An owl hooted outside: once, twice, then a third time.
He lay there for a while, unsure of whether or not he should get up. His muscles were sore; his neck, in particular, ached like it had been stretched and squeezed before being left to reform itself back to its original shape. Nothing would have been better than just going back to sleep.
Despite this, his internal clock was yelling at him to wake up. The more time passed, the more effort it took to keep his eyes shut. And so, he gave in and let his eyelids unfurl.
Strange. It was dark. As in, "the-only-thing-keeping-the-room-from-being-pitch-black-was-a-lone-candle", dark. He could hear the soft, nearly silent whoosh of the flame as it sporadically danced from side to side, providing a small bubble of clarity amidst the blur of the shadows. He could feel its radiating warmth along with the steady breaths which washed softly over his cheek-
Hold on a second.
The human strained his neck, coming face to face with a grey, horned face no more than three inches from his own, and resting on two, equally grey, crossed forelegs. For a second, nothing was said. That second stretched to ten. The two creatures stared at each other, waiting to see what the other would say.
Cass broke the silence first.
"Hi."
An awkward silence washed over them again.
The human spoke up, eyebrow raised. "Um, what are you doing?"
"I was... Uh-" Cass's face flushed, his ears drooping. "...watching you sleep?"
"That's kind of creepy. You know that, right?"
Cass' eyes flicked to the table, then the candlestick. They went anywhere which avoided the human's gaze.
"Y-yeah," he rubbed the back of his neck with a hoof, "I... I realise that now."
The warmth of the candle flame tickled his skin. A glance down confirmed the human's suspicions that he was shirtless in his jeans. There were a few fresh scars on his torso, but there didn't seem to be any actual breaks in the skin.
He tried to prop himself upright. Every muscle in his body protested, causing him to hiss through his teeth. Especially agonizing was his right arm which throbbed with pain.
"Here, let me help," Cass offered, pushing the human to a seated position with a hoof on his back.
"Thanks."
A hundred questions were running through the human's head. A lot had occurred yesterday, and he needed a moment to process it all. Even then, parts of the timeline remained cloudy.
"Hey," The human softly massaged his right bicep. "What happened yesterday?"
"Yesterday?" Cass repeated. He was piecing the events together himself if his expression was any indication.
"We found you on the path near the village entrance. I brought you here to our house, and then my mom healed you. Don't you remember that?"
"Your mom... healed me? I... No, I don't remember. It's murky. Why would she need to heal me?"
"When we found you-" Cass explained, "-it looked like you were hurt really bad... T-there was a lot of blood."
Slowly, the memories trickled back. He felt the pull of gravity, the cracking of both his bones and the branches beneath as they made contact.
"Yeah... I-I fell," he remembered, rubbing his right arm. It was sore and burned whenever he put too much pressure on it, but he could move his wrist and his fingers. "I fell from really high up. How did I survive that?"
"That would explain why you looked the way you did, I guess," Cass frowned "You definitely look better now."
The human chuckled. "Heh. You're not that bad looking yourself, unicorn."
Cass blushed.
"H-huh? I-I didn't mean i-it like that-"
"I know, I know." The human grinned, "I'm just messing with you."
"O-oh."
Well, this is going to be fun.
The unicorn's ears flopped back. The human didn't fail to notice him rubbing one leg with the other.
"So. Cass, right?"
"Y-yeah. My proper name's "Cast Rune", but all my friends just call me "Cass". You can call me that, too, i-if you want."
"Your friends? The ones from yesterday?"
"Oh yeah, that was Star and Fly. Fly's the pink one and Star is... well, the one that's not pink." Cass said. He stared in realisation, he asked: "Hey, what's your name? You never told us. I mean, with you being the way you were and all..."
He thought for a moment, "Yeah, I never did mention it. Well, mister 'Cast Rune', my name is-"
The human paused.
"It's...?"
"I... I can't remember."
"You don't know your own name?" Cass asked, bewildered.
"No. I swear, I know what it is, I can feel it. I just… can't remember," The human frowned. "Come to think of it, I don't remember anything before the fall..."
