The Story of Splinter: Saved

-The Story of Splinter-

Saved

This morning was one that Forrester had been waiting for since he first arrived in Fetlock. Today was going to be the day that he would go out into the Foggy Forest and see for himself just what truth there was in the claims of the all-alpha hunting packs. It had been about five months since he first moved to Fetlock and had yet to see this fabled occurrence. After the fourth month of not seeing the event happen Forrester had planned an excursion into the woods himself.

While the university generally frowned on him studying timberwolves on his own he had been able to convince them to let him do the preliminary studies by himself. He would have preferred it if he had been permitted to do all studies by himself, but even he had to admit that the only way to have his papers be publishable was to have multiple ponies involved. When he had first had to deal with other ponies accompanying him he had wished he was born a griffon so he would have been able to bite their heads off. They had hurt his research the first few months he had to deal with them, but after giving them some training—and no small amount of verbal berating—they had become tolerable assistants.

Forrester slid out of bed and headed to his bathroom to take a shower. He quickly opened the door to the shower and stepped into it before closing the door and turning on the water. While Forrester preferred to let the water run for a bit to warm up, he was too excited about today, so he resigned himself to the freezing water of today’s shower. When he felt he was thoroughly soaked, he grabbed his bottle of scentless griffin shampoo, squirted some out onto his left hoof, and started to wash himself.

Forrester hated that he needed to special order his shampoo from the Griffin Kingdom. Because he spent most of his time studying timberwolves as an ethologist he always needed to make sure he reduced the impact his presence could have on their behavior. To accomplish this, he always did his best to either spend several weeks in the field without bathing to try to attain a more natural scent, or remove his scent entirely. After several complaints from his colleagues, he tended to utilize the latter. This, unfortunately, meant he needed to order the same supplies griffin hunters used if he wanted to take away his scent. He honestly couldn’t understand why everypony else needed to have scented shampoo in the first place, especially when half of them were strong enough to be smelled from halfway across a forest.

When he was sure he had cleaned every part of his fur, he moved on to his mane and tail. Usually, he wouldn’t bother doing what other ponies would consider an adequate job, just using enough shampoo to get the dirt and knots out, but he needed to make sure there was nothing that would still have his scent. Doing this always reminded him of when his mother had found out he would never actually wash his mane and tail and would just soak it and comb out anything that found its way into them. His mother had decided to wash them for him using a “special” shampoo to make sure his mane and tail wouldn’t be so dry and brittle. He still couldn’t bring himself to use mayo or apple cider vinegar in any of his foods.

When he finished that he rinsed himself off and prepared for the worst part of taking these kinds of showers. Because all ponies sweat and that sweat would carry their unique scent, he had to make sure that didn’t happen while he was out in the field. To accomplish this, he had a friend in the chemistry department at the university concoct a lotion he could apply that would capture his scent. His friend had refused to make one that would stop him from sweating, citing dangers to his health. The problem was that the lotion smelled like a timberwolf’s marking until he fully rubbed it in.

Shutting off the shower he opened the door to his shower and grabbed a towel to dry himself off. It took him some time to dry off, especially around his wings, tail, and mane, but he felt he was ready to use the lotion. He reached for it on his sink before he remembered he still needed to preen his wings and there was no way in Tartarus he was going to preen them after he had applied the lotion. Putting his hoof down and sitting on his haunches he spread out his wings and started his preening.

While most pegasi preferred to have help with preening and to use artificial preen oils, Forrester never felt very comfortable with either. His mother had stopped helping him preen himself when he was ten after he insisted he was old enough to take care of himself. While it was common for pegasi to preen themselves, they never just did it themselves. His mother had allowed him to do as he wanted and relented, believing he would allow her to help when he realized most pegasi couldn’t do all their feathers themselves. Since then he rarely had another pony help preen him, and that was only after he had had his feathers preened by somepony else for the first time in years. That day had been one of the most awkward experiences in his life.

He had been fourteen at the time and was in his high school health class. It was the fifth week of class and they were covering the special needs of each race. While unicorns needed to file their horns regularly to make sure their magic would be properly channeled and earth ponies needed to keep their hooves filed due to their increased growth, pegasi needed their wings preened. Since ponies were a social species, none of this was a shock to anyone, and when the teacher said that everyone would be partnering up with a member of each race to help them no one batted an eye. And due to the week coinciding with the biannual molting of pegasi, it seemed to be the best time to teach the subject.

On the first day, most ponies paired up with members of their own race since they already had experience with what to do either from their parent or themselves, the exceptions being the more curious ponies or those that came from mixed families. While he himself came from a mixed family—his father was an earth pony and his mother was a pegasus—he felt more comfortable having his first partner be a pegasus. His best friend Golden Sunset was happy to pair up with him when he asked.

Golden had suggested he help preen Forrester first and Forrester had agreed, not really caring who went first. The teacher had fortunately provided the needed supplies for each group with everypony getting a mat to lay down on, preen oils and a cloth for the pegasi, and the appropriate files for the unicorns and earth ponies. When he laid down and unfurled his wings, he didn’t expect the response he got from his friend.

“Hey, Forrester, when did you start to molt, man? Your wings kind of look like crap. I know the teacher asked us to stop doing our regular maintenance this week but man, you look bad.”

Forrester looked to his left and over his shoulder to look at his friend and his wing. To him his wing didn’t look too bad. Several of his feathers weren’t in the proper position, but he was used to that since he had started to preen himself. “I just started to molt about three days ago. I don’t think they look that bad.”

“Dude, your wings look like you started to molt like, last week, and haven’t been preened since,” Golden said, lifting Forrester’s wing and examining all the feathers. “Seriously dude. You must have the worst molts of any pegasus I know. I would hate to be your parents.”

Golden gently grabbed onto Forrester’s feathers with his teeth and began to gently pull on them to either straighten them or take out the one that had fallen out. Forrester felt uncomfortable but had attributed that to the fact it had been about four years since the last time another pony had helped to preen him.

“Why do you say that?” Forester’s voice had a hint of discomfort but it was a little too subtle for most ponies to have picked up on, “I don’t lose my feathers that fast, and when they do come out, I make sure to clean them up.”

“I’m referring to when your parents help you.” Golden dropped the three feathers he had been able to remove from his first pass through Forrester’s wing at Forrester’s side. “I sometimes help my mom and her wings never get this bad.”

“My parents don’t really help me with that. I actually just preen myself.”

“What?”

Forrester turned around to look at his friend’s shocked face. While he was slightly grateful the preening had stopped, he couldn’t help but feel that the way his friend was looking at him was worse.

“I preen myself. I thought everypony did that.”

“Well yeah,” Golden said before taking another pass through Forrester’s wing, inciting Forrester to tense up again, “but nopony just does it themselves. Every pegasus I know gets help with preening. It’s the only way to get the entire wing.” Golden dropped another two feathers on the three from the first pass. “Well, at least this explains why your wings never look quite right and your flying is suffering.”

Forrester had never considered that his flight had been suffering due to how he had been preening himself. He had assumed that he wasn’t that good of a flyer because he just didn’t fly all that often. But now that Golden brought it up he did remember reading that proper feather alignment was important for pegasi when they flew in the most recent homework.

The preening continued with Golden doing his best to help fix the problems that Forrester had made for himself and Forrester stiffening up whenever Golden would make a pass. It wasn’t until Golden reached near the base of the wing that things started to get really awkward. Because Forrester could never quite reach some of those feathers his usual method for preening there was to take a back brush and do his best to brush the feathers out. While that didn’t cause much of a problem, the fact he hadn’t been preened regularly in that area in some time meant the nerves there were not desensitized to the stimulation.

When his friend started to preen there every nerve in that area lit up from the stimulation. Forrester didn’t know what to think as all the feathers in that area were properly repositioned for the first time in years. He didn’t know what to think, if the stimulation was pleasurable or not, but it was decisively different from how the rest of the wing had felt. When he tried to think as to why it would be feeling this the first thing that came to his mind was the clop material he had seen.

Like most adolescent colts his age he had grown to start appreciating the forms of fillies, and as such had discovered clop. Golden and he had been rummaging through Golden’s older brother’s room after he had left for college to see if they could find anything interesting. Under his bed, they had found several clop magazines in a small cardboard box. The two of them separated them into two piles, one for each of them, and agreed to switch piles in a week.

