//------------------------------// // Chapter 11 // Story: Forgiveness Pending // by Kiroberos //------------------------------// My focus waned as I pulled yet another set of six planks out of a log. I'd long since lost count, but estimated that this was probably my fifteenth or sixteenth piece. It was getting harder and harder to maintain my concentration with my head feeling like someone had taken a splitting axe to it, however. Suddenly, that light tingling sensation danced along the edge of my nostrils, heading towards the bridge of my nose. Not again! Regardless of my desires, the sneeze exploded out of my nose: releasing a wet, gooey sensation across my mouth and extended left foreleg, and sprinkling the log with little dots of red. Damn it. The timid yellow pegasus sitting next to me jumped a little in surprise at my sudden outburst, but promptly extended the third towel up again to wipe at my muzzle. It was tinted red as she withdrew it, looking like it was dipped in paint. Obviously it was blood, but it was still nice to pretend. It made me at least able to blissfully remain inattentive to the large amounts of the red liquid I'd been losing out my nose and tear ducts in the last hour. It was such a pleasant sensation, honestly, to have that delightful metallic taste in your mouth as it crusted over on your cheeks and muzzle. There was a light twitch in my peripheral vision, but not from the source I was expecting. I looked up in time to see Applejack turn sharply from her position near the lift and glared at me. "Oh, that is so it! Yer done workin' fer tha day, Mister! Ah don't need this thingy done tonight, so we're callin' it quits right now," she announced abruptly. I frowned, wanting to just be done with it, but Fluttershy exhaled quietly to my right, adding, "Oh good. You need to rest after losing all this blood, Mender. At least take tomorrow off, if that's not too much trouble, of course." She looked at me with those brutal, pleading eyes that could melt a Grosh's heart, and I was forced to look away, blushing. Twilight stood up from her position of putting the actual belt together and walked back over to me, still looking dejected. Swallowing, I watched her carefully, trying my hardest to look past Fluttershy without catching her devastating gaze. The lavender mare looked extremely tired and a little on the sad side. It still bugged me that I couldn't figure out why she was sad, so a part of me was glad for the break. It meant that I could get her alone soon for questioning. Applejack walked up, looking a little surprised at my lack of protest at her decision, but traced my worried glance to Twilight and smiled, nodding to me. "Ya get ah good night's rest tonight, Mender. More mental exercisin' tomorrow would probably be healthy fer ya too, but don't push yerself. Ah'll get tha extra metal parts ordered fer delivery as well, don't worry," she spoke up, thankfully not saying anything about the focus of my attention she had caught me with. I nodded, of course, returning her warm smile. Actually, it probably just looked creepy with the stained orange tear streaks and muzzle. "I'm all right. I'll finish the rest of the planks tomorrow for sure, then we can finish the project as soon as possible. We'll get it done in time no problem, this way," I assured softly, feeling more than a little tired. "Thank ya kindly, Mender. Tha rest o' ya come back after yer daily routines are done ta give us ah hoof in finishin', okay?" she requested further, looking at Fluttershy beside me and the now landing cyan mare on my other side. "I'll be over after I finish my weather duties, no problem!" Dash assured, giving an abrupt and absolute nod. It felt like that might as well have been a blood oath of some sort. "I can come over after I feed all of the animals their breakfasts, well, if I'm really that much help, of course," Fluttershy added as well, bowing politely towards the orange country mare. Twilight brushed her left forehoof into Fluttershy's shoulder and rubbed softly, shaking her head before refuting, "Of course you're helpful, Fluttershy. Having another pony with wings is a huge help, plus you lined up a lot of the boards so perfectly. It really helps to have a gentle touch sometimes, Fluttershy." The shy yellow mare blushed but smiled at Twilight's kind words. The bookish unicorn continued before anypony could comment, however, with, "Even then, as an added bonus, you can help me put Mender back together again after he inevitably injures himself three or four times a day." My glare was matched only by Rainbow's laughter. Fluttershy seemed flustered, glancing between myself and the now smirking Twilight, while Applejack just chuckled and shook her head, wearing a smile. After a few moments' denial, I decided that technically she had a point. Plus it was nice to hear her joking again, even if it was at my expense. "True enough, I suppose. It really is a big help to have somepony who’s capable of lining," I started to agree with, before trailing off abruptly. The static came back, quietly and almost imperceptibly in the background. I glanced around again, just to make sure that I hadn't missed any speaker systems or something. "...ook testing number twenty-nine; commence," was suddenly spoken, much clearer than last time and in an oddly familiar voice. Uh oh. The girls were giving me odd looks by then. "Uh, are you okay, Mender?" Twilight asked curiously, angling her head while looking at me. I was about to answer when a tiny orb of light drifted out of my left shoulder, causing me to jump and stare at it. What the hell was that thing?! "Probe activated. Getting vague yet conscious energy readings," the voice noted, sounding very interested. It was that girl from my dream! Okay then; there were three possible reasons for this. One, I was high on truth serum again and having a seriously messed up dream. Two, I had used up too much magical energy and was having some vivid yet