Anton yawned, finishing with a clop of his teeth meeting. As he blinked groggily, he licked his sharp teeth.

‘Oh well, guess it wasn’t a dream after all.’

Something smelled rather nice, and he realized his side was warm. Blinking his eyes awake, looked over, to see what was going on. A large, rug-like mass of green felt-like strips covered his side, and it took him a moment to recognize the mare from before, now curled up next to him.

From this close proximity, he had a conflicting range of sense to deal with, including the alluring scent of her flesh, likely from the carnivorous tendencies he seemed to have picked up, and the horrid smell of her having not bathed in... well, probably ever.

On top of that, she looked very skinny, her ribs still visible, though less so at this point. On top of that, her coat was filthy, and her mane and tail were tangled and matted with dirt. As her side rose and fell with her breathing, Anton just took the moment to contemplate what had happened. It was all so... well, the only applicable word that came to mind was ‘surreal’.

‘Well, either she’s scared of people in general, or we are really far away from any civilization, I... kinda hope it’s the first one. But I gotta eat something. How do I get her to understand that I’m a carnivore... But first things first, I should figure out how to hunt like this, or I’m going to starve.’

He looked at the Creeper pony, who was still asleep.

‘I was kind of a jerk earlier, I should try and make her feel better somehow. Words don’t work... I guess I could try giving her a hug or something. I hope she understands what a hug is, or she’ll probably blow up again.’

He very carefully reached a paw around her, idly wondering if the claws were retractable, and tried to give her a hug, as lightly as possible. Scaring her would most likely end badly. Sadly, his claws weren’t retractable, but she did snuggle closer in her sleep.

‘Now let’s hope she’s aware, and won’t get surprised. I wonder how the explosion-thing works, anyway. In all my games of Minecraft, I’ve never discovered how the heck spontaneous combustion is possible. Not even after 2.6.1.’

His thoughts were broken up by the sensation of the mare waking up partly under him, shifting as she tried to figure out what was going on.

Thinking she might explode again, he decided to GTFO, clumsily rolling away towards the perimeter. In the process, he accidentally knocked her away, and she sprawled in the dirt, looking up in confusion and dismay in the early morning light.

The mare looked over at him, the hurt visible in her eyes and audible in her whimpering. It was rather chilly without her next to him, he realized, but he’d really wanted to keep himself safe if she blew up, like the creeper she resembled.

‘Self-Preservation, or not being a dick... fine.’

“I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

The mare simply stood up, keeping her head low as she wandered to another section of the enclosure. Even as he felt bad for not being as nice as he could have in perfectly ideal conditions, he had to wonder how the heck she had put together this protective fence, or if she was maybe similar to livestock.

That second option made him feel a tad uncomfortable, like the thought of kicking a small kitten away because it fell asleep on his legs. And the comparison made him feel even worse, and his ears flattened back against his head without him noting the change in position.

He broke out of his reverie when he felt a nuzzle on the back of his neck. Almost leaping out of his skin, he turned quickly, only to see that it was simply the mare evidently trying to comfort him.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he let her nuzzle him again, though he started slightly when he felt her pull at his mane.

“I’m not trying to be so jumpy, it’s just kind of a reflex. I’ve had... bad encounters with ‘stuff’ kinda like you. You, ah, can sort of understand me, right?”

“Uhn-gee?”

Now it was starting to be cute. But hunger was definitely an issue. Now to explain that some creatures ate small furry stuff that breathes. Joy.

“Yes, I’m hungry, but I don’t eat slime. I eat... uh... rabbits. Little furry hoppy things, big ears, faster than extra-strength laxatives. You know what I mean?”

“Abbat!”

She seemed inordinately proud of the her new word, it was incredibly adorable.

“Yes, rabbit, they are food. Rabbit is food, but it has to be, er, dead.”

She cocked her head, a piece of Anton’s mane in her mouth as her black-and-red eyes looked uncomprehendingly, before chirping brightly once more.

“Fuud, abbat! Abbat! Fuud! Uhn-gee.”

“Yes. Very cute. Now we need to find a rabbit, and kill it. Let’s see, I have claws and teeth, yeah that should do it. Catching them however...”

“Abbat.”

“Yeah, do you know where we can find a rabbit? Like a hole?”

“Hole?”

She tilted her head again, looking at Anton with a small smile, happy from the interaction. Anton had to resist the urge to face-claw, at the utter lack of progress. But, it was an absolutely diabeetus-inducingly adoracute lack of progress, so that mitigated some of the frustration with d’awws.

“Heh, yes, rabbits live in holes. Find a hole, get a rabbit.”

“Abbat hole?”

“Yes, very good, rabbit holes.”

