//------------------------------//
// The Bizzare Aquisition of  Oswald Q. Phoenix 
// Story: Wanderings of a Non-Brony 
// by BronyWriter 
//------------------------------//

Well, guess some background information is required before I delve into how I got Oswald. I mean, I didn't find him on the first day; it was some three weeks or so before I ran into him. And I gotta say, those were probably the most boring three weeks of my life. I’ve never done so much walking in all of my days as I did in... well, the past six years, I suppose… but trust me, I did a lot more than usual in those early weeks. 

I had to trek through more ground than I thought, and I ended up burning through the rations I’d packed faster than I predicted. Water wasn’t really a problem, since I had a water purifier I got in Ponyville. As for food… well, the best answer is fish, fish and more fish.


~~~


Rainbow Dash raises her hoof, and I signal for her to speak. "How’d you do it when you couldn’t stop to fish?” she asks. “‘cause really, even I know it goes bad real fast, and there ain’t that many bodies of water along the country."

I sigh and reach into my backpack, while Oswald grins as much as a phoenix possibly can. I shoot him a glare. "Shut it, you. This is not funny."

"TD," asks Fluttershy, "what..."

I hold up a hand right before I find what I'm looking for. The act of holding that… stuff alone makes me feel ill, but showing is better than telling, and they did ask for it. With a huff, I toss the bag on the table, and a piece of tan, leathery meat spills out. "Ladies, meet fish jerky." 

Oswald and Celestia don’t really react, the latter because she doesn't really show emotion like that, and the former because he's laughing too hard, the little rascal. As for the others… yeah, that’s a face of disgust that I’m used to making. And they don’t even eat this crap.

Oswald continues cawing in laughter, and I shoot him a one-eyed glare. "How would you like a piece, Oswald?"

"Don't phoenixes hunt their own food?" asks Fluttershy. 

I nod as I put the piece back in the bag. "Not that it’ll stop me from jamming a strip down his throat if he’s really asking for it." 

“TD!” she exclaims in shock. “He’s your pet and friend! How can you say that?!”

“What? It’s not like it hurts him or anything,” I say dismissively. In truth, he never got so annoying that I actually tried to do that, even though he’s come close before. But that will be too hard to explain to a velvet-hearted pegasus that doesn’t seem to understand the idea of ribbing, so I let it pass.

Pinkie leans over and sniffs inside the bag, pulling away from it in visible disgust. "Eeeww! This smells gross!" she so wisely says, waving a hoof over her nose. "I didn't even think you could do that with fish. How did you make it?"

"Pinkie Pie…” I say gravely, “there are some things mortal ponies aren't meant to know. One of them is how to make fish jerky."

" I’m an immortal," Celestia points out. Thank you, Princess Obvious. "So I’m–"

"You don't want to know, either," I interrupt. 

"So... what does it taste like exactly?" asks Twilight. 

I push the sack towards her. “Wanna try a bite?”

“Umm… no,” she politely refuses, with only a slight tinge of green on her face. “I’ll just take your word for it.”

"Hell on Earth," I respond simply. 

"Is there any way to make it taste better?"

I shake my head. "I'll leave it at this: if garlic bread is God's gift to mankind – and it totally is –, then fish jerky is proof that Satan exists and walks among us.” I lift my arms to the skies, facing the ceiling with my eyes closed. “Repent thy sins, infidels, lest ye face the wrath of the jerky of fish!"

And to think it was the bulk of all the food I ate for six freaking years…


~~~


But yeah, enough of my diet. It was enough to keep me alive, and really, that's good enough for me. 

Anyway, during the first two months or so, I tried to avoid the cities as much as possible. I figured that, even if I wanted to get lost amongst the hustle and bustle of the crowds, a tall pink bipedal creature would attract a ton of unwanted attention, and of all things, that’s what I wanted to avoid the most. Every bit of it that I got would increase the chances of you guys being able to track my position, so that was a no go. I don't really like cities anyway, so it was no big loss. 

That's not to say that I avoided pony society entirely; quite the contrary, I relished the times when I came across a small mining or farming community. The locals were always very nice and often gave me a good hot meal and a place to stay, no questions asked. They knew I needed their hospitality, and that was a good enough reason to give it. I gotta admit, it really increased my positive feelings for ponykind. Of course, I could never stay for long: I might do a day’s work or two for the townsponies to repay them for their kindness and maybe get a tiny few bits, but that was as far as I went.

