Little Red Bow

by WovenTales

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Zecora, Original Character, Apple Bloom
Length: 6277

A timberwolf, his attempt to hunt Apple Bloom foiled, finds himself watching over her on her way to and from Zecora's.

The Everfree Forest is not the nicest place in Equestria, but it's nothing those that live under its canopy aren't used to – fillies coming to visit are another story. They are also a lot more forgiving, and pony friendship can affect even the most wooden of hunters.

Inspired by a PMV by Loveless Nova (unfortunately no longer available in the US, but it was based on this version, with more ponies) and, more generally, the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

Cover by CentPL

Published 2016-04-25 04:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2016-12-24 18:25:53 UTC

Summer: The path to Grandma's house

The first he sees of her is the red not-flower steadily moving over the thick bushes, the rare color seeming to glow among the greens and browns and blues of his home, and surely drawing more eyes than just his. He follows, no louder than a breeze rattling through the branches. His territory is poor, even for one just barely out of his mother’s grove: on the edge of the forest and in areas most larger prey – and wiser predators – avoid. There is no reason to let such a willing meal fall to some other teeth or talons.

The yellow one below the red is surprisingly unaware of the natural order in the forest – or if she is, she does not just accept it, but embraces her place among the squirrels and birds. Certainly, the flower she stops to smell would have no problem catching those smaller prey. Even if, he supposes, the whipping, entangling thorns would not be quite strong enough to more than scratch her, should she have touched the hanging fruit and awoken them. Indeed, as they pass a stretch where the bushes encroach far enough onto the path that he could almost close the distance to her in a single leap, he realizes she’s not just about his size, but actually slightly larger; she has to duck under a branch his ears barely brush at fully forward attention. No, better for now to simply follow the beacon of her red than to be hasty and loose such an easy catch.

Not that he is worried. While she might be perfectly happy to wander into the waiting grasp of some other predator, they, at least, know the rhythms of the wood and the leaves. They know what it means when the bushes bend to an unnoticeable wind. They know better than to steal a catch from the muzzle of a timberwolf.

He is close enough now that his claw could touch her tail should he wish it to. As she slows to climb over a fallen tree, he gathers his limbs under him to jump. And then – as if to spite him – an owl launches out of the leaves beside him, a squirrel dangling (hanging?) from its claws. Her hooves clack against the wood as she screams and nearly leaps the trunk, running ahead as soon as she is able. Before he can do anything, she is out in the relative clear of the path again, where his bark-and-leaf camouflage would be too obvious to follow. He can’t do anything now but follow and wait for another chance. This far from the fields, there should be no shortage of those before – if – she leaves.

But then she turns from the old path she had been following, the one the trees sing of, that used to lead ponies pulling their mobile-groves into the heart of the forest and safely back out, onto the small track leading to Her house. Of course she would. His prey isn’t too different from Her. Both ponies – or were similar once, before She became Herself – though their different smells hid that. Red is sweet, with hints of grass and fruit and open air, while She is sharp and smoky and heavy with the earth and musk of the forest. But ponies don’t put much stock in scents, and he should have realized that she was going to see Her no matter how different the two might be. He hurries to catch Red before she reaches Her. She is enough to end any hunt, should She wish to.

He freezes. She stands in the middle of the trail, looking straight at him. Still. Tree bark and leaves. Nothing can see a timberwolf in their own forest. Nothing but Her. Nothing can be hidden from Her.

“I should know you well enough by now to watch for your approach before I would allow. These paths are home to dangers you know not – on them you never travel giving no thought – and should you wish to keep from needing escort, you will learn how to keep yourself unhurt.”

Red responds, eyes on the ground, pulling Her gaze to her as she continues and his green eyes blink gratefully. But before he can shrink away, She turns back to him.

“We will begin that training soon; for now, I have already planned our brew. But stay a minute, see what watched your journey, and know the peril brought by leaving early.”

She walks toward him, and he tries to wrap the branches tighter around himself. A single brush of Her hoof breaks through his control and leaves him exposed.

