Bloomby BerryBurdChaptersChapter 1: IsolationChapter 2: DisarrayChapter 3: InterrogationChapter 4: MendingChapter 5: ProsperityChapter 1: Isolation Cold. Silence. Always silence. Call out... ...No response. Never response. Can’t hear Queen. Noises... Gone now. Call out... ...No response. Hungry. What is target? What is goal? Silence, nothing, wait, rest... Awaken. Still silence... Always silence. Won’t call out, never response. Should go out. No... No goal can’t. Wait... Nothing... Wait for goal no more hungry... But nothing... Wings, fly with Queen, move with Queen. But no Queen... No queen long time. Should go out look for Queen. No. Must wait... Rest... Wait for Queen. Rest... Awaken. Silence as always. Listen for sounds. No response. No Queen, can’t hear Queen... ...Miss Queen. Queen guidance... Will wait for Queen. Must wait, must rest... Still hungry... Rest... Morning dawned across the edge of the Everfree Forest. A stark, quiet contrast from the raging storm of the previous night. The forest wildlife began to stir and wake, emerging from their dens to survey the damage left in the storm’s wake. The sun had finally crested the horizon, though its light didn't reach far beyond the thick wall of foliage which marked the forest boundary. A large, gnarled oak had fallen amid the storm. An ageless behemoth whose end would come as no surprise to the locals. The sun spread much needed light onto small plants and fresh seeds spread by the wind. Among these mundanities, however, was a more intriguing object, bathed in the sun’s warmth for the first time in its brief existence. Adhered to the bark of an aged tree was a white cocoon. Far too large to be the pod of an insect, and even giant spiders, known to reside in many parts of Equestria, were unheard of so close to the boundaries of the Everfree Forest. As sunlight struck the semi-translucent pod, a shape stirred within, unfamiliar with the sensation of the sun’s rays. The creature opened its eyes, but quickly shuttered them, shielding its sensitive eyes against the light which stung and made its head ache. After a long pause, the creature opened its eyes again to regard a yellow glow surrounding it that had never been there before. All there had been before was black. It lay still for a long while, considering its situation and what it should do. It had been lying within its protective cocoon for months now, it couldn't even remember why it was waiting in the first place. It seemed pointless to lie there any longer. Whatever the creature was waiting for wasn't coming soon enough. The creature experimented with movement. It was an odd feeling. The creature wriggled around a bit, gaining a feel for the sensory command it had over its limbs. there were four things dangling from its underside, and it found them strong and easy to control. They were a part of it after all. The creature took its time to get a feel for movement. An act that felt strange, but ultimately natural. After working on its motor skills, the creature raised a limb up to prod at the squishy interior of the cocoon. The material felt like it would break with enough force, so it started to put pressure against the surface. The cocoon was very elastic, and the creature began to doubt if it could actually get out on its own. With all its might, it pushed forward, stretching the pod outward. Its body ached with the effort, and it pulled its limbs back, unable to continue for more than a few seconds. After a short rest it tried again, this time with all four limbs, and then again... And again... The material was too elastic to break with force alone and the creature had tried for a very long now. Considering there was nothing else to do, the creature chose to simply lay there, thinking. Not thinking about much. Thought was a new concept to the creature and it didn't at all know what to think about. It couldn't understand why it was thinking all these things, why it was thinking in the first place. Trying to remember before being in the cocoon only brought blurred colours and confusing images, not really images, more... thoughts, but not quite. They didn't seem like its own thoughts, which was a hard feeling to describe. It couldn't pinpoint why they felt wrong, they just did. The creature shook its head. This wasn't the time to worry about those things. It had to escape this place, even if it had no idea how. It tried moving its head to observe its surroundings. It couldn't see much, just the golden glow of the outside world, still dimmed by the viscous liquid It was submerged in. Its attention was brought to the shadow residing just above Its eyes, on the top of it's head. It reached a limb up to touch the strange object, coming to rest on a solid smooth appendage. It was definitely attached to the creatures body, and appeared to come to a sharp tip at the end. It almost immediately realized what it needed to do, this thing was obviously designed to get It out of this place, it made too much sense. How could it have not noticed sooner? It scolded itself lightly. The creature lifted Its head up to the wall of Its confines and prodded it with the appendage in experimentation. The elastic material gave, but did not puncture. The creature pulled Its head back, thinking. Now, having gotten this far, it could consider what it was about to do. It had never seen what was outside, It had no idea what to expect. It was entirely possible that the perils awaiting in the outside world would render it dead in a very short time. It was scared. Scared of what might await it in the outside world. It was an emotion the creature had never experienced before. Its whole body shook, curling up a small amount, trying to protect itself from dangers that weren't really there. After a time, the creature calmed down enough to collect its thoughts. If it didn't escape this place, it would likely die anyway. It was better to take a chance with whatever was outside than wait for nothing to happen. The creature cautiously uncurled its limbs from its body, paying careful attention to the sharp appendage protruding from its head. It took a moment to figure out how it needed to move its body to cut through the surface in front of it. It was now only a matter of doing it. Bracing itself, the creature shifted its position downwards, jabbing the thing on its head into the wall in front of it. After staying like that for a moment, it pulled its head up as quickly as it could manage, making a vertical slice in the material. The weight surrounding the creature shifted immediately and the creature went into a dead plummet. It fell only a short distance before landing painfully on the ground with a thud, accompanied by a torrent of strange green fluid that followed out of the cocoon. The world was a confusing mess of sound and feeling, the creatures skin burned and all of its joints ached, more so the side of its body, where it had fallen. It lay on the ground, shaking, unable to fully register the feelings assaulting its mind. Everything hurt, its ears were ringing, everything was so loud, its skin burned, it shielded itself with limbs, trying to stop whatever it was causing it so much pain, but it didn't stop. The deep discomfort in its chest was increasingly predominant, it just wanted everything to stop. It wished it had never cut its way through its gooey haven. Everything was so confusing and painful and loud. The discomfort in its chest had turned to pain, it needed to do something about it but it didn't know what. It was too frantic to think properly. some sort of animal was making a shrill noise not far above it, it kept making the noise, hurting the creatures ears. It silently begged for whatever it was to stop, for everything to just stop. I'm going to die, the creature thought.. It was the only thing going through its mind, and it had no idea how to stop it. The pain was nearly unbearable. It recognized its own existence, and realized the fact that if nothing was done, it would cease to exist. And it was facing this fact for the first time. It didn't want to die, but it was going to. It didn't even know what dying meant, all it knew is that it desperately didn't want to. The creatures instincts took over, its mind a blurred mess of panicked messages and jumbled emotions, incapable of rational thought. It let out a small, gargled noise of distress, opening its mouth a small amount. Its chest heaved automatically, requiring no thought, and it drew a sharp breath. The pain in its chest subsided slightly, and it repeated the breath over and over, panting and whining softly. Eventually the creatures frenzied breathing slowed to a slightly more rhythmic pace. Its lungs filled with the crisp morning air, and the coldness stabbed at its chest. The unpleasant sensation of the cold was overruled by the need to stop the ache in its chest. It lay like that for a long time, just breathing. Breathing was good, breathing helped clear its head. After a time it didn't need to put any thought into each breath, it was something its body did automatically. Alive, it thought to itself, I am alive. It felt odd referring to itself like that, it seemed to have become aware of the fact that it was a living, breathing thing. It existed. And it was going to live. The dull ache was still there, but the panic had subsided. Its ears had adjusted slightly to the onslaught of sound, but it was still disorienting. It almost didn't dare to open its eyes for fear of the thing hurting it. Despite this, it cautiously opened an eyelid, squinting at the brightness of its surroundings. It did the same with its other eye, letting its eyes adjust to the light of the sun. As the brightness faded, the world came into clearer view. The creature lay on its side at the base of a tree, a pool of viscous green fluid surrounding it with more clinging to its black carapace. Just above hung the sagging remains of a white cocoon, green ooze dribbling slowly from the ragged hole in the bottom. The creature was lying on a rough green surface. Soft, but not exactly comfortable. Peering around it could see lots of trees, not unlike the one in which its former housing was strung. It seemed to know what a tree was, despite having never seen one before. Its surroundings, while slightly confusing and unfamiliar, didn't seem out of place. It was a normal forest, or at least what its mind told it was a normal forest. Warm light shone through the canopy of trees above the creature, illuminating the area around it. And a quick glance up at the source was enough to teach the creature a small, but nonetheless important, lesson. After being still for a period, not doing anything besides breathing slowly and letting out the occasional noise of distress, the creature decided it was time to move, it wasn't going to accomplish anything lying down doing nothing. The main problem was that the creature had no idea how to move itself. Sure it could move its limbs, but it didn't know how to actually go anywhere. After moment of preparation, the creature tried to roll onto its stomach, twisting its torso and steadying itself with its front two limbs. It wasn't too difficult, the muscles seemed to know what to do on their own. Once its position was settled, the pain in the creatures side flared up again. It craned its neck back to look at the source, finding its black exoskeleton cracked, thick green blood oozing from the wound. It cringed at the sight, seeing that it had landed on a jagged rock protruding from the the ground, itself covered in the bright green blood. The sight deeply unsettled the creature, but it managed to keep its emotions at bay. The creature took a moment to look over its black torso, the sun illuminating the layered chitin. Its whole body was covered in the stuff, it shook a limb in front of its eyes for a moment. It had a flat base, and looked as if it could support some weight. "Probably what they're for," the creature thought to itself wordlessly, placing the limb back down onto the grass. It started to survey its surroundings for potential threats and found none. It did notice a few more animals that hadn't been there before. They appeared harmless enough, much smaller than the creature itself. Summoning what strength it had, the creature pushed itself up on shaky limbs, starting only with the front two. It was only able to lift itself a small ways off the ground before its strength gave out, sending the creature back to the earth with a small ‘thud’ of impact which sent a jab of renewed pain through its body, emanating from the wound in its side. It whimpered, its legs shivering. It felt utterly hopeless and very weak. It wished something... Someone, would come help it, come take all the pain and confusion away. Someone to care for it. After a few more failed attempts, the creature hung its head low, its injured side now a throbbing ache. It considered giving up. Lying there forever. There was a definite emptiness in its shivering body. It didn't know why, or what it needed to fill that void. It silently lay its head to rest on the soft grass beneath it, staring into the darkness that was the Everfree Forest. The creatures vision began to blur, but it didn't really care. A choked sob escaped its lips. The noises of despair echoed, unheard, through the silence of the forest. Rest... Chapter 2: Disarray Night had come and passed, the forest once again sparking to life in a storm of colour. A fragile form lay at the base of an old oak tree, dry green muck clinging to its dark hide. It lifted its head up to look around, attempting to blink the daze from its eyes. a musky stench filled the air, originating from the green substance that was crusted to the grass. Lethargic and slightly queasy, the creature at the base of the tree slowly lifted itself to stand on all four of its legs, wincing as the familiar stabbing pain in its side from the day before returned. It used its new height to observe its surroundings a little better. Once it had assured that it was in no immediate danger, its body loosened up a bit. It was only then, that the creature realized it was actually standing. the calm feeling from moments before evaporated in an instant and it stumbled forward, trying frantically to use its front legs to balance itself. This didn't accomplish much as its limbs buckled under the weight of its body. one of its back legs twisted the wrong way as it fell. A fresh wave of nausea and pain swept over the creature. Its stomach convulsed, and expelled a small amount of pungent yellow bile. Nothing was broken, but it still hurt a lot. The creature whimpered, fresh tears forming in its eyes. Carefully shifting its weight off its injured leg, the creature lay back down onto its side. It was beyond caring about the acrid smell that filled the air around it. Its leg didn't look