He gave her a (careful) scratch behind the ears, earning her nibbling his mane again, working her way down the length of his crest. He could feel himself relax as she worked, though he had to wonder why she was doing this. It certainly didn’t fit her previous actions.

‘Okay, short-term memory loss, that explains quite a bit. Or she has mood swings... which is worse with something that can explode? Ah, nevermind.’

Anton was totally relaxed as he felt her drape herself across his back, the action accompanied by the the sound of... purring? She was purring...

‘So... she can hiss, purr, and mimic my words, sorta like a parrot-cat-Creeper-rag mop? What the heck...’

“Okay, so we need to go and find some holes. I need food.”

“Hole-fuud!”

He just barely beat the urge to face-claw again. Instead he took a closer look at the barrier to see what he could do about getting out.

All around, he could see the lightweight wood and grass screen woven into the perimeter, with the sharpened stakes all pointing out. He was wondering for a moment how to get out, until he noted some of the stakes were missing from a section of the fencing.

But, with the Creepony laying across his back and purring, he had no idea how he was going to get over there. She may have been content to be lazy and just loaf around, but he felt the need to find food. It was a really difficult to decide between continuing snuggles and going for fixing his hungry status.

“Okay, I appreciate the snuggles a lot, but if I don’t find food, I’m going to die. Me dying is not that great for either of us, so let’s go get a rabbit. Anything in my stomach is better than nothing.”

“Snuggs.”

The words he said seemed to have absolutely no bearing on her demeanor, and she just nuzzled the back of his head more. She was god-awfully cute, but not too bright.

“Okay, I get it, you like me, but I really need food, so-

“Fuud!”

“-If you want to stay here, fine. I’m going to get a rabbit and eat it.”

“Abbat!”

With a sigh, Anton headed to exit the barrier, squirming out from under the mare. She produced a light hiss noise as she fell off, accompanied by a squeak. ‘Great, gotta add mouse to the list of combined animals and stuff’ he thought as he began to head for what he hoped was the gate.

“Uhn-gee?”

“Yes, very. I don’t know if you’d rather stay here, but I’m not, because starvation seems worse if I never actually attempted to get food. So I’m going to try and get something to eat.”

He stepped up to the ‘gate’ and saw a very simple style of latch, just a twist of bark that slipped into a loop of bark peeled from of the post holding it up. A simple nudge should push it out of the way, and let the ‘gate’ open.

Anton stepped out of the enclosure and started looking for burrows, making sure to keep the area in seeing distance. Unfortunately, the grass severely limited his line of sight, and he couldn’t find any burrows in the nearby area, just some sand.

Anton stopped for a moment, realizing that sand in the middle of hugely tall grass was a little weird.

‘I’ve played video games, and if I’m right, this is either useful for some reason, or it’s going to be a huge heap of trouble. Hmmm... Still hungry’

Anton left the sand patch, making a note to come back to it later for inspection once his stomach was full.

As he turned around, he realized he was hopelessly lost. And worse, there was more sand around. Small drifts of sand had started to drift in at some point, and he realized that the desert must be slowly encroaching on the plains... which would likely dry up that creeper-mare’s... eh... sludge-farm?

Either way, fungus like that would likely only grow with damp soil, and the desert would prevent that. And with how thin she was, that would likely make her already difficult life nigh-impossible.

‘Okay, new plan. Get back to the barricade. I think I’ve been moving in a straight line... uhh... maybe. Was I? Crud, maybe I can get a better look from the top of the dune no doubt pushing all this sand this way. After all, the grit has to come from somewhere, right?’

Heading towards the dune, he planned to get on top and see the barricade, at the very most only a quarter-mile away. Hopefully.

Finding that he had a much easier time sliding up the dune than through the grass, he quickly got to the top of the huge pile of sand, looking out at the grassy plains. The sand had slowly moved in over some unknown period of time, and much of the grass was simply buried.

Farther out along the divide between plains and desert, the grass was simply shorter, the advance of the sandy wastes likely stopped by nothing more impressive that wind channelling.

Looking back towards the plains, he could see a little circle of missing grass, the location of the-

“Uhn-gee!”

‘The- wait, where is she? And why is... oh, please don’t tell me-’

The green mare came bounding out of the grass towards him, shouting the mangled word over and over again. It seemed that she’d decided that ‘uhn-gee’ was the term for him.

He’d been nick-named ‘Uhn-Gee’.

Of course, the only thing he’d ever said in reference to himself was that he was ‘hungry’, which led to a single thought.

‘Why didn’t I see this coming?’ He face-clawed.

She practically tackled him, shouting his name as she knew it, wrapping him in a protective hug. The two tumbled from the top of the dune in a sideways cartwheel of flailing limbs and flying sand. They finally collapsed at the base of the dune, the mare partly on top of him. It momentarily reminded him of that scene in the Lion King, where the two lions had tumbled down the hill onto each other...

