even if it meant for him to leave the family that took care of him for all this time. The colt knew where the ponies who entered the room where and took one last time to say goodbye to the animals that took care of him. He hugged them and they hugged him back, feeling sad to let go of one of their children. He would always be remembered by them and should he return, they would welcome him with open arms, paws or claws. The colt smiled one last time and waved his friends and family goodbye before he was on his way to the visitors of the forest. Not too far inside of the forest, two ponies were fighting their way through the bushes. Both of them wore saddlebags on their bags. One of them was an Earth Pony who was leading the way and the other one was a Unicorn. The Earth Pony had a knife in his mouth to cut through vines and twigs in his way. While following his partner, the Unicorn made a heavily annoyed impression and made sure to let his partner know. "Why exactly are we wandering in this forest again?" He said, kinda blaming his friend for the situation he was in now. "Because there is supposed to be an old castle somewhere in this forest!" The Earth Pony replied, still with the knife in his mouth. "In a muddy and ugly place like this?" The annoyed Earth Pony doubted. The Earth put his knife away and turned to his partner. "Don't you get it!? There is a castle in here! Like the one in Canterlot! You know, where the Princess lives!?" He explained as he poked his partner's forehead. "Can you imagine how many treasures there must be in there!?" The Unicorn still looked at his partner with doubts. "But this forest is supposed to be dangerous. Wild animals, plants so big that they can swallow a pony in one bite and probably even more dangerous things!" "Well, you can't just have a treasure in a safe place! Somepony would have stolen it by then!" The Earth Pony replied. "I guess..." The Unicorn admitted while still having doubts that visiting this forest was a good idea. The little colt eavesdropped on the two stallions to get some kind of idea how he was supposed to act in front of them. It was the first time seeing other ponies like him so he had to make sure to watch them and maybe even adapt to their behavior. Unfortunately, he could make out too much by looking at them. Their way of speaking and their actions confused him. They acted a lot more different than the animals in the forest and were a lot harder to read. Still...those were one of his kind so he had to try getting used to it. He followed the two stallions and made sure that he would not get noticed by them. They continued their way through the forest until they actually came across what they were looking for. Both of them got really excited after they only saw a glimpse of the castle in the middle of the forest. The colt, of course, knew about the castle but his animal friends advised him to stay away from it. He didn't know why and the animals were also not sure but for some reason, it gave them a weird feeling whenever they even got close to it themselves. They said that there was some kind of weird presence that surrounded the castle and they didn't want him to get close to it because of that. Those two ponies, of course, didn't know anything about that and soon were about to enter the castle. The colt thought it would be best to warn them to not enter it so he came out of his hiding place and revealed himself. As soon as the two ponies heard two steps behind them, they quickly turned around, expecting a wild animal that tried to attack them. They were surprised by what they saw instead. "What the? A little colt? Where did he come from?" The Earth Pony asked. Soon, both of them slowly walked up to the colt and bombarded him with questions that he couldn't answer because of his lack of knowledge about their language. "Who are you? What's your name? How did you make it into this forest this far all on your own?" The Unicorn asked with a short pause after each question but the colt didn't understand and just looked silently at him. He had no idea what he wanted from him. "What do we do now?" The Unicorn asked his partner, once he ran out of options. "Just leave him. It's just a child. If he get's hurt, then it's not our problem," the Earth Pony replied coldly to which every other pony would have reacted in shock but fortunately, the colt didn't understand him so he was spared by that. The Unicorn stallion advised the colt to go home and followed his partner who was on his way to the entrance of the castle, leaving the colt behind. As soon as the Earth Pony tried to open the door of the castle, however, the colt quickly jumped in front of him and blocked his path while shaking his head, in an attempt to let him know that going inside of the castle was a bad idea. Needless to say, the Earth Pony was not too happy about that and wanted him to get out of the way. But seeing how the colt tried to stop him from entering the castle was practically confirming that there had to be something valuable inside of it. Realizing that, the Earth Pony pushed the colt out of the way and opened the castle with a big grin on his face. The colt was not strong enough to deal with a full-grown stallion so there was nothing that he could do to stop them. However, he did follow them to make sure that they were safe. This, of course, did not become unnoticed. "He is still following us," the Unicorn whispered to his partner. "Whatever," the Earth Pony stallion replied. "It's not like as if we couldn't take care of a little colt if we have to. As long as we get some treasures from this stupid castle, I don't care about anything else!" He added coldly as he turned around again. Hearing that was not much to the Unicorns liking. He looked over to the colt with a worried expression on his face and just hoped that he would not do something to get in their way. It was a little frustrating for the colt, knowing that you had to stop those two ponies but that you couldn't do anything about it. All he could do was following