//------------------------------//
// Entry 1 
// Story: Braebo's Diaries 
// by sniggles 
//------------------------------//

	Dear,

I don't know where I kinda do actually  Fu PonyVille, I think. That's where I am, I think. Dumped outside of some dingy train by an officer and I've only a hat and a bottle of funny liquidy stuff which makes a funny  space-age  I can hear the ocean when I listen to it when I swirl it. 

Now, I'm thinking of where to go but people are staring at me funny. I look at my reflection in the train's window and some blonde pony looks back at me, a funny brown hat on his head. He looks like he hasn't slept or bathed in days and I piss my pants laughing.

"Haaaaaaa," I say. Aside from the fact that I don't have pants, my reflection looks like it hasn't slept in days while I feel like I've been sleeping for months. Then, my expression turns serious and the ponies around me file out of the train and into the dingy old station.

"I've been in hibernation," I say. My drink voice is slimy slurred and I can't seem to get my thoughts straight... And I feel cold. Hibernating things are usually cold. 

I cough and look at the train. The last ponies are exiting the train and its doors are closing. I know that it's PonyVille because there's a sign above the station which reads: "Happiest town on Equestria." Happy ponies think of shitty names with the -ville prefix or -ton -fjord -ia That's literally the only shitty prefix I could think of. No sense of real estate at all, I think as I shake my head. 

"But wait!" I say to myself. Where exactly am I? I survey my surroundings and I find that I have no fuckin' clue. Bottle in hoof, I look at the train pulling out of the station and my eyes widen as the truht truth hits me. Hibernation? Lots of ponies in a train? Cold? 

I was sitting in friggin' cryogenesis. Pretty sure of it. And the train was from another planet, sending me to some other faraway planet called PonyVille because my old home blew up or something. But... nopony leaves home without saying goodbye. 

With a cry, I get onto my hooves and run beside the train, trying to catch up with it. I can't just be left here in PonyVille, I might die because of the lack of air; running beside the train, I was feeling breathless, a condition I never felt before. It was worrying me that I was getting suffocated by the foreign atmosphere but I needed to get on the fuckin' train.

"Stop! Stop! I'll pay you!" I yell as I run beside the train, but the metal monster is moving too fast... Should have expected it, interplanetary travel needs to be fast, I guess. Funny though, isn't it? I mean, great distances should be enjoyed instead of wasted with light-speed travel.

I get down on my knees and look up at the Sun. What a tragedy. I hit the ground with my hooves, thinking of the millions of ponies who didn't get out while a homeless bum like me got out alive. This story is probably going to be a tragedy, hence why I cancelled out this word, 'funny', since tragedies are no laughing matter. I'm the last of my kind, I think to myself, as the image of the train gets smaller and farther. Out here, face flat on the ground and dying on foreign soil... isn't the way to go. I get up and resolve to do my extinct race proud by doing the most productive of things imaginable. 





I'm begging on the street. Well, it's a funny street actually: It's made of dirt, not pavement. I'm beneath of huge tree. I reckon that I haven't made even 2 hoof steps from the station, but that's fine. There's a steady stream of ponies, who look like walking bales of money to me. Occasionally I get a bit or two in me good ol' hat, though I'm in the shade of a tree. When you're in the happiest town on Equestria, I'd think generosity would be common, somewhat. So far, I haven't met any aliens yet, though I'm the last of my kind. But I don't get it... If I'm the last of my kind, why are there so many ponies who look just like me?

Then it hits me. I was the only guy rushing for the train. I'm definitely the last of my kind. The other 'ponies' are... aliens.I start to hyperventilate, seeing all of them looking past me. I'm invisible to them, most definitely. Then I look at me hat, nearly half-full with coins. 

Then it hits me again like an asthma attack. These aliens play coin toss, and to increase their skill levels, they aim for random hats on the floor. I test this by shifting my hat to a different position. *clink*, *clink* goes the coins, and all of them impeccably find their mark in... the hat. If the ponies cared about me or acknowledged my existence, they'd throw the hats coins at me, not the hat. It's a disturbing revelation and I prepare to pack up and relocate, but a blaring siren stops me from doing so. My first thought is, cops! Cops aren't any good, not in my old world (a shred about which I can't remember) or in this world, I'd presume. 

Then it turns out that this blaring siren is just a bunch of screaming kids. Three actually, with a yellow one, an orange one with funny things on its back and a white one with a wee ice cream cone sticking out of its head. They ambush me like lions surrounding a zebra taking a piss at its tree. 

"Hey, Mr. Homeless Stallion! Can you help us get our Cutie Marks?" they asked. I shake my head at their question as I stuff my bottle into my hat, causing a clinking of coins.

