The land to the east of Sweet Apple Acres is an unusual area for the Ponyville region. Unlike the Everfree Forest to the West and further south or the more domesticated rural areas between the town and Canterlot, this area is largely barren of trees. This, combined with the presence of several large hills, makes it a great site for stargazing and for a few Pegasi’s cloud homes, but little else.
On one of these hills was a grayish-blue earth pony filly with a messy gray mane and gray eyes. This is not to say that the mane was naturally messy. In fact, were the filly to walk into the Carousel Boutique, Rarity might have a heart attack then and there. Patches of mud covered the traveling filly, thorns were stuck in her mane, and there appeared to be a stick in her tail. Worse, it appeared that the damage was more than cosmetic. The comfortable layer of baby fat most fillies had on their bellies was absent, and nasty, untreated cuts covered her body. Her fur had streaks of red running through it, complementing the mud’s color. As she pressed on north, she breathed heavily, suggesting that her journey had been a long one.
On top of a hill, she stopped for a moment’s rest, taking a look at the landscape around her. She focused north towards Ponyville, but after seeing a pond nearby, she hesitated. The water sparkled in the sunlight, and promised her a refreshing drink. After a moment’s thought, she headed down the hill.
Five minutes later, the Filly was greedily slurping up water by the pond. This went on for a full minute before she had her fill. Wanting to take full advantage of the situation, she decided that this might be an opportunity to clean her wounds. She dove into the water, careful not to get in too deep, and rubbed at her burning cuts. This only served to open up old wounds, and the Filly hissed in pain. But at least the mud and pus was coming off.
Suddenly, she heard a yelling from the shore. She looked up to see another foal, an orange pegasus. She was shouting something, and before the Filly knew it, two other youths and a full grown aqua unicorn mare with some sort of instrument on her flank appeared. They were babbling something that she couldn’t understand, but it appeared to be about her. The mare motioned to her, asking her to come to them. After a moment’s hesitation, the Filly went.
The Filly’s new company appeared shocked to see her, much to the Filly’s confusion. Were fillies rare around here? No, that was silly; all four of these ponies appeared to be female. And the yellow one was an earth pony, so that probably wasn’t it. Was the local community small enough so that a stranger really stood out? More likely, but what did this mean? What were they talking about? And what did they want from her?
One of the fillies, a white unicorn, gestured at a cut on her side. She couldn’t remember had she got it, but it must have been a few days old based on its appearance. The unicorn probably wanted to ask about where it came from. Unfortunately, the Filly had no idea how to communicate with these strangers.
Finally, the mare shouted something out, and the three fillies became silent. She sharply said some things to them, and then turned to the Filly. She slowly said something, but it was incomprehensible. The Filly tried hissing in response to show her lack of comprehension, but that only made the trio jump back. The mare apparently decided that a change of tactics was in order. She gestured from the Filly to herself, and then into the direction of Ponyville. She then made large chewing sounds, rubbed her belly, and mimed lying down.
So, food and rest then? Sounds reasonable. Truth be told, the Filly was hoping to enter town unnoticed, but this was perfectly acceptable as well.
******
“What’s wrong with her?” asked Apple Bloom.
“I don’t know,” replied Lyra. “Could you three keep quiet? I think she’s scared when we talk a lot.”
Miraculously, the Cutie Mark Crusaders remained silent as the quintet walked north. She and the Crusaders had trotted down here, but considering how the filly was struggling to walk at a steady pace, they had to take things easy.
Come to think of it, even had the filly been in prime condition, Lyra noted, they might have had to move slowly. The filly kept looking down at her hooves, almost tripping over herself, as if she barely knew how to walk, or hadn’t walked for ages. But this couldn’t be true. Fillies were able to walk about a few hours after birth, and the Filly hardly looked like she’d had an uneventful few days.
Speaking of which, she simply looked ghastly! Obviously malnourished, covered in cuts, and… was she favoring her back-left? Either this was a clear case of foal abuse, or her last name wasn’t Heartstrings. That would also explain her difficulty walking and speaking. Abusive guardians often stunted a foal’s growth. She’d have to talk to Cheerilee about this...