damaged on the outside, but the pain that radiated from inside was huge. Deciding that being stationary was the best course of action, the creature clenched its eyes shut, trying to block out the pain by focusing on other things. There wasn't much else to focus on, and the creature curled its limbs against itself, hoping that it could shield its body from whatever was hurting. It stayed like that for a while, silent and unmoving. Taking time to calm itself down, It mulled over its options, it now knew it could stand, and potentially move away from this place. The pain in its leg strongly suggested it stay put, but it didn't know how long it would be before the leg stopped hurting, the emptiness in its chest wasn't going anywhere without action. It decided that it had to get moving as soon as it could. The longer it waited, the closer it would get to starvation. After a small time, the creature shifted, pushing its front legs onto the ground to give itself leverage. It chose to not think about the individual movements of each of its limbs, it just willed itself to stand. Its leg screamed at it to stop but it gritted its fangs and continued, eventually standing in the small clearing on shaking legs. It was a small victory, but it was still something. Without thinking too hard, the creature willed itself forward, its legs making the motions on their own. It was awkward and painful, but the creature managed to build up some semblance of rhythm, limping harshly on its injured leg. The creature moved in the only direction that made sense, toward the bright glowing ball in the sky. It couldn't help but view the sun as a guardian, the only comfortable thing in its brief existence. A warm yellow protector. It didn't doubt that following it would lead to something worthwhile. The ache in its chest was much stronger now, and it knew that if it didn't do something about it soon, something bad would happen. Taking step by careful step, the creature followed the sun, using its soothing warmth to guide it through the thick foliage. The injury in its side ached, and its back leg still hurt terribly. The canopy was extremely dense, only allowing a scarce amount of light through, but it was enough. As it walked, the creature glanced around warily, making sure that nothing was sneaking up on it to take advantage of it's wounded state. It had trouble with exposed roots and vines, often stumbling as its legs caught on the gnarled obstacles. The creature continued on its makeshift path, falling over more than its fair share of times. Its surroundings were getting brighter by the minute, the trees much more sparse than they had been not long before. It could see the sun much more clearly now, the thinner canopy allowing the warm rays of the sun to strike its black carapace. The sun gave the creature a sense of comfort, helping it through this strange and frightening world, a guardian that would watch over it and make sure nothing would cause it any harm. The creature's leg was becoming too painful to walk on, so it stopped, lying down beside a tree to rest. It was careful not to aggravate its injuries any more than it had to, which it was only semi successful in accomplishing. A small animal flew just over its head, chirping loudly and causing the creature to flinch. Its ears were still sensitive and even small sounds felt loud and incomprehensible. Another sound caught the creature's attention. It seemed to come from somewhere ahead, past the trees and into the light. It was faint but audible enough for the creature to pick up. The sound was unlike anything it had heard while traversing the forest. The creature carefully got up onto its legs and started moving toward the source of the sound, the two appendages on its back vibrating nervously against its own volition. As It came closer to the strange noises, its anticipation grew. They didn't sound like something to be afraid of, they seemed soothing and almost melodic. Noticing a clearing up ahead, the creature stopped behind a thick oak, keeping itself pressed against it. Cautiously shifting its shaky form, the creature peered around the tree, trying to get a view of whatever was making the sounds. The clearing was huge, larger than anything it had ever seen before. There were fields of grass with no trees at all, and giant mountains far in the distance. The sun was much more visible now, casting its warm glow on the landscape in front of the creature. Off to the left, it could make out dozens of strange shapes in the distance. Its eyesight wasn't good enough to make out any details. A river run quietly, not far in front of where the creature was hiding. the gentle sound of the water made it notice the dryness in its throat. It felt drawn to the river, the appendages on its back buzzing excitedly. Forgetting about the sounds from earlier, and the dangers that could come with moving out into the open, the creature moved toward the water as fast as It could manage. When it reached the water, the creature didn't really need to think about what to do. It arched its neck down and started to drink, cool relief flooding through its body. It only paused to take breaths and quickly check its surroundings for any possible danger, drinking until it was completely sated. Feeling much better now that it had drank, the creature brought its head back up to look around. The thirst was gone, but It couldn't ignore the emptiness In its chest. It still had no idea how to satisfy that feeling. Off to its right, was what looked like a large tree. It wasn't taller than any of the other trees the creature had seen, but it was definitely wider. The strange tree had all sorts of things littering its trunk. Tiny coloured boxes hung from the branches of the tree, and circular holes riddled the sides, giving view of more strange objects inside the tree. Realization struck the creature, this was no tree. It was a building, and something probably lived inside this building. It also knew that potential sustenance lay within the building. It didn't know how it knew these things, it just did. It immediately started to make its way toward the building, the prospect of food making it almost forget the pain in its leg entirely. The sounds that initially drew it to this place were becoming more distinguishable. They were coming from inside the building! It was close now, only a small hill stood between the creature and the building. After struggling up the incline, the creature stood next to the building, staring at the alien construct in awe. It definitely looked like a tree, albeit very wide and not quite as tall. Just in front of it, the creature could see a large piece of wood with a gap on the left side. It could see the contents of the building through that gap, and the wonderful sounds were flowing through from somewhere further inside. It could feel it in the air now. Food. This is what would fill the void in its chest. All caution neglected, the creature reached a limb out and pulled the wood aside. It swung out with a soft creak, staying upright the entire time. This would have amazed the creature if it wasn't so eager to reach the source of the sound, and the food. walking a bit more quietly, the creature made its way through the building, avoiding a multitude of strange objects on its way to the source of the sound. It could see and hear many small animals occupying various places in the building, most of which didn't seem very happy with the creatures presence. It ignored the trickle of fear and distrust coming from the animals, continuing toward its goal. The creature froze. Not far in front of it was a large animal it had never seen before. The animal was bigger than the creature, but not intimidatingly so. Its body was a light yellow with pink sections on its head and behind. As confused as the creature was, it was drawn toward this new animal. It radiated security, and the creature wanted nothing more than to be closer to it. It seemed to be doing something with various vegetables and a big silver object with an opening at the top. From the smell, the creature could tell that this was food. The animal was preparing food! The creature also noticed that the sounds that had drawn it to this place were coming from the animal. They were very soothing and pleasant, making the creature almost forget about its pain and confusion. This animal would give it both types of food, this animal would take away the hurting. Taking a tentative step forward, the creature made its way toward the animal slowly, making sure to stay quiet as to not alert the animal. The creature stopped, it didn't actually know why it was trying to stay unnoticed. Nothing about this animal signalled danger. There wasn't any reason to hide besides the niggling feeling in the back of its head. After a moment's hesitation, with its doubt increasing steadily, the creature chirped with its mouth and wings in tandem to announce its presence. The yellow creature elicited a sound of surprise and dropped the metal object it was holding with a loud clatter, making the creature reel back. It was the loudest noise it had ever heard and its ears were left ringing. The pleasant sounds from before had ceased, leaving an unsettling silence between the two. The yellow one stood, staring at the slightly smaller creature without making a sound. The pleasant glow of calm was fading from the air, being quickly replaced by the familiar fear it had felt in the animals earlier. This fear was much stronger, and it grated at the creatures already starved body. The fear only continued to grow, and the creature knew it needed to escape. Without thinking any further, it whirled around and ran as fast as it could through the building toward the exit, bumping into various objects that the creature wasn't paying attention to. It ignored the pain in its leg, as it paled in comparison to the negative emotion radiating from behind it. The creature rushed out the door, its wings folding out of their covers and buzzing to life, seemingly on their own, carrying it into the air. It couldn't fly very fast, but it was much faster than it would otherwise move on the ground. It moved in the direction of the sun. The warm yellow object in the sky was the only thing that felt safe right now. It was life giving, and had always been there. It would always be there. Flying came naturally to the creature, its wings carrying it steadily across the landscape with a gentle thrum and its course determined by some unseen force in the back of the creature's mind. It began to see more buildings below, all of them in various shapes, sizes and colours. It could only assume they held similar experiences to the tree building. It didn't pay attention to how far it had gone, it only wanted to follow the sun. It was getting more clear by the moment that something was wrong. The sun wasn't getting any closer! No matter how hard its wings sculled, the beautiful yellow sun stayed in the same position. It in fact seemed to move away from the creature, retreating toward the mountains beyond as if eluding the creature. Why would it do such a thing? Its lack of flight experience started to catch up to it, its wings straining to keep it airborne. It was flying over many buildings now, they were everywhere. No direction the creature could go would take it away from the buildings. If these buildings were anything like the one before, it didn't want to be anywhere near them. It cried out in dismay as its wings slowly faltered, lowering it closer to the ground with each passing moment. The creature could feel it now. It ignored it before but as it got closer it was suddenly too large to put in the back of its mind. Fear. Anger. A vast sea of negative emotion radiating from below. A quick glance down confirmed that there were many creatures like the tree living one, all of varying colours and shapes. Some were even yellow which was bad. Yellow wasn't supposed to be bad. The creature whined in fear, the rising aura of panic from below hastening its loss of strength. It could hear them more clearly now, a chorus of loud voices, growing in volume by the second. A shrill noise pierced the air, causing the creature to cringe, its ears flattening against its head. The strain on its wings finally proved too much, and the creature started to fall. It was only a small distance off the ground by that time, but that didn't stop the fall from hurting. It impacted the ground with a thud, making its vision swim, its body screaming at it to be anywhere but there. Perhaps a body of water? Death was preferable to this amount of pain. As soon as it was able, the creature hauled itself onto its legs, its only goal being escape. Escape from all the bad. Walking was even harder than usual, the waves of hysteria and fear burning at its mind, and the myriad of shrill voices assaulting its ears. The creature was only able to limp a short distance before a deep blue shape much larger than itself impacted it from the side, knocking it to the ground with a painful crack. The creature cried out again, its eyes watering and its breathing frantic. Everything hurt and there was so much noise, so much fear and hate. It could do nothing but cry as the large shapes of the other creatures closed in on it. There was a blue glow clouding the creature's vision now, making its head feel fuzzy. It thrashed and struggled and cried against the things holding it down, each movement becoming more sluggish by the second. It was overwhelmed by the urge to just let go. To slip into a peaceful slumber. Its mind screamed that it would then be at the mercy of these evil creatures, but it didn't really care now. It was too tired. The creature let itself fade into darkness, all the hurt, confusion and howling sound evaporating in the merciful veil of sleep. Chapter 3: Interrogation The creature awoke to find itself in a dark place. The air was musky and tinted by the bitter scent of its wounds. It tried to stand up, but found its legs bound together with some sort of metal contraption. An experimental flutter confirmed that its wings were also restricted from movement. After squirming for a while, the creature realised that trying to struggle against the bindings was futile, so it settled with observing its environment. There was a small amount of light coming from under the big square thing on the other side of the room . There were plenty of odd shapes and objects inside the room, so the creature figured it was like the one with the yellow animal in it, a house. This unsettled the creature. As far as it knew, these buildings only held bad things. There didn't seem to be any danger right now, but that had the potential to change at any moment. Without much to do, the creature simply waited in the dark room, its ears occasionally twitching at muffled