All I wanted was some peace and quiet.

Chapter one

“Why does my everything hurt? Better question, why am I not on my comfy bed in my hotel room? Why in the buck do I hear…buck? Why did I just say buck?” Ignoring the new odd use of my vocabulary I decided to try and open my eyes and sit up, pretty solid mistake.

“Uhg…ow.” Before I could even really make another conscious decision I fell asleep. What I woke up to was a significantly smaller amount of pain and the ability to open my eyes… with a bearable amount of pain that is. What I saw was less than settling, I was in the middle of a pretty small clearing surrounded by trees. (Duh what other kinds of clearings are there “idiot.”) While the grass was soft and quite comfortable I decided I should probably stand up. While doing so I noticed that I was really, and I mean REALLY thirsty. I had a lot of questions, some such being,

"Where am I?" "What's happening?" oh and most importantly the statement I said. "BUUUCK! "Man what is going on why can't I use my usual profanities?" Okay time for a nice old fashioned mental checklist.

1.Find water.

2.Get food.

3.Find out what has happened to me.

4.Find civilization.

5.Get that whole word problem of mine checked out.

“Huh? A whole lot of finds in that particular list.” “The sun’s in the middle of the sky so I should probably get a move on.”

I headed in what I thought to be north by the sun’s position, it just seemed like a good idea… until what I could only assume was some kind of enormous mutation of a lion was chasing me through this horrid forest. “Buck buck buck… BUCK!" I say the last one with such vigor due to my tripping over a rock. While laying down in the dirt all I could think to myself was, “Great just… great I die from some severely mutated lion while in an unknown forest.”

I was just kind of laid there for what felt like ages when I decided to get up, turning around I say no trace of the thing, for lack of better words. What I did see however lifted my spirits even more than the prospect of not dying, was that I saw a shack, sure it might be abandoned but hey anything is way better than nothing. I began my walk there when I saw something very peculiar, a zebra... wearing a lot of gold. I thought this to be odd but if a zebra wearing gold was out here than that almost definitely meant that some kind of civilized people are here, albeit odd ones. "Excuse me, Is anyone here?!"

I heard a "Yes?" come from the direction of the zebra, the odd thing was that now the zebra was turning around. I looked like it was doing something to a small herbal garden.

I waited for someone to show up, while the zebra just kind of stares at me...I..I think it looks horrified by me. I begin to walk toward it and then it begins to walk back, now I have seen some crazy things in my life, ( No more shrooms for me. ) but I swear that zebra began talking.

"What are you being, why do you make me so fleeing?"

My ever oh so clever response was "Are you a..a?" I promptly fainted, the events of that day had just been too much for me, One second all was going fairly well when, BAM, no idea where I am leading to my being chased by some terrible monster and now to highlight it all a BUCKING ZEBRA THAT TALKS!

Several many hours later.

"Oh thank you it was all just a dream." I said while laying on a nice comfy bed...that was way too small. "Craaaap!" Seemed like a pretty accurate description of my current situation. I opened my eyes to immediately shut them again, all around me were some very creepy masks, oh and a zebra leaning over me, ya know, no big deal! "What in the tartarus is happening?!" I shouted a bit too loudly...tartarus?

"First I would like to know, what is making you put up such a show?" The zebra replied cautiously, and with a bit of fear, that made me feel a little bad.

"Oh I don't know maybe it was the getting chased by a lion thing or maybe the seeing a talking zebra, hmm or most likely it is the not knowing WHERE THE TARTARUS I AM!" At this point I just started feeling like a total flankhole... I  really need to look into what is causing that. "I..I'm sorry I usually don't burst like that, today has been rather... stressful."

The zebra was now looking more scared than ever, I decided it would be best if I left. "I am terribly sorry to have had an outburst like that...I-I am just going to go now."  The zebra then looked worried and much less scared.

She said. "No, I know you are sincere,but if you value your life then stay here." Not knowing if that was a threat or not I decided to turn around to look her in the eyes.

"If you are not threatening me then you had better do some explaining." Her pupils enlarged a bit.

"No that is not what I meant, your body would be not but a fragment." Not knowing what she meant I intelligently asked her. "wut?" The zebra proceeded to facepalm...er face-hoof?

"The forest is full of dread, it would tear you to a shred." On that note, I decided to begin acting like my usual self.

"I am terribly sorry for being so rude, I am kind of lost and a bit distraught, could I sleep here for the night I shall leave in the morning if you point me the right way."

She responded with. "Yes you may, it is I, Zecora's way." She seemed to have cheered up considerably now. I began to notice that we had a serious height difference I was at-least a head and a half taller than her. I also began to pick up on the fact that she always seemed to rhyme, I decided it might be rude to bring up so I let it be.

Taking in a better look of her home I noticed that while all the masks were rather creepy a few looked kind of cool to me, there were also several jars of what looked like herbs and such. "You have quite the collection of spices and herbs here ma'am." Now the the zebra...Zecora, was absolutely beaming.

"Being an apothecary requires quite the vary." She said a little mysteriously. I proceeded to ask her where I could sleep at and she motioned her hoof to the cot I woke up on. I said thank you and went straight to it. I had a lot of thinking to do tonight.