creative flashbacks from aforementioned dream. Three, it was real and we had some serious problems! Given priorities and threat levels, I was more inclined to believe the third option purely as a precaution. Given that decision, I reacted in the best way possible that I could think of. Giving out a yelp, I hopped backwards while lashing out with my left forehoof, smashing into the orb with my fully shielded magical limb. It shattered like my frail skull would have against Applejack's hoof, and a piercing yelp echoed through my skull. Ha! Eat that, girl whose name I couldn't remember! Rainbow hopped backwards as well to clear the sudden blow. Twilight looked momentarily surprised, as did Applejack who yelled, "Whoa nelly! What's goin' on, Mender?" "A ball of light! I think it might be some sort of probe from the other dimension. I... think it’s dead,” I declared, gleefully watching the shards drift down through the air. It was worth it to know I disrupted whatever she was doing. Twilight smacked her forehead with a hoof, sighing. "Mender, there was no source of magic or energy there. Plus, for the last time, Princess Celestia Herself said that the link was gone. You just used up too much energy and need to lie down, okay?" she offered, sounding a little exasperated. Shaking my head rapidly, I pointed down to the shards of the probe lying on the ground. "The pieces are right there! There has to be something you can pick up," I defended, wishing she'd just believe me for once. Fluttershy peeked out from behind Applejack, looking timidly at where I was pointing. The orange farmer herself seemed slightly more skeptical, raising an eyebrow to what she probably saw as empty dirt. Twilight muttered something sounding vaguely like "empirical doubt" before looking down at the spot I directed her to, horn lighting up. I held my breath as a wave of lavender light washed over the dirt gently. My eyes widened as I watched the energy pass right through the shards as if they weren't there. What the hell? "Mender, there's nothing there aside from dirt, a thin paint residue, and some ancient looking clay jar with heavily fermenting cider of some sorts buried about a foot and a half down," she reported dryly, glaring back up at me. So she couldn't scan it after all. Wait, what? Applejack coughed lightly and shook her head. "Just ignore that," she requested, blushing lightly and looking away from us. Rainbow shot her a knowing grin, and I just sighed. "Maybe there's something there you can't detect? Maybe it's only partially merged with this dimension?" I deduced, fishing for possibilities as best I could. That's really the only explanation for why Twilight couldn't pick it up, given her level of skill and sheer strength of magic. "Or maybe you're hallucinating from blood and magic loss and need to go lie down? Why can't you just trust Princess Celestia?" Twilight asked sharply, glaring at me instead. Maybe because she was fallible? Or maybe because I wanted to be cautious rather than regret it later? Why couldn't she just trust me?! I opened my mouth to retort just that, but the only answer feasible popped into my head before I could say anything. Why did I keep forgetting her relationship with Celestia? Of course she's going to think the Sun Princess was infallible. Who was I, a mere imperfect mortal, to challenge her perfect teacher's assurance? My mouth snapped shut a second later and I just closed my eyes. It was pointless trying to convince her otherwise, as she was never going to believe me. As bitter as that felt, I knew that there was nothing I could do to change it. I wasn't as important to her as Celestia was, and I'd just have to deal with that. My irritation dropped, and I exhaled wearily before opening my eyes once more, much softer this time. Twilight was still glaring, but Rainbow Dash looked at me with uncertainty over her right shoulder. No, causing more conflict didn't solve anything. It only served to make Twilight angry with me, which led to almost being squished by a bed last time. Not wanting to risk her aim being better this time around, I simply turned away from the lavender unicorn and walked out through the main barn door. Okay, so today had a few good points, but overall, I'd have to say that it was largely terrible. The kissing was nice, but mostly overshadowed by the discussion afterwards and what her intent seemed to be. I was an experiment; I had no idea if she liked me, or just liked the kissing and wanted to fool around. She'd said she was interested in me and I really did want to believe her, but she'd lied to me before, and certainly didn't trust me now, so it was extremely difficult. "Mender," I heard Fluttershy whisper, almost directly into my head it felt like. "Just let him go, Fluttershy," Twilight added a moment later. A spike of irritation shot through me, but I turned past the side of the barn and got out of sight as best I could. Frustration was an understatement in light of my current outlook. The second I got out of the light from the barn, I swallowed hard and burst into a run. Well, as fast as this body could manage, anyway. There was no destination in mind as I ran as hard as I could, the lump in my throat shifting painfully with each gallop. I just pretended the warmth running down my cheeks was blood again, and headed off into the rapidly darkening night. * * * * * The moon rose into the night's sky steadily, giving an ethereal glow to the world. It was quite beautiful, and I tried my hardest to relax to the sounds of the forest around me. The light gurgling of the stream meshed well with the chirping of unknown insects all around me. I didn't even know what forest it was, honestly. My head gave a sickening throb as the background static magnified again, twisting through my skull like a rusty screw. Damn it! "Test failed. Again. The book is somehow lashing out at my probes, as if it had a conscious awareness. In light of that information, I'm going out on