“Rarity, do you smell that?” Lyra said while standing and looking in the direction she sniffed.
“Darling, all I smell is muck, grime, and the waste of a year’s worth of spa visits; can we dispense with the hyperbole, please?”
“Rarity, it’s meat,” Lyra said with a tail flick.
“Ugh, fantastic. Now a fire breathing monstrosity may be hunting some poor prey like us,” she sniffled, “and what of my darling little prince?”
“No, Rarity,” Lyra looked slightly behind her, “it’s cooking, like over a fire. It’s being cooked.”
Rarity’s eyes widened slowly. “So…”
“Let’s not get our hopes up, but it’s a chance for some good news, finally. C’mon and stay alert… you may be right about a monster, too.”
The mares quietly trekked toward the smell of meat while watching their steps and keeping their ears on a swivel for any noises beyond the creepy ones that always seemed to exist in the forest naturally.
They broke through a small bunch of bushes after a while and stopped. Lyra gasped and blushed, looking away quickly while Rarity watched in shock at so many things, mostly that Snickers was alive and a mere stones throw from her by a warm fire… pleasuring himself with his forelegs in a way she didn’t think was possible, for what little she knew about stallions in reality, anyway.
The colt mumbled something and Rarity realized she was invading a personal moment, but before she could admonish herself she saw fast movement from the shadow of a tree and it took the form of a small timberwolf. Snickers clearly peaked and made a coltish squeak just before he was tackled by the wolf and started talking to it in that strange language the colt spoke.
“No! Get off him, you monster!” Lyra screamed and blasted a golden beam of light from her horn into the spirit given form, shattering it in a long spray of wood and freeing him. Rarity wasted no time and lunged from the bushes and to Snickers, wrapping him in a hug. “Hurry, Rarity, there might be more.”
Rarity hugged Snickers to her chest and didn’t say anything to the poke in the belly she got from his receding excitement. “Oh… my little prince, my darling boy. I can’t believe I’ve found you at long last,” she broke a wall she’d set up days before that masked her worries and fear behind determination and strength of will; she cried like she’d never cried before and when Snickers hugged her back she lost herself to maternal instincts she didn’t know she had.
She nuzzled him and got up, sniffing him in several places along his mane, neck, and back before snorting hot air across his face and standing over him. “Stay with mommy, darling; we shan’t let any harm come to you again.”
Snickers stepped from under her and stayed touching her. “Mommy? Are you really here? Y-you’re real, right? If this is some kind of di… hila… hume…”
“Darling, I am many things, but a hallucination is not one of them,” she giggled and sniffled.
Snickers’s eyes were running already, but hearing her brought several more drops to the mix and he hugged her again. “Mommy… I wanna go home with you.”
Rarity hugged him tighter. “We will, my little prince. And we’ve got a lot to go over when we get back, but we can cover that later; right now, I have to ask how you survived so long with timber wolves stalking you and other beasts certainly trying to hunt you.”
“And how great it is you made such a nice camp,” Lyra added to keep the mood somewhat positive. She shared a pointed look with Rarity while Snickers was still blinded by white chest fluff.
Snickers inhaled sharply and backed up. “Mom, Pup! You broke her,” he said, blinking his eyes clear. Lyra’s horn stopped glowing and her attention was on the colt. “He… it’s my timber wolf, he would never hurt me because we love each other and you just blasted her, and that was cool as hell with a pew and boom... he’ll be back in a little bit with new parts; you gotta see him run, he doesn’t get tired from what I see, but I learned my lesson and I stayed put, after the first time I didn’t.
“But, I remembered and then stayed here and I got a horn from Harmony and then he took it away because I told him to, and then I got this cool bowl,” Snickers turned and ran back into the camp area and brought the bowl from its perch on a small swing. “See, it got bugs in it one night, so I made it its own little bed and it likes it when I swing it like this,” he put the bowl up and gave it a gentle push, “and this is my bed.
“This is the water I drank from, this is my latrine, but it doesn’t get much use since Pup came into my life, and this is my spear I made myself,” he beamed with pride, “and over there is where I hurt my hoof, but look!”
Rarity watched, holding back more sobs as she watched Snickers run around his camp and tell about his experiences and what had happened to him over the past several days. It was deeply comforting that Lyra was with her as Rarity couldn’t have searched for another day before she collapsed from exhaustion. Rarity looked at his healed hoof and still managed a weak smile when she learned this wolf he now cared for had sealed his wound with compacted tree sap.
