The next day Msaidizi woke up earlier than usual, in the darkness just before the dawn.
Immediately his thoughts went to his dream, and to the pony he’d met there. Had she actually been real? The entire thing seemed preposterous at first glance (he still felt that there was something indescribably odd about talking horses) but his new life with Zecora had rapidly taught him that thinking such thoughts often got him nowhere.
Also of note was that the details of the dream refused to fade away like they usually did, instead they stayed clear and fresh in his mind as if it he had actually spoken with a princess just yesterday. Or just last night, as the case may be.
“I suppose I’d better go, then.” he decided. “Even if it was just a dream, I’ll have lost nothing. Besides, I’ve never been into the town before.”
As quietly as he could Msaidizi rose from his bed (a mat with a blanket and pillow – plans had been made for a proper bed to be carved, but neither he nor Zecora had ever really gotten around to it) and went through the curtain that separated the bedroom from the rest of the house. The fire from last night had almost burnt itself out, but the remaining light it cast was just enough for him to find his way to the wood basket, and coax the cinders back to life without stubbing his toes on anything.
With that done, he began working furiously on his chores. Water was brought in from the well and added to smaller cauldron they used for brewing tea; the floor was swept; surfaces were wiped; and (taking utmost care not to spill anything on himself) any potions and ingredients left out were tidied away. By the time the sun began to rise and poke its light through the tree’s windows he had finished, and was in the middle of preparing breakfast when Zecora finally awoke.
“This is most unexpected!” she said in surprise, as she pulled the curtain back to see the spotless house. As a cup of tea and breakfast (apple slices and some hay) were placed next to her seating mat, she smiled and added “But far from rejected.” Msaidizi grabbed a cup and apple for himself and joined her, saying nothing but giving a small smile and a faint shrug at her praise.
For a while they sat in a comfortable silence, both content with their own thoughts as they worked their way through their food. As the last few bites were eaten Msaidizi cleared his throat and asked “Can I... go into town with you today, miss?”
Zecora put her cup down and look at him questioningly. “Are you sure?” she said. “You’ve never asked this of me before.”
“Well, no, miss” Msaidizi agreed. “But I’d like to go this time. I’ve never been before”. Thinking that perhaps that wasn’t reason enough, he offered “I could... carry any shopping? Maybe?”
Zecora rolled her eyes at that, but smiled all the same - while it was a nice offer to make, she never came back from the town with any bags she couldn’t carry herself. In thought she tapped the bottom of her jaw with a hoof, before making a gesture of nonchalance and saying “I see no harm in it.”
With their plans now made they finished their food and prepared to leave, Msaidizi strapping his sandals and putting his shirt on while Zecora put on her cloak. As she tied it together around her neck, she noticed her assistant’s latest sewing project, a half-finished cloak much like hers but larger in scale. “On the subject of cloaks” she said aloud, pointing at his work. “How is your own? Is it nearly now sewn?”
“Hmm?” Msaidizi looked up from fastening his buttons to where she was pointing. “Oh, that. Yes, miss, as long as I don’t run out of reeds”. He grinned to himself, and added “Could you maybe do to it whatever it is you’ve done to your own? So that I look spooky when I wear it?”
In reply, Zecora tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” she asked, with just a hint of a smirk.
“You know, like when you put your hood up and your eyes glow” Msaidizi tried to explain, holding the door open for her.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about” Zecora insisted, in a tone of mock-confusion. She trotted past him and outside (still wearing that smirk), and said “Now let us away, on this glorious day!”
The walk to town was both beautiful and peaceful, as only the very best summer mornings could be. What sky could be seen from beneath the trees was cloudless and blue, and the plants below the canopy were fully in bloom. Msaidizi would have been content to have just walked in silence, drinking in the surroundings and listening to the birdsong, but Zecora had other ideas. She’d been teaching him the names and uses of things found in the forest, and thought that now was a good time to put his knowledge to the test.
“This one?” she asked him, pointing to a patch of plant with jagged, triangular leaves and covered in fine hairs.
He didn’t even hesitate. “Those are Stinging Nettles, miss. You can make shampoo out of them, or tea, or just eat them if you cook them first.”
“And this one?” she pressed on, pointing out a glowing, light blue mushroom squatting just inside a hollow log.
This one gave him pause, but he knew the answer. “That’s a Glowcap. They glow in the dark. And they also come in other colours, I think?” A nod of approval confirmed that they did.
“But not in pink.” Zecora said. “Why that is, I cannot even begin to think.”
Next she pointed to a patch of flowers just a little way off the path. There were small, star shaped, and a baby blue in colour with yellow centres. “And what are these called?” she asked.