a limb and trying to communicate with it," the annoying voice continued rambling on, as if talking into a recorder. Hell, she probably was. Keela. I'd like to say I had remembered her finally, but she simply mentioned her name about an hour ago. I had no idea how long I'd been here. "Just shut up," I groaned wearily, smacking my forehead into the rock in front of me again. I'd followed the stream here, it running quietly behind where I currently resided. I was tucked up safely against a rock ledge, between the solid material and the deeper flowing water. The static didn't cease, however, and yet another orb popped out of my body; this time out of my heavily bandaged flank. Not even hesitating, my magic danced out of my hoof, along my skin, and then lashed out with a barrier blade, neatly severing the probe in half. If it was even there, of course. Maybe Twilight was right and I was just hallucinating? Or maybe I was just finally slipping into a higher level of insanity and actually tied up in a mental institute somewhere? "Okay, I can safely assume verbal isn't working. Seeing as it's a book, I'll try writing," the voice continued, oblivious to my wishes of silence. Didn't she sleep? I really shouldn't have been surprised when the glowing sheet of paper and a single pen was spewed from my forehead. Rolling my eyes, I glared at the paper, doing my best 'burn and die' expression. Couldn't she at least have the common courtesy to be consistent with where she ejected foreign magical objects from my body? If I was going to be forced into the position of random portal device again, it would at least make things less awkward. "Are you sentient?" was written at the top of the page in a very neat, concise handwriting. Oh crap. She wrote like Twilight. If she were even half as persistent as the bookish unicorn, I might as well just give up now. That was a rather stupid question regardless. Picking up the 'pen' with my left hoof, I wrote, "No. Go away. Better yet, launch me into a star and forget I ever existed," right below the initial question. Okay, maybe that was a little on the sarcastic side. Still, it would be so much easier if she actually listened. There was a long pause at that. I almost started hoping that the shock of getting a reply had given her a heart attack. Alas, I was destined to be disappointed. "You're sentient then?! This is wonderful. But why do you seek self-destruction?" soon appeared questioningly directly under what I had written. She must have a similar page on her side. "I just want to be left alone. Please forget I ever existed," I requested again, in a steadier handwriting than last time, exhaling quietly. I used my other hoof to wipe the tears from my cheeks and silently shook my head. I'd had enough crap today without needing to be harassed by entities and energies from my old dimension. Or my own mind's avid hallucinations, I suppose was another theory. Of course, given that it was the only reality I knew, did it really matter if it was real or not? Of course, my bitterness just made me feel even more childish. All I was doing was whining. It was frustrating not fitting in anywhere. Still, what was I honestly expecting? I'd only been in this plane of existence for the grand total of three weeks. Not to mention having spent a good portion of that time unconscious through various machinations against my well-being. The ponies here didn't really know me all that well. Honestly, for Twilight to decide that she liked me after such a short time period was probably way out of the normal trend of things! "Who are you?" appeared on the page, interrupting my thoughts. Ah, she was changing the topic. Well, that much was easily answered. "Mender," I wrote vaguely, with no lead in or punctuation. Of course, now that I thought about it, this girl wasn't entitled to get any information out of me in the first place. If she could be appealed to, though, perhaps she'd just dispose of the book? I guess it wouldn't hurt to be civil. "A strange name. Or is that your species? Are you a construct in the book?" she asked next, elegant writing starting to slip a little. I imagined she was getting more and more excited. "It's my name. Can you please just destroy the book?" I requested again, noticing we'd slipped off track. There was a delay again, and I heard an airy sigh coming from around me. Or maybe it was coming from inside of my head. "The book is an Aegis Artifact. The amount of energy required to destroy a normal one is phenomenal, and this one appears to be geared towards defense," she explained carefully. Her writing was structured and slow this time, as if she was holding back bursting into scientific babbling. I caught myself finding it cute and mentally lectured myself. The last thing I needed at the moment was to think about Twilight. Why did that even remind me of her in the first place? Well, obviously it was something she would do, but why did my mind even insist on going through the exercises of making the comparison? "Regardless, why are you seeking self-destruction if you're still sentient? Although I can't help but notice that you said 'the book' as well." Her writing sped up after she passed the magic babble part. Oops. I hastily added, "I'm technically not the book. I'm just connected to it. Please, just get rid of it or sever the connection between us or something." She seemed nice enough. Although granted, I didn't know how important an Aegis Artifact was. Convincing her to destroy it might be a long shot, but it was worth a try. There was another hesitation. A lot was probably going through her mind, of course. More scribbling sounds came from the audio connection she didn't know we had, more writing appearing on the page. "Where are you? What are you? Are you a Keldarian?" That word. It sent a bolt of agony through my skull, but I couldn't seem to look away. More memories flashed through my mind. Needles and scalpels extending on robotic arms, a splash of