Diary of the Yet Unknown

Chapter Four
```
Political Bull-Stuff

When I was at school I was never elected leader of anything. There are two reasons for that. The first being that I never actually tried to lead anything, which is justified by the second reason. I make some real stupid decisions.
Deciding to approach a hunchback tentacle monster for example. Which doesn't even qualify for a place in the top three.

It turns out that this particular example didn't even have any far reaching consequences, which was new to me. That is, aside from what happened immediately.
I approached the thing like I had been approaching everything else that night, through the shadows. The sound of hooves and the light from torches a few streets over warranted this caution justified, and forgive me if I didn't feel like getting chased by stampeding ponies twice in one night.
As I got closer I remembered the male Cake talking about the monster.

He had said: 'I saw it standing outside a house with its lights on. I could hear noises from the house, it sounded like screaming.' Which I only remembered because the thing was standing outside a house that had it's lights on and I could hear noises coming from the house. Three guesses for what the noises sounded like.
I managed to get close enough to have a clearer look at the thing. It was facing away from me, so what I mostly got was a less than glorious look at it's ass. But from that not so glorious experience I could see that it had four legs. The hind two specifically looked like that of a lions but thicker, though the miasma coming up from it and it's dark coloured shaggy coat made the actual shape difficult to make out. Plus it could have been a tiger's legs. I'm no safari expert.
The reason I say mostly is because as soon as I got close enough to register all this the thing turned and looked right at me. Due to the lighting I couldn't see it's face and it's face tentacles seemed to move a whole lot more violently once it realised I was there.

That can't mean anything good. I thought immediately.
It did not mean good things.

The monster angled it's head up and made a really loud moaning noise that went on forever. Well, not forever but it did last at least ten seconds.
There was chilling silence after the monster's moan. I heard a twig snap.

Then from a few streets over. "It was that way!" And the pounding of hooves started racing in our direction.
I looked at the light haze the ponies' torches were giving off and looked back at the monster. It was gone, leaving a faint trail of black miasma that disappeared in the following second.
As I realised that I should probably leave also, the door of the house the monster was standing outside opened. The pony that stepped out saw me after sweeping the area.

"Hey!" It yelled. But I wasn't sticking around, I ran. "Come back here!" But I wasn't coming back, no way.
Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough to get off the street in time, as the witch hunting ponies rounded the corner down the street and saw me. Do I even need to say that they gave chase? Because they did.

One even yelled. "You're not getting away this time!" I wasn't so cynical though.

I expected myself to get away in a similar fashion to how I had the previous time, but the monster's moan had roused the town. That, coupled with the stampede of hooves behind me, was making more than a few ponies open doors. They all saw me as I ran through the shadows, trying to hide myself and run away at the same time.
Luckily they didn't give chase to me. However, they did point in whichever direction I had run when the hoard of ponies approached, which made it difficult for me to get away.
I pulled the double alley trick that I had used earlier. This time the ponies fell for it, same as the first, but when the other ponies were unable to tell them which way I went, they were able to figure out I had double crossed them. When they returned to the alley in which I was hiding, I ran once again and he chase was on. Only this time I had a little more of a lead on them.
I had heard a few of the ponies wonder where I went, one thought I was a wizard. Which, now that I think about it, is funny.

I eventually managed to get away from them by racing through a vacant house. Sounds easy but the door wasn't open, so through the window I went. It was then that I discovered that glass is hard, as I felt the impact a lot more than I thought I would. I also discovered that glass is sharp.
Anyway, the reasoning behind that was as follows: The whole town was up, either wondering what was going on or chasing me, so all the houses have lights on. This house had no lights on and was therefore empty, so through it I ran.
Then I went out through a backdoor that I was lucky to find in the near dark, closing it quietly so as to not attract any attention.
I looked back once to see the ponies knocking on the door of the house, trying to get the 'person' inside to open the door and let them know that their window was broken. Then I went back to the G.O.L. My new abbreviation for the tree library.
After all that I went back to the routine I had been living by for the past week. Staying inside and watching the ponies like a hawk. All after a terrible nights rest of course.

The next day saw me receiving my first visitors, Mr Cake and a glasses wearing pony that looked real familiar. I didn't greet them at the door like a gentleman, I had only revealed myself to the Cake. I didn't feel like prancing around like a target, so I watched from my place on the top of the stairs.
They let themselves in and looked around.

