• Published 24th Nov 2011
  • 3,781 Views, 14 Comments

Birthright - Netaro



Everypony knew the truth: there never was any magic. It didn't exist, it was mere folklore from the time before the Shift. But when a chance encounter leaves Lanky with necessary knowledge, the truth begins to unravel...

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Chapter 1: That Stolen Thing

Chapter 1: That Stolen Thing

Cold autumn wind swirled around, snaking its way through the dense canopy of an ancient forest. One particularly freezing gust hit a lone earth stallion the moment an unwelcome thought entered his mind. Lanky thought that maybe, maybe he really was the most gullible pony this side of Great Everfree Barrier Forest.

When Sweet Whisper told him, over the phone, that her father invited him for some sort of a military-off-time trip through the Everfree towards the badlands to the south, he instantly began anticipating his well-deserved vacation from his job as a computer programmer, daydreaming about having an adventure, thinking what to do and how to prepare himself. Now, he bitterly regretted not asking the most important question: “Why?” But it was too late now, every time he tried to tackle the problem he met a wall of silence and secrets, ponies in the group either as confused as he was, or unwilling to mutter anything more explanatory than ‘later.’

He shook the thought off and took another look at his surroundings. Golden rays of afternoon sunlight shone through the dense foliage, each pillar of light contrasting the darkness of the location. Slow, cold wind mixed with the unpleasantly warm air, stirring humid, tree-and-dirt scented atmosphere, and making it somewhat less suffocating. The delicate sound of chirping birds was that what surprised and interested him the most. He never heard any birds in Manehattan.

“Okay, Lanky, focus. You've been given a position of scout in that camping trip, so colt up and do your job,” he reiterated what he already said to himself many times throughout the last week, wanting to break the silence that rung in his ears.

He didn’t understand why it was even necessary for the group to have a scout, so all he did was walk around and wait for the next reminder.

The internal clock on his headset let out a small beep, snapping him out of drowsiness. Another three hours have passed, and as per protocol, he pressed the button on the headset, establishing a connection with the rest of the group.

"Lanky here, all clear, go," he spoke. He heard a quiet, familiar “hmmm” belonging to Red Snow on the other side.

He looked upwards. Sun, shining through the layers upon layers of leaves and branches, was setting down. With each passing minute, the shadows cast by the trees got longer. A sudden, sharp drop in the temperature made him shiver.

"Better hurry," he said as he again pressed the call button. “I think we should set the camp somewhere near where I'm now, two kilometers ahead, check the EquestriaLoc if you want exact latitude and longitude.”

"Okay, we will. Go scout the area, try to find some potable water or edible food," a bored voice said on the other side of the comm, followed by a 'disconnecting' beep.

Lanky smirked. Barely anything could be considered edible in Everfree, except disgusting moss and some wild grasses, tasty but sparse. Likewise water, although there were rivers that crossed the forest, he did not remember seeing any on the map of his vicinity.

“And even if, any water in Everfree is likely muddy and filled to the brim with parasites. Eugh...” he muttered as he thought about that.

Having nothing to do at the moment, he decided to take a stroll, not really hoping to find anything more than trees, dark shadows, trees, poisonous fungi and even more trees.

He pressed the button on his headset, and a beam of light shot into the air, forming a holographic display before his eyes. A map application started up, displaying a big green blotch named “Everfree” covering the majority of the map, a pin mark in the middle of the screen, and a gray-colored territory east of his current location, with a “Luna's Domain – no maps available” message placed over the unknown grounds.

Being so close to the country belonging to unicorns and pegasi worried him a little, but he dismissed these thoughts, knowing well that Everfree was unclaimed territory. Neither Terra nor Luna's Domain claimed the power nor ownership over the natural barrier dividing Equestria in half.

He swiped his hoof across the floating display, zooming out to see how far had he walked, and how much was remaining. The camping convoy was already a long way into Everfree, four days of steady walk from the Terran side of the forest, and five days remaining to Appleloosa, the abandoned town located on what once might’ve been an inhabited southern part of Equestria, but was now an unwelcoming desert belonging to roaming buffalo tribes.

