Chapter Seven:
Ceremonies and celebrations

"Since I seem to be the current focus of attention, my name is Issac. It's nice to meet you all." Issac spoke while Fluttershy wrapped fresh bandages around the various bruises and lacerations covering him, particularly the hole in his stomach from the manticore's tail.

The others all smiled and took turns to introduce themselves to him, the first one being Pinkie Pie. Of course that was all he could pick up from what the mare had said, before she began rapid firing question after question. All seemingly on a single breath, if Issac could understand a single word of it he would have been quite impressed.

His salvation came from the orange mare clamping Pinkie's mouth shut and dragging her out of the 5 inch radius the pink menace had put herself from his face. Once things calmed down, said orange mare was next.

"Howdy, the name's Applejack. Ah run Sweet Apple Acres with mah family." Applejack spoke as she shook his hand firmly. After Applejack, a white unicorn with a styled violet mane stepped forward.

"Greetings darling, I am Rarity. I run the Carousel Boutique, a pleasure to make your acquaintance." Rarity introduced herself with a slight bow and a swish of her hand. Lastly came the blue peagasus with the messy, multi-hue mane.

"Hey, Name's Rainbow Dash. Don't forget it newbie, I run the local weather team." The pegasus said with confidence.

"With hair like that It'll probably be impossible to forget." Issac told her, much to everyone's amusement.

"Hardy har, wise guy." Rainbow said in a slightly stern voice, though she too had a slight smirk on her face.

With introductions over, Zecora brought over an antidote to give Issac for the manticore venom. Though she grew concerned and insisted when he tried to refuse.

"It's fine, really miss Zecora. My body is extremely resilient to poisons. Given a night's sleep, the venom will be completely purged from my system. The worst that will happen is I'm going to be really hungry in the morning from my body using so much energy to heal itself." He informed her, finally convincing Zecora that the antidote wasn't necessary.

"Very well, since you seem confident, on this I shall not dwell." Zecora told him as she moved to place the antidote back on a shelf with other potions, all of them catching Issac's eye.

"Miss Zecora, you're an alchemist correct?" He asked her as Fluttershy finished with his bandages and let him stand up.

"I am indeed, do you ask because there is something that you need?" Zecora asked back.

"Would you happen to have a stock of wolves bane? I need some to use as incense for a ceremony I'm required to perform in two days." Issac told her.

Zecora thought about it for a moment before looking through some jars at the back of her home for a few moments, before returning with a small jar filled with the required herb and handing it to him.

"Thank you very much, I'll be sure to pay you back for this." Issac said as he wrapped the jar in his blood stained shirt.
"Now I do believe it's getting late, so we should all get going, don't you think girls?" Issac asked them, indeed it was slowly beginning to get dark as a lot of time had been spent at Zecora's hut while Issac's wounds were tended to.

Saying their goodbyes, the six ponies and one lycanthrope made their way along the path through the Everfree, back towards Ponyville.

"What kind of ceremony do you need to burn wolves bane for?" Pinkie asked as she bounced alongside Issac.

How she managed to bounce like that and barely move her legs confused the young man greatly, yet he decided to answer her question.

"It's a coming of age ceremony that I have to do on my eighteenth birthday." He told the pink mare.

"*gasp* It's your birthday in two days? Oh, oh, can I throw you a birthday party? Pretty please?" Pinkie begged as she stopped in front of Issac and gave him a huge smile with her hands locked together in a pleading gesture while her eyes somehow sparkled from a light that was not there.

"Umm... I guess that's alright, but I have to begin the ceremony as the moon begins to rise." He told her as he leaned away slightly.

Pinkie cheered and threw her hands in the air once Issac agreed. "Ohh, this is going to be the best welcome to Ponyville/ birthday/ coming of age ceremony party ever!" She cheered as she bounced in circles around them all as the group made their way out of the forest.

"Issac, can you tell me a little more about this ceremony you have to do?" Twilight asked as she moved to walk beside him.

"Sure, it's something all of my kind is required to perform when they turn eighteen. It is done to unite our human soul and wolf soul together into one being, since up until that point, we are two separate souls occupying the one body. If it's not performed, then our health would deteriorate, and eventually we would die." Issac explained to her.

"I see why such a thing would be so important to you." Twilight said with a slight quiver in her voice. "Why are you born with two souls to begin with?" She asked.

"That's something that's been lost to history, though there are some legends that call it a curse, while others call it a blessing." He said then looked up in thought.
"It's not just done to keep us alive either, we gain various abilities from the joining, among them being the ability of full transformation into our wolf forms, and even partial transformations that only affect chosen parts of our body." Issac finished and looked to Twilight.

Twilight nodded in understanding and thanked Issac for telling him about it.

Soon the group exited the forest near Fluttershy's cottage and one by one, said their goodbyes and began splitting up to head to their respective homes. Issac once again joining Fluttershy in hers.

After dinner, Issac's being much larger than Fluttershy's since his body's metabolism was already burning energy to repair his injuries, Issac retired to the couch for the night, much to his host's displeasure since she insisted he take the bed because of his injuries.

Bidding each other goodnight, Issac slowly drifted off to sleep, unknowingly drifting back into a certain princess's domain.

Author's Note

Lets face it, you all knew that Pinkie was going to give him a party eventually.
Decided to move the ceremony and party to the next chapter or the one after, so as to flesh things out a little bit more and satisfy those of you who said things are going too fast.