After the little incident by the ravine, I was forced to play Q and A with the little filly. She would not let up with the questions like "how come you can talk?" or "Why did you save me" or even, my favorite, "So do you have a cutie mark?". You save someone's life, and no thank you. Only questions. The worst part was she didn't let me do the 'A' part of Q and A. That filly could talk. A lot. After about five minutes of being bombarded with questions that would never be answered, I snapped.
"ENOUGH!" I yelled, a lot louder than I meant to. It worked, as she instantly shut up and got teary eyed. Great. Everyone's afraid of the big bad wolf.
"I-I'm sorry... I didn't mean to yell" I Explained, but she just sat there staring at me. I felt terrible. I tried to calm her down but she just kept sitting there staring at me! Or... she was staring at something behin-
My thought was cut off by a gravelly voice. "Well, what do we have here?" I whirled around and came face to face with two piercing amber eyes staring into my soul. I felt my heart sink like a stone, yet at the same time, I felt it beating rapidly in my chest. I placed my back left paw behind me and got ready to spring into action. Seeing this, my surprise visitor and mentor rebuked me saying, "Oh there's no need for that. As you can see I have come alone. And in peace." I highly doubted both of these. I backed up defensively in front of the yellow filly that I had brought into the forest like an idiot would. "What do you want, Taka?" I asked trying to sound tough, although in reality I was terrified. Not for my own life but for the life of the trembling figure behind me. "I merely would like a chat with my little brother." He said, putting emphasis on the last word. He was trying to get to me... It was working. Now the filly associated me with this homicidal freak! "I am NOT your brother." I said through clenched teeth. "Whatever could you mean?" he replied with feigned astonishment. "I mean, you know I left the pack. Now if you will excuse us.." I said, backing away from him to get ready to grab the filly and run. "Ah yes, the filly. Hand it over." he said. I knew what he was doing. He was making it seem like I was part of his plan. He wanted the filly to feel abandoned, to run away from me and into the grasp of the pack. I had to do something. "I thought you said you had come in peace," I replied. "I do. I come to tear you to PIECES!" He sprung into action, flying through the air at speeds rainbow dash would envy. We collided, and tumbled on the ground.
The next few minutes were intense. He bit, clawed and kicked. For the better part of the fight, I was doing alright. I got too confident and was greeted with a swipe of his vicious claws straight to my face. I yelped in agony, and turned away. In that split second, I saw the filly watching in awe. At least she wasn't running. Perhaps she was smart enough to figure out his plan on her own. I looked back at Taka, and was greeted with a kick to the stomach. I rolled in pain and he took advantage of this. He jumped back on me clawing at my sides. I kicked him off, and lunged. I bit him in the neck, but the strike wasn't placed well enough to kill him. I wasn't actually sure I wanted to kill him... A sharp pain in my right thigh as he swiped me with his claws made up my mind. If his goal was to kill me, I had to do what I had to do. I scratched him in the chest, drawing blood. He yelped and threw me off of him. I landed on my paws, and sprung right back at him. I got onto him, rolling around and trying to bite him in the throat. He overpowered me, and we rolled around. I clawed him in the face, and he jerked us to the right... and off the cliff. I was falling and approaching the river at high speeds. I looked for Taka, only to find him falling next to me, a look of pure hate in his eyes. I saw no regret. As long as he killed me, he was happy. I screwed my eyes shut and waited for the impact of the water to bring me to my final rest. WHAM
When I finally came to, I felt the cold river water lapping at my hind paws. I opened my eyes to find a yellow filly curled up next to me, asleep. How had she gotten down here? I looked around and found my answer. A good bit down stream, the ravine ended and met up with solid ground. I suddenly remembered Taka and looked around for him, but he was no where to be found. I got up shakily, and tried to wake the filly. "Hey. Uh filly... Yellow thing... Wake up.." A terrible thought crossed my mind. What if she were dead!? I leaned in and was relieved to hear her heart beating. I heard a faint howling off in the distance and decided that we had to get out of the forest quick. I shook the filly vigorously, but to no avail. I went to the edge of the river, and splashed some water at her. She woke up and looked around, eyes wide. "Oh its you. glad you're awake." she said with her heavy southern accent. "The same can be said for you. Are you okay? What happened to Taka?" I asked anxiously. "Oh Ah'm fine! And was Taco that other wolf? He floated down the stream. He seemed unconscious." she replied. I gave a small sigh of relief and said, "We need to get out of here quickly. It won't be long before the rest of the pack comes and finds us." We walked downstream and got to the crossing. "So how long was I out?" I asked. "About two hours, but then Ah fell asleep, so ah dunno." She told me sweetly. "What's your name?" I asked her, " Ah'm Applebloom. What's your name?" She replied. "My name is Shasta." I said ashamedly. "Well nice to meet ya, Shasta." She said cheerily. As soon as we were out of the forest, I was able to breathe a little easier. That was a dangerous place, especially when you have a filly to take care of. "Well we should probably get you home, Applebloom." I told her, "But if you want, we are really close to my friend, Fluttershy's cottage. It's pretty late, maybe you could spend the night there?"
"Oh ah know Fluttershy. She's mah sister's friend. Why not?" With that, we made our way towards the cottage in the dead of the night. We got to it, and I knocked on the door. We waited a few moments, and then the door opened slowly, and Fluttershy poked her head out cautiously. She looked as if she had been crying, and when she saw me, she gave a small 'eep' and slammed the door shut! What had happened? "Fluttershy, you okay?" I asked confusedly.
She replied, "G-g-go away!" Now I was really confused. I looked to Applebloom for an answer but she just shrugged. I knocked on the door again, and all I heard was sobbing from inside. I pushed the door open, and went inside slowly. She was sitting on the couch crying her eyes out. "Fluttershy, what happened? You can tell me anything, come on." She continued sobbing. I waited for an answer, and eventually she said in her meek voice, "How could you, Shasta? I-I thought-" before bursting into tears again. "What did I do? I-" she looked up at me and snapped,
"HOW COULD YOU DO SUCH THINGS TO A POOR LITTLE FILLY!? JUST TAKE HER OFF AND KILL HER? I THOUGHT YOU WERE NICE!"
I was now very confused. Is that what everypony said I did?
"Now hold up there, I didn't do that. I-" I was cut off by Applebloom asking from outside,
"Shasta, did she say I could come in?"
Fluttershy's head jolted up and she flew over to the door, flung it open and stared at the filly before her. "Hiya Fluttershy. Shasta said ah could spend the ni-" She was cut off by a huge hug from fluttershy. "I told you I didn't do anything. Why would I do that?" She just sat there hugging Applebloom. "Good to see ya too, Fluttershy?" she said confusedly. The yellow pegasus then looked at me and said "I-Im sorry... its just that... everypony said you-" Tears were welling up in her eyes and I said "shhh.... its okay.... everything is okay...." She looked up at me with those big eyes and pulled me into the hug.
"Umm Fluttershy? Can you let go now?" Applebloom asked. Fluttershy released us and apologized, like she always did. At that moment I felt like I actually had a family.