Msaidizi opened his mouth, but shut it again after a moment of silence. He scratched his chin and thought long and hard while Zecora watched him silently, finding it difficult to keep a straight face as the seconds ticked by. “I don’t know, miss” he finally admitted.
Zecora chuckled. “It’s funny that here your memory is shot” she said with a grin. “For this flower is called the Fo-“
“Wolf” Msaidizi interrupted.
“What? No, it is called the-“
“No, look. There’s a wolf” he interrupted again. Without explaining further he ran about a dozen metres ahead and to the side of the road; where he kneeled down to examine his discovery. It appeared to him like a statue of a wolf, made of wood. Rather than being carved from a single piece it seemed to be made of multiple parts, all attached together in a way he couldn’t ascertain. Some sort of glue, perhaps. There were even neatly carved ‘teeth’ in the log halves that formed its jaw.
“It looks like it’s died” Msaidizi mused. “If it were alive in the first place, I mean”. It was lying on its side slightly curled up, in the same sad pose an animal approaching a peaceful end would make. And as Msaidizi examined it, he noticed there seemed to be something lodged into its chest, over where its heart would be. It looked like a broken off piece of bone or something similar, with thick orange sap leaking out around it. On a whim he reached out to grab it...
“Don’t touch that!” Zecora barked, the loudness and commanding tone of her voice making him jerk his hand back as fast as lightning. She began to root around in her cloak’s pockets with urgency, muttering “Where are you, I had you just – aha!”
She withdrew a glass vial with a small amount of oily-looking yellow fluid at the bottom. “Here” she said to her assistant, practically shoving it into his hands. “Dab this on your wrists and behind each ear”.
Msaidizi stared at the glass with some trepidation. While he had grown to trust Zecora, he was still very wary of unmarked bottles. “Er, why? What does it do? Uh, miss?”
“It’s a repellent” she explained. “The effects of it are most convenient.”
‘Well, that rhyme was a little weak’. “A repellent for what? Insects or something?”
“Something like that, yes. Now, if you would?” With a roll of his eyes Msaidizi did as he was told, uncorking the vial and dabbing some on him. It felt as oily as it looked, was slightly sticky, and had a thick medicinal stink. When he was done he handed it back to Zecora, who used the last of it on herself. They would have continued their game of ‘Name that thing’, but a little further down the path they found the carcass of a stag, picked clean and with a broken antler. After seeing that, they decided to walk in silence.
Thankfully no manner of beast attacked them along their journey, and before long they were out of the forest and steadily approaching the town. According to Zecora it was named ‘Ponyville’, which Msaidizi found faintly amusing (he briefly wondered if there was a place called ‘Zebratown’, and if so what it would look like). Regardless of whether its name was silly or not it looked very picturesque, with its quaint architecture and bright colours that were only accentuated by the perfect weather.
“Look! There’s one of the flying ponies!” Msaidizi said, pointing to the sky above the edge of town, where a pegasus could be seen hovering in place and facing in their direction.
“Pegasus”, Zecora connected. “And one with a horn is a unicorn”.
Msaidizi couldn’t quite make out the pegasus’ facial expression, but he could see that it was off-white in colour and that its hair seemed absolutely ridiculous, alternating between stripes of magenta and green. As he and Zecora steadily approached the town it began making gestures to (presumably) the ponies on the ground. Msaidizi waved to it (which made it make its gestures faster for some reason) and then it dived behind the skyline of the town and out of sight.
“I think they know we’re coming.” Msaidizi noted. “You know, miss, you never said what the ponies are like. Are they friendly?”
The answer to that question, unfortunately, turned out to be a resounding ‘no’. When they finally entered the town proper it seemed deserted, the streets empty and silent. Occasionally a pair of curtains would twitch, or a door Msaidizi was not looking at would rapidly open and slam shut, and the feeling of being watched was omnipresent. By the time they had reached the (empty) marketplace he thought he knew the reason why, and what he thought he did not like.
“Um, miss?” he asked, after a little while.
“Yes?” Zecora answered absent-mindedly. Like a ghost she went to and fro among the stalls, taking things from them and leaving little piles of glittering gold coins in their place. All of her purchases – an iron pot, a bushel of apples, some hay – she placed into a cloth sack Msaidizi was holding.
(If you are wondering where she got the sack, she bought it at the market as well. The bag stall was the first she visited).
“Should I leave? Are the ponies hiding because I’m here?” When she didn’t answer, a thought came to him and his eyes widened. “Hang on, are they scared of you? Me I can sort of understand, since I’m bigger than them, and I haven’t seen a single pony with a beard, but you?!”
Zecora gave a shrug that was probably meant to look casual. “That is so” she admitted. “Why it is, I do not know”.
“And... you have tried not wearing the spooky hood? Miss?” Msaidizi pressed on.
Zecora hmphed, her tail flicking in irritation. “Yes” she said flatly.