blood on smooth metal, and even the sounds of someone screaming over and over again. The waiting. Mud and gore we had to wade through on our occupied worlds. Hatred that was so old that I couldn't remember a time when I didn't have it. Most of all, I remembered the rain. Why was that moment so important? * * * * * We stood around a partially collapsed convoy. The surrounding area was a scene from what I assumed hell would look like. There were various burning craters, plus the burnt, skeletal remains of what used to be the facility we had taken shelter in looked extremely foreboding. We knew that the Grosh wanted the planet for the resources on it, so we set up evacuation right on top of the reactor coils for the planetary shield. They were busted and the shield wasn't on anyway, but they didn't dare fire their big guns on us from orbit under risk of hitting the reactors instead and cracking the plate of the planet with the explosion. They hit us with invasion waves instead, but those could be fought back for a time. The weather controls busted too, of course. At this point, I was getting a little tired of the constant rain. Of course, the stupid thing would misread the flames and explosions as 'too high' of a temperature and cause constant rainfall. Although at this point, it didn't really matter all that much. Three squads guarded the West landing zone, trying their hardest not to die as they listened bleakly to the radio. It was that very same radio that gave us news of other squads failing at exactly that. The amount of Keldarians we were rescuing was almost exponentially proportional to those who didn't make it. So many lives were simply vanishing, being washed away in the rain. Why were we even here? The radio answered me by crackling to life again, exporting on the status of the covert op to recover the second branch of the research division. Oh yeah, that's why. We were here to rescue a group of four bitches that were so far beyond our station that we weren't permitted to glance upon their bare skin. Heavens forbid their uniforms get damaged in, I don't know, the war across the surface of the planet. The radio reminded us again that our eyes would be gouged out following the mission if we were to catch a glimpse. We weren't part of the special operatives division, so I guess we didn't need our eyes to delay the enemy while dying like Croesians in the rain. Anger and rage were natural reactions to events around us. An emotional effect paired with an unfettered form of applied, conditional insanity in most cases. The truly unhealthy aspect was to maintain this state for too long. Eventually the screaming rush of blood in your ears died down. The blood would cool again and tempers would settle. But the sanity never fully came back. Once you step outside of that comfortable zone of innocence and into hatred, there is no recovery. I fully believe that it's not within our natural state of mind to want to purposefully end the existence of another being. To destroy all that they are, could have been, and were prior is an atrocity. To wish that so fervently that you would give up your own life to end as many of theirs as possible has to be unnatural for us. It must be an insanity, or we're doomed from the start of our evolutionary track. How could any species that justified such insanity be considered a 'success,' after all? Yet here I was, with several dozen of my fellow soldiers, all huddled in the broken remains of a bunker near the landing pad in the rain. We listened to the radio repeatedly tell us how others have failed this morning, and how we were not allowed to. Meanwhile, the sounds of particle shots and explosions got ever closer and I double checked the state of the generator I'd just finished repairing, if only to avoid looking out the window. Yup. It wasn't quite the end of the world yet, but you could definitely see it from here... * * * * * Ow. If there were ever more distinctive and accurate thoughts to wake up to, I wasn't aware of them. Of course, there wasn't a whole lot that I was aware of at the moment anyway, apart from the demolition project at the base of my skull. My eyes slowly opened up, greeting the soft morning light with disdain. It only served to further confuse me as I watched water drift by in the strangely brown and gray sky, teasing my mane playfully. Well, falling asleep outside had distinctly different effects than I last remembered. When was that? Oh yeah. Falling asleep under a tree and getting blown up by an overly excited Rainbow Dash. Fun times. Under? Suddenly solving my strange physics issue, I inwardly blushed and rotated around until I was right side up again. In the process, my body slid off the rock I was unceremoniously splayed on top of and promptly fell right into the muddy creek. Yup, physics still worked! Or at least the heartless bitch known as gravity. My mind finally took stock of the situation more fully upon seeing the muddy piece of paper a few feet from me. There was no voice in my head, and the paper had lost its ethereal glow from last night as well. I could only surmise that she had 'hung up' after the connection was lost alongside my consciousness. My head hurt even more as I pulled myself up to the piece of paper and stared at it. The word 'Keldarian' stood out plainly, now being underlined several times in a dirty red and brown color. The same 'ink' had been used to scribble all over the remaining page with various faces, a small yet badly rendered doodle of a bunny, several alien-looking symbols, and the word 'Twilight' written a few dozen times in the spaces between. The throb in my head got worse, followed by the distinct sensation of a light tickle under my eyes and the lovely smell of peroxide and blood. I threw the paper sideways away from me, wincing momentarily at the dancing sensation of scalpels digging into my stomach. Panicking, I spastically leapt backwards, feeling my stomach instinctively. There was nothing