A tale of ponies, not for those with kind hearts

A tale of ponies, not for those with kind hearts. Chapter 2: Meet meat and fire.

Written by LOLSTERNATER (Tim)

Location: Everfree forest. Age: 8

With no real plan as for what to do, I just went deeper and deeper into the Everfree forest. My tears had long ago dried up and my mind has now turned to the thought of food. I wanted to stop and lay down, to give up on the world and just die, but something in the back of my head told me not to stop; a voice that was not there before.

You must live. Move and you will find life.

Great now I'm hearing voices.

Do not jest foal. You are your only hope.

So why are you here?

Guidance.

Knowing that talking back to things in my head was a bad idea I decided to let it go. Food was pushing it's way into my thoughts again harder then before and I knew I had to deal with it eventually. Having learnt a few basics about bush craft from my brother may of been the thing to keep me alive, I knew a few plants that were safe to eat, basic shelter building, but making fire was the annoying part; Fire Wing could just make some with his wings and be done with it and we thought that we would always be together should something like this happen so he never taught be about it.

I looked around for any of the plants that I had learned to find safe but everything this deep in the forest was unknown to me and I just got confused, the only thing that could be eatable was... small animals running around. I had long lost my sense of what was what but the decision to eat another living creature was a tough one. I picked a small brown fluffy rabbit hopping alone, I climbed into a tree and waited for the rabbit to pass under me. For what seemed like ages it just nibbled on the grass and I sat there for about an hour. When it finally did get to a spot I could reach it was far to late for second thoughts. Dropping on it's back and giving it a hard buck to the spine, paralyzing it permanently. A snap of the neck could of finished the job but I was to clumsy and was shaking to much to get a good grip, so I left it alive.

Then came the next part. I wasn't sure what to do with it at first but I knew that when griffons eat, *gulp* meat... They cook it first. That meant building a fire, and without my brother to just light one with ease I had no idea where to start. The though of Fire Wing brought some lost times we had shared which teared at my soul but I held back any tears that wanted to escape and focused on the job at hand.

After gathering a small pile of wood that looked burnable, I tired to just bring up some sparks with my wings. Rubbing them against my body hoping that the static energy would cause some sparks like how I figured my brother did it. All I got was sore sides. My next idea was to use lightning but required clouds that were out of my reach from here. I climbed some tall trees to see how close I could get or maybe find a place where I could get high enough. After jumping from a few branches and pulling myself up a few tricky spots I got to the top branch of a tree that towered above most others, and was met with a pretty good view.

I could see most of the forest spreading in most directions never seeming to end. The smoke form my village still rising over a hill. In the opposite direction, far on the horizon was what looked like a castle on the side of a cliff. It was to far away to walk to so I ignored it and looked around for somewhere I could gather clouds.

Looking around I saw a sizable mountain rising into the sky not to far away from where I currently was. I had a path leading up to the top too making climbing it seem a lot easier. After checking for anything else that might be of use, I headed down back down the tree, and set of towards the mountain. The walk was about a half a mile just to reach the base and there was still a lot of uphill ground to cover, so without wasting any more time I headed up, with the rabbit in my mouth; not wanting to lose it to other creatures.

The surface of the path was smooth and had tracks which meant it had been used recently and that might mean there was somepony near by, somepony who could help me. With new zest I began trotting up the path faster and faster till I was galloping hoping to finally have this nightmare over with. I reached the top exhausted from galloping up here so I clasped on the ground, breathing  up in the blood if the rabbit which I had bitten a hole in from the hard work. I spat the rabbit onto the ground and stared at it in shocked, not shocked that it happened, but shocked that I had ENJOYED the taste.

Leaving the rabbit on the ground I checked the area on top of the mountain. There were a few seemingly abandoned caravans sitting around with no trace of how or who brought them up here. Any items that may have been hanging on or in them was gone, leaving them worthless. Why somepony would bring these up here, strip them of any worth, and leave them here to rot was clearly unknown, but somepony had and that meant that they might still be around. I started scanning the ground around the caravans for any hoof-prints or signs that would lead me to help, but they looked like they had been here a while. The tracks from the path up here showed that it had been used recently but all the tracks were of going up, not down.