As the party approached town, they started passing other ponies. After all, Saturday afternoons were one of the busiest times of the week for shoppers and ponies who wanted to go out and enjoy themselves. Many of them turned to face the filly, often with looks of horror on their faces. Lyra couldn’t blame them; cases of punishment like this were rare outside of some disaster, and to a youth no less!
The Filly kept shifting her eyes back and forth, and had extremely tense muscles, easily visible due to her emaciated nature. She seemed worried by all the attention. Hoping to reassure her, Lyra put one of her forelegs over the Filly’s back. Most ponies would have nuzzled her, but this was a motion Lyra borrowed from a story about humans, and she thought it would be less alarming for the terrified youth. Surprisingly, this caused the Filly to visibly relax. Lyra shrugged.
“Some ponies just respond better to physical comfort I guess.”
Suddenly, the group heard a melodious humming coming closer. Lyra turned to face the Cutie Mark Crusaders behind her.
“My little ponies, this filly, whoever she is, is in no condition for Pinkie Pie. Stay in front of her so she feels protected.”
“Who feels protected from what?” asked a voice from behind.
Lyra sighed.
“Hi Lyra! How are you? I saw you coming down the street and I thought ‘She must be back from human hunting cause she does this some Saturdays’ but then I thought ‘no wait, it’s too early’ but then I saw Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo and I thought they must be Crusading to get human cutie marks and now I see you’re hiding something from me is it you cutie marks? No, it must be a human! Can I see the human? Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease?” Pinkie Pie said this in one breath.
“Gosh Pinky,” said Scootaloo, “We’d love to talk about our cutie marks and humans, bu-”
“Let me see!”
Pinkie Pie easily pushed the three crusaders out of the way with one hoof, and saw the cowering Filly.
For a moment, all was silent. This surprised Lyra; she couldn’t remember the last time she had a quiet moment anywhere near Pinkie Pie. Pinkie's face was as expressive as ever, with eyes the size of dinner plates and a mouth that formed a perfect "O." She seemed to be a bit paler than usual.
Then Pinkie Pie disappeared in a cloud of dust.
“Well, that could have been worse” said Lyra. Now let’s carry on, shall we?
After a few more minutes, they finally reached their destination: Nurse Redheart’s infirmary.
******
The Filly was worried. The ponies in this town seemed suspicious of her, and she had never even met any of them. And The Pink One seemed ready to eat her! Ponies were herbivorous, true, but did She know that?
At least these four didn’t seem so bad. The trio genuinely seemed to try to protect her from the pink one, and the unicorn mare had gone out of her way to comfort her earlier. This was why the Filly was letting them lead her into a mysterious building, despite her fear of the ponies in this town.
The inside of the building was fairly innocuous. The door closed behind them, but appeared to be unlocked, and there were plenty of windows that could provide an escape route if necessary. Furthermore, there was only one new pony in the room: a white mare with a pink mane wearing a hat with a Cross symbol, standing behind a counter. She and the Filly’s Aqua Mare shouted at each other for a moment before teaming up to rush the Filly into another room.
The following hour was a whirlwind of activity and confusion. First, the Filly was brought outside, where the Aqua Mare helped the white one drench her in buckets of water. This was largely unnecessary after her dive in the pond earlier, but the slimy stuff they also applied helped get rid of some of the stains. Next, they brought her back inside, where they laid her on a table and began to treat her wounds. The Aqua Mare stayed by her side and occasionally held her hoof while the white one, apparently a medic, swabbed around the cuts with fluffs of cotton and applied bandages. This stung, and the Filly barked in surprise, but remained still. She’d been through worse.
What she didn’t expect was for the mare to wrap some sort of stick onto her back-right leg, which prevented her from moving it easily. In fact, every time she tried to support herself with it or push something away, the mares would loudly protest. Troublesome. The leg would only slow her down further now.
