A loud snap echoed through the woods as my paw came down on a dry branch. I froze, slowly moving my head to look at the beast less than a few meters in front of my person. The manticore's ears perked up, and its head swiveled to look in my direction. It stared, scanning the forest, and I breathed a soft sigh of relief as it failed to see me under the veil of energy I had woven for myself. Constructing the spell I wanted had turned out to be far more complicated and yet also more simple than I had expected. The complications started with how the spell worked, it did not render me invisible nor unheard instead, it made me not important enough for most things to care, if I drew attention to myself the spell became significantly less effective and would begin to fail the more something paid attention to me. From testing, I knew I had to move slowly, Quietly, and not in the open for it to work.

The simplicity came from actually forming the spell in the first place, it was a simple act of weaving the lines of manna between a network of runes like one was making a chain mail cloak, so far the spell had held up to several deer, a timber wolf, and the manticore I was currently stalking. I could only hope it would hold up against the ponies. It was too bad that this wasn't the same manticore that slashed my throat, revenge would be a simple matter. A quick lunge and it would be an eye for an eye as it were. My claws flexed at the thought before the rest of me caught up with my thoughts.

A frown crossed my muzzle, where had that line of thinking come from? I had never been one to blame animals for their instincts, and I had never been one for an eye for an eye thinking. Vindictiveness had never come to me naturally like that. I knew that my transformation had changed my memories and some of my instincts, had it changed parts of my personality as well, or had my time in this strange forest brought out a side of me that I had never needed or experienced before? It wasn't the only change I realized, despite my injuries I had enjoyed my fight with the strange mare I had run into on my second incursion at Ponyville. The manticore I was stalking was another, I wasn't scared of it, at least I wasn't anymore. It was dangerous, yes, but I knew that if it came down to a fight I could kill it.

I had grown oddly comfortable with my new body, and idly I wondered if perhaps this was why extreme survivalists did what they did, I had survived and dare I say, was starting to thrive in a forest that had nearly killed me several times now. The thought gave a feeling of elation and pride. It was a feeling that was new to someone like me, the idea of it being me and not some random person on a TV screen who had made their home in such a place. It was also a feeling I knew I would have to be cautious of despite my survival. I was not the biggest threat in the forest, and such an attitude would likely get me killed if it got to my head. The manticores may no longer have been a major threat to my person but the lyndworm was still an issue and while I had yet to fall ill to disease or poison that didn't mean that there wasn't anything in the forest that couldn't cause such things.

My attention snapped back to the manticore as it began moving again, having finished sniffing around the clearing. I was thankful that my scent and the smell of the blue orchids that were growing within the walls of Haven were similar, or it probably would have caught on to me by now. I followed it back towards its den, making sure my steps were in line with its own to dampen the sound of my paws sinking into the damp refuse of the forest floor. The creature's den was situated within a small dugout cave, it was honestly somewhat hard for me to miss as the smell of rotting meat and territorial marks saturated the surrounding area enough for me to smell the ammonia from almost half a mile away. As the manticore entered its den, I shifted my attention over to the small boneyard near the entrance. A quick pick-through revealed the bones of a few different species. There were bones belonging to deer, serpents, boar, some kind of bird, and even the skull of some kind of long-fanged canine. I grimaced slightly when I noticed that there was also a pony skeleton at the bottom of the pile.

Looking over the bones, I decided to grab a few dozen of the more workable-looking ones. I had a few ideas of what I wanted to make with them. The walls of Haven caused an odd downdraft that swept around the inside and I wanted to hang some wind chimes for ambiance, perhaps not the best plan if I wanted to convince people that I was nice, but the silence was going to drive me bonkers if I didn't do something about it. The creek helped, but I needed something a little more lyrical. I also needed to make fishhooks, something that could be done with bones and teeth if you were careful about it. I had seen trout in the river and I wanted some fish. With a glance up at the den entrance, I began backing out of the clearing carefully before making my way back towards the river. I kept the veil up as I walked to ensure that I wouldn't run into any trouble on the way back to Haven.

I began quietly planning my next foray into the town within my head, the spell would likely make it significantly easier to sneak in and out, but I would have to drop it when breaking into the shops. I remembered seeing a map near what appeared to be a train station. Stealing the map would leave me with a better idea of where I could reasonably go than the books I had stolen from the library. Following the tracks would be my best bet to run into more populated areas, as bad of an idea as going to a city would be. Of course, that was assuming I would even be able to do such a thing in the first place. Surely the guards would be on high alert with my second visit and would prepare in case I came back a third time, that monster hunter had sensed me even when I was hiding in the shadows and out of site. A few more like her and I would have no chance of surviving a third encounter with the town. She had been quicker and stronger than the other pony guards and had nearly killed me three times in that one encounter alone.

