The pair, earth pony and xenomorph, had been walking for a few minutes in total silence, and were now approaching the centre of Ponyville. Many of the ponies they had seen had hastily retreated at the sight of Strange Form, even with the presence of the most trusted pony in Ponyville walking along with him with no problem. Strange Form was starting to feel a strange cocktail of emotions; anger and sadness swirled and mixed while happiness that at least Applejack didn’t seem afraid.
Every second was a second his subconscious continued to sift through the massive amounts of dormant information in his head; and he realised that it was going to be a chore. He felt like he had only sorted through less than a single percent of all the information that he technically ‘knew’, including the three languages he knew - Griffonian, Equestrian, and Changeling. Worse yet, very few chunks of that information seemed to be about him and his species, so he wasn’t sure how long it would take him to know about himself, let alone the rest of the world.
...his mother. Every train of thought that travelled through him always ended up at the same endpoint. The desperation he held, though contained well, to see his mother. Though he was confident that Applejack’s friend would be able to help him find her, it still didn’t help his guilt that told him that he hadn’t even given his mother a chance, running away just because he was slightly bothered by the endlessly bright sun.
As he walked alongside Applejack, steps becoming more and more rigid, with more strength behind them as the other ponies running from him caused stress, guilt, anger, Applejack stepped in, looking down at the creature that was only slightly larger than Applebloom as they trotted along the widening dirt path.
“Dont’cha worry, sugarcube. Ah’ve seen this ‘fore, this is jus’ how Ponyville reacts to new thangs, alright? You and your mum stick ‘round and you’ll be makin’ friends lickety split!” She exclaimed, plastering a comforting grin across her face. In truth, she did believe this - she was the element of honest, after all, she couldn’t lie very well at all - but wasn’t sure if it would be as quick as she was saying. Even having spent this much time around him, instincts that had been dormant and defunct for nearly all of her life stubbornly told her that he was a deadly predator and that she, as his prey, should gallop away immediately.
However, those instincts were starting to die down; she was a rational, thinking pony after all. She just - wasn’t sure if other ponies would give him as much of a chance as she was.
Strange Form shot her a smile back, deciding her statement seemed completely fair, especially since this small town seemed rather backwater compared to-
'GUNNISON. COLORADO.'
-he froze up briefly at how forcefully the two words had been stuffed into his head, and opted to remember those two words for further investigation later. They helped him recognise the rural quality of this town for now. “I understand, Applejack. Still, it’s certainly not the greatest feeling for everyone to be afraid of you.” He replied, steps returning back to normal, softly pressing into the dirt road and leaving a nearly unnoticeable imprint behind with each step.
“No,” Applejack said, shaking her head slowly - almost morosely, “Ah’m sure it’s not. Anyway, Ah was gonna ask, what’s yer species even called, Ah’ve never seen you ‘fore, and Ah think Ah’d remember a critter this smart only apparently less than an hour af’er bein’ born.”
Strange Form took a second to respond. “...my species has been called many things. Xenomorphs, aliens, serpent, kiande amedha, internecivus raptus, linguafoeda acheronsis. I think… we most like to be called xenomorphs? It’s certainly what we’re called most of the time.” He answered, not entirely sure what his species was actually called. In fact, he didn’t really know where any of those names came from.
Applejack glanced at him from the side of her eyes, furrowing her brow. “Well, alright then… ‘xenomorph’ it is…” She said, biting her bottom lip subtly and instantly stewing over the fact that he had mentioned his species had been called ‘aliens’.
“So, Applejack,” he said, breaking a second-long silence which somehow lasted minutes for Applejack as she ran through why ‘aliens’ could’ve been a name for his species, “who’s this friend of yours we’re going to ask for help?”
She threw away her thoughts of the significance of the word ‘alien’. With such a throwaway mention, she was sure it couldn’t mean much, and opted to believe that some people had considered their appearance so otherworldly - which, really, was fair - that they had been called aliens. “Her name’s Twilight Sparkle. She’s real smart, lemme tell ya; used to be student of Princess Celestia, which is somethin’ in itself, but she completed a challenge and now she’s the Princess of Friendship, which is mighty nifty.”
