Alone.
Thats the first thing that Zephyr Breeze remembers, the first memory that has ever been set into stone in his mind. A feeling of loneliness, a blankness that wasn’t quite right. Something was missing from his life, someone important.
Everything seemed normal, when his small form walked around, grew to know and love his family and... well, just family. However, he could still feel something wrong. In his small, young mind, there was a little thought that would occasionally pop up, a small bit that said, something wasn’t right.
His parents, the poor, gentle souls they were, attempted to hide their sadness from him. Honestly, though, they’re terrible liars. He learned to be a bit more kinder when it came to the days that they would fall quiet, looking back on some event with despair, but he could tell. It was painfully obvious that something just wasn’t right.
His parents’ sadness was more pronounced in his younger years. They most likely didn’t think he would realize that something was wrong, especially when they started to try to even attempt hiding it when he grew to the age of seven. It was too late, anyways. There’s no point in hiding something that someone has been exposed to for the entire duration of their younger life.
Zephyr had to move on from the vague replies they gave from the light, nervous curtesy questions of “How are you feeling?” he asked whenever his parents seemed to be in a slightly bad mood. He can’t help someone that doesn’t want to be helped, no matter how much it tore him apart at night when he stayed out late, staring up at the stars as he layed on a cloud. Eventually, the time came for him to go out and meet friends when Zephyr’s parents came upon the decision to encourage him to go to a summer flight camp with the older fillies and colts, wanting him to gain friends and start practicing more with flying instead of slow hovering, despite his fascination with things that could help other ponies- like... like... mane therapy. Though, he wouldn’t dare mention his interests to other foals, especially colts. All of the ones he has seen so far were so scary and... brutish. Just his luck that he would have to spend a whole summer with them.
Things looked up when he found a recognizable face- the arrogant, but charismatic, Rainbow Dash seemed to be more friendly than the other fillies and colts. Though, that may be because of the rivalry she has with a few of them, and she probably saw that befriending a fellow bullied foal would be the start of some pack against the bullies. Maybe.
The two got into large amounts of adventure, most of which ending with Zephyr lying and bluffing their ways out of horrible situations and Rainbow Dash coming a hair’s close to ending up in fights of varied kinds. When flight camp ended and they moved on, Rainbow Dash would visit him a few times- they didn’t go to the same school, of course, since she was way older than him, so these were the only times that they could meet eachother between their times to go to the same summer flight camp.
Zephyr was snapped out of his dramatic retelling of his life story by a sudden crash, and a recognizable shattering sound from his bedroom. His spine froze up a bit in fear as he dashed over, eyes going wide once he finally opened the door with a hoof. He attempted to keep his “relaxed” and “chill” composure, but thats hardly easy when you see your best friend shaking off small shards of glass that miraculously didn’t leave any horrible cuts on her. His lanky legs threatened to fall out from under himself when she confidently kicked back some glass, turned to Zephyr with a forced smile, and said in the least confident tone she has ever used(which is not saying much),
”Oops.”
“‘O-oops’? Oops??” He rushed over fussing over the small bits of glass as Rainbow Dash attempted to discreetly make it seem like she hadn’t crashed into the small wardrobe by the wall, pushing in the shelves of it. “Oh- shi- shoot, Dash, how am i going to explain this to my parents?!”
“Re-laaaxxx, chill out!” Rainbow Dash moved her hoof in a straight motion, looking up at the slightly taller, yet younger, colt. “Your folks gotta have some cleaning supplies somewhere, right? It’s nothign that a broom and a curtain wont fi-“
“Oooh nooo, my heads- manes- agh!” He brushed past Rainbow, fussing over the mannequin heads that were slightly chipped on the bottom, the manes on them barely messed up.
“Did you even hear me?” asked Rainbow Dash, walking over to him. She tugged on his arm, a bit forcefully, all the whilst looking impatient. She dragged him away from the scarcely touched mannequin heads and out of his bedroom, into the hallway. “Stop lookin’ at your egghead stuff-“
➰
“Egghead what?”