The glasses one said. "I don't see any humans around." Then it hit me. The glasses pony was the one that was leading the chase against me last night and I really didn't want to go down there now.

"Sherry said he'd be in here." Mr Cake responded. "I'm sure he's here." Then he addressed the rest of the place. "Sherry, this is the Mayor of Ponyville." Yet another stupid name in this place. "I brought her here so that we could possibly sort something out." Like what you idiot?

The Mayor pony was silent for a few seconds before gracing us with her opinion again. "Since there is nothing here, I should be off doing other things which call to my attention." In my opinion she was either too busy, or a bitch. Probably the latter.

Mr Cake was insistent though. "Just give him a moment. Sherry, please show yourself."
I didn't want to show myself, but if I didn't Mr Cake would probably feel let down by me, the Mayor would think less of him and I wan't the type of guy to think of myself as a dick. So I walked down that staircase with so much drama that Shakespeare turned in his grave from jealousy. Plus I was hungry which interferes with my decision making. I never would have done that on a full stomach.

One of the few good things I got from that decisions was the Mayor pony's reaction. It's jaw dropped and it stared. Actions which are, by themselves, simple but I've always seen these types of things with a lot more humour than others, so I had to stifle a laugh on the way down. What she did next I didn't find so funny, which was find her voice.

"You're the thing that ran away from us last night." She accused. In return I found the wit I had been missing from last night.

"If two dozen me was running at you with torches and pitchforks, what would you do?"

Mr Cake stepped in. "Sherry, Mayor Mare, could you please calm down." In my opinion Mr Cake was not making the best decisions. First: he had brought another pony to my presence and told them about me without my permission. He'd be feeling that later. Second: he was trying to mediate. Not many people I've met have been able to pull that off, and good old Carrot over here was definitely not one of those people.

Now, I have strange thought processes, so I helped him. "Cake, shush." I told him. "You'll make this worse if you keep talking." Then I sat on one of the steps which, being made for ponies, were more than wide enough for me to sit on. "Mayor, I am Sherry. Now I don't know about you but I believe in second chances, so, how about we leave what happened last night behind us and start on a new foot?"

"How am I supposed to know if you can be trusted." Of course she says that.

"Well, giving me a chance would be the first option. The second would be to look at the facts, of which there are several. The most obvious of which is: Do you really think I look like an Eldritch abomination?"
And thus began the most tedious talk I've ever had with anyone except my parents.
I didn't enjoy that talk, and though I was quite witty throughout, the general way in which the whole thing went down bored me. I was never that into politics. Plus it was tedious.
But the results of the conversation are important and do warrant being put to paper.
I suppose the biggest thing was that Mayor Mare, as I discovered she was called, decided not to announce my presence to the town on the grounds that the matter was already being taken to princess Celestia. Other stuff includes her requested assistance on the hunting of the tentacle monster that had been terrorizing the town, to which I said no immediately, me asking more things about the monster and having the official stuff about my residence sorted out.

It turns out that the ponies cared more for their books than I had been led to believe. The pony that I had taken up residence after, Old Bookie, had been evicted by his landlord and had actually been allowed residence in the tree library until a week from my hearing this. But he'd taken that with more than a pinch of salt and left for Manehatten two days before my arrival, maybe because his landlord was the princess herself.
I couldn't believe his name was actually 'Old Bookie' either, his childhood must have sucked.
Anyway, Old Bookie had left his library in the hands, or hooves, of Ponyville's quote 'government' because he didn't see any of it's resident ponies as worthy of being a librarian, so it was with great pain that he left. Pinkie was the only one to see him off, which was predictable and sad in my opinion.
I was told that the monster had been around for almost a month now, and the sightings sounded real similar to what myself and Mr Cake had seen. The ponies that had been affected by the thing were not restricted to foals, as I learnt they were called, but they were always the youngest in the house. So that was cool I guess.
The matter of my diet was also brought up, at which point Mr Cake did his most productive thing of that day, which was offer to bring me food daily. During this part of the exchange I did not bring up the fact that I eat meat. Because they are herbivores and I am smart, if only at times.

Once all was said and done and good ol' Mayor Mare was gone, I turned to Mr Cake, intent on giving him an earful of my opinion. Unfortunately he beat me to the punch.

"So that went well eh?" Is what he said. I just gave him the look.