Forrester had been most interested in the pegasi sections of the magazines, especially the ones that dealt with how to best stimulate one. Most of them showed or described the best way to preen a pegasus to get them in the mood, how hard to bite, how fast you should go, everything. Being that Forrester only preened himself and had recently come to learn that preening could be made sexual, anyone could tell how the next time someone helping him preen would go.

Intellectually, Forrester knew this wasn’t sexual, it was just his friend helping him, and it was something everypony that knew a pegasus either did or was willing to do. This was something completely normal, he wasn’t even getting aroused by it. But because of how his life had panned out up to this point, and the fact he was currently flooded with hormones, this situation was far worse than it should have been.

When Golden finished his left wing Forrester let out a sigh of relief, he could finally relax now that the preening was over. It was only when he was about to refold his wings that he noticed that Golden was moving to his other side that he remembered that he still had his other wing to go. His heart dropped.

The right wing went as well as the left wing, Forrester stiffening every time his friend touched his wing, only getting worse when he reached the base of the wing. In the end, Golden was able to remove twelve feathers from his left wing and fifteen from his right. When Golden had reached for the bottle of preen oil Forrester was about to stop him, but remembering what his mom had told him he kept his mouth shut. Golden carefully poured a small amount of oil onto the cloth and picked it up with his hooves and began rubbing it onto the feathers on both sides of his wings.

When Golden had covered each of Forrester’s wings with the oils, he dropped the cloth onto the oil bottle and proceeded to the teacher's desk to get a towel to wipe off the oil on his hooves. While Forrester’s wings felt a hundred times better than they had been at the start of today and about ten times better than when he preened them himself, it still wasn’t enough to convince him to make this a regular occurrence.

“Alright, looks like you’re done. My turn,” Golden said when he returned.

Forrester felt his stomach fall at this realization. With how uncomfortable he had been with getting his wings preened he hardly wanted to consider how it would be preening another. So with shaky hooves, he folded his wings and stood up to let Golden lay down on the mat.

When Golden laid down and unfurled his wings Forrester had more or less become petrified in fear. Every possible way this scenario could play out wrong came to mind. He hadn’t ever preened somepony else in his life. While most pegasi learned how to preen another pegasus from at least one of their parents when they turned ten, Forrester was what his parents liked to call a “lone spirit”. His mother had tried to teach him several times since he turned ten but he had never accepted, always saying he was too busy. And usually, by busy, he meant he was planning his next outing into the forest.

Now that he found himself in the current situation it seemed that his desire to find timberwolves rather than learning how to actually act like a normal pony was coming back to bite him. While he was thinking this, Forrester noticed that Golden had turned his head to face him, giving him a look of “you can start any time”. So, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Forrester mentally psyched himself up so he could do it.

Since he already preened himself he figured that it would probably be best if he just did what he did to himself when he preened. So taking his teeth he bit down as hard as he usually did and started to make his usual kind of pass.

“OW! What the Tartarus, man?” Golden instantly folded his wings back, almost having an un-molted feather torn out since Forrester still had it in his teeth at the time. He looked back at his friend with absolute fury. “What did I do to piss you off, seriously? If you’re mad about what I said about you preening yourself just tell me. You don’t have to try to tear my wings off.”

Forrester looked at his friend in shock, folding his ears back. Was he really that bad? Did he bite too hard or pull too fast? That was exactly how he did it himself. Tears started to form up in Forrester’s eyes. Today was just perfect. Not only had he learned that he was the only pegasus that not only couldn’t groom himself right but had also never learned to preen another pegasus. To make it worse, he had hurt his best and possibly only true friend with his incompetence. He was going to be the biggest joke in the entire school; “look, there goes Forrester, the only pegasus that can’t preen”.

Golden, seeing how upset his friend was at hearing this, went from anger to compassion in an instant. “Oh, crap, dude, I’m sorry. I forgot you said you just preened yourself. Tell you what, I’ll walk you through how to do it. Just follow what I say and you should do just fine.”

Forrester had just nodded while trying not to meet his friend’s eyes, still too embarrassed about everything that had happened.

Golden, seeing how Forrester was acting, did his best to try not to make the situation any more embarrassing or uncomfortable for his friend. He extended his wings back out and faced forward before starting the same explanation his mom and dad had done for him when they had taught him how to preen them.

“Ok. On the bright side, you know how to preen, you just need to work on how you do it. Start again, except this time bite down like you would with a quill.”

Forrester approached his friend fairly timidly, looking almost like he expected to be bucked by his friend. When he reached his friend's right wing, he followed the instructions and bit down along where the feathers met the flesh of the wing, eliciting a reserved tensing up from his friend.

“Good. Just loosen your grip a little.” Forrester loosened slightly, causing his friend to sigh in relief. “Ahh, much better. Now drag your teeth down the feathers and make sure you keep hold of any that come out.”

Forrester did his best to keep the same grip he had and ever so slowly went down the wing, doing his best to not go as fast as he had gone the first time.

“Hey, you can go faster if that’s more comfortable for you. You were just way too fast and hard when you did it the first time.”

Forrester picked up the pace a small bit, doing his best to try to finish preening his friend as fast as possible. After he had finished the right wing Forrester didn’t feel so bad. While it was still weird for him to be preening another pony, it was nowhere near as bad as it had been when he was having his wings preened.

When Forrester had finished preening both the wings he looked down and was somewhat surprised to see that Golden had barely shed any feathers. While he had lost over two dozen Golden had barely lost half that. Maybe his friend had a point when he said he had bad molts. The only thing left was applying the oils, and with them, the problems came back.

“Golden.” His friend turned to face him. “How much oil should I use?”

“See how much oil I used for you?” Forrester looked at the clear bottle and saw that less than a quarter of it had been used. “I used the same amount on you I do for myself. So just use about half that per wing. I don’t think I need I need to tell you, but it’s never fun when your wings feel like you tried to bathe it the stuff,” he replied with a small chuckle.

“I can imagine,” Forrester replied, holding the cloth onto the top of the open bottle with one hoof before inverting the two to get some oil onto the cloth.

“Imagine? You mean you’ve never done that to yourself?”

“No.”

“Dude, you’re so lucky. When I first used the oils, I just drenched my wings. I couldn’t fly all day since they were so soaked. It wasn’t until I took a shower and washed them out that they felt right again. Let me tell you, there isn’t a worse feeling than having oily wings, especially when you have them folded.” Golden had a full body cringe remembering what that had been like.

“Have you ever gotten any of the oils in your mouth?” Forrester had finished oiling the alula and was moving on to the primary coverts. He always had a pattern when he oiled his wings and even now he couldn’t help but follow it with his friend. Alula, primary coverts, primaries, marginal coverts, secondary coverts, and finally secondary.

“No. My mom taught me how to use a cloth and keep the oils away from my mouth.”

“Let me tell you, I would rather try to eat meat before I would want to taste those again.”

“Really, that bad?”

“Probably worse.”

He remembered back when he first started to preen himself his mother got him a bottle of preen oil for foals. She had explained to him how to properly apply it using his muzzle or a cloth if he didn’t want to wash his muzzle afterward. He had tried using it but to him, it just smelled too bad. He tried using the cloth method to get around the smell but his first time he got some oil in his mouth and was treated to one of the worst tastes ever. He read the bottle and found out they made it smell and taste this bad to prevent foals from trying to consume it. He was about to give up when he remembered that this was an artificial oil, meaning there was a natural substitute.

He looked it up and discovered that pegasi had uropygial glands beneath each wing that would secrete natural preen oil. It made sense to him since when he thought back to how his mom would help him she would always start by rubbing her muzzle beneath his wing after removing and straightening his feathers if she didn’t use the bottled oils. When he opened his wings, he was able to find the small growths of the glands after feeling for it with his muzzle for a short time. When he used this method, it was so much better than the oils his mom had given him. It didn’t stink to Tartarus and if it got in his mouth it still tasted terrible but nowhere near as bad as the artificial stuff.

While Forrester’s aversion to others helping him preen set him apart from almost every other pegasus, the fact that he refused to use artificial preen oils and instead preferred to use his own wasn’t too strange. Still, the fact he used his own oils exclusively was something most ponies, and even griffins, saw as abnormal.

