An Outcast's Realistic Perspective

The sunlight shining down makes me turn my face away from it. Ever so slowly and unwillingly I begin to wake up. Although I still had insomnia and it was some time before I fell to sleep, regardless to say it was the best sleep I had in a week hands down. Probably because it was on the ground where it was safe and not in a tree surrounded by a deadly forest. I actually like sleeping on hard surfaces, and I decided to just lay down where I came out of the forest yesterday. I must have overslept past sun rise, but I feel so rested. Right now I am in a really good mood because I don’t have any sleep deprived aches or stiffness in the joints. Standing up and stretching out my muscles, I take a look at my surroundings.

Green pastures as far as the eye can see, clear sky with not a single cloud. I was right about judging my surroundings last night, on the left of forest exit I can make out a long river that keeps going in the distance. Straight ahead in the distance there seems to be a small town or city. On the right there seems to go on further where I think a dessert with some mountains further on begins.

I’m not lost as far as my sense of direction goes. Having a clear mind I begin to rethink of what happened yesterday. I had good night’s rest compared to the whole week, I made it out of the forest alive (thank god) and in an adrenaline and fear mixed high I decided to go and kill a maticore. Uh huh. I am fucking moron. What the hell was I thinking?!! How I am still alive, I have no idea. I should have been dead the second I came near that thing. Ok alright I am alive, calm down. Seriously, do I have the most ridiculous luck or what?

I have to eat something otherwise I’ll be sluggish all day and won’t make it far. Can’t stay where I am otherwise some passerby’s might see me. I don’t know how far the knowledge about my existence was spread in Equestria. I can only hope that Celestia decided to cover it up and order silence to keep it a quit incident. Then again if she doesn’t want any of her subjects to be involved with me she wouldn’t stop the populace from thinking that the Everfree just got more dangerous. So I might as well go near the forest to eat and not be seen.

The edge of the forest provided enough cover to not be seen by anyone as I begin to make a fire for my food. Have not a seen or made a fire for nearly a whole week, it was nice to have something as simple as fire again without the concern of predators finding me or wasting too much time. I can’t really enjoy the fire as I once had in my own world. The fire looked drawn and plain with no remarkable details or the mysticism it once had, it was no longer beautiful to look at. Something as simple as the appearance of fire and it is one of the many things in this world that I to be deprived of.

After setting up a small pile of twigs and light it up using my zippo ,I started to go through my backpack. I still had the manticore meet from last night and the cockatrice hide bag had the meet protected from any bugs or the environment for the night. The meet was untreated and stank as day old exposed flesh would. Still good enough to eat I hope. Raw manticore meat on a stick slowly roasted in an open flame, glorious. It seemed so strange no matter how many times I have seen it. Imagine a cartoon image of a campfire with meat being cooked and yet smelling it like it was real. Now imagine having to eat and taste it, cartoon color appearance and all. The meat was actually pretty good. It did not have any particular taste as it can be compared to veal or a stake of some kind, which tastes like chicken. It would have been better with some condiments or maybe some kind of sauce.

That was the most satisfying meal that I had in long wile and with me not having to ration the water it was an awesome breakfast. I would not mind for a nice big hot cup of coffee to make this breakfast a lot better. I have one big piece of meat left that I could eat later. However the meat won’t last longer that two days so I will have to eat it within that time frame.

“I feel better already”

I stand up and begin to put out the flame with sand. I bury the ashes then place branches and leaves around to cover the scene. There is almost no chance that anyone would come even near here and think that some alien thing decided to make a rest stop here. I would rather not leave anything to chance, especially if anyone would be on to me. It seems paranoia has started to set in, although being in my position it is not that bad of a thing to have.

My main concern was to get through the forest and since that is done I can take my time while traveling. My mind wanders back to the manticore from yesterday. Not only did I kill a mythological monster, but I also ate it. How the hell does something like this even happen? Better yet, how do you even accept something like this as reality? I probably shouldn’t be talking about reality seeing as how I am in a fucking cartoon world. Reality is something that I have been lacking for about two in half moths. Regardless of how this all turned out I have to accept the situation for how it is and try to find a way to deal with it. At least now I don’t have to go through this again.

