Very far away from Ponyville, on the edge of the Everfree forest, there was a place that had a small camp set up there. If somepony were to find it and look closely at it they might be able to tell that somepony didn't just sometimes use it, but that somepony actually lived there. It was used by a young stallion, who trudged out off the Everfree forest, levitating a stack of branches he planned on using for a fire later. When he walked over to his camp he tossed the stack of sticks he had into a pile he had next to a fire pit. He walked over to a tent he had thrown together out some sturdy sticks and some old fabric and tossed himself down under it.
The stallion thought to himself. "I know there are a few other things I should do, but I really don't feel like doing it right now." He thought, rubbing a small cut he got on his hoof while in the forest.
They put the thought aside in their head. "I can take a nap first, I'll make sure it's done before Celestia lowers the sun for the day." He thought after closing his eyes to take a nap. He was already very tired, so it wasn't hard for him to fall asleep. They woke up later and looked up, the sun was getting close to the horizon.
He got back onto his hooves. "Might as well go ahead and start a fire." he said to himself. It was coming around to autumn, so it was beginning to get cold at night.
He walked over to his fire pit, it wasn't anything special, it was about two feet across and was outlined by rocks. They took a moment to levitate some sticks from their pile and afterwards he summoned a cloud of black smoke and after a few seconds, he had a small flame. He made sure it would burn before going over to a small garden.
The stallion didn't like working in his garden, but he kept telling himself to do it. He looked at it for a moment, it was only growing a few foods, but it was better than nothing. He quickly watered it and and pulled out anything he thought was a weed, every time he did work with his garden he always finished feeling like he was doing something wrong or forgetting something. "I'm no farm pony" He said to himself.
He thought about how he first got his garden started. He got a lot of his food that he ate from sweet Apple acres, he didn't buy it though. Under his conditions he would always steal it, even though he hated doing so. He had decided to take some seeds off of the farm to try and sustain himself vs stealing it all the time. So far though, he wasn't having a lot of success with it.
He searched through his mind to think of anything else to take care of. He couldn't think of anything, so he trotted back over to his tent and once again laid himself down in it, he could feel the warmth of his fire, it was burning very nicely.
His eyes wondered around him before they looked toward one of the three chests he kept under his tent, this one was smaller but contained very valuable items, to him anyways, other ponies probably wouldn't find much interest in these things. He focused, a small cloud of black, purple, and green forming around his unicorn horn, the edges of the chest showing the same colors. After unlocking the chest with his special spell he pulled open it's top and looked through its contents, eventually pulling out a small little blue crystal. Most ponies would see it as any other crystal, but this one held a lot of meaning to the pony.
He looked back over at the chest he had opened, it didn't have a whole lot in it, some old books on crystals that he had kept after running out here, a bottle of ashes he had been given for winning some old game between a couple of ponies, an older book with black leather on the cover... The sight of the object made the stallion return his eyes to the crystal he had removed from it.
He watched as he levitate the crystal in front of him, having it floating in front of him gave a calm feeling. He could remember his past very well, but this was one of the few actual items he had from it. He looked into it, it was still very clean despite being kept where he lived. His red coat stuck out very well on its surface, he could also see his black and grey striped mane and tail that were a mess right now, his blue eyes looked the same, the small scratch that ran over his right eye, and his uniquely curved unicorn horn. He kept as good of care of the item as he could.
He started thinking about when he first got the crystal, he remembered very precisely that it had been given to him by his mother one day when she was showing him some crystals. She had broken off a piece of one and given it to him, he kept it ever snice, even after... it happened. The stallion blinked and noticed he had tears in his eyes. He tried to simply wipe them away and tried to forget that awful memory he had remembered.
He placed the crystal back into the chest he got it out from, and re-sealed it with the special spell he had used to unlock it. He looked off at the now setting sun, sometimes he wondered.
"What would it be like if somepony found me out here?" He asked himself.
His biggest fear was the ponies looking at him like he was evil, which was the only thing he could imagine happening, despite how friendly the ponies of Ponyville looked. They could look at him like he was just any other pony, they could look at him as the next big threat to Equestria, or they could see him for who he was, which was unlikely to him. He liked to think about being friends with ponies, something he hadn't had in a long time, but he dismissed the thought as it only being a mere fantasy, something he could only dream of.
He had no clue how wrong he was about that.