Reflections

All the colt heard was the occasional crunch of a crisp autumn leaf underhoof or items shifting around in his bag. Not even a bird chirped. The silence wasn’t unwelcome, it was just unnerving. His mind wandered, as it tended to do, to the darker side.

What if he was really just dead, like everypony else on that bus, and this was him wandering around as a ghost? Or, or, what if the zombie apocalypse started and he was the last pony alive?

Of course, the logical part of him just rolled its eyes. Zombies were comic book fodder, there was nothing realistic about reanimating the dead. He glanced down at his hooves and didn’t find them transparent or unfeeling, so that ruled out the spirit realm.

He sighed at himself. How long had he been walking anyways? A mile, maybe? He really should have been reading all of those signs he passed.

When the colt looked back up, somepony was looking back, gazing right into his eyes.

The scream that followed was nothing short of manly. He stumbled backwards, instinctively raising a hind leg to buck, but paused. There was nopony there. Panting, he stood back on all fours, lost. Was he just imagining things?

A single brown feather floated down from above, landing onto his nose. The colt looked up, and there was a pegasus, flying above him.

They both stared at each other for a moment. And then the pegasus started laughing.

“Oh man - you, you should have seen your face! Bwahaha!” They guffawed, landing in front of the colt with a gust of wind. The pegasus was short, caramel brown, and pudgy. There was no cutie mark on their flanks, and the colt estimated they were somewhere between 13 and 14 years old.

He frowned at them until they finally calmed down. “Sorry, sorry, it was really funny...” They mumbled, shuffling awkwardly on all four hooves, watching as the earth pony blew their stray feather off his nose with an irritated huff.

“Hilarious,” The colt finally deadpanned, voice wavering from disuse. It was the pegasus’ turn to frown, but they seemed more confused rather then offended. With a quick ruffle of their wings, they shook off the frown and offered that cheesy grin again, extending a hoof.

“I’m Francis, by the way, but my friends call me Frankie.”

The colt stared at their hoof for a few moments, seriously considering the offer. This wasn’t just an apologetic hoof bump. This would be the hoof bump to solidify some sort of friendship with the kid. But...it might already be too late.

It was worth a shot, though. “I don’t have time for this.” He mumbled, sidestepping around Frankie. He continued walking, not even looking back at them, still standing in the middle of the road with a hoof held up to nopony.

“Nine….and….ten.” Just as he expected, he heard the sudden rush of wind as the pegasus sped in front of him, huffing.

Frankie twisted in mid-air to face him, flying backwards. “It's not nice to walk away from ponies who are tryna apologize, y’know!” Was that the slightest hint of irritation in their voice?

The colt merely smirked, saying nothing as they both continued west, side by side.