"Oh. Well, what do we call you then? We can't just go around calling you "no-name". I mean, we could. But it doesn't sound very nice."
"Hm... You're right."
Cass tilted his head. "No-name... Non... Anonymous... How about 'Anonymous'? How does that sound?"
"Anonymous?"
"Yeah. It's close enough to a pony name." Cass smiled. "We could even shorten it to 'Anon'."
"'Anon'. 'Anonymous'.", the human parroted, playing around with the name. He had to admit, there was something about it which made it roll off the tongue.
"I don't hate it," 'Anonymous' hesitantly approved. "Sure, why not. Until I remember what my real name used to be.
"You said it was a 'pony name'? Is that what you creatures call yourselves?"
"Yeah, that's what we are!" Cass beamed at Anon.
"Huh."
"Well, what are you? I've never seen anything like you before. We were told a story about two-legged creatures called minotaurs once in class, but you don't have horns on your head. Unless maybe you're a minotaur foal?"
"Minotaur? No, I'm a human. Minotaurs don't exist, they're-"
Anon cut himself off before he finished that sentence. He didn't have the right to claim that Minotaurs didn't exist anymore, not when he was talking to a literal unicorn.
"Wait Cass, where am I?" Anon asked Cass, panic settling into his voice. There was a lot that Anon didn't remember, but one thing he was certain of was that there weren't any of these mythical creatures where he was from.
"You're in Two Trees," Cass said matter-of-factly.
Anon looked at him quizzically. "Where's that?"
"Um, the Twin Thickets Forest?"
"And where's, that?"
"Err… Trotsylvania?"
Anon threw his hands in the air. "That doesn't even sound like a real place."
"I mean, it's not surprising you've never heard of us. We don't really see many outsiders," Cass muttered. "You're the first non-batpony I've ever talked to."
Anon sighed. He was in a place he could never have imagined to be real, inhabited by fairy tale creatures. Several said creatures had saved his life yesterday after he fell, an event before which he had no recollection.
For the moment, he was stuck here. Already, he had been shown kind hospitality. It would be a good idea to make the most of it, right? And maybe show some gratitude to his hosts?
"Hey, Cass?" said Anon. The unicorn looked at him. "Thanks. For, well, saving my life."
"It's okay. I just did what I thought was right. Anypony would've done the same thing." Cass replied, almost flustered. Anon wasn't sure if it was purposeful, but a lock of Cass' mane had dangled in front of his eye and he took the opportunity to hide behind it. The dim lighting certainly helped.
Why is it so dark in here?
"I should probably open the curtains…" As if he were reading Anon's mind, Cass excused himself before trotting to the windows and igniting his horn. One by one, he pulled open the house's thick curtains, allowing rays of pink and purple to flood through the panes.
Anon stumbled towards a low windowsill, propping himself up with his good arm for support.
He absorbed the scene before him. It was strange. They were in a valley, with steep slopes surrounding them. Directly in front was a magnificent mountain. Tall, thin, tropical palm trees took up one half of the mountainside, with the forest's thin canopy being more than made up for by the sea of other flora on the forest floor beneath. Meanwhile, the other half was covered by another forest made of what looked like redwood trees. However, these weren't the behemoths that Anon knew of which reached for the stars as if they were the many digits of the Earth. They were much shorter, and their many lush, small leaves weren't a lot higher than the palms' bigger ones.
Both forests blended in the middle, with the two types of trees growing and mixing together on the same ground. It was in this part of the forest that the town sat. A keen eye, though, would have observed that this was not reflected in the town's architecture.
The houses were all built from the same strong, redwood logs and planks. A few unlit lanterns were dotted around, hanging from the corners of a couple of homes. But as Anon shifted his view further down the road, he realised that most houses were scarcely equipped with artificial lights.
This wouldn't have piqued his curiosity as much as it did if he also didn't notice how ponies were starting to come out of their homes. They all looked as if they had a full day ahead of them, and yet the sun continued to descend behind the silhouette of the mountain ahead of him. There was one such pony outside who had opted to stand on their porch across the street to watch the sunset. A steaming mug was cradled in their leathery wing, and a striped, multicoloured scarf was wrapped around their neck.
