"These look amazing! If we ever get a chance to show them to anypony we'll become famous or something!" Scootaloo looked through the photos as the trio of young ponies walked along the road to Sweet Apple Acres. Sweetie Belle and Featherweight had spent nearly the entire trip trying their best to avoid eye contact but failed miserably almost every five minutes or so. Scootaloo got tired of that quickly and started trying to get them to spill the beans on what they were blushing about.
"Nothing!" It was the same answer she got every time and it was always answered by the pair. This only served to cause more blushing. After several tries, all of which were failures, she had asked if she could see the photos. Now they were walking along the road looking at the photos.
They reached the edge of the farm as the path began to be lined with trees to their right. They quickly packed the photos away and set off down the small road that lead to the Apple family home.
Scootaloo looked to the pair of ponies. "Will you two please just tell me why Lyra and Bon Bon were giggling at you? Please, this will drive me nuts if I don't find out."
Sweetie was shaking her head rapidly. "NO! We won't tell you. It's nothing!"
The orange pegasus looked at Featherweight and saw that he was nodding to what Sweetie had said. She let out a frustrated groan but was then struck with inspiration.
She smiled wickedly but spoke in an innocent voice. "If you don't tell me I'll just have to ask them myself next time I see them. Maybe I'll see them later today."
Both of the white ponies grabbed Scootaloo by the shoulders. "NO!"
They glanced of each other and let go of the pegasus, blushing harder than they had during the entire walk. Scootaloo looked between the pair of them. "Then just tell me!"
Sweetie looked at Featherweight with a sorry look. She turned to Scootaloo and told her about how Evergreen had been teasing them and how Lyra and Bon Bon had commented on their conversation. She made sure not to mention what either of them had said and told her about the close call they had with Evergreen almost finding the photos. She made sure not to mention what the substitute photos were. Scootaloo slowly started to grin and was fighting to keep herself from laughing,
She finally let herself go when Sweetie finished. "You two? A couple?" She doubled over in laughter. After several moments she regained control of herself. "That's priceless!"
Scootaloo missed the hurt look on Featherweights face and the embarrassed one on Sweetie's. She never got the chance to when Apple Bloom ran up to them, an excited look on her face. She paused for only a moment when she saw the looks on her friends faces then shrugged to herself.
Her voice was bubbling with excitement. "Guess what happened last night!"
She quickly told them about how Guardian had visited her and the family in the night and how he wanted to visit once a week. They others quickly became as excited as Apple Bloom.
Sweetie was the only one to have any questions. "So he wants to make friends because it will help him protect the tree? How does that work?"
Apple Bloom shrugged again and motioned for them to walk with her. "Ah have no idea but if that means we get to be friends with him and get to see him more often than Ah'm alright with it."
Sweetie tilted her slightly to the side. "And Applejack is okay with that? I mean if she freaked out that badly I would think she would be against the idea."
Apple Bloom nodded. "Well we kinda had to convince her that he wouldn't harm any of us. Once she gets to know him she'll find out that he's friendly."
Sweetie Belle smiled and gave a small excited jump. "We’re going to be friends with an arachnapony!"
Featherweight gave Apple Bloom the folder with the photos of Guardian in it. "We should show him these. He did want to know how my camera worked and this would show him what I meant."
Apple Bloom took a quick look through the photos. She smiled up at the photographer. "Ah agree. Ah bet he would love to see these but we should wait until a little later to go show him these. Ah think he only comes out at night."
The four of them agreed to wait for a few hours before they would venture back into the forest. They spent their time playing games and brainstorming ideas on how Sweetie, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo could earn their cutie marks.
The last rays of sunlight filtered through the leaves of the Everfree Forest into a small cluster of trees. The tops of these trees were covered in what looked like the webs of several hundreds of spiders, but in truth had been made by only one creature. The very creature that was standing amongst the webs, suspended high above the ground. Guardian was crouching on the webs, his legs spread far so that his weight was spread out on the webs to reduce stress on the mighty strands. His body was lowered so that his first joint was at a ninety degree angle to his body. His claw tipped limbs were stretched out to full length and the tips were pressed together.
