It was three weeks into my exile when I first encountered Equestrian civilization, in the form of a small town, nameless to me at the time. My first impression of the place was...less than positive. The town was an organizational mess. The buildings were build in every colour and shape, with no pattern to it. Distances were arbitrary as well, with a cluster of what looked to be houses and shops mixed together in the middle, with other structures of all sorts increasingly spaced apart as one got farther from the centre. I stared at it for a moment, startled to see a town planned this poorly, although given recent events the sight didn’t draw more than a token amount of ire from me.
I suppose I must have looked just as shoddy, having just emerged from the untamed forest and having slowly starved for the past few days. I hadn’t suffered any major injuries yet, so my sharp horn, insectoid wings and all four hole-filled limbs were still intact. Still, I hadn’t made it through the woods unscathed. My carapace was covered in nicks and scratches where I hadn’t been fast or attentive enough to fully avoid danger, a couple of which were recent enough to still be open wounds, and one of my fangs was chipped. The satchel I carried was worn and frayed nearly to the point of breaking, though as I had consumed the last of it’s contents days ago perhaps it was just as well. It’s only remaining purpose was as a place to carry my warhammer, which rested on a pair of small hooks for speedy retrieval. I had been allowed to keep my trusty weapon from my service as an elite guard, though whether the gesture was meant as a small mercy or to give me a reminder of my failure I could not tell.
I began walking down the street. I knew being in the open like this was a dangerous action, even from my place deep in the hive we knew about the war, but by this point I couldn’t bring myself to be concerned. So far it looked to be of little consequence anyways. Although I saw several of the town’s inhabitants, and I am certain that they saw me as I watched their expressions turn to shock, fear, excitement and a whole range of other emotions, there was no organized response. A few of the ponies either fled to other parts of the town, or barricaded themselves inside their homes if those were nearby, but most seemed content to just sit or stand and gawk at me as I passed. A couple even looked curious about me, though they thought better of it and kept their distance.
I scowled at them for a moment, before looking back at the road. It was disgusting, how little they cared about their own territory. If this were the hive, I’d have been repelled or at least attacked before I could even set hoof inside the city limits. And yet here I was, a known enemy walking through the middle of town seen by all of them, and not a one even lifted a hoof to stop me. Why the queen had been so interested in these creatures I couldn’t imagine.
I paused for a moment, searching the area around me but finding no trace of their guards. Either they cared so little for this place that there were none, or organization was so weak that the guards couldn’t even do their jobs. I was a little disappointed. In my state of mind at the time, I’d been hoping to meet some form of resistance, and perhaps breath my last in battle with the local defenders. That at least, would have been a satisfying end to a disappointing story. A little voice in the back of my head pointed out that this was a stroke of luck, that this inattentiveness was the only way I could possibly survive, starving and worn down as I was. My survival was of little concern to me by this point however, so it was little comfort.
I continued down the rough, open road, trying to fill in the absence of action with the thoughts in my head. I’d never been a particularly thoughtful drone, but at the moment I did have a few mysteries worth pondering. Now that I’d seen them first hoof I had to wonder, why was the so obsessed with them? We had conquered other nations before this, and never before had I seen so many changelings brought to bear against a single foe. For that matter, I’d never heard of such a resounding failure of such an action, either. I paused for a moment, staring at a pink garish pink structure which happened to be on my right, unrecognizable for its needless decoration. I hissed at it, though from general frustration more than anything the building itself did. There was no response, though out of the corner of my eye I noticed a few ponies hurry away to deeper parts of town.
How could we have possibly been defeated by this? These creatures didn’t have a dangerous bone in their bodies. I, a lone and abandoned drone, had this entire town on the run by myself. How could these creatures have possibly turned back an invasion force hoof-picked by the queen? I scowled again. It was an embarrassing defeat. To have the invasion force, including the queen herself, beaten and cast out was tragedy enough. But for us to have been so crippled by the likes of these was just...was…
My search to find a word to adequately express the emotion I was feeling was interrupted by something colliding with my backside. I turned, half expecting and half hoping one of these ponies had finally worked up the nerve to attack, but instead I found a green coated unicorn stumbling to the ground. He gave me a single, nervous glance, seemingly unsure if I was a threat or not, and for a moment we just stared at each other. He didn’t spend long thinking about it however, as a quick look behind the both of us had him scrambling upright and running away. I had a moment of confusion where I wondered why he wasn’t more afraid of me, when I finally realized the obvious: there was something behind me. I looked back.
I’m not sure how I failed to notice a hydra up until now, but there it was, stomping out of the forest near the place where I emerged, its four heads sweeping over the area and occasionally bellowing out their irritation as the brown beast’s lumbering form began trudging toward the centre of town.
