Familiar faces.

"WHY DID YOU FOLLOW ME?!" I thought in mid-air, as I jumped at the wooden wolf thing. Extending my talons, I landed on the wolfs back and gripped it..HARD. The wolf gave a yelp of pain as my talons dug into its wooden hide. It tried to shake me off. My talons kept me firmly in place, as the rest of my body thrashed around until I dug my claws deep into its hide. Raking its back a few times with my claws the wolf realized that I wasn't letting go any time soon, so it decided to roll over with the hopes of crushing me beneath it or making me let go. However as the wolf began to tip over I let go with my talons and used the wolf's size and momentum to cause it to crash into the ground instead. Its tail however caught me on my descent knocking me back and causing me slam hard against dirt floor.

We both got up and stared at each other. I could see that the wolf was hesitating once it realized what it was dealing with. It lowered its body to the ground and snarled at me. I dragged my talons across the floor and got on all fours as well. We then began to circle around each other. Our eyes focused on each other. Wolves are pack animals and only respect strength so I refused to show any weakness and tried to appear as intimidating as possible. We rotated our positions about three times before the wolf leaped at me. Returning my stance to two legs I raised one and waited for the wolf to come close, once it did I delivered a solid roundhouse kick to its jaw and used my remaining momentum to kick it in the face. The wolf only backed up a little, which was no surprise with it being three times my size and weight. My roundhouse kick, however had caused my talons to give it a rather
grievous wound to its left eye and my other kick knocked some teeth out.

Fearing, I needed to finish the fight quickly as I didn't attract too much attention from the distant town. Now that the wolf knew of my strength, it needed to fear me, so I turned on my voice changer and gave a ROAR.

As I finished, I was stunned at the sound of my own voice. Even Godzilla would think twice after hearing that sound. The wolf hesitated again, which I use to my advantage and jump back on its hide. Once on top of it again I searched for any weak spots, while clinging on for dear life. Spotting a patch of moss on its left shoulder, I unsheathed my rusty machete and began to rub it against my talons. The sparks fell onto the dry moss and after a few moments of frantic rubbing it burst into flames. The wolf bucked me off and began to flail around before retreating into the forest. I fell onto one knee and breathed heavily with exhaustion. Questions swam around in my head. "Why was that wolf made of wood? How was my voice capable of such animistic growls and roars even with the voice changer?" Thinking back on my performance, I looked for the yellow pony, only to see her on the floor. I thought she must have fainted.

The ground began to vibrate, indicating help was on the way. Deciding it would be a bad idea to be out in the open, I picked up Yellow and ran back to her home. Hundreds of animals swarmed with me to her house. "WHY ARE SO MANY BIRDS FOLLOWING ME" I thought, I brought her inside and set her on the couch. Once I had escaped the fight scene, a small flock of birds had decided to follow me and their numbers grew larger as I retreated. After running around to find a bath room, I looked in the mirror cabinet for anything that would help wake her up. While searching, I did find a bottle of vodka, pausing a moment as I reflected how fucked up this was, I took a swig and came back downstairs. Deciding that she was safe enough, there was no point in staying so I descended back into the forest. I took out a small ration of my food and found a large branch to perch myself on and fell asleep because, God help me I needed it.

*******

I slowly woke up with two problems. One being a pain in my neck, from my awkward sleeping arrangements and the other, was from some weight on my chest. Opening one eye, I saw a shape of a bird on my chest and now opening both eyes, I saw my entire body was covered in birds. Looking around, I found that every tree within about fifteen meters had birds on every branch available.

"What....the....fuck"

I shifted slightly and woke up the birds on my body, who then chirped loudly as to wake everyone else up. Then they all looked at me, thousands of eyes....looking at...ME. Even with my mask, I felt a cold sweat and my hands began to shake violently and I started to feel sick. I then fell out of the tree and ran for my life. I couldn't take it...it was too much. Racing past trees and bushes, I soon burst through the thick foliage to find a lakeside. Currently exhausted from running, I sat down by the lakeside and rested. Nearing the waters edge, I looked at the water and I saw a figure. It wore a dirty, red rag cloak. Its face was covered by a scratched up, dirty and worn mask with small waves of silver hair hanging over it.

"Just what am I now?" I thought, as the possibility of never going home hit hard. "With no other humans around how will I survive." My mind was conflicted. "On one hand, I didn't have to live in fear as much, with no one around, but is that a good thing?" The talking yellow pony then popped into my head. "She seemed to be on an intelligence level similar to humans.Would it be a good idea to introduce myself or will she or any others shun me?" I then did something I very rarely do.....I smiled. Remembering the event with Miss Yellow, I felt quite proud of myself. I had saved someone..it felt strange....as much as I didn't want to get involved...I had saved someone...so will their impression of me be?