sounds from beyond the walls. There was no telling what the sounds were, but it was quite obvious they were the colourful creatures that had captured it. The creature was surprised they had not killed it already. They held so much ill will for it earlier, and it couldn't think of any reason for them to spare it. Maybe they wanted to hurt it more before finishing it off. The creature cringed at the thought, its heart rate increasing. It didn't want to be hurt any more, it had endured enough hurt. It was gripped with the sudden urge to escape, no matter how impossible that seemed in its current situation. It started thrashing against the rough things holding it in place, its efforts completely futile. It started to cry out in frustration, increasing its squirming, trying its hardest to escape the confines before hearing a sharp click from the other end of the room. The creature froze No. There was the sound of shuffling behind the door, shadows dancing across the small slit of light at the bottom. There was no doubt what they were. Flee. There was another noise as the door swung open, a bright light flowing in and temporarily blinding the creature. Escape. The creature was too scared to move. It wanted to move, it wanted to be anywhere but here, but it couldn't. The colourful things were bad. the colourful things would hurt. As its eyes adjusted to the light, the creature could see three of the colourful animals come into view, much to its dismay. They came in through the door one by one, making noises with their mouths at the creature. The one in front was a striking purple, and a little taller than the other two. It was wearing a big yellow thing on top of its head with a number of purple shiny things along the top. The second was a light brown, with grey on top of its head and a green thing around its neck. The third one was bright blue, just like the sky, with a whole bunch of colours on its head. The majority of fear and distrust in the room was coming from this one. It eyed the creature and made a face that it knew was bad. The purple one made more noises as it approached, stopping just in front of the creature. The noises coming from its mouth ended in what the creature recognized as a questioning tone. Did the purple one want to know something from the creature? It had no idea what was being asked. The sounds didn't mean anything. There was a pause as the purple one waited for the creature to give an answer, the blue one fidgeted off to the side, while the brown one didn't give off anything besides an aura of caution and contemplation. The silence was very uncomfortable for the creature, and it wanted to do whatever it could to please the purple one as to reduce the chances of harm befalling it. The purple one was obviously in charge and would likely be the judge of the creature's fate. The creature could remember something. Something about a very important thing that taught everything it now knew. It couldn't quite remember anything about the thing, but it knew that it was very intimidating, and it knew how it was supposed to act in its presence. The purple one seemed to hold a familiar regal air, so the creature did the only thing it knew to do. Despite its fear, the creature managed to chirp in response, sounding apologetic, and signalling that it recognized the purple one's superiority and would comply to its demands. The bindings on its wings made the sound muffled and awkward, but the creature was sure it was discernible enough to get the message across. To the creature's surprise and dismay, the purple one did not seem satisfied with its response and made more sounds toward it with the same tone. The creature was becoming more frightened by the second. The purple one did not accept its admittance of inferiority! That only left one thing the purple one could possibly want. The creature began to thrash against its bindings in unbridled terror, making as much noise as it possibly could. It needed something to save it, it needed the sun, it needed to be as far away from the purple one as possible. The purple one didn't have anything left to do but kill it! The creature's cries were reduced to muffled whimpers as the colourful one was suddenly on top of it, slamming its hoof down and making angry noises at it. The purple one made what sounded like... pleading noises at the colourful one? The colourful one released the creature after making some more angry noises. The creature was frozen by fear, but also confusion. None of what was happening made sense. The purple one ordered the colourful one to kill it, but then told it not to? were they trying to scare information out of it? It was definitely working, but the creature didn't have any information to give. The only thing it had was a basic set of knowledge about things around it, and it was sure the purple one knew those things already. The creature could only wait, it was far too tired for anything else anyway. Panicking was hard work, and it had done a lot of panicking. The purple one made noises at the colourful one and the brown one who hadn't said anything, before turning around and moving away. The other two did the same, and the colourful one gave the creature another bad face before following the purple one out the door. That one still held the most distrust and suspicion out of the three, and surprisingly, the negative feeling had almost completely left the purple one. They were going to allow the creature to live! It's message was heard, which was strange since the purple one didn't seem to acknowledge it in any visual way and the colourful one still radiated anger and distrust. The creature was too tired to think about specifics. All it cared about was the fact that it was spared. Once the three had left, the creature was left with nothing but its thoughts, and the lingering cloud of negative emotion. It stung at the creature's already starved body, but luckily faded soon enough. The void in its chest was getting deeper by the minute, and the creature really didn't know what to do about it. It may have been spared by the purple one, but it would soon die anyway. With nothing else to do, the creature lay its head back down on the ground and closed its eyes. This floor was harder to sleep on than the forest ground, but eventually sleep came. The creature lay awake, barely noticing the occasional noises from beyond the door. It did not know how long it had been in that room, but the emptiness in its chest was beyond unbearable. The purple one had come in a few times to ask questions, but the creature still couldn't answer. Both out of exhaustion and lack of understanding. Over time the purple one's air of uneasiness around the creature diminished, making its presence less uncomfortable. Luckily the purple one still didn't seem to wish harm upon the creature, not that that mattered anyway. The creature wished it could see the sun. It felt lost without its warmth. The room was warm, but not a nice warm. The darkness of the room had started to play tricks on the creature's mind. Movements from the corners of its vision, frightening shapes and strange noises. It almost enjoyed the time the purple one spent with it, if just to break the monotony. The sound of the door swinging open made the creature's ears perk up as light flooded the room. The brightness caused it to squint, but the creature welcomed another visit. the purple one held almost no distrust any more, and its presence was... nice, to the creature. As its eyes adjusted to the light, the creature could make out what was undoubtedly the purple one, but it was not alone this time. Another shape was accompanying it, and it was strangely familiar. It was another one of the colourful animals that look like the purple one. It had a yellow body and pink on its hea-... Oh no. The creature tried its best to move away from the yellow and pink one it remembered so well. Last time its fear was the most intensely horrible feeling the creature had ever experienced, and if it were to experience it again it would surely die. Its efforts were futile as always, and the creature's panic drove it to complete exhaustion. It went slack against its bonds, breathing heavily and staring at the floor. It had given up all hope at this point, simply awaiting its inevitable end. And it had just begun to warm to the Purple one... The creature didn't even react when it felt a pressure on its withers. Turning its head feebly toward the pressure, the creature was shocked to find yellow. The yellow one was here, and one of its front limbs was resting on the creature, but there was no hurt. Why was there hurt before, but none now? Maybe the purple one had ordered it not to! What more, the yellow one's face had a nice look. What was this look? The creature just lay there, looking at the yellow one with awe. What was it about the yellow one that felt so good? It remembered the yellow one seeming nice before its presence was made, but none of this made any sense. After a small time, the yellow one lifted its limb off the creature and reached back to the big things hanging over its back. They seemed to be for storage, as the yellow one pulled something out of the side. It placed that something on the ground right in front of the creature's muzzle, taking a step back to signal that it meant no harm. That nice look was still on its face, and the creature felt reassured. Sitting on the ground was a large white circular thing, but that was not the interesting part. On top of the circular thing was a bunch of light pink bits of... something, the creature did not know. What it did know, was they smelled amazing. The creature looked back and forth from the pink things to the yellow one, sniffing them every now and again. The yellow one seemed to make an encouraging noise, motioning toward the things on the floor. The creature let its body tell it what to do, and moved forward to begin devouring the contents of the round white thing. It was too hungry to notice that its restraints had been removed. All it did now was eat, and it was the most amazing thing the creature had ever done. It felt rejuvenated and satisfied. The yellow one gave it food! The yellow one was going to save it! Well, the purple one might have had something to do with it, since it was in charge, but the creature's gratitude toward the yellow one was incredible. As it finished all the tasty pink things, it lifted its head up and looked toward the yellow one, letting out a happy chirp, sounding much more clear without the restraints on its wings. With its happiness showing on its face, It chirped a few more times to let the yellow one know just how thankful it was. The yellow one's nice face got even nicer, and the creature could feel... something coming from it. It couldn't identify what is was, but it felt nice so the creature didn't worry. The yellow one made a motion toward the creature accompanied with questioning noises. The creature was confused for a moment before it realised that the yellow one was pointing at its injuries. It didn't really know how to respond, so the creature folded its limbs under itself and lay in a more comfortable position. It hadn't been paying attention to its injuries since coming into the room, and now that attention was on them, it realised that they really did hurt. The yellow one took a tentative step forward, seemingly waiting for the creature's permission to approach it. The creature lowered its head to the ground in a display of submission. It trusted the yellow one. The yellow one was the only thing besides the sun that had been good so far. The yellow one pulled the things off of its back and placed them next to the creature. It took some time but the yellow one was able to figure out what all the creature's injuries were and treat them to the best of its abilities at the time. It hurt a lot when the yellow one dabbed the creature's wounds with a small white ball dipped in a strange liquid, but the soothing noises of the yellow one and the warm feeling flowing around the room kept the creature calm through the whole process. When they were done the creature had white stuff wrapped around many parts of its body and a straight piece of wood strapped to its leg to keep it straight. Time passed with the yellow one fussing over the creature and making sure the white stuff around its limbs was in order. The yellow one seemed to take huge interest in the creature, examining its various body parts with awed fascination. The creature knew by now that it was different from the colourful ones, but it felt that it could fit in if it had the yellow one to help. The purple one made noises at the yellow one, calling its attention. They made noises at each other for a small while, before the yellow one turned back to the creature and made more noises. The creature couldn't understand any of this, but it seemed like they were discussing what would happen next. The creature yelped as it was levitated by a glowing purple mist, the yellow one made encouraging sounds and the creature realised that it was just the purple one's magic. It made sense that its magic was also purple. The purple one levitated the creature with care and draped it over the yellow one's back, being careful of its wings. The creature wasn't light, but the yellow one seemed to be fine with the weight. Soon all three of them were outside and the yellow one was walking with the creature in tow. It was night time, and no other colourful things were present. The purple one departed part ways through their journey and the creature was left alone with the yellow one, making their way along a dirt path. The creature wanted to walk, as it didn't want to be a hindrance to the yellow one, but the aching made it think that it was too weak to do so. At least the emptiness in its stomach and the emptiness in its chest were soothed. After a time, the two found themselves at the strange tree with boxes all over it, where the creature had first seen the yellow one! But it was bad that time and the creature didn't really want to think about it all that much. The yellow one brought the creature inside the building, and the various animals oozed fear once again, but the steady trail of nice feeling from the yellow one was enough to make the creature happy. They ascended to an upper floor of the building that the creature didn't know existed. It was much more quiet up here without the animals. The creature wasn't sure why the yellow one had animals in its building, but it didn't think too hard about it. The yellow one set the creature down on a big thing that was really really soft. Softer than anything the creature had felt before. It was amazing! The yellow one pulled some soft white things over the creature and everything felt really good! The creature could scarcely believe it