them. The two ponies looked all over the place but did not find anything valuable. In fact, everything was dirty and covered in vines and mud, the complete opposite of valuable. The Earth Pony began soon turned his head towards the colt and walked up to him with a serious expression on his face. "Hey, do you know anything about this castle? Or some treasures?" He began asking but of course, the colt didn't understand a thing and tilted his head to the side confused. By now, the stallion gave up when it came to this colt and walked up to his partner, whispering something in his ear. The Unicorn just nodded uncomfortably and they continued walking through the castle. They came across a corner and the Earth Pony hinted something at his partner before they walked around it. The little colt was behind them and a little further and walked around it as well but as soon as he was around the corner, the two ponies were gone. The colt looked confused and began running through the hall in hope that he would catch up with them until he came across a crossing that leads to the left and right. For a moment, he didn't know what to do but then he remembered to use his nose to track them. However, once he found out where they were going to, he suddenly stopped on his way after thinking about the situation. Soon, a frown was forming on his face and he looked down to the ground. Meanwhile, the two stallions were running as fast as they could. Their plan was to lose the colt so that he wouldn't get in their way. The Unicorn, however, felt a little bad doing something like that. "You know, remember when you said that we could deal with a colt like him if needed?" He asked his partner while he was still running at full speed. "I still don't get why it was necessary to run from him if that was the case. Maybe he was just lost and wanted to get out of the forest. Don't you think?" He asked, waiting for an answer for a moment. "Partner?" He then asked as he turned his head around, only to find out that there was nopony behind him anymore. He quickly stopped in his track and looked around where his partner was all of the sudden. But he was nowhere to be found. In the meantime, the colt was trying to find the two ponies again. He decided to go the left way at the crossing. The smells of the two ponies were in both directions which meant that they were splitting up. He had no choice but to guess where the more friendlier one was at since he couldn't distinguish the two smells. But the opposite was the case. The colt just entered the throne room of the castle and saw the Earth Pony stallion standing in the middle of the room, looking at the throne without moving a muscle. The colt walked a little closer to him. This caused the stallion to notice him. He slowly turned his head around and looked at the colt. The expression on the stallion's face could only be described as terrifying. As soon as the eyes of the stallion met him, the colt began to shiver in fear. The eyes of the stallion were focused on him and didn't move an inch, like a picture whose eyes follow you. The colt had no idea why he was looked at like that and his fear actually prevented him from looking away from those eyes. He only snapped out of his paralysis once something unexpected happened. The eyes of the stallion glowed in a white light for a very short moment and a dark aura began surrounding him. Then the stallion started to move towards the colt, causing him to back away. But the stallion didn't stop and put a very serious expression on his face while he walked towards the colt. The dark aura began to move towards the colt as well and he didn't know what to do about it and was still paralyzed. Fortunately, right in time, a wolf came jumping to the colt's rescue and grabbed him out of the way. Soon, more animals joined the wolf and positioned themselves in front of the colt to protect him from the pony. The stallion noticed the new animals but he was not impressed or afraid, in fact, he didn't seem to show any emotions. He just walked up to the crowd of animals with his dark aura getting bigger and more threatening by the second and started to go after the animals. The colt was backing away further and made sure that he was not in the area that the dark aura covered. Unfortunately, the animals that tried to protect him were not so lucky, however... For a moment, the animals that got caught in the aura began to growl angrily. The all had really aggressive expressions on their faces much to everyone's surprise. But what happened after was even worse. The in darkness covered animals began to attack the other animals who didn't get affected by it. This led to a rather big battle in the throne room. The colt did his best to stay away from all of this and was hiding in the corner of the room. This gave him the opportunity to focus on the Earth Pony stallion who seemed to just stand in the middle of the room, overlooking everything. The colt knew that he was somehow responsible for this so he tried to come up with a plan to deal with him on his own. The colt saw an eagle next to the window in the throne room. He whispered something to him and the eagle nodded. It was time to put the plan in motion. The eagle vanished for a moment and flew outside. In the meantime, the colt kept a close look on the stallion while also feeling bad for his animal friends who fought against each other. The eagle came back after a few seconds and had a big rock in his claws. This was a signal for the colt to step in. He walked towards the stallion who simply turned his eyes to him. A few seconds later, the dark aura around him began to go after the colt as well. Luckily, the colt managed to dodge out of the way. He made sure that the stallion kept his eyes on him at all costs and continued to distract him. The stallion didn't seem to suspect a thing and continued his attacks but then, all of the sudden he got hit by a rock on his head that the eagle from before dropped on him. Judging from how the stallion began to tremble, it certainly hurt