to speak of involving sharp things embedded into me, of course. I took a moment to catch my breath, intentionally not looking at the blasted piece of paper. Well there goes showing it to Twilight as evidence. I don't think it would prove the exact thing I wanted it to. The words spewed all over the page in a psychotic manner were also too choice to assume coincidence. Okay, so maybe I had a thing for the lavender unicorn, even if she did scare me witless on occasion. Nopony was perfect, after all. I doubted this whole relationship thing was that inflexible. Then it dawned on me, so to speak. It was dawn, or at least early morning. The last thing I had recalled was fleeing from aforementioned lavender unicorn in the evening. Considering the time lapse, that meant that I had been out in the middle of the forest all night. I might not have a relationship with her depending on how pissed off she is at me now. Considering my options, I tried not to panic. Okay, first, I needed to assess where I was. Without panicking. Glancing about, I listened to the creek next to me, attempting to absorb some of the gentle flow. It was a bit disheartening to realize that it wasn't the same one that I lost sanity and consciousness next to last night. Okay, that meant that I either fell in at some point while raving mad and was carried away by the pitiful flow of water somehow, or more likely, I wandered quite far afield in my lunacy. Chances are high, though, that I lacked the finesse required to navigate the forest in the dark, especially when in the middle of a mental breakdown. So if I had any luck at all, a risky hope, I followed the stream in one direction or another. It wasn't really a clearing that I was in. In all honesty, I was probably lucky that I hadn't been eaten by some random forest creature that happened to stumble upon me. Maybe they didn't mess with the crazy ones either? The stream was clearly flowing to my right, and was much smaller than the one I had been by last night, so naturally I assumed that by following it to the left, I might happen across where I started. It was worth a shot. With nothing left to really think about apart from my own delusional paranoia, I started following the stream to the left. With no decisions left to make, naturally I then started to mentally panic while walking. The forest was peaceful around me, anyway, if not a bit on the gloomy side. It felt chilly and a cool wind blew through, signaling the upcoming season change, I was guessing. Thankfully it wasn't snowing yet, so at least I planned a good time to get lost. I chuckled in amusement at the oxymoron as I wobbled along, my legs feeling like lumps of wet noodles. It didn't help the comparison that I was actually wet and covered in mud, of course. I also noticed that I had various scratches and bruises covering myself. Wonderful. Maybe I had wandered through the forest for a ways? Still, thinking that wouldn't help me, really. I could only hope that this creek rejoined the larger stream or river that I was next to prior. Chances are, however, that I was now hopelessly lost and doomed to an either violent, bloody demise, or to starve to death under a rock somewhere. Several minutes passed reasonably uneventful, and I simply wandered, taking in the sounds, smells, and sights of nature around me. If I didn't feel and probably look like a drown rat, this would be a really nice place to relax. Sure it was a little dark, but I didn't necessarily mind that so much. Besides, relaxation was probably what I needed a lot more of. I felt like I was a thousand years old, both in body and mind. A rather loud squawking distracted me a moment later and I stopped, looking around for the source. It took me a couple of minutes, but I finally spotted the small, golden-yellow bird that was lying next to the base of a tree. It was looking around as if in a daze, and had probably fallen from a nest. Upon further examination, I spotted the little brown nest at the lower branches of the tree. Well, trees and I didn't particularly get along well, but the fellow was obviously in distress, so I decided to investigate further. Walking over slowly, I frowned and peeked at the little guy. It looked back at me, utterly unafraid in the slightest, and made an annoyed squawk towards me. Well, proportionally, if I had just fallen out of a four story building or so, I'd probably be a bit annoyed as well. Sympathetically nodding, I extended my hoof out cautiously to him and cupped him with a tiny force field. How should I go about this? I could connect it to the tree trunk but I couldn't see into the nest and didn't want to drop the little guy again. Well, there was nothing else for it. I touched him against the tree. The shield extended under me as well and I slowly lifted both of us upwards into the tree again. I was surprised at how complacent the little guy was, but he simply sat there watching me curiously as I lifted us upwards. We cleared the branches easily enough and I nodded to myself. Interestingly enough, there were two other little ones in the nest that chipped up at me when I popped my head up next to them. Leaving the shield detached under me, I raised the little guy up on my hoof and gently made to place him back in the nest. That's when the unholy scream from hell sounded out from in front of me. Uh oh. Looking up, my heart skipped a beat as a small blur of fury and hatred zipped in with wings extended. I barely managed to duck out of the way before the thing took my head off! The little guy in my hoof started chirping madly and I decided that I'd better get him back into the nest so he didn't fall again. After the winged death passed, I popped my head back up and quickly deposited the little guy back into the nest. Another furious screech sounded from behind me this time, and I quickly tried to duck out of the way. This time they weren't aiming for my head, however, and I ended up getting clipped across the side