He saved his current location on the map, dismissed the display, and started walking. Absent-mindedly, he moved around, listening to the soft sounds of moss being stomped under his hooves, interrupted occasionally by cracks of rotten twigs.

A strange sound of hooves clacking on stone stirred him out of his absent-mindedness. Surprised, he looked down. Large patches of moss covered a slew of flat, polished cobblestones, forming a regular pattern in the ground. Even though roots of nearby trees damaged the artificial structure, anypony could see where the road was going.

“Look at that!” Lanky said to himself in quite an overexcited tone, “Must be from before the Birthright War! From before the Shift!”

Feeling adventurous, he trotted around, trying to find where the ancient cobblestone would guide him. But after just a few meters, the road disappeared, covered by a thick layer of soil litter. He walked further into the forest, occasionally digging into the ground to see whether he was still on track.

After a moment, he noticed a ruined habitat, something he subconsciously expected to find near such a sign of civilization. An old vine-covered cottage stood, fighting stalwart against the time and the elements. From distance it was almost impossible to recognize it from the green and bark-brown background, only the sunlight reflected from a broken window making it possible for him to even notice the structure.

He galloped towards the lone house in the middle of the forest. The knowledge that somebody managed to eke out a living so deep in the forest was exciting. He remembered the stories told by the zebras back in Manehattan that one of their ancestors lived there, in that forest, but even they didn't remember his or her name, as even that bit of knowledge was lost to time.

Near the house, he found a broken, rotted sign nailed to a tree, the embossed letters almost indecipherable.

“Fl... tte... hy,” he said, “Doesn’t sound zebra-like...”

The sign answered nothing, only raising more questions he was eager to solve. He examined the exterior of the cottage. Judging by the trees, visibly thinner and not as tall as elsewhere in Everfree, he hazarded a guess that this place could have been a clearing once, long ago. The antediluvian construction, made of wooden logs crisscrossing at the corners, mocked nature's attempts at eroding it from the face of the planet. The lush vegetation had overgrown the place, covering the cottage in thick bundles of vines, and to add insult to injury, a tree grew through the dwelling’s door-hole. Some windows were still in one piece, and some looked uninviting thanks to sharp pieces of glass still stuck to the window frames. The holes were too small for him to squeeze through, anyway. With the only easily available entrance blocked, Lanky walked around, trying to find out if he could make another one.

A visibly rotten section of the wall on the opposite side of tree-blocked entrance promised access inside. Lanky took a deep breath and bucked the wall.

Wooden logs gave no resistance. Splinters scattered around. The cottage wobbled a little but didn't collapse, still looking safe and stable enough. A jagged hole in the wall welcomed him to come hither and sate his curiosity. Nothing moved in the darkness, and he felt secure enough to enter. As he stepped inside, he turned on a torchlight, a built-in feature of his headset.

A beam of light raised the shadows and made the dusty air glitter. At first glance, he noticed a bed almost rotten away into nothingness, with something that could've resembled a mattress a long time ago, rusty springs poking out of tattered, mouldy material. A porcelain shell cracked loudly under his hoof as he walked to a broken cupboard with broken ceramic scattered inside and nearby. Next to the bed and the cupboard, a slanted desk stood, only days away from completely falling apart, covered with thick, uneven film of moist dust that made him cough just by beaing near it.

On the opposite side, between two dirty and broken windows, a brick fireplace and chimney covered in soot caught his attention. The beam of light shone at a small ash-heap and some half-burned logs. Upon closer inspection, the logs were rotted and the ash had long since solidified from the moisture.

The lettering on the lone book he found on the floor faded away, only a single 'Do' word and an outline of a pegasus still visible through the mould on the cover. He tried to open the book, but the moisture glued the paper together and erased the letters.

It was clear that this place was thoroughly forgotten by time. Although fascinated, he saw no point in sitting there for longer than he had to. Standing outside and facing the hole, he pressed the button on the headset, bringing the holographic display again. He touched the camera-shaped icon. Light on the torchlight changed, from soft and warm, sunlight-like beam to a sharp, xenon-white flash. The light swept the room.