Suddenly, I came up with an idea. I should go back to the dead manticore and pull out its fang. At that point I can’t help but wonder if my brain has finally stop stopped working the way it should. I could use it as trade material or someone would want it. I really doubt that monster parts are common so someone would want it for some price. Or the worst case scenario it would be a nice memento to have around when and if asked about my travels and accomplishments. A nice manticore fang to prove that I killed one is some serious bragging rights.

Before heading off to the corpse, I decided to put my bag, bow and arrows near the forest edge so that if I had to run for some reason then my items won’t slow me down. Taking a light jog in the direction that I came from yesterday, it took me about five minutes to find the body. Even with cartoon blood it still looked and smelled bad. Its flesh was exposed with almost no skin or fur left, pieces of bone exposed with only the wings and tail not having any visible signs of damage. That is other than the damage that I have brought on. Taking a closer look I see that the body was eaten all around from different places. I guess that something followed the stench of blood and found a meal for itself. By the looks of things it was eaten by more than one creature, most likely timberwolfs. The head was left untouched from any bite marks and mouth was wide open with the fangs standing out. The eyes were milky white as though afflicted with cataract. Because it of the cartoon appearance this world has, I can make out facial expressions that in my reality would be impossible. The expression on its face was that of fear and pain.

No point in wasting time, I take out my multi tool and set up the pliers. After two minutes of pulling and tugging, I manage to take out two of its massive front fangs. Both were large enough to take up space of my whole palm, way bigger than a natural lions fangs. Placing the fangs in my jackets inside pocket, I turn back to the direction of the forests edge.
After picking up all my items again I set onward to the lake. Walking in the outside in the open sunlight was rather strange after being in a covered forest for so long. Being exposed with nothing to use as cover was rather unnerving. But not having to walk carefully or look over your shoulder is a nice change. A clear sky with no clouds means that the Pegasi ponies have moved them somewhere. When I think of that sentence, I can’t help but feel really stupid and cringe inside. Controlling the weather, that is one way you could totally fuck up an entire ecosystem. But hey it magic, the universal word for fuck you to logic, physics and everything else. They must have been doing this for so long that they know how no screw everything up. Having a clear sky would be nice if it didn’t look so cartoonish. The grass barely goes up to my knees, so if I need to I could just lay down to hide. I would stick out vary clearly because of my black clothes and be seen by anyone nearby or anyone in the sky for that matter. Going to have to stay alert and keep a look out for any unwanted flying equines.

The river was not too wide as there was a small bridge way further down. The river seemed to come from the forest. I originally wanted to goes through the forest by walking alongside it. However, Zecora had informed me that following the river would take me longer to get out from it. Being a source of water would mean that other animals would use it, which included dangerous and strange creatures that I would want to avoid. That and Zecora did not really know which direction of the river to follow that would lead out of the forest and not into Ponyville or some other place. Trying to follow one side would take too long and I did want to waste too much time. The heat is not as bad as it was in the forest however my clothes don’t exactly help in staying cooled.

After wetting my hair to cool down and refilling the water bottle I set to go near the river onward. I walk so that I was not too far from the river’s edge. Not too close so that if anyone would come near I could still hide in the grass and not too far so that I could follow the path. I couldn’t help but think about my reflection as I refilled the bottle. It was a normal reflection in cartoon drawn water. It looked like a bad attempt at Photoshop. The reflection did not show me anything that I didn’t already know. My hair always long and wavy, the clothes somewhat dirty and my beard and mustache made me look like Jesus. A vary ragged, young and armed Jesus or maybe a cool hobo. I couldn’t really see my eyes, but I know that they probably look horrible. I take good care of myself in regards to hygiene. Always washing, shaving and showering. I haven’t been able to properly clean myself for about two weeks now. The only time that I did get to wash my hair was using a bucket with water in Zecoras home with green plant paste as soap. The paste was meant for furs and manes, not hair. Because my hair was thick enough, I was able to get it more or less cleaned. That was about two weeks ago. I can’t shave with any of my knife because how do you shave without some kind of foam and not cut yourself? I could try to depilate my beard and mustache using the pliers. Only it hurts like a bitch and I would have to pull out every single hair individually. That’s not going to happen any time soon. I know that I look like a mess except that I don’t really care right now. If my parents were to see me now… I don’t even want to think about what would happen.

