The World Zolt Lives In

Zolt was surprised to find that branches were fairly easy to consume, although harsh on the teeth. She learned quickly to whittle away at the wood with the sharper of her teeth, taking thin strips off before chewing them down to mush with the rest. The particular wood that Bandicoot had brought in was reddish in color and tasted a bit fruity, but mostly earthy — somewhat like crunchy, sweetish dirt that could be safely consumed.

It wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. She wished, despairingly, that Bandicoot had brought more for her to eat. But she didn't let herself dwell on that desire for long.

“I think my mom should be back soon,” Bandicoot assured the young filly soon after the two of them had finished their unconventional snacks. “She never takes her phone with her when she leaves to hunt. Says it’s too distracting, or tempting, or something. So she can’t text or call me to tell me if she’ll take longer than normal... She’s rarely gone for this long when she’s just hunting."

Zolt frowned deeply. She hadn't even considered the fact that these ponies were now being saddled with her presence and all the extra work that comes with it. Her parents always talked about how much more work she was than her brother, thanks to her… ‘affliction’, as they’d call it… And now, these ponies were being told to take care of her for hoof-knows-how-long! She didn’t deserve that level of kindness. Not when she was in this kind of a mess only thanks to her own self. Why did this colt and his mother have to suffer because of her own inadequacy? Was his mother out hunting for longer than usual because there was another pony to feed? How much extra work was Zolt requiring of these complete strangers simply by being there?

“Can I see something?” Bandicoot asked slowly, seeming to notice the trance-like state Zolt had found herself stuck in. Her eyes refocused on the small colt. He was now leaning slightly in her direction. She wanted to gasp, but no sound came out when she tried. Bandicoot looked into her visible blue eye with an insistence Zolt couldn’t pinpoint. Nervously, she nodded, granting him permission for whatever it was he decided he should do.

Bandicoot’s hoof immediately went up to Zolt’s forelock, brushing it away before Zolt could process what was happening. Just like that, her other eye was exposed — not blue, like her left, but a glimmering golden color instead. The world seemed to stop. Bandicoot stared. Zolt began to tremor, a deep rumble starting in her chest. Her eyes slowly widened, but Bandicoot's expression remained completely still. Unreadable.

Overrun with terror, Zolt batted Bandicoot’s hoof away and scooted as far away as she could without falling off the bed, near clawing at her mane to bring it back down over her eye. She thought about running. Jumping off the bed and finding the closest exit. Bounding into the snow, running until she found some form of shelter or civilization. But… she didn’t. Not this time. The fear kept her paralyzed. Images flashed through her mind of Bandicoot attacking her, knocking her to the ground and beating her gray coat purple. He was a similar size to her, but she was sure that he could overtake her if he really wanted to.

“Your eyes are two different colors,” Bandicoot’s words stated the obvious as bluntly as the first time he had spoken to her. “I know what it means when ponies have eyes like that.”

Of course he does! Zolt thought. She didn't know how exactly such young ponies would always know that she was dangerous to be around, but time and time again ponies Zolt’s age had proven to be rather knowledgeable on everything that made her ‘wrong’. Maybe parents warned their children to avoid any ponies with such a physical feature. It was good advice, she supposed. She looked down at her hooves in shame. She was stupid for thinking she would be able to hide such a hideous thing from anypony, even strangers. These ponies were supposed to take care of her. How was she ever going to have hidden it for long? I’m ridiculous for even thinking it was possible.

But when she thought about it for a moment, she realized that Bandicoot didn't seem to be all that scared. In fact, she had moved away from him. In Zolt’s past, there were but few instances where someone wasn’t scared when seeing her yellow eye. At times, these strangers would even seem enthralled by her bizarre characteristic. But those were only ponies that didn’t know what it really meant, and they would always eventually find out the truth. Either someone close to them would fill them in, or guilt would overrun Zolt such that she felt forced to tell them herself. But Bandicoot claimed to know the truth, and yet he seemed entirely calm. How was that? Zolt locked her eyes back onto the red-haired colt. He seemed to be deep in thought, but still not particularly put off. At least, not so put off as to squawk and run for the hills — or to snuff her out entirely.

Finally, he spoke. "It's no wonder my mom seemed so surprised when she checked your eyes. I thought they must have been really dilated or something. Now I know why she was being so secretive." Bandicoot climbed off the bed, and at first, Zolt thought he was going to leave. Her heart sank with the sudden thought that maybe he did want to get away from her. Instead, though, he walked over to the fireplace whose flames had started to die out. Calm as ever, he grabbed a long metal rod that had been leaning against the wall and poked at the fire. In doing so, he granted her the gift of a few minutes of relative peace, where the fire crackled on and she had time to calm down and think.

Her thoughts were a jumbled mess at first. Maybe he's only pretending to be calm so that I don't attack him. It could just be a safety thing. What if he has some illness that prevents him from expressing emotions — or, even worse, prevents him from feeling emotions at all? Maybe he's more dangerous to me than I am to him. Maybe once his mom reappears, they’ll both gang up on me and take me somewhere absolutely dreadful with ponies who hurt me. Or they could even just hurt me themselves.