A strong reflection coming from under the layer of dust on the desk blinded him. His eyes hurt. Tears fell on the ground. He staggered, almost tripping on a root he could not see.

When the pain faded away and the world stopped looking blurry, Lanky noticed that there really was something else on the desk. He started coughing again as he came near, but persevered, took a deep breath, and slid his foreleg across. Small clumps of damp dust and black-mold spores rose into the air. Tears started to flow again. He ran outside, gasping, and until it settled down, his throat, lungs, and nose felt as if set on fire.

That did it. The dust still covered the items, but he could at least see what was previously covered under. An old book, its pages visibly damp with a little hint of mold, and a pendant.

A golden chain with a crystal encased in a thin golden frame caught Lanky's attention immediately. A jagged gemstone opalized when the torchlight shone upon it, falsifying the original color of the stone further. He had no idea what kind of stone the jewel was. The jewelry grasped his heart with a strange, alien beauty, and enchanting opalization made it difficult to not gaze at it.

“I don’t think anypony would miss that,” He muttered, waging whether to take it or not, as such a beautiful piece of jewelry was sure to be worth some bits.

Pros outweighed the cons, and he reached to take it into his possession. When the foreleg was a few millimeters from the crystal, a single static spark discharged, jumping from the crystal to his hoof.

And the world changed.

The cottage disappeared. The forest disappeared. The ground disappeared. Lanky swam in black void that surrounded him. The uniform darkness swirled visibly, and he felt the airless gusts of wind creeping on his skin, rustling his brown coat.

A thing appeared before him. At first nothing but a gray blur, standing in a sharp contrast against the ever-enveloping darkness. Gradually, the image sharpened, forming a blurred butter-yellow blob. Each moment, the shape slowly approached him, becoming clearer in the process, at first forming a rough outline of a pony, and ultimately, a clearly visible pegasus mare.

A butter-yellow pegasus mare lied on the ground, shivering. Her long, pink mane covered half of her face. Her shining, shimmering wings looked as if made of quicksilver. On her flank he noticed three pink butterflies, the placement of the symbol appearing oddly familiar on an instinctual level. Subconsciously, he looked back at his own blank flank.

He took an unsure step forwards, and her sobbing reached his ears. A thick stream of tears flowed from her face, each droplet disappearing when it fell from her face into the nothingness. With each sob, her chest rose up and down.

Another step brought him face to face with the mare. Her mouth moved, attempting to say something, but all he heard was a delicate indecipherable whisper.

“Are you okay?” Lanky asked, worry in his voice.

The mare stopped sobbing, and after a moment, her eyes shot open, her irises quickly shrinking.

“Please, help me! Save me!” She screamed, taking deep, teary gasps afterwards.

Lanky stepped back. Goosebumps appeared on his skin.

Suddenly, the mare blinked out of existence, and reappeared again, this time standing up, silent and unmoving. Her eyes were fixed on him

For a moment, she stood silently. Lanky sidestepped, trying to avoid her soul-piercing stare, but her eyes followed him.

A shiver creeped through his body when she started speaking. “Warning. Device is now in shard mode. Partial alignment will be attempted.”

Lanky tilted his head. His mouth uttered a short, flat “What.”

“Subject name: Lanky I didn't want this,” the butter-yellow, pink-maned pegasus continued in soft, but machine-resembling tone, “ Species: Pony. Subspecies: Earth pain. Gender: Male stop it. Age: twenty help me please anypony. Date of birth: Twenty-fifth of april I'm not a slave...”

Lanky stood terrified, his hooves firmly glued to the nonexistent ground while the mare continued telling facts of his life, intertwined with pleas for help, all spoken in the same, monotonous voice. As soon as his fear reached its peak, the mare stopped speaking. Seconds appeared to him like hours. He took deep breaths, the alien tranquility of the scene sending him even further off the mental edge.