had gone from misery to elation in such a short timespan. The yellow one made some nice noises at the creature and the creature chirped in agreement. they stayed like that, the yellow one making small checks of the creature's injuries and making nice noises. But then the yellow one started to leave the room! The creature cried out in protest, causing the yellow one to stop. The creature pleaded with its eyes for the yellow one to stay. It wanted the yellow one's company more than anything else in the world right now. Luckily for the creature, the yellow one stayed! It sat itself down next to the big soft thing and looked at the creature, a nice look on its face. Everything about yellow is nice Suddenly there were noises coming out of the yellow one, but not the normal nice noises. These noises were even nicer. They were melodic and soothing, causing the creature to relax further into the big soft thing. The creature simply lay on the soft thing and listened to the yellow one's sounds. It listened to those sounds for what seemed like hours. Soon enough the creature felt itself slipping into sleep, lulled by the yellow one's melodies. A far better sleep than any it had experienced before. Chapter 4: Mending The creature spent many cycles of the sun inside the yellow one's tree building. The yellow one kept it from doing much other than lie in the big soft thing, but that was OK. It was probably to help the creature's injuries heal faster, as it had been feeling much better as time went on. Soon enough the creature was following the yellow one around, curious as to what it did while outside the room with the big soft thing. The yellow one protested at first, motioning toward the big soft thing, but the creature could move around very well now. So with persistence the yellow one allowed the creature to follow. The downward slope with lots of platforms was a bit scary at first, but the creature managed to get the hang of moving up and down them eventually. The yellow one did all kinds of things around the tree building. It tended to the creatures wounds, it looked at strange blocks that opened up in the middle and had lots of black marks on them, it gave food to all the animals (which were warming up to the creature slowly but surely), it even went outside the building every now and again, but the creature wasn't allowed to follow it out there, no matter how many times it tried to follow. Sometimes the yellow one went outside for long periods of time, which made the creature really anxious and frightened. There wasn't much to do during those times, and the creature couldn't help but worry for the yellow one. what if something happened to it outside? The creature shuddered at the thought. The yellow one's demise was likely the creature's demise, and it could do nothing about that. But sure enough, every time the yellow one left the tree, it returned some time after. The creature was very happy when the yellow one came back and was sure to make it known. The purple one and the colourful one often came by to visit the yellow one and the creature, among various others. They always talked a lot, and the creature didn't really know what was being said. It liked having new things to listen to anyway. They never came by together, and the purple one seemed to come for the sole purpose of examining the creature. It would look over its body, cast spells on it and make little black lines on the weird square things that opened up in the middle. The colourful one seemed to visit only to protect the yellow one. The creature could feel the bonds that tied those two together, like the strongest stone wall imaginable. Impenetrable without a large and very powerful thing, or a small thing with a lot of time. Perhaps they were companions? The colourful one was still distrustful toward the creature, but it was becoming less so each time it visited. One day the yellow one got the creature to try eating some slightly yellow stuff, that the creature had seen it eat many times before. The creature was excited to try the same things that the yellow one ate, but was disappointed to find that the yellow stuff was dry, thin and tasted very bad. How could the yellow one eat this stuff? The creature even threw up a small while after, much to the yellow one's distress. The creature wasn't asked to eat anything other than the delicious pink stuff it usually ate from then onwards, which the creature was very happy for. Perhaps the yellow stuff was only for the yellow one. It ate many other things but maybe the yellow stuff was more beneficial to the yellow one. It made enough sense. But why would the beneficial thing for the creature be pink? the creature's body was not pink. That was likely part of why the colourful ones were so distrustful of the creature. It knew it was different but had yet to figure out the extent of that difference. The creature's thoughts swam at the possibilities of this, the purple one would likely eat those small round things on the bushes the creature saw in passing and the colourful one would eat all kinds of things! There were so many different colours that the creature had to stop and think of other things. Its head was starting to hurt. The colourful ones were very protective of their own kind. The creature could tell just by feeling. It knew that it was different, plain as day, but it was obviously similar enough to bring out some nice feelings. The yellow one was just so amazing, if not for its actions the creature would have perished without any doubt. The creature could still scarcely believe how fortunate it was with its current situation. There were no predators to worry about. There was no more hurting and fear. The steady stream of nice feeling from the yellow one kept the creature from feeling sad or lonely, and there was a clear view of the sun at the start and the end of the day out some of the various holes in the building. The creature may have been given many other comforts, but it never forgot the sun, with its glowing warmth and its yellow light. Yellow. When night fell and the sun was out of the sky, gone to some place the creature could only dream of, it could sometimes see another presence in the sky from its resting place. It was just as big as the sun, if not bigger, and it was pure white. It cast a much less intense glow than the sun did, and was always a different shape whenever the creature spotted it. Sometimes it was round like the sun, and sometimes it was only half that size. It was quite mysterious to the creature, and it wondered if the sun and this 'night sun' were related in some way. It would have to try and find out from the yellow one. The creature was sitting on the floor watching the animals go about their business. They still mostly kept their distance from the creature but it didn't really mind. The little white one with the long things on its head was a bit more brave around the creature, and seemed largely protective of the yellow one. The creature didn't know what to think of the little white one so it did its best to ignore it. The yellow one had finally taken the white wrappings off the creature's body after so long, and it was enjoying the freedom of movement it now had in its wings. It hadn't tried to fly with them yet as it had before crashing in the huge group of colourful things, but it was getting a little closer to that point every day. It was actually a little scared to try. The creature was startled from its thoughts as it heard the front door click, signalling that someone was coming in. the creature knew that the only one who came in when the yellow one wasn't home was the yellow one! The creature got up as quickly as it could and rushed toward the door, excited that the yellow one was back. The yellow one was pleased to see the creature, making that one noise it always did when it saw the creature, or wanted the creature's attention. The creature liked that noise. The yellow one didn't use it with any of the others and that made the creature feel special. The creature couldn't help but feel like that one noise had some sort of meaning. It had vague memories of creatures using different sounds to tell each other things, and the noises all the colourful ones made sounded very organised. Perhaps it was some kind of communication? Perhaps that noise was a greeting! The creature tested the waters with small noises, trying to replicate that noise that seemed to hold so much importance. The yellow one was confused for a moment before getting really excited. The positive feeling radiating from it was elating to the creature, urging it onward. It was a bit hard to practice sounds with so much excitement! With coaxing from the yellow one and plenty of experimentation, the creature eventually made a sound that was as similar as it could get to that sound that was used so much by the yellow one. "Rose." Chapter 5: Prosperity Rose stared intently at the small patch of flowers around the back of the cottage, captivated by their colour. She turned to look at Fluttershy, who couldn't hide her smile. So this was where she made the flowers! Who could have known that it was just outside? Fluttershy probably would have known, but Rose never thought to ask. It was too bad that Rose couldn't eat the flowers like Fluttershy and the other ponies did. The pink stuff was nice, but it was all she ever ate and was starting to bore her. Learning new words, however, was not boring at all. "Fluttershy, this?" Rose asked, pointing at a flower that was rounded at the bottom. "That's a tulip, Rose." Fluttershy replied. "Too... tulip... this?" "Pansy." "This?" Fluttershy giggled, which was a nice sound. "Slow down, Rose. We've got plenty of time." Rose nodded, yes. She had the tendency to get fast. Fast enough that others couldn't keep up. Learning to speak was fascinating to her, even though she had some trouble with certain sounds. She surveyed the flower patch in silence, before pointing out a flower that she really liked. "And... this?" "That's a rose." Rose stopped, confused by Fluttershy's answer. Rose? but Rose was Rose! This flower could not be Rose! Fluttershy, who must have noticed her confusion, laughed again. "It's the flower you're named after! Lots of ponies are named after things, like Applejack being named after apples. Do you understand?" Fluttershy asked. Rose thought about it for a moment, before nodding. That did seem to make sense. One thing that didn't make sense, though, was that she didn't look like a rose at all. her wings were blue, as was the smooth casing that held them. She really wished she was red, like the pretty roses. That would make her really happy. For now, she was happy to ask Fluttershy about all the other flowers. Since being let outside every now and again, Rose had taken every opportunity she could to see the sights. You could only see so much from the other side of a window. At least she now knew the word to describe the sun, and the moon as well! Fluttershy and Princess Twilight were very good teachers, and Rose was going to learn as much as she could. There weren't many ways to pass time while Fluttershy was out doing things. Rose didn't want to go outside and explore alone, and none of the animals were very interesting to talk to. You can't learn new things from a little bird, as pretty as its voice may be. The birds just didn't have the thinking power that ponies had. Rose instead chose to read. She could read all the books Princess Twilight had left for her at the cottage very easily, which were very basic books on different simple words like 'cat' and 'dog'. She would need to ask the princess for more, because the only more complicated books in Fluttershy's home were about caring for animals, and Rose wasn't very interested in that. She was reading a book on the different tribes of ponies. There were the earth ponies, the pegasi, the unicorns, and the alicorn princesses, who were a mixture of the other three. There were apparently only 4 alicorns currently living in Equestria right now, Princess Twilight being one of them. What kept bringing Rose back to this particular book, was the lack of whatever type of pony she was. Rose knew she didn't fit the description of any of these tribes, so what kind of pony was she? She had asked Fluttershy, who didn't really answer, choosing instead to change the subject. Rose had a horn, she knew that, but it was smooth and pointed, unlike the other ponies. Her wings weren't feathery, like a bird, but were more similar to an insect's wings. She would have to ask Princess Twilight, next time she came to visit. Princess Twilight knew the answer to every question Rose ever had, so this shouldn't be different. Rose thought back to the flower bed outside. She was still very disappointed that her wings weren't colored Red, like the flower she was named after. So disappointing that she felt she had to do something about it, though she did not know what. What could she do about it? A feeling in the back of her mind told her she could do something about it, so she tried to focus a bit on that feeling. Suddenly she felt a small tingling all over her body. Even her eyes felt weird. After a second it passed, leaving her confused. It was not something she had felt before, but it felt completely natural. Not something she should be worried about. The sound of the door signaled Fluttershy's return home, which Rose was very happy for. "Fluttershy!" Rose exclaimed. Fluttershy returning home from outings was always the best part of any day. "Hello Rose- Oh?" Fluttershy looked at Rose weirdly once she caught sight of her. She radiated confusion. Rose was a bit taken aback. Fluttershy had never reacted to her in such a way. Did she do something wrong? Her ears splayed and she shied back a bit, worried that she'd done something terribly bad that would make Fluttershy mad. Fluttershy saw this and immediately set out to reassure Rose. "No it's OK Rose, you didn't do anything bad! I was just surprised by your colour change!" Colour... change? What colour change? Rose looked back at her body, and froze when she noticed something different. Her wing casings were now a bright red! She stared in shock at her back, processing this information. How did this happen? Rose was confused, but also very happy. She had red now! Just like the roses outside! She gave a happy chirp and fluttered in the air for a moment, noting the red tinted hue of her wings. "Fluttershy! Red!" Rose exclaimed, Looking at Fluttershy excitedly. Fluttershy smiled at her, "Yes Rose, It looks very nice on you! But how did you do it?" "Don't know!" Rose replied. She was still too excited to think about how her colour changed in the first place. Fluttershy had a hard time getting Rose to sleep that night. Author's Note Sorry for the overly long hiatus. I'll hopefully be able to put more time into writing in the coming months.