I turned around and started running towards the creature, against the flow of ponies all moving the other direction. There weren’t many, I hadn’t made it that far into the town when the creature appeared, but I still had to dodge past a few running down the same road who briefly slowed and gave me quizzical looks before picking up speed again and continuing on to what they assumed was safety. I also saw a few ponies running toward the disturbance as I did, if not quite as fast, although they didn’t even register with me at the time.
I couldn’t say what motivated me at that point. A worthy opponent perhaps, this hydra was the first creature here who wouldn’t be immediately to avoid me, and it would certainly put up a fight. Falling to such a creature might be a worthwhile death as well, a prospect which was proving unavailable otherwise. Or perhaps, I simply took pity on the town’s denizens. Evidently unable to defend themselves, they reminded me somewhat of the hatchlings back in the hive, which I had spent several shifts protecting. I may have seen them as just another charge.
In the end, the specific reason was largely irrelevant, as the result was the same. I stopped just a couple lengths short of the hydra, as it finally noticed me and its heads turned to face me as it bellowed its rage yet again. I roared back my defiance, a wordless cry which though surely impressive paled in comparison to the creature’s noise, and ripped my hammer off of its harness. The strap finally gave after all this, tearing and falling to the ground, as gripped the hammer in my teeth and glared up at my adversary.
The creature and I sized each other up as my eyes moved to each head in turn. Hydras are no known for their patience however, and that state of affairs only lasted a moment. One of the massive, scaled heads reared back and tensed for a split second before before lunging down.
And impacting the dirt where I had been a split second earlier. I had dashed to the side, and though I got hit by dirt kicked up by its muzzle burrowing into the ground, but I avoided the brunt of the blow which would have flattened me.
I brought my hammer around in a wide swing while it was still recovering, impacting into the side of the creature’s skull, dislodging it from the ground with a satisfying crack. That head reared up and bellowed in pain, though there wasn’t any immediately visible damage.
I didn’t have any time to celebrate however, as two more heads tensed up in preparation. I dove forward this time, just missing the two heads which collided with the ground behind me. From my new position under the hydra’s reach I went for the legs, the obvious target. Another blow with the hammer, and several of the hydra’s heads roared this time as it recoiled, wrenching back all of its heads this time.
The hydra swept it’s heads around, trying to find where I’d ran to, hidden in it’s blind spot as I was. It wouldn’t last long, but I had no intention of hiding. After a brief recovery, I pulled my hammer back again, and maneuvered behind the creature. I dealt another blow to the same leg, hoping that enough damage could bring it to the ground and make it an easy target.
The hydra growled, mostly unfazed though it did stumble on that side a little. With only a vague sense of where its target was it had to flail around and hope to land a hit, but from a creature of its size such an attack would present a serious danger all the same. It took a step backwards, sweeping its tail in a wide arc behind it and scoring marks in the bark of the surrounding trees.
I rolled forward, neatly dodging underneath the tail, but I’d made an error. My head collided with something large and heavy moving the opposite direction. All of a sudden my vision swam, and my hearing went fuzzy. It was my turn to stumble, moving unsteadily backwards as I tried to create some space and regain my bearings. I looked up in time to see a large, blurry shape where my opponent used to be rear up.
I had only a second to throw myself to the side, hitting the ground a little harder than I meant to, before one of its heads bit a huge hole out of the dirt where I’d stood. I scrambled up to my hooves, needing to keep moving if I wanted to stay in the fight.
I tried to get back into the rhythm I had initially, and swung my hammer at the head at ground level, but although it connected all I managed to do was elicit a small grunt of pain.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the blurry shape of another head lining up with me. I tried to get moving, but my body wasn’t responding as fast as I needed. I tried to dart to the side again, but I didn’t make the distance, and the hydra’s lunge hit me mid stride.
I sailed a short ways into the woods, stopping when I collided with a tree trunk. My hammer careened off into the woods as well, and I faintly heard it hit another tree with the crunch of metal on bark.
I was starting to feel numb, and my vision was fading to grey. It was a struggle just to keep conscious, so standing back up was out of the question. And despite it all I was smiling. It was a good fight, I was thinking to myself as the large shape ahead of me seemed to grow larger as it advanced. This was a satisfying end to a disappointing story. In my last few moments of clinging to awareness, I noticed a mysterious yellow blob hovering next to the advancing hydra. It seemed out of place, but I didn’t have any time to ponder it.
The world around my faded to black.