When his mom first walked in on him finishing one of his preenings in his room, she saw him using his own oils and was shocked. When he saw how red her face had been and how fast she apologized for interrupting him before closing his door he had been absolutely confused. It wasn’t until a few weeks later after a rainstorm that he found out just why she had responded that way.

When he had had been exploring the Gloomy Woods—without his parents’ knowledge—a sudden storm had rolled in. It wasn’t really sudden, but the fact that the woods suppressed the light that came in made it difficult to tell if it was going to rain unless you actively looked up. Needless to say, by the time he got home he was completely soaked. His parents were cross with him for going out into the woods again. They would have yelled at him, but this was at least the dozenth time he had done this to their knowledge, so they had grown somewhat accustomed to it.

After they gave him the same lecture they always did about the dangers of the woods they gave him a towel to dry off. He didn’t go into the woods out of some rebellious spirit; he always tried to follow his parents’ orders, nor did he do it to spite them; he loved his family and didn’t want to hurt them. The reason he never listened was that the forest just seemed to call to him. No matter what his parents or other adults told him regarding the dangers he was putting himself in, the lessons just didn’t seem to sink in for him.

After he was positive he had dried off, he started to reapply preening oil to his wings to replace what he had likely rubbed off when he was drying himself. Before he had even really started his mom had walked back into the living room to see what he was doing.

“Forrester! What do you think you’re doing!”

Forrester jumped in surprise and landed on his flank. He hadn’t heard his mom yell at him like that in a long time. He folded his ears back before he responded. “I was just trying to reapply the oils I probably lost when I was drying off. You and dad do it all the time when your wings get wet.”

Forrester’s mom’s face went from anger to one of both sorrow and sympathy. She walked over to his left side and draped her wing over him. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Forrester. I should have told you this when you started to preen yourself. You see, while everypony is fine with helping to preen a pegasus, applying preening oil is something different.”

“But I see every pegasus using oils all the time, or somepony helping them. What makes what I did so wrong?”

“Well, you see honey, while everypony is fine with pegasi using the artificial oils in public, using our natural oils is… more complicated.”

“But why? They do the same thing. What makes using them so bad?”

“No no no, I didn’t mean it that way. I just mean… remember when you were a foal and Dazzle and the other colts wanted to see who had the biggest colt parts?”

“Yeah, all the parents got really mad. You told me that even though we might not wear clothes, that gentlestallions aren’t supposed to do that.”

“That’s right. Well, you see, using your own oils when you aren’t alone is kind of like that.”

Forrester’s face went pale. If he would have done that at school he would never have been able to live it down. His parents would have been called and told what he did. He would have been the laughingstock of the school. Forrester couldn’t help but start to cry, and he buried his face into his mother’s barrel as the tears started to come out.

“I’m sorry mommy. I won’t do it again. I just hate that stupid bottled stuff. It smells so bad and it never comes off my muzzle and whenever it gets in my mouth I want to throw up and I hate it.”

Forrester’s mother closed her wing tighter around her crying son and placed her muzzle in his mane. “There there. I never said you had to use the bottled oils. If you don’t like them, I won’t get them for you. You just have to know that if you want to use your own oils, you have to do it privately.”

Since then he had mostly preened himself in his room with the door locked, and usually only after he was sure his parents had gone to sleep. When he came back to the real world Forrester realized he had finished with applying the oils to his friend's wings.

“That wasn’t too bad now, was it? At least we both learned something new about you.” Golden stood back up and folded his wings before turning to give his friend a comforting look to show him the experience hadn’t been a nightmare for him.

Forrester looked down slightly, still unable to meet his friend’s gaze. “Yeah. We both learned I’m terrible at being a pegasus.”

Golden just trotted over and sat next to his friend and used his right wing to give his friend a sideways hug. “I was actually referring to preening not being your special talent, seeing as you’re still a blank flank,” Golden said with a smirk.

“Really, if today wasn’t bad enough, you just had to bring that up too. Why don’t you just get Celestia to tell the whole nation while you’re at it? Some friend you are.”

Forrester still had yet to earn his cutie mark and at the age of fourteen he had mostly given up hope that he would ever find his calling. While it had been Tartarus when he was still a foal, the things the other foals said being the main reason he had insisted on preening himself, the snide remarks had mostly gone away when he started high school. But it was still a sore topic for him.

“Well, if you had earned your mark today, I might not have had a good enough excuse to invite you to my house this weekend.”

“Wait, what? Aren’t your parents leaving to go see an art exhibit in Canterlot over the weekend?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t your parents tell you never to invite anyone over when they’re not there?”

“Yeah.”

“And don’t you always follow their instructions to a T?”

“That’s right.”

Forrester didn’t know what in Celestia’s name was going on. Golden never disobeyed his parents. Something was up.

“Then why are you inviting me over?”

“Well as I see it, I got my cutie mark when I was nine following my passion in art.” Golden pointed back to his mark of a paintbrush in front of a setting sun. “While you on the other hoof haven’t been able to follow your passion for exploring the forest for over a decade. That just didn’t sound all too fair to me. So I figured, why not use the opportunity of both my parents being away to help my friend do what he loves?”

“I’m doing this because I know how much it bothers you,” Golden said, taking on the caring tone he had used earlier. “You’re like my little brother. I hate to see you get upset. I was going to tell you on Thursday, but after today I think you could use some good news.”

Forrester scowled slightly. While he didn’t hate that Golden called him his little brother, he also didn’t like it. Golden was only about seven months older than he was and about half a hoof taller, but he sometimes had a habit of trying to look after him like he was a little brother. It wasn’t that it was a bad thing, it was just that Forrester had been trying to become more independent for years now and Golden’s older brother attitude kind of ruined that.

“But… you know how dangerous the woods can be. We could get hurt. I don’t want you to pay for the mistakes that I make.”

“Forrester, we both know there isn’t a single adult in this town that hasn’t heard about your ventures into the woods. If either of us were to ask one of them to watch out for us your parents would know about it in two seconds. And besides, I trust you to bring us back in at most three pieces.”

Forrester smiled. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

The exploration over the weekend had gone over well. They had been able to convince Forrester’s parents that Golden had gotten permission to invite Forrester to sleep over at his house over the weekend while they were away. The two of them had been able to spend most of the time looking through the woods, giving Forrester ample time to look for whatever interested him without the fear of his parents finding out.

Forrester had noticed how on edge Golden had been while they were in the wood and had done his best to keep away from the parts of the woods he knew were far more dangerous. While those areas were his favorite as there was just something about them that pulled at something deep inside him, he knew that asking his friend to go there on his first trip was not exactly something a friend would do.

Golden had later offered to help him with becoming more comfortable with preening. Every time the molting season came around the two of them would get together and help each other out. While Golden wanted to get Forrester to agree to do it more often Forrester could never get over how uncomfortable having another help preen him was. In the end, Golden was happy with the progress he had made in helping his best friend overcome his perceived deficiencies.

Forrester eventually even agreed to help his mother with her preening whenever she wanted. While he was always hesitant to let her help him, he would occasionally relent. He was always grateful that she remembered his preference to use his own oils and would never pressure him to let her apply oils to his wings, and she never even mentioned the topic with him. When he looked back at how happy she had been that he was finally acting like a normal pegasus he figured that the main reason he had started to preen with his mom was to make up for all the times he had gone into the forest.

Forrester was finishing applying his oils to his wings when the memories of his past were finished. For all the problems of back then, he had to admit he missed those days. Even though he still saw Golden Sunset every now and again, he missed the time they used to spend together as brothers. After Golden left for art college and he went to Saddle Pines, the two only saw each other during the breaks when they would go back home. After they graduated, they were only ever able to hang out when he wasn’t off doing his research. Needless to say, their months of hanging out nonstop had now been reduced to a few hours or days every month or so.

Forrester reached out with his hoof and grabbed the lotion bottle. He slowly undid the cap and was assaulted by the foul scent of the chemical his friend had devised. Even though he had used the lotion almost three dozen times by now, it never failed to make him crinkle his nose in disgust every time he had to smell it. He quickly poured some onto his right hoof and began to apply it to his fur.