"Carrot cake." I said, using his full name for that 'You are so in trouble' effect. "What did you just do that was wrong? I'm giving you three seconds."

"What?" You wasted it.

"And three. Times up."

"What do you mean?"

"You just went and almost got me run from town, that's what. Without my permission, I would add." I told him as I jumped down from the staircase. I had purposefully sat on a stair that left me above the ponies talking to me, so they had to look up. Might as well do some subtle symbolism right? "That was the Mayor of this town. She could have, if she wished, had me rounded up, raped, forced into slavery and then beheaded and I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. Bringing her here could have had some serious consequences that I don't think you'd be able to handle."
I don't think many people, or ponies for that matter, had given Mr Cake lectures before. He didn't seem all that used to it.

"But I thought-"

"Doesn't matter." I cut him off. "You didn't think your actions through before executing. Now, this time there weren't that many bad consequences, but remember: Mistakes are only as bad as the messes they make." He looked like he was having an existential crisis at this point, so I lightened up.

"Hey." I said, patting him on the shoulder. "You had good intentions. That counts for something." Even if that means nothing in the long haul. He looked me in the eye. I smiled. He smiled back. "Let that be a lesson to you."

"Now. Other things." I said abruptly. "Surely you have more questions after last night."

"I do" Mr Cake was still recovering from the lecture. Good. It'll stick. "I was going to bring some food over but then I realised that I don't know what you eat."

I raised an eyebrow "You might not like this."

"How so?"

"I eat meat." He blanched. I personally found this quite funny, but I continued so that Mr Cake's conscious could be put to rest. "And fruit, veges. Baking too." He relaxed visibly when I told him this. Just not entirely.

"I can bring you some fruit, we have lots of apples in Ponyville."

"Noted."

"The baking I can deliver... But the meat."

"Don't worry about it. Humans can survive without meat for a very long time." I assured him.

"How long." He asked, still visibly worried.

"Until we die." A fact that isn't technically wrong, but I didn't point out that I meant from lack of essentials like, I dunno, every vitamin and mineral instead of time left.

"Okay. Also, Cupcake told me to ask this. What have you been doing to entertain yourself." That took me off guard. I was expecting questions about the world I had come from, or something similar.

"Well, I have been reading the books around here." I said, waving my hand at the shelves of books around before sitting back down on the staircase. On a lower step this time so we'd see eye to eye. "It's kept me occupied for some of the time." Which was true.
After my initial first impression with the books here, I had ignored them for a total of twentyfour hours before boredom drove me to read. I found out that there were several adventure books too, the best one by far being the adventures of Daring Do. Which, despite being the most cliche thing I've ever read, managed to stave off my stir craziness for a few hours.

"Haven't really had that much else to do except keep watch." I finished, not mentioning my diary. That thing is private.

"I'll let Cupcake know." Mr Cake replied. "She'll come up with something for you to do." So long as it's not knitting I'm down.

"Hey, did Pinkie go to Canterlot like she said she would?" I asked Mr Cake when it occurred to me. I just realised the pun in that name and I'm not happy.

"Yeah, she left first thing in the morning." Mr Cake told me. "Cupcake was only just able to catch her before she left to remind her to take some food. Then she was gone." He sighed. "She's certainly a strange one, that Pinkie."

"You aren't her parents?" I asked, sensing a possibly sad story.

"No, she just walked into town one day with a massive party in tow. She practically adopted us." Not sad then, but still a story.

"Sounds fun." And tiring. "When should we expect a response?"

"I'd say a few days. I've not taken a matter to the princess before. A bakery is easy, if tiring, to run." A second of silence. "Speaking of which."

I waved a hand. "Don't let me keep you. You're a busy man."

"Stallion." He corrected.

"Doesn't mean a thing to me." I replied. "Don't you have a business to run?"

He nodded. "I'll be back with food later tonight." And with that, the door shut.
At least he had the sense to bring the food to the supposedly empty library at night, so no one would see. Then I realised something.
If I accepted the food that the Cakes brought me, I would be accepting charity, which is something that never sat well with me.
Oh well, it was something that I would have to deal with later. See, when I walked back upstairs there was a certain thing waiting for me.
I walked into the room that I'd been using as a vantage point on the ponies and any thoughts of rejecting charity were replaced with the following:

"Why is there an Eldritch abomination in my room?"