As Twilight directed the creature through the forest, she noticed that its curious eyes darted about, taking in every detail of its surroundings.
She wondered how intelligent the creature might actually be, to be so inquisitive. She also wondered what use an obvious carnivore(or omnivore, she wasn’t certain) would have for natural curiosity. “Maybe so it can find food sources other than what it normally eats?” She thought to herself.
She also wondered why an intelligent creature would be so isolated from others of its species, she at least lived near other ponies, even back when she lived in Canterlot. “It might be territorial,” she thought,”but if that is the case, why didn’t it attack me, and why did it follow me?” She kept pondering this as she headed to Zecora’s home.
She then saw the familiar sight of Zecora’s hut. The house was carved directly out of one of the Everfree’s many trees, and it had vials of potions, medicines, and everything in between hanging from strings attached to the branches. Tribal masks hang on the sides of the tree, most of them near the front door.
Twilight made a gesture for the creature to wait here, which it seems to understand, as it starts moving towards a nearby tree root, and sits on it.
She walks to the door and knocks. After a minute or two, Zecora opens the door and remarks,”Twilight, I trust you had a good flight?” She asks in her usual rhyming tone.
“Actually, I walked here,” Twilight replied,”but I need to speak with you about something.”
“Then let us walk inside to speak, I will make you something good to eat” Zecora responded, before leading Twilight to the table inside the house. Twilight used her magic to pull the door shut behind her.
Twilight explained what had happened in the last few minutes to Zecora while Zecora was making a stew. After a few seconds of thought, she responds by saying,”Now that we have learned of the creature, it shall be the teacher.”
They walk to the door and open it, looking for the creature, but it seems to have left. After looking around for a few seconds, they see a path left by it. Judging by the path, it doesn’t seem like it was in too much of a hurry, but it also doesn’t seem to have been trying to hide which way it went either.
“I’ll go and tell my friends what happened.” Twilight says to Zecora,”Do you think you could follow the creature, and see if you can find a way to communicate with it?”
Zecora said she would. With that Twilight takes off and flies toward Ponyville, and Zecora begins to follow the path left by the creature.
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A few minutes ago…
As I follow the purple pony, I look around curiously. Everywhere I look, there is a new plant, that I have never seen before.
We come to a hut that is carved from a tree. It is decorated with vials of various different liquids, and masks that are reminiscent of African tribal masks.
The purple pony makes a motion that I assume is for me to wait, so I walk to a tree root and sit on it.
She walks to the door of the hut, and knocks on it. After a minute, the door is answered by a creature that is unmistakably a zebra, but it is rather small for a zebra, standing at about 3 feet tall, they bleat and neigh at each other a little, possibly as a greeting, and they walk into the house. The door gets a purple aura, closes, and then the aura disappears.
I don’t exactly trust them, but I don’t distrust them either. They obviously have some sort of technology or “magic” that lets them move things with their minds, since things have been floating around and the doors shut without anyone touching them.
I decide to walk away, as it it is the best choice I can think of, because if they are planning on attacking me, for whatever reason, they will think I am scared and will most likely underestimate me, giving me a bit more of an advantage. On the other hand, if they want to interact with me, whether it is for scientific or social reasons, they will probably think I am somewhat afraid of them, which might be useful. Either way, if they seek me out, I will know they are interested in me for some reason.
I start to walk away, not making any effort to avoid making a path. After a few minutes, I come across a stone cliff face that has an overhang(more of a dent) in it. “Perfect” I think to myself as I take in my surroundings. There is a small lake to the North,I see that the trees here seem to grow more normally, and I notice a few black spots on the cliff face that I realize to be flint.
“I can set up a more permanent base here.”
I get to work on collecting wood for fires. I remember how so many different cultures built their homes out of mud bricks. “Maybe I could build my shelter out of that?” I think to myself. I check the dent in the cliff. It is about 4 feet deep at the furthest(which is the bottom, for whatever reason), and it is about 8 feet wide. “How did this even form?” I wonder to myself. I chop down a decently sized tree with my hatchet, which takes a while, and I cut it into decent building material. I make a rectangular box to mold the bricks(which is pretty much just a rectangle of wood), and it falls apart. I grab some of the tall grass in the area, and weave it into a rope, tying both ends into knots. I tie the new makeshift rope around the box on a flat piece of ground near the lake.
I start making mud bricks in the box using grass and some of the clay-rich mud from beside the lake. I set them out in the sun to bake for a few hours.
After making and setting out 12 bricks, I notice the zebra from earlier approaching me. It looks at the mud bricks and then at me. It walks over after a minute or so, and draws a general map in the dirt in front of me, although the only paths she marks are the paths between my “base” and her hut. She also draws seven suns into the dirt near it, and draws three “stick ponies” into the dirt above her hut, and then an arrow from above her hut to my current location.
I understood her meaning, the zebra, purple pony, and one other pony will come here in 7 days.
I nod to show that I understand. The zebra circles the first sun, points at herself, and points to my camp. Which I assume means she will come back here tomorrow. I nod again to show my understanding.
She starts to walk away at a slow pace, and once she is gone, I continue making mud bricks. After I have enough bricks for my purpose, I set up my tent and a fire pit, and continue collecting firewood. I was even lucky enough to find a blackberry bush.
After a few hours, I check the mud bricks, and they seem to be done. I start building a wall in front of the dent, leaving space for a doorway. I use a small wood log to support the doorway. I build until the wall goes high enough to cover the dent. I decide to put my tent in front of the doorway, as an entrance.
I cover the outside of the wall in mud. I start a fire, cook and eat an MRE, and go to sleep in my newly built home.
When I fell asleep, I dreamt of my first sparring match as a black belt. I was a 1st degree black belt in taekwondo. The match lasted for about a minute, but when I won, everything faded to black, and I began hearing subtle whispers, I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I was feeling all of my emotions getting more intense. The whispers stayed for the entire night.
←-------------------------------------------------------------->
Meanwhile…
“Twilight, why are you still up?” Spike the baby dragon asked as Twilight frantically looked through practically every book in her library.
“I can’t find anything on this species or its language, and I need to figure out how to communicate with it.”
Spike looked at her, confusion evident on his face,”You have a whole week to prepare Twilight, and you need to sleep.”
“I need to figure out its language Spike! This time it will be interacting with a group of ponies, which may make it feel threatened. We don’t know what its species is capable of, how many there are, or even what it considers to be an act of aggression. If we word something the wrong way, assuming we can find out anything on its language, we could insult it, or if we mispronounce something, we might even declare war on accident!” Twilight’s voice escalated in both volume and speed as she spoke.
“Calm down,” Spike said,”that won’t happen, besides, you’re more likely to mistranslate if you’re half asleep the whole time.
“I suppose you’re right.” Twilight said as she went to her room and went to bed.
←-------------------------------------------------------------->
That morning…
I wake up, and when I leave my shelter, I see sunlight, and I rub my eyes for a few seconds, I run around the clearing to wake myself up, and then go to eat some berries for breakfast. The wall I built yesterday seems to be holding up well, there’s no large cracks or holes in it. So I add another layer of mud, and collect some more wood.
After collecting wood, I start making more mud bricks for later, because I have nothing better to do right now.
As I make bricks, I repeat the same pattern, add mud, add grass, add mud, add grass, compress, and repeat until it won’t compress any more. After I’ve set out quite a nice collection of bricks, I see the familiar face of the zebra from yesterday, and I notice that it’s wearing saddlebags for whatever reason.