King of the Everfree

by Travesty

Prologue

I sighed as I sat up, rubbing my eyes with my hands whilst yawning. I hate mornings, especially when it's a Monday morning; it's the dreaded day that no one looks forward to, mainly because it means it's back to work for everyone. Mostly everyone, I should say; some people get summers off. Lucky bastards...

You know, now that I think about it, I can't actually feel my blanket. Did I sleep walk again? Ugh, I must have, and I'm probably outside with a bunch of bugs on me. This is pretty common, and I hate it because it means I probably have a bunch of mosquito bites all over me, which also means I'll itch all day. However, I don't remember my home having a bunch of birds chirping. I lived in the big city, Portland, to be exact, and the only thing I ever heard was the angry traffic and the sounds of people cursing at each other.

I finally decided to stop rubbing my eyes after I was sure I got the sleeping dust out of there, and took in my surroundings; lots of trees, really tall trees. They didn't appear to be native to Oregon or Washington, since almost all of the trees were either fir or pines. And since I was in a forest, I'd have to assume that I wasn't in Portland. Longest sleep walk I've ever had, probably.

I stretched my arms, standing up and yawning. Feels like a Monday; body feels tired and different, the usual. Sleep-walking a few hundred miles would do that. Although... I don't think I could accomplish that, even if I'm physically fit. Eh, who cares, I'll just catch a ride with a tourist or something who's going to pass through Portland. From their, I'll just walk home. It is the summer after all.

I began to walk, but when I did, I fell over, my legs failing me. How? I'm not sure, but it didn't feel right... pushing myself up with my hands... wait a minute, my hands look different! Did I run through a radioactive puddle mixed with acid? My hands weren't living anymore, or at least didn't look like they were, instead looking more like something out of the walking dead; decayed and veiny. The only thing that wasn't zombie-like was that they ended in sharp points.

My eyes widened, and I took a look at my legs reluctantly, and I almost screamed when they weren't at all human legs; they had thighs and knees, sure, but there was an extra joint where the foot should be, and it extended down and ended in a hoof. My legs were also decayed, but the knee joints and... lower knee joints seemed to have some sort of spiked kneecap, the special spike seeming too anatomically correct to be real.

I was too stunned for words, and I could hear- wait, nevermind, I can't even hear my own heartbeat. I looked at my arms, and instead of being shocked by their decayed look, I was more shocked by how lean they looked; for a decayed monster-thing, I had a very lean body. I looked like a WWE superstar, excluding the charm, of course.

I reached up to run my hand through my hair, but something blocked the way. I continued to feel the object with curiosity, my eyes widening as I realized they were horns. Huge fucking horns. They were more like a bighorn sheep's, except thicker and ending by pointing up and outwards. I rubbed my hands against my face, and I wasn't too surprised that it wasn't my own. But the fact that I could feel bone scared me; god knows that anyone who sees me will be terrified, unless they can't sense fear of course, but as far as I know that's not possible.

I stood up slowly, balancing myself so I stood upright. I then took the challenge to stand on one leg, and when that was accomplished, I stood on the other. Why did I do this? To get a feel of my legs, of course; I needed to know how to work the new joints in order to move efficiently. It was difficult learning to walk with a new joint in my leg, but after a few minutes of walking in circles, walking in a straight line and walking backwards, walking felt natural again, thank god.

Now for the next step; find out where the hell I am. I for sure did not know where I was, but I'm sure if I find someone and convince them I won't hurt them, they'll tell me... unless they don't speak English or Spanish, then I'll just have to resort to hiding; if the rumors are true, soon some men in black will hunt me down and capture me for study.

I began walking through the forest, clueless of where I was going. It was better than nothing, at least. Besides, I always enjoyed the scenery whenever I went on vacation, always taking the longest path to reach my destination. As I walked on, I looked on at the pure beauty of this place; the air was fresher, the colors were more vibrant, and the wildlife was more prominent; I saw bunnies run when they saw me, birds flew high above the trees, and I even caught sight of some sort of wolf with green glowing eyes running away when it saw me. It was brown, but I couldn't actually tell since it was hiding in the darkness. I shrugged it off, though; I'd be surprised if anything would touch me with a ten-foot pole.

As I continued my long walk through this strange forest, I began noticing a few things; first was the way too colorful colors, which were more technicolor than anything now that I looked closer. Second was the smell of cologne, which I somehow picked up. I guess my nose was now super sensitive.

I raised my arm and sniffed my armpit, which had no smell at all, and I raised a nonexistent brow; I don't smell like cologne, shocker, but I don't have a smell either. But if I don't smell like cologne, then what the hell does? I stopped and sniffed the air, looking for the source of the scent. My head slowly followed the lingering smell, and eventually I saw where it was coming from...