As I get near the bridge, I also get closer to the city. Zecora had told me about the first city that I would come across when exiting the forest. It was called Dodge City (finally a name with no pun) and it had a western feel to it. I need to avoid the city and any of its inhabitants. There is a log road that goes from the bridge to the city. No one should be able to see me near the river so I was safe from being noticed. On the edge of the city I can make out some barns and old fashion fences. As I keep getting closer to the bridge I notice some cows were behind the fences. I remember from one of the shows episodes that cows were intelligent and they could speak. A sentient species and yet they live in farms and milked like normal cows. Did they choose this life where all their needs are met at the cost of them being milked and some other labor? Or was there no other choice for them? They seem happy and they weren’t forced into servitude or slavery as far as I know, then again what the hell do I know? I got thrown out of a kingdom that was literally made to be the most peaceful and nicest place on the first day. Maybe it’s a matter of preference or maybe I am just over thinking things.

Continuing onward past the bridge, I keep going along the path of the river. Further on there is a splitting where the river goes in to two directions. Zecora had told me to follow the river to where it splits and then go straight to where the river comes from. I was a good far distance away from the city, however I felt uncomfortable to be near any populated place right now. All it would take was for some douchebag to see me and report it to the bitch in the high castle for me to get screwed, again. What the hell was so interesting about the show anyway? It was a kid’s show for Christ’s sake! The animation was simple and somewhat entertaining and the plot of the story wasn’t all that bad. I was so fucking bored that my books stopped being interesting, all my xbox games got boring, the movies nowadays are just bad remakes and CGI explosion bullshit. My friends all lived far away so we had to take transportation so we could meet up on the weekends. And even then we had nothing to do because we already did pretty much everything there is to do in Brooklyn. Life was literally boring me to death, I was (and probably still am) in a massive depression and I have severe anger issues where everything just pisses me off. God I hate my life. Now I am forced to hide from extremely colored, dog sized, talking magical ponies. That is so embarrassing now that I think about it. I think the universe hates me.

In a city I could scavenge many things and resources that would be useful for me. The things you could find in alleys really would surprise anyone. With my survivalist obsession it would be like a gold mine for me. However this is not a normal city and would probably not have anything of value to me. Ponies don’t have mass produced goods that can be cheaply replaced. And I doubt that clothe or metals would be wasted that much. Not to mention the whole I can’t be seen and found out "or else" issue.

I can make out some houses in the far distance as I walk by the river, but I don’t see any of the inhabitants. What kind of lives do they live? The show only focused on the main six characters and everything else from the show is left to assumptions, observations and guesses. What are their lives like behind closed doors? How is life with magic and multiple sentient species different from my world? How much of a difference do their talents make in the world’s job markets? What is the rate of unemployment if any? How much does race have importance in their society? Are they affected by worry and stress as humans are? Is there more responsibility per individual or less? If the stress gets to some of them, how do they deal with it? Do some of them drink their problems away? Does family or any kind of abuse exist in this world?

The episode with the diamond dogs proves that slavery exists in some form. Could more violent crimes be happening in this world and no one knows about it? Zecora painted a nice picture of this world; however I can’t help but think how much of it is true. Maybe she never saw or heard of such things and she doesn’t really know. The princesses are very old and most likely as wise, so they have to know of such things. You don’t get to live some thousands of years and not learn of life’s misery and horrors.

Do the princesses keep these things quit from their subjects so that they could have some delusion of a grand peaceful and innocent society? No, it can’t be that, nobody can be that ignorant right? Twilight is too smart to miss something like this. Then again she did blindly follow her mentor’s orders without question in regards to me. That was an extreme change in hers and the others character. Applejack was supposedly a lie detector and yet my words of self defense had fallen on deaf ears. Even Fluttershy was no different when it came to me being kicked out into the forest. So I may be right on the theory of the world’s true state being hidden from ponies. I am going to have to look into this later. I have so many questions and no one to answer them. Zecora was helpful with some of them, but limited by only what she knows. Pony society is not her best subject, but she did give me more or less of an idea of how things work around here.