Meanwhile, the three fillies had disappeared for a while before bringing back yet another mare. This one was a cream-colored earth pony with a blue and pink mane. The Aqua Mare nuzzled her as soon as she came, so the two were probably friends of some sort.
Finally, the medic stepped back to observe her work. The Filly that had once been a filthy, bloody mess was now half-covered in bandages. Her grayish blue fur was no longer tinted with blood and mud, and could be seen clearly for the first time. But the process had been exhausting. The Filly could barely keep her eyes open as she was offered some sort of orange juice. It tasted like mildly sweet, but drinking it only made her feel more tired. Had it been drugged? Probably not, and it wasn’t as if she could flee anyway. As she fell into slumber, the Filly decided to trust these strangers. At very least, they would do no harm.
******
“… and then she fell asleep a minute or two after drinking the carrot juice” finished Lyra.
An array of ponies had congregated in the hallway outside the Filly’s room. Shortly after they got to the infirmary, Lyra had sent the Cutie Mark Crusaders to fetch Bon Bon, Mayor Mare, Fluttershy, and, after some hesitation, Twilight Sparkle. Bon Bon had to know what had happened before she got worried. Mayor Mare was the ultimate voice of authority around here. Fluttershy, though a veterinarian first, was almost as skilled at medicine as Nurse Redheart, and could have been useful for calming down the frightened filly. Twilight Sparkle, despite probably being a government spy, was knowledgeable enough to be useful.
By the time everypony had been gathered, it was getting late, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders had to be escorted home by Cheerilee, who had been passing by. Lyra promised them that they could come back the next day, but the filly needed quiet now, and the grown ups needed to discuss her fate.
After seeing that Lyra had finished her account of the day, Nurse Redheart began her diagnosis. “The poor dear has obviously been suffering for a long time. Her hind-right leg was broken some time ago, and obviously didn’t heal very well. She was covered in a variety of cuts, apparently from various sources and times. None of them were life threatening, but very little had been done to treat them, so they were severely infected. I needed to literally scoop a lot of it out before treating her cuts properly. It’s a miracle she doesn’t have some dangerous disease right now. Meanwhile, she’s obviously malnourished. Based on her weight and… leftover feces… it seems that she was living off of grass while trying to heal from all this. She’s in no real danger now, but I estimate that she will need weeks to fully recover from all of this.”
The audience was stunned. Ponyville rarely saw injuries of such a scale, save for some freak accident. It was worth noting that Nurse Redheart specialized in delivering babies; that’s just the kind of place Ponyville was. Even when the occasional pegasus broke a wing or a unicorn suffered from horn rot, they would be treated quickly and efficiently. Seeing a filly, of all things, limping into town on a poorly-healed leg was shocking to say the least.
At this point, Nurse Redheart continued, “The strangest thing about this case is that the filly seems to be completely ignorant of our language. She showed no signs of understanding the instructions I gave her, and had to be communicated with using simple sounds and gestures. If Lyra weren’t here to calm her down, I don’t know what I would have done. Twilight, have you read about anything like this?”
Twilight, who had been staring at the door to the filly’s room, jumped in surprise at being directly addressed before responding. “Well, there are several possibilities, but none of them seem particularly likely. First of all, it’s possible that she comes from somewhere like Prance or Neighpon where they speak a different language. But if that were the case, she would probably reply to us in those languages, or call out in them. It’s also possible that she’s mute, but according to your account, she yelled when you treated her with alcohol. This suggests that she’s in complete control over her tongue. The most likely possibility, if I had to guess, would be that she simply grew up in a place where speech wasn’t used to communicate. Lyra, this would explain how putting your foreleg over her comforted her. The problem is, a place without speech insinuates cruel guardians, who would have made her fear physical contact. Last, it is possible that she grew up on her own, and thus has had few interactions with anypony. But this doesn’t make sense either, since she would have done a better job at surviving in the wilderness if that were the case, and she reacted to the existence of other ponies with caution rather than surprise.”