“Now you, who slink through shadows of rock and tree. This pony will travel safely through the Everfree; I rarely interfere with prey and hunters but her I will protect from creatures’ hungers.” Her face looms into his, and Her voice becomes low and even colder. “Should you harm her in any way, with your life you will pay.”

He is unable to tear his eyes away from Hers, and in that eternity he is no longer a timberwolf, feared by all and fearing none, but a leaf grimly hanging to its twig as an icy wind shrieks down the side of the mountains. Her gaze strips away his bark, cuts deeply into his heartwood, and She sees everything he is and has been. The pup that lost his mother’s catch to a cockatrice, too busy bullying his sister out of the way to have it all to himself; the wolf who challenged a young manticore for its territory and lost, stinger stabbing and striking until the wolf could almost feel the venom trickling through his branches, corrupting the wood, and the potions She soaked him with when he had collapsed in the middle of the trail. The barely-wolf who spent nights on the edge of the fields, watching the ponies wrapping up their lives and holding back the darkness for one more meal, one more conversation. His entire life lies bare to Her, and even when She finally turns away and nudges Red towards Her own grove of light, he can do little more than lie where She left him, every breath of air inside him and around him feeling stronger than the thickest branches he runs through when chasing particularly quick prey. He barely even cracks an eye open when a squirrel bounds past him, branch or feather or something held in its mouth like a trophy.

Later, when the world is once again separate from his own self, he carefully brings his paws under him, and unsteadily stands. Red will be safe. He would do nothing to cross Her, and She has made her wishes clear. But he remembers how Red looked at him from Her grove. Fearful and wary, yes – she knows something of the natural order, after all. But more than that. Sympathetic, almost caring, despite everything. He doesn’t want to forget Red and that look just yet. He has seen some of pony ways in those nights watching the red-and-brown and yellow-and-pink. He will give her a gift.

The last several times Apple Bloom had entered Zecora’s hut – once its smoke and masks had stopped seeming quite as intimidating – she had been entranced by the colors and shapes and general sense of activity almost before she had crossed the doorway. Now, though, she glanced back at the pile of branches and leaves, and the two lights glowing a sickly green from its shadows. The zebra was right. It would have tried to eat her – she had seen what those teeth and claws could do, even to a sheep that had managed to get away; Big Mac and Applejack had made sure that was a boring summer. And yet she couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for it. Her brother may never have made her quiver like that, but he could still be downright scary when he got really mad.

Zecora gently nudged her further inside and shut the door, blocking the timberwolf from view. Come to think of it… “Hey, Zecora, how’d you scare it like that? Granny Smith says timberwolves are some of the meanest critters around, but it looked almost as scared of you as the ponies in town! Was it whatever you said at the end, there?”

“To live out here with all its threat, you must, at times, be stronger yet. I hold respect, as you can see, and keep some peace through all the Everfree. But I will never give you cause to fear, and you’ll be safe from all while you are here.” She walked to the pot bubbling in the center of the room and stirred it, the long ladle between her teeth.

The filly groaned, only just noticing the size of the cauldron. “Soup again? You know, there’s a lot of funner things we can make, like say, potions. Do you even use this thing?” She tapped the small pot on the shelf that Zecora had said she used to brew them. The zebra only glanced at her as she dipped the tip of her hoof in the water, and Apple Bloom sighed. “Sorry, I’m just getting impatient again. They’ve all been really good soups. You want me to open the windows? Might be nice to get a breeze blowin’ through.” The summer heat was only dampened by the trees, and while Zecora’s house, with its canopy of leaves serving as both roof and ceiling, was cooler than her own, the filly was quickly growing uncomfortable in the extra heat the fire threw out.

“Please do allow the wind its swift access, though the soup means more than you have guessed: a potion’s brewed in much the same way, and you will show me what you’ve learned today.” She tapped one of the tables. “These notes, you’ll find, are rather sparse, so use your mind and trust your heart.”

