Prota's Journey

My early life wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t born in the safety of a hospital with loving parents to raise me. I was made. I am the product of a scientific experiment to create a powerful soldier that would be used to take over Equestria. My earliest memories aren’t pleasant at all. Back then, I didn’t look nearly like a timberwolf as I do now. I didn’t have horns and I still had the tail of a pony. My senses weren’t as powerful then either. I remember one time, I was sitting with my “father” Night Twister at the dinner table. He had killed a deer in the forest for me to eat.

“Why do I have to eat this, daddy?” I asked him as I stared at the meat on my plate. Night Twister was having a fruit salad for dinner. He looked up from his meal and stared at me as if was the most stupid creature in existance. He was probably wondering why he’d made me in the first place. I doubt this was the first time he thought that and it wouldn’t be the last either.

“You want to grow up to be a strong general one day don’t you, sweetie?” He often tried to be nice to me at first, doing his best to act like any other parent. “You could lead an army across the land and claim it. We would rule together, father and daughter.”

“But you said it came from an animal,” I wined. “Why should I eat something that was once alive? That’s wrong isn’t it?” This only served to infuriate him. He stood up from his seat and stomped over to me.

“You aren’t a real pony and you never will be” he said into my ear. “You are my creation and nothing more. Eventually, your Timberwolf instincts will kick in. Sooner or later you will hunt for food and eat the flesh of animals.”

“But what if I don’t want to eat animals?” I asked innocently. In my young mind, it seemed wrong to eat something that had a life.

“Bitch!” he said as he slapped me, I fell to the ground and started crying. “You’re not a pony, you’re a monster! And you always will be. Perhaps I’ve been too soft on you. Outside, now!” When I didn’t move, he yelled even louder. “NOW!” I quickly scrambled to my feet and exited the laboratory where I was born. He followed me outside and stood in the doorway. “From now on, you sleep out here like the animal you are.” he then slammed the door shut and I heard a click as he locked it from the inside.

That wouldn’t be the last time I would defy him. That night, I gathered a pile of fallen leaves and slept on them. Winter was coming soon, but I didn’t know that. Each night, I pounded on the door, desperately wanting the warmth of inside. But Night Twister would only scowl at me and close the windows so he couldn’t see me.

As the nights got colder, my acts became more desperate. I took rocks and threw them at the windows to break them. Night Twister then put steel shutters on the windows. One time, I tried to go down the chimney. But then, he would have a fire going every night to prevent me from doing that again.

Finally, as I ran out of methods to get in, Night Twister came one day and offered me a deal. “You’ve run out of ideas, haven’t you?” he said with a sneer. “The nights will get far colder than they are now and there is a chance that you may freeze to death in the coming days. But I will offer you a deal, you mean a lot to my plans and I’d be a shame to lose you,” he sat down in front of me and stared me in the eyes. “Go out, kill an animal, bring it to me and I will allow you inside this winter, does that sound like a deal?”

I didn’t think it through then. I just said, “yes” and watched as Night Twister walked back inside the lab. Only after he was gone, did I realize what I had agreed to. How could I kill? I was just a filly then. I walked through the forest trying to figure out what to do. I eventually came to a tree that had some dirt rustled up beneath it. The strong scent of squirrel came to my nose. This was it! My ticket inside. Something must have cached this for later, but didn’t do a very good job of covering it up.

I quickly dug up the dead squirrel and carried it in my mouth. It tasted terrible, but I would have to endure it for a little while as I walked back. I trotted triumphantly up to the entrance of the lab and knocked. Night Twister opened the door and smiled, this was one of the few times I would see him smile.

“Excellent,” he said to me. “Now come inside, you don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to. You’ve proved you have a killer’s heart and that makes me proud.” I tossed the squirrel to the ground and stepped inside. The warmth of the laboratory filled my body and I smiled at having outsmarted Night Twister.

I washed the blood off of my claws and mouth. We both had a bowl of fruit for dinner and afterwards, we sat together by the fire as Night Twister read me Little Red Riding Hood. It was my favorite story because I wished I had a grandmother who lived in the woods I could visit. I also related to Riding Hood, because back then I was trying to escape the instincts of the timberwolf that made up half of my DNA.