Guardian had stayed in this stance for hours, and in those hours he had spent standing still thousands of his neighbors had taken the opportunity to turn his immobile body into their new home. His body was covered with a small legion of spiders and in turn nearly every portion of his body was covered in webs of his smaller kin. The feeling of thousands of tiny limbs pulling and pushing his fur all across his body was like a form of background noise for him.
The only sign that he was still alive was when he flicked his ears to prevent a more adventurous spider from making its home in the inner part of his ear. His mandibles also prevented any of the smaller arachnids from attempting to make his nostrils their home as well by swatting them away or picking them up and tossing them onto the web he was standing on.
His gaze was fixed on nothing; he merely gazed off into the darkness of the deep forest as his mind drifted to anything he felt was worth his time to think about. At this current moment it was focused on the feeling of all the smaller kin crawling over his carapace. When he was younger he would have never let them get within a foot of himself, and when he had discovered that his webbing seemed to attract the small creatures to him, it made him feel that his privacy would always be invaded. For a while in his youth he had attempted to not make webs, or at least not make a nest for himself out of the webs, but after almost a year he found that making a nest of webs was better and he eventually grew used to the arachnids that would flock to his webs.
His thoughts turned from the spiders around him and on him to just one that was slowly crawling up the side of his neck. He noted the feeling of its legs digging into his coarse coat. For a moment he thought it was another one headed for the inside of his ear but it turned off and settled itself on the outside of his ear. As it started spinning its web Guardians mind drifted off to the first time he had attempted to make a home in this forest. He had found a small glade within the trees that would have been perfect for him to make a nest in. However the neighbor killed the deal.
When he had begun making his nest he had heard a horrifying sound coming from the river. He investigated the source of the wretched noise and discovered that the source was a sea serpent that had made its home in the middle of a river. He had wanted to solve the issue permanently but the odds of him securing a meal now were next to nothing. The first issue was the fact that the serpent lived in the water, a habitat that he couldn’t hunt in. The second issue was that his webs wouldn't work under the water and would be nearly impossible to hit the serpent if it submerged. The final issue he had was that he didn't really care for the taste of sea serpent flesh.
How does a sea serpent make a home in a river and how the hell does it find enough food?
In the end he was forced to abandon the glade and search for a new place to make a nest. He found the small cluster he now called home and settled down. It took no less than a week for all of the tiny neighbors to move in and join him. He had found it rather amusing that the smaller spiders were the only creatures that tolerated his presence and even embraced him as one of their own. Something none of the ponies he had met in a long time had done for him.
Better off alone anyways. Others get in the way and end up causing more harm than good. He let out an angry snort that caused some of the spiders to scurry over his body. Ponies have been nothing but useless fear filled wretches since the first time I met them in this shape. He twitched his ears in anger. His mind was filled the images of a bright green unicorn mare he had known. His anger faded and his body relaxed as he recalled her gentle curves and the way her voice seemed to float through the air. I have never known a sweeter mare, or one filled with more hatred. His posture regained the statue like quality he had had a few moments prior as he remembered her face when she had seen him in his current monstrous form.
Her last words to him floated through his mind and he let out a growl filled with just as much pain as sorrow. "You can't be the stallion I fell in love with, he wasn't an abomination!" He looked up towards the treetops and shifted his carapace slightly causing a slight shower of spiders onto the webs beneath him. They talked of love and tolerance to us and what did they do? They slaughtered us the moment their princess's backs were turned. And yet they called us the monsters? He laughed bitterly and let out a small sigh. But am I any better than they were? I nearly killed an innocent creature merely because she wasn't a pony. Maybe I've been alive and alone a little too long. Another bitter laugh. He looked off to his right as a pair of voices reached him.
Thinking of annoyances... He shook his body and stretched his limbs to rid his body of the spiders. He shifted along one of the larger strands of web to the tree and followed the voices through the forest. He lost track of how long he followed the sound of the ponies but knew that they were far closer to the trail than to either his resting place or the Arbor Lunae. He wondered for a moment if they were truly in here for him or if they had gotten lost.
His answer came when he realized that the pair, the unicorn filly and the pegasus filly, were arguing. The pegasus's voice reached him up in the tree tops.
"We should have stayed on the path, but no. You just had to go looking at a stupid flower!"