It took her mind a long time to calm itself, but once it had, she started to wonder about the way Bandicoot spoke. He talks kinda weird. But he knows a lot of cool words. Like ‘dilated'. Maybe, if he attends school, they want ponies to learn and use fancy words. At home, when I used words like ‘dilated', I would get strange looks. I’d be told I was too young to know words like that. They'd think I was trying to insult their intelligence. Do lots of ten-and-eleven-year-olds outside of Gardenia talk more like me? How much does he know? Would he be willing to teach me things? Will I be going to school? What’s school like?

She tried once again to talk, knowing that the outcome was unlikely to be a satisfying one. Her assumptions were confirmed when all that came out was a strange breath. It was enough to catch Bandicoot’s attention, and his eyes met hers. Her other eye was still partially visible. She could tell he was looking at it. She felt her face heat with embarrassment as she turned away from him, using her front hooves to brush her mane back into its rightful place once again.

“I already know what your other eye looks like,” Bandicoot pointed out, “I don’t see the point of you continuing to hide it.” He didn’t seem angry or judgmental, only matter-of-fact. Zolt shook her head in defiance. She tried to think of an excuse, a way to explain herself that could be conveyed with no words. But nothing came to her. She was too clouded with embarrassment, fear, hatred of herself. The overall feeling of anxiety flooded right back into her as she realized once more that he might want her to die. Maybe he would try to flay her skin and use it as a ponyskin rug. Or he could turn her into Pony Soup. Was Pony Soup a thing?

He might try to invent Pony Soup!

Or he could just kill her and throw her outside for the sharp-toothed creatures of the forest to eat.

Before Bandicoot could speak, a sound shocked both he and Zolt out of their ‘conversation’: a door opening within earshot. Bandicoot glanced back at Zolt before straightening to his hooves. "Don't worry about greeting her," he smiled at the gray filly for the first time since meeting her. "I'll let you rest while we cook lunch.” With that, Bandicoot exited the room, closing the door quietly behind him as he went. Zolt could hear muffled conversation between that peculiar child and his mother, but she couldn't discern any words.

She moved towards the center of the bed with her back hooves, crawling underneath the blankets. She took a deep breath and sighed. Even though the bed was especially comfortable compared to what she was used to, there was no way she needed more rest. That was a bunch of baloney! After all, she'd been sleeping (well, unconscious) for days. Once she was done soaking in the comfort of the mattress, she was going to explore the room so thoroughly, Goddess Fiona herself would be proud!

Bandicoot’s smile kept floating back into her mind. Why had he smiled? Was he happy his mother had returned, that he'd had an excuse to leave? Was he plotting to attack Zolt with his mother's help, just as she had feared?

Soon enough, she began to snore.

-+-+-

The never-ending forest.

The church.

The basement.

That rundown hospital.

The stained bed, the foul-smelling rot.

All these different locations’ memories hit her at once. Their ghostly images assailed her, but she was unable to recoil. She wasn't aware enough of her own mind to be able to fight these memories off. So she watched.

She could see her legs, coated with blood, her front hooves clawing at the wooden ground, trying to anchor themselves in place. The face of a lifeless priest.

Flash after flash, evil things she thought she had forgotten.

Zolt…? Zolt… Zolt?

-+-+-

“Hey, Zolt? Zolt!”

Zolt sat up, eyes blinking slowly as she tried to unblur her vision. How had she gotten so turned around in her sleep? The pillows and blankets were strewn haphazardly about her and instead of laying facedown on the pillows, she had woken up on her back, staring at the ceiling. She was turned sideways on the bed, her hooves nearly hanging off the edge.

Bandicoot had been trying to wake her up for a small while now. Roughly ten minutes ago, he’d quietly entered the room, convincing himself that Zolt probably hadn’t fallen asleep all that fast. But, when he did discover her snoring, she was so sprawled out across the bed that he figured she must be really tired. While he had no clue how on dirt the filly could still be tired after sleeping for so long already, he hated the idea of breaking her out of what seemed like such a peaceful slumber. Maybe she would rather sleep than eat, he had thought anxiously to himself before creeping out of the room and closing the door behind him as quietly as he could.

“Where’s Zolt?” His mother had asked him when he had returned to the kitchen without her.

“She was dead asleep. I didn’t want to wake her up.”

Bandicoot’s mother sighed softly, a small smile on her face. “She’s slept for quite a long time already, dear. She hasn’t eaten in several days, and her stomach is probably screaming. Please, for her sake, will you go and fetch her?” She added an extra-sweet tone to her last few words, hoping that her playfulness came across properly.

Bandicoot groaned. He had known it was possible his mother would insist on him waking Zolt, but a small part of him had hoped that she, too, would want Zolt to get as much rest as Zolt felt she needed. “Do I have to?” He had grumbled, after a few long moments of silence spent staring at the ground.

“I suppose you don’t have to do anything,” his mother had replied, quick as ever. She had opened one of the dark wooden cupboards, retrieving three large, dark blue plates, “but I’ll never, ever forgive you if you let that filly go another unnecessary minute longer, hungry.” She then began the process of filling the three plates with all the different types of food she had brought home, except for the dessert. That, naturally, was for later! The older mare glanced back at her son, flashing him a quick, genuine smile, so he knew that she was teasing — for the most part. He didn’t seem particularly satisfied even with said clarification. Still, the small colt had left, hopefully to actually retrieve the gray filly this time.

