There are many reasons to go into the West. Abandonment of things best left behind is high on the list, right next to the seeking of something important. Something worth any amount of risk or sacrifice.
In June of 1867, along the southern border of the Idaho Territory, an abandoned, wounded traveler, his search and life at risk, is lucky enough to stumble across a decidedly singular horse. One who is also searching for something important, something where no amount of sacrifice or risk could ever be too much.
Man and mare will travel together for a time. And if they're lucky enough to survive the experience, they might just find what they're looking for.
If.
Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.
Chapters (5)
... she really must be weakened if she let someone put full tack on her
Where is this going I wonder.
4073313
me too.
also, I don't understand why it's been downvoted :-/
SUNBUTT!
Sorry, I couldnt resist.
Interesting setting, really curious on what's going on up in Canada.
4073336
Down votes are probably just standard Human tag responses.
He's got his bootlaces, though, presumably. Not sure if they'd work, but it might be worth a try at least.
interesting so far
Did he notice the Horn and wings..... if she has any?
So, why isn't Celestia an Alicorn? This is interesting.
Please, please, continue.
4073920
I figured he was saving it for the next resort just so he could dodge:
A. Trying to work them out with a wounded leg, which could involve some awkward movement.
B. The risk of having them fray and break from the friction, leaving him stuck wounded, with no real supplies, and boots which keep falling off while trying to take all his money with them.
It's the West. You've got to keep an eye on your boots.
I genuinely can't recall the last Western I read on this site. If this is breaking new ground, you're setting the bar for future authors pretty damn high.
4074014
Not to mention boots in the west during the 19th century usually didn't have laces unless you worked in a brothel.
4074004
no wings or magic... that he can see.
the spark and fire suggest magic, as does the link between the sun and her stamina.
great start, wonder how long until we learn the guys name.
4074181
We have Appleloosa and the other desert settlements, but no Westerns?
...what?
Seriously: ....what?
4074008 Agreed, and my sentiments exactly. Why can't they speak the same language?
Or is Celestia deliberately holding back something?
4074293
Well, there are some Equestrian westerns, sure. Recently, for example, there's The Good, The Bad, and the Ponies (which I didn't read but remember seeing on EqD), but yours is the first one set in the American west I can recall.
4074362 My guess is that she's lost so much magic that she's basically just a regular horse at this point. Even her mane's gone bland. She did have enough magic to boost the sparks used to start that fire, though, and she's clearly of human-level intelligence, so there's that.
Well, this is certainly interesting. Part of me can't help but think of Django Unchained, which of course makes me imagine Celestia describing the Nibelungen to our former adventurer of a narrator. Circumstances make that seem rather unlikely at the moment, though.
In any case, eagerly looking forward to more. I'm not sure where you're going to go with this, but it seems like it's going to be a heck of a trip.
4074235
What Goki said. Having laces on your boots anywhere near a saddle was asking for trouble; no laces meant your foot could slide free if you fell, so you wouldn’t get dragged.
Well, that was the theory, at any rate.
So, this guy's been through the desert on a horse with no name?
*ducks incoming thrown objects*
I kid, I kid! Seriously though, this is a very interesting human/pony concept in my mind. I get the feeling that our human in this story is a freed slave. Mostly because of the comments about whips at the beginning of the first chapter, and the bit about names. It'll be interesting to see if my hunch turns out to be true.
Man, this is a great start. You're doing a really good job of showing that the main character is a former slave just through stray thoughts. Dates the piece pretty well, too--1875 or so? (EDIT: The description even says. Hurrrr. Oh well, only eight years off. Not too bad.) It feels like the narrator reached adulthood as a slave, but is still young enough to make a new life for himself out west.
I look forward to seeing where you're taking this. I can't think of what Celestia would be wanting that's due north of Idaho Territory. If I've dated it right (the date matters because by 1875, the Territory was basically what the state would become. Earlier, it included Montana and Wyoming. EDIT: So 1867, that's late enough that the borders of Idaho Territory are the present-day state of Idaho), it must be the Snake River plain they're on, which means they'll be coming to some pretty rugged mountains soon, if they continue north. They could have started on either side of the Snake itself, depending on where they are.
Look at me rambling along. I'm not a native, but I've visited quite a few times. It can be beautiful, if you're outdoorsy.
Surprisingly good.
4074526
The only other I know of is Dead-Eye Darling.
This is great. Please keep it up. I love this kind of story, humans and Equestrians interacting in thoughtful ways. The mysterious Celestia is icing on the cupcake. I'm following.
It's writers like you (and others who put their skill, time, and thought into their stories) that keep my own creative juices flowing as well. Makes the pony culture better for everyone in it.
Thank you.
