Meta Gamer in Equestria: Odyssey

by reflective vagrant

Chapter 4. I stuttered. (Wilderness, Part 4)

Author's Note:

Here is the list of things that happened to the protagonist for those of you skipping chapters 1-3:
-Woke up in wilderness. Found he wasn't totally human anymore.
-He wandered around in a circle. Wound up eating bugs.
-Got a surprise visit from an animal with hooves that he couldn't get a good look at when he awoke one morning. Ate more bugs.
-Saw bear tracks, did something that ended up being stupid, survived seeing bear in spite of said stupid thing.
-Made den that may or may not protect from bear while sleeping. Got blisters on hand in the process and ate more bugs.
-Finally managed to catch a fish, promptly lost fish and found out he could breathe underwater. Ate more bugs.
-Made a tiny crude knife and bruised up his other hand in the process. Finally ate something other than bugs.
-Found a zebra while exploring and was scared senseless when he discovered it could talk, albeit gibberish to him. Ran home to his den like a pansy.

"A zebra?" I questioned myself. "A zebra wearing jewelry and speaking to me like a person?"

I was curled up in my den, my safe spot, contemplating what that meant. Every other weird, off the wall thing could be explained by my D&D character. I saw winged hexapod creatures, breathed water, and was even starting to get an inkling of what that weird tingling of intuition at the back of my neck every now and then might be. All of these might have been something explainable by my D&D books, as however illogical they might seem. But one thing I was certain of was that there was not any talking zebras in those books!

It was that night when I learned of a new flavor of fear. Not fear of death or fear of losing my identity to my fictional creation. I had a bit of both of those, but I was ready for them mentally. I was prepared to do what I could on the things that I could do something about, and hope for the best on what I couldn't do anything about. This... This was something I was not ready for. This was something that I had no explanation for whatsoever.

By the time the sun fell, I couldn't deny that it was no more improbable than breathing water and swimming around the bottom of a lake, looking for treasures like a giggling mermaid. Even with that settling the argument of likelihood, I still had a pit in my stomach that shut up any hunger I would have quite thoroughly had otherwise.

What do you call it when you cry yourself to sleep only without any tears, and there aren't enough confidence blankets and bedrolls in the world to make you feel any safer? Take whatever that's called, add a derailed train of thought that left you staring blankly into the pitch black just beyond your open eyelids, eventually losing consciousness without showing any sign of it, and that's about how I felt right then.

* * *

I awoke just after dawn to the faint crackling of a campfire. My eyes were as dry as could be expected and I had to let them marinade in their closed sockets as soon as I gained consciousness again. I don't know how long exactly I had to let my itchy eyes recover. Seconds? Minutes? However long it was, I knew my eyes were still bloodshot like crazy when I managed to start using them again.

While I was worried about hearing a fire that I hadn't started, the fact that I didn't smell smoke, feel the heat from it, or even hear anything else amiss in the forest such as critters running in panic, I didn't use that full zero to sixty acceleration of awareness meant for panicked situations.

With my muscles as stiff as they had ever been since arriving, I pushed the thorn bush door out of the way and hobbled out of my small den.

What I saw before me could only be described as a paradox or an oxymoron. It was something that didn't make sense, and yet was there. I mean, physically describing it made sense and there was probably a simple explanation of how it happened, but how my mind interpreted it was what made if feel like a paradox.

I saw the same zebra from yesterday, laying calmly in front of a small camp fire that was made in a small fire pit surrounded by good sized stones that wasn't there the night before. Likewise, there was a woven basket with what looked like a bottle peeking out from behind the cover.

As the zebra saw that I had spotted the little pick nick she had set up in front of my den, she pushed a plate of what looked like an assortment of berries and nuts towards me with her muzzle.

And this is where the paradox was swimming in my still slow from waking up brain. This zebra that had scared me the day before had found my den. It looked like she had found it without even trying. A part of my mind was utterly terrified from this. But at the same time, she had waited for me to wake without disturbing me, and had even brought food. This kinda excited me. I didn't know what feeling to act on.

I was still puzzled how a zebra was acting like a person. Or rather, was a person? I'd have to figure that out later. But even with that confusion, the pit in my stomach had finally been dislodged and I realized I was pretty hungry. I decided to act on the latter feeling, albeit carefully.

She seemed to smile as I tentatively went for the plate of food. I felt like a stray dog that grabs something out of a stranger's hands when offered then dashes off in distrust. Probably because that's basically what I was about to do.

"I usually like to be the one to pick the spot for the first date, but this works." I half spoke to myself to ease tensions as I approached. I leaned my hand out to the plate as far as I could, looking for any sign of disapproval or aggression. The thing I did differently once I got a hold of it, however, was that I pulled the plate away slowly. Partly to keep from spilling, and partly to not feel like a thief. I was ready to drop it if she showed any sign of disapproval.

She just continued to observe me quietly while I ate. I kinda felt rude with how I picked at the plate's contents, making sure to only eat things I recognized like walnut meat, raspberries and strawberries, but I wasn't about to trust a zebra's knowledge of what was and wasn't poisonous. Not that I felt she would give me poison on purpose, but just because it wasn't poison for her didn't mean it wasn't poison for me.