Chapter 1: Isolation Cold. Silence. Always silence. Call out... ...No response. Never response. Can’t hear Queen. Noises... Gone now. Call out... ...No response. Hungry. What is target? What is goal? Silence, nothing, wait, rest... Awaken. Still silence... Always silence. Won’t call out, never response. Should go out. No... No goal can’t. Wait... Nothing... Wait for goal no more hungry... But nothing... Wings, fly with Queen, move with Queen. But no Queen... No queen long time. Should go out look for Queen. No. Must wait... Rest... Wait for Queen. Rest... Awaken. Silence as always. Listen for sounds. No response. No Queen, can’t hear Queen... ...Miss Queen. Queen guidance... Will wait for Queen. Must wait, must rest... Still hungry... Rest... Morning dawned across the edge of the Everfree Forest. A stark, quiet contrast from the raging storm of the previous night. The forest wildlife began to stir and wake, emerging from their dens to survey the damage left in the storm’s wake. The sun had finally crested the horizon, though its light didn't reach far beyond the thick wall of foliage which marked the forest boundary. A large, gnarled oak had fallen amid the storm. An ageless behemoth whose end would come as no surprise to the locals. The sun spread much needed light onto small plants and fresh seeds spread by the wind. Among these mundanities, however, was a more intriguing object, bathed in the sun’s warmth for the first time in its brief existence. Adhered to the bark of an aged tree was a white cocoon. Far too large to be the pod of an insect, and even giant spiders, known to reside in many parts of Equestria, were unheard of so close to the boundaries of the Everfree Forest. As sunlight struck the semi-translucent pod, a shape stirred within, unfamiliar with the sensation of the sun’s rays. The creature opened its eyes, but quickly shuttered them, shielding its sensitive eyes against the light which stung and made its head ache. After a long pause, the creature opened its eyes again to regard a yellow glow surrounding it that had never been there before. All there had been before was black. It lay still for a long while, considering its situation and what it should do. It had been lying within its protective cocoon for months now, it couldn't even remember why it was waiting in the first place. It seemed pointless to lie there any longer. Whatever the creature was waiting for wasn't coming soon enough. The creature experimented with movement. It was an odd feeling. The creature wriggled around a bit, gaining a feel for the sensory command it had over its limbs. there were four things dangling from its underside, and it found them strong and easy to control. They were a part of it after all. The creature took its time to get a feel for movement. An act that felt strange, but ultimately natural. After working on its motor skills, the creature raised a limb up to prod at the squishy interior of the cocoon. The material felt like it would break with enough force, so it started to put pressure against the surface. The cocoon was very elastic, and the creature began to doubt if it could actually get out on its own. With all its might, it pushed forward, stretching the pod outward. Its body ached with the effort, and it pulled its limbs back, unable to continue for more than a few seconds. After a short rest it tried again, this time with all four limbs, and then again... And again... The material was too elastic to break with force alone and the creature had tried for a very long now. Considering there was nothing else to do, the creature chose to simply lay there, thinking. Not thinking about much. Thought was a new concept to the creature and it didn't at all know what to think about. It couldn't understand why it was thinking all these things, why it was thinking in the first place. Trying to remember before being in the cocoon only brought blurred colours and confusing images, not really images, more... thoughts, but not quite. They didn't seem like its own thoughts, which was a hard feeling to describe. It couldn't pinpoint why they felt wrong, they just did. The creature shook its head. This wasn't the time to worry about those things. It had to escape this place, even if it had no idea how. It tried moving its head to observe its surroundings. It couldn't see much, just the golden glow of the outside world, still dimmed by the viscous liquid It was submerged in. Its attention was brought to the shadow residing just above Its eyes, on the top of it's head. It reached a limb up to touch the strange object, coming to rest on a solid smooth appendage. It was definitely attached to the creatures body, and appeared to come to a sharp tip at the end. It almost immediately realized what it needed to do, this thing was obviously designed to get It out of this place, it made too much sense. How could it have not noticed sooner? It scolded itself lightly. The creature lifted Its head up to the wall of Its confines and prodded it with the appendage in experimentation. The elastic material gave, but did not puncture. The creature pulled Its head back, thinking. Now, having gotten this far, it could consider what it was about to do. It had never seen what was outside, It had no idea what to expect. It was entirely possible that the perils awaiting in the outside world would render it dead in a very short time. It was scared. Scared of what might await it in the outside world. It was an emotion the creature had never experienced before. Its whole body shook, curling up a small amount, trying to protect itself from dangers that weren't really there. After a time, the creature calmed down enough to collect its thoughts. If it didn't escape this place, it would likely die anyway. It was better to take a chance with whatever was outside than wait for nothing to happen. The creature cautiously uncurled its limbs from its body, paying careful attention to the sharp appendage protruding from its head. It took a moment to figure out how it needed to move its body to cut through the surface in front of it. It was now only a matter of doing it. Bracing itself, the creature shifted its position downwards, jabbing the thing on its head into the wall in front of it. After staying like that for a moment, it pulled its head up as quickly as it could manage, making a vertical slice in the material. The weight surrounding the creature shifted immediately and the creature went into a dead plummet. It fell only a short distance before landing painfully on the ground with a thud, accompanied by a torrent of strange green fluid that followed out of the cocoon. The world was a confusing mess of sound and feeling, the creatures skin burned and all of its joints ached, more so the side of its body, where it had fallen. It lay on the ground, shaking, unable to fully register the feelings assaulting its mind. Everything hurt, its ears were ringing, everything was so loud, its skin burned, it shielded itself with limbs, trying to stop whatever it was causing it so much pain, but it didn't stop. The deep discomfort in its chest was increasingly predominant, it just wanted everything to stop. It wished it had never cut its way through its gooey haven. Everything was so confusing and painful and loud. The discomfort in its chest had turned to pain, it needed to do something about it but it didn't know what. It was too frantic to think properly. some sort of animal was making a shrill noise not far above it, it kept making the noise, hurting the creatures ears. It silently begged for whatever it was to stop, for everything to just stop. I'm going to die, the creature thought.. It was the only thing going through its mind, and it had no idea how to stop it. The pain was nearly unbearable. It recognized its own existence, and realized the fact that if nothing was done, it would cease to exist. And it was facing this fact for the first time. It didn't want to die, but it was going to. It didn't even know what dying meant, all it knew is that it desperately didn't want to. The creatures instincts took over, its mind a blurred mess of panicked messages and jumbled emotions, incapable of rational thought. It let out a small, gargled noise of distress, opening its mouth a small amount. Its chest heaved automatically, requiring no thought, and it drew a sharp breath. The pain in its chest subsided slightly, and it repeated the breath over and over, panting and whining softly. Eventually the creatures frenzied breathing slowed to a slightly more rhythmic pace. Its lungs filled with the crisp morning air, and the coldness stabbed at its chest. The unpleasant sensation of the cold was overruled by the need to stop the ache in its chest. It lay like that for a long time, just breathing. Breathing was good, breathing helped clear its head. After a time it didn't need to put any thought into each breath, it was something its body did automatically. Alive, it thought to itself, I am alive. It felt odd referring to itself like that, it seemed to have become aware of the fact that it was a living, breathing thing. It existed. And it was going to live. The dull ache was still there, but the panic had subsided. Its ears had adjusted slightly to the onslaught of sound, but it was still disorienting. It almost didn't dare to open its eyes for fear of the thing hurting it. Despite this, it cautiously opened an eyelid, squinting at the brightness of its surroundings. It did the same with its other eye, letting its eyes adjust to the light of the sun. As the brightness faded, the world came into clearer view. The creature lay on its side at the base of a tree, a pool of viscous green fluid surrounding it with more clinging to its black carapace. Just above hung the sagging remains of a white cocoon, green ooze dribbling slowly from the ragged hole in the bottom. The creature was lying on a rough green surface. Soft, but not exactly comfortable. Peering around it could see lots of trees, not unlike the one in which its former housing was strung. It seemed to know what a tree was, despite having never seen one before. Its surroundings, while slightly confusing and unfamiliar, didn't seem out of place. It was a normal forest, or at least what its mind told it was a normal forest. Warm light shone through the canopy of trees above the creature, illuminating the area around it. And a quick glance up at the source was enough to teach the creature a small, but nonetheless important, lesson. After being still for a period, not doing anything besides breathing slowly and letting out the occasional noise of distress, the creature decided it was time to move, it wasn't going to accomplish anything lying down doing nothing. The main problem was that the creature had no idea how to move itself. Sure it could move its limbs, but it didn't know how to actually go anywhere. After moment of preparation, the creature tried to roll onto its stomach, twisting its torso and steadying itself with its front two limbs. It wasn't too difficult, the muscles seemed to know what to do on their own. Once its position was settled, the pain in the creatures side flared up again. It craned its neck back to look at the source, finding its black exoskeleton cracked, thick green blood oozing from the wound. It cringed at the sight, seeing that it had landed on a jagged rock protruding from the the ground, itself covered in the bright green blood. The sight deeply unsettled the creature, but it managed to keep its emotions at bay. The creature took a moment to look over its black torso, the sun illuminating the layered chitin. Its whole body was covered in the stuff, it shook a limb in front of its eyes for a moment. It had a flat base, and looked as if it could support some weight. "Probably what they're for," the creature thought to itself wordlessly, placing the limb back down onto the grass. It started to survey its surroundings for potential threats and found none. It did notice a few more animals that hadn't been there before. They appeared harmless enough, much smaller than the creature itself. Summoning what strength it had, the creature pushed itself up on shaky limbs, starting only with the front two. It was only able to lift itself a small ways off the ground before its strength gave out, sending the creature back to the earth with a small ‘thud’ of impact which sent a jab of renewed pain through its body, emanating from the wound in its side. It whimpered, its legs shivering. It felt utterly hopeless and very weak. It wished something... Someone, would come help it, come take all the pain and confusion away. Someone to care for it. After a few more failed attempts, the creature hung its head low, its injured side now a throbbing ache. It considered giving up. Lying there forever. There was a definite emptiness in its shivering body. It didn't know why, or what it needed to fill that void. It silently lay its head to rest on the soft grass beneath it, staring into the darkness that was the Everfree Forest. The creatures vision began to blur, but it didn't really care. A choked sob escaped its lips. The noises of despair echoed, unheard, through the silence of the forest. Rest...