The unicorn looked at her friend and yelled back. "Well if you hadn't insisted on trying to earn your 'forest guide' cutie mark we wouldn't have gotten lost!"
Guardian almost laughed as the unicorns voice squeaked in her anger. The massive creature decided that he didn't really care to see the rest of this argument and descended down the tree and landed next to them. The pair of them let out scared screams as he towered over them.
His voice was annoyed. "I see that your visit earlier this week wasn't enough for you two. I assume that the other pair is off somewhere just as lost as you two?"
They nodded and cowered before him. He sighed. Spare them of my anger, they haven't done anything to earn it... yet. "Very well. I will lead you two out of the forest after we have located the other foals."
The ponies looked at each other, then nodded. "Okay..."
The trio walked through the forest for a minute but their progress was halted when Guardian heard the fillies screaming behind him. He turned and noticed that they were staring at his head.
The unicorn was the one to speak. "You h-have a..."
He noticed some movement near his ear. The spider that had settled there somehow managed to keep a grip on him as he jumped through the trees. He lowered his head so he could pick up the spider with his claws. At first he thought they were just over reacting to the spider but when he noticed the size of it he gave them and the spider some credit. For the fillies he gave them credit for not screaming louder and for the spider he was impressed at the size of it. He judged that it was at least two to two and a half inches in leg-span and roughly two inches in body length.
He held the spider so the girls could look at it. "This is nothing to be afraid of. Your fear of it is pointless." He placed the spider onto a nearby tree and watched it climb up the tree at a rather rapid pace. "Shall we continue or do you feel the need to be frightened by something just as harmless?"
The young fillies glanced at each other then shook their heads. "Good. Now come along you two."
The resumed walking through the forest and once again Guardian found his progress stopped, but this time it was by the voice of the pegasus rather than screams of fear.
"Wait up! We don't want to get lost again!"
He looked back and noticed that they had fallen a few yards behind him. His brisk walking pace was almost equal to their sprints. He let out an annoyed growl and waited for them to join him. He gave them a moment to catch their breaths.
He noticed the looks they were giving him, a mixture of slight exhaustion and amusement. They find this amusing? That's almost adorable. Almost. The orange one looked at him once she had caught her breath.
"You must really want us gone if you're moving so fast." She let out a small chuckle. He recognized the feeble attempt at a joke. He motioned for them to continue walking. He set his pace to match theirs and found that it was almost agonizingly slow. They walked through the forest in silence as Guardian tried to locate the other young ponies that were wandering through the forest. His ears flicked in whatever direction seemed the most likely for the younger ponies to be in. This would be much faster if I was in the trees.
The silence was broken by the unicorn’s voice. "We brought the photos to show you."
He glanced down at the white pony. "The what?"
She moved some of her mane out of her eyes. "The photos. Remember the camera?" His tilting head was all she got in reply. "The little box that blinded you?" He nodded and let out a small hiss like sound. "We brought the photos that we took of you last time. They came out really well."
He slowed to a halt and looked down at the small ponies. "Interesting. I assume the male carries these 'photos'?"
The unicorn nodded. "Featherweight. He's got them in his saddlebag. He's really good with a camera."
Guardian let out a low hum then turned to look at the orange one. "I can assume that only you four and Apple Blooms family know of my presence in this forest?"
The pegasus nodded. "We didn't tell anypony... but why is it you don't want us to? You could live in Ponyville with us and have lots of friends."
Guardian sighed. "You are young. You see the world in a hope filled light and rightfully so. Ones as young as you are willing to explore the world over to find a meaning in life and to find your talents." He paused briefly to let them absorb his words. "All ponies are like this when they are young, but as time wears on they forget the joy of exploring the world and themselves. They grow cold to different things and want nothing to change in their lives." Another pause. "I have seen this many times over my long life. In time they all feared us and saw us as nothing more than monsters. Only the youth can see us for what we are."
He looked off to his right, the vague direction of the Arbor Lunae. "I have always been better off alone."
Sweetie took a step closer and placed her hoof on Guardians leg. "But you don't have to be..."
