Celestia's early sun rays beamed upon Canterlot Castle. But as the sun finally rose in the sky, all Celestia could do was fall asleep from fatigue. The last day or so had been very tiring for both her and Luna, and for a good reason. That had been a very powerful and energy draining spell, and it would probably be a couple more days before she would be re-energized. A royal guard guard came cruising into the throne room to find Celestia dozing off on her throne. He chuckled before speaking, "Princess, you seem to be quite tired these last couple days, is there something wrong?"
Celestia woke with a slight stir, "Oh, SilverShield. Everything is alright with me, its just that after the Summer Son Celebration, I get quite tired. Thank you for checking though," she said with a smile, although her mind was frowning. Not everypony, even some of the guard had been warned of the threat. Silvershield bowed slightly before heading out the throne room, forgetting the reason he was there in the first place. Celestia's smile quickly slipped from her face. She knew the being would be there soon. "I should probably send Twilight a letter..." she told herself, quickly pulling a parchment and quill from thin air.
Dear Twilight,
I am writing to you to inform you of the soon presence of a pony who will be new to Ponyville. Make sure he has somewhere to stay, and contact me as soon as you can.
Your Princess,
Celestia
She quickly sent the letter away with her magic.
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The forest was much bigger than Zach had expected. Although he could tell he was making progress by looking at the mountains growing larger, it seemed as though he kept getting sent back to the beginning. It was as if the forest was enchanted. Suddenly there was a light growl coming from behind him.
Grrrrrr....
Zach jumped and twisted backwards, losing balance as he did. Where had he heard that before? Before Zach could react, a wolf that seemed to be made of wood and twigs pounced on him, pinning him down. Its glowing yellow eyes stared down at the alicorn before bringing its head down to bite at him. Out of reaction, Zach brought a hoof up to meet the wolf's face, square in the jaw. But it seemed to have little effect as the wolf still bit down, tearing a bit of flesh off the pony. He instinctively brought his back hooves up and bucked the timber wolf off of him. The wolf wimpered a bit, but quickly regained it's position, lunging back at Zachary. He was lucky enough to roll out the way as the claws merely scratched him across his side. The momentum of the wolf caused it to slam straight into a tree, falling out cold in front of him.
"Man, that was WAY too close. I must be that lucky. I seriously need to find my way out of this forest" he noted in his head, trying to calm his breathing. He winced a bit as he touched the wound on his chest where the wolf had bit down at. There was no telling how many more were out here. Man he got lucky. It took him a second, but he finally found himself able to stand again. He knew he would have to learn how to run soon enough.
He walked through the forest for a while before he noticed that it was starting to get dark. "I guess I should set up camp here. I'll find my way out in the morning. I just need to rest on this..." he thought to himself while sitting down to take a break. A couple minutes passed and Zach found himself gathering some leaves and sticks. He plopped them down in an open spot in the floor of the forest. He realized that even with his survival training, being a pony could complicate things. He piled up the dry leaves and placed a couple sticks in the middle of them. He took another stick and placed the long end on the ones that were laying flat, and, taking it with both his hooves, began twisting the stick. It took longer than he expected, but Zachary finnaly saw the flame begin to ignite on the leaves. Smiling at his work, he bent down and cuffed the flame around his hooves. He jumped as he thought he heard something behind him snap butsaw his hooves pull into the fire. He quicly pulled them away, prepared to yelp, but, he felt no pain. He stared questioningly and the fire and slowly put his hoof close to it. For some reason, he didn't feel any pain as it made contact with the flame. "Hmmm, interesting. I'll have to look more into that later." He smiled as he knew all too well the pony he knew he could talk to about that. He began blowing on the flame as it grew ever so slowly.
After getting a fire going, Zach sat back and looked up at the stars. It was the first time he could relax since he had gotten into this mess. Most people would be dying to get a way back home to their families. He smiled, 'most people'. But Zach didn't really have much of a family, if at all. He was an only child, his parents had died 9 years ago after a trip to New York where they were both killed in a drive-by shooting, and his friends had long since grown apart and went their seperate ways. And not to point anything out, but his girlfriend had dumped him years ago. He had nothing to go back to, besides his swanky suite life. Something popped about in his head. He was an Alicorn, he could do magic, right? He let that thought swim around in his head before he decided he would try something. He sat up and closed his eyes, concentrating. He concentrated every thought into his mind, pointing his horn at a rock. A small red light started to well up around the tip of his horn. He opened his eyes to a surprise in front of him. A small aura was enveloping the rock as it began to float a short distance into the air before he lost concentration and it fell to the ground. He was surprised to see how easily it was to lift it. Probably something to do with him being an Alicorn. He convinced himself to not try anything else because of not how tired he was, although that was a factor, but because he knew that it probably wasn't smart to do magic willy-nilly. He decided to take his spot back by the fire, where he layed down on the soft grass. He slowly let himself drift into his first sleep in Equestria.
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Zach slowly woke up with a stretch, satisfied at hearing the pops in his back. He looked around towards the ashes and the forest around him. "Guess it wasn't a dream." He propped himself up onto his hooves, staggering a little. He realized that he didn't have anything to take him, so he set off towards the only way he had been going. "I'm going to get hungry soon..." His stomach started to growl at his own comment. "Very soon," he chuckled.
After a couple more hours of walking, and stomach growling, he came upon the edge of the treeline. Zach sighed with relief. "Okay, now all I need to do is find Ponyville, or any civilization, if this even is identical to the cartoon world," he shook his head and walked out into the open fields. The skies were clear as far as his eyes could see. The air was crisp that morning, well, day. During his walk along a particularly nice streatch of land, Zach thought he could hear a buzzing. His face put on a confused look as he softly hit his ear. It didn't help. It was starting to get a little louder, and he realized it sounded a bit like a jet. He scanned the land in front and around him as it grew louder, not paying much attention to the sky. It suddenly sounded very close as Zach's ears twisted toward it.
"Loooooook ooouuuut!" It yelled.
THWACK, CRACK!