instead. I let out a yelp and winced sideways, dropping my hoof against the shield I was standing on in attempts to lower myself back to the safety of the ground. That's when the blur of feathers smashed into my face. There was a sharp, stabbing pain and I fell backwards, everything going black. * * * * * Ouch. This was the second time I woke up distinctly aware of how much agony my body was in. Groaning, I opened my eyes slowly, only to realize the left was caked with blood. Slowly and tenderly feeling my forehead with my left forehoof, I noted a rather nasty gash just above the eye. Damn it. I struggled to tuck my legs up, and then noticed I was on my left side. My right rear leg gave a flare of pain, and I was suddenly glad that I hadn't been conscious for the landing. Okay, assessment time. Expending a little bit of my own magic, I felt along my insides to attempt to figure out exactly how badly I was screwed. Now I was lost and badly injured, in the middle of a dark and dank forest with who knows what kind of creatures in it. The scan was rapid, giving rather vague results that I didn't fully know what to do with. Once again I found myself wishing that I had studied the healing arts. Damn it. The bone in my rear right leg was intact, but the muscles appeared to be badly strained. There were no rips in them, but a contusion covered the thigh and the muscles under and along the knee were stressed to their limit. Walking probably wasn't going to be pleasant. A light chirping noise sounded out and I froze immediately, trying my hardest not to panic and do anything potentially embarrassing. Those demons were still here?! I cursed myself silently for forgetting to check for hostiles before moving! A rather large bird, looking distinctly similar to the little one I put back in the nest, took that exact moment to land in front of me. My skeleton almost jumped backwards out of my skin. Thankfully, my fleshy parts are more durable than that, and it instead only had the effect of me going rigid while staring at it. Oddly, it made another chirping noise and fluttered in place, as if somewhat distressed. Being unable to speak Bird, I had no idea what it was attempting to communicate. I decided to count my blessings that it hadn't gouged out my eyes yet, however. "Um, please don't attack me?" I requested timidly, hoping for mercy. It seemed unlikely that the tiny bird could outright kill me, but I did have lots of sensitive squishy bits it could puncture repeatedly and bring about agony with. Actually, rather than take a chance, I just assumed that it could somehow distend its jaw like a snake and possibly eat me whole. If I didn't know better, I'd say it almost looked sad. Much to my further surprise, it actually shook its head. Wait, it could understand me?! Maybe I didn't know better. Tilting my head, I simply asked, "Do you understand what I'm saying?" I definitely didn't know better. The sad part was, in all honesty, I should have realized that the intelligence level of all of the creatures would be significantly greater than what I was used to dealing with. The bird finalized my guess by nodding its head up and down in the almost universal gesture of affirmation. "Oh! I'm terribly sorry for the incident earlier. I was trying to put him back in the nest, I swear!" I apologized, hoping to not offend the newly discovered intelligent creatures. Actually, they were probably more intelligent than me, seeing as I'm the one who just fell out of a tree. As if reading my mind, the bird gave me its best dumbfounded and exasperated gaze, as if specifically stating that I was an idiot in no few words. It shook its head again and made several more squawks, gesturing back towards the nest. Not entirely sure what it was attempting to convey, I looked back towards the nest regardless. A tiny little bird was sticking half of its body into view above the nest, and actually waved a wing at me. Further surprised, all I could manage to do was wave back with my left foreleg. Then what the bird was trying to say became clear. "You already knew that I was only putting him back because he told you, didn't he?" I questioned, glancing back at my new feathered friend. It gave another nod, before hopping over my two front legs and gently brushing a wing along my injured knee. I gave a wince and shuffled it a little, only to note that it was stiff and shaky. This wouldn't do at all for walking on. About the best thing I could do is make a makeshift brace, then hobble. Not that hobbling would impact my normal speeds all that much. The bird looked sad again and shook its head, looking back at me. Did it feel badly for attacking me? "It's all right. You were only protecting your young. I'd have done the same thing," I assured, trying to smile through the misery from my leg. Well, assuming that I'm ever going to have kids. Highly unlikely, I'm guessing. It's tricky to reproduce when dead. Not impossible, but I doubt this dimension had that sort of technology. Maybe there was magic for it instead? Doubtful, but I didn't want to assume. The bird shook its head even more rapidly, but I didn't know what that implied. It could mean quite a few different things, and I just tilted my head towards the small avian creature. "I'm not entirely sure what you mean. I'm terribly lost, however, and unfortunately need to get to work making a splint for my leg so I may attempt to find my way back to Ponyville before starving to death," I excused to the little one, attempting to shift myself to a standing position again. My back, right leg refused to support my weight, so I was forced to form a barrier along the outside of it to push it directly into the correct place. Okay, wasn't expecting that. The raw agony of moving the knee caused my breath to catch and ice water to shift up my veins, feeling like all of the blood drained out of my head at once. I made a silent wincing and gasp, shivering but managing to not scream like a little