You know, there’s this very memorable experience was when I was working in an apple orchard in this town called Appleloosa, and a large stampede of buffalo came charging through the middle of the orchard while the townsponies tossed apple pies on them. The town sheriff explained to me that it was a tradition that went back a few years because an apple pie had brought peace to a full scale war between them and the buffalo. It was pretty awesome to watch.


~~~


"You went to Appleloosa?" asks Applejack. "Didja meet mah cousin Braeburn?"

I turn to her with a smirk. "What, the ‘AAAAAAPPLEELOOSA!’ guy?"

She and Apple Bloom both chuckle. "Yep, that’s him alright." 

I begin to smile, but it fades from my face. "Uh, quick question about him: is he –"

"No, he ain't gay and he don't have no brain damage and he and Ah have never, ever–!"

"… that's not what I was going to ask. In fact, that wasn't even close." 

Applejack blushes bright red and her ears flatten. "Oh. sorry 'bout that," she mutters. "What were you gonna ask, sugar cube?"

"Eh, forget it, the question's dead now."


~~~


As I was saying, I never stayed for more than a day or two in any of the towns I came across. I always made sure to make sure that any maps that I had of the outlying areas were accurate, and ask the townsfolk for the correct directions if they weren’t, then I got restocked as best as I could, and then I was off. For about a month, while I moved the land of the zebras, that’s my life in a nutshell. It's like I said, nothing really interesting happened until Oswald came along.

Now, I told you that I relished the moments where I could find something better than fish jerky and travel rations, right? Well, oftentimes that came in the form of eggs.


~~~


Fluttershy fixes me with a horrified gaze. "You...you pillaged nests?!"

I glare at her, taking a piece of the devil’s meat out of the bag. "Fish jerky, Fluttershy." I extend my hand to the point where it's almost in her nose. "Fish. Freaking. Jerky. The unholiest paladin of the Order of the Food Pyramid."

She cringes, curling up on her seat. I huff out in tired frustration. “Sorry, Fluttershy. I just… I get mad when someone questions my eating habits. But try and eat something nasty like moldy hay sometime, and you’ll see how far you’ll go to avoid it.

"But trust me, if I got a hint that the egg held an actual chick, then I left it alone, and I never took more than a third of the total eggs. Of course I'm sure it sucked for the parents, but what else was I supposed to do? I had to do what I had to do, and I was even being considerate about it."

Fluttershy slumps her shoulders dejectedly, and I see the first hints of tears form at the corners of her eyes. It’s sad to see it, but she’ll just have to get over it. What’s done is done.

I just shake my head and return to my story.


~~~


Anyhow, eggs. Unfortunately, it was rare that I’d come across a nest, even more so when I found myself wandering through grasslands and the like, which was often. 

Well, let’s move on. I was traveling towards the zebra lands one day – I think it was about twenty-three days in –, when I found myself in a woodland area. Obviously this made me very happy: not only could I potentially find some eggs, trees always mean there’s a fresh water source somewhere nearby. I was running low water, just enough left for a day or two more. I’d pretty much hit the jackpot.

As I wandered through it, I kept scanning the treetops for anything resembling a nest, preferably unlike the abandoned ones I’d seen at the edge of the forest. It was almost time to eat, and my stomach was getting very irritated with me, something that it had no qualms about telling me and the whole world. I’d been walking for about five hours, and I was beginning to lose hope that I would ever find some chow. 

Sure, I still had five or six pieces of fish jerky to tide me over until I got to a fishing spot, but I believe I've made my feelings clear on that. 

With that thought constantly in the back of my mind, imagine my elation when I discovered a large nest in a tree. What made it even better was that there was a large egg, a big one, inside! 

Naturally, I climbed the tree and examined the egg. I was surprised with its looks; it was like a fire gem. I had never seen an egg like that in all my days, since we don't have phoenixes on Earth – well, except in Arizona and a few sports teams, but they were just abstract symbols –, but I thought ‘hey, it’s an egg, they’re pretty much all the same’. 


~~~


I lean back in my chair and scratch Oswald's head feathers. "Come to think of it, I'm not sure how egg Oswald would have tasted."

"Probably pretty spicy!" says Pinkie Pie. She stops grinning when notices both Oswald and I glaring at her, and she chuckles nervously. "Err, okay, bad joke. Sorry about that."

"Quite." 


~~~


If I’d known then how close Oswald was to come out of it, I’d have run like the wind in the opposite direction. As it was, I didn't know anything other than that I hoped it was unfertilized. 