"Wh- wha?" I ask, my voice still slurred. The three kids are closing in on me, and I start to feel a wee bit worried because they can see me and others can't. Maybe I'm a ghost to them and only kids can see me; I heard in a report that kids are kinda clairvoyant. Whatever that word means. 

"You heard us, we want our Cutie Marks!" cried Ice Cream Cone Head, shaking its butt at me. I have no idea what they're saying, but they're doing this dance move with their rumps which I don't usually get done for me for free, or by underage fillies. I can see where this is going.

"Listen, kids," I start, my voice really sleazy, "when you're older."

"No, we want them now!" they scream, their enthusiasm so great that I fall back onto my tree. Geez, what are they teaching kids these days?

"Kids, no, I've got stuff to do, go away--"

"But you're homeless," one of them says (I think it was the one with the cone on its head). I give a grimace and bump my eyebrows in an agreeing manner. Good point, kid. 

"Fine then. What do you want to know?" I ask, and they give me this irritated look. 

"For the third time, we want our CUTIE MARKS!" they cry out, and I'm surprised that they don't get looks from everyone around them. Maybe they frequent this station to ambush homeless ponies.  

"Alright, alright, quieten down a little, won't you? You'll blow my cover if you don't," I say. They're obedient, at least, and come under the shade of my tree, sitting down in a circle around me. 

"First of all... The frig's a Cutie Mark?" I ask. Honestly, I've never heard of it. Which is why I was suspicious of these little tykes from question 1. 

"What? You don't know what a Cutie Mark is?" says the yellow one, and the three of them burst out into laughter. Really loud laughter. 

"No, I don't," I say with a straight face and they look at it, expecting me to be joking or something. It's not funny and the three of them frown. 

"Well, it's a mark on your flank. Everypony has one," says the orange abomination. I roll my eyes and chuckle a wee chuckle at the three little things, finally realising what the three of them are talking about. Dammit, kids are growing up fast now. 

"Flank? Mark? I daresay you're talking about a tattoo. Here, take the money and go buy yourself one. It's going to hurt though," I say, clinking my hard-earned cash in my hat towards them. Again. they burst out laughing. However these aliens behave, it's clear that their youth do not practice any good manners. 

"No, silly. The mark on your flank that tells about your destiny in life?"

"Destiny? Never believed in destiny, and never will," I say, and I'm immediately compelled to drink from my bottle. I unscrew it, and tilt my head back to let the liquor slide down my throat. The draught is sour and it burns my throat, but at least it's something for an aching tummy. 

"But just look! You've got a mark on your flank," says Ms. Ice Cream Cone, and I just shake my head. Then, the three of them grab my head, against my will, to face my butt. Before I can lecture them on proprieties, I scream as I see an apple on my ass. 

"What is that?!" I cry out as the image of an apple is clear on my butt. I turn to look at my other cheek and the apple is plastered there too. I start panicking; maybe it was a drunk night and some ponies wanted to play some pranks on me so the tattoo is what I got. Well, bad for me then.

"Listen, kids, you've given me enough suffering for an afternoon, or evening, and I gotta go," I say.

"But you're homeless," says one of them. Checkmate.

"True. Alright, I've got no idea about what these Cutie Marks do or how to get them..."

"It's easy! According to every pony we talk to..." they say, "it's like knowing what you're going to do in life."

"I dunno what I'm gonna do in life," I say, straight to the point. This draws a groan from them. "But come to think of it, being a homeless junkie is a legitimate job option.

"See, I get paid," I say, my hoof holding out my hat of coins, "And I enjoy what I do, honestly. But I've only been doing this for the past 10 minutes so I dunno what I'm going to do with this cash."

The three ponies look at each other, and the creepiest thing was that the three of them smiled at the same time at each other. At exactly the same time. This image is so horrifying, I probably am not going to be able to sleep for the next three nights with this image etched into my minds cape. And it wasn't any wee smile; it was HUGE like the Chesire Cat was suddenly back in town but with his two siblings chatting over a spot of tea. 

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS HOMELESS JUNKIES!!" they cried, before tumbling down the hills. They were a lively bunch and the first source of formal interaction with the other alien species, so I guess that I'd miss them. But wait...

I had provided them vital info about begging. I'd already thought them the tricks of the trade. They were going to emerge as begging competitors since they were three and I was one. And they were cute, so people were more likely to give them money than test their skills at my hat with coins. I thought to myself, Braeburn, you've dug yourself into a new ditch. 

I get up, and walk away from the area. But then, pain shoots through my stomach like a bullet; For a moment there, I think that I actually get shot. But no, it is just my liver getting wrecked by that one sip of drink I just had. 

Slowly, my world fades to darkness. All I can think about the events that transpired this day is: Funny.