The Wild Man

by Luckless

Chapter 9

Author's Note:

Oh man, I'm sorry this came out so late. I've been bogged down with work, but this wait was ridiculous! I promise I'll try to work faster and get distracted less.

Twilight

That... could have gone worse? At least he's only angry at Rainbow and not everypony. I groaned, pulling at my face with my hooves. Rainbow was the biggest worry I had in this meeting, and it had fermented into a disaster. She was starting to get up, though it was obvious she was really out of it.Time for damage control.

"We should go after him, try to apologize again."

"Again? I'm of the impression that we've progressed past apologizing. This is the time to let him calm down, and leave him alone like he wants." Rarity said.

I shook my head, "I don't think we can. We may not get another chance to talk to him after this, so we need to follow him while we can. Come on."

I started trotting down the path into the forest. Listening, I could tell that they hesitated before coming after me. We trotted quickly to catch up to him, and eventually, we could see his tall form stomping ahead. We stayed close to the fringe of the path, so if he turned around, we would be harder to see. However, he never did. He never did look backwards though, in fact he never strayed from the path for a good long while until he took a left turn.

We delayed our advance slightly here, to give him time to move down the path before we advanced again. We found that there was a tiny deviation to the path edge where Brian had entered into. A little further down the path, we could see the remains of dried blood from what must have been from the basilisk that Fluttershy deliberately looked away from. There was such a large amount, that all of us were unnerved by it, even AJ and Dash.

How dangerous could he be if we really anger him? Could we even stop him? We took the same turn and nervously followed the trail, taking great care to not brush against the brush or make any noise. We probably didn't need to worry about noise though. In the distance, we could hear Brian yelling in rage. If he was saying anything, we couldn't make it out.

When we finally arrived, we finally knew what his camp looked like. A massive box on wheels faced us, a giant door opened up to reveal a poorly made bed, several unknown items, and a few crates. His site was loosely centered around a fire pit that had a grill over it, which Brian was currently stomping around in his rage. He brandished a VERY large knife, and chucked it at a tree. The blade sank deep into the tree, engulfing half of the blade. In his other hand, was a large bottle with a clear liquid in it. He took a deep gulp of the liquid as he approached the knife, gasped, and wrenched the knife free of the tree.

Finally, we could here what he was angry about, "WHY THE FUCK DO THESE THINGS HAVE TO BE SO FUCKING HARD! Why can't one damn thing go my way? Why does there have to be assholes everywhere I go? What did I ever do to deserve this shit?! COME ON! I'm waiting for my peace damn it! Where is it? When will I be put out of my misery?" He sat down heavily on the ground, breaking out into sobs. He screamed in anguish into his hands, and flicked the blade into the ground.

As he cried, he no longer looked like the formidable, dangerous creature we'd thought him as. He looked... pitiful, sad, lonely, without hope. Like he had given up. On everything. This was something that nopony had ever seen, or felt, and we didn't have a clue to what could have caused this. Surely, it couldn't have been us, right?

Fluttershy moved, quickly going up to Brian, and putting a hoof over his shoulder. He looked up, and seeing that it was Fluttershy, scowled and threw her hoof away, standing up quickly.

"What the hell do you want with me?!!? I thought I told you to leave me alone!" He roared.

"W-we really want you to know that we ARE sorry about Rainbow Dash. She's a very brash pony, and doesn't think things through very often. But, we've never heard of someone reacting the way you did, and we'd like to know why, if that's ok." I said, trying to calm him down.

A disturbed chuckle escaped his throat, a smile starting to cross his face, "You want to know why? You want to know why I hate the fact that she doesn't seem to really be sorry? For nearly killing me? I'll tell you why. I was bullied my entire childhood, and whenever those bastards were forced to apologize, they'd always say sorry in the same fucking way. They didn't mean anything, just something they did to get out of trouble, and they'd do it again a minute later. No one ever helped me, no one ever cared. I am the definition of society's outcast. It wasn't enough that I should have died multiple times over, they just had to hurt me even MORE." He started drinking again, swallowing over and over as he chugged down the strange liquid.

When he didn't say anything, Fluttershy shyly asked, "What happened to you?"

He finally stopped drinking, gasping out a breath, "I burned. I was tossed down a set of stairs, I was driven out of MY OWN FUCKING MIND BECAUSE OF THOSE ASSHOLES!" It was then, that we smelled it, the overwhelming smell of alcohol. That drink he was gulping down, it was alcohol. Strong alcohol. "When I was a kid, my apartment burned down, me in it. My parents died in front of me, my entire body was burned. It took me years to recover. Then, school and the orphanage. The kids stabbed me with pins, set my clothes on fire, pushed me down flights of stairs, tripped me, punched me, beat me near to death in gang beatings. At the orphanage, they never let me get any sleep. I had to go places to sleep. I was always so tired, so tired and hurt. So I lost my mind for the longest of time. And I... I... oh God I did something terrible."