He looked down at the small unicorn. "Yes I do. Time has taught me that others merely get in the way of keeping the tree safe. I have lived alone this long without contact and I shall continue to do so for a long time." He clicked his pincers. "Now I shall hear no more questions until we have located your friends."
His stern and annoyed tone told them that the conversation was over. Guardian gave the pair a quick look then glanced off into the forest. "We won't be able to find them at such a slow pace." He bent low and lowered his shoulder to the pair. "Hop on quickly. The sooner I have you four out of this forest the sooner I can have some peace."
They quickly climbed onto his back and tentatively held onto him. He turned to them. "Make sure you don't sit on any other passengers."
For a moment they panicked and frantically looked around his body for any more spiders but after a moment they realized that there was a hint of a joking tone to his voice. This made both of the fillies relax as they held onto him. He had turned his head away from them before they realized this and started moving through the forest at his own pace. He moved through the trees swiftly and with a grace that neither of the fillies on his back had ever seen a pony, or any creature on foot, have.
They cut through the forest at this pace for close to five minutes before the silence was broken again by Sweetie. "Guardian?"
He turned his head so he could look at her with half of his eyes. "What?"
She swallowed and steeled herself as his annoyed tone was still present. "I know you said that you didn't want any more questions but I was wondering. Are you mad at us?"
His pace slowed for a fraction of a second. His pace returned to normal. "Have you ever met a pony that wouldn't stop bothering you no matter how much you wanted them to stop?"
Sweetie nodded then realized what he was insinuating with the question. Her ears flattened. "We bother you?"
For a brief moment he considered telling her yes but the hurt look in her eyes and the flattened ears made him stop. "Well... in a way, but you also amuse me because of the you keep coming into a dangerous forest just to visit me." He gave them something resembling a smile. His ears twitched as he noticed a sudden noise coming from his left. He turned suddenly and headed towards the pair of voices in the distance.
He heard a pair of voices cry *Whoa!* from his back as two pairs of hooves wrapped around his carapace to make sure they didn't fall off. They moved through the forest underbrush as the only noise being the sound of Guardians hooves crushing the leaves of smaller plants. Slowly as they drew closer Sweetie and Scootaloo heard the voices of their friends.
The voice of Apple Bloom was the first of the two that became clear. "We should go tell my sister and brother. They could help us find them."
Her voice was filled with barely contained panic. Featherweight's voice reached the trio as they drew closer. "I think we should keep looking for Guardian. He could find them really quickly."
Guardian walked through a small bush and spotted the pair of panicking ponies. "No need. I already found them."
Apple Bloom and Featherweight jumped slightly at his sudden appearance but their fright ended as they rushed over to their friends that were hopping off of Guardians back. The trio of fillies shared a hug and Featherweight stood off to the side awkwardly. He stood there rocking on his hooves as he waited but a moment later he felt three pairs of hooves drag him into a giggling pile.
Guardian watched them and rolled his head in annoyance once more. "Is that enough hugging for you or should we waste more time?"
The small group pulled apart and all looked up at his irritated expression. He motioned with his claws for them to follow him. Featherweight looked at him slightly saddened and confused.
He started rummaging through his saddlebag. "But we brought you something to show you..." He turned to Sweetie and Scootaloo. "Did you tell him about the photos?"
Sweetie nodded and looked up at the massive form of the arachnapony. "You do want to see them right?"
Her eyes grew large and a small frown grew on her face. Guardian knew exactly what she was doing. She's really good at this. Clever girl. His own curiosity and the undeniably cute pony in front of him overrode the more negative feelings that he had for the group.
He gave a resigned sigh. "Fine. Show me these 'photos.' I suppose this will be amusing."
Featherweight pulled out a folder and took a quick glance inside. He gave a small smile and lifted it up for Guardian to look through. He took the folder and spent almost five minutes looking over the folder with a foal-like curiosity.
Featherweight’s voice brought him back to the current moment. "Are you okay?"
He looked down at the colt. “I am fine. What is this thing I am holding?”
The pegasus looked at him for a moment, unsure to whether he was joking or not. “It’s a folder. Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
Guardian looked back to the folder and opened it. “No.“ He lifted one of the pictures up so that he could study it. “Interesting. Does everypony have the ability to make these?”