I also recognized how she had cocked her head slightly both as I started eating and when I set the plate down, unfinished. I could tell she was studying me. As nice a gesture as it was, I was starting to get the feeling that she had some ulterior motives.

When it was clear that I was done with the plate, she picked it up with her mouth and slid its contents into her saddle bag. The way the neck bent, though, I had to be impressed. I didn't think necks could bend quite like that. With that in mind, she pushed the basket towards me with her muzzle but with a step's worth of further distance to the push than she made with the plate. Once she had done this, she backed away, gave a small kneeling motion with her front legs and began to walk off.

I stood there a little while after she left before it occurred to me to check the basket. It appeared to have a large, old fashioned canning jar in it with one of those flip top resealable lids, filled with what looked almost like cookies in shape. I soon recognized as what I knew as sea biscuits, or a type of bread that didn't taste all that great and was tough if you didn't soak it first, but was filling and was meant to last a long time when stored right. There also seemed to be what looked like long strips of clean cloth neatly folded and ready to be made into whatever I needed. The final item was a large lump of honeycomb with the outer wax cleaned up and the honey still preserved inside.

"Honey... Honey doesn't go bad if it's stored right, and I'd say this counts as stored right, I think," I said as I scratched my head.

I put the small cover back over the basket and saw my fishing spear leaning up against a nearby tree. She had even returned that to me. Now that I got over the shock to the system, I started to feel a little more comfortable with this particular unknown. While looking back over to her in gratitude, something occurred to me. The meeting had been largely one way. While usually I could at least say "thank you" or some other courtesy, the language barrier had pretty much prevented that. I didn't really know what that would do to future relations.

With what energy I could muster, I quickly grabbed my backpack and the basket and jogged after her.

"Hey!" I called out to her, knowing she probably only understood the tone at best.

She stopped and turned to look at me as I finished approaching.

I did my best to express myself. "Um... " I lifted the basket a little and spoke as clearly as I could, "Thank you."

I think she nodded her head in response, understanding the meaning if not the words, and turned as if to ask if she could leave.

I responded by setting down the basket and rummaging through my pack. Pulling out the large pearl, I set it down on the ground between us, nudged it forward with my hand, and backed away.

At first she opened her mouth with an O shape, and confusion in her eyes. She then came forward, and started to move her head in the same way that she had done for nudging the plate and basket. She stopped before reaching the pearl, however, held for a moment and ultimately picked up the pearl.

I could tell she didn't need it, but she took it anyway to be polite. Kinda wanted to kick myself, but I couldn't think of anything else.

Ultimately she put the pearl in her pack with the same impressive bending of the neck as she did before, gave another respectful kneel, turned around and resumed walking off. I could only watch her as she hopped over a log similar to how a horse in a show would jump over a hurdle, though much slower given her pace, and turned out of sight shortly after.

* * *

I sat at the lake while enjoying my first biscuit out of the jar. As I expected, I needed to get a little water on it to soften it up, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The jury was out as to whether that was due to me not feeling all that picky anymore, or if it were just a good recipe. I had to wonder if what she used in it wasn't poison like I did with the berries I didn't recognize. But ultimately any of the bugs I had been eating could have been poison to me as well. It wasn't exactly a risk I hadn't been taking already. Surprisingly, the biscuit was rather filling for its size.

As I ate, I pondered what I might do with the honeycomb or the jar when all the biscuits were gone. It was a good container for most anything aside from being made of fragile glass. Being sealed, anything inside wouldn't attract anything by smell and protect anything inside from getting soiled. But I didn't want to just chomp through the biscuits themselves to get to the empty jar. Those biscuits were definitely the best thing I could find to store inside it. They'd be my emergency stash for a while. In hindsight, there was little doubt that was exactly what she intended them for.

I also contemplated on the zebra herself. I wanted to see if I could find any directions to civilization from the zebra, but I'm not really sure what I would ask. Even then, I still could tell relations were in their early stages. I wasn't exactly dealing with a typical wilderness rescue at this point where everybody could tell I was lost and was willing to help. I was probably as strange to her as she was to me. Directions or anything to do with getting my bearings through her would have to wait a bit.

My muscles felt sore but it was a good kind of sore, like they were recuperating from all the resting I did that day. The only thing I had done that could count as work was dig out a little cubbyhole in my den so that I could store my new jar inside without worrying about breaking it in my sleep.

Finally, I laid down to sleep that night. With my wits about me and a good solid day of rest but no major work done, I had mixed feelings about the day.

I had been laying there for a few minutes, having just about dozed off when I shot to as upright a position as the small den could allow. I had just realized I had seen that zebra before. The hooves I saw jumping over the log earlier that day were the same ones that I saw dashing out of sight my first night back at the lake.

Comments

[ShortestFuse]

Normally I find that it's Princess Luna who does all the surveillance and stuff, shopping around in dreams and the like. It's good to see Zecora in a fabric or two.