Bandicoot had approached the room once more, putting an ear up to the door. He had heard snoring, still. Darn it, he thought morosely, I hoped she might’ve woken up by now. I actually have to wake her up…

He had shifted his weight between all four hooves slowly, trying to figure out how he was going to go about this daunting task. What if Zolt hated him forever because he just so happened to interrupt the best dream she had ever had in her entire life?

You’re having those “irrational fears” again, he told himself, forcing himself to open the door as quickly as possible so he had no time for doubt. He stepped into the room. Quietly, he murmured, “Zolt…?” but, frightfully, she didn’t stir even a little. Progressively, he said her name louder and louder, until finally he found some confidence—

“Zolt!”

And here she was.

“W-What?” Zolt sputtered, recovering from her shock and twisting her body uncomfortably to look at Bandicoot. Her voice was croaky and weak, and it caught Bandicoot off guard. She wasn’t supposed to be talking for another few hours, but fifteen minutes of rest and a big shock seemed to have been enough. Not to mention she looked completely exhausted, which made him feel even worse about waking her.

Before Bandicoot could explain anything, let alone offer even one of the seventeen apologies he already had planned for waking her, Zolt sniffed the air like a wolf out for blood. She blurted, “I smell food,” unnaturally shocked. “By the Gods, is that food?” She looked excited for a moment — then, as suddenly as her excitement had come, her expression became blank.

She rolled out of bed and set to work pulling the remaining blankets and pillows off. She grabbed the white sheet off of the floor, throwing it up over the mattress as neatly as she could. It landed mostly proper. Bandicoot had the strange feeling, watching her — her movements, her expression — that she was fervently trying to distract herself from the thought of food. He felt this observation must have been entirely false, though. Why would she want to avoid the thought of food if there was clearly food nearby and she hadn’t eaten anything except a frozen branch in the last few days?

Bandicoot realized he’d forgotten to speak. “Well, I-I didn’t want to wake you up but my mom said, she said… Um…” Bandicoot noticed, for the first time, Zolt’s cutie mark. He felt jealousy welling up, even though he had absolutely no clue what her cutie mark meant: a bold, blue letter Z with a yellow strikethrough behind the middle of it. He’d never seen a cutie mark like that before. How could Zolt have gotten her cutie mark for writing the letter Z (or maybe sleeping? That made a lot of sense…) but he hadn’t been able to find a cutie mark yet in anything? He realized he’d probably been staring too long and immediately looked back at her face. He’d been told by his mother repeatedly that staring at ponies’ flanks was rude, especially fillies. He was lucky Zolt hadn’t noticed. He didn’t want to be rude when he already owed seventeen apologies. “She wanted me to come get you so you could eat with us.”

Zolt dropped the large, thick blanket she’d now been wrangling, only half-covering the bed. She continued to hover there, seemingly frozen in place. Bandicoot was growing increasingly concerned. He wanted to ask her what was wrong, but couldn’t tell if that was the best idea. He didn’t know what emotion she was feeling and therefore had absolutely no ground to stand on and no idea of how he was supposed to be reacting.

“Like…” Zolt seemed to re-enter her own body, slowly lowering herself down off of the bed, two hooves rested against it as she stood on hind legs. She had a strange expression that matched nothing Bandicoot had been taught about before. “It’s okay if I eat?”

Now Bandicoot was especially confused. “What?” was the meager response he came up with.

“I, um… it's just been a while since I've had anything other than grubs and random plants, is all. I spent a long time traveling on my own and eating off of the land. Never really anything cooked. Nothing prepared by any hooves that weren't my own,”

Bandicoot looked at Zolt’s hooves on the mattress, trying to imagine such small hooves struggling to make fires to keep warm at night, or digging up bugs from the earth and stuffing them, dirt and all, into her mouth. He hadn’t really thought about what survival entails and what that, as a result, meant Zolt had likely gone through. Now, he began to think that maybe she wasn't naturally so small— that the elements, and other external forces, made her that way. While the bones in her hooves and her ribs weren't protruding in any extremely concerning way, Bandicoot knew that they could still be seen, and he had never seen somepony Zolt’s age with visible bones like that.

“But before you ran away from home, you must have had stuff prepared for you. Stuff your parents, or guardians, or family friends make. Right?”

“Yeah, I did at some point,” Zolt agreed, and Bandicoot felt relieved, “but that was years ago now.” Bandicoot’s relief disappeared immediately.

“Years? Why years?”

Zolt shrugged, unsure of how much she wanted to say. She was scared to death that she might freak him out too much. But lying felt significantly worse. She decided to simply go lighter on the details than she felt inclined to. “For the last several years that I ‘lived with my parents’, I was always being carted to all these different places. My parents wanted to try and ‘fix me’.”

“They wanted to exorcize you,” Bandicoot clarified knowingly. Zolt glanced at him and saw that he appeared to be genuinely concerned. It was the most emotion she had seen him visually express. She gulped, hating that her secret was being acknowledged aloud. And, with her increased anxiety, words couldn’t resist spilling out much more easily.