Snickers turned to both mares and smiled thankfully. “Thanks, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything. Thank you for finding me, I can’t wait to get home and hug my fillies and be back with my herd.”
“Oh, so now they’re your herd again?” Rarity teased and exhaled when he ran and hugged her again.
He nodded fervently against her chest, noting the smell of her and several other things he didn’t want to identify at the moment, but some reminded him of home. “I love them, I need them to take care of me, I can’t do this again and shouldn’t have left like I did, but if I had one of my fillies with me, it wouldn’t have been this bad.
“Where am I? Where’s help? Mom?! You’re not lost here with me now, are you? I have a little food I can share, but you gotta help me get more to do your share. Pup can’t, but it’s only a baby; a couple days old, so that’s okay. He eats poop, as I stated, and if it were up to me, he wouldn’t have to do such a nasty thing.
“Perhaps we can find compost, I was thinking, that would make a much better substitute. Fertilizer will most likely make him grow, however how much and how fast is beyond me; perhaps Applejack… knows, what? Why are you looking at me like that, mommy?”
Snickers noticed Rarity staring at him with a growing smile. “Oh, my little princey-wincey is speaking like his mommy-wommy does, isn’t that just precious? When we return to Ponyville we must visit the spa straight away and I’ll pay for the premium package and for Aloe and Lotus to stay late, if I must, to clean every nook and cranny of both our bodies.
“Oh, listen to me, prattling on when you have so much left to tell me about your experience!”
Snickers nuzzled Rarity and hugged her again. “Later, you feel too good to let go. Just wanna be with you until we get outta this forest.”
“Ah, that does bring up one question that needs clarifying. Why, praytell, did you choose to spirit off into this horrid forest after sunset without aid, friends, or any supplies? It wasn’t because I had done something, was it?”
“No! I… was being stupid and wanted to ask Zeborma a question about… something,” he fell silent during which time Rarity corrected him on the actual name. “Yeah, I forgot what I was gonna ask her because I’m a dumbass,” he snerked and pulled her tighter to himself. “Heh, you’re lucky you didn’t show up fifteen seconds earlier,” she said.
“Oh, I actually had and was waiting for an opportune moment to announce myself; you seemed like you needed it and I didn’t watch, but I couldn’t not listen and… well, you’re quite good at that and you’ll certainly make two of your fillies quite happy next spring, should you choose to help them. With some supervision, of course.”
Snickers was slack jawed. “Y-you watched? M-mom!” She leaned back to look down at his blushing face. “I’m simply mortified right now, mother.”
Rarity tutted him and patted his back. “It was only the end and I wasn’t going to watch you finish, but then I saw your wolf-pet-thing attack you and I reacted as a responsible adult should. And, how have you come to possess a timber wolf as a pet, darling?”
Snickers stiffened and shook his head. “Later, I don’t feel like sharing the story right now. Do you have any food?”
“Oh, darling… I’ve been grazing the past day and if it wasn’t for you cooking we would surely have had to return home and fought to search again tomorrow. Most of the town is up in arms looking for you across the area; some have even written letters to their families and friends outside the area asking to keep an eye out for you.
“Darling Fluttershy said she heard from a few animals that a colt had gone into the woods and rumors were flitting about them about a dangerous pony somewhere in the forest,” she chuckled, “and I knew it was you. I never lost hope I’d find you alive and well enough,” he let her forehoof trail to his side and felt the fat he’d lost.
She inhaled deeply and hugged him tighter. "Mom, too tight."
"Oh, sorry darling. You've lost weight and I'm concerned about that, too. Oh, my little prince…"
Lyra glanced up at the canopy and lit her horn, sending a pulse of golden magic into the sky that exploded with a loud bang and shower of light; the area fell silent for several seconds before birds started chirping again and life sounds returned. “They’ll be here shortly, stay near me; I have some combat experience.”
Snickers moved from under Rarity again and was held back by her magic. “Mom, Pup, she’s my friend and I have to be here when she comes back. She’s a good puppy and won’t hurt you, I promise.”
The mares looked at one another curiously. “Huh, Rarity, I think he may be stir crazy.”
