1 The third way out
Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria there was a pegasus. His name was Breeze Wake. He lived in Manehattan, where ponies tended to be rude and cruel.
Therefore he isolated himself from everypony he knew, and made up a rather quiet and dull character, that can't be picked on by others so he could stay out of trouble. Although a matured stallion, he still lacked his cutie mark. When he was a filly, he kept trying to find what his was going to be, but eventually, he gave up on it.
Since then, he lived every day in a repeating pattern and besides casually working out, had nothing going on in his days. While the patterns seemed to repeat without an end, there was one day, which set him on a new path.
That day was just like any other at first. Gloomy weather, cold air sweeping through the streets. Everypony doing their jobs. They had their cutiemarks, and each was serving their duty. Walking up and down, they had things to do, places to go... and there he was, all grown up, sitting near one of the houses watching them all, wondering what life they could be living. To have a purpose, a motive, a goal to pursue.
As he was wondering however, he noticed a little filly rushing through the crowd, although exhausted. She had a brown coat, pink mane, green eyes, and freckles.
"Hmm, what is that filly up to over there?" - he thought to himself "Why should I care anyway? ...On second thought, it could be my only chance of some action today. I'd give anything for some time killing, all this boredom could make me crazy."
With that settled, he decided to look into the matter, and walked up to her.
"Hey there, little filly. Where's the hurry?" - he asked her.
"None of your business mister!" The young pony tried to run faster, but it was no use.
"I'd give you a lift if you told me..." he told her.
"Weeeell, in that case there's a train I've got to catch," - she replied
"To the train station then. Here, hop on!" He lowered himself.
The filly jumped on his back and Breeze started to make a run for it. The other ponies and the houses were a blur as he was speeding down street after street. With his size and speed, anypony in front of him stood out of his way. Soon, the train station was in view.
"Oh no! My train already left..." - the filly said in an upset tone "I'll be late from the family reunion..."
"Don't give up just yet," - said Breeze calmly, as he started to run after the train.
He was able to catch up to the last car, but then the train entered a narrow passage were they couldn't fit near it. The sidewalk lead them to a walkway overlooking the train. Breeze had no other choice now. With the train getting faster, he had to jump.
"Hold on tight!" Breeze told the filly, as he jumped. He flew over a small hoofrail, and landed smoothly on top of one of the cars.
"Wow! That was really cool! Thanks mister!" - she blew her mane from her eye.
Considering the little event they went through and the likeliness of being stuck together, Breeze thought it would be no harm to get to know the little filly.
"I'm Breeze Wake," - he told her.
"Hey Breeze, I'm Babs Seed," - she replied.
"Nice to meet you, Babs," he offered a hoof
"Same. Thanks again for the lift," she smiled as they shook hoofs.
"Hey! You don't have a cutie mark? Wow, you're the oldest blank-flank I know! After you helped me, I guess I could invite you into the cutie mark crusaders," - said Babs.
"Well, it sure sounds nice but I don't feel like grouping up yet," - he said
"Alright. Tell me if you change your mind," she blew her mane out of her eyes again.
They got down from the roof, and found seats. The car on the inside was mostly chocolate-brown, since most of it was covered by wooden decoration. Although Breeze was now traveling further away from the place he knew and called home, yet he wasn't homesick at all. The gloomy weather of Manehattan became sunny, warm with clear skies, and green fields as long as one could see instead of rows of houses blocking the view. Nothing he left behind mattered to him, and he was taking the sight in. This refreshing feel of true freedom even brought a smile on his face, something he otherwise rarely had.
But this nice sightseeing experience came to an end, when he noticed a ticket inspector was about to come into the car he was in. So he quickly stood up, and made his way to the end of the train, yet Babs didn't notice him. He thought about hiding, somewhere, but as he looked around nothing seemed to work. He looked around again as the train got on a bridge above a river, with a high waterfall on one side.
"Wow, that's a long way do-whoa-whoa!-WHOA!" his thought line was interrupted by a bump the train ran over, which got him out of balance.
He failed to grab onto anything and so, he fell down into the river. Thankfully the water was deep enough to keep him from a hard landing, however the river was rather fast, and the back of his head bumped into a rock, while he was underwater, knocking him out on the way down.