“Y-yes. They wanted to get the demon out of me. But, at times, they would refuse to believe I even had one in the first place. Even though I hadn’t been born with the yellow eye. There aren’t many reasons a child could be born with two matching eyes and then, one day, come home with one being a completely different color. But they constantly told me I was faking it. The moment they saw that my eye had changed, they were denying that it was anything unsavory. Invalidating what had happened to me; what I had seen. But even though they said they didn’t believe me, they still took me to religious buildings. Then, hospitals. Then, witch doctors. Strange magic-users. Norai…”

“That potion Goddess?” Bandicoot asked. He buzzed his wings to help lift him off the ground — with immense effort, he managed to float up just enough to climb more easily onto the bed. Zolt thought that it would have probably taken less effort for him to just climb into bed normally, but considered that perhaps he was practicing his flight skills. Bandicoot laid down gently, looking earnestly at Zolt, trying his best to show that he was paying attention even if he really wanted to chew his hooves or hit the hoofboard of the bed to distract himself from the sadness he felt.

“Yes. I must have been carted off to a dozen different places or more, all for different lengths of time. Consulting Norai was one of those last-minute decisions my mother made after I had snapped — yelled at her — one night. Norai lived much closer to us than any of the other ponies she wanted to consult, and my mom needed something close by so I could be out of her hooves as soon as possible. I think she was worried that Norai would do some sort of wicked black magic to erase the demon and that it might have more negative side effects than good. I mean, I think that’s the reason why I hadn’t been brought to her first. But she became desperate. Little did she know Norai would come the closest to ever helping me…”

Zolt knew fully well that she was talking too much. But Bandicoot didn’t seem frightened, doubtful, or grossed out. His ears were pointed towards her, his eyes were locked firmly onto her, and he nodded along as she talked. It was rare for her to receive this sort of a response when she would ramble. She didn’t know how to cut herself off. Other ponies were supposed to do that for her.

“But she took you to Norai anyway,” Bandicoot tilted his head slightly.

And he was responding to her. Not cutting her off, or shutting her down, but properly, actually responding, as though he wanted the conversation to continue. As though he actually wanted to hear more. Even if he was faking it just for politeness— something Zolt heavily suspected — few ponies even had the kindness to fake it. She was starved for attention, surely, after weeks of being out in the middle of nowhere, and years of lacking much positive communication beforehand. But she was rusty. I’m bound to mess something up soon if I keep talking, she thought.

“Yes… I think she was so desperate for me to be fixed. For it to stop. Whether that meant I had to stop faking it or the demon had to be extinguished from my body, I think it didn’t matter to her, at least towards the end. Just as long as it would stop.”

“And it didn’t,” Bandicoot guessed.

“Not yet,” Zolt said instinctively. But, then, after a bit more thought, “maybe it never will.”

Immediately, Zolt regretted saying it. It must not’ve made her look like any easier of a child to take care of, to imply that it might just be a part of her for the rest of her life. Now, more for Bandicoot’s sake than for her own, she wished she could believe it’d ever be fixed. Would she really have to spend the rest of her life being such a burden to everyone else around her?

“Sorry,” Zolt said quickly. “That’s really bleak of me to say. I should try to be more positive. I wouldn’t want to be—”

“I’m sorry that I woke you up when you were asleep,” Bandicoot interjected. Zolt stared at him, confused. “I plan on apologizing sixteen more times.”

Silence fell. They both stared at each other.

Zolt, to her own surprise, burst out laughing, burying her face in the mattress to try to quiet herself. Bandicoot cracked a smile. “What?” He said, feigning defensiveness. “It’s a serious crime!”

Zolt rolled over onto her back, continuing to let out half-suppressed giggles. Her hooves waggled in the air. It had been a long time since she’d laughed, and even longer since she’d laughed around another pony. What did ponies usually do when they laughed? How did they move around?

In the moment, it mattered surprisingly little to her what other ponies were ‘supposed’ to do when they laughed. She cared only that she had been laughing.

Bandicoot permitted himself a small giggle before letting the moment settle. Then, he sat up. “Alright, I understand you lived in a lot of different places. I don’t like that it happened to you, but I don’t quite understand what that has to do with you not eating a proper meal in years.”

Slowly, Zolt’s expression sombered. “Oh, right.” She turned back around, sitting up to match Bandicoot. “Well…” she took a deep breath and sighed, “I think one of the earlier ponies my mother brought me to for ‘guidance’, some Chrysalian priest, said that hunger might be a way to keep the demon at bay. I suppose it wasn’t the worst advice ever, if one’s only goal is to get a voice out of their head. When I’m hungry or sick, it hardly ever shows itself. But then, I’m hungry and sick, and it still feels like a demon is crawling around inside…” As though to punctuate her words, her stomach snarled with hunger. “...Me. My family kept food from me as much as they could get away with to try to extinguish the demon through force. All it did was keep me really hungry.”

“So… if you’re no longer hungry, the demon will show itself more?”