He put his hands to his face, eyes peering through his fingers, "What did you do?" I asked hesitantly.

He looked at me, his horrifying gaze sending shivers down my spine, "I... ENDED it. Permanently." The weight of his words hit us like a sledgehammer. He most likely meant the worst of implications.

He sighed defeatedly, "Now you know why I hate insincere apologies."

Rainbow, to our surprise, stepped up to him looking extremely guilty, "Brian, I've never really had to say that I'm sorry often. I haven't hurt anypony like I had to you before. I just... don't really know how to do this. I am sorry, for not thinking and rushing to conclusions that nearly killed you. Can you forgive me?"

Brian looked up, eyes barely opened, mouth hanging open in a drunken stare, "I don't know."

Rainbow sputtered, "How could you not know?!!?"

He blinked, raised his bottle and gave it a little shake, "Cuz 'm drunk. Want some?"

Rainbow groaned, rolled her eyes, and grabbed the bottle. She took one swallow and she started coughing hard, "Holy *cough* horseapples. That's strong! Stronger than AJ's cider."

"Oh really? Hand it over RD." Applejack grabbed the bottle out of Rainbow's hoof, and took a few gulps before she too started coughing, only not so hard, "Ok, that is strong. That's like trying to drink a rainbow."

Brian laughed, "It's like battery acid, but fun."

"What's battery acid?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow.

"Drunk. Tell you later. Now hand it over." Applejack handed the bottle back over, and he proceeded to drink the last of it down. After seeing Applejack and Rainbow, who were both known for being able to drink other ponies under the table, nearly cough it back up, his feat of constitution was all the more amazing.

He swayed a little in his seat, and looked back up at us, "Keep me..." he paused, and looked around, his head lolling about, "...outta the trees." He stood up, shaky and legs trembling, and stumbled to his odd... whatever it was... box on wheels. He seemed to nearly fall against it, before pulling himself up onto the platform inside, and dragging himself to a low hanging shelf, and then heaving himself onto it. I was about to ask him myself what he was doing, when I heard a snore rumble from inside.

"Of course, he's asleep." I grumbled.

"Um, what do we do now?" Fluttershy whispered.

"Well we can't leave 'im here by himself like that, so I think we should spend the night." AJ said.

"Plus, we can keep an eye on him." Swift Steel added. His voice was a little high pitch, something kind of odd for a stallion. This was the first time he'd spoken since this morning, and I had started thinking that he might be a bit of the quiet type like Fluttershy.

"And we can see what kind of other world stuff he has! Maybe he has laser guns or something!" Pinkie exclaimed.

"Personally, I'd like to see what kind of fashion humans have. Maybe it could give me some ideas on a new line."

Already, I was seeing where this would lead. If Brian woke up to us rummaging through his things, drunk or otherwise, we'd quickly lose any trust or good relations we'd just achieved. But before I could even open my mouth, Applejack beat me to the punch.

"Ah think we should wait until he wakes up. It ain't right tuh look through someponies' things without them even knowing about it, much less without permission." Some of the girls groaned, but relented. "Don't mean we can't go in and just look." she added with a mischievous wink. She trotted up to the box, and jumped in. Rainbow followed suit soon after, and then Pinkie.

"Ooh! Look at all this neat stuff!"

"Pinkie! Don't touch!"

"Too late."

*Thwump*

The sound of a book hitting the floor thundered through my ears, the horrifying sound of a hardcover book taking abuse sending me into the box to recover the priceless artifact.

"Pinkie! This is a book from another world! Do you know how important it could be?"

She chuckled sheepishly, "Oops?"

"Keep it down. Tryin' tuh sleep." Brian mumbled from the bed.

I pursed my lips, startled at the sudden speech from the sleeping human. I cast a look at everypony in the dwelling, and raised a hoof in a shushing motion.

We looked around some more, finding an odd chest filled with more of the strange weapons, discovered more books with odd titles written by humans with strange names, machines that I couldn't derive the purpose of, some high tech looking speakers, a bunch of supplies and large knives, but not much in the way of personal effects.

"Seriously, does this guy have any personality to him besides edgy and intimidating? I've seen more personality in a cake." Rainbow grumbled.

"He probably does, we just don't know the whole story. We can ask him when he wakes up."

"Fine, I'll wait."