“If I had to guess her life story, based on all this clashing information. I’d guess that she was raised in a relatively isolated environment, possibly by a mute or deaf pony that needed to communicate without sound, and was told that other ponies existed and were alright, but never interacted with them. After this other pony dies, she leaves home for the first time, struggling to reach civilization, possibly based on incomplete information. She isn’t used to living on her own, so when she gets hurt or hungry, she can’t react properly. Therefore, by the time she reaches civilization, she’s desperate and traumatized. This means that she is willing to accept help, but is terrified by everything she finds. Especially if she’s never been around so many other ponies before.”
Lyra was stunned. This was why she wanted Twilight Sparkle to come. No other pony in the village would have been able to come up with so many answers to the questions, discard the unsatisfactory, and settled on the most likely answer possible in a matter of minutes. Well, except for maybe Pinkie Pie. But she would be much harder to understand, and would probably decide the answer to everything was a party.
Speaking of Pinkie Pie… “has anybody seen Pinkie?” asked Lyra. “Has somebody told her not to throw a party for the filly yet?”
“Um, excuse me, but I… well…”
“Go ahead Fluttershy”
“Well, it’s just that I saw Pinkie Pie when I was in town, and she was running into Sugarcube Corner. Only… normally when she throws a party, she goes out and invites ponies first, but she didn’t invite me… unless she didn’t want me to come… but she probably did, so… um… I’m not sure whether she’s throwing a party.”
The hallway was silent for a few moments. Pinkie Pie had thrown Twilight Sparkle a party hours before a millennial celebration. She had a cannon to prepare parties on the go. She threw a party for Gilda after concluding that she was a bully. For her to not throw a party meant that something was seriously wrong.
Then again, she had just seen a badly injured filly. Perhaps that was enough to get rid of the permanent party in Pinkie’s head for a minute.
Finally, Mayor Mare spoke up. “Anyhow, the question is, what now? Even after she is able to leave the clinic, we don’t have any special facilities like an orphanage here in Ponyville. And I doubt that it would be wise for her to travel to Canterlot, considering how close you said she to panicking earlier. Not to mention how a bumpy ride would likely aggravate injuries.”
Lyra and Bon Bon looked at each other for a moment. The two of them had known each other for years now, and what they had went beyond friendship. They could communicate without words when the need arose, as it did now. And although the two argued constantly, they always agreed on the important stuff.
Bon Bon spoke first. “I think it would be good for the poor filly if she had a home here in Ponyville. She’d be surrounded by familiar faces at very least, and she’s already starting to relax a little. Look how quickly she went to sleep!”
“We could look after her,” Lyra said, picking up where Bon Bon left off. “She already trusts me, and Bon Bon by extension, and the two of us have room in our home for a filly, if only until we find better arrangements.”
“That sounds fine by me,” replied Mayor Mare. “Any objections ladies?” she asked Nurse Redheart, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle.
There were none to be had. Lyra was considered a bit of a weirdo for her obsession with mythical creatures, but was always functionally weird, capable of doing what needed to be done when necessary. Like saving this poor filly, for instance. And as a baker and inventor of candies, Bon Bon was very popular among foals. Plus, since both of them were working, and both from home, they would have enough bits and time to look after the filly.
“I’ll take care of the paperwork,” said Mayor Mare, “but we can’t keep on calling her ‘filly.’ She needs a name, at least until we find out what hers really is.”
Lyra thought for a moment. She recalled a story supposedly from human folklore, about a colt that grew up in the wilderness surrounded by monstrous creatures. But “Gau,” in addition to being a bit nasty-sounding, was not a female name. Still, there was someone else in that story…
“What about Terra?” she asked.
“Not a conventional name, but it has a ring to it,” replied Twilight Sparkle.
“I like it”
“Works for me!”
“…it’s…nice…”
Lyra smiled. She didn’t know much about the strange new filly that had entered her life. But from the looks of it, Terra was going to be one of the greatest things she had ever found while tracking down humans.