Chapter 2: Disarray Night had come and passed, the forest once again sparking to life in a storm of colour. A fragile form lay at the base of an old oak tree, dry green muck clinging to its dark hide. It lifted its head up to look around, attempting to blink the daze from its eyes. a musky stench filled the air, originating from the green substance that was crusted to the grass. Lethargic and slightly queasy, the creature at the base of the tree slowly lifted itself to stand on all four of its legs, wincing as the familiar stabbing pain in its side from the day before returned. It used its new height to observe its surroundings a little better. Once it had assured that it was in no immediate danger, its body loosened up a bit. It was only then, that the creature realized it was actually standing. the calm feeling from moments before evaporated in an instant and it stumbled forward, trying frantically to use its front legs to balance itself. This didn't accomplish much as its limbs buckled under the weight of its body. one of its back legs twisted the wrong way as it fell. A fresh wave of nausea and pain swept over the creature. Its stomach convulsed, and expelled a small amount of pungent yellow bile. Nothing was broken, but it still hurt a lot. The creature whimpered, fresh tears forming in its eyes. Carefully shifting its weight off its injured leg, the creature lay back down onto its side. It was beyond caring about the acrid smell that filled the air around it. Its leg didn't look damaged on the outside, but the pain that radiated from inside was huge. Deciding that being stationary was the best course of action, the creature clenched its eyes shut, trying to block out the pain by focusing on other things. There wasn't much else to focus on, and the creature curled its limbs against itself, hoping that it could shield its body from whatever was hurting. It stayed like that for a while, silent and unmoving. Taking time to calm itself down, It mulled over its options, it now knew it could stand, and potentially move away from this place. The pain in its leg strongly suggested it stay put, but it didn't know how long it would be before the leg stopped hurting, the emptiness in its chest wasn't going anywhere without action. It decided that it had to get moving as soon as it could. The longer it waited, the closer it would get to starvation. After a small time, the creature shifted, pushing its front legs onto the ground to give itself leverage. It chose to not think about the individual movements of each of its limbs, it just willed itself to stand. Its leg screamed at it to stop but it gritted its fangs and continued, eventually standing in the small clearing on shaking legs. It was a small victory, but it was still something. Without thinking too hard, the creature willed itself forward, its legs making the motions on their own. It was awkward and painful, but the creature managed to build up some semblance of rhythm, limping harshly on its injured leg. The creature moved in the only direction that made sense, toward the bright glowing ball in the sky. It couldn't help but view the sun as a guardian, the only comfortable thing in its brief existence. A warm yellow protector. It didn't doubt that following it would lead to something worthwhile. The ache in its chest was much stronger now, and it knew that if it didn't do something about it soon, something bad would happen. Taking step by careful step, the creature followed the sun, using its soothing warmth to guide it through the thick foliage. The injury in its side ached, and its back leg still hurt terribly. The canopy was extremely dense, only allowing a scarce amount of light through, but it was enough. As it walked, the creature glanced around warily, making sure that nothing was sneaking up on it to take advantage of it's wounded state. It had trouble with exposed roots and vines, often stumbling as its legs caught on the gnarled obstacles. The creature continued on its makeshift path, falling over more than its fair share of times. Its surroundings were getting brighter by the minute, the trees much more sparse than they had been not long before. It could see the sun much more clearly now, the thinner canopy allowing the warm rays of the sun to strike its black carapace. The sun gave the creature a sense of comfort, helping it through this strange and frightening world, a guardian that would watch over it and make sure nothing would cause it any harm. The creature's leg was becoming too painful to walk on, so it stopped, lying down beside a tree to rest. It was careful not to aggravate its injuries any more than it had to, which it was only semi successful in accomplishing. A small animal flew just over its head, chirping loudly and causing the creature to flinch. Its ears were still sensitive and even small sounds felt loud and incomprehensible. Another sound caught the creature's attention. It seemed to come from somewhere ahead, past the trees and into the light. It was faint but audible enough for the creature to pick up. The sound was unlike anything it had heard while traversing the forest. The creature carefully got up onto its legs and started moving toward the source of the sound, the two appendages on its back vibrating nervously against its own volition. As It came closer to the strange noises, its anticipation grew. They didn't sound like something to be afraid of, they seemed soothing and almost melodic. Noticing a clearing up ahead, the creature stopped behind a thick oak, keeping itself pressed against it. Cautiously shifting its shaky form, the creature peered around the tree, trying to get a view of whatever was making the sounds. The clearing was huge, larger than anything it had ever seen before. There were fields of grass with no trees at all, and giant mountains far in the distance. The sun was much more visible now, casting its warm glow on the landscape in front of the creature. Off to the left, it could make out dozens of strange shapes in the distance. Its eyesight wasn't good enough to make out any details. A river run quietly, not far in front of where the creature was hiding. the gentle sound of the water made it notice the dryness in its throat. It felt drawn to the river, the appendages on its back buzzing excitedly. Forgetting about the sounds from earlier, and the dangers that could come with moving out into the open, the creature moved toward the water as fast as It could manage. When it reached the water, the creature didn't really need to think about what to do. It arched its neck down and started to drink, cool relief flooding through its body. It only paused to take breaths and quickly check its surroundings for any possible danger, drinking until it was completely sated. Feeling much better now that it had drank, the creature brought its head back up to look around. The thirst was gone, but It couldn't ignore the emptiness In its chest. It still had no idea how to satisfy that feeling. Off to its right, was what looked like a large tree. It wasn't taller than any of the other trees the creature had seen, but it was definitely wider. The strange tree had all sorts of things littering its trunk. Tiny coloured boxes hung from the branches of the tree, and circular holes riddled the sides, giving view of more strange objects inside the tree. Realization struck the creature, this was no tree. It was a building, and something probably lived inside this building. It also knew that potential sustenance lay within the building. It didn't know how it knew these things, it just did. It immediately started to make its way toward the building, the prospect of food making it almost forget the pain in its leg entirely. The sounds that initially drew it to this place were becoming more distinguishable. They were coming from inside the building! It was close now, only a small hill stood between the creature and the building. After struggling up the incline, the creature stood next to the building, staring at the alien construct in awe. It definitely looked like a tree, albeit very wide and not quite as tall. Just in front of it, the creature could see a large piece of wood with a gap on the left side. It could see the contents of the building through that gap, and the wonderful sounds were flowing through from somewhere further inside. It could feel it in the air now. Food. This is what would fill the void in its chest. All caution neglected, the creature reached a limb out and pulled the wood aside. It swung out with a soft creak, staying upright the entire time. This would have amazed the creature if it wasn't so eager to reach the source of the sound, and the food. walking a bit more quietly, the creature made its way through the building, avoiding a multitude of strange objects on its way to the source of the sound. It could see and hear many small animals occupying various places in the building, most of which didn't seem very happy with the creatures presence. It ignored the trickle of fear and distrust coming from the animals, continuing toward its goal. The creature froze. Not far in front of it was a large animal it had never seen before. The animal was bigger than the creature, but not intimidatingly so. Its body was a light yellow with pink sections on its head and behind. As confused as the creature was, it was drawn toward this new animal. It radiated security, and the creature wanted nothing more than to be closer to it. It seemed to be doing something with various vegetables and a big silver object with an opening at the top. From the smell, the creature could tell that this was food. The animal was preparing food! The creature also noticed that the sounds that had drawn it to this place were coming from the animal. They were very soothing and pleasant, making the creature almost forget about its pain and confusion. This animal would give it both types of food, this animal would take away the hurting. Taking a tentative step forward, the creature made its way toward the animal slowly, making sure to stay quiet as to not alert the animal. The creature stopped, it didn't actually know why it was trying to stay unnoticed. Nothing about this animal signalled danger. There wasn't any reason to hide besides the niggling feeling in the back of its head. After a moment's hesitation, with its doubt increasing steadily, the creature chirped with its mouth and wings in tandem to announce its presence. The yellow creature elicited a sound of surprise and dropped the metal object it was holding with a loud clatter, making the creature reel back. It was the loudest noise it had ever heard and its ears were left ringing. The pleasant sounds from before had ceased, leaving an unsettling silence between the two. The yellow one stood, staring at the slightly smaller creature without making a sound. The pleasant glow of calm was fading from the air, being quickly replaced by the familiar fear it had felt in the animals earlier. This fear was much stronger, and it grated at the creatures already starved body. The fear only continued to grow, and the creature knew it needed to escape. Without thinking any further, it whirled around and ran as fast as it could through the building toward the exit, bumping into various objects that the creature wasn't paying attention to. It ignored the pain in its leg, as it paled in comparison to the negative emotion radiating from behind it. The creature rushed out the door, its wings folding out of their covers and buzzing to life, seemingly on their own, carrying it into the air. It couldn't fly very fast, but it was much faster than it would otherwise move on the ground. It moved in the direction of the sun. The warm yellow object in the sky was the only thing that felt safe right now. It was life giving, and had always been there. It would always be there. Flying came naturally to the creature, its wings carrying it steadily across the landscape with a gentle thrum and its course determined by some unseen force in the back of the creature's mind. It began to see more buildings below, all of them in various shapes, sizes and colours. It could only assume they held similar experiences to the tree building. It didn't pay attention to how far it had gone, it only wanted to follow the sun. It was getting more clear by the moment that something was wrong. The sun wasn't getting any closer! No matter how hard its wings sculled, the beautiful yellow sun stayed in the same position. It in fact seemed to move away from the creature, retreating toward the mountains beyond as if eluding the creature. Why would it do such a thing? Its lack of flight experience started to catch up to it, its wings straining to keep it airborne. It was flying over many buildings now, they were everywhere. No direction the creature could go would take it away from the buildings. If these buildings were anything like the one before, it didn't want to be anywhere near them. It cried out in dismay as its wings slowly faltered, lowering it closer to the ground with each passing moment. The creature could feel it now. It ignored it before but as it got closer it was suddenly too large to put in the back of its mind. Fear. Anger. A vast sea of negative emotion radiating from below. A quick glance down confirmed that there were many creatures like the tree living one, all of varying colours and shapes. Some were even yellow which was bad. Yellow wasn't supposed to be bad. The creature whined in fear, the rising aura of panic from below hastening its loss of strength. It could hear them more clearly now, a chorus of loud voices, growing in volume by the second. A shrill noise pierced the air, causing the creature to cringe, its ears flattening against its head. The strain on its wings finally proved too much, and the creature started to fall. It was only a small distance off the ground by that time, but that didn't stop the fall from hurting. It impacted the ground with a thud, making its vision swim, its body screaming at it to be anywhere but there. Perhaps a body of water? Death was preferable to this amount of pain. As soon as it was able, the creature hauled itself onto its legs, its only goal being escape. Escape from all the bad. Walking was even harder than usual, the waves of hysteria and fear burning at its mind, and the myriad of shrill voices assaulting its ears. The creature was only able to limp a short distance before a deep blue shape much larger than itself impacted it from the side, knocking it to the ground with a painful crack. The creature cried out again, its eyes watering and its breathing frantic. Everything hurt and there was so much noise, so much fear and hate. It could do nothing but cry as the large shapes of the other creatures closed in on it. There was a blue glow clouding the creature's vision now, making its head feel fuzzy. It thrashed and struggled and cried against the things holding it down, each movement becoming more sluggish by the second. It was overwhelmed by the urge to just let go. To slip into a peaceful slumber. Its mind screamed that it would then be at the mercy of these evil creatures, but it didn't really care now. It was too tired. The creature let itself fade into darkness, all the hurt, confusion and howling sound evaporating in the merciful veil of sleep.