Featherweight shook his head. “Some ponies don’t own cameras but they do pay others to take photos for them.”
He closed the folder and gave it back to the colt. “Now that we have gotten that over with I will take you to the edge of the forest.” He clicked his pincers loudly to silence any protests they might have had. “You will return to your homes and stay there for the rest of this night. I wish to have some peace for the next few days and I’m certain that your caretakers wouldn’t be comfortable knowing that you have been coming into the forest.” His irritated voice silenced any complaints.
He started to walk through the undergrowth towards the path in the forest, stopping only for a second to make sure they were following him. The young ponies followed him with their ears pinned to their heads. In complete silence they walked through the forest and reached the path in the forest.
Apple Bloom gathered her courage. "Are you mad at us?"
Guardian kept looking forward. "Yes. You have put not only yourself but these three in danger. If I hadn't found them they might have been killed by a monster much less forgiving than I." He turned his head so he could look at the group, his voice brimming with rage. "You have disturbed me more than once in the past three days, trespassed on sacred ground, and you nearly committed the offense of touching the Arbor Lunae, which would have killed you!" His voice lowered but was still filled with rage. "This is why I never liked foals."
He started mumbling darkly to himself and looked ahead of himself. The group of ponies exchanged scared glances and they fell back a little so they could whisper to each other. Sweetie's eyes were watering up and Featherweight looked shocked. Scootaloo was fuming and was giving Guardian an angry glare. Apple Bloom was also staring at the arachnapony but her gaze wasn't angry or sad. It was confused, she had no idea why he was acting this way or why he was so upset that they wanted to visit him and get to know him.
Apple Bloom was lost in thought and failed to notice that Guardian had stopped walking. She ran into his leg and bounced back onto the forest floor. This in turn caused Scootaloo to trip over her then Sweetie and Featherweight tripped over her. The group struggled for a moment to disentangle themselves from each other.
Guardian looked down at the pile of foals, his voice was forced into a calmer state. "Here is the path. Now travel home and stay out of this forest unless you are guided by an adult or by me." He turned to Apple Bloom. "I shall visit you tomorrow at sundown." He looked at the entire group. "I would like to see you all again at that time, if you would like, but until then stay out of the forest."
They slowly picked themselves up off the forest floor and noticed that they were indeed on the path through the forest. They looked around for a moment, and Apple Bloom looked to Guardian but discovered that Guardian was no longer on the path with them.
She looked up to the trees and let out a sigh. She motioned for her friends to join her as she walked up the road. "Come on. We might as well get headed home."
Hours had passed. Hours since he had practically thrown the small ponies out of the forest. He had spent a fair amount of time afterwards fuming in the trees. Now, however, he was sitting on the top of a particularly tall tree, gazing up at the moon. Maybe I was rather... tough on them. He sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck with his claws.
They were reckless and had gotten lost. They had no regard for their own lives... but maybe they thought I would find them like I had before and protect them. He clicked his pincers as the thought gave him a sudden feeling of guilt. Maybe they were trusting me to protect them and now I may have shattered that trust... He shook his head. It doesn't matter. They are only an means to a end. Relationships only prove to cause pain to myself and them. Worthless emotional connections.
He studied the moon for a moment. For over a thousand years it bore a series of craters that resembled a mare but little more than a few years ago that mare disappeared wiping the moon clean. Yet another thing restored by time, and yet... we have lost almost everything we had. He closed his eyes and sighed once more. He reopened them and descended down the trees towards his nest. He reached a tall branch above the web floor and started spinning a cocoon of web for him to sleep in.
He had discovered shortly after that his webs attracted the spiders that loved to make their homes on him that they didn’t have the common decency to only do this while he was awake. His solution was simple. He would make a cocoon around himself, a weave tight enough so that his smaller kin couldn't get in but loose enough for it to be breathable. His first attempts had taken place far from his nest and as he grew more confident in his weave he moved closer to the main nest. It took him nearly four hours to accomplish a simple goal of making a hanging resting place.
He lowered himself over the center of the webbed floor and closed the cocoon. His mind slowly started winding down as he grew comfortable. The last thing that filtered through his mind was the hurt look Apple Bloom had given up to the trees. Means to a end... means to a end.