“I’m not crazy!” Snickers shouted. “I pooped a timberwolf and he’s been eating my poop and keeping me company since my third day out here… okay, that sounds kinda crazy,” he admitted, “but it’s true and he’s my best friend since I was alone, and I can’t leave him here because he’d be all alone without me.”
Rarity squatted and used her forelegs to pull him to her so his back was against her chest. “Look at this place, Snickers, there’s nothing friendly in here. Whatever you may think has happened, I’m sure was a trick of some sort to keep you here or to prepare you for the rest of it’s pack.
“Timberwolves are not known for their kindness or loving nature, so it would be best if we left this one to its others and didn’t look back.”
Snickers glared up at Rarity’s parental smile that said ‘I know more than you, so drop it’. “No, when he comes back I’m taking him with me or… or I’ll just come back here and find him again, even if I get more lost.”
Lyra stomped her hoof in frustration. “Colts, seriously, can they ever just be sensible like a mare, just once?”
“Hey, cram it in your cunt with a candy cane,” Snickers snapped, “it’s my puppy and I’m taking it home and we’re gonna be best friends with everypony! Even if it is scary to them, it’s everything to me.”
Rarity growled quietly. “Fine, however, if you wish to have that… thing, then know that the first time it makes a single step out of line I’ll be the first to take a match to it and say good riddance!”
Snickers glowered at Rarity. “Do that and I’ll put his ashes in your tea when you’re not expecting it, or maybe in your shampoo.”
“You…” Rarity closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Snickers, come and give me a hug, I think we’re just emotional and acting rashly based on that, not what really is at hoof.”
Snickers sighed and moved to Rarity, hugging her again and sighing as stress melted from his entire being. He inhaled her scent and relaxed into her embrace, feeling comfort for the first time in days; safe and secure as well.
“Awe, that’s more like it,” Lyra said walking to the stirring sticks that rolled together into the timberwolf. “Are you sure you don’t want me to blast it again?”
“No!” Snickers turned his head and pouted at Lyra, striking her in her maternal heart and wrecking her defenses with a single shimmer in his eyes.
Lyra’s heart felt like it melted and the colt could ask for anything in the world and she’d do whatever it took to give it to him in that moment of weakness. She averted her gaze, but the damage was done and she let the wolf reform into its shape, then watched as it yelped and ran to Snickers, hiding under his silver tail.
“Well, I was not expecting that,” Lyra said. Rarity nodded in agreement. “Well, maybe there’s more to this than we thought.”
“Hm, quite. However, my statement stands and I won’t risk my little prince, family, or any pony in town for this creature.”
“Mom, Pup eats poop, I don’t think ponies are on the menu,” he giggled and let her go to pick up Pup. “Mom, this is Pup. Its name is just for now, but I think my girls can think of something more fitting once we get together.”
Rarity grimaced when the puppy looked at her with green eyes. “Hm, it has lovely eyes… but does it really eat,” she thought of a tactful word, “excrement?”
“Yeah, cleaned up the whole area and grew a little, too. Only problem is she smells like fertilizer most of the time. Maybe when she gets bigger she can eat something else, I mean she’s a plant so she has to have more than poop and water, right?”
Lyra nodded. “Sunlight, good music, nutrients, water. That’s what a typical plant eats, so maybe that’s all it needs and all this time we were wrong about the species,” she tapped her hoof on the ground. “I think Twilight is going to have a lot of questions for you and have some tests to run,” she smirked.
Snickers held the wary puppy to his chest. “No, I won’t let her take him apart for science or anything.”
“Sport!” Rainbow Dash’s voice called from above and landed with a thump beside him. “It’s so great to see you! You’ve gotta tell me all about- holy shit; that’s a timberwolf!”
“Rainbow Dash! You should know better than to encourage his crass language, especially now… by the way, young stallion,” Rarity took a stern parental tone, “you owe Lyra an apology for what you said to her a moment ago.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Whatever, the cart’s on its way so you wait here while I guide them down.”
Snickers sighed. “Miss Lyra, I’m sorry I said that mean stuff to you; I was upset and didn’t mean it, even though I said it.”
Lyra nodded. “I accept your apology and would like you to know that my girlfriend might be interested in the idea, so thanks.”
Snickers grimaced, Lyra winked her eye, and Rarity looked at the mare with a flat expression. “Really, Lyra? I expected more from you.”