Pondering on the question, I got up to eat something but realized I had left my pack back at my sleeping spot. "Well shit!" After wondering a great deal, I soon found the dirt road I had fought the wolf on. I then began to walk along the path towards the cottage where Miss Yellow lived. The trip was uneventful, except for the birds who had found me again. One of them had my backpack in its claws and I took it and also received an apologetic looks from the group.

*******

Once I neared the outskirts of the cottage, I climbed into a tree and observed, from a distance, before catching sight of Yellow leaving. An uneasy feeling pitted in my stomach, so I decided to follow her just to make sure she was going to be alright. How she didn't notice a huge flock of birds following her, I will never know. Soon the path began to lead out of the forest. With little cover around I had to zig-zag from bush to bush and anything I could hide behind or in. I then saw the small town I had spotted yesterday and it seemed busy. My body began to shake but I managed to take my mind off the crowds and followed Miss Yellow. Once she had arrived near the town, I swiftly climbed up the side of a building and onto the roof. I then looked at the town with my binoculars.

What I saw made me freeze. I saw a human, who sat outside some sought of a shop, but what struck me were three things. First... the human looked strange, his back was hunched, his teeth were uneven, pointy and dirty. His body was scratched, muddy and seemed very malnourished. Second...the human was wearing some sought of a collar, with a lead tied up to a post beside the shop. Third...was his face. His eyes were glassed over, looked dead and his face was tired and featureless.

Fear welled up inside me, as I tore my eyes from the binoculars and breathed heavily. "Was that a human? No...its too feral-like. But it looks the same as a human. It looks dead inside with nothing but animalistic instincts. Is it intelligent? No...it cant be" my mind was on full scale with questions and possibilities.

After I had calmed down a bit, I slowly looked through the binoculars again and saw a few more humans, dotted around the square, most were silent and still. Others were looking around and growling at anything that came near. From their behavior they didn't seem intelligent or even capable of complex thought, meaning my animal instinct theory was correct. As painful as it was, I decided to check one of the humans out to see what they were like, up close.

*******

Carefully, I made my way though some alleyways to reach my target. I spotted a red haired girl near one of the alleys and decided I could observe and interact with her, but could hide quickly if necessary. My boots and gauntlets worked wonders, as I climbed and clawed along walls, too I reached the girl's alley. I peeped around the corner to check for any other ponies or humans. Thankfully there were none so I proceeded with my test.

The first test was to get her attention. I scraped my claws against the wooden wall and caused her to look at me. Despite being different, she had a nice face and figure, her eyes were more colored than the other humans and she seemed well fed too. Upon looking at me, her eyes widened and she rather quickly scurried towards me. Needles to say, this caused me to back up a bit as she came to the end of her leash. She whined, as her arms were outstretched as if to touch me in some way. Slowly and carefully I reached out my hand and touched hers. Her struggling stopped instantly and she regarded me with curious eyes. Her hand closed around mine and rather embarrassingly, on my part, this was the most contact I have ever had with a girl. Behind my mask I was blushing quite a bit. She stared at my hand enclosed in hers, for a while, before pulling me towards her.

She embraced me tightly, as her chest pushed against mine, causing my mind to overload for a few seconds. She then sniffed my head before hugging me tighter, causing me to put my hands on her shoulders. To make matters worse, she mistook the signs and hugged me tighter still as if I was going to disappear. After distracting myself from her rather big chest, pressing against mine, I managed to push her off. She whined slightly but didn't try to hug me again. After my face had cooled off and my brain returned to working order, I saw her rather pained expression.

I reached out my hand and began to pet her head, which she leaned into and gave a relaxed purr. I heard what sounded like pots crashing and sharply looked to my left were I saw one of the towns female residents. I instantly ran for the alley and climbed a wall, to search for a place to hide. I could hear some commotion below me as a mare shouted something.

Getting closer, but still staying in the shadows, I saw that a large crowd had gathered at the square. The mare, I had encountered, began to frantically tell them something while standing on a wooden platform. Two individuals, however, stood out. Both were taller that the rest but I was still slightly taller than them. Both had horns and wings. One was a pure white colour with a multi colored flowing mane. The other was a deep blue colour with a starry-like mane. Upon their heads were some sort of crowns. "SHIT...SHIT!" Were they their leaders or something. This was bad. If I got caught....what would they do to me. Looking through the binoculars, I took a mental note of what they looked like.

I then almost pissed myself, as the blue one turned her head and looked me dead in the eye. "THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY!" She couldn't see me, that was impossible, I was wedged by my talons between a wooden wall and the overhang of a tile roof while covered in the veil of darkness. She didn't seem to notice my presence and if she did, she didn't show it, before turning her attention back to the crowd, which were listening to the white mare. Once she had finished whatever she was doing, both the mares horns glowed. "What..the-?" I wasn't given time to think of an answer when a bright light blinded me before my back came in contact with the ground. Groaning with the voice changer on, made me sound slightly synthetic and wispy, as I picked myself up and turned my head see that the blue and white mares had vanished.