The rough sheet of paper was pinned down by a bright blue bottle and covered in Zecora’s surprisingly elegant mouthwriting, the glyphs as neatly-formed as Cheerilee’s but full of decorative flourishes that made them feel like an old Zebracan art – a glyph in “flower that has never known the sun”, for instance, was almost exactly like the mark on the zebra's flank. Reading over the instructions again, Apple Bloom’s first impression of them as a recipe seemed less and less accurate; while the ingredients were all listed at the top, most only hinted at what they meant and none of them said anything about how much to put in. The directions themselves were a bit easier, but only because there weren’t too many different ways to say “chop and stir.”

“Hey, Zecora, are you wanting moondrops or morning glories here? I can guess an most of these, but…” She trailed off as she saw the zebra lying on her bed – doubling as a couch during the day – and watching her with a quiet smile. “All right, I’ll just figure it out myself, then. Don’t blame me if it doesn’t taste right!”

She lost track of time as she searched the shelves lining almost every wall for a particular type of bark, or carefully poured liquids and powders from the jars hanging from the branches, or crushed herbs and cloves stored in the many braids and bowls. She did eventually decide to use the moondrop, as she had already tossed in several things that would give the soup a chunkier texture and nothing that seemed to be the core flavor. Besides, Zecora had mentioned knowing where a couple patches were, deeper in the forest, so she didn’t have to feel bad about using what would usually have been too expensive for a lunch this vague.

And through it all, the stirring. The “recipe” wanted her to completely mix every single ingredient in before adding the next. Whether or not that was the way all zebras learned to cook, Apple Bloom the pony quickly simplified it, occasionally adding three or even four powders at a time.

Even after reaching the end of the page, she still felt like the soup was missing some small but important flavor. She called over at the zebra – who seemed to be helping a squirrel braid a grey feather into its tail – to not let anything burn and galloped out the door. There was a particular berry she wanted to add, and she hadn’t seen it among Zecora’s supplies. She knew of a patch in the Low Orchard, but that was a long way from the hut. Maybe it grew out here as well? She didn’t look forward to her chances of finding a squashberry patch just by wandering around— on another hoof, there was that marshy clearing she and Zecora had visited last month, looking for mallow. That might be similar enough to the pond, where she usually found it. Besides, it was in roughly the same direction, so she wouldn’t even have gone too far out of her way if she didn’t find any berries there.

She was almost surprised at how quickly she seemed to reach it, and, as it turned out, she had guessed correctly; there were several of the small bushes at the edge of the trees. But then the excitement racing through Apple Bloom’s body began to wear off, and she realized both that she had run out here without a basket to carry the fruit and, more importantly, that several minutes of forest lay between her and the hut – forest that, as she was being reminded of with each rustling leaf, was not very friendly to young ponies. She bit off a few berry-laden branches and hurried back down the winding, overgrown trails, ears twitching and mane prickling.

Zecora looked up from stirring the soup as the filly came through the door, and her eyes widened at the leafy lion’s mane around her head. She didn’t say anything, though, even as she watched Apple Bloom toss the branches onto a small table by the door and start pulling off the red berries. The squirrel showed less restraint, and stopped grooming the feather to leap across to her back and scramble up to watch from over her bow.

“I know ‘tart’ ain’t something that would normally go with everything in there,” she told it, “but Applejack had these in a salad the other day, and for some reason it seems like they’ll be good here as well.” With that, she swept the last of the loose berries into a bowl to carry them over to the cauldron. To offset the taste, she spooned in some honey from one of the largest bottles in the hut. Then, finally, it was just down to more stirring and letting everything in the pot finish cooking – and, after everything seemed done and she had put out the fire, cooling off enough to not scald whatever tried to taste it.

Apple Bloom cleaned up as she waited. She quickly got used to the quiet, listening to the noises outside and to the last sounds of the dying fire, the swish of the broom, and the clicking of the squirrel’s claws up and down the walls, so she jumped when Zecora suddenly spoke up as the filly was finally ladling out a portion of the soup.

“Wait a while, we’ve no need for haste. Your addition I would like to taste. I know what I wrote before, but you have made this something more.”