“Hey, the kid talks like a mare, he’s gonna get treated like one.”
“Hey, who’s a good boy?” Snickers said rubbing the small reformed wolf on its back. “Yes, you are. Pup, this is my mom. Her name is Rarity, just like I told you; do you remember that?”
Pup looked at Snickers and then at Rarity, who was standing tall and strong with a spell ready to cast, even if it was only a small push like before or to grab the creature and throw it away in the hopes they could run to safety before it called for help. Pup’s twig ears moved up and it’s green vine tongue lolled from its mouth.
Pup wasn’t very old, but it knew that its name was Pup. Alpha’s name was Snickers, and Alpha liked to talk a lot about things that Pup couldn’t understand yet. Rarity was certainly Alpha’s soft parent, and was clearly Alpha’s Alpha and that Pup should do everything to keep Alpha’s Alpha, Rarity, pleased.
It didn’t hurt too much to be broken, but it was tiring; part of Pup knew that being broken too much would make it too tired to make a new body for a long time and Alpha Snickers might leave Pup alone in the woods without an Alpha; the only Alpha it had ever known, the Alpha that helped it arrive in physical form from the forest.
Pup yipped and hopped towards Rarity, fell to its side and rolled over, then whimpered in complete submission. Rarity blinked and relaxed somewhat. “Well, that was quite unexpected.”
Snickers nodded. “Yes, mother; it seems manners to a true Lady are universal.”
Rarity smiled and stepped towards Snickers, then was reminded of Pup. “Oh, up, you mongrel! Snickers, you have a lot of explaining to do about… this,” she waved at Pup as it ran to Snickers and hid behind him again. “Oh, he has your eye color, it seems,” Rarity commented.
“Yeah, he’s got a lot of me in him,” Snickers chuckled and it turned into another somewhat manic laugh as he pulled Pup to his underbelly, “I pooped him out, I still can’t believe it. It hurt like I was shoving a pinecone in there; but, I don’t care, because I have Pup and I won’t let Harmony or his freaky brothers bother me again,” Snickers said smiling awkwardly at Rarity.
“Mom, I got a horn! Can you believe it? Right on my head, like yours and it was really neat to feel magic in me like that,” Snickers said with another laugh, more ruefully though. Rarity looked at his head and then met his eyes.
“Snickers… how long were you truly alone out here? Without Pup or the Spirits?” Rarity asked.
“Doesn’t matter, I have everypony back now. I’ll be home soon and me and Pup can have a real bath and I can scrub my whole body, and hug my fillies, and… Kiwe! I forgot about him, I was so alone and forgot about him. He’s not mad at me for leaving, is he?”
“What, certainly not. Now, come here, my little prince, and bring your… euck, pet. I’m sure the chariot will arrive soon and shortly after we return to the boutique someponies have some things to talk to you about.”
Snickers slouched. “Oh, the people that gave me to you, right?” Rarity nodded. “I’m not gonna be sent away, am I?”
Rarity sniffled and whined quietly. “I hope not, but I do not see why they would; you’re doing so much better now than you were and you have built a growing life for yourself here. No matter, come along and sit by me while we wait… and keep Pup far from me, he may represent many things against pony nature, but he also reeks of his meals you’ve been giving him.”
Snickers laughed warmly and moved to sit beside Rarity, resting his head on her leg and keeping Pup to his other side. “Mom, I’m sorry I wandered off alone and I’ll never do it again. I promise to Pinkie, Celestia, Luna… hell, even this tree right here,” he pointed at the tree he’d spent so much time leaning against during the day and shared the edge of the firelight with Pup with the night before.
A shadow passed over the canopy and Rainbow descended. “Okay, they can’t and won’t land, so I’ll have to carry you all up one at a time. Snickers, you’re up first,” she hovered near him and frowned. “That thing isn’t gonna bite me, is it?”
Snickers nuzzled Pup. “Nope, as long as you don’t hurt Pup, Pup won’t hurt you, and if he does I’ll break his ear off as punishment.”
“Wow, you’d do that? Won’t it hurt him?” Lyra asked.