It started to get late as sun set begins. The river goes on between two woods on opposite sides. As I walk forward my body begins to feel lethargic. I feel a slowly growing pressure in my stomach. It was the starting signs of a stomachache. I don’t have to be smart to know the reason behind that. The lacking nutrition, eating a strange creature’s meat, drinking water from a fresh water river and walking for hours nonstop was bound to end up with me feeling somewhat bad. Maybe the manticore meat is poisonous or maybe the water was infested with something. In the first few weeks I came to realization that this world has who knows what strange new diseases and afflictions that could kill me. I lived off the land for two months and as far as I know I am not sick with anything (I hope). I didn’t have stomach pain the whole time I was here and Zecora didn’t give me anything for them. Great, now I am going to have to ride it out.

“I feel like shit”

The forest was not like the Everfree. It was a lot brighter and it didn’t have that ominous appearance that the other forest had. The trees weren’t made out to look bad or scary or whatever. The sun had set and darkness was slowly taking over. I can’t go on much further with my body feeling sluggish and the pain in the stomach. I went past the edge of the forest to lessen the chance of being found. This was not the Everfree so the ponies were not afraid to go in here. That means that there shouldn’t be any dangerous animals or predators for me to avoid. This is good because I can’t fight in this condition and sleeping in a tree is hard when I have to climb it first.

Going for as far as I can I finally settle down not too far from the river. Near a tree so it would provide some cover from any possible ponies on the ground or in the air. It’s good to lie down after a whole day of walking. The pain is slightly lifted but showed no signs of stopping. I obviously felt worst things than that, everyone did and does. I learned a long time ago how to completely ignore the unwanted feelings. In a way, I welcome the pain. Pain is one of the only ways I have left to feel like I am live and not in some delusion state. To feel it is to know that what is happening to me is real and that I am not losing my mind, yet.

Looking up in the sky I see the stars, the moon covered by some leaves. This world can’t even get the color of the night sky right. The stars look like a drawing that I could almost reach out and touch. Better than nothing I guess. At least drawings have their own appeal to it. The images and drawings that I have seen throughout my life are often more beautiful than the real life counterpart. There is a reason why people look better in portraits and manga drawings. They are designed to look beautiful and almost flawless. Although right now I would prefer the flawed night sky from my world.

There I am on the ground, staying awake due to insomnia again, holding my pendent like before and thinking. I wish I had my iphone working would so I could listen to something. Some music would really be nice when walking all day. I don’t care if it’s one song, I’ll take anything at this point. Wait, does this world have those singing moments like in the show? I mean do they really just get into a song without any practice and music coming from nowhere? Or is just something that the creators had put in to make it more kid appealing? Imagine singing a tune and hearing music that goes with it out of nowhere. Something like this would make life interesting for some and unbearable for others. The type of music they sing is not my taste, so I would be really annoyed by it. In fact, if I really get pissed off by it I can see myself going on a killing spree just to end it. Now I really do hope that there is no spontaneous singing.

I don’t know how or when I fell asleep with the pain and all, but I woke up feeling better. Might as well finish the manticore meat I have left. I am guessing that pain was from me having eaten a large breakfast after some days of eating very little. Malnutrition and eating only once or twice a day can bring health problems. If the meat was poisonous and I didn’t die than my body can handle it. All that and I really didn’t want to waste any food.

Setting up a nice small fire I start heating up the meat. It didn’t take too long before it was ready to eat. This would go really well with some barbeque sauce or any other sauce for that matter. Regardless, it was a good breakfast and I have run out of meat. At least in this forest food should be easier to find. Putting out the fire and hiding any evidence of my presence, I set of along sides the river once again. The sun was shaded for me so I didn’t need to put my sunglasses on.

