Feather and Scales: Surviving the Ponyville Plains
“Hmmm, Comicon. To go or not to go? Lets see, if I go I’ll need costume. So who would I go as?” Several minutes pass. “I could go as… nah. Or, nah. I could always go as.. FUCK NO. Stupid brain. Guess a custom character then, TO THE INTERNET! Ebay, wonderful ebay what do you have in store for me today? A skull necklace? Hmm… a necromancer of sorts. Yeeesss a necromancer! Very generic and simple to acquire a costume for. Lets see yep gonna buy the necklace, a black cloak, something to go under the cloak. Wait, this guy is also selling fake leather armor? Score!. Just to order it and wait, thank you Mister Dot Merchant. Anything else I want? No. Anything else that would help with this costume? A spellbook or at least an old book. And he has an old looking book on prehistoric beasts, it's so mine.”
Two Weeks Later:
The packages arrive and I assemble my outfit. Donning the fake leather and putting on the cloak, I place the necklace around my neck. “I look like some sort of assassin now, probably should have thought of that earlier” I think to myself. I open the last box and pull out the book “Prehistoric Beasts of the World Forgotten. That sounds ominous.” I put the book down and look into a nearby mirror. “ Now what else does this costume need? A weapon? Nah necromancers rely on their minions, but I don’t have any so a weapon might make sense” I think. “Welp, not enough time to order something, I don’t have any materials to make something so.. I guess no weapon. “ Then I remember my bow, currently located in the back of my closet “I can use my bow!” I quickly locate it in the mess that is my closet and pull the bow out. “Ok, so I have a bow and no arrows? Not good. At least I have a quiver, and a rabbit pelt I can wrap around it so it doesn't look plastic. What to use for arrows, security will never let me carry real ones in”
After throwing a million and one bad ideas out the window I decide on making a couple crappy arrows out of the useless pool noodles in the basement. It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would and I had 9 crappy arrows made out of noodle foam painted with various types of paint from the garage. “It anyone asks they are suppose to look like they had bone shafts… and I failed epicly” After that I put everything on, and figure out how to attach the book to my costume. A simple strap made out of shoe laces ends up being the best solution. Then I made the worst decision in my life, I picked up my bow and world spun.
“Uuhhgg. Why do I feel like I was hit by a truck?” I ask as I sit up. Then I noticed the trees and that I’m alone. “This is either the worst kidnapping job in the history on the world, or …. I really don’t know what else this could be.. Damn. Well at least they left my bow so I won’t starve. If they left someplace that’s not the forest near town. Ok to stay put or walk in one direction?” I quickly decided to walk east. “If this is the woods near home, then east is the town” I say before I start walking.
After two hours of walking I realize: This isn’t the woods near home and I'm starting to get hungry. Then I walk past a tree and saw it. A bird like creature sprawled out on the forest floor, its right leg looking torn up. I say bird like because, I have never seen a six foot bird with a beak bigger than my head, with long muscular legs anywhere but museums. And even then, they didn't have feathers because they were fossils. “Don’t make any sound, slowly back away” I repeat over and over inside my head. Then it let out a pain filled squawk and I knew I couldn’t leave it like this. “Curse you empathy!” I made my way to the bird a slowly and noiseless as possible. I don’t know it it was the pain it was in or if it had already accepted death, all it did was track me with one eye. I reached my hand out and touched it.
The pain, the anger, the frustration, more pain, a sense of abandonment and washed over me. I knew right there this is the bird's pain, its misery. It’s not going to hurt me and I MUST HELP IT. “Shhh its ok” I say as I pet the birds head before moving closer to its bleeding leg. “Obviously fresh, gotta stop the bleeding. With what though? My cloak, tear the bottom and make a makeshift bandage” Quickly tearing my cloak into several strips, I wipe away some of the birds blood and then tie the bandage around the wound and pull it tight. The bird whimpers a bit before lifting its head and looking at me. “There you go, all bandaged up. I know it hurt but I had to stop the bleeding.” I say as I turn toward it looking it in the eye. “Why am I patronizing a bird… better yet why isn't it trying to kill me?” I watch it carefully as it puts its head back down on the ground. “Ok, I’ll be back really soon. I’m gonna go find us some food.” I say more for myself that the bird.
It doesn’t take long before I spot movement, a rather large bipedal lizard bird thing. I knock an arrow and take aim and let the arrow fly. The arrow hit its mark and the thing drops dead. I walk over and examine my kill. After attempting to pull the arrow out of the carcass, it disintegrated. Two shocking revelations came to mind at once: The arrow disintegrated and my previously foam arrows are not foam any more. I pick up the carcass and walk back to the bird, while trying to wrap my head around the arrow mysteries.
After setting the carcass out of the birds reach I gather some sticks to make a fire with, then look for a two rocks. After finding two palm sized rocks I use them to ignite the fire. Then I realize I don’t have a knife to carve the lizard thing. After several moments of self debate I opt on attempting to find a sharp rock. I could not find a sharp rock.
Then the second option pops into my head, use the bird’s talons. Instantly I know it's a stupid idea, but I don’t have an alternative. So I walk up to the bird carrying the carcass and move to its unharmed leg. I reach down and grab its foot and maneuver a single talon to use. The bird only stares at me as I cut the carcass in half. Using his talon I skin half the carcass and throw the other half near the bird’s mouth. I happily gobbles it down. I skewer the remaining half on a stick and put it in the fire.
After eating some of the lizard thing (it tasted somewhat like chicken) I feed the rest to the bird and decided to read a bit. I opened the only book I had to a random page. The illustration caught my eye: It matched my feathered friend near perfectly. “Kelenken a large flightless predatory bird, commonly referred to as a Terror Bird” I read out loud. “Ok I must be going loco” the bird squawked “as I’ve been caring for a terror bird. Which is extinct, or should be… Yep definitely going loco” the Kelenken squawked again. “What? I’m going loco.” It squawked. “Loco” it squawked again. “You know what fine, your Loco. I’m calling you Loco now.”