“And this has this been going on every month?”
“Yes! What of it?” She snapped.
“That’s not right” he said, what parts of his face that weren’t covered by beard showing faint but definite anger. “You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve tried to be friendly. They shouldn’t be acting like this!” He put the sack down and went to read a signpost at the edge of the market. “I should go to whoever runs this town and complain!”
While his reaction may have made her happy, to Zecora his plan seemed pointless at best and escalative at worst. And she definitely didn’t want that to happen, sure the ponies hid from here, but at least she could still do her shopping! What if they decided to do something nastier instead? “Don’t. It does not matter.” she stated firmly.
“But, miss!” Msaidizi began to protest.
“No buts!” Zecora stated, putting her hoof down both figuratively and literally. “If I have to say this again, I will cuss! I do not want you to make a fuss!” She took a deep breath to calm herself, then said “Come, we are almost done. There is one more shop at which we will stop”.
“But, I, oh fine!” Msaidizi conceded, throwing the sack over his shoulder with a scowl. “But if this happens next time, I’m doing something about it!”
This last stop proved to be just as awkward and infuriating as the rest of the trip. They went from the market, up a long street and to a house with many flower-boxes by the windows and around the door. Zecora knocked, and waited. And waited. She knocked again, and waited again. After a while, she pulled her hood back started to dig at the ground with her hoof, dithering over whether to wait some more or just give up and go.
If Msaidizi hadn’t been so angry at all of this, he might have noticed the bakery at the end of the street, which was built in such a way that it looked like it was made of actual cake. Maybe he would have walked up to it to get a closer look, and perhaps drool over the delicious treats on display in the windows. If he had, he perhaps would have noticed the crowd of ponies watching them from the inside.
“She’s mysterious!” said the yellow one, with a pink mane and wings. Her name was Fluttershy.
“Sinister!” added the blue one, also winged but with a mane of rainbow streaks. She was (fittingly) called Rainbow Dash.
“And spoOoOoOoky!” finished the pink one, who had no wings but made up for it in bounciness. Her name (also fittingly) was Pinkie Pie.
But unfortunately, Msaidizi did not approach the bakery and thus did not hear any of this. This in the grand scheme of things proved to be a poor decision, as if he’d talked to the purple unicorn inside that was acting as the voice-of-reason, he and Zecora would have avoided a whole bunch of trouble later.
“She’s a zebra, she was born with stripes!” The purple unicorn in question (named Twilight Sparkle, for those wondering) explained to her friends. “There’s nothing strange about that at all!”
“Well, what about that there monster she has with her?” the cowboy-hat wearing, orange and blonde pony (Applejack) protested. “Yah gotta admit that it just ain’t natural!” In fear she clutched the nearest pony to her and began to shake, a yellow filly with a big red bow in her red mane (her little sister, Apple Bloom).
Twilight scrutinised Msaidizi from the window. “I have no idea what he is.” she admitted (she guessed it was male, due to the beard. Either that or it was a she, and a very unfortunate one at that.) “But I’m sure there’s he’s perfectly natural. He looks sort of like a monkey, actually... but he doesn’t look like any monster I’ve heard of. He’s even wearing clothes!”
“Awful clothes” the pristine white unicorn of the group (named Rarity) muttered under her breath, with a look of faint disgust. “The shipwreck look hasn’t been in style for several years!”
“Well, I heard that she turned a monkey into that monster with her evil witchiness!” Pinkie Pie stated, jumping on her hind hooves and striking what she thought was a menacing pose. “And she makes it wear clothes to hide the bruises!”
“Bruises” Twilight deadpanned.
“Yes! Because she hits it! Because she’s a bad owner, because she’s so evil, and stuff!”
“Oh, the poor thing...” Fluttershy said to herself softly.
Twilight rolled her eyes and put her hoof down. “Pinkie, did you just make that up?”
“What?! Nonono, she totally d-“ Pinkie began, before catching Twilights eye and falling down on all fours. “Okay, maybe a little. But I bet it’s true!” She looked out of the window with suspicion, and then gasped. “Maybe the clothes are to make it appear friendly, so ponies get lured in! And then they both eat them! Just like my song said!”
“Ah don’t wanna git eaten!” Applejack said.
“You girls are being ridiculous!” Twilight chastised them all. “I’m sure there’s no truth to these rumours! And if somepony here were actually brave enough to approach them, she would find that out for herself!” With that she struck a triumphant pose and declared “And that somepony is going to be me!"
She looked out the window, and the determination on her face was replaced with faint disappointment. “Oh, they’ve gone”.
“Well, that’s a relief!” Rarity said. “Now we can all get back to our happy, regular-“
“Hey!” Applejack interrupted with great distress. “Where’s Apple Bloom?!”