“I know it ain’t going to taste how you were thinkin’ but I do know my fruit! I’m not gonna put something poisonous in there or anything! Or are you saying…”

The zebra smiled cryptically as she sipped at the spoonful she was somehow holding like an earth pony. Her eyes closed and she seemed to be picking apart the flavors, but she didn’t respond quickly enough for Apple Bloom; the filly picked up the half-filled bowl and took a swallow herself.

It was still too warm to be comfortable, and she coughed as it flowed down her throat. The contrast between the squashberries and the dewy-tasting moondrops was definitely… interesting, but what really surprised her was the sensation it left behind. She could still feel the humid weight of the early summer afternoon pressing in on her, but she shivered as the coolness spread from her mouth and stomach throughout her body, as if she had suddenly stepped out into the night, carrying a calm stability with it.

“Is that…”

“Yes, your thoughts indeed fly true: you’ve just cooked your first full brew. Not only could you read my list, you also gave it your own twist – fixing magic’s balance, it seems to be.” She licked her lips and let out a short laugh. “Your instinct might be growing faster than me! Do not worry, much remains ahead; you won’t soon be warden in my stead. Now, though, fill some bowls for our neighbors’ treat – they too will want relief from this tiring heat.”

They filled the low, flat bowls that would be easy to carry and hard for the animals to tip over – the choice of the large pot quickly becoming obvious as even that was soon almost empty – and started to carefully carry them outside to the stumps and stone Zecora kept around for this exact reason. Apple Bloom stopped still as she was pulling the door open; there was a bright red flower, made of smaller, airy-looking blossoms spreading from a central stem, on the step just below her hooves.

“Hey, Zecora, looks like somepony left you something!”

The other peered around the cauldron, ears pricked. “No, that seems more like an apology. An honor: those are rare in Everfree.” She paused to make sure the bowl was secure on her back. “And I would doubt it’s meant for my own hoof – that pawprint says it’s from your timberwolf. Though while this gift might be honest do not forget what else exists, as even if he grants you peace the forest holds still sharper teeth.”

“An apology, huh?” She set her bowl down long enough to put the flower behind her ear and brush her mane across to hold it in place. The filly smiled as she scanned the bushes and watched two green lights blink and disappear.

Author's Note

I've had a bit of trouble finding an editor for this story, but since it's probably been over half a year since I started writing this (I had the first half of the chapter done long before I figured out what to do with the rest of the story) it seemed like it was about time to get it out, so I went over the chapter one last time myself before biting the bullet. Basically, please let me know if you notice anything that seems off, and if you have any questions about how this particular world works, I always love answering them!

Autumn: How pretty these flowers are

He sits by the old pony-trail. Watching. Waiting. He saw Red start across the fields on her well-traveled path to Her house not long ago. Now hooves crunch on dead leaves and his ears swivel to the sound. Red walks fearlessly into his territory, though she watches the bushes as she passes. The forest has taught her respect as the days lose light, but she is still trusting, still soft.

He steps out to walk beside her, and she bares her teeth in happiness. He watched over her from the shadows since She claimed her – at first because She might not care that it was something else that hurt Red, if anything had happened, but then because he had come to like her himself: her open, caring scent, its edges now smoky and sharp with power; her soft bird-singing when she thinks she is alone; even her careless bravery. Now he watches her from clearings and paths and light.

The trail turns as it passes through a denser patch of brush and across a small rivulet still draining yesterday’s rain. He stops. They are not that far from… Red freezes as well, searching the trees with wide eyes and twitching ears. There is a tint of fear in her voice and her scent. But she does not need to worry and he tries to tell her with his body, with the way his ears lie as she looks back at him. Red relaxes.

He follows the water into the undergrowth, calling Red silently on when she hesitates, and soon the vines and brambles would be a solid wall for anything else walking this way. But they part smoothly for him. Trickier is leaving them open for her – he is not used to holding apart branches he has already passed. His grip slips several times and she jumps against his tail as they whip closed on her flank.