Or that's what was in my mind until the dragons came along.


~~~


The collective crowd gasps. "D-Dragons?" Fluttershy whispers. 

"Heavens to Betsy, Ah can't imagine how frightenin' that must have been!" 

I shrug. "Not really. They weren't fully grown yet."

"Still,” says Twilight, “an adolescent dragon is still pretty intimidating!" 

"I’d figure that is normally the case, yes," I admit, "but these three... well, let's just say that, if they were humans, then they’d be wearing baggy shirts, backwards baseball caps and baggy jeans pulled down to their thighs. Kinda hard to feel intimidated when you look at someone and all you can think of is a ‘gangsta rapper’ wannabe."

Rarity cocks her head, frowning thoughtfully. "Do pardon my interruption, darling, but those three dragons… wouldn't two of them be sort of tall and lanky, one red and the other purple, with the third one being a brownish color and stockier?"

I raise an eyebrow. "Yeah. As a matter of fact, that’s pretty much their spoken portraits." 

She shakes her head. "I cannot imagine how infuriating it must have been for you to have to have been in contact with those three! They're simply ghastly!"

"I did kind of get the feeling that their combined IQ was somewhere in the single digits, yes." I smirk. "And that's what made this next part absolutely sweet."


~~~


So, back to the story. At this point, those guys were circling me, with the red one – the leader, I suppose – in front of me and the other two flanking me from behind. I'll tell you guys, I actually thought I was in a pickle there. I couldn't fight off three dragons with just a stick, no matter how good I was with it. 

I tried to keep the other two in my peripherals and the red one in my sights. He laughed. "So, you have the phoenix egg we've been after for a while. Hand it over now, it's gonna be bad luck for you if you don't give it to us right now."

"No dice, cherry," I quipped. "I've gone way too freaking long without an egg to just hand it over." 

"You'll hand it over if you know what's good for you!" he sneered. "We've been looking for an egg to smash and you're holding one!"

I scoffed at him. "Why do you care? I'm just gonna eat it; the egg is destroyed even if you don’t smash it. We both win."

"Nuh-uh!" he insisted. "We're gonna smash it! It's no fun if we just let you eat it," he said with a face that starts to make me question how many brain cells he had.

"Well, it's no good for me if I let you smash it," I replied tersely. "So… it seems we're at an impasse here."

"Nuh-uuuuuh!" said the purple one, even more petulantly than the red guy. "We've got the drop on you, there are three of us and only one of you, and we're dragons! So there!"

The purple one stepped a little too close for my liking, so I adjusted my grip on Reginald and swung it backwards, like I'm throwing a spear. I didn't expect it to do anything other than for him to get startled and back off, but luck was smiling on me that day: I felt the tip go directly into his eye, and he fell to the ground, wailing. 

I pointed Reginald at the red one. "We don't have to do this. You can just let me have the stupid egg and I don’t have to smash your face in," I fibbed, trying to intimidate him. 

The red dragon glared at me and took a menacing step forward, claws extended and teeth bared. "Listen, punk, I don't know what you are or where you come from, but we're dragons! We can take–"

And then the guy was cut off when a loud crack echoed throughout the forest. The three of us who weren't writhing in pain all looked around, curious as to the source of the noise. 

That's just about when I felt the egg wiggling in my grasp.  Dang it, it had a chick. The red one noticed it, too, and he stopped to stare intently at the egg, as if he was even more curious as to what was inside than I was. 

Welp, turns out phoenix chicks must be really claustrophobic, because Oswald here only took about twelve seconds before he kicked the door open, so to speak. 

That new development made the entire forest, even the purple dragon on the ground, fall dead silent. I was as surprised as anybody that I was holding a live phoenix in my hands, I mean, when has that ever happened to anybody? One moment I’m holding an egg that’s shaking, and the next the little guy is on my palm, facing my direction and rubbing his eyes with his tiny wings. I frowned when he opened them and glanced up at me. What was I gonna do with him?

We made eye contact, and then he cooed happily and bounced onto my shoulder to nuzzle me in the neck. I flinched away, surprised at that surprisingly loving behavior of his. 

It was at that moment that I remembered something, some tiny fact that Twilight had recited at some point a very long time ago: phoenixes imprint on the first beings they see. The phoenix nuzzled my cheek again, and I facepalmed. Yep, the chick thought I was its mother. 

Well, it was about to get worse and slightly better at the same time. The red dragon had been watching this with a look of awe on his face, but when Oswald nuzzled me for the third time his face shifted back to a scowl. "Not again," he muttered. 
"Uh...” I started, trying to sound diplomatic and failing. “Look, I'm just as surprised as you are by this whole thing. And, well, the egg is gone now, so what do you think we branch off our paths?”