“I can’t believe that town!” Msaidizi said, as he and Zecora reached the forests edge. Ahead of them a ground fog was beginning to form, obscuring colours and turning the forest into a patchwork of black silhouettes on white. At the edges of the path (and in fact spilling onto it in several places) were thick patches of poison joke, which they took care to avoid. They would be bad enough to Zecora, causing whatever ill effects the plants thought were funny at the time, but (assuming the Princess’s message about him and magic was true, and it wasn’t all just a dream) there was no telling what they could do to Msaidizi.
“If she does appears in my dream again, what do I tell her anyway?” he thought to himself. ”’Dear princess, today I went to town. All of the ponies there were rude and hid. So we went home, the end’?” Somehow, he had the impression that that simply wouldn’t be good enough.
“Do you know what I’m going to do?” he said to Zecora, as he carefully stepped over another bunch of glowing flowers.
“What?” Zecora replied dully. She’d hadn’t said a word since they’d left Ponyville, instead just pulling her hood back up and keeping her eyes focused on the road.
“I’m going to write a letter” he declared.
Whatever answer Zecora was expecting it wasn’t that. She actually stopped and tilted her head as she looked up at him. “Excuse me?”
“A letter” Msaidizi confirmed, nodding his head. “It will be a very strongly worded one”.
Despite her melancholy, Zecora couldn’t help but giggle at the mental image, putting a hoof up to her mouth. “That will certainly give them a fright!” she said. Then paused, and added. “That is, of course, if you can write?”
“I’m pretty sure I can, miss” Msaidizi offered. “I mean, I can read, can’t I? Writing is just that, but in reverse”.
Zecora wasn’t sure if her assistant had just said something incredibly profound or incredibly stupid, and was about to say so when a drawling voice shouted out “Apple Bloom!” from behind them.
Turning around, they say the yellow filly a little way behind them in the middle of the path, with a look of surprise and guilt on her face. And behind her, standing directly in the poison joke, were the six mares from the bakery.
“Beware! Beware you pony folk!” Zecora warned, as she backed away into the mist. “Those leaves of blue are not a joke!”
While it may have been intended as a friendly warning, the ponies seemed to get the wrong message, instead running through the poison joke and placing themselves between Apple Bloom and her. “You keep that creepy mumbo-jumbo to yourself, ya hear!” Applejack shouted, which caused the rest of them (sans Twilight) to shout their own jeers and taunts.
“You know” Msaidizi thought to himself in a detached manner, as he watched all of this from the side of the road. “I think the cloak might be a problem. Perhaps the rhyming, as well. It did seem rather ominous, the way she said it.” He snapped out of his thoughts when he realised that the jeering had stopped as Zecora disappeared into the mists, and the ponies were now all staring at him.
“Twi, it’s staring at us” Applejack whispered.
“It’s fine, Applejack” Twilight insisted. She smiled at Msaidizi and raised a hoof in greeting. “Hello, sir”.
Msaidizi smiled back, and copied her motion. He opened his mouth, but before he could say hello back a small rock hit him right between the eyes, and caused him to stumble back with a hiss of pain.
“Rainbow!” Twilight scolded, spinning around.
“What?” Rainbow Dash protested, another rock already in her hooves. “He’s just standing there! It’s freaking me out!”
“Just stop for a moment, please!” With an angry sigh Twilight turned back and looked apologetic. “I’m so sorry about her, really! My name is Twilight Sparkle, what’s yours?” Msaidizi didn’t even have the chance to open his mouth before another rock hit him, and with fury in her eyes Twilight span around to the other ponies again. “Rainbow Dash!”
“It wasn’t me that time, honest!”
“Sorry, that was me” Rarity admitted sheepishly. “I may have panicked a little”
Now gritting her teeth in frustration, Twilight turned back to Msaidizi, only to let out a cry of frustration to see that he’d disappeared. “Great, now you’ve driven him off!”
“Ah well” Applejack said, clearly not caring. “Hopefully he’ll have taken that zebra’s curses with him!”
“There’s no such thing as curses!”
Msaidizi found Zecora next to the wooden wolf they had discovered earlier. Scraggly yellow flowers had started to bloom all over it, and she was slowly plucking them and stuffing them within her cloak.
“Those ponies are jerks” Msaidizi said.
Zecora just kept picking the flowers, and didn’t reply.
“Now I know why she’s always sad on these days” Msaidizi thought to himself. “And now that I know, I rather wish I didn’t”. “Shall we go home, miss?” he offered. “A nice cup of tea will make everything better.”
Zecora gave an amused snort as she picked the last of the flowers off the wooden wolf. “Oh yes?” she said.
“Definitely” he asserted. “And a biscuit or two”.
“That does sound nice” she admitted, with a smile.