“- and show me where the dang broom closet is already! We can’t get this thing cleaned up without a broom, you know!”
Zephyr whimpered. He looked past Rainbow Dash and up at his bedroom door, earnestly worrying for his slightly damaged-but-not-quite mannequin heads.
“F-fine,” he awkwardly stumbled out, letting out a “hmmph”. “The only reason I’m going to lie and do this is because I dont want to get grounded.”
“That’s the spirit! It’s always good to have motivation to... lie,” the last part fumbled out, clearly not thought through, but seemed to go with it. “This’ll be an awesome getaway!”
“But it’s not a-“
“This’ll be an awesome getaway!”
➰🌼➰
After an hour of procrastinating the search, due to Rainbow Dash getting distracted easily and her penchant for long rants about achieving some dream of hers, they finally came upon a closet around the back of the house. It seemed normal and such, nicely clean and dusted away without any dirt on it. However, the one thing off about it were the empty boxes in front of it- stacked in a way to make the closet seem unnoticeable to any filly or colt curious enough to wander the house. Zephyr shrugged off the unease creeping up his back and wrapping around his shoulders and chest, thinking it as nothing more than a safety precaution to prevent him from opening it when he was younger.
“Why’d your parents put empty boxes of all things here? I mean, like, aren’t they really easy to just shove away if you want to open it?” She had asked when they finished pushing them away and neatly stacking them against a corner. He didn’t bother to explain his theory, just shrugging it with the usual “That’s just a grown pony thing to do” acceptance that he came to use as an excuse to not question anything.
Zephyr had to stretch up a bit, but other than that he had no quarrels with opening up the door. He glanced around, nervously, at the seemingly void-like darkness with foalish fear, but Rainbow Dash walked right in with no problem. She jumped up on a shoebox, turning on the light and watching it flicker softly as the closet was lit up. There were no clothes in it, just boxes upon boxes of items.
“A-alright, well, looks like the broom is here!” Zephyr stuttered out, reaching over some boxes to grab it. He slipped when he stepped on one, falling just as his teeth gripped around the handle of the broom, stumbling away on his haunches from the fallen box.
He held onto the broom, attempting to get back on his hooves as his friend took in interest in the contents of his box. She reached for the black book, pulling it up with a snigger.
“Hey, maybe this is a diary- or, or they have your foal pictures in here!” She grinned, slipping open the book as Zephyr let out muffled cries of “Don't open it, we could get in trouble!” around the shaft of the wooden broom.
He finally came to his senses and spat it out when Rainbow Dash looked through the pages, confused. “Hey, Zeph?” She asked, looking up at him as she nestled herself comfortably in the fallen boxes on the ground.
“Yeah?” He asked, wiping his mouth clean from the light droplets of spit that leaked out from his attempts at speaking. He crouched down by Rainbow Dash, going wide eyed at the pictures in the book.
A filly. One that sat by his newborn self, one that looked extremely alike to him and his parents, one with pink hair and a pastel yellow coat stare up at the camera with teal eyes, curious but a bit wary of the new item reflecting in her gaze. She was stationed closely by his younger body, nestled into the cushions of the couch and relaxing peacefully without any care.
“Why didn’t you tell me you have a sister? Hey, where even is she?” Rainbow Dash asked, breaking the silence as she looked up and out into the hall.
“She’s not here because I don’t have one,” Zephyr said, each word forced out as he attempted to regain the breath he lost in shock. “I never had one.”
➰🌼➰
In the present, Princess Twilight Sparkle had just went out to take a relaxing- or so she called it- “discovery nature walk” through the lighter parts of the forest. Of course, the Everfree was dangerous, and she wouldn’t in her right mind dare to walk through it on her own, but one thing lead to another and eventually she was convinced that she wouldn’t be in any danger during this time. She’s faced far worse than one or two large animals, anyways.