Then they are through, and he circles her; red welts slowly weep on her haunches and long scratches reach down her sides. He hears himself whine as he noses them, licking away the blood. Red is hurt and She will not like it. He does not like it. But Red is looking around his grove and her teeth are bare again. When she pulls away from his tongue he lets her wander, jumping to the top of his high log to watch.

The water runs from under the leaves and into his stream, and Red traces its path there, stopping with her front hooves in the shallows to dip her head and take a drink. A breeze blows through the leaves, and she shivers as it plucks at her red. For a moment, she just stands there, water dripping down her chin and burbling around her legs on its way over the stones and branches. Then she picks her way over to him, climbing the rock outcropping until her ears are almost level with his paws. A yelp when she almost stumbles into the hollow under his log, where he sleeps when the rain falls and he is not somewhere else, and when she looks up again he can tell from the set of her ears and the look on her mouth that she only now realizes where they are.

Red turns, looking down the slope of his grove. It is small, yes – it would never hold all the pups his mother’s did – but when she glances back at him, he knows she sees what he has made of it: cleaning the banks of his stream, shifting logs to make a secure path up and down his hill, encouraging the forest to grow the wall enclosing his entire clearing. But when she steps down from beside him, from the point where they can watch it all, she goes instead to the flowers growing around the bases of his trees, the scents he has carefully chosen and raised to bring some of the bright singing of the fields into the heart of the forest. The one thing in his grove he is most proud of.

He stands and stretches. Red keeps her muzzle over his flowers as he pads to her, but her ears follow him. He settles a respectful distance from her side. A brave pair of birds flits to the bank further below and jumps across the stones to splash the day’s travel from their feathers; she watches them, her shoulders relaxed and legs folded as if she is not under the dark trees and only a jump away from teeth and claws and hunger. His chin thumps heavily against the ground.

Something lands on his neck. Something with claws and chittering that runs from shoulders to ears and back. It is too close to snap at and it dodges his paws’ clumsy swipes. He rolls. It runs to stay on top. He shakes. It digs between twigs and plates and hangs on. Soon he is on his side, legs tangled and chest heaving and big eyes and big teeth are standing on his cheek and scolding right into his ear.

Red is barking but her lips are drawn back like she is happy – not like a snarl. The ball of fur jumps to her shoulder and scolds her as well. It moves like a squirrel and has teeth like a squirrel but its tail is wide and feathered. He has seen it with Her. He bares his teeth – not in Red’s happy way – but she says something soothing to him and something sharp to the squirrel-bird, and it did not actually hurt him.

But if it is here, She is hunting them. He scrambles to his paws. He does not like seeming weak, but if he appeases Her, She might be more gentle in Her anger.

The squirrel-bird leaps from Red to tree to tree to stand on the side of his wall, chattering. Red follows on the ground, and says something to him as she passes. The scratches – his scratches – are red and pulling at her coat, but at least they are no longer bleeding. He hurries to part the branches when she calls. The squirrel-bird leads from overhead, sometimes disappearing and starting them off in another direction when it comes back, and when they reach the end of his wall, She is waiting only a few lengths away.

He drops to his stomach; She looks coldly calm, with Her mouth closed, Her shoulders loose, and Her ears only slightly back. But She smells more dangerous than he has ever smelled Her. Red steps out of the brush behind him, and Her eyes go to her haunches. Then Her shoulders tense. Sharp eyes pin him to the ground as they did those moons ago – as they still did in his memory – and She steps forward.

Red’s tail fills his vision. He hears her say something to Her as if She were just one more creature living in the forest.

“This wolf—” the word is heavy with Her power, and he shivers at its sound “—has gotten you to roam, when I have said to—”

Red cuts Her off. Red cuts Her off with a voice that challenges Her power. And even though her voice itself barely weighs anything in his ears, he feels Her burden lift.

“Truly, do you trust this wolf so much, to know that you will never be his lunch? The Forest’s soul is fickle, living here is hard, the best of friends can turn if one should drop her guard. For all your years you still remain a child, raised outside and sheltered from the wild; have you really learned enough with me to follow where your soft heart leads?”

