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// A1 C1: The Story Begins 
// Story: The Spirit Trilogy 
// by Enderdragonslayer1 
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        I woke up to the sounds of birds chirping and water flowing downstream. I tried to open my eyes, only to close them moments after as sunlight flooded into them. After a few seconds, I tried again, much slower, with better success. Finally able to see, I looked around the clearing that I woke up in, trying to remember how I got here. A few moments passed before I realized that I couldn’t remember anything at all, not even my own name. This realization caused a burst of horror at the implications of what that could mean.

Thankfully, I was torn out of my thoughts my as I felt a slight tickling sensation against my sides. I turned my head to the offending sensation only to see a pair of feathery wings against what seemed like my barrel. One part of me was saying that the wings weren’t mine. The other, however, was convinced that they are. After I finally took stock of my situation, I managed to rise onto my legs, albeit slowly. I moved a hoof forward only to faceplant the moment I dropped it.

        Ok, how do I go about moving? I asked myself in frustration after a few more attempts. A few minutes later, I instinctively knew what to do, as if some outside force was passing me information. I moved my right foreleg forward, followed by my back left, front left, and finally, back right. Slowly, I made my way to what seemed like a river, occasionally faceplanting when I got impatient and tried to increase my speed. After what seemed like hours, I finally managed to get to the river, where I saw my reflection.

        I saw what I recognized as a pony with sunflower yellow fur and a orange mane with yellow highlights, a horn (which wasn’t noticeable if you didn’t look) poking through the mess that was my mane, and two ears on the top of my head, pointing this way and that at every sound that I heard. I also had electric yellow eyes that looked like they could shock someone if they touched it.

        As I continued to look at my reflection in the water, my hunger and thirst made themselves known as my stomach growled and I noticed that my mouth was shockingly dry. I lowered my head into the river and started to drink the water in an attempt to quench my thirst. A couple minutes later, I finally satisfied my thirst’s demands before I started to search for something to satisfy my hunger. After some searching, I managed to spot a bush of blueberries that seemed freshly ripe. I was about to pick some when I heard a roar somewhere behind me, causing me to jump in fright before I turned around. What I saw caused fear to swell up inside of me. I saw a large, lion-like creature with bat wings and a scorpion tail. I was torn from my shock as it roared and charged me. I immediately turned and started to run in the opposite direction.

        As I ran, I weaved around trees and slammed through bushes, trying anything to get away from the beast that was chasing me. However, my coordination, which started to go on overdrive as adrenaline flowed through my body, started to get sloppy as fatigue and hunger, which I have yet to satisfy, started to affect me. One of my wings clipped the side of a tree as I ran past it, causing me to stumble a bit. This gave me the time to see the beast that was chasing me. At the sight of the sharp teeth and sharp tail, which imprinted itself into my memory almost immediately after I saw it, I realized that I won’t survive if I was caught by it. With a fresh burst of adrenaline, I got onto my hooves and ran with renewed effort.

        Not too long after, I bursted into a clearing that was covered in flowers, but since I didn’t have the time to look at it due to a certain predator, I kept running. Just a few hundred yards away, I saw what looked like a stone wall with two guards guarding the entrance. I released something between a sob and a laugh in relief.

        Almost there! I thought with complete joy as I got within ten yards of the entrance. That joy, however, caused me to lose my concentration as the ground was pulled from under my hooves, causing me to go head over heels before I rolled to a stop. As I lay there in pain, I was mentally cursing out every god, goddess, and divine entity that could think of for stopping me when help was so close.

While the time that I was on the ground was short, it was all the monster needed to catch up to me. It started tearing into my side; fur and blood flying everywhere. However, it stopped as soon as it started as I heard what seemed like yelling and footsteps rushing towards me. I managed to make out the sight of two guards fighting off the creature before one of them backed off to help me.

After I was carefully lifted up and deposited on the back of the guard that backed off, I realized that it was becoming harder and harder to breath as I lost more and more of my blood. The last thing I remember before my eyesight faded was the soothing reassurances that I was going to be okay from the male guard as he rushed me into the town and the hope that he was right.






        As I rushed to get the young filly, who couldn’t be older than nine years of age, to the hospital, I noticed the look of worry that ponies, who saw the injured filly on my back, had. What worried me, though, was the fact that somepony as young as her was left alone like she was. That and the fact about how badly the manticore had harmed her before me and my partner, Quick Shot, was able to stop it.

        “I need a doctor!” I yelled as I barreled through the door, panting slightly. The receptionist looked up from the book that she was reading, her eyes widening as she saw the young, injured filly on my back. She shot up before guiding me to an empty room, instructing me to put the filly onto the bed as she went to get the doctors. 

Now that I wasn’t in a panic to save the filly, I finally noticed that the filly, who I originally thought was a pegasus, was, in fact, an alicorn. Before I could leave, a pair of doctors rushed into the room before they started to work furiously on the young filly, trying everything they could to save her life. After a tense ten minutes, I was informed that she was going to survive, if only barely. I sighed in relief, glad that she was going to be ok. I left the hospital before going to inform Captain Nightwing about what had happened, including the discovery of an alicorn filly not directly tied to Princess Celestia, who needed to be informed of her as soon as possible.






        As I started to wake, I was faintly aware of the bandages wrapped around my barrel, the beeping of a heart-rate monitor, and the slight pain of an IV tube in my right foreleg. It took some effort, but I managed to open my eyes before blinking a bit as they tried to adjust to the brightness of the room. When it finally did, I noticed I was in a hospital room with childish designs. I looked at the bed I was in and noticed a heavy hospital blanket I rested over me and the pillow that laid under my head.

        “I’m glad you’re finally awake,” a motherly female voice said somewhere in front of me. I turned my head and gasped silently at who I saw at the foot of the bed. I saw a pure white pony with a pair of wings and a horn, kind of like me, but larger and a different color. She also had a multicolored mane that seemed to flow on an invisible breeze. She also seemed calm, but radiated an aura of power, one that was causing my confidence to crumble as I continued to look at her. “It’s ok,” the mare said in a soft, motherly tone that quickly quenched my fears, “You’re safe now.”

        “W-who are you?” I managed to get out.

        “My name is Princess Celestia, and what’s yours?” She asked me. I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing would come out as I couldn’t place a name at all.

        “I-I don’t remember,” I managed to get out as tears started to flow out of my eyes. Princess Celestia moved to the side of the bed before giving me a nuzzle in an attempt to comfort me. I was expecting it to feel weird, but it was actually pretty effective at calming my raging fears, though it did nothing to help stop my crying. After a couple of minutes, I finally stopped as Celestia gave me a motherly smile.

        “How about we decide on a new name for you?” She asked, to which I gave her a nod. I turned to my thoughts as I tried to think of a fitting name for myself. I went through several options before I decided on...

        “Sunny Days,” I finally decided, looking up to her, “That’s what I want my name to be.”

        “Want to explain why?”

        “It’s just that with my coloration and the fact that I’m always optimistic of everything, I feel like I’m similar to a sunny day, a day where it seems like nothing could go wrong, and that, is why I want that as my name.” When I finally finished, I looked up at her again to see what she thought. After what seemed like hours (even though I knew it was only a few seconds), Celestia looked at me with a smile.

        “Ok, Sunny, go ahead and rest up. If things go according to plan, you’ll have a new home, and somepony to give you plenty of love,” she told me before giving me a gentle nuzzle, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I saw her horn light up in a golden aura before I started to feel really tired. I released a yawn as my eyes slowly closed on their own as I drifted into the realm of dreams.