After what he felt like had been an eternity, she spoke one last word.

“Accepted.”

The darkness vanished instantaneously. With a bright, white flash, an already familiar interior of the cottage reappeared again.

An overwhelming pang of pain both mental and physical threw him on the ground. It reverberated from his head, sending flares and spasming muscles. His limbs and his head began to twitch, move, and hit the floor. One smash of head against the frame of the bed made a small gash on his temple, a thin streak of blood covering the floor with red droplets.

The pain disappeared as instantaneously as it appeared. Lanky took the chance, and started crawling away. Splinter-covered surface scraped his back as he hugged to the wall, trying to get as far away from the crystal as it was possible.

“It's not magic it's not magic it doesn't exist it never existed it's not magic,” He started mumbling, the words merging into incomprehensible stream of letters. The details of his experience already began to fade away, replaced by a strong sense of irrational fear. Despite this, his eyes were still locked on the faint light emanating from the crystal. Fading specks of light danced on the walls and the ceiling.

After a moment, he calmed down enough to start processing his surroundings again. An asphyxiating odor of ozone flooded the place, making inside of his mouth taste like electricity. The pain of scraped skin on his back reached his brain, the signals mixing with the strong ache coming in from the gash on his head. His hoof slipped on the blood on the floor. He touched the gash, but the wound already began to close, blood flowing no more. He never looked away from the crystal.

He took a few breaths, and stood up, unsurely and shaking. He wanted to run away from something that caused him nothing but pain, but an impulse replaced his instinct. The pendant opalized lightly, gluing his gaze to it, beckoning him, begging him to take it away with him to safety.

He touched the crystal again, hesitating. This time, nothing. When the pendant landed on the bottom of his saddlebag, the entire experience almost dulled away, replaced by vague feelings and emotions.

The book, lying next to where the pendant was, promised explanation. A semi-pleasant smell of old books wafted from the wet, moldy pages, greeting him with arcane pictures and illegible lettering. Lanky tried his best to read the nonsense, but only single symbols were still readable. The diagrams fared better, but the context and meaning of various magical sigils only made him smirk.

Magic never existed. That's what he had been told. There were stories that the world was filled with magic before the total solar eclipse called the Shift, long before the Birthright War that split Equestria into two independent political entities. There was this ridiculous notion that unicorns, these poor mutants he had never seen in Manehattan were once capable of using magic. Repeated many times in his life, the truth was obvious.

He tried to think, his mind incapable of comprehending what just happened. He rummaged throughout the cottage, trying to find any holo-projectors or other evidence that what he experienced was nothing but an elaborate, if pointless prank.

A sudden loud beep, a sound of somepony attempting to contact him, made him jump.

“Hey, Lanky! Come here, now! Right this instant, you wouldn't believe what we've found,” an excited voice on the other side said.

“Hey, you better come right now here,” he replied in haste to the series of beeps that appeared when the other side hung up.

“I’m going to kick your impatient flank up, Sweet Whisper,” he said to the mouthpiece.

He went outside. The cold, refreshing air of Everfree never tasted so sweet to him as now, outside the hut. Lack of dust in the air gave his lungs rest at last.

The sun almost hid, and darkness covered the land, leaving the moon as the brightest point on the sky. Lanky brought the map display again. He calculated the road back, from his current location to the pinmark that he set up previously, some distance from the cobblestone road. By that time, all the pain had faded, allowing him to run as fast as he could.

The pendant on the bottom of his saddlebag rattled with each his step.


Lanky always thought of the entire idea as 'fishy'. The atmosphere of the camp smelt to him like some untold conspiracies and questions unasked. A trip to Appleloosa, for a vacation, just for the fun of it?

“But why would they need these machines? These are not transporting us... We have to walk by side, anyway,” he said as he looked at old Armored Pony Carriers that were brought with them as a mode of transportation. Heavy machines stood in a circle surrounding the camp and the lit fireplace in the middle.