...an anthropomorphic pony? I'm going to guess the government has been hiding a secret species from the rest of the world, and pray that I'm not going crazy. It was really strange, seeing something like this; I was surely at least two feet taller than it, but that was probably because of my extended height because of my extra joints. The pony's fur was a technicolor shade of turquoise, its mane and tail being bright pink. It wore clothing that resembled safari gear; the khaki hat, khaki shirt with rolled up sleeves and khaki shorts gave it away in an instant. If I had to guess, it was either a hiker or a scientist, but I couldn't tell.

He seemed to be, ah, "opening the flood gates" as it were, whistling a happy tune. I looked away until he was done, the embarrassment of seeing that causing me cringe. When I heard his stream come to a stop, I turned my head back to him, blinking a few times whilst waiting for him to turn around.

He turned around after zipping up his zipper on his khaki shorts, and it was then I saw the binoculars that hanged around his neck, along with the pen in his shirt pocket along with a notepad. He seemed to stop, however, when he saw my feet. Slowly but surely, his eyes slowly made its way up my body, before eventually looking into my eyes. His faced showed pure horror, his eyes were pinpricks, and his jaw was opening and closing several times.

He then closed his eyes tightly, hanging his head and raising shoulders saying in a rather hushed tone, "Buck me..." He must be expecting me to kill him or something like that, but I didn't really want to. After all, he was just a tourist or something who got caught with his pants down, in almost every sense of the word.

I opened my mouth to speak, but for some reason, I couldn't, and all I that came out sounded somewhat like a tire running over gravel. It was hard to describe, honestly. The pony, however, raised his shoulders even higher, trying to suck his head in like a tortoise hiding in its shell. I sighed, which came out more like a growl, but it'll do. If I can't speak, perhaps I can act as though I am not a monster, which seemed really easy at the time, until I realized I was a decayed anthropomorphic goat with a skull instead of a face.

I stayed silent, looking down at the pony as he simply held still. After a few minutes of silence, he slowly opened his eyes, forcing himself to look at me. He cocked his head to the side whilst giving me a strange look, "You're... not going to kill me?" Upon not getting a response from me, he continued, his fear dissipating a bit, "Well... you're a new creature, aren't you?" He walked around me a bit while I followed him with my gaze. "Yes you are, indeed... I suppose that this is another one of the Everfree's magic creatures, but then again..." He pulled out his notepad and pen, scribbling what I guessed were words, before putting it back in his chest pocket. "This requires further examination." He looked up at me, raising a brow, "I'll see you soon, creature."

And with that, he turned on his heel and left, mumbling to himself as he did so. When he was out of sight, I sighed again. 'That was... odd.' I thought to myself, popping my neck. That pony was definitely a researcher of sorts, and I hope his intentions are good when he says 'I'll see you soon.' If they're not, I'll need to find a place to hide, otherwise he might send more of his people to capture me.

With that in mind, I decided to turn around and walk away from the path of the scientist, searching for a place that no living thing would look for something my size. I needed something discreet, secret, an unlikel-

I stopped myself abruptly at the edge of a cliff, swinging my arms counter-clockwise so fast it looked like something straight out of a looney toon. When I regained my balance, the first thing I did was take a large step back away from the cliff-side. Afterwards, I looked on, and what I saw was absolutely stunning; a castle of sorts, standing tall and proud. It seemed run down, but it was still massive enough to look like the a gothic church.

I looked around, and surely enough, I saw a rather long wooden bridge that connected one side to the other. I suppose this castle will be my new hiding spot, at least for the time being.

Comments

[Edgeblackstar]

Good start!

[Necron Lord]

If that picture is anything to judge by then I wouldn't blame the ponies for attacking you on sight, heck we humans would shoot first then ask questions!

[punygoblin]

This story has the right to earn my praise for being special. but remeber PRAISE THE SUN

[Phantom Night]

The calm before the storm, just waiting for shit to hit the fan

[Grankuwaga]

A larger version of the cover img:
cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/000/369/611/large/jorge-benedito-dark-faun-00.jpg

[Travesty]

8321539
May I use that picture? So that people can see him better?

[Dr_Tornado]

8321539
Huh, for a minute I thought that the horns were a hat.

[No0one]

Please continue

[Alondro]

First question: since when do ponies hunt? They want trophies of the many TALKING SPECIES and CLEARLY NEARLY SAPIENT ANIMALS? Alternately, if the animals are just stupid here... then how do we relate this world to the show?

Second question: Why do so many people insist on making ponies hyper-racists when the only person they were scared of was Zecora, and that was because she lived in the Everfree Forest which freaked them out? Already you've stripped this world of part of what made the show work.

If you change a world so much it barely resembles the world you're basing it on, why not just write a completely original world in the first place? Otherwise, it's just riding the coattails of a popular property for no other reason.