Chapter 3: Interrogation The creature awoke to find itself in a dark place. The air was musky and tinted by the bitter scent of its wounds. It tried to stand up, but found its legs bound together with some sort of metal contraption. An experimental flutter confirmed that its wings were also restricted from movement. After squirming for a while, the creature realised that trying to struggle against the bindings was futile, so it settled with observing its environment. There was a small amount of light coming from under the big square thing on the other side of the room . There were plenty of odd shapes and objects inside the room, so the creature figured it was like the one with the yellow animal in it, a house. This unsettled the creature. As far as it knew, these buildings only held bad things. There didn't seem to be any danger right now, but that had the potential to change at any moment. Without much to do, the creature simply waited in the dark room, its ears occasionally twitching at muffled sounds from beyond the walls. There was no telling what the sounds were, but it was quite obvious they were the colourful creatures that had captured it. The creature was surprised they had not killed it already. They held so much ill will for it earlier, and it couldn't think of any reason for them to spare it. Maybe they wanted to hurt it more before finishing it off. The creature cringed at the thought, its heart rate increasing. It didn't want to be hurt any more, it had endured enough hurt. It was gripped with the sudden urge to escape, no matter how impossible that seemed in its current situation. It started thrashing against the rough things holding it in place, its efforts completely futile. It started to cry out in frustration, increasing its squirming, trying its hardest to escape the confines before hearing a sharp click from the other end of the room. The creature froze No. There was the sound of shuffling behind the door, shadows dancing across the small slit of light at the bottom. There was no doubt what they were. Flee. There was another noise as the door swung open, a bright light flowing in and temporarily blinding the creature. Escape. The creature was too scared to move. It wanted to move, it wanted to be anywhere but here, but it couldn't. The colourful things were bad. the colourful things would hurt. As its eyes adjusted to the light, the creature could see three of the colourful animals come into view, much to its dismay. They came in through the door one by one, making noises with their mouths at the creature. The one in front was a striking purple, and a little taller than the other two. It was wearing a big yellow thing on top of its head with a number of purple shiny things along the top. The second was a light brown, with grey on top of its head and a green thing around its neck. The third one was bright blue, just like the sky, with a whole bunch of colours on its head. The majority of fear and distrust in the room was coming from this one. It eyed the creature and made a face that it knew was bad. The purple one made more noises as it approached, stopping just in front of the creature. The noises coming from its mouth ended in what the creature recognized as a questioning tone. Did the purple one want to know something from the creature? It had no idea what was being asked. The sounds didn't mean anything. There was a pause as the purple one waited for the creature to give an answer, the blue one fidgeted off to the side, while the brown one didn't give off anything besides an aura of caution and contemplation. The silence was very uncomfortable for the creature, and it wanted to do whatever it could to please the purple one as to reduce the chances of harm befalling it. The purple one was obviously in charge and would likely be the judge of the creature's fate. The creature could remember something. Something about a very important thing that taught everything it now knew. It couldn't quite remember anything about the thing, but it knew that it was very intimidating, and it knew how it was supposed to act in its presence. The purple one seemed to hold a familiar regal air, so the creature did the only thing it knew to do. Despite its fear, the creature managed to chirp in response, sounding apologetic, and signalling that it recognized the purple one's superiority and would comply to its demands. The bindings on its wings made the sound muffled and awkward, but the creature was sure it was discernible enough to get the message across. To the creature's surprise and dismay, the purple one did not seem satisfied with its response and made more sounds toward it with the same tone. The creature was becoming more frightened by the second. The purple one did not accept its admittance of inferiority! That only left one thing the purple one could possibly want. The creature began to thrash against its bindings in unbridled terror, making as much noise as it possibly could. It needed something to save it, it needed the sun, it needed to be as far away from the purple one as possible. The purple one didn't have anything left to do but kill it! The creature's cries were reduced to muffled whimpers as the colourful one was suddenly on top of it, slamming its hoof down and making angry noises at it. The purple one made what sounded like... pleading noises at the colourful one? The colourful one released the creature after making some more angry noises. The creature was frozen by fear, but also confusion. None of what was happening made sense. The purple one ordered the colourful one to kill it, but then told it not to? were they trying to scare information out of it? It was definitely working, but the creature didn't have any information to give. The only thing it had was a basic set of knowledge about things around it, and it was sure the purple one knew those things already. The creature could only wait, it was far too tired for anything else anyway. Panicking was hard work, and it had done a lot of panicking. The purple one made noises at the colourful one and the brown one who hadn't said anything, before turning around and moving away. The other two did the same, and the colourful one gave the creature another bad face before following the purple one out the door. That one still held the most distrust and suspicion out of the three, and surprisingly, the negative feeling had almost completely left the purple one. They were going to allow the creature to live! It's message was heard, which was strange since the purple one didn't seem to acknowledge it in any visual way and the colourful one still radiated anger and distrust. The creature was too tired to think about specifics. All it cared about was the fact that it was spared. Once the three had left, the creature was left with nothing but its thoughts, and the lingering cloud of negative emotion. It stung at the creature's already starved body, but luckily faded soon enough. The void in its chest was getting deeper by the minute, and the creature really didn't know what to do about it. It may have been spared by the purple one, but it would soon die anyway. With nothing else to do, the creature lay its head back down on the ground and closed its eyes. This floor was harder to sleep on than the forest ground, but eventually sleep came. The creature lay awake, barely noticing the occasional noises from beyond the door. It did not know how long it had been in that room, but the emptiness in its chest was beyond unbearable. The purple one had come in a few times to ask questions, but the creature still couldn't answer. Both out of exhaustion and lack of understanding. Over time the purple one's air of uneasiness around the creature diminished, making its presence less uncomfortable. Luckily the purple one still didn't seem to wish harm upon the creature, not that that mattered anyway. The creature wished it could see the sun. It felt lost without its warmth. The room was warm, but not a nice warm. The darkness of the room had started to play tricks on the creature's mind. Movements from the corners of its vision, frightening shapes and strange noises. It almost enjoyed the time the purple one spent with it, if just to break the monotony. The sound of the door swinging open made the creature's ears perk up as light flooded the room. The brightness caused it to squint, but the creature welcomed another visit. the purple one held almost no distrust any more, and its presence was... nice, to the creature. As its eyes adjusted to the light, the creature could make out what was undoubtedly the purple one, but it was not alone this time. Another shape was accompanying it, and it was strangely familiar. It was another one of the colourful animals that look like the purple one. It had a yellow body and pink on its hea-... Oh no. The creature tried its best to move away from the yellow and pink one it remembered so well. Last time its fear was the most intensely horrible feeling the creature had ever experienced, and if it were to experience it again it would surely die. Its efforts were futile as always, and the creature's panic drove it to complete exhaustion. It went slack against its bonds, breathing heavily and staring at the floor. It had given up all hope at this point, simply awaiting its inevitable end. And it had just begun to warm to the Purple one... The creature didn't even react when it felt a pressure on its withers. Turning its head feebly toward the pressure, the creature was shocked to find yellow. The yellow one was here, and one of its front limbs was resting on the creature, but there was no hurt. Why was there hurt before, but none now? Maybe the purple one had ordered it not to! What more, the yellow one's face had a nice look. What was this look? The creature just lay there, looking at the yellow one with awe. What was it about the yellow one that felt so good? It remembered the yellow one seeming nice before its presence was made, but none of this made any sense. After a small time, the yellow one lifted its limb off the creature and reached back to the big things hanging over its back. They seemed to be for storage, as the yellow one pulled something out of the side. It placed that something on the ground right in front of the creature's muzzle, taking a step back to signal that it meant no harm. That nice look was still on its face, and the creature felt reassured. Sitting on the ground was a large white circular thing, but that was not the interesting part. On top of the circular thing was a bunch of light pink bits of... something, the creature did not know. What it did know, was they smelled amazing. The creature looked back and forth from the pink things to the yellow one, sniffing them every now and again. The yellow one seemed to make an encouraging noise, motioning toward the things on the floor. The creature let its body tell it what to do, and moved forward to begin devouring the contents of the round white thing. It was too hungry to notice that its restraints had been removed. All it did now was eat, and it was the most amazing thing the creature had ever done. It felt rejuvenated and satisfied. The yellow one gave it food! The yellow one was going to save it! Well, the purple one might have had something to do with it, since it was in charge, but the creature's gratitude toward the yellow one was incredible. As it finished all the tasty pink things, it lifted its head up and looked toward the yellow one, letting out a happy chirp, sounding much more clear without the restraints on its wings. With its happiness showing on its face, It chirped a few more times to let the yellow one know just how thankful it was. The yellow one's nice face got even nicer, and the creature could feel... something coming from it. It couldn't identify what is was, but it felt nice so the creature didn't worry. The yellow one made a motion toward the creature accompanied with questioning noises. The creature was confused for a moment before it realised that the yellow one was pointing at its injuries. It didn't really know how to respond, so the creature folded its limbs under itself and lay in a more comfortable position. It hadn't been paying attention to its injuries since coming into the room, and now that attention was on them, it realised that they really did hurt. The yellow one took a tentative step forward, seemingly waiting for the creature's permission to approach it. The creature lowered its head to the ground in a display of submission. It trusted the yellow one. The yellow one was the only thing besides the sun that had been good so far. The yellow one pulled the things off of its back and placed them next to the creature. It took some time but the yellow one was able to figure out what all the creature's injuries were and treat them to the best of its abilities at the time. It hurt a lot when the yellow one dabbed the creature's wounds with a small white ball dipped in a strange liquid, but the soothing noises of the yellow one and the warm feeling flowing around the room kept the creature calm through the whole process. When they were done the creature had white stuff wrapped around many parts of its body and a straight piece of wood strapped to its leg to keep it straight. Time passed with the yellow one fussing over the creature and making sure the white stuff around its limbs was in order. The yellow one seemed to take huge interest in the creature, examining its various body parts with awed fascination. The creature knew by now that it was different from the colourful ones, but it felt that it could fit in if it had the yellow one to help. The purple one made noises at the yellow one, calling its attention. They made noises at each other for a small while, before the yellow one turned back to the creature and made more noises. The creature couldn't understand any of this, but it seemed like they were discussing what would happen next. The creature yelped as it was levitated by a glowing purple mist, the yellow one made encouraging sounds and the creature realised that it was just the purple one's magic. It made sense that its magic was also purple. The purple one levitated the creature with care and draped it over the yellow one's back, being careful of its wings. The creature wasn't light, but the yellow one seemed to be fine with the weight. Soon all three of them were outside and the yellow one was walking with the creature in tow. It was night time, and no other colourful things were present. The purple one departed part ways through their journey and the creature was left alone with the yellow one, making their way along a dirt path. The creature wanted to walk, as it didn't want to be a hindrance to the yellow one, but the aching made it think that it was too weak to do so. At least the emptiness in its stomach and the emptiness in its chest were soothed. After a time, the two found themselves at the strange tree with boxes all over it, where the creature had first seen the yellow one! But it was bad that time and the creature didn't really want to think about it all that much. The yellow one brought the creature inside the building, and the various animals oozed fear once again, but the steady trail of nice feeling from the yellow one was enough to make the creature happy. They ascended to an upper floor of the building that the creature didn't know existed. It was much more quiet up here without the animals. The creature wasn't sure why the yellow one had animals in its building, but it didn't think too hard about it. The yellow one set the creature down on a big thing that was really really soft. Softer than anything the creature had felt before. It was amazing! The yellow one pulled some soft white things over the creature and everything felt really good! The creature could scarcely believe it had gone from misery to elation in such a short timespan. The yellow one made some nice noises at the creature and the creature chirped in agreement. they stayed like that, the yellow one making small checks of the creature's injuries and making nice noises. But then the yellow one started to leave the room! The creature cried out in protest, causing the yellow one to stop. The creature pleaded with its eyes for the yellow one to stay. It wanted the yellow one's company more than anything else in the world right now. Luckily for the creature, the yellow one stayed! It sat itself down next to the big soft thing and looked at the creature, a nice look on its face. Everything about yellow is nice Suddenly there were noises coming out of the yellow one, but not the normal nice noises. These noises were even nicer. They were melodic and soothing, causing the creature to relax further into the big soft thing. The creature simply lay on the soft thing and listened to the yellow one's sounds. It listened to those sounds for what seemed like hours. Soon enough the creature felt itself slipping into sleep, lulled by the yellow one's melodies. A far better sleep than any it had experienced before.