While this was probably the worst part of preparing for going out to research timberwolves, it was fortunately over quite quickly. When the lotion was fully incorporated into his skin and fur, the smell went away. It was just the Celestia-awful scent of the lotion when it hadn’t been fully applied that made this the worst part. When he could no longer smell the stench of the lotion on himself he recapped the bottle of lotion and proceeded downstairs to eat some breakfast and do one last check on the supplies he was going to bring.

He grabbed the loaf of bread off the top of the refrigerator and popped two pieces into the toaster to cook while he double checked his supplies. He went over to his saddlebags he prepared the night before and made sure he had packed everything he needed. He found several pens, an enchanted all-weather notebook, three bottles of water, some snacks to keep his stomach in check, and his own personal notebook for notes and drawings he made that weren’t intended to go into his papers.

When his toast popped up, he closed up his saddlebag, slipped it on, and went to grab his food. On the way over he quickly opened the fridge and grabbed out a container of margarine to help the toast have some flavor. He quickly scraped the margarine into both of the pieces and folded them together. Forrester ate the toast like a sandwich and fast enough one would think he was starving. When the final bit of toast was devoured and Forrester made sure that no pieces had decided to cling to his face he set off for his front door.

The icy morning air sent a chill down Forrester’s spine when he opened the door. It was a good chill, he tended to prefer the cold to the heat anyway. The morning sun was only just peaking above the horizon, still half an hour away from fully rising. Forrester looked to his left at the forest before him. His house was only about ten meters from the edge of the forest and had been sold at well below its actual price after the old owner had gotten sick of having to watch timberwolves wander into town on a regular basis.

He started to make his way into the forest for the first time since he had moved here. The fog that clung to the ground was aggressively trying to work its way into his fur and cling to his skin. He could already feel his legs getting moist. Looking around, he was amazed by just how different this forest was from the other forests he had visited. While the air wasn’t as stagnant as what he had experienced in the Windless Woods, the breeze he could feel was much more subdued than that of the Whispering Woods. It was the perfect speed to move the air but not disturb the fog.

He walked for around ten minutes before he found a position that looked to be ideal for his research. He could see through the fog that the ground was more disturbed in this area than it was elsewhere. This was either a regular resting area for a pack or it was somewhere they frequently walked through. As Forrester extended his wings and prepared to fly up to a good position where he could watch over the area he heard a sudden cry of help from a timberwolf not too far from where he was.

Forrester began galloping in the direction he had heard the sound. He knew as a professional he shouldn’t involve himself in the subjects he was supposed to study but every cell in his body was calling out for him to help the timberwolf he had heard. As he got closer to where he thought he heard the sound from he heard what had most likely had been a timberwolf sprint away. Forrester slowed his pace. The timberwolf had still been able to move, but he had more than likely scared it off from the noise he had made. When he made it to where the timberwolf had likely been he was shocked by what he saw.

In front of him was a bear trap, sprung, with several split sticks in its jaws. He could see several other pieces of wood around the trap and realized what had happened. The timberwolf had stepped on the trap and called for help. When it heard him running, it had separated its leg to avoid further danger since he had not tried to call to it. Forrester mentally kicked himself for his stupidity. If he would have just walked over, he might have been able to prevent the timberwolf from separating its leg and running off.

Running off!

He had really bucked up. His desire to help the timberwolf had made its situation one-hundred times worse. While losing a leg would mean nothing to a tinderwolf, if this was any other species, one lost leg could be a death sentence. Forrester quickly grabbed what wood he could that had most likely been the timberwolf's leg and shoved them into his saddlebag before taking off after it.

While running after the timberwolf Forrester noticed how bad losing its leg had been. He noticed several indentations in the fog covered dirt, proving that not only was this not a tinderwolf, but that trying to navigate without one of its legs was almost impossible for it. He would need to catch up to the timberwolf quickly before it hurt itself more.

Eventually, Forrester came across what had to be the seventh indentation in the dirt from the timberwolf falling, only to lose the trail. He looked around the area and couldn’t see any signs of where the timberwolf had run. He looked all around in the dirt but couldn’t see any tracks. He was about to continue in the same direction he had been heading when he noticed that one of the bushes was looking at him, with dark green glowing eyes.

The timberwolf had hidden and had almost successfully evaded him. When the timberwolf noticed that it had been found, judging by Forrester's lack of movement after meeting the wolf’s eyes, it started to growl. Unlike the growls that Forrester was familiar with the species he knew inhabited these woods had, this one was far deeper; it almost scared him.

“Don’t worry, I’m here to help.” Forrester dropped his saddlebags and lowered himself to the ground, trying to appear as non-threatening as he could. This seemed to stop the timberwolf for a second, either in confusion of him being able to talk to it or from no longer seeing him as a major threat, only for the low growl to resume.

Forrester knew he wasn’t going to easily gain this timberwolf’s trust, so he was just going to have to wait and trust it would be willing to accept his help. He slowly turned his head to the side, giving the timberwolf easy access to his throat. While it was risky, he knew doing this would help to establish some trust.

After about a minute the growling stopped. Silence fell over the tiny clearing that Forrester was laying in. It took some time but eventually, he could hear the leaves of the bush that the timberwolf had been hiding in begin to shift. Out of the corner of his eye, Forrester could see that the timberwolf that limped out of the bush was significantly bigger than he was. He knew of a few timberwolf species that were bigger than even Celestia but most timberwolves were only slightly larger than he was. This one was tall enough that even if he stood as straight he could the tips of his ears would barely be above this timberwolf’s shoulders. In all likelihood, he had just found one of the alphas.

Splinter was surprised that he could actually understand the strange deer that had been following him. Even stranger was that the deer was offering to help him. He had never met an animal, let alone a prey animal, that would offer to help a member of another race. He didn’t fully trust it though. He could not smell this strange deer and it wasn’t acting like a normal prey animal, it was laying down and giving him an advantage. It eventually looked away from him and towards the direction he had run from.

Splinter could see how easy of a target this deer had made its throat. If he wanted to, he could jump out right now and clamp down on it. He doubted the deer would be able to respond in time before he could kill it. Why was the deer doing this? No animal exposed their most vital area so willingly. Was this animal sick?

Splinter thought about what to do for some time. While nothing about this deer was giving him the sense that it was a threat to him he couldn’t get the question out of his head of why it had followed him. He stopped growling after he saw that the deer wasn’t reacting and hadn’t moved since it had turned its head. He watched the strange deer, looking for anything off about it.

The only problem was everything seemed odd about this animal. It didn’t try to run, it didn’t have an obvious scent, and it was almost begging him to kill it. He eventually decided he was going to investigate this animal further. He carefully stood back up as tall as he could and began walking towards the deer.

Walking on three legs was not very comfortable seeing that he needed to move much slower and throw his front leg in front of him to keep from falling while moving. He was trying to look threatening, but he felt like he was coming off too much like the wounded animal he was. As he approached, he noticed that the deer still hadn’t moved.

When he was finally standing over the deer he carefully began smelling it, his posture ideal to either attack or run if the deer tried something. He still couldn’t smell the deer despite being this close. He began burying his muzzle into the deer’s fur trying to find something that held a scent.

“I’m sorry if you not being able to smell me if off-putting. I didn’t want anything smelling me so I took away my scent.”

Splinter tensed up at the sound of the deer. He still couldn’t get over the fact that the deer in front of him was able to communicate with him. Instead of responding Splinter just kept smelling the deer. Even if the deer said it had removed its scent, he knew there was some part of it that would still smell, he just needed to find it.

Splinter began moving towards the deer's head. While the deer might have been able to remove its scent from its body, it might have forgotten to do so to its head. As he moved up the neck he came across the longer than usual hairs that started growing there and leading up its spine. Splinter had never seen an animal with such a bizarre growth of fur on its body, especially not a deer.

As he moved through the strangely long fur, he still couldn’t find the scent of this deer. When he arrived at the head, he found it was just like the rest of the deer. It seemed like the deer had been telling the truth when it said it had removed its scent. Splinter couldn’t believe it though. He had never found any animal that could remove its entire scent. He would just need to look harder.

He crossed in front of the deer and around the strange items it had been carrying on its back and began smelling the deer’s exposed side and underbelly. When he began to smell near where the wing folded onto the body after poking around on the outside of the wing he saw it slowly extend and raise, giving him easier access to what it had been covering. Splinter looked over to the head of the deer to see if he could see any ill intent in the deer, but was only met with the deer staring away from him. It was both unnerving and strange to see another animal be so willing to expose itself and allow him to examine it.