Without anything more to show from searching the remains of them I figured that this might be the work of magic. With no real proof or understanding of how magic worked I left it at that and went back to the reason of coming up here; getting some clouds. They were hanging pretty low, covering this sight from anypony below who might glance up from the bottom so catching a few wouldn't be that hard.

I climbed one of the many caravans knocking off a few boards on the way up, I would use them as fire wood, and got to a point where I could reach the clouds. Giving my wings a few flaps to give me a push, I jumped up and snagged a mouth full of cloud. Happy with what I had I climbed back down, being sure not to let go of my new toy. Once down I gathered the planks into a pile and gripped a turf of cloud with each fore-hoof and started to rub them together. Slowly they turned from white to black shaking with the flowing energy. Then with a loud CRACK a blot of lightning struck down on the pile of wood, igniting it, giving birth to flame. I retrieved my rabbit and placed it on a flattish rock to place on the fire. I knew nothing about cooking, much less meat, so I left it there; hoping the fire would do the rest.

As I waited the smell of cooking flesh was starting to get to me. The scent drove my taste buds crazy waiting for a bite, while my inner-self was saying: How can I get excited over meat? Have I really lost that much sanity? Before I could counter my own thoughts, somepony else did.

"Hey! You there!" I spun to see a steel grey stallion earth pony with a cart for a cutie mark standing at the top of the path. "What are you doing with my caravan? Hey, what are you doing with all these caravans?!" I was at a loss for words. I hadn't expected the first pony I found to be so angry. Nor had I thought that somepony might come looking for these. "I don't know what your doing kid but-" He stopped when he saw my fire. "Are you cooking a... rabbit? What kind of sick buck are you?" He went over to one of the caravans, pulled a board off it, and started to slowly head in my direction, his intent obvious in his eyes.

I backed away, wanting to only stay out his of reach. That voice once again reaching out to me.

You must fight if you want to survive.

With what? He's bigger then me and has a weapon!

Use your brain! You have fire. Use it!

What, but how?

I'm not even going to explain it to you.

Why won't you help me?

I came to have the fire next to me and so I did the only thing that came to my mind. I bucked the flat stone with all I had sending the stone, and my rabbit, flying. It landed square between the stallions eyes, the heat searing his flesh and bursting his eyeballs. When the stone fell away all I could see was blood mixed with some strange white seeping from the deep black holes where his eyes should be. He screamed with a pitch they would make your ears bleed from a distance before stumbling around blindly, yelling about how he was going to kill me, and then standing in my fire. He coat catching light, causing unimaginable pain to the poor earth pony before he ran pull pelt in one direction; the cliff. He tumbled down the side of the mountain, his screams and smoke, echoing behind him. All I heard as a thud after he fell from my view.

I stood there, unable to believe what I just did. Picking up my rabbit, I headed back down the path, not daring to look back in case he came after me again. Returning to the forest, I quickly found some branches and ferns to build a basic shelter, ate what remained of the rabbit, and slept.

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By the time I awoke the sun was just being pulled from the mountains it was hiding behind and began to climb to the sky. The memory of the events of the day before slowly reaching in my head, looking for more ways to drive me insane. I had killed a pony, and ate a rabbit which I enjoyed more then I should have. I could still remember the taste of the smokey flesh as I tore at it. The juices running from meat and onto my tongue, which only made my craving for it rise. I fought back against the memories fought about what had to be done today.

Water was the first thing that came to mind, finding a good source and moving close by was the best thing to do. Also I would need to make traps to catch other... animals, because I didn't have time to sit in trees all day and I still didn't have any idea what plants these were or if they were safe to eat. I had to add experiment plants to the list of things I had to do.

With my checklist ready I set off, into my new life alone in the forest with memories of hell at my back.

(I wrote this then got drunk for the first time in my life before proof reading it so sue me if it's bad)

This is the second chapter of my story. Any feedback is good feedback.

Please remember, if you find it in your heart to make fan art please sent it to: darkmoontim@hotmail.com

Thanks again for all support.