Chapter 4: Mending The creature spent many cycles of the sun inside the yellow one's tree building. The yellow one kept it from doing much other than lie in the big soft thing, but that was OK. It was probably to help the creature's injuries heal faster, as it had been feeling much better as time went on. Soon enough the creature was following the yellow one around, curious as to what it did while outside the room with the big soft thing. The yellow one protested at first, motioning toward the big soft thing, but the creature could move around very well now. So with persistence the yellow one allowed the creature to follow. The downward slope with lots of platforms was a bit scary at first, but the creature managed to get the hang of moving up and down them eventually. The yellow one did all kinds of things around the tree building. It tended to the creatures wounds, it looked at strange blocks that opened up in the middle and had lots of black marks on them, it gave food to all the animals (which were warming up to the creature slowly but surely), it even went outside the building every now and again, but the creature wasn't allowed to follow it out there, no matter how many times it tried to follow. Sometimes the yellow one went outside for long periods of time, which made the creature really anxious and frightened. There wasn't much to do during those times, and the creature couldn't help but worry for the yellow one. what if something happened to it outside? The creature shuddered at the thought. The yellow one's demise was likely the creature's demise, and it could do nothing about that. But sure enough, every time the yellow one left the tree, it returned some time after. The creature was very happy when the yellow one came back and was sure to make it known. The purple one and the colourful one often came by to visit the yellow one and the creature, among various others. They always talked a lot, and the creature didn't really know what was being said. It liked having new things to listen to anyway. They never came by together, and the purple one seemed to come for the sole purpose of examining the creature. It would look over its body, cast spells on it and make little black lines on the weird square things that opened up in the middle. The colourful one seemed to visit only to protect the yellow one. The creature could feel the bonds that tied those two together, like the strongest stone wall imaginable. Impenetrable without a large and very powerful thing, or a small thing with a lot of time. Perhaps they were companions? The colourful one was still distrustful toward the creature, but it was becoming less so each time it visited. One day the yellow one got the creature to try eating some slightly yellow stuff, that the creature had seen it eat many times before. The creature was excited to try the same things that the yellow one ate, but was disappointed to find that the yellow stuff was dry, thin and tasted very bad. How could the yellow one eat this stuff? The creature even threw up a small while after, much to the yellow one's distress. The creature wasn't asked to eat anything other than the delicious pink stuff it usually ate from then onwards, which the creature was very happy for. Perhaps the yellow stuff was only for the yellow one. It ate many other things but maybe the yellow stuff was more beneficial to the yellow one. It made enough sense. But why would the beneficial thing for the creature be pink? the creature's body was not pink. That was likely part of why the colourful ones were so distrustful of the creature. It knew it was different but had yet to figure out the extent of that difference. The creature's thoughts swam at the possibilities of this, the purple one would likely eat those small round things on the bushes the creature saw in passing and the colourful one would eat all kinds of things! There were so many different colours that the creature had to stop and think of other things. Its head was starting to hurt. The colourful ones were very protective of their own kind. The creature could tell just by feeling. It knew that it was different, plain as day, but it was obviously similar enough to bring out some nice feelings. The yellow one was just so amazing, if not for its actions the creature would have perished without any doubt. The creature could still scarcely believe how fortunate it was with its current situation. There were no predators to worry about. There was no more hurting and fear. The steady stream of nice feeling from the yellow one kept the creature from feeling sad or lonely, and there was a clear view of the sun at the start and the end of the day out some of the various holes in the building. The creature may have been given many other comforts, but it never forgot the sun, with its glowing warmth and its yellow light. Yellow. When night fell and the sun was out of the sky, gone to some place the creature could only dream of, it could sometimes see another presence in the sky from its resting place. It was just as big as the sun, if not bigger, and it was pure white. It cast a much less intense glow than the sun did, and was always a different shape whenever the creature spotted it. Sometimes it was round like the sun, and sometimes it was only half that size. It was quite mysterious to the creature, and it wondered if the sun and this 'night sun' were related in some way. It would have to try and find out from the yellow one. The creature was sitting on the floor watching the animals go about their business. They still mostly kept their distance from the creature but it didn't really mind. The little white one with the long things on its head was a bit more brave around the creature, and seemed largely protective of the yellow one. The creature didn't know what to think of the little white one so it did its best to ignore it. The yellow one had finally taken the white wrappings off the creature's body after so long, and it was enjoying the freedom of movement it now had in its wings. It hadn't tried to fly with them yet as it had before crashing in the huge group of colourful things, but it was getting a little closer to that point every day. It was actually a little scared to try. The creature was startled from its thoughts as it heard the front door click, signalling that someone was coming in. the creature knew that the only one who came in when the yellow one wasn't home was the yellow one! The creature got up as quickly as it could and rushed toward the door, excited that the yellow one was back. The yellow one was pleased to see the creature, making that one noise it always did when it saw the creature, or wanted the creature's attention. The creature liked that noise. The yellow one didn't use it with any of the others and that made the creature feel special. The creature couldn't help but feel like that one noise had some sort of meaning. It had vague memories of creatures using different sounds to tell each other things, and the noises all the colourful ones made sounded very organised. Perhaps it was some kind of communication? Perhaps that noise was a greeting! The creature tested the waters with small noises, trying to replicate that noise that seemed to hold so much importance. The yellow one was confused for a moment before getting really excited. The positive feeling radiating from it was elating to the creature, urging it onward. It was a bit hard to practice sounds with so much excitement! With coaxing from the yellow one and plenty of experimentation, the creature eventually made a sound that was as similar as it could get to that sound that was used so much by the yellow one. "Rose."
Chapter 5: Prosperity Rose stared intently at the small patch of flowers around the back of the cottage, captivated by their colour. She turned to look at Fluttershy, who couldn't hide her smile. So this was where she made the flowers! Who could have known that it was just outside? Fluttershy probably would have known, but Rose never thought to ask. It was too bad that Rose couldn't eat the flowers like Fluttershy and the other ponies did. The pink stuff was nice, but it was all she ever ate and was starting to bore her. Learning new words, however, was not boring at all. "Fluttershy, this?" Rose asked, pointing at a flower that was rounded at the bottom. "That's a tulip, Rose." Fluttershy replied. "Too... tulip... this?" "Pansy." "This?" Fluttershy giggled, which was a nice sound. "Slow down, Rose. We've got plenty of time." Rose nodded, yes. She had the tendency to get fast. Fast enough that others couldn't keep up. Learning to speak was fascinating to her, even though she had some trouble with certain sounds. She surveyed the flower patch in silence, before pointing out a flower that she really liked. "And... this?" "That's a rose." Rose stopped, confused by Fluttershy's answer. Rose? but Rose was Rose! This flower could not be Rose! Fluttershy, who must have noticed her confusion, laughed again. "It's the flower you're named after! Lots of ponies are named after things, like Applejack being named after apples. Do you understand?" Fluttershy asked. Rose thought about it for a moment, before nodding. That did seem to make sense. One thing that didn't make sense, though, was that she didn't look like a rose at all. her wings were blue, as was the smooth casing that held them. She really wished she was red, like the pretty roses. That would make her really happy. For now, she was happy to ask Fluttershy about all the other flowers. Since being let outside every now and again, Rose had taken every opportunity she could to see the sights. You could only see so much from the other side of a window. At least she now knew the word to describe the sun, and the moon as well! Fluttershy and Princess Twilight were very good teachers, and Rose was going to learn as much as she could. There weren't many ways to pass time while Fluttershy was out doing things. Rose didn't want to go outside and explore alone, and none of the animals were very interesting to talk to. You can't learn new things from a little bird, as pretty as its voice may be. The birds just didn't have the thinking power that ponies had. Rose instead chose to read. She could read all the books Princess Twilight had left for her at the cottage very easily, which were very basic books on different simple words like 'cat' and 'dog'. She would need to ask the princess for more, because the only more complicated books in Fluttershy's home were about caring for animals, and Rose wasn't very interested in that. She was reading a book on the different tribes of ponies. There were the earth ponies, the pegasi, the unicorns, and the alicorn princesses, who were a mixture of the other three. There were apparently only 4 alicorns currently living in Equestria right now, Princess Twilight being one of them. What kept bringing Rose back to this particular book, was the lack of whatever type of pony she was. Rose knew she didn't fit the description of any of these tribes, so what kind of pony was she? She had asked Fluttershy, who didn't really answer, choosing instead to change the subject. Rose had a horn, she knew that, but it was smooth and pointed, unlike the other ponies. Her wings weren't feathery, like a bird, but were more similar to an insect's wings. She would have to ask Princess Twilight, next time she came to visit. Princess Twilight knew the answer to every question Rose ever had, so this shouldn't be different. Rose thought back to the flower bed outside. She was still very disappointed that her wings weren't colored Red, like the flower she was named after. So disappointing that she felt she had to do something about it, though she did not know what. What could she do about it? A feeling in the back of her mind told her she could do something about it, so she tried to focus a bit on that feeling. Suddenly she felt a small tingling all over her body. Even her eyes felt weird. After a second it passed, leaving her confused. It was not something she had felt before, but it felt completely natural. Not something she should be worried about. The sound of the door signaled Fluttershy's return home, which Rose was very happy for. "Fluttershy!" Rose exclaimed. Fluttershy returning home from outings was always the best part of any day. "Hello Rose- Oh?" Fluttershy looked at Rose weirdly once she caught sight of her. She radiated confusion. Rose was a bit taken aback. Fluttershy had never reacted to her in such a way. Did she do something wrong? Her ears splayed and she shied back a bit, worried that she'd done something terribly bad that would make Fluttershy mad. Fluttershy saw this and immediately set out to reassure Rose. "No it's OK Rose, you didn't do anything bad! I was just surprised by your colour change!" Colour... change? What colour change? Rose looked back at her body, and froze when she noticed something different. Her wing casings were now a bright red! She stared in shock at her back, processing this information. How did this happen? Rose was confused, but also very happy. She had red now! Just like the roses outside! She gave a happy chirp and fluttered in the air for a moment, noting the red tinted hue of her wings. "Fluttershy! Red!" Rose exclaimed, Looking at Fluttershy excitedly. Fluttershy smiled at her, "Yes Rose, It looks very nice on you! But how did you do it?" "Don't know!" Rose replied. She was still too excited to think about how her colour changed in the first place. Fluttershy had a hard time getting Rose to sleep that night. Author's Note Sorry for the overly long hiatus. I'll hopefully be able to put more time into writing in the coming months.