Her wings neatly folded over her supply-filled saddle bags, hooves digging into the dewy grass with every step. Her hair swayed around her, tail bobbing as she hummed a soft tune. The alicorn made her way through the light parts of the forest, cheerfully listening to the birds whistle and chirp in tunes that were relaxing to the ears.
Twilight was soon close to her destination, eager to study the land around her. From before, when she was a unicorn and had more time, she barely had a chance to look at all the fascinating specimens around her. It was all exotic and exciting and she could not wait to-
The Princess paused, her hooves slowing as she stood in place. She lifted her head, brows raising and eyes widening. Her ears twitched a bit, flattening against her head as she determined the bone-chilling sound. At first, it seemed like a screech of anger or pain from a nearby animal. But when she listened closer to the prolonged sound, despite her bones tingling with wariness, she came across the definite conclusion that that was a cry for help, garbled or not, and it was eerily pony-like.
Her instincts immediately kicked her legs into action. But instead of going back to Ponyville for help, which was the logical thing to do, she went with her moral instincts and immediately went for search of the pained pony in need.
The first thought that came to mind was ’Oh, what am I doing? I should go back instead!’ but it immediately changed to ’Damnit, Twilight, you’re the Princess of Friendship! You don’t have any more excuses to run away right now!
So she went against all means of logic and went straight for the injured pony.
Twilight ran through brushes and branches, using her magic to split them apart in a clear path for her. She followed the whimpers and soft cries, wincing at the clear pain in them as she got closer and closer to the source of the noises.
She uprooted and threw away the bush in front of her, panting when she saw the injured pony in front of her. The pony was curled up into a tight ball, Twilight only able to make out a little due to the sweat that leaked down her forehead and into her eyes as she panted, small tears coming up from how fast she went and how many stray leaves and sticks hit her in the face. She could see that the pony was large had yellow fur and a pink mane, quickly brushing away the liquid and walking over. She looked up at the pony and smiled.
“Don’t worry! My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I’m here to-“ she cut herself off with a slight choking noise of shock- or maybe horror- at the... thing that unfurled itself in front of her.
The pony was a pony, perhaps, but it also wasn’t one. It didn’t seem right. It looked so, so wrong, from the scaly wings and tail to the large horns coming out of its - her - head. It was clearly a mare, from her face, but was she a mare? Was that even the proper title for something like this?
Twilight pondered over the idea of taking a step back, but when she looked past the claws - the very sharp claws - at the end of her forelegs, past the pink and yellow scales littering her soft stomach and curving under the tufts of pink-tinted fur on her chest, and at her normal, pony-like hind legs with a normal cutie mark of three pink butterflies, she winced at the way the mare’s right leg was twisted. She swore she could see a bit of bone peeking out from the skin under the blood-stained coat. Blood slowly leaked out of her leg, as well as the small cuts on her body, which were on the areas that seemed to not be guarded by scales.
Twilight gently walked over, gazing at the whimpering and teary-eyed dragon-pony - seriously, how does that happen? - and crouched down by her. The hybrid flinched.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Twilight mustered up the most gentle, calmest voice she could muster. “Is it okay for you to walk?” A small, hesitant shake of the head. It seems she understood Twilight. “Would you kindly let me help you... oh, nevermind. Do you mind teleportation?”
A tilt of the head. The hybrid didn’t seem courageous enough to speak - could it even speak? - but Twilight took that as the okay to go. She gently reached over, setting a hoof on the mare with a calm enough approach to make her not lash out, and teleported them away in a flash of magenta light.
Author's Note
I’m embarrassed to say that it took a day for me to find the “new chapter” button. Nevertheless, i hope you all like this story.
Again, the cover art was made by me. I would put it right here, but i cant seem to do so since there’s no url for it- since the only place it will ever be online will be as the cover art for my book.
Critisism very much appreciated!