Patches of green camo paint had long since flaked away from their rusty hulls. Broken twigs stuck out from between the soil-covered metal plates of the threads that the APC’s moved on. These vehicles looked so old that only adjectives that came to Lanky's mind were 'affordable; cheap; junk'

He focused on the strange smells that hung in the air. He took a few sniffs, differentiating the smells and their sources. One smell he experienced once long ago, when he as a foal accidentally broke the TV. The odor of burnt electronics came clearly from one of the APC’s, where a few older-looking ponies were yelling the most harsh, griffin swearwords that made even the least cultured ponies retch at the vulgar language. He recognized one green earth pony: unruly blue mane, a short beard, mouth eternally twisted in a displeased grin and eyes of a serial killer; Sweet Whisper's father, Brass Pin.

The other smell he recognized instantly. A faint smell of ozone wafted in the air. Although barely noticeable, the odor flooded back his mind with faint memories of what happened in the cottage.

A large group of earth ponies surrounded something on the opposite side of the camp. He shrugged, stopped looking at the metal surface of the APC, and started walking towards the commotion. A sudden, calm “Hi” coming in from behind him interrupted him as he neared the group.

“Sweet Whisper, one more time you surprise me like this and I'm gonna...” He said in a mocking voice, only to turn around and see a light-red body of a short, young mare with a buzz-cut dark-red mane that made her look like an aggressive tomboy.

Another, very cheerful “Hi” came from behind him. Lanky turned around only to see a tall light-gray mare with a curly, greenish mane.

“Hey, you just wouldn't believe what just happened here! The trip just got weird when you weren't there!” The grey mare, Sweet Whisper said to Lanky in her ever-cheerful voice.

“Yeah, had a strange call myself... So, what happened?” he asked.

“When you weren't there,” Red Snow said, in a rather gruff voice, “we came here, we began setting up the camp and then suddenly! Sparks began flying from the cargo of one of these machines... You know, the machines that were supposed to move with us inside...”

“So,” Sweet Whisper cheerfully continued, “my father and his friends from the military opened it, and began swearing like there's no tomorrow!”

Red Snow took the lead. ”When I noticed them, I took a sneak peek at what's inside, and I noticed some strange equipment... Lots of electronics, some strange computers... Dunno. And then it got weird.”

“We heard a terrible scream! Like somepony was just being murdered! ” Sweet Whisper spoke, “It froze our blood! We thought it was you! But when we got there, we found... That's strange...”

“So, what did you find?” Lanky asked.

Red Snow replied. “A teal pony. Dehydrated, starving, dirty. Smell was so bad that we instantly dumped a bucketload of water on him. Helped a little, but his mane, ugh. All glued up from the dirt.”

“That's why everypony, except my father and some older stallions, gathered near him,” Sweet Whisper added, a hint of worry in her voice, “to see who was that. But he's okay now, Healer's taking care of him now.”

When Sweet Whisper mentioned Healer, Lanky turned his head around towards the crowd. He saw him, a dark-yellow stallion with a blue mane passing through the crowd and going outside the camp. The mark on his flank, a red cross with four hearts in the corners struck a mental chord with Lanky. When he saw him for the first time, he ignored the tattoo thinking of it as nothing more but an eccentricity, but now he felt uneasy looking at it. He turned his head back and looked at his bare flank, and for a moment he felt as if he was missing something he couldn’t name.

In the corner of his eye, he noticed a green mare with straight, blond mane creeping around the camp, walking towards where Healer had just gone. He shuddered at her sight.

As Siren walked, she muttered and giggled quietly to herself. He hazel eyes always seemed empty, looking towards a pony but not focusing on it, instead passing through, towards the far horizon. Her ever-present smile, the unnerving, teeth-barring kind made it impossible to know nor guess what was on her mind. Lanky looked at the mark on her flank, a sort of a musical note Lanky couldn’t recognize. Again he felt an indescribable emptiness that passed as quickly as it appeared.

He turned his head away, avoiding looking at her, hoping she didn’t took an interest in him. He saw other ponies doing the same.