When he was finished examining the wing he began moving back towards the rear of the deer. As he got closer to the rear, he started to pick up a scent. Splinter internally smiled to himself. He had found the deer’s scent. He eventually arrived at the deer’s rear and was greeted to the deer’s actual scent. Sniffing around he also found that this was a mature stag as it had both the equipment along with the smell of one that had long since seen its first season of rut.

The thing that confused Splinter the most now was why the stag didn’t have antlers. He had always wondered why these deer were different from others, specifically why they had wings or a single antler. Perhaps these strange deer showed their fitness by the size of their wings or the length of their one antler. At the moment though, he needed to figure out what this deer was doing trying to catch him.

“Why did you follow me?” He did his best to sound threatening, attempting to compensate for how weak he felt. He looked into the deer’s eyes and was happy to see it look away, not willing to challenge him.

“I heard you cry out in pain and call for help.”

Splinter growled. “Prey don’t help their predators. Now tell me the truth.”

“That was the truth. I want to help. I don’t want to see timberwolves in pain or see their packs killed.” The deer fully turned away from him. “You may think of me as prey, and you may well be right, but that isn’t going to stop me from trying to save you.”

Splinter was genuinely taken aback. The deer in front of him sounded like he honestly wished to help him. Why was something that he would more than likely have hunted given the opportunity asking if it could help him? Didn’t it realize that if it helped him there would be nothing to stop him from killing him and taking his body back to the pack as a prize when he was fully healed?

“I don’t intend to force you to accept my help, and if you don’t want it I’ll understand. If that’s the case you should know I brought what I could of your old leg in my saddle bags.” The deer turned its head towards the objects it had dropped when it had arrived.

Splinter walked over to the “saddle bags”, taking his eyes off the deer but keeping his ears pointed in its direction, and started to sniff at them. Sure enough, he could smell the distinct scent of himself in the bag along with the scent of the deer and several other scents. It was more than likely that the other scents were either from doe it had mated with or stags from its time before the mating season. Splinter desperately wanted those pieces of himself back, to be whole again, but he understood what the deer had told him.

The deer said that it had only brought a portion of his leg with it. If the portions it hadn’t brought were too damaged or it couldn’t free them from the jaws of that terrible beast he highly doubted taking back what used to be his leg would be worth the trouble.

Splinter sighed and turned away from the morning sun. “You should return from where you came. I will not hunt you this day, but… my pack and others will not hesitate.”

“So you’re heading back to your pack? Does your pack have access to the wood you need this early in fall?” the deer asked as he slowly limped away.

Splinter stopped but didn’t turn back to face the deer. “No. My… my pack acquires what it needs when the long nights begin and the trees begin their rest.” Emotions began to well up in him. It hurt to hear and say that he belonged to a pack. He knew that without one of his legs he was a drain to the pack. He could no longer sneak properly and he was confident he could no longer fight to defend the pack. If he went back, he would only be exiled. Best save his time and do it himself. “And I don’t have a pack anymore. I’ll be exiled when they see what happened.”

“Don’t go!” the deer practically shouted at him. He turned around to see the deer on its hooves and staring straight at him. It was extremely unnerving after only seeing the deer act submissive this whole time. “I’m sure you realize how dangerous it is for a timberwolf to not have a pack. Come with me. I can help.”

Splinter half-heartedly scoffed. “Why should I? You admitted that you are prey. How could you possibly hope to help me?”

“I can protect and help feed you. You can stay in my home and I can go out and look for the right wood to help fix your leg. Please, don’t leave. I couldn’t live with myself if I knew I could have saved you only to let you walk away.”

“And how are you going to protect me?” Splinter growled at the deer. All this stag was doing was wasting his time and making enough noise to attract other predators. “I’m fairly certain even I could best you in a fight.”

The deer looked away and sat back on its haunches. “You’re right. I don’t think I could defend you physically. If anypony in town found out I was housing you… I don’t even want to consider what would happen.” The deer looked back at him with a look of sheer determination. “But can you honestly tell me you have a better chance on your own?”

Splinter felt the need to reply, but the words died in his throat. The deer was right, he didn’t have a shadow of a chance alone as he was. The best thing he could think to do was to go with the deer and hope that if it came to it, he would be able to kill the deer or escape it.

“Fine, I’ll come with you, but if I feel you have tricked me, I will not hesitate to kill you.”

The deer nodded in understanding before standing back up. The deer then picked up his “saddlebags” and motioned for him to follow. He slowly limped his way over to the deer, still keeping his guard up. When he was a few lengths away from the deer it turned slightly away from the morning light border and began to walk at a pace he had no doubt was meant to allow him to keep up.

As the two walked, Splinter couldn’t help but notice that the deer never let him out of his sights. While the deer didn’t stare directly at him, he could tell by the way the deer had oriented its head that it was watching him from out of the corner of his eye. Several years of hunting told him that he should stop in his tracks and try to slip out of the deer’s sight, but his current predicament kept him moving.

“What are you?” Splinter had been wondering this since he had first seen these strange deer and now that he had found one that he could talk to he desperately wanted to know just why these deer and its brethren were so different.

“What do you mean? Certainly you’ve seen a pony, I’m fairly certain your pack’s been in the town before.”

“Pony? Is that what you deer with wings call yourselves?”

“Oh, I see what the problem is. No, ponies are different from deer. While we are somewhat related, seeing as we are both ungulates, we are fairly different. As for my wings, I’m a type of pony called a pegasus.”

Splinter had to think about what he just heard. It made sense that these… ponies, had been the ones to live in those strange structures. After all, this pegasus said they were different from the deers his pack hunted. This stag’s last statement though was even more confusing.

“You said there are different types of ponies. Is that why your other males lack two antlers?”

The pony couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Ha, kind of. They’re actually called horns due to them not falling off. And before you ask, no, our wings and horns don't help us attract a mate. And it isn’t just the males that have wings and horns. You can’t imagine the number of times another timberwolf has asked me those questions.”

“Other Timberwolves? No pack has ever talked about meeting you before.” Splinter became very suspicious of this strange creature, slowing his pace and preparing himself for a fight. If he was sure of anything, it was that his gut feeling tended to be right. And right now, his gut was telling him this pony was lying to him.

“That’s because you’re the first timberwolf from this forest I’ve been able to talk to. There are hundreds of packs out there in other forests. Heck, there are even timberwolves in some of the deserts.”

Splinter felt like contradicting this pony. There was no way there could be that many packs out there, let alone enough forest to provide for them. But when he thought about it, before he met this pony, he had thought he could only talk with other timberwolves. It seemed far-fetched, but for the moment, he would trust what the pegasus had told him. That thought did bring up another question he had.

“How can you talk to me or other timberwolves? I don't know of any other prey that can speak with their predators.”

“It’s actually my special talent. I can talk to timberwolves like I would any other pony. While some ponies can speak with all animals, or a wide variety, I can speak with timberwolves. It’s what the marks on my haunches are for.”

Splinter turned to look at the mark the pegasus had mentioned, and sure enough, he could make out what looked like a timberwolf on the rear of the pony. He had somewhat noticed it earlier when he was examining him, he just hadn’t paid it much attention due to the lack of any scent being the greater concern at the time.

“Why would you mark yourself like that? You went to great lengths to cover your scent, why ruin that by making yourself more visible?”

“It’s not like that. Ponies naturally acquire their cutie marks when they find out what their special talent is. It just kind of shows up. It isn’t like we choose when and what we get for a cutie mark.”

Splinter scoffed. “How could you ponies have survived this long with such a terrible trait? If any prey around here made themselves so easy to spot they would have died out long ago.”

“Well, we haven’t died out yet, so we must be doing something right.”

The rest of the trip was spent in silence. Forrester, in an attempt to help the timberwolf he was leading back to his house get more comfortable with being around him, and Splinter, due to trying to come to understand everything he had just been told. Splinter was still keeping his eyes trained on the pegasus, looking for any signs that it was leading him into a trap.

When the two finally reached the edge of the forest Splinter was treated to the sight of the town, as this pegasus called it. It was as he remembered it being from last time, the structures cold and dead with little plant life to be found. If it wasn’t for the easy meals the pack could find here they would have avoided such a place like wood rot.