Red yells something at Her, but She stays silent, unmoving. When she starts talking again, her voice is quieter, calmer, but no less strong. Eventually, she too falls silent. He hears Her make some movement with Her hooves, and Red steps to the side. He no longer feels that predatory force behind Her gaze, but he still presses himself further into the ground as She steps closer to kneel in front of him. Their muzzles almost touch and Her dark, deep, hard eyes peer straight into his.

“You have earned the trust of this young mare, but know that this means more than you’re aware: she’s not used to Forest ways and values much that you’d downplay. Should she fall, it won’t be me you’ll fear, but your own love of those you hold most dear. If you aren’t the noble wolf she sees, leave her now to walk alone but free.”

The power returns to Her voice for the last command. A long moment later, She stands and calls to Red to follow, and she glances back at him before they disappear into the shadows and the leaves.

Only then does he sit up. What was it She wanted him to decide? He already knows Red is strange, her fearlessness makes that obvious: she is not a dragon or a cragodile, or Her, to be unguarded and still be safe. But that is not what She meant. Something Red finds important that he does not? It is something in how she thinks of him, something she does not know she is wrong about – so not how he eats, no matter how she reacted to the rabbit before the last full-dark moon.

How does she see him? Not long ago, she would never leave the paths and the clearings for the true forest if she did not smell like Her and burn with her own power. Even now she does not walk the winding trails through the brush unless she is looking for something important, but she followed him to his grove anyway. When she leaves her bright fields and tamed trees, she looks for him and is calmer if she knows he is near. A protector, then. But why would She warn him about that? He is not going to get bored and leave her to the claws and thorns— but She might not know that; She might think he will only stay as long as Red is new and interesting. And ponies do ally themselves more freely than anyone else could afford to. If he left, Red would not understand like those of the forest would. That would hurt her.

That was not going to happen.

He stands and lopes off, following her trail.

Heartwood leaped at her, his claws outstretched. Apple Bloom fell to the ground to let him fly over her, rolled to get back to her hooves, but the timberwolf had already turned and was racing toward her again. The filly stepped to the side and lashed out with her strongest applebucking kick, catching him square in the jaw as he passed.

At least, that was the plan.

Everything before the kick had gone smoothly this time, but her timing was off and her hooves thunked hollowly against his – much more solid – shoulder. Rather than dazing the timberwolf, the small filly was thrown off balance by the force of his passing and of her own buck, and fell face-down in the leaves and dirt. She shook her head clear just in time to feel Heartwood’s jaws close around the back of her neck.

He held Apple Bloom for a second before releasing his grip and letting her pick herself back up.

“Each and every jump, your form improves, but you still act with risky countermoves.” Zecora left her post at the side of the clearing to walk up to the pair. “Do not think a single kick will end the fight; you’re better thinking sharp and swift when you strike.” Her hoof shot out and cracked against the timberwolf’s other shoulder, sending him staggering against the filly once again standing beside him. “But you are agile, fast and small. Use those to not get caught at all.

Apple Bloom glared at her. “Just ’cause Heartwood agreed to help you train me, that doesn’t mean you get to knock him around willy-nilly!”

The wolf nudged her back with a comforting huff. When he turned toward Zecora, shifting, half-growling, and making the other noises Apple Bloom now recognized as his form of talking, he kept his head low and seemed like he was trying to be as polite as possible.

“He is grateful for the care you show, but won’t – from that – be hurt, as you well know.” Heartwood turned to the filly with a look that was both smug and slightly wounded, and she rolled her eyes.

“Do not think that this is just my whim: should you freeze or fumble, your future may be grim. Use your wits, control what force you can, but your best fight is one in which you ran. The creatures here will overpower you – others strike with magic, too. Maybe Macintosh could overpower some, but even he would fall if more were called to come.”