A dark-yellow stallion with a medium-length blue mane stood over the sleeping teal pony, eyeing him curiously. Majority of the thirty ponies in the camp surrounded these two, curious and confused. Finding a live pony in Everfree? Miracle. Finding a weakened, dehydrated pony in that forest, a condition which many nocturnal predators would definitely exploit? Nopony here knew any words to describe that kind of event. Many ponies asked themselves the questions: ”What happened? How?”

But Healer had another set of questions he decided not to voice.

“I think that's all. Let him rest, I've gave him some isotonics, he should get better soon,” he said to one of the travelers, who took upon herself the task of watching over the stranger. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go for a moment...” Healer added quietly, more to himself than to anypony else. Ignoring everypony near him, he looked around the camp, looking for one particular pony. And he found her. She was coming to him.

Siren moved clumsily, staggering a little each time her hooves struck a root or slipped on wet moss, but managing to keep her balance in the end. Healer noticed that other ponies semiconsciously moved away when she passed near them, but Siren either ignored that too, or simply didn't care. He wasn't sure anymore.

“Hey! Siren!” He said when she finally got near him, a hint of faked cheerfulness in his voice.

“...Hi... Hihihi...” She giggled, drooping her head to the ground.

“Can I talk to you in private? Without all the other ponies nearby?” he said, pointing at the forest..

“Yes... Yes we can!” She smiled at him, presenting all her teeth. Healer shuddered. He knew well what these were capable of.

The duo moved out of the camp and a little into the forest, in a place near enough to the other campers that the nocturnal predators of Everfree wouldn't attack them there, but far away enough to make themselves practically invisible. The searingly cold wind swayed the leaves on the trees, rustle of leaves making it impossible to eavesdrop on them. It was dark there, the light of the fireplace not reaching them, save for single flickers that made their shadows dance against the grounds and the trees. Whatever words he would speak would mingle with the hoots the owls made.

For Healer, a perfect, if somewhat eerie spot for some heart-to-heart conversation.

“Uhhhh... I've got a question, Siren. I've got this strange feeling, as if I've seen that teal pony somewhere. Do you recognize him?”

“...Hihihi.... He smells... He smells good...” Siren replied, giggling.

“So, you recognize him? He looks very familiar. I'm sure I would've known him! But I can't place my hoof on it...”

“...That brown pony smells good too...” She whispered, pointing at the tall, thin brown pony who was now near the fireplace, talking to two mares, one red and one gray.

“What do you mean? You know him too?” Healer replied, thinking that it might be high time to reset Siren.

“...He smells good smells good smells good!” She replied, her voice rising with each spoken word, dangerously reaching the point when she'd start screaming.

Healer took a small box out of his saddlebag, opened it and picked up a small jet syringe.

“It's time for your injection, Siren. You know how you get without it,” he said in a caring voice. He put the syringe in his mouth and slowly, step by step, came closer to her. Siren took an unsure step backwards, lied on the ground and curled in a foetal position. Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes.

Healer took another thing from his saddlebag. A small sugarcube shone on his hoof. He tempted Siren with it, inviting her to stop being afraid and come closer. She looked at the cube, then at the syringe in his mouth. Her vision wandered from one object to another, until she finally stood up, and took a slow, unsure step towards him. He threw the sugarcube at her, the sweet candy falling straight into her mouth. She closed her mouth eyes. A smile crept on her face.

The distraction worked. Feeling too good about the taste in her mouth, she didn't notice him jumping at her and pressing the syringe against her side. A loud hiss came from the device as the jet of liquid penetrated her skin and entered her bloodstream. She recoiled and fell on the ground, where she lied for a moment. Healer stood above her.

“...You better now?” He asked her. She was getting resistant to the drug, and sometimes she required another shot.

She looked at him. The corners of her eyes began to shine with tears. “Yes... I'm better now... for a moment anyway... Hihihi...” she replied, a smile forming on her face again as she dried her eyes on her fetlock.

Healer didn't say anything more. He threw his forelegs at her and started hugging her. Each time he had to repeat the whole ceremonial, it felt worse and worse. He felt wrong to treat the one he loved like that.