Zolt’s ears fell back a little. She doubted she was going to get any food now after all. But it was too late to lie. “Yeah. But… for what it’s worth, I’d really rather have a voice telling myself that I look ugly in my head than I would want to keep being hungry… If food were being offered to me, I’m sure that I would accept it.”

“Does the demon ‘coming out more’ put me or anypony else more at risk of being harmed?” Bandicoot asked slowly. He didn’t seem afraid, but he was certainly choosing his words very carefully.

“No. A-At least, I don’t think so. The only times I’ve ever… h-hurt… another pony… was when my life was at serious risk. When I would be killed if I hadn’t retaliated. But… My promise hardly matters, doesn’t it? It’s still a demon inside me that could come out if it chose to, and could do serious harm. Just because it hasn’t reacted unreasonably yet doesn’t mean…” Zolt, trailing off, rested her head on her hooves, her positivity tanking into nonexistence.

“Then come on,” Bandicoot said, poking Zolt’s forelock gently. “My mom brought back enough food for three whales to eat, let alone three ponies. I don’t want you to be hungry on my birthday.” He gave her another reassuring smile, trying to comfort her in whatever way he could muster. She looked up at him.

“I-it’s your birthday?”

“Sure is! And usually, my birthdays are really terrible, and my wishes never come true. My mom swore that this one would be different. She was devastated to have found you in the condition you were in, mostly because she was really scared for you, but she also thought that it would be a world-crushing blow to me, right before my ‘best birthday ever’.” He got up, hopping cheerfully off the bed. He walked right up to the still-open bedroom door, resting a hoof on it and looking back at her. “And my first wish already came true, before the day has even barely started! So now, I have a second wish; for you to stop being hungry. My mom says you have to do whatever you can to help ponies’ wishes come true on their birthday. So, please eat?”

Zolt sighed, resolving herself to eat the cooked food she desperately wanted. She knew she might regret it later.

As she climbed out of bed, she asked, innocently enough, “What was your first wish, then?”

Bandicoot grinned even wider. “That you’d wake up safe.”

-+-+-

“I hear that your voice has returned, little one. Much earlier than expected,” Bandicoot’s mother laughed. “Norai told me that that might happen.”

“What do you mean?” Bandicoot and Zolt asked at the same time. Zolt looked at her hooves, face reddening at the fact she’d spoken at the same time as Bandicoot.

“Well, Norai told me that you have a tendency to heal from things a lot earlier than expected. Nothing too crazy - you took plenty of time to heal from your freeze, that’s for sure. Longer than expected there, if anything. But little things, like side-effects of potions, or scrapes and bruises. Things like that.”

“I never knew,” Zolt said, genuinely surprised. “I thought everyone healed from that stuff quickly.”

“Some ponies might,” Bandicoot’s mother balanced the three dinner plates on her hooves, bringing them into the next room over and laying them out at a large table. “But you, my dear, certainly have something special about you.”

Zolt was taken aback. So there’s even more that’s abnormal about me than I thought. She wasn’t sure whether to be dejected or proud. It didn’t seem like an entirely bad thing, but what caused it? She didn’t feel it was particularly worth it to be possessed by an evil, sick entity in order to be able to heal quickly from side-effects and small cuts. She would rather have scrapes mar her skin for a little bit longer than average if it meant lacking the demon.

Bandicoot gestured for Zolt to enter the dining room, which she obeyed. He followed closely behind her.

The dining room’s walls were a deep purple color with white trims. The doorway was a wide, open arch, which Zolt was fascinated by. She had to refrain from the urge to touch the arch with her hooves as she passed through it. There were a few white cabinets lining the ceiling on one wall, and a wide shelf sat underneath it, filled with cookbooks, statuettes of different animals, and a few cooking utensils (like a cheese grater that had several books leaning against it, which Zolt found particularly humorous). On top of the bookshelf sat a few different framed pictures that Zolt was unable to cast away her curiosity for. She made an immediate beeline to the shelf so she could see what kinds of things had been photographed and used as display.

“We can look around a bit later. Let’s put a pin in that for now, yeah? Don’t want the food to get cold!” Bandicoot’s mother gently redirected Zolt towards the rectangular dining table. It was made out of some sort of light-colored wood. The ‘tablecloth’ was an oval that covered the table only partially; Zolt thought of it as a rug for the table’s ornaments. The plates themselves were placed on unclothed wood. She couldn’t recognize any of the food that was on said dishes, but it intrigued her, and her hunger spiked painfully at the aroma they produced. The seats were an elegant King-Leafspring-XVI-style, white wood with purple cushions as accents, the inverse to the walls. Two plates were laid out next to each other, with the final plate set in front of the left. Bandicoot chose the left seat.

“W-Which seat is mine?” Zolt asked Bandicoot quietly, hoping his mother couldn’t hear.

“You could sit anywhere,” Bandicoot averred, before adding less confidently, “it’s okay if you want to sit next to me, though.”

Zolt nervously clambered into the seat next to Bandicoot, wondering if Bandicoot’s mother might get upset at Zolt’s seating choice. What if Bandicoot’s mother had wanted to sit next to her son? That seemed pretty reasonable for a mother to want to do.