“Ok, it looks like no one else is up yet. Follow me into my house quickly, I don't want anyone to see you.”

Splinter immediately lowered his front and began raising the pieces of wood that comprised his outer coat. He was posturing the best he could, given the circumstances, in preparation to attack. “Why is that? Are you afraid they might defend me from you?” He then began to growl to prove, mostly to himself, that he could still take care of himself.

“I told you already, I’m trying to help you. How many times do I need to repeat myself? And please be quiet, the last thing either of us needs right now is my neighbors waking up to find an angry timberwolf in town.”

“And why should I care? If they’re anything like you I have nothing to fear.”

“But you do!” the pegasus was almost shouting now. Every second the two of them stood out in the open was another opportunity for somepony to walk out of their house and catch them. “The ponies here aren’t big fans of your kind. If any of them found out you were here they would hunt you down!”

“So all you did was lead me to more danger. I knew I shouldn't have trusted you.”

“Please, I’m only trying to help. Just come inside, I’ll explain everything to you when we don't have to worry about the rest of the town. Please, I’ll do anything to earn your trust once we get inside.”

Splinter was hesitant, everything about this felt wrong. This felt like a trap, the pegasus had even admitted it. Every fiber of his being was calling out to him to either kill this creature or run as fast, and as far, as he could. But there was a little part of him that told him that this was his only choice. Despite the situation the pegasus had led him into, he couldn't deny that the pony seemed to want to protect him. From when they had first met, the pegasus had given him the advantage. He had left his most vital area exposed and hadn’t attempted to move too far away from him as they had walked here. He would trust this pony, for now.

But he would not waste any time in figuring out if he could actually trust him. Splinter stood back at his full height and lowered his outer coat.

Seeing this, the pony released a sigh of relief. He quickly trotted over to his front door before unlocking it and pushing it all the way open. He turned back to Splinter and motioned with his head that he should head inside.

Splinter took the hint and quickly made his way inside, almost falling a few times as he hadn’t yet grown accustomed to the loss of one of his legs.

Forrester watched as the timberwolf make its way into his house. He was glad he had been able to convince him that he could be trusted. He was about to head inside when a voice broke the silence.

“Hey there, Forrester. Haven’t seen you up this early before.”

Forrester turned to face the pony that had addressed him. He could tell from the voice it was his next-door neighbor, Warm Hearth. Forrester had found her to be one of the most understanding ponies in the town. She was an earth pony that mostly worked as an appliance repair pony for the town, but preferred to do chimney cleaning and maintenance on HVAC systems when she had the choice. While she didn’t like that the timberwolves would occasionally chew up wires or destroy parts of the units she worked on when they came into town, she understood they were just animals and weren't doing so maliciously.

“Hey, Hearth. I could probably ask you the same question, I don't exactly remember you saying you took house calls this early.”

“Well, I’ve had to change up how I do things lately. I learned that that fiber insulation I started using about a month ago is the preferred plaything for timberwolves.”

“Yikes. How bad is it?”

“Well, the last house I got a call to had the entire external insulation material ripped off and scattered around.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It wasn’t. I recently had a shipment of foam insulation arrive, so now I’m visiting all the houses I went to where I installed the fiber and asking them if they want me to switch it out before the next pack of timberwolves decide they want to have some fun with my work.”

“You have fun then, I’m going back inside. I don't know about you but I prefer my warm house over this icy morning air.”

Warm Hearth laughed. “Have fun yourself, you big wimp. Hope I never have to drop by your house to fix the heating. Last thing I need is to hear you whining about it being too cold for your precious little tail.”

“Oh, ha ha. Talk with you later.”

“Did you get a dog? I heard one barking and growling just a few minutes ago. I know your special talent is dealing with timberwolves, but I didn't figure you could also talk to dogs.”

Buck. She had heard him talking with the timberwolf. Thankfully she hadn’t seen it. He needed to come up with a good lie, and fast. The last thing he needed was for someone to see him housing a timberwolf. Even though he trusted her, he couldn't be sure that she wouldn’t accidentally say something that would give what he was doing away.

“No, I’m not that interesting. You remember my friend Golden? He’s been having a little trouble with his Germane shepherd being a little aggressive around ponies and other dogs. And seeing as I deal with timberwolves regularly, he figured I would be the best candidate to help train him. And no, I can’t talk to creatures other than timberwolves.”

“That’s not true, you’re talking to me. Or do I not count as a pony?”

Forrester couldn't help but laugh at her little joke. “I can talk to timberwolves naturally, but I had to work on talking to ponies, still am. Remind me again, is sniffing another pony’s flank not considered polite? I’m still trying to get used to the social differences between ponies and timberwolves.”

Warm Hearth chuckled. “As long as that’s not how you greet me next time we meet I think we’ll be good. I’ve got to get going, lots to do before I actually start work for the day. Have a good one.”

And with that, Hearth turned towards the center of town and began to trot towards her first house of the day. Forrester released a relieved breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding. He was grateful he had been able to make up such a good lie on the spot. It helped that he had gotten good at it due to all the practice he had when he was a kid, escaping into the Gloomy Woods and needing to cover up what he had done. He just hoped that Golden wouldn’t show up for a surprise visit and expose his deception.

Forrester headed inside and closed his door. When he turned back around he was muzzle to muzzle with the timberwolf.

“Roll over, now,” the timberwolf growled, his tone leaving little question as to who he felt was in control.

“Can’t we do this-”

“Now!” The bark was forceful and commanding. It was also not the least bit calm, sounding more like a threat than anything else.

Forrester immediately dropped to the ground and rolled onto his back, tucking his forelegs in and exposing his stomach. He knew this was the position the timberwolf wanted him to be in. He also knew how dangerous this was. By leaving himself so open he was completely at this timberwolf’s mercy, even more so than in the forest.

The timberwolf stalked over to him, growling and baring his teeth, placing his snarling muzzle directly over his. “You promised to do anything to earn my trust, this is how. You are going to answer all of my questions. If you hesitate, or I feel you are lying to me, I will not hesitate to eat you.”

Forrester gulped. He had dealt with aggressive timberwolves before, but this one had to take the cake. He knew something had happened to this timberwolf to make it this way. The bear trap was an obvious reason, but he knew better. There was something else that had happened, something that was making this timberwolf want to be so violent.

“First, why did you take me here when you know it's not safe for me?”

“I… I did it because I live here. This was the first place I thought of.”

“So, you brought me here because it was easy?” The timberwolf was growling even more now at this new revelation.

Forrester closed his eyes. He needed to be honest, despite how bad it would probably make his situation. “Yes. I didn’t know of anywhere else I could take you that would be safe, for you or me. This seemed like the safest option.” Forester hesitated slightly before continuing. “I also wanted to study you.”

“Study me!” The timberwolf sounded furious at this. He instantly moved closer and bit down on his throat. Forrester could feel several teeth puncturing his flesh, not deep enough to be concerned about dying, but definitely enough that he could feel blood starting to come out.

The timberwolf began speaking again, and while his voice was muffled by his throat being in its mouth, he could still make out what was being said. “And why do you want to study me? I had better like your answer or else I will not hesitate to bite down and end you here and now.”

“I was curious about the timberwolves here. I heard reports about all-alpha packs and wanted to find out for myself if it was true.” Forrester could feel tears welling up in his eyes. “Please, I’m only trying to help. I know how this looks. I led you to probably the one place you’re the least safe because I couldn’t handle putting myself at risk. I realize I was being selfish and stupid. Please, I don’t want to die. If you let go of me I’ll open the door and you can leave. You won’t have to worry about seeing me ever again. Just please, don't kill me.”

Forrester waited for what felt like ten minutes with an angry timberwolf clamped down on his neck. He could feel that his blood had begun to dry in his fur. He was waiting for the timberwolf to make its decision. Eventually, he felt the timberwolf begin to clamp down harder on his throat. The holes in his neck from the timberwolf’s teeth began to reopen, causing his wounds to start bleeding again. He couldn't help but release more tears. He had come to accept that he was about to die, and all this because he was stupid enough to tell the timberwolf the entire truth.