“But that brown pony had changed his smell... He didn't smell like that before. And now he smells good. Hihihi...” She whispered into his ear. He kept repeating a quiet ‘sorry’ while hugging her. And she was hugging him back.

Out of necessity, all was forgiven. Or so he thought. He wasn't sure whether Siren even thought in such terms anymore.


Fireplace cast a soft, orange glow across the camp. The moon, high in the night sky, shone upon the world, illuminating it in wondrous, ambient glimmer. Even the stars, thousands of them visible up above seemed to light up the place noticeably. If anything could look down from high above, the place would look like a small point of light in the the sea of absolute darkness.

Anypony could hear something in the distance – predators of night, hunting for food, using the darkness for their advantage. But the ponies inside the metal ring made of APCs convoying them felt safe. Some slept peacefully, others walked around, talking and laughing, although a certain degree of nervousness and confusion could be heard in every word spoken.

"So, that teal pony woke up already?" Lanky said to two mares standing next to him.

"Yup, he did!" Sweet Whisper’s ever-cheerful voice rung in his ears.

Lanky, Red Snow, and Sweet Whisper stood over the teal pony, looking at him. Lying on the blanket, a first-aid cover keeping him warm, the earth pony stallion looked around.

Healer was already sleeping, as well as the majority of the group, except for a few older stallions standing guard around the camp. Just them and the new pony.

Lanky took a whiff. The pony smelled of dirt, sweat, and wilderness.

"Hi there, what's your name? From where are you?" Sweet Whisper asked.

The teal pony looked at her shyly, unsure what to say for a moment, before finally answering the question in a meek voice. "I... I don't know. I don’t."

“You remember anything? I don’t know, for example, your phone number? EquNet ID? Banking account?” Red Snow asked.

Teal pony shook his head. Seeing the consternation on the confused pony's face, Lanky asked, "What were you doing there anyway? It's the Everfree Forest! It's not really safe there."

The teal pony again thought for a moment, before answering in the same manner as before, "I don't know... really."

Red Snow tried to ask him something, but Lanky interrupted her, "Say, did you live in that cottage nearby? That old, rotten down one a few minutes gallop from here? Ring any bells?"

"No...?" the teal pony responded.

"So you didn't. Totally expected, really." Lanky muttered to himself.

"What cottage?" Red and Sweet asked the question simultaneously.

"I tried to tell you, but you disconnected!" Lanky said.

"Oh, right. Sorry," Red looked down at the ground, a little bit ashamed.

"Anyway," Lanky sighed, then turned around, standing side to the teal pony, "I found a cottage! Broken down, uninhabitable, but somepony lived there a long time ago. Probably even before the Shift. And that's not the end, girls, look what I've found!" Lanky reached for his backpack, and took the pendant out, the chain around his hoof and gem swinging in a pendulum-like manner.

"That's beautiful!” Red said, "Is that for me?"

"Gimme, gimme, gimme!" Sweet Whisper said, and reached for the crystal.

Lanky moved his foreleg to avoid her touching the crystal, but she did it, her hoof touching it right in the center. To his surprise, absolutely nothing happened. The crystal just bounced off her hoof.

Luckily for him, they didn’t seem to notice his nervousness. He laughed, then reached to the backpack to hide it back inside, "Wait, I've only just found it! I don't know if I'll give it to you!"

In the corner of his eye he noticed the teal pony looking back at him, and he looked back. Teal pony was breathing heavily, his eyes wide open and looking straight at him. Lanky could swore the eyes were looking down into the depths of his soul. Unnerved, he turned his head around to avoid his gaze. It appeared that the girls didn't notice the stare.

"Anyway, girls, I might've taken a nap, but I'm tired. Good night," he said, then turned his head to the teal pony, "And good night to you too!"

The teal pony was still staring at him, his eyes locked on Lanky's every step.

A few steps away, Lanky heard something. A quiet, barely hearable voice.

“Help me, please.”

