The trees told nothing but wordless stories of their lives. Whether it be from a small bump in the wood affecting the eerie wind slightly to either emphasize or dull the whistling winds, or from the darkness of their bark that gave personality to their wordless, soulless existences.

It did not matter. They all fell the same. Just like that as Burnt Sun digressed his tangent on trees, a slim tree collapsed onto its side, not forgetting to let out an agonizingly loud and long groan of rustling branches and old bark slamming into the ground, now ripe for dissection. "Jus' a splice o' timber, 'n nothin' else," Burnt assured himself. He had already torn down three trees in a few hours, and by then Burnt Sun had concluded that it was a vacant region, as any white coat or Lunarists would've had him dead to rights at this time. A stupid risk that paid off for Burnt's safety. A worthy trade.

Pressing hooves against the side of the tree to roll it to the small row of four trees that lay, ready to be processed under Burnt's hooves. Not only that, but he had taken it upon himself to attempt to refurbish and clean his saw, which was a magically-powered contraption that wrapped around his hoof with some black straps and velcro that carried a jagged blade within it, spinning whenever the user pumped their natural magic into it.

Or, they can just make it mechanically, like what Burnt has.

Pressing the blade directly onto the tree, momentum halted the saw but pressed the hoof onwards, activating it with a loud roar of mechanical energy. Wood shavings and dust flew into the air like flowers being thrown up around Burnt Sun, his helmet doing a decent job at blocking out the shavings and dust, save for his eye holes. He instinctively narrowed his eyes to minimize the effect as it felt like razor blades were scratching his eyes.

Twisting his hoof downwards so that the blade would keep following it's spherical route, Burnt Sun took it upon himself to reflect on his brief time within the jungle. Was it a jungle? He had no clue. Water was becoming a future concern and his food supply was going strong. Ammunition was alright, and his rifle was mud-crusted from swimming through a marshlands, presumably somewhere in the Davok Territories of the dragons.

"Ay, 'lil Rebel, ye art a feisty colt," he muttered a homeland song to himself as he made it half-way through the first tree.

The time seemed to be dead of the night, and nopony came screaming at him yet. It truly was untouched- and he was alone. He knew it was an idiotic choice to use the dead of night to begin his most industrious and most noisy of works, but since he had been testing his boundaries for hours prior to sleeping and after waking up, he felt entirely comfortable. For he was oblivious to the eventual arrival of Twilight Sparkle and friends, as he did not have knowledge of a town on the outskirts of the jungle, or the inhabitants of the Everfree Forest hearing the loud and ear-grinding screech of the saw.

The split trees rolled opposite of each other, one upwards and the other downwards as the saw had finished its job, breaking Burnt Sun of his reverie. "There ye are," Burnt whispered. Packaging his saw into his pocket for later, he began hoisting the smaller portion first, then he threw it at an open space capable for a temporary home for him to establish bearings. He turned, halting in his steps at the larger portion. It would take an effort, but he could manage, his mental psyche encouraged as he shrugged and began a calculated and meticulous effort to carry, push and roll a large log towards the smaller log.

Three-piece rather than two, he noted.

Pressing a hoof against the chin of his helmet in thought as well as humming to accompany it, he gave a meticulous once-over of the logs. Should be easy to add onto the schematics in his head. Cut off solid beams or make the logs the beams themselves, then lather it with mud to ensure no water can seep through, peel grass like skinning scalps and add it as a sponge layer, and then finish it with- then a part of the log slid off the log itself, slamming onto the grass with an anti-climatic thump.

His head sunk low as he let out an annoyed groan. Okay, he'll need to chop another one down. Another hour and a half to spend doing that. He began pacing towards the campfire, eyes settling on his rifle for a once-in-a-blue-moon decision to clean it. Why not? He was aching from the near non-stop labor of forestry. Maybe even try to clean some of the rust off-

Crunching of branches stopped him in his tracks as his lips instinctively formed an O. His head whipped to look in the direction of the crunching as his body automatically ran for his weapon and then cover, being a nearby patch of shrubbery surrounded by trees.

Another interruption and another reason to add onto Burnt Sun's long list of Days I Wish I Didn't Live Through, if he lived through it.

"Somepony was here," a feminine voice proclaimed. A soft, innocent voice. Thief. Bandit. Burnt Sun flinched back into the bushes even more so than he did before, hooves clutching his unclean rifle like it was his only trustworthy friend. The rustling of branches and leaves became more audible as there was definitely more than one pony in the area.