For some reason, instincts in the back of his head laughed at the very mention of a ‘Princess of Friendship’, and kicked back into action other instincts for a few seconds. He breathed in, and out, earning a curious stare from Applejack as the mantra of HUNTING, EXPANDING, PROTECTING repeated in his head a few times before gradually receding. The process, to him, seemed like hours of effort, though was in reality only a few seconds of him fighting off the instincts that he couldn’t help but think of as more normal.
“Oh, really,” he responded as the thoughts skulked back into the back of his head, “so she might know about me? And - my mother?”
Applejack couldn’t help but chuckle at that, despite the fact that the grating, hissing voice made that much less innocent by itself. “Might? Tartarus, knowin’ her, she definitely does!”
Strange Form smiled at that. “That’s good. That’s perfect… I can’t wait to see my mother.”
She nodded and looked ahead, smiling gently at that. “We’ll find her, Form. We will.” She said softly.
A natural lull in the conversation followed; except, this time, the silence was perfectly natural and comfortable. The pony and the small xenomorph walked side-by-side down the path, which had joined with the main road some time earlier, and they were beginning to come into sight of the town market. Every pony was still going about their day, though seemed rushed and most of the vendors were shooting quick looks at Applejack and Strange Form, seeing the perfectly structured predator but not running away for the sake of business and that he didn’t - currently, at least - seem hostile.
Strange Form resolved to not be bothered by it, if only so Applejack didn’t worry about him and how he’d react. He was curious of how he looked, so he decided he’d ask this Twilight Sparkle for a mirror, or something along those lines, as soon as he could… though possibly after he had confirmed his mother was in the nearby vicinity somehow. Or just found his mother.
Yes, first he would meet mother, and then he would figure out his own appearance, and more about his own biology. Mother would know about him. The mare - or, no, he assumed xenomorph - that birthed him would know. He couldn’t wait to meet her. It was no use dwelling on it, though. The longer he thought about it the more the suspense would build up, and he didn’t want to be too excited - or, more importantly, too anxious - when he met his mother, or before he met his mother and met with Twilight Sparkle, indeed.
He shifted uncomfortably as he walked alongside Applejack. He seemed - uncomfortable in his own skin, or, in his own mesoskeleton. Minor pains erupted throughout his body in random intervals, and he could swear he had been closer to the ground earlier. He wasn’t sure what these pains were, but they didn’t seem too serious, so either he’d ask Twilight if they got worse or he’d ask his mother.
‘No,’ he thought, berating himself, ‘stop thinking of her! It’ll make you more anxious!’
The amount of ponies around him... also made him uncomfortable. They were in the middle of the town market now, ponies moving around busily - quietly, and shiftily, but busily - and so many of them, too. Or, at least, so many of them for this little town. Other parts of him that he so wished were defunct if not completely non-existent seemed louder in his head; the morally disgusting parts of him that told him that he should be Hunting, Expanding, Protecting, that he should tear the prey apart and feed on them, make sure that these weak inferior species know you are the one and only apex predator; impregnate them and, after Hunting, begin Expanding!
He didn’t like those instincts, that seemed to grow louder and quieter randomly in the middle of so many ponies. His smile remained, though half-formed and shaky in the midst of so many prey, and he tried his best not to pay attention to his instincts but they demanded attention, and when they were louder they were loud; he hoped desperately that they would be out of the crowd soon. He didn’t like these thoughts that injected themselves into him.
Sinking back into his own thoughts, comfortable as Applejack was with the silence, he thought over the memories he had of his birth. He wasn’t sure if it was normal to remember your time in the - womb, maybe? Maybe. He could remember screams. The pains of childbirth, he assumed. Yes, the pains of childbirth. Subtle - oh-so-subtle - thoughts told him otherwise, but he saw no reason to believe them. Childbirth made sense, and it was an integral part of any species. How else could he have been born?
His tongue traced carefully over the inner pharyngeal jaw hidden at the top of his mouth, making sure not to press too hard. It seemed flaccid, though he could tense it, and seemed weak as well. He wasn’t sure what purpose it held. It seemed rather spindly… though, then again, his tail seemed no less spindly and yet…
Lifting it up and laying it across his back, his lipless mouth formed into a line that said that he was thinking about something, questioning something. ‘I have these body parts - the pharyngeal jaw and the tail - but they seem too weak to do anything… I’ll have to test that out later. Something tells me they aren’t; especially the tail.’
