So......thinks did not go as smoothly as he hoped. Though nothing ever does in this Tartarus-esque forest. So basically what happened was he was just walking his little hoovsies through the forest and all the sudden he hears a familiar sound: *cluck. Now your everyday pony would assume it was just a chicken, but oh he knew better, that was the telltale sign that there was a cockatrice nearby, and you don't want to get caught in front of one of those, so he hid in bush.

So if you are not educated in the creatures of the Everfree, cockatrices (cockatrici?) are part chicken and part, uh, dragon he thinks. Now when you think about it that actually sounds pretty ridiculous, which it does look pretty ridiculous. But there's a catch, you can't make eye contact. Why you ask? Well when something looks it in the eyes, and no he is not shitting you, they will turn into stone stone. Now he's heard stories about the things prior to arriving in this forest so he knew what to do, thank Faust.

Sounds pretty crazy huh? Well luckily for him they weren't that hard to deal with, usually you could just go around or sneak away from them, no big deal. They were pretty unobservant too, which you think they wouldn't be considering they have to actually look at something to turn it to stone.

As he hunkers down in the bush he can heard the faint sound of scuttling. He peeks through the leaves of the bush and sees that the thing has arrived where he was just a minute ago, probably looking for anything it could victimize. Now usually he would just wait it out or something but he was currently in his "no bullshit" mood and was trying to make some ground (man he says that a lot doesn't he?). Since he was in that mood he was wanting to dispatch this encounter quickly. Now the thing with cockatrices was that, since they were part dragon, most of their body was protected by scales, so the most exploitable weak point was their head.

He waits for it to turn around, and soon enough it does and he gets the opportunity. As soon as he's sure that it won't snap it's head back for no reason he rushes out of the bush and grasps the cockatrices head. Naturally, as amy creature would, it started thrashing about, trying to get the unknown assailant off of it. The more difficult part of this encounter was getting the thing in a suitable position. It was harder to do considering the tiny dragon wings it had put he eventually gets it into a good position. He just hoped the amount of noise it was making didn't give away his position to any big-shot predators. Now all he had to do was-

*snap*

There we go. He thinks that's one of the best ones he's done too, usually he at least gets a scratch or two. Now that the hard part was over with he needed to get to a place not so out in the open. He decides that the bush is good enough. Now he needed to get some kind of stick or hard rock- oh! He's glad he picked up the chainblade now, he could actually use it for something.

He grabs said blade from his saddlebag and sticks it under one of the scales of the cockatrice. After a little bit of prying it comes right off it's flesh. This was much easier the using a stick or rock. Usually he would only have enough time to get own or two before he believes he's wasted enough time getting them. After getting precisely 20 more he decides that's enough. The rest of the body was useless anyway.

Now, I bet you're wondering why he did that. Well, since he couldn't rely on nature most of the time to give him the right conditions to start a fire considering the chaotic wether patterns of this place he'd been using cockatrice scales as a sort of substitute for flint and steel, which is why he usually gets two scales. He had not been finding quite that many cockatrices lately and the scales didn't really last that long. It was good that he was getting a supply of them now.

Now, he should start making his leave in case any predators were alerted by the sudden abundance of noise. It was safe to say he would be walking for a bit.

What is probably a few hours later...

OH MY FAUST OH MY FAUST OH MY FAUST OH MY FAUST OH MY FAUST OH MY FAUST OH MY FAUST OH MY FAUST

OK SO HIS BRAIN WAS GOING ABSOLUTELY BONKERS RIGHT NOW.

Ok..........ok, he thinks he's good now. Ok so, he found something, something he doubted he was going to find. That is A SIGN OF CIVILIZATION. A PATH. A PATH THAT AN INTELLIGENT BEING MADE.

Sorry about that. It's just, it's been a really long time. So, to recap, as he was walking and making his merry way he stumbled upon a path, one lined with some oddly engraved stones, runes he presumed. He didn't know what they were for but he would rather not step onto it to find out, it was probably some sort of protection.

After he finally gets most of his shit put together he follows the path, gosh he goes this was leading to something good.

15-20 minutes later...

IT DID. IT LEAD TO SOMETHING VERY GOOD. HIS BODY ISN'T MOVING BUT HIS MIND WAS ABSOLUTELY FREAKING THE FUCK OUT.

IT. WAS. A. TOWN. A TOWN FOR FAUSTS SAKE! DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT'S BEEN?!?! SINCE HES SEEN A SIGN OF CIVILIZATION NEVERTHELESS A TOWN?!?!

HE COULD SEE PONIES. REAL. PONIES.
LIVING. INTELLIGENT. BEINGS.

HE NEEDED TO GET HIS SHIT TOGETHER

BECAUSE HIS MIND WAS GOING

ABSOLUTELY. FUCKING. BONKERS.

A certain amount of time later...

Ok. Ok. He's good now. It's just........ponies, they were here, and existed.

The town looked relatively small, with houses lining the main street. Most of the buildings looked relatively similar to each other, wait, is that a giant gingerbread house? You know what he'll look into that later. There were many ponies milling about, talking, some pegasi we're in the sky flying around or pushing around clouds. Wait what? They could do that? That's... well he didn't know about that before to say the least. He could see what seemed to be a stand on the side of the street, advertising apples he thinks? An orange earth pony with a cowboy hat on was manning the cart, exchanging bits and apples with other ponies who approached her. Other than that there was nothing else noteworthy.

Ok so, he was about to go into a town, naturally they would be suspicious of a random colt who clearly needed a lengthy amount of bath time coming out of the woods right? First step: find a source of water. Faust knows he was not going anywhere deeper into the forest after seeing this. Maybe there was some kind of lake nearby, or maybe if somebody asks a question he could pass it off as slipping in mud or something...

As he was not going anywhere deeper I to the forest after this he supposed that would have to do. Another problem that arises, it was a small town. Everybody probably knew each other there, so naturally even if he was clean they would question why there was a colt alone without any of his parents. Damn, he had to make a story, and it had to be a pretty damn good one at that.

He couldn't risk anyone finding out. What if- no, nobody could.

He couldn't go back

Author's Note

Lot of timeskips in this one.