“Nah, he comes back from anything… as long as I hang onto the twigs, that is.” Pup turned his wooden head and his green vine tongue struck out to lick across Snickers’ face leaving a line of watery sap in its wake. “Ha, don’t, Pup. We’ll be home in no time and you can get my herd all sappy, Scootaloo loves sap,” he snickered and Rarity’s eyes widened.
“Ohh, my little princy-wincy is still in a herd and in love,” she brought a hoof to her chest and whimpered when the rough hoof she’d worn down brushed her coat. “Oh, my poor everything. Once everything is said and done, we’re going straight to the spa, young stallion, and you’re going to shine like the alpha stallion you are.”
Snickers rolled his eyes. “Rainbow, can you just take me away from this place?”
Rainbow flew behind him and carefully picked him up, avoiding the wolf to the best of her ability as she brought them to the medical carriage with a red cross waiting for him. A nurse was waiting in an open door; when Rainbow deposited him, the nurse screamed in fright at the extra passenger.
***
Snickers frowned again, the sixth time in half as many minutes as another nurse entered the room to scan him, check him, ask him a question, or condescend to him. “Mom, when I can go home? I hate being in the hospital.”
A green nurse snorted. “Then stop doing dumb things to wind up here and you won’t have to see us but once a year.”
Snickers grumbled profanities under his breath while the same nurse lowered the blanket and rolled him to the side. “Awe, again? Do you really think my temp has changed in the last five minutes?”
“Not really,” the nurse replied as she inserted the thermometer into his rectum, “but the Everfree is known for dangerous parasites, so until the lab work comes back; we have to check everything.”
“Mom,” Snickers whined, “where’d they take Pup?”
“I already told you,” Rarity said, sitting by the window and watching the staff work, “I haven’t a clue. I assure you he is in good hooves, Twilight is currently caring for it and won’t let any harm befall Pup. I made sure to tell Rainbow to convey exactly that.”
Snickers sighed and let his mind wander over the previous week and how dangerous, boring, and relaxing it had been. Most of all, he realized, was that he was so lonely he was glad he went through what he did to have Pup enter his life before he went past the point where he’d have abandoned his camp and wandered away, most likely deeper into the forest and to his very death by any means, none pleasant.
Minutes passed and the nurses came fewer and fewer until only one stallion, a nurse’s aid, remained to watch over him while he ate the provided small portion of food he was given. “I’m still hungry,” he complained when he’d finished his jelly of dubious flavor, “can I have seconds, or thirds if this is the portion size?”
Rarity looked to the aid to answer. The stallion shook his head, “No, I’m sorry to say. You have to eat small and be worked back up to larger portions or you could have tummy aches.”
Snickers looked at his belly under the rolling dining table and then back to the food. He licked the last vegetables up and took the juice box in his hooves before he leaned back and sipped. “This is good stuff, compared to the crap I had to eat and graze on out there,” he gestured to the where the forest was since his window overlooked the town of Ponyville.
“Yes, well there won’t be any grazing ever again, if I have anything to say about it. My little prince is better than such an uncouth act and I’ll personally make sure he’s always fed and cared for for as long as I live.” Rarity claimed and was sitting tall and proud by the end of her speech.
“Yeah?” Snickers snarked. “Then won’t I be super fat because I won’t ever have a chance to have an empty stomach and I’ll end up dying from some food related disease in ten years and--”
Rarity covered her ears. “No, please don’t start.” She replaced her hooves on the floor. “You know full well what I meant, as well as how you should understand that joking of your own demise at a time such as this is… just tasteless and hurtful.”
Snickers pouted despite himself; the thought of hurting anypony wasn’t what he wanted, but he stayed quiet and finished his juice quickly. “I’m done,” he said softly and scooted down to rest in his bed properly.
Rarity stayed silent and finally pulled a magazine she’d grabbed when they had entered the hospital to start reading. “Oh, I don’t know if you know this yet, but I signed you up for a subscription to FoalFun and it should begin arriving next Monday, as a treat for you.”
Snickers sat up and grinned. “Really? Awesome! Thanks, mom! I’d hug you, but I can’t get out of bed for a while and with all these needles in me,” he lifted his injured and de-sapped foreleg.
“Not a problem, I’ll go to you,” Rarity offered and gave him a nice hug. “There we are, now we just have to wait for the doctor to let you out so we can go home and you can see your,” she giggled into her hoof, “herd again.”
“Mo~m,” he replied, blushing slightly.