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Edge of the Everfree1,012 words
Fluttershy's Cottage2,499 words

Edge of the Everfree

I trotted along an overgrown deer trail, my eyes fixed on the ground between my black, hole riddled, front hooves. The muscles in my legs and feet were aching from my seemingly endless trek through this cursed forest. The Everfree Forest. All my life I had been told stories about foolish changelings who had tried to cross the forest to reach the feast of love that lived on the other side in the fabled land of Equestria. According to the stories entering or attempting to fly over the forest was certain death.

Why did I have to believe Chrysalis when she said that we needed to move, to find a new home where we could live without the constant pain of hunger? Why didn't I listen to my egg-hatcher when he told me that to join Chrysalis was to become a mindless member of the swarm? I asked myself, to be fair I was not the only one to be fooled by Chrysalis' lies, and it was quite possible that her plan to overthrow Celestia had worked. Of course I would probably never know for sure seeing as I had crashed smack dab in the heart of the Everfree Forest managing to almost completely destroy my translucent gossamer wings when we were taking our position on Mt. Canterlot to prepare for the invasion. That had been three days ago, ever since then I had been walking towards, well I didn't know what I was walking towards, hopefully towards home but with my luck probably towards some changeling eating monster.

A blood chilling low pitched growl came from the trees to my right. I turned slowly flattening my ears and baring my teeth in fear, the noise was coming from a huge shaggy gray wolf with long yellow fangs that were dripping putrid smelling saliva. The wolf took a good look at me through its beady hate filled eyes while I braced myself for the attack knowing I could never out run a wolf without the help of my wings. My wings gave a frail little buzz trying fruitlessly to lift me off of the ground and out of danger, the wolf turned tail and ran from me squealing like I had just been bitten off its tail. I had forgotten, here, I was the monster.

I had been yet another long week of walking, it felt like my stomach was going to rip itself apart from hunger. I slowly pulled myself out of the damp, grimy hole in the ground I had spent the night in. I didn't even bother trying to clean the smears of dirt off of my once shiny black exoskeleton, I would need every ounce of my energy to get through another day of walking. I continued my death march at a painfully slow pace. I knew that if I didn't feed soon I would die, but I preferred not to think about that, so I stopped thinking to conserve energy and stared blankly into the trees ahead of me as I walked.

My feet were numb. I didn't know how long they had been numb, and I didn't really care but I kept tripping over things or getting my legs stuck in holes and that annoyed me because it made me waste some of the precious little energy I had left.

The numbness had spread up from my feet into my legs. I looked at the trees, they seemed thinner than they had before. I felt like I should be glad about this for some reason, but I was too hungry to remember why and I didn't sense any love nearby so I just kept walking.

I could barely feel anything below my neck. The trees were definitely much thinner. Sometimes there were even clearings where I could see the sky, of course I couldn't care less about being able to see the sky. My wings wouldn't work for at least another few weeks, and besides I was much too hungry to care about any thing other than finding food anyway.

All of a sudden my legs gave out and I collapsed my head slamming hard against the ground. I tried to pull myself up and keep walking but each time I did I just fell back down into the dirt feeling even weaker than before. Maybe dying won't be so bad? At least I won't be hungry any more... I thought foggily as I lay there the last of my energy being used up by the faint beating of my heart. I closed my eyes and felt my mind slowly begin to drift away as the numbness crept up my spine towards my brain.

Just before I slipped into eternal slumber I heard a sweet voice singing as beautifully as the birdsong choir that accompanied it. Along with the voice I could sense a certain feeling that I couldn't quite place, a certain feeling that seemed to pull my mind back out of the void it had been floating into and fill up a little bit of the huge agonizing cavern of hunger that was inside of me. The source of the voice and the feeling seemed to be getting closer and closer until finally when it seemed to be only a few feet away both the voice and the feeling cut off with a terrified squeak. Still too weak to move I lay in the dirt as I heard slow hesitant hoofsteps approach me.

"Ummm... hello?" said the voice quietly, sounding much more timid than before. I felt that I should give some kind of response so I summoned a small amount of energy I didn't even know I had and buzzed one of my torn wings. All nervousness forgotten the owner of the voice came over and rolled me on to its back "oh you poor dear..." it said as it started walking. I bounced slightly uncomfortably with each step and I had no idea where I was going, but for some reason I didn't mind, I felt strangely safe under this creatures care.

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