7 hours later

Rainbow was flying around anxiously, her face screwed in impatience, "Argh! When is he going to wake up!??!" It wasn't like her irritation was misplaced. He'd largely slept without moving or making a sound besides when he told us to be quiet. It was unnerving, especially for somepony who had just gotten up a few hours before going to sleep again.

I shared her thoughts, and was about to voice my own concerns, when we heard groans and a few expletives from within the box on wheels. He shifted a bit inside, and soon his unmistakable form came into view. And he looked terrible.

His eyes sported large dark rings under them, not to mention being bloodshot through thinly open eyelids. He had a general look of illness to his face with how his eyebrows hanged low over his eyes, and mouth hanging open slightly. However, what was more apparent to us, was that he wasn't wearing a shirt. We all got to see his torso, which was completely covered in ugly burn scars. Black splotches ran along his ribs and other bones, contrasting in a frightening display.

He coughed roughly, and looked at us, "Huh, so it wasn't a dream. You really are here, and you really did apologize." He grunted, and hopped out of the box. He made his way to the stream, knelt down on his knees, and used his hands to drink from the stream and splash his face. From there, we could see his back, which was similarly scarred and had the markings over the bones.

"Brian, dear, what are those black lines on you? I admit they have a... brilliant, contrast to your skin, but they hardly look fashionable." Rarity asked as delicately as she could.

"They're bruises, from the lightning." He said this with a bored tone, but I could see Rainbow flinch from this. This raised some questions though. Most species, no matter how small or big, that got bruised could easily heal from it in a few days. However, it was well past a week since he was struck, and he still had them.

"Does your magic not help you heal?" I asked.

He shook his head, "Don't have any magic." He splashed his face again.

No...magic? That's... that's impossible! "Uh, Brian, everypony has at least some magic in them. The only way we can't have magic in us is if we're dead."

He shrugged, "Well, I ain't exactly a pony, now am I?"

My eye twitched, "Brian, would you mind it if I performed a spell on you? It's just to see how much magic is in you, and it won't hurt. I promise."

He shrugged, and noncommittally said, "Sure."

I charged my horn, and cast the spell. The way the spell functioned, it was like opening up a second set of eyes with the way how the spell allowed you to see all the magic that flowed through the air and the things around us. I guided my spell towards Brian, but I didn't feel anything. Just the grass, and then the stream. Nothing was in between them. I could feel the imprint of the grass below Brian, but not him.

H-how? That's impossible! How is he alive?I stopped powering the spell, and stared at Brian, the living, breathing anomaly, an impossibility in nature.

He looked over, and snickered, "So was I right?"

I dumbly nodded, "You don't have any magic. H-how are you alive?"

"What can I say? I'm a stubborn son of a bitch." And splashed himself again. With a groan, he stood up. "If you don't mind, I've got some work to take care of." He walked over to a large bin, which we had no idea what it was made of, reached in, and pulled out... a... SKIN. He pulled out skin!

Fluttershy gasped loudly, her eyes fixed to the remains of what looked to be a deer, "Why do you have that? What poor little animal did you kill?"

He glanced over at Fluttershy with a bemused look, "It's a deerskin. I'm in the process of tanning it so I can use it for a new blanket. The one I have right now is falling apart."

Fluttershy got right into his face, "So you killed a innocent deer just so you could take it's fur? How dare you!"

He scowled, and pushed her gently away, "I didn't just take the fur, I harvested the meat and bone marrow too. Everything I hunt I use as much of as possible. It's disrespectful to only use one part of anything and leave the rest to rot."

Everypony turned green, but he didn't take any notice. Instead, he went on with his grizzly business. He layed out the pelt across the table, and started rubbing salt on the skin side. He continued like this for a good while, only stopping to go over to the bin. He poured it out into the brush, took it over to the stream, and filled it again with water and salt before submerging the pelt.

My academic curiosity took over, "What was that you were doing?"

He stretched before he answered, bending over backwards prompting a cacophony of cracking bones, "As I said, I'm tanning the hides. It's to preserve the hide and keep it from rotting."

"How does the salt and water work to do this? Seems kind of pointless to me to use water and salt at the same time." I was generally confused with this, it just didn't make sense.

Again, he shrugged, "Don't know. I just know it doesn't work with just using salt or water alone. It works, so I don't question it."

"But... if you don't know how something works, then why do you use it?"

"Because I can see that it works. That's enough."

A vein began bulging from my forehead, and my eye twitched.

Before I could speak my rebuttal, a familiar voice made itself known, "Sooooo, I take it the meeting went well?"

Comments

[No0one]

Please continue

[Even Evil Has Standards]

8953771

8953580

[Theresa]

I don't get why she is annoyed by the fact he knows that something works one way and doesn't care why as long as it works.