“What's all this?” Zolt asked, gesturing towards the plate in front of her, trying to be as polite as possible.

Bandicoot’s mouth fell open in shock as he glared at the filly. “You haven't had any of these before?”

Zolt shook her head dejectedly. “The only things we would eat back in Gardenia were usually really simple, all things considered. More ‘nourishment’ than ‘cuisine’. Usually, we just ate animals and bugs cooked over a fire, or homemade bread and cheese and butter… We have a few more complicated recipes, don’t get me wrong, but none of it looks anything like this.”

“There’s still so much that the rest of the world doesn’t know about that strange state,” Bandicoot’s mother stated gently, laying out seasoning shakers. Zolt stared at the two pieces with confusion. Both shakers were small, and glass, so their contents could be easily seen. But Zolt had never seen anything like the powder that was inside. One seemed to be made of pure white, like snow, and the other looked like mashed-up rocks with bits of red and white inside, or like a strange, red-heavy galaxy. They wore strange metal hats, with holes poked in them. Were they alive? Did they need to breathe? Zolt barely heard as Bandicoot's mother continued, “It’s such a mysterious place as far as the rest of the world is concerned. I’ve never heard of a pony leaving aside from Norai. They really must love it there.”

Zolt looked closer at the food on her plate. There was a strange block of some off-white foodstuff, with brownish speckles peppered across its visible surface. On top of the strange oblong object was a drippy topping of some sort, white in color, and what Zolt assumed were tomatoes. She disliked tomatoes, but the pieces were small, and she was so hungry that it truly mattered to her very little. One of the smaller foods sitting next to it on her platter was very, very yellow, which Zolt assumed had to involve cheese in some way: there was a mass of mysterious arch-shaped bits piled on top of one another, covered with the yellow goop. That was the scariest-looking one to Zolt. The next "secondary food" was a few slices of what she could only assume were roasted carrots, coated in some kind of powder (much like what sat in the strange glass bottles) and mixed in with green beans, peas, and corn. This was the most familiar to Zolt, and what she was the least scared of on her entire plate. Finally, the last food item, similar to the yellow dish, was a big pile of stuff. Unlike the arch-shaped objects, these were a bright orange color and oblong with green bits inside. The chunks were tiny, much tinier than the ones making up the yellow dish. The orange color made Zolt think that perhaps these were orange bell peppers cut into tiny bits, but the smell of the dish didn’t give her much confidence in this idea.

“How do I go about eating this stuff? Do I use these things?” Zolt grabbed the pokey, four-pronged piece of metal sat in front of her. Bandicoot had already grabbed his and used it to spear a piece of the yellowy food.

Bandicoot immediately took up the opportunity to teach Zolt about the food that was on her plate, as though he had been waiting years for just such an opportunity.

“Since it’s my birthday, it’s sort of a mix of a few different things I really like from a few different shops and restaurants in the nearest cities. So you have a burrito—”

“Brr-ito,” Zolt repeated quietly to herself.

“And it’s like a tortilla — which is like a sort of bread — wrapped around a bunch of fillings, which could be anything, really — gah. It’s really hard to explain burritos, isn’t it?”

“So there’s stuff inside that weird wrapped-up bread?”

“Yeah!”

“And on top of it?”

“It looks like the toppings are queso and diced tomatoes on yours. But Mom brought a lot of food back, so there are other types if you don't like this one,” Bandicoot leaned closer to Zolt’s dish to check for any glaring details he might have forgotten to mention.

"There's a shop in the marketplace specializing in burritos; you can order them pre-made or get ingredients to make your own. These were pre-made, but there's ingredients to make your own later. I can teach you how to wrap them," Bandicoot's mother finally took her seat in front of her son, smiling with warmth and patience directed at Zolt. She didn't mind answering Zolt's questions, especially if it helped her feel more welcomed in their home. Grabbing the salt shaker, she started to season her Casiceran rice, trying not to snort with amusement at how Zolt's eyes went huge, learning for the first time how seasoning worked.

“What’s kay-soh?” Zolt murmured, her head feeling dizzied from all this new information.

“It’s like… cheese, but different, but still cheese.”

Bandicoot’s mother explained, “The burrito originates from the state of Casicero, but all sorts of different states have been making their own interpretations of the dish. Queso is actually a Minervan food. Bandicoot described it best - cheese, but different, but still cheese! The burrito isn’t the same as Casicerans used to make, but it’s still delicious. You have nothing to worry about,”

This made Zolt feel a little better, surprisingly, since the phrase ‘you have nothing to worry about’ is, in fact, a very anxiety-inducing phrase to hear most of the time.

“To answer your initial question, you can eat the burrito with utensils. Yours has queso on top, so it’s probably a good idea to use a knife and fork, yeah. Usually, if you’re meant to eat them with your hooves, there will be metal foil wrapped around one side so the fillings don’t fall out.”

Zolt picked up the glimmering silverware that had been placed neatly next to the blue dinner plate. “Well… I guess I’ve just gotta go for it.”

“Well said!” Bandicoot’s mother laughed cheerfully, a sound that made Zolt jump at first.