And there's the writing itself. It feels very clunky and YES, it does indeed feel about as cliche as it gets. Events are stated in matter-of-fact tones, the ponies speak perfectly in English while the human cannot speak at all... which is ridiculous since speak production is VERY MUCH A PRODUCT OF INNER THOUGHT... (a number of animals can produce mimicry of human speech even lacking the neural architecture for language) but of course despite his taking his gruesome transformation totally in stride and approaching calmly, he doesn't think to rectify the lack of verbal communications by trying to write on the ground, which would immediately indicate to the pony that he's at least an intelligent creature even if the pony can't read English words.

In all, this doesn't feel like a prologue at all. It feels like a highly truncated first chapter of a story that sounds exactly like thousands of other HiEs.

[Praetorian4Hire]

https://youtu.be/67h8GyNgEmA

[forrest yuchnitz]

it looks a lot like a slim deathclaw to me

[Gotland]

Sounds somewhat like a Satyr

[punygoblin]

8321668

Its a fan fiction not a dang Nobel peace prize, you idiot

[Jaro45]

8321449
The only question being "Is it dead yet?".

[Grankuwaga]

8321543
Not my img used google so why not?

[Grankuwaga]

8321668
Q1
It an A.U ( Alternate Universe) with Anthro Ponies so anything cannon went out the window at the start. And it only the First Chapter... what world building can he/she do in such a small time frame?

Q2
See above and although they aren't hyper-racists ponies. They do live in a glass bubble made by Celestia (and themselves) which make them blissfully ignorant of the rest of the world san explorers like Daring Do and those like her. Celestia made 'their' world work even if it just by the treat of her existence (she can be as nice as she wants but she is hella scary to those who don't know her) and literally by controlling the Sun (and Moon).

[Lantern Bug]

Interesting, I'll keep an eye on this.

[Travesty]

I'm actually surprised this first chapter was received so well, and I thank all of you for your support. It doesn't matter how many times I say this, but I'm just surprised how many likes this story has received in such a short time.

Please tell me what you all liked about the story, and I'll try and focus just a little bit more on it.

[Syroc]

Huh. Interesting start.

[Mega NewWays97]

Eh, likely its seems the shows trying to disproce the ponies are xenophobic notion... whatever its stilll a good stoory

[nighters]

I wonder if the reason he hunted is the fact he accidentally infected/killed the tree of harmony and now the forest is going out of control that seems like a reason to hunt him then no?

[punygoblin]

i do like the setup to this story ,but could you not have him setup base at the castle of the two sisters ruins. that cliche is done so many times and to see something else even if it is other ruins considering there use to be a whole city / kingdom there, will be nice

[Alondro]

8322049 I'm so sorry that I have standards. I'd forgotten half-assery was its own reward these days.

[DaGoomba]

A Leshen in Equestria? Interesting choice...

[punygoblin]

8324662

standards please, your standards make hoes look like chase virgins. Its fanfiction, so stop being an asshole and get over your fat ass self, and move on you prick

[Alondro]

8325213 My my, someone didn't take their Adderall today.

[Dont Forget Me]

Great start to a interesting story with a good plotline so far!

[Aramisxx]

Wow wow this story is amazing

[The Crystal king]

Hmm, interesting....i did expected the pony to at least freak out saying "M-Monster!!" But he didn't...Huh

[sorrow_song]

Looks like the Capra demon from dark souls,
Seem like a good story

[Ivbeara]

Nice start, I like it. Even tho it is starting a bit cliche-y, I'm more than willing to see where it goes.

[TerrorCooper]

Let me guess: the guy has become a wendigo from ancient, North American mythology, rather right?

[PuppetXMaster]

still hoping for an update

[PrinceArti]

please give us more I DEMAND MOOOOOOOOOORRE

[Von Voctavia]

Liked and added to faves :)

[mrkillwolf666]

rip this story

[lusians]

looks good keep it up.
also does MC looks like in picture? if so he reminds me of Pan's brother Agerus (Castelvania series)

[TheRedButcher]

It's been abandoned so I'm not even going to bother with reading it.

[ShadowedKnight68]

Really good!

[Lycanthromancer]

The second I wake up, I'm attacked by a group of pony hunters, and I'm just going to guess it was because I'm not exactly a pony, or human as a matter of fact.

I don't think he's been attacked yet.

[jackfangs3]

Another good story dead

[Kanna]

This story dead

[Dinodisneylover1]

Agreus.

[Shadowflameking]

9337463
Yep

[Neo Lindell]

would love some more of this

[Nazgul of Equestria]

Are there any plans to continue this?

[Stareater]

You plan to make another chapter?

[Nightmare_Me]

10154894
10130603
9952178
Just to ask did you see that he has not been on the site since 2019?
8872448
9337463
I think the person died

[Status L]

10550855
definetly