//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: An Unexpected Guide // Story: (Not very) Happy Camper // by PhysicsGamer //------------------------------// A few minutes earlier... Perspective: Twilight Sparkle Twilight Sparkle, one of the alicorn princess ruling the land of Equestria, moved through the forest at a leisurely pace. She is approximately 3 feet tall, has a coat that is light purple, a violet mane with a small magenta stripe, wings, and a horn. She also has a mark on her flank, which signifies her talent. Her mark is a magenta star with 5 white stars in an asymmetric pattern around it.. The mark signifies that she has an affinity with all magic. She was heading to Zecora's home, to bring a book that Zecora asked Twilight to lend her. She always hated going through the Everfree forest, which Zecora calls home, because it always seemed unnatural to her, and the monsters that always infested the forest didn’t help either. The fact that the plants grow and the weather acts of its own accord without outside assistance, was completely alien to her kind. As she entered a clearing, she immediately noticed that several things were off. First, there was a fire and tent in the middle of the clearing. Second, there was a dead wolf lying on the ground, a large amount of the muscle has been removed, as well as its pelt and internal organs. She is a little disgusted and unnerved by this, given the fact that she is an herbivore. She knows about carnivores, but none that would skin it's prey and set up a camp with a tent and fire, other than the occasional griffon, which none live in the area, let alone in the Everfree. Although this creeps her out, her scholarly side prevails, and she summons a notebook and quill with her magic, and draws a sketch of the camp and starts taking notes of every detail. Then, she uses her magic to open the tent, so that she could see what was inside. She hears the rustling of leaves in a nearby tree that is behind her. She then hears a large amount of noise, and a thud as whatever it was landed. She turns, only to come face-to-face with a creature she has never seen before. The creature was on all fours from the jump. Its face was similar to a chimpanzee's, but there were some major differences, like how it only had fur on top of its head. The jaw had sharp edges, giving it a more square-like shape. It was also wearing camouflage clothing. It was staring at her, she had read about chimps, and looking them in the eyes was an act of aggression, so she avoided looking at its eyes. Then it did something she didn't expect, it stood up on its back legs. It looked more intimidating now, because it towered over her at almost six feet tall, and it looked like it was examining her, but she didn't know why. She pondered why it was studying her,"It might be trying to determine I I'm prey or not," she thought,"or it might be trying to figure out if I'm a threat." She looks at its forelegs, and sees that it doesn't have hooves, paws, or anything of the sort, instead it has 5 appendages on the end of each foreleg, similar to Spike’s claws, but they aren’t sharp like his claws. It starts to circle her, which she saw as a bad sign. She turned as it circled her, so that she was always facing the creature. After a little bit of time, it made a series of chimp-like sounds, although the sounds have obvious structure, so she is pretty sure it is speaking some sort of language. She tried to say,"I don't understand that language." It responded by giving me a confused look. She decided to bring it to Zecora,"Maybe she can identify it," she thought. She made a gesture for it to follow, it seemed to understand, and it began to break camp. It also cut meat off the wolf, and started to cook it. She looked away from it, since she was slightly disturbed and disgusted by this. It ate a large amount of it. It then grabbed its bag and walked over. It stopped in front of her and looked at her expectantly. She started to lead it to Zecora's home. ←--------------------------------------------------------------> As I watched the pony, it made a notebook and quill appear out of nowhere and started drawing and writing. I was baffled by how it could do that. It started to open the tent, and I decided to make myself known before it started to mess with my food. I jumped from the tree and landed in a kneeling position. "Looks like those acrobatics classes came in handy after all," I thought. It obviously had heard the noise, and seemed to be afraid to turn around to see what just showed up. It turns around slowly, and looks me in the eye for a split second, then she looked away from my eyes. Its unnaturally large eyes convey its fear easily. It also examines my face, while still avoiding my eyes, thoroughly. I stand up, and its face says awe, fear, and shock at the same time, it obviously didn't expect me to stand on two legs. It starts studying me again, so I start to study it. I start to circle it to get a more complete set of information about it. It turns as I circle it, so that it is always facing me. It is obviously wary of getting attacked from behind. I decide to try to calm it down. It looks at me with a look of surprise, then it bleats and neighs, and although it sounds like a normal horse, there is an obvious structure, so I assume it is speaking a language of some kind. It seems to direct me with a wave of its hoof. I break camp, cook the wolf meat, and eat as much as I can, I reasoned that I might not be coming back here, and I can't carry around a corpse, so I should eat as much as possible. The pony is visibly uncomfortable with me eating meat, and it looks away. When I have everything, I walk over to it, and wait for it to start walking. It directs me through the forest, and we get to our destination, a hut carved directly out of a tree.