Hi leg's totally infected by now. Just sayin.
4074815
You're right! That didn't even occur to me! 
inb4 the story follows the same thing and he winds up in the ocean.
But yes, I am quite enjoying this so far.
imageshack.com/a/img33/5764/likethischapter.jpg
And God was my Copilot
...huh. Or maybe not.
So many clues in the first half of this that she heard his call for help and chose to manifest as a simple horse to help him, to guide him. But the second half of this seems to suggest that she's stuck and depowered.
I think the first would have made a better story. But...watching this.
4075527 Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Question: ...former slave?
I love this. Faved and I'll follow where this goes!
There's potential difficulty here with suspension of disbelief. She's nodding in response to questions, asking him questions of her own with body language, responding aggressively to unflattering names...how much of this would someone realistically ignore before beginning to ask if maybe she really does understand? He's already talking to her, he's already extending her human courtesy in toilet etiquette and he answered when she apparently asked or his name. If you want to maintain him not knowing she understands, you might want to more carefully monitor this. Because as it is, it can't be very much longer before he asks himself the question, then asks her if she understands him. To which she looks him in the eye and nods, and then the floodgate is open.
4075946 At the start of the story, he was already speculating that the injury has him ... shall we say, at less than 100% in control of his own mind. He may well accept that she is holding up her end of the conversation while also believing it's because he's going bonkers alone, lost, injured, and with little hope of finding civilization.
Eventually, he may also re-evaluate that stance. If he begins to do so after a solid week of back-and-forth, well, wouldn't that be interesting?
Intriguing start, and congrats on getting in the featured box
No other way to put this:
warosu.org/data/tg/img/0270/96/1378629710029.jpg
Alright, I'm in. This is certainly interesting enough, I am curious where this goes.
Oooh. Pretty interesting beginning, and it seems that Celly's mane doesn't take well to our low-mana Earth.
Ah, so she's a solar-powered horse!
Celly's reaction to being called "Sunbutt" was hilarious.
4076696
what he said.
So that's why I keep finding money on these dead bodies in video games... Still doesn't explain the mana potions or missiles.
developing
Celestia is now literal mud ponee.
4073202 What tack? there is none!
4074559 It's possible her mane is a bland Pink, but caked with so much dirt it's become a brown.
Or maybe her mane is pastel rainbow colored, but dulled by lack of magic, and again, caked with so much dirt.
About time we had a good western on this site! And by good, I mean the bar is so high giraffes could do the limbo with it.
I love your premise. It is simply, AMAZING.
If you can manage to keep characterization as good as it is for the entirety of the fic.... Something amazing has just been born..
I can see the string of western based fics now...
I read this at the recommendation of John Perry's latest blog post, and was just as pleasantly surprised as I think he was. It's definitely a nice use of the premise, a genre that isn't done often, and I like how the nameless protagonist is both kept nameless but also developed as a character.
Some of the choices taken with Celestia do admittedly confuse me though. It is recognisably her, but you kind of have to squint. The cutie mark isn't a cutie mark, she hasn't got the same colours, she's not an alicorn, she hasn't got her regalia or anything else identifying her station, she doesn't speak, and she isn't called by her normal name. That ticks almost every box in the checklist for me to say it isn't even Celestia at all.
I do still count that as a complaint for now, but I also know that it's clearly the point of the story here, and I've always said that you can do anything you want so long as it is justified by actually having a point to it. Changing Celestia's character in such a massive way might not be something I'm a fan of exactly, but it's too prominent an element for it to just be a random addition. No. This story's just as much a mystery as it is a western, and what happened to make Celestia this way is the question we want answered and the hook that draws us in.
With that in mind, I am withholding my full judgement on this particular element of the story, pending the big reveal. I don't want to say that how much I like the answer to the question will make or break the story for me, because it does a lot else right, but my opinion of it could rise or fall massively depending on the final outcome.
And on a final note, the double hyphens in this drove me crazy. They seemed to be used as stand-ins for everything from commas to brackets to dashes, and I swear there were some points where they seemed to be being used in place of italics. The very basic stuff like periods was okay, but overall, the punctuation in this fic was really weak. Easily the worst part about it. I agree with John's assessment in the review: this fic needs a proofreader. In fact, I'll go one step further. It needs an editor.
Pretty good work overall though, and I'll definitely be following it the rest of the way through.
4078845 Well I was thinking about pickles, but your idea sounds cool too!
Wow, this is really good.
Well I like it. This is certainly an unusual start, but I say definitely keep it coming.
I shall favorite this. It deserves it.
New estee fic
fairwell, sleep. I hardly knew ye.
muy interesante
This is only the second Human tagged story I've ever been remotely interested in. Keep this up, and I might just fave it.
Very good