He snorted and the brown one behind me let out a guffaw. "Not happening, dude," he said. "We may not have gotten to smash the egg, but we can still get that dumb bird and smash you!” He hesitated. “... whatever you are."

I opened my mouth to explain that I was a human, but Oswald interrupted me with something very strange: he began coughing loudly, almost as if something was stuck in his throat. I turned my head just in time to see him let out the biggest cough of all, and the second that one went through his body, his wings caught fire. He almost fell off my shoulder from that, but he managed to steady himself on the strap of my backpack with a quick extension of his wings. 

Of course, since his wings were still lit, I was lit too. As in, my entire body was engulfed in flames. 

Now, normally when you catch fire, it tends to hurt and melt your skin away and burn your hair and all that unpleasant stuff. So yeah, naturally when Oswald did that, my first instinct was to panic. But since I remembered well what Pinkie did what she did before I left, I managed to get myself calmed down when I felt it wasn’t a hot fire. If anything, it tickled just a tiny bit. 

As most fires tend to do, it eventually went out, which allowed me to see the red dragon in front of me a second time. I glanced to the side and saw the others had taken several steps back. Realizing that I had been given a rare gift, I flashed the red one a grin. "You asked what I am? Okay, I'll tell you." 

My smirk widened. "I'm a fire god." 

His eyes went as big as dinner plates. Now, I do know that dragons are resistant to fire, so I decided to add a bit more to my speech. "And do you want to know something fun about fire gods such as myself? We’re not exactly bound by normal rules and conventions… including the effects of our flames." I took a threatening step forward, and to my utter delight, he took an uneasy step back. "You think the fact that you're a dragon will save you from what I can unleash upon you if you and your dull compadres don't get out of my sight right now?" 

Another step forward, another step back. 

"Here’s a hint: dragons are resistant to fire… but hellfire is not traditional fire.” I crossed my arms. “You have three seconds to improve my mood."

“Come on, man!” the brown guy squealed in terror. “Let's get out of here!" 

That snapped the red one out of it, and he was very quick to take to the air and zoom away, followed closely by his fellow dunces. I watched them flee, satisfied overall with my performance and the stroke of good luck this baby phoenix had offered me. 


*  *  *


Later that day, Oswald was still on my shoulder, and my face was in my hands. I still couldn’t believe what had just happened. "Fire god? Did they seriously believe that?” I said to myself. “That might have been one of the stupidest ploys I've ever tried! They hunt phoenixes as a hobby, for crying out loud, how did they get so scared?"

The phoenix cooed in my shoulder and nuzzled me again. I smirked and stroked his head feathers. "Still, you were pretty rad out there today, little guy. You’re the first that ever lit me up and made it awesome for me." I chuckled after he rubbed his head against me for the third time. "You're not going to leave me alone even if I wanted to, are you?" 

He chirped something in a language – if you want to call it that – that only birds like him would understand – and Fluttershy, I think. I, in the meantime, had to guess it meant that he wouldn't be going anywhere. 

I took a deep breath. "Well, I suppose having you around can only help. I don't know what you guys eat, but I think we can figure something out about that. Other than that, I don't know what to tell you."

A thought struck me and I took off my backpack, reached inside and pulled out the fish jerky. Maybe, if he liked the stuff… I took out a small piece and offered it to him. Curious, he extended his head and opened up his beak for a small bite. 

The effect was immediate: the second his tongue touched the stuff, he squawked in disgust and batted the jerky out of my hand with a wing. He stuck his tongue out at it when it landed on the dirt. 

"I guess that's a no go, then. Don't worry, I won't make you try that again." 

Scratching his head to calm him down, I took a deep breath and looked up to the sun as best as I could. It seemed to be more on the horizon than high in the sky, so I figured it was just about to get dark out. Now was as good a time as any to make camp for the night. 

Since Oswald couldn't really help much, being a chick and all, I set up camp on my own while he stayed on my shoulder, chirping happily at whatever. 

Given the fact that I had been out on my own for a few weeks, I’d already gotten pretty good at setting up a camp. Or at the very least, I had something to keep me warm at night. The tent was sturdy enough that I could sleep peacefully and the sleeping bag was warm. 

As I lay down in my tent, the little guy perched on top of my backpack. As unmanly as I think saying something like this is, I can't deny that it was pretty cute. "I think I'll call you Oswald," I said to him. "Oswald Q. Phoenix."