He turned around, and faced the teal pony. “You said something?

The stranger looked at him and asked, “w-what?”


Fireplace had almost burned out, no longer necessary, as the night was at it’s end, the sun only moments before rising, but still not there, the night still covering the world in darkness. Lanky slept lightly on his blanket, clutching his backpack as if it was his security mascot.

Sudden movement got his attention, waking him up. A pony stood above him, holding the pendant by the chain in its mouth and backing away. Darkness obscured the identity of the thief. Only thing he felt was a smell, a faint odor of ozone.

"...YOU!" Lanky screamed as he sprang up on his legs, ready to jump into action.

The thief turned around, and ran straight into the wilderness. Lanky ran after him straight into the darkness, feeling the twigs slash at his face. He heard the commotion after him, the camp waking up, scrambling to find out what had just happened. As he followed the barely visible outline of the thief, he barely avoided tumbling down on the wet moss and roots of trees arcing through the ground. Each step, he cut the distance down.

A long way from the camp he lost sight of the thief entirely. He stopped to catch a breath and plan the course of action. He took the headset from the saddlebag, and put it in his ear. He chose a map icon on the holographic display. The device couldn’t fix on any positioning satellites, and his location was unknown to him. Disappointed, he sat down on his haunches.

Something in his mind just clicked. Nothing more than a very weak feeling, an intuition, but at that moment, Lanky could feel where the thief was. Something he couldn't describe just called to him, a faint feeling shining like a match in the darkness. He sprung into gallop again, following his intuition. The headset beeped, somepony attempting to call him. He ignored it.

When he saw the thief again, the moon hid behind the horizon and the amber dawn began pushing the darkness away. They both arrived at the edge of the forest, in a place Lanky didn't recognize.

He again turned the map application on. This time, it found it’s location. The pin-mark was positioned on a line between the green and the gray blotch. No more information was available, save for the longitude and latitude. The numbers said nothing to him.

He surveyed the surroundings. The Everfree Forest formed a wall behind him, the land turning before him into green fields pockmarked with small hills, with bigger mountains on the horizon. A small, unknown town was near. From a distance, he noticed the thief entering the place, passing the timber-framed houses of the town's outskirts.

Risky move.

Lanky followed him into the town. When he entered he noticed a sign that made him realize where exactly he was. Lanky could just feel in exactly how much manure he had just stepped into.

It was Ponyville. A place where no earth pony, not even Terran ambassadors have ever stepped hoof into. For superstitious unicorns and pegasi of Luna’s Domain, a sacred place.

“Uh-oh,” he said. He knew had to be quick. It was still morning, and streets were empty, but with each passing minute, the probability of running into somepony else was rising each second he was there.

He cut his distance, finally catching the thief near a house made inside a hollowed-out tree. From close, he saw who the thief was. He suspected it was the teal stranger, and now he knew.

"P-please, I can explain, I can explain," the teal pony wheezed, barely standing on his shaking legs.

Lanky was not in the mood for explanations. He turned around and bucked the teal-coloured stranger. The run exhausted him, making the effort of bucking feel more like a light tap, but it was still strong enough to knock over the stranger, who fell on the ground, completely defenseless.

Lanky's anger was subsiding, but the the sight of the pendant on the stranger's neck irritated him. Lanky took the pendant from him, and it was then when he noticed that the stranger wasn't looking at him anymore, instead looking at somewhere behind him. Lanky looked up.

His eyes met an intense stare of a armor-clad, snow-white unicorn guard.

“Oh... manure.”

He backed up from the guard, only to bump into another behind him. He heard the clink of a primitive plate armor. Everywhere he looked, he saw guards surrounding him. He felt the droplets of sweat dropping from him, more from fear than exhaustion. His mind went blank as he tried to think.

"In the name of Queen Luna and Princess Celestia, you are hereby arrested for trespassing!" a guard behind him announced, proudly proclaiming his power.

Lanky's mind didn't have any time to ponder upon his situation further when he felt a strong blow to the back of his head. Unconscious, he fell on the ground.

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