It would be best if I shored up some other aspects of my magic first, while major spells were a little out of my claws at the moment I could perhaps get some more use out of basic manipulation of manna, it would have to wait until I reached the walls of haven as even that would disrupt the notice-me-not spell I had cloaked myself in. it was not something I wished to lose at the moment as I still had trouble successfully casting it and while the forest had become less scary too as the days passed I had no wish to fight anything at the moment. I slowed and stopped at the base of one of the larger trees as the forest grew quiet and still around me.

I held my breath as a large hairy and arachnid leg stepped into view, and then another as a giant spider the size of a small car walked by me, it shared many similarities with a wolf spider, and while spiders were not something I was inherently concerned by it still had my heart racing. It moved about the forest briefly before wandering deeper into the foliage with the sound of crunching leaves. I was still a few miles away from the safety of Haven's halls and had to move slowly for an hour or so, but upon the first sign of the river, I dropped my cloak of magic and booked it to Haven's gates.

I took in the scents that flooded my nostrils as the foliage of the forest whipped past me at speeds that made it an almost indistinguishable blur of color, loamy earth, wet decaying leaves, light but strong musk of some animal, and the odd scent of ozone filled my mind. Sometimes I wondered how any person managed without such senses, soon the old gates of Haven came into view, and with a bounding leap I jumped through one of the larger holes in the wall I shivered slightly as I walked through the wards, the magic washing over my fur and embracing me like a comfortable cloak.

The magic almost seemed like a home-bound lover welcoming me back from my journeys, sometimes I wondered if it was sentient in some manner. The wards used the willow as their anchor point now, so it was certainly a possibility. I knew the forest was sentient if not sapient, the way it moved around you to hinder or help proved that. Sometimes it felt like it was watching me as I moved through newly revealed paths. Not to mention the whole incident with that world tree, I glanced down at my bone-white paw. A constant reminder of just how close I had come to dying while in that strange dreamscape, the forest being some form of genus loci would certainly explain some things.

A smile crossed my muzzle as the familiar melancholic scent of blue petals filled my nose, my eyes drifted down to examine one of the blue orchids. The ones that grew within Haven's wall were larger and healthier looking than the ones that grew in the clearings inside the forest. Leaning down, I caught one of the flowers between my fangs and plucked it from its stem. The honey-cinnamon flavor flooded across my taste buds as I ground the petals across the roof of my mouth. I took care not to trample too many under my paws as I moved toward my stash at the base of the tree. I would most definitely have to steal a teapot on my next escapade into town, assuming I didn't get ambushed by another unforeseen threat.

Regrettably, going into the town was only one item on the large list of priorities. I needed to keep improving my quality of life for my sanity's sake, I needed to find a method to defeat a lyndwyrm if I wanted to keep living in the forest at all and taking a glance at my small stash of items and food, I needed a place to store my belongings other than my bag. Thankfully two of those three issues could be solved at the same time by making myself a den, my size made building a cabin a tedious project at best so my best bet was something I could dig out.

It was a tedious project I wasn't sure if I had time to do by paw, even with being a fox digging a den-like that would take weeks at best, there was a spell in one of my books designed to help with digging but it had looked complicated and didn't work on stone, something I was likely to run into if I dug deep enough for me to fit and the den to be structurally sound. I could possibly use my fire to melt the stone and then dig it out as it was molten, my fire was already hot enough to melt softer metals on contact, a runic weave meant to amplify it shouldn't be too hard as my new magic already gave me a greater understanding of fire than most.

Of course that still left me with the problem of moving both molten stone and a massive amount of dirt, something I was hoping to solve shortly. I had read several mentions of telekinesis and levitation when I had skimmed through the multitude of magical books I had stolen from the Golden Oaks Library, if I had understood the context it was one of the first abilities that unicorns developed. Something that even kits learned by instinct should not cause me any issue, and if it worked as I hoped would allow me to move even molten material with ease. I just had to figure out how to do it.

Stonehoofs P.O.V

Stonehoof snarled as he crushed the head of the timberwolf trying to lunge for his neck, the wooden lupine shattering with all the effort of crushing a melon. The sounds of his hunting party dispatching the rest of the pack echoed through his ears, despite the stupidity of Snowtalon's pet getting herself injured and put on bedrest they had managed to keep their momentum through the forest. Truly he didn't know why they kept the thing around.