%i% Fresh from the waters
2 Fresh from the waters
Breeze was numb. He couldn't feel his body and the water was cold. However he could hear ponies giggling in the distance. Giggling and talking to be exact, but he couldn't make out anything. It wasn't long however, before the laughing stopped and he felt himself being pulled out of the water, with wind blowing at him, cooling him further down. Soon after, he was lying on solid ground. As he could open his eyes a little, he was looking upwards, with six spots of different colours blocking the view of the sky. Before he could do anything, he passed out again
The next time he woke up, he could hear a constant beeping sound coming from nearby. The six spots were at the end of the bed he was lying in. As he opened his eyes more and his vision got clearer, he saw the six spots were actually six mares standing at the end of his bed.
"Are you alright?" - came from a purple unicorn with a stripe in her mane.
"I... I am a little woozy, but I do feel okay besides that. Where am I? What happened?" Breeze rubbed the back of his head as he sat up.
"You're in Ponyville hospital. We saw you floating down the river as we were leaving from our party and brought you here," she said.
"Thank you, but why are you all still here?" he asked curiously.
"Oh, we were all worried about you..." came from the yellow mare with pink mane, as she hid one of her eyes behind her mane.
"Why? I must be a complete stranger to you," Breeze was trying to figure out what the six mares wanted from him. He thought it was likely they wanted something in return for saving him.
"A fellow pony's life is important to us, be it a closest friend or a pony we never heard about before," said the purple one with the striped mane.
"I'm Twilight Sparkle, and these are my friends, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.
"I'm Breeze Wake," he introduced himself.
"Seriously tho', How in tarnation did you end up in the river like that? Seeing a pegasus sleepin' with the fishes is quite the rare sight." Applejack lowered her hat.
"Yeah! What were you doing in the water anyway? I mean, helloooo! Don't you have wings?" said Rainbow Dash
"Rainbow Dash! This poor stallion barely got to his senses and you're bombarding him with questions! That's not how you treat an in-patient! Excuse her, my dear, delicacy is not one of her strongsuits...." Rarity gave a stern look to Rainbow Dash who rolled her eyes in return.
"Hold on a minute there, pard'ner! Breeze Wake you said? Well, I'd be! You're the stallion Babs Seed was talkin' 'bout! From what I heard, you went through quite some trouble to help her catch her train. It was a nice thing to do, not what you'd expect from Manehattan people... duh! Um no offense o' course," said Applejack
"So you were on the train from Manehattan, but what happened?" Twilight raised a hoof as she was thinking
"Well, I-"
"just went into a car and were deep in your thoughts when you saw a ticket inspector coming and you tried to hide in the end of the train but while you were looking around the train ran over a bump on the bridge near the waterfall making you lose your balance and fall down into the river where a rock hit you in the back of the head and then you drifted with the flow until you ended up where we found you?" - Pinkie Pie asked, interrupting Breeze
He was awestruck with his mouth left open.
"Just a hunch though!" Pinkie smiled.
Breeze broke the silence "Wow."
"Don't worry about her, it's just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie. Anyway, you're from Manehattan, right? In that case, we will get you a ticket for a train back when you can leave the hospital. We will even pay for it ourselves. It's the least we can do after you-"
"You shouldn't rush it though," Breeze interrupted Twilight. The six mares quietly said "Huh?" in unison.
"I'd like to take my time and look around here. I haven't been to another town before."
"Well, the nurseponies said you'll need to rest for today, but you can already leave tomorrow. We'll be happy to show you around, right girls?" - asked Twilight
The other five agreed
"I'm sorry girls, but Breeze must rest now, he had a tough day - Nurse Redheart walked up to his bed
"See you later girls" Breeze waved at them.
They all told him goodbye and left.
Breeze just stared at the ceiling, thinking about his past, and what his first day in Ponyville will be like, as the sun was slowly going down. The clean view of the sundown was also something he didn't see before. All these new experiences were signs. Sings of the beginning of his new life.
It wasn't long before evening, as it got dark, exhausted from his day, he easily fell asleep, looking forward for tomorrow... for the first time.