Which wasn’t exactly where he wanted his thoughts going.

Seeking to distract himself, he looked away from the sandy, dirt-covered pony on top of him, trying to find something to look at, something like-

Ooh, like that spider skittering away from us. Something gripped his brain and ran with it like a linebacker with the football, and he found himself suddenly bursting across the loose sand like a freight train of teeth and claws, bearing down the fleeing arachnid.

If it had a voice, it would have likely been screaming in terror, as the orange-and-black carnivore ran it to the ground.

With a snap of razor-like teeth and the clop of his jaws slamming together, the spider was clipped neatly in two, the wriggling arthropod the size of his face still having no chance at defending itself. Downing the still-wriggling back half of the spider with no further chewing, Anton found himself grinning like a moron at the surprisingly good taste; it was comparable to a batch of peanut sauce and... well, he wasn’t sure, but the closest was actually like alligator (a rather awesome meal for a normal human, even though it was at a restaurant).

Licking his lips, he saw that the front half of the spider was still trying to get away. This time, he was much more in control, and had time to contemplate what he was doing... and what he’d already done.

‘That, was incredibly disgusting... Screw it, I’m hungry, it’s food, and it tastes good at the same time.’

Snapping up the remains of the spider, he happily licked his lips before a realization struck him.

He’d just charged off in a random direction, without making sure she knew where she was. While he could probably figure out to go on top of the dunes, he had to admit that she wasn’t exactly the sharpest light bulb in the hardware drawer. Looking around frantically, he realized that, in the ever-increasing heat of the desert, he couldn’t see a single speck of green at all.

“Shit, if she’s lost, and dies, it’s technically my fault. Way to freakin’ go. I don’t even know what to call her... oh man, where is she?”

Quick-timing it to the top of a dune, he resumed looking around. He’d somehow crested a dune and gone nearly to the top of the next without realizing it while chasing that spider. That eight-legged little shit must’ve been awfully fast, he realized. Thankfully, he caught a glimpse of the red-and-green mare wandering in a valley between two dunes, though she was rapidly hidden from view by the crest of the dune.

The last thing he wanted was for her to get lost, so he chased after her as best he could, finding himself surprisingly adept at traversing the sands with the help of his front limb’s wide-spreading toes and claws providing incredible traction on the soft, shifting sands.

Spying her trying to walk up a dune and slipping repeatedly, falling to the base of it with a whimper and a short cry of distress, he hurried onwards to her.

“Damnit. Hold on, I’m coming! Geez, why didn’t I ask if she had a name, or give her one? Thank you brain, and your 20-20 hindsight.”

Scampering over the dunes and into the valleys between him and the creeper. Creepette. Something. He’ll figure out- no, wait, Creepette works, at least until she can give him a better name, he thought to himself.

Finally reaching the top of the dune she was trying to climb, he looked down at the mare. Creepette was sitting at the bottom, her ears flat and eyes full of tears as she sniffled and cried at the bottom of the dune, looking absolutely miserable in the heat and sand.

In all, it was an utterly heartbreaking sight, and it made him feel awful for charging off like that. Sliding down the dune with the grace of a drunken wombat, he face-planted not too far from her, sitting up and shaking the sand from his fur and nostrils, thankful for the largely scaly front half he had, and the ridiculously impermeable mane he’d somehow lucked on getting.

Unless he was supposed to be a desert animal, which would explain his good traction in the sand, exothermic circulatory system, sand-shedding hair and coat, the vague nictitating membrane he’d found protected his eyes with his eyelids, and the lack of long-distance eyesight (he could only see colors and vague shapes at any distance past a dune or so; around twenty or thirty feet, maximum).

And, on top of all that, Creepette was crying in front of him, distracting him from his musings.

‘Is it really possible to do anything without upsetting her? This is really unfair, why is it so hard to keep one pony happy?’

Before he could try anything though, the distraught mare flung her hooves around him and gave him a painfully-tight hug, crying and sobbing.

“Uhn-gee!”

Though it was the only thing she said, those two syllables almost made him burst into tears, as the pony before him held on as if he was a life preserver in a stormy sea. Or, the only friend she had in the middle of a desert she had no way to navigate properly. Either or.

“Calm down, I’ll get us out of here... somehow. Figures that my new habitat is detrimental to my only ally. Yeah, things are just perfect.”

He continued to mumble as he tried to gently untangle himself from the mare, so that he could breathe, if nothing else. After some pulling and prying, that goal was accomplished, and Creepette pressed herself tight to his side. Helping support her as they made their way to the top of a dune, he finally got a good look around.