baby. While mostly for preserving my dignified appearance, it also had the side benefit of not alerting every predator within three miles to my location. My eyes had slammed shut during the process, but after several minutes that felt like an eternity, I slowly opened them as the pain ebbed back down. I held the shields rigid against my leg and locked them together before putting them into power saver mode and letting them be. Okay, that was probably the hard part. Now all I had to do was hobble along my merry way. Oh, and find which way that's supposed to be. Oh, and not get eaten in the process. At this point, I might as well tack on not starving to death to the end of that list, as a last resort. My friendly bird squawked again in protest as I wobbled and started trying to half walk, half hop along as I progressed back to the creek. I gave it a wary glance, but it just looked vaguely depressed again. Come to think of it, weren't there two of them earlier? I distinctly remembered being blitzed from two directions at once on that last attack. Either the one here was hellishly fast and being taught by Rainbow Dash, or there were two of them. Given that Rainbow didn't seem much like an 'Animal Pony', and the fact that there was a nest back there, I assumed the latter. At least if birds still reproduced sexually here. There has to be a law for serendipity somewhere. No sooner had I finished thinking it, I heard a faint but definitely chirping noise in the distance. Huh? My avian friend looked up towards the sky in an instant, and I watched him curiously as I hobbled along the river. Oddly, at this point I thought nothing of him stalking me. Wait, is it stalking if I know he's there? Further, is it stalking when the target is pitifully slow and wounded, barely able to hold their own in a fight against a chipmunk? Almost a minute passed before another barrage of chirps sounded off, much closer this time. My friend flitted a little higher into the air and started releasing an oddly loud counter salvo. Okay, the situation was getting a little strange now. He was obviously communicating with the other bird, but why? Taking the volume levels and distance into consideration, it suddenly dawned on me. The little bastard was giving away where I was located to the other bird! Why else would he follow me? Well, apart from an easy meal after I inevitably passed out. I further noticed that I seemed to consider him male for some reason. Seconds later, I almost had to duck again as a smaller but similarly colored bird dove in alongside the river. So there were two of them, then. I smiled politely at the newcomer, before literally having to not only duck, but also fall sideways into the creek to avoid a fur-covered bolt of cyan lightning. Sputtering, I slowly wobbled and got back up from the now extremely familiar source of water. Thank goodness for barrier magic. It was significantly more resilient, and waterproof, than normal stints. Upon regaining my footing, I rotated with tiny hops and glared at Rainbow Dash, mildly annoyed, even though I was technically saved now. She paid little heed to me, seemingly more interested in rapidly looking around the forest in a paranoid vigil. "What have you attracted so far? Wolves or bears? Both? Something more exotic like a manticore or cockatrice?" she asked rapidly, still not fully looking at me. I scowled at her before returning, "A couple of birds and a deadly blue comet." "Deadly blue," she started to ask, fully turning to me now, before shifting to that of a glare instead and finishing with a, "Hey!" I couldn't help but smirk, which caused her to grin in amusement as well. "Okay, okay. So your bad luck hasn't hit the situation yet. Let's get you out of here before it does. It's safe, Fluttershy!" Rainbow called out, looking up again. "Fluttershy?" I questioned, following her gaze up and to the small yellow mare that drifted into view a few dozen meters away. Rainbow snorted but nodded. "Well duh. I'm not gonna think to follow a random bird into the Everfree forest without a little initiative. Besides, it came to her first and she got me to help afterwards," she explained in a dismissive manner. Well it's not like it's every day that I get lost in the forest and they need to organize a search party for me. Thankfully. "Actually, Mrs. Bird is to thank. She was the one who thought of coming and getting me after the terrible misunderstanding and accident earlier," Fluttershy explained quietly as she hovered for a moment before gently touching down on the grass next to me. I blinked, then realized that she was talking about when I fell out of the tree. The birds had a much stronger grasp on reality than I realized. Hell, possibly more than I did. "They've been on, well, edge since last night," the gentle yellow mare continued in a soft, yet stable voice, giving me a warm smile. She looked happy for some reason. Wait, last night? I suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that I was extremely lucky to have spent most of the night unconscious. "Oh, all those creepy noises that came from the forest? Yeah, that put me on edge too, and I don't even live here. Thankfully," Rainbow muttered in agreement, shivering and sitting down next to me. I couldn't help but notice that she was fully equipped with strapped on saddlebags. Fluttershy swallowed wearily but nodded. "Yeah. It's worse than that, even. Those poor creatures. Tons of trees were damaged or destroyed in a long path through the forest. With all of the roaring heard, Twilight suspects that one of the nearby Ursa's are acting up for some reason," she furthered, keeping herself busy by unpacking some medical supplies from her own saddlebags. I found it amusing for some reason that she didn't even question the fact that I was covered in lacerations and contusions. "What exactly is an Ursa?" I asked wearily, trying to ease out my muscles as Fluttershy approached with bandages. Rainbow sighed and shuddered