“As for the other stuff, when you get to them, there’s Casic rice - a style of rice originating from Casicero, as you might expect - mixed vegetables, and macaroni and cheese. Macaroni and cheese can either be a side or a main dish, and it’s pretty popular in these parts.” Bandicoot's mother gestured towards Bandicoot, who had given up on explaining what different types of foods there were and had instead turned his attention towards annihilating the "macaroni and cheese".

Zolt, carefully as she could, cut into the burrito. The tortilla was easy enough to slice through, but the fillings weren’t perfectly aligned as she had hoped. Instead, she had to saw through it a bit, making something of a mess. She felt self-conscious about how messy her cut had been, but felt a bit better when she looked at the other two’s dishes and realized they weren’t making clean cuts, either. “Are you supposed to eat it all at once or one at a time?”

“Whatever you prefer,” Bandicoot’s mother nodded encouragingly with a smile. “Different ponies eat in different ways.”

“Hmm,” Zolt hummed to herself, staring at what she could see of the burrito’s contents. She was dissatisfied with the 'however you want to' conclusion; what was the more normal way to do it? Still, she figured Bandicoot's mother wouldn't have given an answer that would set her up for failure. She figured she'd just play it by ear, then. She cut into her 'burrito' again, making a proper slice and picking up as much of it as she could with her fork. She could see more queso, or perhaps a different white sauce, a light-colored meat that appeared to be some sort of poultry, large slices of bell pepper (thankfully something familiar), stringy cheese, mushy beans, and some red sauce. Nothing about it looked too terrifying. And she was hungry, so it would surely taste the best it possibly could with her stomach in such an indiscriminate state.

She took a big bite and nearly coughed the food back out with how much flavor suddenly attacked her at once. The meat — which she realized quickly was chicken — was juicy and, surprisingly, more flavorful than usual! Is this what it meant for something to be 'well-seasoned'? Zolt was hardly familiar with any seasoning at all. The closest she’d gotten to experiencing seasoning like this was "zezzic", a Gardenian spice made from a mixture of plants. Maybe garnishes would count as seasoning, in which case, she had had some of those. Nothing like this. The queso was smooth and flavorful, the stringy cheese didn't clash with the other flavors and, if anything, enhanced them, the beans were not too overpowering but came through enough to be noticeable… and, best of all, the other ingredients packed so much of a punch and the tomatoes were so small that the red chunks barely registered! It was a great sensation, but incredibly overpowering and upsetting at the same time. She was embarrassed, even a bit horrified, to be sitting in the same room as the ponies that had taken her in while she was experiencing such a feeling.

Without her understanding why, her hooves began to shake, seeming all the more noticeable with how the glint of the silverware moved with them. Her eyes welled up with tears before she could even realize it was happening. She started to panic, hating the fact that she was about to cry, perhaps even break down, in front of these complete strangers. Strangers that had shown her kindness. Listened to her. Saved her from dying in the middle of a blizzard. Strangers who didn’t deserve to have to navigate around a whiny pony like Zolt, crying over a ‘brr-ito’.

Bandicoot, despite his mother having Zolt more directly in her line of sight, was the first to notice Zolt’s reaction. He dropped the fork he had been eating from, forgetting his manners entirely and speaking with his mouth full. “Zolt? Wuh’s wrong?” He put a panicked hoof on her forearm.

“I-I don’t know,” Zolt muttered, completely earnest. “I’ve just never had anything like this before. I don’t know why it’s got me…”

“It’s okay, dear,” Bandicoot’s mother set her own eating utensils down, reaching a hoof forward and resting it against Zolt’s. It had been a while since Zolt had been physically reassured, too, and this hit her like a train. Great tears spilled out of Zolt's eyes before she could even understand why they were there, and with her free hoof she tried desperately to wipe them out of the way.

“I don’t want to ruin your birthday,” Zolt’s voice sounded meek. She looked over at Bandicoot, continuing to swipe at her eyes.

“It isn’t ruining my birthday,” Bandicoot said quickly. He’d never had to comfort a pony like this before, let alone a pony he knew so little about. He hadn’t had time to learn the best types of things to do in these sorts of situations. “I’m sad that you’re upset, but it isn’t ‘ruining’ anything. It’s how you feel; I’d feel like my birthday was more ‘ruined’ if you only pretended to be happy the whole time.”

“It’s not that I’m unhappy,” Zolt whimpered, trying to get a hold of herself with only small success. “Everything is just so different and it’s giving me the sneaking suspicion that none of this is real. But I’ve never dreamt of anything like this before, where it’s all so vivid and… warm…” Zolt looked around. How could her mind have come up with all of these details, let alone stuff that was so unfamiliar to her? Entire foods she hadn’t known to exist?

“I should have figured it might be overwhelming,” Bandicoot’s mother sighed softly. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize!” Zolt said quickly, fearful that she might be getting too close to ‘yelling’ territory. “I guess it’s just… I’m surprised. Before I had initially woken up, I was dying. I was freezing in the ice and cold after weeks of running through woods, fields, and rivers. I was about to die, and now I’m here.”

“I assure you, this is no ‘heaven’, if that’s what you’re trying to say,” the violet mare scoffed a little at the thought, “especially to find such a young filly, broken, and very-nearly dead.”