But almost as soon as the pressure had increased he was let go. He then heard the telltale sounds of clawed feet moving away from him. Forrester opened his eyes and saw as the timberwolf walked away from him and towards a corner of the room where his couch and loveseat created a little empty square on the floor that only had a tall lamp placed there. The timberwolf was trying to remain out of sight and away from anything that could notice him.

He had been right, there was more to why this timberwolf was acting the way he was other than a missing leg. He felt like trying to ask this timberwolf what was going on, but his understanding of when someone needed their space, and the several bleeding holes he had in his neck, told him to do otherwise.

He made his way over to his bathroom so he could grab his medical supplies and clean up his wounds. When he got there, he opened up the cabinet right under his sink and retrieved his first aid supplies. He then grabbed a hoof towel from a rack he kept next to his sink, turned on the water, and began wetting the towel.

When he felt that it was thoroughly soaked he wrung out the excess water and began washing the blood out of his coat. The towel went from a light tan to a dark crimson in a matter of minutes as more and more of his blood was liberated from him. When he looked in the mirror at how bad the wounds were he was slightly shocked at how close he had come to death. The teeth marks were about two centimeters deep and he noticed that if the timberwolf had bitten him differently it would have easily severed his carotid artery or jugular vein.

After examining the extent of his wounds, Forrester went to work at disinfecting his wounds. The hydrogen peroxide stung like nothing else could, but it was a pain he would need to deal with. After the wounds had been fully cleaned he carefully inserted pieces of gauze strip into the holes and then began wrapping medical tape around his neck to hold the packing in place. When it was all done Forrester looked at himself in the mirror. While he wouldn't be winning any beauty pageants or medical awards in the near future for his work, it was good enough for now. After he put everything back where it should be and the towel in the laundry basket, he began making his way back to his living room to check on how the timberwolf was doing.

When he arrived back in the room with the timberwolf he saw that it was still in the corner. Seeing this he figured that it might be best to try and make the timberwolf feel more comfortable.

“Oh, it must have slipped my mind but I don't think I’ve introduced myself. My name’s Forrester Whitehoof, but you can just call me Forrester.”

Unfortunately, the timberwolf didn't seem to be interested in acknowledging him. He was simply looking elsewhere and was unresponsive to what he was saying. It seemed that he was just going to need to give him some space for now. It wouldn't be worth it to try to force himself on the timberwolf at this time. It was better to just to let him come out on his own. Hopefully, it would only take a few hours.

Regrettably, that just wasn’t the case. For the rest of the day he did his best to get the timberwolf to open up and at least come out of the corner, but nothing seemed to work. He had filled up a bowl with some water and placed it next to him around lunch, but in the few hours he had spent in the living room after this the timberwolf hadn’t even sniffed at it.

For the most part, Forrester spent his time simply writing notes on what he had learned about this timberwolf and how it had acted. Interspersed with the note taking, he also decided to try his hoof at drawing his new guest too. While he wasn't exactly as good of an artist as Golden, he had enough skill to translate what he saw to a drawing. What interested him the most about the timberwolf in front of him was just how organized the wood on its body was and how close morphologically it was to an actual wolf. He couldn't be one hundred percent sure without running a Gourding’s test, but he had a feeling that this might actually be a new species.

The rest of the day was completely uneventful. The timberwolf was unwilling to do anything and he didn't have anything in particular he needed to do, so the two of them spent a great deal of time just doing nothing. When Forrester made himself some dinner, a simple spaghetti with a sauce his father had taught him how to make, he had offered the timberwolf some meats and other foods he had in a container for when he wanted to bait an area to better observe timberwolves if they were less inclined to be out in the open. Even the promise of food hadn't been enough to get him to move. So with that, Forrester simply ate his dinner and decided to head to bed early.

“I’m going to go to bed now. If you need anything, my door will be open. Just do what you can to wake me up, I tend to be a heavy sleeper. If you get hungry I’ll have some of that food I offered you earlier out in a bowl in the kitchen. Sleep well.” And with that, Forester headed to his room.

Laying down on his bed, Forrester went over how his day had gone. First, he had walked into the forest in an attempt to study the timberwolves that lived there, only to find a wounded timberwolf in less than an hour of walking into the woods. On top of that, he had offered to help the timberwolf only to get a nasty bite for his trouble.

That first meeting had definitely been quite an interesting one. He had done his best to come off as non-threatening and passive as he could, just like he would with any other timberwolf to try to establish some trust, only to find out that this timberwolf was so large that it put most others he had dealt with in the past to shame. Even without one of its legs, Forrester was confident that this timberwolf could have easily killed him if he so desired, and he almost had. He was confident, but not entirely sure, that the timberwolf wouldn’t try to do so though. The timberwolf constantly referring to him as prey, and him nearly biting his head off wasn’t exactly putting his mind at ease though, especially since he had allowed him free reign of the house as well as leaving his door open.

Hopefully tomorrow he could ask the timberwolf more about itself, perhaps get some information on why there was an all-alpha hunting pack in the in the forest and why it had formed. Hopefully this time he wouldn’t need to have the first aid kit ready. But those were concerns for tomorrow. For now, he could use some rest.

Garshasp didn’t feel right. Whenever he and his crew were hired to deal with beasts, they were always vicious monsters that posed a significant threat to the individuals that hired them. But these timberwolves were… scared.

Every time he and his men would find some of them the timberwolves would show some aggression to try to intimidate them but when one of their friends was put down, or it became obvious that they were outmatched, they would turn tail and run. They had taken jobs to hunt down timberwolves before but in those jobs, there wasn’t a damn thing any of them could do to get the timberwolves to not fight. They had even once fought a pack down to its last member and it still refused to stop trying to kill them.

These timberwolves were different. They didn’t fight if they didn’t need to and if they didn’t think they could win, they would disengage. It didn’t feel like they were hunting the monsters they had been told resided in these woods. It felt like they had been contracted to put down dogs playing in a dog park.

What made it worse was the last kills they had made. A group of four of the biggest timberwolves any of his crew had ever seen along with another that looked to be a normal sized one had converged in a clearing and had split up in different directions. The three of them figured they should try to get the drop on one of them and take it out before the others could respond.

They had been successful in taking out the largest one first, Razor Beak dropping on top of it and slamming a dissipation rod into its head. Unfortunately, when Razor Beak had dropped down on the timberwolf it had yelped. Almost immediately after the dissipation rod finished its magic and reduced the timberwolf to a pile of sticks one of the other large timberwolves lept from a nearby bush and attacked Razor Beak. The beast tried to bite into the old griffin’s neck but had aimed too low and ended up biting where the neck met the shoulders.

Razor Beak screamed in pain as a timberwolf as big as he was bit into his skin and was shaking, trying to dislocate his spine. While the bite wasn’t high enough to be fatal, if the timberwolf wasn’t stopped Razor Beak could kiss goodbye to flying, as well as moving, for the rest of his life.

Garshasp and Stone Claw needed to act fast to stop the attack. Both of them threw dissipation rods at the timberwolf hoping to either hit its head or cause it enough pain that it would let go. When their rods hit, one along the back and the other on its right shoulder, they heard it yelp but this only served to make it angrier as it bit down harder and shook more violently. Seeing this, both griffins panicked and threw two more rods each. While none of their rods hit the head, they did all strike the timberwolf, causing it enough pain to let go and retreat.

The two uninjured griffins ran over to try to help their comrade. They needed to ensure that the damage that he had taken was not significant enough that they would need to call off the hunt. Before they could reach him a nearby bush rustled before another timberwolf jumped out. Both Garshasp and Stone Claw wanted to save Razor, but they knew they were too far away still to help and they had already used up their dissipation rods; instead, both of them simply yelled at Razor to roll away.

Instead of rolling away like he was told to do Razor instead jumped up and turned to face the timberwolf that now chose to attack him. He grabbed one of the dissipation rods from his side and ran at the timberwolf. The timberwolf was all too happy to meet him in combat and charged as well. While neither of his friends would be able to help him, Razor Beak was more than capable of handling his own. At the last moment, before the two collided, Razor used his wings to quickly dodge to the timberwolf’s right. As the Timberwolf tried to turn to continue its attack on Razor, the griffin slammed the dissipation rod into the timberwolf’s head so hard that if the magic holding it together had instantly dispersed, Garshasp and Stone Claw would have expected the head to go flying.

