William now felt a lot better since the Owlen incident. In fact, he now resumed his magical studies with great interest. Instead of seeing them as a way to disconnect himself from reality, he now saw them as the normal course his life had to take. Now, even though he still missed his mother and sister, he was happy.
It was like nothing could threat his life now.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
It had been a long day, and Poppy Flower knew it. She was a gray unicorn mare with white mane in charge of redacting the articles of a Ponyville's newspaper and, due to the recent events regarding the living legend that turned out to be real and alive, she was craving to have an interview with him. The only problem was... It was nearly impossible!
He doesn't avoid direct contact with the press (not like before at least), but it's really difficult to contact somepony that's in constant contact with royalty and the elements; it's almost like their schedules are always occupied or something.
However, this might be her lucky day. One of her friends told her that, one hour ago, he saw a bipedal figure walking at the safe edge of the Everfree forest. That couldn't be other than William; if she was fast enough, she might be able to get an interview.
The cloud factory already programmed a rain for that day, that's why gray cloud formations already took over the sky. But since the land was still dry, she still had an opportunity.
"Hello!" she shouted through the forest. "Is somepony here? I mean... 'Some one'?"
She continued calling but no human gave a response. Poppy was about to give up, but then, the sound of some hoofsteps behind her caught her attention. However, this didn't sound as hoofs were supposed to sound; they sounded... weird.
"William!" she exclaimed as she turned back to face him. "Is it... you?"
She almost didn't finish what she was saying. The figure that was before her was definitely a human, but not William.
"He-hello?" she managed to say.
"Oh, you saw me," the human replied. He was a bit more tall than William was supposed to be; instead of wearing normal clothes, he was wearing a dirty white robe; and the most notable difference, he had no hair, at all. "What a waste! I hoped that I didn't have to spill the blood of any of your species."
"Wait, what!?" she said, now scared.
"Anyways, nice to meet you miss," he said as he vanished.
For a moment, Poppy thought that she was just hallucinating. But, after a sudden flash behind herself and what she could describe as a soft claw on her head, she could now avoid going to the hospital.
And replace it with the morgue.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!" was the last thing she said.