Spying the sea of green abutted against the sandy dunes, he found it pretty easy to figure the direction.

Setting off with a comforting pat to the now-sweaty and dusty mare’s head, he began leading the way back out of the desert.

It was a sweaty, dirty, absolutely abominable trek for poor Creepette, but it felt perfectly fine for the transformed human. The bakingly hot sun beat down on them, and Anton felt like he could carry the weight with ease. Not so for Creepette, who was panting and leaning on him for support the whole time, and he could see, with some worry, the sheer amount of sweat pouring off of her.

If this sort of desert encroachment continued, she’d likely have nowhere left to live soon. That thought made him very sad. And another thought worried him. If it became night, it would be so cold, he’d be unable to move, she might though, but he doubted she’d be strong enough to carry him, so he’d have to get back to the plains as fast as he could.

“Hold on Creepette, I’m not gonna let you melt... or worse... shutting up now.”

“Uh- Uhn-gee... Abbat?”

With a confused look, he checked around, hardly slowing his pace. What was she- he stopped the thought as he saw her point towards what was unmistakably a mid-sized scorpion scuttling across the sand away from them.

“Fuud. Abbat!”

The pony’s words were tired and sounded hard to say, but she sounded enthusiastic.

“That’s food, but not a rabbit, it’s a scorpion... big difference.”

He was kinda hungry still, but he was worried a bit. Scorpions could be dangerous, and killing it would be harder with a passenger. He decided he’d rather wait until Creepette was safe.

“Abbat, Uhn-gee. Abbat.”

She seemed very proud of herself for having figured this out, and he couldn’t bear to crush her feelings. On the upside, they’d finally reached the grass, much cooler than the blistering heat of the desert. Sliding between the stalks of grass, the two of them made it a good distance in before Anton felt Creepette slide off where she’d been leaning against his side.

“Okay, you’re good? Great. Now I think we should clear a few-”

He looked back to see Creepette collapsed onto the ground, taking shallow, labored breaths.

‘Shit!’

“Uh, hey, can you hear me? What’s wrong? This would be so much easier if you could talk... wait, no, she’s hurt, or something, stop thinking so much, brain. Alright, let’s see.”

Taking a closer look at the downed mare, he noted that her skin was bright red under her thick, layered fur-strip-things, and she had been sweating profusely, but there was no moisture on her body now. Her eyes, mostly closed, had a glazed look to them, and she blinked weakly.

“Okay, dehydration, gotta find a lake or something.”

He was a little panicked, but still looking around for some clues, fresher grass or whatever. His panicked mind kept throwing scenarios of her not surviving and what he’d do with the body. The first thing (and most awful thing) was that he’d simply eat her and go wander the desert, but he pushed that thought aside. The second idea was that he’d try to give her a funeral pyre, but he had no idea how to make fire like this. Another thought was to try digging a grave, and leaving her with some sort of marker under the rich, moist loam.

Rich, moist loam.

The human-turned pony’s mind sparked the connection. She grew fungus in the dirt because it was very moist. And underground moisture comes from a high water-table, something his geography teacher a year back had tested everyone on eight times in a single quarter for whatever reason.

Either way, that one, oddly-specific lesson was coming in handy as he ripped away the loose, soft ground with his claws, passing it beneath him and away from Creepette like a dog. The first layer, held together by the tenacious root of the grass prevalent in the area, was the most difficult.

Shredding the banded dirt and clay layers, he finally found what he was looking for: a small point where his hole began to fill slightly with water. It was several feet down, but he’d found it. He just had to hope it wasn’t too late...

He sort of carried the mare as best he could, dragging her most of the way to the deep trench he’d dug. It was almost a foot taller than him, but he got her to the bottom safely, holding her near the water, hoping she could sense it. All the while, trying not to think of her dying, and becoming dinner. Who knew carnivores’ brains were so single-minded?

Several tense minutes of silence and a lack of movement beyond the gentle swaying of the grass and the quiet noises of the insects living within it passed.

About to despair, he saw a pink tongue poke gently from her mouth and lap up some water.

‘Yes brain, calm down, she’s going to live... I’m pretty sure.’

He waited for a time, letting her slowly drink from the pool of water, trying to calm his nerves. Eventually, she stopped drinking, and raised her head with a weak smile, looking at him blearily. She muttered quietly.

“Uhn-gee...”

“We’ll talk about that later I think, you just rest.”

Laying down in the mud and muck at the bottom of the trench, he felt himself growing tired from the effort and from the cold shadows laying across the hole. He felt the warm form of Creepette press against his side, and he fell asleep with a smile.

Author's Note

Aaand chapter the 'first', in which he does something real. Comment what you think, please!