He supposed it had proved useful, Shadepaw may be an abomination but she was a strong one, for her to be wounded in such a way meant that this fox creature would be a hard fight. If they could find the beast, they had tracked its scent for nearly forty miles now and it was getting dark. He wondered if it had been scared off due to its fight or if its natural range was simply that massive. With a grimace, he stared up at the darkening sky and low-hanging storm clouds, why oh why did the pegasi have to choose this week of all weeks to make such a storm?

He looked at the beast leading the group on their path, a two-headed dog-like creature native to the badlands, he was thankful that Coppermine had decided to grab it from the kennels in case something had happened to the other mutt, the more generic hounds would not have fared well against the creatures of the forest and unlike the burden that Snowtalon had forced onto his expedition, wouldn't snark and glare at every command that was given to her. Truly he didn't know why the griffin hadn't had her tamed yet.

"stormhalt, Coppermine, find us a place to set up camp for the night. It's getting dark and I have no wish to traverse this dreaded place without light." he glanced at the storm again and then at the rest of the group. He had assembled thirteen strong hunters to follow him to the blasted town, five earth ponies, five pegasi, and three unicorns. Between them the forest had yet to throw them any challenge of major significance, something that desturbed him greatly. The forest was never this easy to travel. "its almost like the forest wants us to find the beast"

The only things that had attacked them so far had been several packs of timberwolves and a cockatrice, creatures easily taken care of by a hunting party of thier size and skill. Else than the weather the only other complications had been keeping the othrus. The beast was acting skittish, another thing that worried his already frayed nerves and temper. While not the strongest of creatures, the beast were created and bred by the ancient unicorns to be the perfect guardian dogs akin to thier greater three-headed cousins. They were nearly fearless, just what were they hunting that it caused the dog to react like this?

"The rest of you get the othrus tied up and secured. Get some rest after, tomorrow we head for the castle of the two sisters. We'll find that dammed fox if it takes us till winter". Orders given he glanced out into the forest, the dark canopies hiding far too many threats for him to get any true rest, At times like this he somewhat regretted leaving the she-bitch behind. She made a good watchdog.

Shadepaw's P.O.V

Shadepaw winced slightly as a flash of pain shot up her leg, the hospital's medical spells had fixed what they could but the snapped bone required a few days to heal even under the better of healing magics. She was allowed out of bed now but forbidden from anything that required her to put any major strain on her leg. they had even given her one of those fancy rolling leg rests, she wasn't allowed to leave the hospital proper but had been encouraged to move around the halls a little.

in truth, she was still more than a little baffled at her current companion, the butterscotch pegasus that she recognized as the element of kindness, was still chattering away next to her as she lay on the bench eating the fish that the mare had brought. she was currently talking about the bear of all things, that she had befriended a few years ago. she had thought the mare a coward like the rest of the townsfolk, she had flinched back and hid behind one of the other bearers when her group had questioned Twilight Sparkle on what she knew of their prey, and yet here she was chatting away with the largest and arguably most dangerous of said group.

Really the fish alone was enough to get on her good side, fresh meat of any kind was remarkably hard to get in Canterlot and often the only time she got it was when she was on a mission. there was only one place in the city that sold fish, an exotic pet shop whose proprietor kept trying to entice her into several very questionable discounts. She was about to excuse herself to go back to her room when something the mare, whose name she now remembered to be Fluttershy said something that caught her off guard.

"wait are you saying that you go into the forest on a regular basis, by yourself?" the butterscotch mare blinked seemingly surprised at the question which was fair given it was the first thing she had said since she had left her room.

"y-yes, a lot of m-my animal friends call the place home. i-i mean I know that everyone thinks that i-its super dangerous and that it's f-full of monsters but it's n-not that bad really, i-if you k-know what you're doing." the mare seemed to shrink into herself at the stare Shadepaw was giving her. "n-n-not to say that y-you don't or anything I-I'm sure that someone like you is p-perfectly capable."

Shadepaw continued to stare at her for a solid few seconds, apparently, she had really misjudged this one. The mare was obviously not a coward as she had thought, just skittish. She raised a single foreleg to halt the mare's apologies before they could start. the mare stared at the paw and its four short but sharp claws, something she now realized hadn't scared the timid pegasus but instead seemed to fascinate her. watching her stare at the extremity caused Shadepaw to give a small smile as she realized the mare wasn't scared of her wolven features. "Maybe I'll stay in the town a bit longer than I normally do."

Author's Note

A short chapter covering several different perspectives as Harbinger realizes that the change they suffered affected far more than their body and memories, and a certain wolf-pony finds potential companionship in the oddest of mares.

As you can see, I am in fact still alive, I've just had a hard time with writing these last few months. I'm always thankful for comments and suggestions, so if you have one, please do say something.