The river was getting shallow enough for me to cross it with the water slight reaching past my ankles. Taking of my shoes and socks, I try to roll up my pants as much as I can and cross the river. I don’t want to walk around with wet shoes and socks. And I am definitely not going to take of my pants to cross it either. That is just begging for some awkward or weird situation to happen, it would be a fucking cliché too. My feet were greeted with a cooling sensation as I move them into the water. It felt exactly like real water would and it was refreshing. Being in the forest for so long didn’t give much of an opportunity to wash myself and my clothes. Not taking of my socks for so long or even washing them has left them in a horrible and smelling sate. In the Everfree I tried to clean my clothes as much as I could. Not having soap made it difficult to keep my clothes clean. Thankfully Zecora was more than willing to share some soap, probably because she couldn’t stand the smell herself. The socks looked like they will get ripped soon and I don’t have any replacements. I can’t really make any from leather because that would just be impractical. At least my feet won’t smell as bad now.

I close my eyes while standing in the river. I did that many times since I got here, closing my eyes and letting all my other senses to take over. If I don’t see anything, I can almost imagine that I am in my world in some forest. The sounds of birds are the same as they would be from home, the feeling of the wind through my hair and in my face was calming, the water surrounding my feet flowing calmingly. I always did prefer nature over big cities. The simple and relaxing surroundings bring out a natural sensation of peace from within some ancient part of my mind. Moving my head up I look up at the sun, it is bright but I can still make it out as fake. That ended my little moment of peace. After crossing the river I decided to go barefoot for a short time while my feet completely dry. It didn’t take long before I put on my socks and shoes again.

The forest edge provided enough cover from the sky to prevent me from being seen by anything in the sky. I didn’t need to be concerned with being seen so I traveled a good distance for some time without having to look over my shoulder. I decided on a light jog to change my mood and o get more distance covered. I always did like to run for exercise. My speed was slower than what it once was. Two months of limiting exercise, lacking of proper nutrition and sleep issues has made me really weak. I can only imagine how badly I would get my ass kicked if I were to get into a real fight.

The weight of my items weren’t too bothersome as I sprint forward and avoid any obstacles. I remember when I used to go out to just run in the evenings for the hell of it. I used to practice free running whenever I could, but Brooklyn didn’t really have that much obstacles to play around with so it was just me running and jumping. I wanted to have some company with me during those sessions, but most of my friends didn’t like the idea of running.

Most of my friends were lazy so I was more fit then they were. Then again they were way smarter than I was when it came to school. Associate yourself with smart people and some of that intellect will start to rub off on you. But they were more interested in things like video games and table top board games. Even their choices of card game weren’t that respectable seeing as how they played yugioh and magic the gathering. I have no issues with that, it’s just that it gets boring after a while. Sometimes we do go out to do more interesting things like kayaking in the Manhattan ports. Except some of them don’t like the exercise of it and whine the whole time.

College gave me a chance to meet new people. Some were really interesting seeing as how they liked to fight and learn new techniques. Thanks to them I picked up some interesting new things that were really useful and fun. This one guy showed me some cool Muay Thai moves. And this other one was a survivalist who was involved with gangsters and did drug runs and stuff like that. At first I didn’t really believe him because who would openly say that he does these things. That is until he flashed a roll of hundreds and showed me some of his disarming techniques. Now those guys were fucking awesome.

The jog was all I need to make myself feel better. The small exercise made me sweat which made my shirt stick to my skin like a wet paper towel. Having one set of clothes is not good. I don’t have to carry a lot of things, but having clothes to change would be nice when something is dirty or ruined. My clothes were better suited for winter so I will be fine more or less for the next changing seasons. Unless shit happens and I can’t help but predict that it most likely will. I hope to get out of Equestria before anything does happen.

In the distance I notice buildings that can be seen through the woods. I have gotten closer to the edge of the forest and found another open clearing of green pastures. There are train tracks that lead to a small city ahead. The river continued on near the city, and to further on I can see a port with ships and the ocean. Weeks ago I asked how Zecora got to Equestria. She took a boat to a city and walked all the way to her new home. She told me about how the city was called Baltimare (damn puns) and was a port settlement that grew from the commerce that it brought. The port had ships coming and going so travel was not difficult, for her. Now I am going to have to think of a way to make this work. My plan seemed easy when I first came up with it: Leave the forest, reach a port and hitch a ride to anywhere out of Equestria.

I am now so close to getting the hell out of this place that I am almost tempted to smile for once. Almost.