again. "It's a massive bear that's all glowing and partially see through. Hugely strong; it could probably split a pony in half with one swing," she explained, fidgeting and looking around again. Yikes! If one of those was on the loose, I'm really glad they found me when they did. Given my spectacular luck, I was likely to blunder right into the thing. Then somehow subtly insult its mother without realizing it. "Oh dear. These bandages are filthy. How are you so clean, though? Um, if you don't mind me asking, of course," Fluttershy suddenly observed, giving me a once over before shaking her head. I sighed miserably before replying, "I actually spent a lot of time in the creek, sadly. I think I'm going to be wrinkly for quite a while." Rainbow grinned, but then tilted her head as Fluttershy started slowly peeling the bandages off me. I assumed she knew what she was doing and that there was skin under there. Gritting my teeth against the constant fur pulling sensation, I decided that was a good indication that she was right. Rainbow's confusion slowly shifted to amusement, then to holding back the laughter with her hooves as Fluttershy unwrapped me. Annoyed, I looked back behind me in order to figure out what was so funny. It only took me a couple seconds to notice that there was very little of my coat grown back under the bandages. It looked like I got in a fight with a razor and lost. Badly. I rolled my eyes and fought back the heat drifting into my cheeks as I just sat through it. Oddly enough, Dash stopped laughing shortly thereafter. Finding that even more odd, I looked back over at her curiously. Her expression held a frown instead and her eyes were locked firmly on my side. Uh oh. Was my skin missing there?! I whipped my head around to look, only to find nothing technically wrong with me. Fluttershy paused momentarily and looked up at me from her intense concentration and focus. She looked really adorable with the questioning expression and her mouth full of bandage roll. She then peeked at Rainbow, and traced her eyes back to me. "Dude, what happened to you? I've never seen so many scars," the cyan pegasus inquired quietly, still wearing the frown. Oh. "The scars are usually hidden by my fur. I'm guessing they transferred over from my old dimension when I came here. I was a soldier, sadly," I reminded, suddenly deciding against looking at Fluttershy. Unfortunately, she caught my intention before I even fully turned away. The shy yellow mare snatched my right foreleg, softly shaking her head. There was no force behind it at all, and I could have easily pulled away, but something about the way she was staring at me almost forced me not to. "Please. If it's okay with you, don't treat me any differently. Please? I want to see, um, all of you," she requested, almost a whisper. I felt something inside of me skip. Smiling again, I nodded silently to her. Rainbow made a gagging motion next to us, of course. "Ya don't have to get all sappy on me. I'm just glad we found you before a bear ate you or something. Then Twilight would really have freaked out," the rainbow-maned mare complained idly. "Why is Twilight freaking out?" I asked carefully, wincing again as Fluttershy got back to work, removing the last of the bandage around my hips and back, finally. I was surprised when Dash snorted and whacked me on the snout with her left hoof. Wincing, I looked back up at her questioningly, holding my muzzle with both of my hooves. "Don't be silly, Mender. She's totally into you whether you believe it or not. She's all worried that she went too far with the Princess thing and drove you away forever to be eaten by a bear in the woods or something. You two really do match pretty well, but I think she's a little more grounded in reality," Dash pointed out, snickering immediately after. I rolled my eyes and sighed. First she's pissed off at me, and now she's regretting it and freaking out over my well-being. I swear, I'm never going to understand that mare. "Well, it did hurt last night. I guess I just want to be taken seriously in her eyes," I confessed, sighing and letting my upper body deflate naturally as I exhaled. The tension was slowly leaving my system as Fluttershy expertly removed the bandages and gently massaged the growing fur down afterwards. My cyan battle partner smirked again, but nodded in seemingly understanding. "I hear ya there. She can get a tad unreasonable sometimes. You should have seen her the last time she was tardy with a letter to the Princess. Ponyville almost didn't survive," she groaned, resting her forehead on her hoof. She was joking, right? Right?! There was no smile, however, and she truly looked exasperated. I was suddenly more than a little frightened of the lavender unicorn again. "It was, um, really bad," Fluttershy suddenly spoke up in agreement, nodding her head twice. I was momentarily distracted by the bobbing of her mane as she did so, but rapidly snapped out of it and swallowed. "Admittedly, I'm a little scared of her. I really don't want to get on her bad side and end up magically turned into a coat rack or something. Or be squished by a flying bed," I admitted wearily, tensing as Fluttershy pulled the last of the bandages free. Rainbow snickered and shook her head at me. "Relax, Mender. She'd never outright hurt a pony if she didn't have to. Especially you, I have a feeling. Like I said, she's totally into you," she assured, holding up a hoof in almost congratulations. I rolled my eyes but smirked again and extended mine to lightly bounce it off hers. Both of us were interrupted by Fluttershy's sudden gasp of, "Oh my!" Rainbow looked past me to where her friend was looking, then widened her eyes drastically. Huh? Uh oh. Was my skin missing there instead?! My head spun around to assess the damage to my hips and butt. I wasn't at all prepared for what I saw, however. It was even worse than missing all of my flesh back there. Someone had tattooed my butt!