"Cass, what time is it?" Cass perked up, his head swiveling towards a clock above the front door.
"It's five... No, six o'clock. Why, what's wrong?" He corrected himself.
Anon continued to stare at the slowly, yet surely, darkening skyline. "AM or PM?"
"PM, duh." Cass giggled, "You weren't out for that long."
Brows furrowed, and with a slight frown on his face, Anon hobbled towards the door, grunting with each step. He stepped outside, having to duck to avoid hitting his head. Cass had tailed him closely, moving to his side to look up at his face.
More doors were opening, and more ponies were on the road. None of them had noticed the tall, bipedal, creature quietly watching. None except a certain pony across the street. Said pony had stiffened like a deer in headlights, eyes widening to the size of plates and pupils shrinking to the size of pinheads. The coffee mug in their wings thudded to the floor, spilling the warm liquid all over their hooves.
The pony stared at Anon. Anon stared back.
"Hey, Anon, you want something to eat? Anon?" Cass followed Anon's eyes, spotting his catatonic neighbour. "Oh, hello Mr Sharp!"
This seemed to break the standoff. The pony's terrified gaze darted to Cass for a split second, before returning to Anon. Anon blinked, and when he opened his eyes he found that the pony had zipped inside his home and slammed the door shut.
Audible commotion from inside the house followed.
Uhhh…
"What was that about?" Anon kept his eyes on the door.
"Oh, don't worry about it," Cass reassured him.
Nevertheless, Anon stood there staring. The sky darkened, and a few stars appeared overhead.
A low rumble came from Cass' belly.
"So… you hungry?" He asked sheepishly.
"Sure," Anon shrugged. "What've you got?"
----
Anon chewed away at an apple. He was sitting across the table from Cass on a chair much too low for his human legs. A mango levitated next to the pony's head opposite him, chunks going disappearing as they were devoured by the horned beast. Apple skin was one thing, but Anon couldn't imagine trying to eat a mango to its massive seed. It must have been a pony thing.
He had been offered a bowl of hay and oats with milk and had been thoroughly confused before learning that hay, as he really should have expected, was common in many ponies' diets. Explaining to Cass that he would probably end up hunched over the toilet bowl if he tried the dried grass, Anon had instead picked something out of the fruit bowl and Cass followed suit.
Dragging Anon away from his thoughts was a heavy set of hooves stomping down the stairs. He quickly discovered that it was the sheer mass of the pony behind each step which caused it to sound the way it did. Despite his best efforts, Anon couldn't help but wince.
"Evening, Dad," Cass mumbled through a mouthful of mango.
A light blue pony, fanged, winged, and roughly twice the size of his son, stepped into the dining room where the colt and the human sat. A scruffy light grey beard framed his face, making up for the lacking, short mane of the same colour which crowned his head.
"Evening." He shifted his jade eyes to Anon who inadvertently gulped. "I know what happened last afternoon. Moonie says you're her patient now, and princess forbid anypony try and stop her. You can stay for the week."
"O-oh. Thank you s-sir," Anon managed to stutter under the, though not unfriendly, still intimidating glare directed his way, "I'm Anon, by the w-way."
Cass' father nodded. "Gleaming Hearth."
He picked up an assortment of fruits from a bowl on the kitchen counter and placed them in a set of saddlebags lying by the doorway. Gleaming stopped over by his son, giving him a quick peck on the forehead.
"See you around, kiddo."
"Bye, Dad! See you after work!" Cass waved him goodbye.
Anon let out a breath he didn't know he was holding in. "So… That's…?"
"Yeah. Dad's a blacksmith. He brought me to work once and my ears were ringing until I went to sleep." Cass said, rubbing said appendages.
"How big is this place? The town, I mean."
"Do you wanna walk around and see? I think it's pretty neat." Cass furrowed his brow. "Though, I haven't been anywhere else in Trotsylvania so I guess I don't have much to compare it to."
Walking around and getting to know the town he was momentarily stuck in sounded like a good idea to Anon. But that probably had to wait until he actually could walk again and not just limp around. Maybe he could find himself a walking stick to make things easier and risk slipping like his great-granddad did that one Christmas Eve at their house.