“Make a way out and take it, you’re saying? Ain’t gonna help much if whatever it is is faster than me. Me and the Crusaders certainly tried getting away from that cocka-whatever the other day, and it just kept popping up in front of us,” she said, lying down with her back resting against the timberwolf’s side.

“For that you’ll learn the ways of every creature— at least, as much as I can pass as teacher; that night there’d be no need to fear her, if only you had brought a mirror.”

“What, does it not stoneify you if you only see its reflection or something?”

Zecora shook her head. “Their own reflection is a source of fear, for it too will petrify the seer. Once her spell is cast, the stone obeys, and she herself can fall under that gaze.”

Apple Bloom shuddered and pressed closer into Heartwood. He hung his head over her shoulder. “That would be— I’m glad I don’t have to worry about anything like that whenever I’m near something shiny. But if their magic’s so powerful and all, how come it stopped it for Fluttershy?”

“Some creatures here can meet their eyes, but that she calls their magic does surprise. Most of those that have the power, like your wolf, cause prey to cower. Even more, to come when willed only… I find I underestimate that pony.” She fell silent, clearly thinking, only to give a short laugh when she noticed the filly almost absentmindedly nuzzle her companion. At their look, she explained, “do not pay my humor any heed, you’re simply an uncommon pair indeed. To not only give the wolf a name but also act as though he’s fully tame? And to let your prey survive, then act as guard so she may thrive?” Her laugh was full and warm. “If I ever were to return home, your tale would be told when legends roam.”

“And you ain’t just as strange? You talk to animals just as good as Fluttershy, and you can’t use ‘earth pony magic’ to explain it like she does, however that’s supposed to work for her.” Apple Bloom looked around for the squirrel, but he was apparently back at Zecora’s hut lining his nest for the winter. “I get how you can turn Cululay into a bird, but he would’ve needed to let you know he wanted to be one first.”

“That gift is one most zebras don’t possess, but every shaman first must pass her master’s test. For me, that was to brew a lifelong change, and I had thought all other language strange. That is when I started rhyming, too: I could not make a magic wholly new. I call that behind tales, wonders, even fears, and with it carry words to other’s ears. Should I speak in any other manner—” Her next line was in some Zebracan language. Apple Bloom’s ears pricked and Heartwood lifted his head. The words were certainly not harsh – they reminded the filly more of a stony brook than anything else – but it felt almost like her ears had suddenly risen out of a pool of water, when she didn’t know they had been under the surface in the first place.

She shook her head to clear it, and again as she thought about what the zebra had said. “A storytelling magic, then? Guess it’s not any weirder than when Pinkie gets a really good song going.” One of Heartwood’s looser branches clacked against something deeper inside as she lay her head back across him. He rested his own on her barrel in turn and let out a long, comfortable sigh.

Eventually, Apple Bloom’s thoughts turned to another part of Zecora’s explanation. “Hey, why are you doing this for me? I mean, you said your master made you brew something that would last forever before you could be a shaman, and I’m guessing that’s not what she had you start with. Is that what you’re doing? Training me to do what you do?”

Zecora smiled thinly. “I’d call myself a ‘warden’ now, but not a ‘shaman’ – I doubt I could go back to that old life again. But you are on a different path than mine, one which fills the pony dream to be benign, and I can only help you find your way. What you will become… none can say. Although I teach the skills that I myself once learned, the magic you will call will not be that of zebra herds.” She stood and stretched. “Come now, on your hooves, we’ve rested long enough, it’s time to train to make the Forest’s hunts more tough.”

Apple Bloom barely felt Heartwood’s twigs and limbs tense before he was out from under her and batting at her head. She curled up and rolled, trying to get to her hooves as the zebra’s laughter echoed around the clearing.

Author's Note

Um... Happy Hearthswarming? :twilightsheepish: I could have had this up by the end of August if I had just come up with two more lines for Zecora and given everything a final brushing. Instead, I wound up almost agressively procrastinating for some reason. For four months. I'm really sorry, Devildogg20. Better late than never?

Next time: definitely not filler. Hopefully in a reasonable length of time, but I've learned my lesson about promises and writing.