“But it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten. A-At least, I think it is. Maybe not the closest I’ve gotten to dying—” Bandicoot noticeably winced at these words, “—but the closest I’ve gotten to anything good happening. This isn’t a cottage carved into a huge tree, or a hole dug in the ground. It isn’t some run-down hospital that’s been standing for a few thousand years. We’re in a regular, normal house. Eating food I’ve never heard of at all,”

Zolt’s body begged for her to continue eating, but her heart was hurting her even more.

“Gardenia is very much cut off from the rest of the world,” Bandicoot’s mother explained, “I suppose it didn’t occur to me just how different things would be there, but yes. Around here, there aren’t usually trees big enough for houses to be carved into them. We don’t normally dig holes in the ground for shelter. It is different outside of Gardenia, by a long shot. But while I do pride myself on keeping my house as close to a safe haven as I possibly can, the world outside isn’t nearly so merciful. It’s going to be stressful, and hard, I think, for you to adjust. But, whatever happened to you in those thick-wooded forests was something that you had every right to escape from. You’ve managed to survive conditions that Bandicoot and I likely wouldn’t be able to fully conceive of. You deserve to eat food that you like. So even if you must cry, please don’t let the newness, even the goodness, stop you from doing what you need to do for yourself.”

Bandicoot and his mother had both refused to eat any more of their food until Zolt did. So, if for no other reason than allowing the two ponies who had rescued her to eat, Zolt tearfully continued to consume what may have been the best food she had ever had in her life. Once she had started to eat, she found it hard to stop. Tears went away with every bite of food that she swallowed. She had never known food to be something so good, and so healing.

The mixed vegetables, Zolt had tried next. They were good, and thankfully a good anchor for Zolt. It gave her some nostalgia for home, but nothing close to homesickness. She may never feel homesick in her entire life, and she felt content with that. The ‘macaroni and cheese’ blew Zolt away. The Casic rice was a perfect side to compliment all of the accompanying foods.

By the time Zolt had stopped to take a breather, her plate was clean, and she was painfully full.

“I am a bit excited you haven’t tried many types of food,” Bandicoot admitted as the three ponies cleaned up the leftovers from their lunch. Zolt had only been able to eat her one plate, Bandicoot one and a half, and Bandicoot’s mother two. Zolt had insisted that she would eat if she could muster to and that she would eat more of the leftovers later, which finally seemed to quell her new guardians' fears. Bandicoot was working with Zolt to store the remaining leftovers properly. Zolt held the "Tupperware" and helped scoop the remaining rice into it. “It means that there’s a lot that we can show you. You probably won’t like everything. That’s normal. There’s a lot that I don’t like,”

“I can’t imagine not liking this stuff,” Zolt said with a small smile on her face. She was surprised the voice in her head hadn’t ruined the moment this time. Not yet. Sometimes it slept for a long time, she supposed. She felt happy smiling with the confidence that, at least in this moment, it was okay.

“Me neither,” Bandicoot agreed.

A plate slipped out of Bandicoot's mother’s hooves, splashing into the sinkful of hot, soapy water. Some of the water jumped up, splashing against the fur of her chest.

“Fuck!” She hissed, only managing to suppress her voice somewhat. Zolt and Bandicoot overheard.

“You shouldn’t swear, Ms. Bandicoot,” Zolt said, a playful tone to her voice. “The gods and goddesses would never do that, and I’m sure they drop plates all the time!”

Bandicoot’s mother laughed a bit at this.

“Yeah, I’m sure the deities would never say words like that…”

-+-+-

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Soleil hissed, repeatedly hitting the side of her head with her hoof to accentuate her words.

“What’s wrong?” Sparkshooter asked, sarcasm permeating through his tone.

“This is complete bullshit,” Soleil continued, either not picking up on Sparkshooter’s sarcasm, or not caring. She watched as her right-hoof stallion turned his attention back to the banners he had been in the process of decorating the hall with. “Norai just sent me a letter. Zolt was found. By Bandicoot and Sweet Tooth. It’s a good thing she was found, but how did she cross that huge of a distance to get there? What are the chances she’d end up with those two ponies? Out of anyone that could find her! She wasn’t supposed to meet Bandicoot for another several years!”

Sparkshooter put a hoof to his chin, thinking. “...Which one’s Zolt again?”

“What do you mean, ‘Which one’s Zolt again’? She’s the fiftieth—”

“Oh, yes! Her. Well, what’s really the big deal about her meeting the guy a bit early?”

“We had a whole thing going! And now that’s ruined because she’s somehow able to survive in unsurvivable conditions?! I never would have expected this. I hate not being able to expect things.”

“Boy, don’t I know it,” Sparkshooter rolled his eyes. He hammered away at the final nail, causing it to dig its way into the skin of the wall. “Maybe we should just see what happens. Trying to plot out an entire lifespan hasn’t been working out lately, has it?”

“I’ve only been doing that for the past 250 years. Before that, deities had no dominion! At least, not as they do now. And it didn’t work before that.”

“It’s not been working for the last 250 years, either. So she met a pony a few years too early. Doesn’t that mean, in its own way, that’s what was meant to be?”