Strange Form was endlessly curious, as was typical of someone who had just been born. However, and he wasn’t exactly sure about this, it seemed like most of the information he needed lurked in his head after the information dump that was his birth and his forming inside of his mother. He just needed to access it. There was simply so much he didn’t know how to sort through it all efficiently, let alone quickly; perhaps Twilight, or some other friend Applejack had, could help him with this.
Suddenly, he was lost in thought. Utterly on autopilot. Words blasted into his head.
‘Luna.’
‘Canterlot.’
‘RUNNERS.’
‘Elements of Harmony.’
‘BLOOD.’
‘QUEEN MOTHER.’
‘Peace.’
‘HIVEMIND.’
‘GriffoniaYAUTJADragonsOVOMORPHSpecialSomeponyXX121MoralityYAUTJA,’
and
‘CelestiaHYDROFLUORIC ACIDDiscordARCHENONTartarusEARTH,’
Then he was - for lack of a better term - awake, the world around him feeling as if it was underwater. He felt sluggish. Applejack was speaking. He turned his head to face her and noticed that they had both stopped walking at a wooden door that seemed carved into a massive tree. He opened and closed his jaw. “Excuse me?”
His mind was quickly recovering from the dump of information, of which he had really caught only a few words, and had in reality learned much less than that. The word - no, name - ‘Luna’ itched at the back of his head, and he decided to come back to it after they had spoken to Twilight, which he assumed they were about to do. Applejack chuckled and responded, assuming he had simply drifted off. “We’re here, Strange - yeah, Ah think Ah’ll stick to callin’ ya Form. We’re here.”
Applejack turned to face the door, and knocked on it. Strange Form stared at it - or, the equivalent when you don’t really have eyes - and heard someone coming to open it. A violet unicorn opened it, different shades of purple streaking through her hair. Something about her screamed intelligence, and he couldn’t exactly place it.
“This is a public library, how many times do I have to say you don’t have to knock- oh! Applejack!” She said, trailing off when she was Applejack and smiling widely.
The earth pony cracked a wide grin. “Hey, Twi - just here to ask if ya know anythin’ about lil’ Strange Form here, he don’t know where his mother is so I told ‘em you might know some stuff.”
Twilight finally noticed the xenomorph. Her eyes widened for a second, but she was quickly calm… well, calmer, when she rationalised that Applejack was directly referring to it, so it couldn’t be a monster. Probably. “Um, oh, uh, yeah, of course, you two come right on in, I actually have never seen whatever you are Strange Form so I think I’ll have to find a book on you first. Or something.”
He nodded and Twilight trotted back into the library followed by Applejack and Strange Form, who shut the door with his tail instinctively. ‘So maybe that isn’t as flimsy as it seems….’ He thought to himself, having put very little effort into it and not even having to bend his tail to accommodate the door at all.
“Thank you, Twilight.” Strange Form said, voice still grating and otherworldly, the voice of someone with some cancerous habits who had only just learned how to speak and had been stabbed in the throat once or twice. Twilight shuddered at it, but smiled shakily - which Strange Form wasn’t happy about, but made an effort to smile comfortingly anyway as to not scare her.
“N-No problem,” she replied shakily, turning back to the comforting shelves upon shelves of books, “now… hmm… maybe Exotic Creatures of Equus by A. K. Yearling… yes, let’s check that out… hey, what’s the name of your species?” She asked, already distracted as she trotted towards the book she had mentioned, starting to submerge herself in her little bubble of focus.
Strange Form’s smile grew more truthful as she suddenly switched from ‘terrified’ to ‘focused’. “I think - we’re called xenomorphs.”
Twilight ignored the ‘I think’, too far gone in her studying mentality already to pay attention to anything but the name ‘xenomorphs’. The xenomorph was happy his instincts had died down; though he was growing ecstatic at the thought of finally meeting his mother, it was certainly a bonus that he no longer wanted to slaughter them all and give in to Hunting, Expanding, Protecting.
Hunting, Expanding, Protecting seemed like objectives of the past.
He was one step closer to his mother now.
He could feel it.