Wait, his... His what? What was he thinking about, again?
Oh, right.
"You saw what happened with your neighbour across the street," said Anon.
"Oh, Mr Feather Sharp? Yeah, he's always like that." Looking around quickly before leaning in closer to Anon, Cass giggled quietly, "Don't tell anyone I said this, but where do you think Fly gets it from?"
"That's Fly's dad?"
"Uh-huh. Fly Sharp, son of Mr Feather Sharp, son of somepony, and somepony else, until we get all the way-" Cass waved his foreleg over his head, "-to General Razor Sharp."
That answers that question.
"I'll be honest with you, I couldn't really tell if Fly was a he or a she."
"I'm sure he gets that all the time. Nah, Fly's a colt. He's just really shy... And pink. Really pink."
A soft rapping on the door made both creatures sit up in their seats.
"Uh, C-Cass? It's Fly. Y-You there?"
"Speak of the devil, and he shall appear," muttered Anon as Cass scrambled towards the door.
"Hey Fly," opening the door, Cass greeted him. "What's up?"
"O-Oh, nothing much. It's just..." Fly surveyed the room. While his ears flopped against his head and his eyes widened for a second, it was obvious that Fly wasn't as scared of him as before. Even then, Fly cautiously gestured a wing towards Anon. "Y-Yeah... I think m-my dad saw you. Hey Cass, would it be okay if I came in?"
"Of course not. We were just having breakfast," motioned Cass. "Want anything?"
"N-no thanks," Fly stuttered. His eyes glanced at Anon before hastily retreating and staring at his hooves. "So…"
"So…" Anon echoed, as Fly sat beside Cass. "Sorry about that whole… incident."
Fly crossed his forelegs, failing to meet Anon's gaze. He looked like a puppy caught by its owner having tipped over and broken a prized vase. "It's okay..." He mumbled softly, "...sorry about yesterday."
At that, Anon raised an eyebrow. Noticing his reaction, Fly squeaked, "For being so afraid of you, I mean. It wasn't very nice of me."
"Why are you apologising? I understand. Looking back on it, it's about the reaction I'd expect from a lot of people- err, ponies when meeting an alien creature."
"I-I just… I couldn't get to sleep last noon because I kept thinking about it," Fly contritely began. "When I f-first saw you I just wanted to run away, and… and if I were in your situation I wouldn't want anypony doing that to me."
"Oh," Anon's heart melted. This precious little pony, he swore, would be the death of him. "That's actually quite sweet, Fly. I... Thank you."
"Awww!" It appeared that Cass had also fallen victim to Fly's display of absolute adorability. He launched himself at Fly, rubbing his snout into the pink pony's neck, causing his already pink cheeks to grow impossibly pinker.
"Anon! Come join!" Cass invited, "We can have a group hug!"
Bashfully, Fly added, "I-I wouldn't mind that."
His hesitation fading away, Anon made his way around the table and to the two colts. Sitting down, they were both about stomach high, and so he leaned over and wrapped an arm around each of them. Cass leaned in, savouring the moment. Even Fly seemed to enjoy it if the light hum he let out was any indication.
"We're friends now, right Anon?" Cass looked up at him for confirmation, almost pleading. Anon wanted to say yes. But he wasn't exactly sure what constituted a friend; he was never really good at keeping them. And he had only just met these two yesterday, as well as another pony who obviously belonged in their little group but he had yet to properly introduce himself to. He already seemed comfortable enough to be locked in an embrace with both Cass and Fly, though. And hopefully, it didn't prove too difficult to get to know the last of the trio. Star, if he remembered her name correctly.
Wait a second, he used to have friends...
He used to have...
He...
Hm.
He felt something warm and fluffy move against his chest.
That's right, the group hug. Cass had asked him a question.
"Friends?" Anon repeated, "Yeah, why not?"
And at that, he ruffled the long manes of both ponies leaning against him. He noticed how smooth and silky they both were, though with slightly differing textures.
It's probably their different shampoos.
But what Anon hadn't noticed was the mare behind them quietly observing from the top of the stairs. Moon Glint squinted her eyes.
And then she turned away.