a lot. In a matter of seconds, he collapsed to the ground unconscious, making his hat fly right in front of the colt. The stallion was knocked out and just like the colt suspected, the animals came to their senses as well. They do wonder what exactly was happening a few minutes ago but at the same time, they felt kinda relieved that, whatever they were doing, was over now. The colt walked up to every single animal and made sure that they were okay, which seemed to be the case. After that, his attention turned towards the knocked out stallion in the middle of the room. He inspected him a little further. He couldn't see the dark aura anymore so he might be alright now. That's what the colt was thinking at least. But things got complicated again. "What happened?" A familiar voice then said, coming from the entrance to the throne room. What he saw there, was the Unicorn that accompanied the Earth Pony stallion. He stood in the entrance with a shocked expression on his face and tried to walk up to his partner but some of the animals blocked his path. They suspected him to attack them, just like the stallion on the ground. The Unicorn backed away in fear and noticed how some of them were making sure to protect the little colt in the process. The Unicorn quickly put one and one together. "Did you do this?" He asked nervously with a shocked expression on his face. The colt did not understand his words but he had a feeling what he was asking right now and turned his head away in shame. Only one more word came out of the stallion's mouth. A word that the colt did not know of course, but for some reason, the way how the stallion said it in his angry and terrified state made him feel sad. "Monster!" "Monster" the stallion kept repeating. This word made the colt sad even without knowing what exactly it meant. Soon, the angry look on the stallion's face made it only worse. He was afraid. He didn't want to hear this word anymore. Eventually, he became so scared and sad that he decided to jump out of the window of the castle to escape the stallion. His animal friends followed him, sensing the sadness that was quickly growing inside of the colt. It only left the two stallions in the throne room. The Unicorn walked up to his friend and carried him out of the forest, leaving it for good with the intention to never come back. The animals did not stop him and let him go. Right now, most of them were more worried about their little pony friend. The colt was sitting under a tree with a frown on his face. Those were supposed to be one of his kind. But now he was alone again. He had all the reasons to deal with the one pony that attacked him and his friends but he also wanted to live with other ponies or at least try to. But one of them attacked him and the other was scared of him. Is this how all ponies are? Was he in the wrong? Could this situation be dealt with differently? All those questions popped up in his mind and made him regret what he did to this stallion. Some animals walked up closer to the colt and comforted him. They saw how sad he was at the moment and that made them sad as well. They wanted him to be with his kind as well even if it meant leaving the forest for good. But now, leaving the forest didn't sound too appealing anymore. Not if ponies like this waited for him outside... Sometime later, after that incident, things began to change even further... The forest was already known to be dangerous and was even rumored to be haunted. This was probably a rumor that was spread by Princess Celestia or her Royal Guards to prevent ponies from entering either the forest or discovering the castle inside of it. However, soon the forest would also be known to be inhabited by a monster. A pony living with wild animals would try to eat everyone who would try to enter the forest. Of course, that was not true and it might not even spread like this but the further and longer this rumor traveled, the more things got changed. And only not too much time later, all nearby villages were aware of the monster in the forest. Naturally, this caused for curiosity, so many ponies did the exact opposite of avoiding the forest and every time when they even saw a glimpse of the colt living it, the would shout "Monster!" And ran away. Eventually, this was enough for the colt to stop believing in other ponies. They just came in his forest and shouted at him once they saw him with his animal friends. And the worst thing was, he had no idea why they reacted like that. This caused him to give up trying to live with other ponies and he decided to stay in the forest with his real friends and family. There was no reason for him to seek out other ponies or leaving his home. He was happy and didn't need other ponies. He never wanted to see any other ponies ever again. ...that was until he met those four, who had the same expressions in their faces then him. He said he wanted them out of his forest but something inside of him, told him to give them a chance. Maybe things will be a little more clear once he watches those ponies in front of him. So that's exactly what he did... "There...there...you don't want to eat me, do you?" Rosa said nervously as she was petting a huge bear who was happily enjoying it and laid on his belly as Rosa scratched his head. Tagma went to the bear with a more cheerful yet careless approach. "They are not dangerous. You don't have to worry that they bite you or anything. See?" He said before he petted the same bear a lot more carelessly, causing it to growl angrily at him. Tagma jumped back in fear and placed himself right behind Mystic who watched the whole thing without much care. "Protect me, Mystic!" Tagma said in a panic. "Don't waste your energy. I bet Changelings don't even taste that good," Mystic jokingly said to the bear. "You don't know that!" Tagma protested. "I bet I taste delicious!" He assured proudly, raising his chest in the air. Of course, Mystic saw no reason to respond to that nonsense and only rolled his eyes. In the meantime, the colt took the time