When the trio was finally back together, there wasn’t enough time to assess the damage that the timberwolf had done to Razor before that very same timberwolf came back around a nearby bush, growling at the three of them. What made it worse was that the other two timberwolves had come back. The trio was down to their last few dissipation rods and these timberwolves had already seriously injured one of them.

Before Garshasp could even begin to formulate a plan, a dissipation rod flew towards the timberwolf that they had already wounded. The rod hit its mark, and the timberwolf went down. Now that the odds were more even Garshasp turned to face the timberwolves that just arrived, only to hear the larger one bark twice at the smaller one and for them to both take off in the direction they had come from.

“Is it just me or are we not hunting the vile beasts we were told were in these woods?” Garshasp looked between where he saw the two timberwolves run away and the bodies of the three timberwolves they had killed.

Stone Claw walked over to look over Razor Beak’s injury to see how bad the damage was. While the wound was bad, the timberwolf hadn’t hit any veins or arteries so the bleeding, while a problem, could be stemmed with some gauze pads for the moment until they could make it back to the cave.

“Speak for yourself. You weren’t almost killed. We should get back to camp, I don’t want to know what kind of infections that monster carried,” Razor Beak complained while Stone Claw applied a gauze pad and wrapped it to make sure the makeshift bandage would hold and stem the bleeding until they could get back the camp and properly treat the wound.

When he was finish being bandaged, the old griffin picked up the head of the timberwolf that had almost killed him with a scowl before shoving it in one of the bags that they were using to prove the kills that they had made. So far, if you included the three they had killed just now, they were at twenty-two kills.

“But don’t you think it’s odd? Every other time we’ve hunted timberwolves they would go after us without end. Whatever we did they would try to kill us. Haven’t you been seeing how they’ve been acting? If we kill a few of their pack everyone else scatters. This was the first time a group of them fought back, and even then as soon as they saw they were outnumbered they ran away.” Garshasp looked down, his next few words were almost a whisper. “I’m not sure we’re doing the right thing here.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” Stone Claw’s voice broke the silence that had started to surround the group. His usual cocky and carefree voice was instead contemplative and unsure. “They’re not acting like the beasts we usually hunt, they’re acting almost like prey. While I don’t have a problem hunting prey animals, this is different. We can’t eat them and I’m sure we don’t need to use the bodies. In other words, it’s like we’re hunting for fun, not for a reason.”

“Are you two serious? I was almost killed and you guys are going on about them being prey. They’re just some monsters we were hired to kill.”

Garshasp looked at Razor with a stern frown. “I would have expected you of all griffins to remember the code all griffin hunters are expected to live by, seeing as you kept repeating it to me for my first few months working with you. Remind me what it was again.”

Razor stared daggers right back at the younger griffin. “Buck you, you self-righteous little shit! I was almost killed and you’re asking ME what the code is. You can just go to Tartarus.”

“Is that it? Last time I checked, and correct me if I’m wrong here, it was ‘A hunter shall not kill without reason. They shall endeavor to only take a life if that life need be taken. And above all, the body is sacred, one must use all that they can and seek to only hunt that which they can best use.’”

Razor growled and aggressively began to make his way back towards their camp, leaving Garshasp and Stone Claw to collect the bags of timberwolf heads.

Four ponies made their way out of town and towards the cave where the griffins had made their camp. As he was about to go to sleep for the night, Black Diamond had heard a knock at his door. When he opened it he found an unmarked letter laying on his welcome mat. When he opened it he found a letter from the griffins he had helped hire. It was informing him and the others that the griffin had done what they could with the timberwolves in the forest and was planning to leave first thing in the morning so they wished to be paid before then. Black Diamond had quickly grabbed the bits he had agreed to provide and left to gather the others.

The journey to the cave was quiet, the only sounds being the usual calls of animals in the night and the rustling of bits in the saddlebags of the ponies. When the four ponies finally arrived at the cave, they saw that the griffins had not been lying. The many supplies that they saw around the cave were being carefully stored in rucksacks or wooden crates. The three griffins were busy and didn't seem to realize they had arrived.

Dasher cleared his throat to get the griffins’ attention. The griffin that had introduced himself as Garshasp turned to face them and as soon as he saw them a smile worked its way into his beak.

“Hey, sorry for getting you that letter so late. We’ve been out in the forest all day so we couldn’t get to you earlier.”

Perfect Match, who had been frowning since he was informed of the griffins’ departure, finally decided to speak. “May I ask why you are leaving now? I thought our payment was more than enough to entice you to stay and clean out the forest.”

“It is, there are just two problems. First off, one of my men got nailed really bad.” Garshasp turned to look at the older griffin with a heavily blood-soaked bandage wrapped around him in front of his wings. “The timberwolf that got him almost severed his spine. We bandaged it in the field but when we looked at the wound when we got back we realized we needed to head back home to get him the proper medical care.”

“Are you sure? We have excellent doctors here, I’m sure they would be able to fix up his wounds.”

“Do they have experience with either griffins or timberwolf bites?”

Perfect Match looked down sheepishly. “I don’t think so.”

“Then we need to head back.” Garshasp shrugged as said the phrase matter of factly. “As for the second reason, it’s the same reason you didn’t get the letter before you did. We spent all day hunting those timberwolves, and to be quite frank, you don’t have all too many in there.”

“Well, how many did you get rid of, fifty, sixty?” Candy Cane sounded hopeful to hear a large number of them had been-

“Twenty-two.”

All the ponies present looked extremely disappointed at such a small number. They had been hoping that the griffins would have been able to permanently end the threat that the beasts posed to them.

“Honestly we didn’t run into a single one after noon. We figure that either the timberwolves figured out they were being hunted and fled further into the forest, already moved deeper before we got here, or there just wasn’t that many to begin with. If you want the proof of the kills, we have the heads over there along that wall.” After saying this Garshasp turned back to help his comrades continue packing up.

The four ponies looked over to the indicated wall and sure enough, there were the heads. While they could make out the heads of several timberwolves that fit the usual descriptions of a timberwolf, there were quite a few heads that didn’t quite match the usual description. While they had heard from Forrester that Timberwolves could vary by quite a large amount none of them actually cared or was willing to ask him what type the heads had come from. But what really drew their attention were the three larger heads near the center.

Between the heads of a normal timberwolf and one of the stranger ones were the three largest timberwolf heads they had ever seen. By the looks of it, the timberwolf heads in front of them were some of the alphas. The four ponies began talking and while they had not eliminated many timberwolves, the fact they had taken out several of their alphas more than made up for it. They each agreed they would pay them as if they had killed thirty of them.

After counting out the bits they owed they placed them in the bag they had seen the first time they had paid the griffins. They thanked the hunters and told them if they had any more problems they would call them first. The griffins thanked them for their hospitality and coin and watched as they left.

“Still don’t feel right lying to ‘em,” Razor Beak said while organizing his maps.

“Like telling them ‘hey we suddenly realized we didn’t like what we were doing, so we stopped’ would have gone over well.” Stone Claw was almost done separating the spent rods and the unused rods into their own sides in one of the crates.

Stone Claw and Garshasp had been able to convince Razor to go along with the plan to tell the ponies they couldn’t find very many timberwolves and needed to return home to treat Razor. In all honesty, on his way back and while he was waiting for the other two to get back, Razor had thought about what had happened and came to agree with them. Truthfully, there wasn’t anything special about timberwolf bites or griffins that would have prevented a pony from treating Razor, and after they had come back to camp and properly cleaned Razors wound’s, they had just stayed in the cave reminiscing.

“Just give me and Razor seventy-five bits and keep the rest. Think of this as our retirement gift to you.”

Garshasp chuckled. “Thanks for that. I’m getting an extra seventeen bits. What is that, a week’s rent and a cheap lunch? You didn’t need to go out of your way.”

“Ah, it’s the least we could do.”

“Literally.”

The rest of the time was spent going over what Garshasp would be doing now that he was retiring. He figured he was going to try to have a kid or two, get a job as either a butcher or a teacher, and when his kid’s old enough, volunteer as Scoutmaster in the Chick Scouts. Razor and Stone both laughed at the idea of him as either a teacher or a scoutmaster. They told him they want to be there when he explains to the chicks how to properly skin a carcass or the kill points on a barghest. In all, this was probably the best send-off Garshasp could have asked for from the two griffins he had called his brothers for the last ten years.