I awoke some time later, which was surprising in itself. By all logic I should have been stomped flat by the hydra by now, and yet here I was not only alive but only in a mild amount of pain. If anything, I was feeling pleasantly numb. Anger and confusion warred for dominance in my head as I thought about why I might have been saved. The thought crossed my mind that I was being kept around to torment longer, but it seemed an awful lot of effort for a chew toy. I didn’t have enough strategic importance to be worth capture either.
My second surprise came from the room I woke up in. Finding myself resting on a large sofa, I stood up and looked around. It was easy to see that this was not a dungeon, as little sense as that made. Instead, it was the central room of somepony’s house, which had an earthy, mostly brown and green colouration on the walls and furnishings. There were also a number of things which seemed odd for a pony, far-too-small houses and baskets with little blankets in them. If those had a purpose, I couldn’t tell what it was. They were not in use at the moment either way.
“You, umm, probably shouldn’t be walking around…”
The voice came from me behind me, suddenly, and I would have been startled by it if it wasn’t so quiet and hesitant. I spun around, and although the action made me dizzy, I was able to face the speaker. She turned out to be a yellow pegasus mare, partly hiding behind the long, pink mane which covered half her face, and looking at me intently. I honestly don’t know how I missed her in my first sweep of the room. I can only assume she was just that quiet, she could put our infiltrators to shame. She continued. “I-I mean, if you don’t have anywhere important to go…but it’s not good to be walking on those injuries...”
I stared at the mare uncomprehendingly for a second, before looking down at myself. I had a large wrapping around the centre of my torso, as well as a number of bandages. I was also covered in significantly less grime than I was prior to what should have been my end. Sometime between fighting the hydra and now, my injuries had been treated. My confusion returned full force.
The mare spoke with a sudden intensity. “You shouldn’t bully a hydra like that! Especially when it’s already so spooked! It’s not nice.” As suddenly as it appeared, her fierceness gave way to her nervous demeanor. “And it’s, um, really dangerous…”
My mouth opened, but it wasn’t until a few minutes later that I could made it form any words. “The hydra was...what happened?”
“Oh, I lead it back home in the swamp. It had wandered wandered away and then got lost, and then saw all those ponies...and it was just so startled, the poor thing…” She looked off to the side seeming unwilling to meet my gaze, instead preferring to look at a spot somewhere to my right. “Then somepony, um, noticed you lying in the bushes…and you looked so hurt, and would need somewhere to rest so I, um, said you could stay here...” She trailed off, her voice fading into a nervous silence.
I stood in surprised silence, processing what I’d just heard. If what this mare said was accurate, it meant that not only was she present at the hydra attack but she was the one who turned it away. She wasn’t boasting about it either, so if she was lying she had no evident reason for it. I couldn’t imagine how a mare this uncertain could even remain present near a hydra let alone turn one away. I had one even more prominent question however. “Why?”
She looked me straight in the eye for just a second, her expression full of sadness and concern, before breaking eye contact and looking to to the side again. “...You just looked so hurt...and we couldn’t just leave you there…”
I received help because I was injured. The reason for saving me was at once simple and unimaginable. Never mind that I was a species at war with them. Never mind that I was an unknown and armed being in their town. Despite their only information saying I was a threat, they took me in.
My eyes widened in sudden realization. Over the course of this conversation, I’d answered both of my earlier questions. Why had the queen been some interested in Equestria? Because Equestria was a place so overflowing love and kindness that even an enemy could be treated with compassion. And how could the hive have been defeated by such a seemingly harmless nation? They could employ this compassion to turn away a hydra, of course they could find a way to repel the swarm.
And here I was, though not trusted still seemingly welcomed amongst them. After my exile, to be welcomed anywhere was the last thing I expected.
The mare looked down suddenly. “Oh...I’m sorry, I never introduced myself...I’m, um, Fluttershy…” She looked back up, seeming to be nervous at nothing in particular.
A small smile crept onto my face as I replied. “Kreight...my name is Kreight.”
Author's Note
As previously mentioned, this was made for the Outside Insight Summer Fanfiction Contest on EQD. I didn't notice that the contest was happening until 14 days into it, so I did this in perhaps a little less time than I would have liked to.
I wonder if the main character couldn't be handled differently, as it is they're a composite of a few characters that have been floating around in my head. Given how I'd missed the start date, it's what my brain had to work with so I went with it as far as I could.
I'm also not sure if the categories entirely fit, but they seemed like the closest approximate categories for the story in terms of content, if perhaps not entirely in tone.
I may look it over at some point and try to give it an overhaul, depending on both reader's reactions and my own thoughts when I look at it again later. Feel free to let me know of any typos you find, or any way you think it could be overall improved.
Well, If you made it here, I hope you enjoyed this attempt of mine.