As if on cue, out came Twilight Sparkle with her convoy of friends, being the Elements of Harmony although they were dirtied and disheveled from the less-than-courteous pathway to his location. Immediately he assumed them bandits until his eyes fell upon Rarity, or a white coat. His breathing quickened and his ears seemed to straighten themselves, his eyes turning to pinpricks as adrenaline began to settle into his rapidly beating heart. Despite them being some sort of nudist colony of bandits, they even had the audacity to add a whitecoat into the mix.

Anything but them.

The bandits, Burnt classified as, began to rummage around the campsite and logging that he was doing, trying to clearly find traces of him. "This just doesn't make any sense," Twilight said with an unsure tone. "Somepony was just here and they left a camp behind? They must be out foraging or.. or something!"

"They could be hidin' from us," Applejack inquired.

"What for?" Rarity grumpily asked, picking a twig from her once luscious mane that was soiled by their trek.

Unbeknownst to them, Burnt had been slowly but steadily raising his rifle to his shoulder, hooves firm as steel and heart thumping of adrenaline-induced blood. He had not been thinking rationally or even with independence, only white coat and kill. Aligning his eye with the sight, he breathed in and out as calmly as possible. Calm, if you want to define 'labored breathing' as calm, which if Burnt thought about it was his regular breathing, as the toxins in the air really do tax on your own lungs and organs. He digressed, his hoof pressing against the trigger as he exhaled.

With a crack of the rifle, the magic-powered round shot out direct towards Rarity... only for her to shimmer purple as the round slammed into the purple aura, sinking into it only to stop dead just before Rarity's coat. The mares screamed, all shuffling about like madponies as they tried to find the way they came from. Half of them stood their ground, with the exception of Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie absolutely losing their minds more so than their stable friends.

Burnt Sun shook his head, his mind failing to process what just transpired. No pony that he's ever seen have that much reaction, life-saving at that, to an instant fatal shot without warning. He sputtered, failing to cock the bolt back in pure shock as he stared at where Rarity once was.

"Wh.. Wh- What?" He stammered, eyes widening even more so than their already terrified state as he began to loudly backpedal and try to run for it. His back turning, Burnt began to wrestle himself out of the bush and began his three-legged jog out of the area, only to be stopped dead short by a warm aura capturing his left back leg, forcing him to the dirt as his heart beat even more so rapidly than ever.

"Hey! Stop!" Twilight Sparkle called out, poking her face through the bushes only to meet the muzzle of Burnt's rifle, and the sight of an extremely scary and intimidating pony. She screamed in instinct, legs rearing upwards and back as Burnt had managed to cock his rifle and fire a wild shot in desperation, breaking the unicorn's focus on holding his leg.

Not only that, but Twilight Sparkle released another yelp as her ears folded and she attempted to cover them with her hooves, giving Burnt Sun just enough time to book it away. The sprint was brief but he could see an oncoming ledge with a bridge not too far away. He just had to clear the trunk, which he bent his legs and began to soar over the trunk with an exhausted grunt...

..Only before feeling his back bear the weight of a speeding bullet as his body bent like a stick backwards, letting out a scream of pain as he body soared forward and was forcibly, thanks to momentum and gravity, thrown over the ledge, his body missing the bridge by a solid two ponies' length.

"RAINBOW DASH! NO!"

Air screamed into his ears and his stomach turned inside out as he released he was falling. He let out a scream of fear and agony as his body fell quickly towards the oncoming rapids that lay at the bottom. He wasn't ready to die, he did not waste two years of his life just to be thrown to his death by some bandits. Terrible bandits at that. His squad would be extremely angry.

"Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, NAY! NAY!" He shrieked with his voice cracking, arms flailing and body slowly turning at the will of gravity and physics like a ragdoll. The water came at him like a speeding bullet, and he was seconds from feeling it's impact.

"IT'S A COLT!"

A splash and water filled his ears, entering through his throat and sinking itself into his ruined lungs. His foreleg bashed against some sort of rock that was barely hidden by the water. He let out a muffled, gargled scream as he sunk lower and lower into the river, adrenaline fading and his mind shutting down as he entered the unwilling abyss of unconsciousness.

Guess that's karma for the time he took his dead friend Chip Baker's tooth brush to brush mud and bone that didn't belong to him out of his hooves' cracks and nooks.

Author's Note

on a roll, but i have a feeling something in this chapter is missing. it seems fast paced but it's how i want to go for the first few chapters, but something is missing

i'll come back later to see what it's missing, for now have fun reading yall

trivia for Burnt Sun: he hates water

have fun in it, my lad