to speak to Rosa again. He felt like as if she was the most likely one to talk to whenever he had a question. Rosa noticed the colt walking up to her and just smiled, realizing that the colt needed something from her. To that, the colt only gave back a surprised look. "You...hide...why?" He asked. To that, Rosa replied with another question. "Why don't you tell me why you are hiding? I would like to know," she said in a comforting way. She seemed to appreciate how the colt was trusting her enough to talk with her like that. "And why did you say that you don't have a name before? Being called "Monster" is not really good, you know?" The colt hesitated for a moment before he answered. "Me...not hiding...me...live here..." he answered before he focused on Rosa's second question. "Me...monster...but me...don't know...what is...monster?" He asked back with a thoughtful yet unsure expression on his face. "You want to know what the word "monster" means?" Rosa asked to which the colt nodded in reply. Rosa rubbed her chin. "Well...it's something that you don't want to be called. It's bad..." she explained. The colt seemed to understand what Rosa was trying to say. He didn't know what the word "monster" meant but he definitely knew that it was nothing nice just by how other ponies looked at him in shock while saying it to him. "Me...bad?" The colt asked, tilting his head to the site with a frown on his face. "No..." Fade then said from the back of the room, finally saying something again after a while. "You are definitely not a monster. Believe me, out there are a lot worse ponies," he assured. He was probably referring to himself at this moment. The colt actually figured out this much. "If by "worse ponies" you mean someone like him, then I agree," Rosa said as she pointed at Mystic with her head. Mystic replied with a similar response. "Well, if angered, you could be considered a monster as well," Rosa looked back at Mystic with an angry look on her face. "What did you just say!?" She said with her anger focused directly focused on the Unicorn. "Oh!" Tagma then raised his leg. "Changeling's are considered a threat to ponies! So that means, I am a monster as well!" He figured with a bright smile on his face. "This is not a competition, you know," Mystic added to Tagma's statement. Despite what this was all about, it did seem to somehow lighten up the mood between the four and the little colt. "You...all...monsters?" He asked confused. "But...you...all...nice..." The group was surprised to hear that. The colt must have seen much worse ponies if he considered this group as nice. Not being confronted with too much ponies was probably another reason. Whatever it was, only an hour after he met them, the colt already warmed up to them and felt no hostility towards them, unlike the ponies that would visit the forest. "I think there is still something more important that we have to take care of!" Rosa then pointed out, practically out of nowhere. "And that is your name!" She added as she pointed at the little colt. The Colt tilted his head to the side in confusion. Rosa put a hoof on her chin in order to think. "Mh..." she said before she walked closer to him inspecting him a little in the process. The colt didn't seem to mind and was just wondering what this was all about. Even if it was a little appropriate Rosa walked up to the colt's flank and inspected his Cutie Mark. The colt didn't mind about this either. The mare then walked away with the Cutie Mark in her mind and stood still thinking about a name. Tagma looked over to Mystic confused who was only returning a non-caring look on his face. Then suddenly... "I got it!" She exclaimed loudly, scaring the other three and the animals in the room for a moment. She then realized how loud she was in her excitement and got a little embarrassed but she pulled herself together and shared her idea. "I got the perfect name for you!" She then paused, creating some drama. "How about...Wildheart?" "Wild...Heart?" The colt said confused, tilting his head to the side. "Well, your Cutie Mark is a wooden heart covered in vines!" She pointed out. "Fitting isn't it?" "Cutie...Mark?" The colt said as he looked over at his Cutie Mark. He probably didn't know too much about Cutie Marks since he didn't live with ponies but he realized that Rosa must have gotten her idea from it. "That's a great name," Fade agreed as he walked up to the colt with a smile on his face. "It also sounds really cool, right?" Rosa asked. "I know how boys like cool names so when you grow up to a full grown stallion, you will thank me for this name," Rosa said proudly of herself for coming up with the name. "It's settled then! From now on, your name...is Wildheart," she said as she put a hoof on the colt. "Wild...Heart...name?" The colt mumbled to himself several times over again. Rosa smiled brightly. "Do you like it?" She asked, curious about the colt's answer. The colt took some time to answer. He put a hoof on his heart and began to smile as well. "Wild...Heart...me...Wild...Heart..." "Me...like...name," Rosa grinned happily after hearing that and Wildheart returned a grin as well. The animals seemed to be happy about this as well and got closer to everyone as if they were already part of their family. "You really don't mind us staying in this castle?" Fade asked as he walked up to Wildheart. Wildheart shook his head. "You...friends...you...stay..." he simply said. "Thank you," Fade replied happily with a smile on his face. He then turned to the rest of the group. "We should all get some rest. We have been traveling for a while now," "Yeah!" Tagma agreed. "I haven't even realized it but I am actually pretty tired," he said with a huge smile on his face. "You sure don't look like it..." Rosa added. After that, the group decided to get a little comfortable somewhere in the castle. Fade looked around the castle to find a room where they could stay. Some kind of chamber or a room with some seats at least. From there on out, they could figure out what to do next...