Unknown Variable

by Nepilicious

Rating: teen
Tags: Other, Fluttershy, Mystery, Profanity, Random, Violence, Twilight Sparkle, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 2590

A colt of unknown origin enters the narrative.

[New to writing, feel free to state your criticisms]

-

You follow him, but you know nothing about him. A character with unknown motive, an unknown name, and an unknown origin.

He doesn't seek to make to make an impact, he doesn't seek a higher purpose, he just wishes to live the life he wants. That might change, but you'll have to find out. This is his story.

Published 2024-04-28 18:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-04-28 18:40:01 UTC

Setting Out

The small town of Ponyville. You all know it. You familiarized yourself with it. From Sugarcube Corner to Golden Oaks Library, you remember the major locations. That's all that needs to be known really.

The town is not the focus currently. That lies on the edge of it, the edge of the Everfree Forest. As bizarre as it is dangerous, the Everfree has long since been a place you don't venture into if you value your life in any sort of capacity. Twisting roots to twisted abominations of animals, some could even view it as beautiful if they bothered to appreciate the ecosystem's lack of harmony compared to everything around it. It is a spectacleto behold. Alas, it is still dangerous.

Nobody goes into the Everfree, so why is someone coming out of it?

The treeline of the Everfree is formidable in itself, ponies scarcely even look at it in fear of the looming sense of dread of what could be on the other side of it. The only one brave enough to venture into it on the daily is a certain zebra, but our focus is not her. Our focus is the figure emerging from it.

It's…. a colt? Yes. A colt with a dark green coat and jet black mane. Black irises look out into the town, simply observing. Only the colors and outline can be seen at this point, more defining features being obscured by the looming shadows of the forest he stands in. Small compared to the large trees around him, any sane being would be alarmed at such an unformidable presence exiting from such a dangerous place. What sticks out though, is the burlap sack he holds in his mouth, stuffed with items of unknown appearance and origin. The outline of these items against the outside of the cloth storage device holds little answers as to what could be inside of it.

The colt sets down the sack in front of him as he observes the outline of the town ahead. His eyes keep wandering back to a small cottage on the outskirts, not too far away from where he currently was. There is no visible intent behind his eyes, only thoughts.

Thoughts is a vague term. What is he thinking then? There are so many possibilities, surely you can think of at least one of them? You can guess all you want, but until he decides whether to speak them aloud, you will be left guessing. There is no visible change in his expression, just neutrality the whole way through as he stands and observes. Coated in the shadows of the Everfree, the colt takes the sack into his mouth again. He begins to walk in the direction of the town. In particular, the cabin on the outskirts.

As he steps into the light, you can finally see specifics.

An earth pony. No wings, no horn, just a normal earth pony. There is no cutie mark decorating his flank, just the same color coat around his entire body. Said coat is matted with specks of dust and dried mud around random parts of his body, noticeably none around his face. He seems to have tried to make these little spots of filth as less obvious as possible. They look pressed downward into his coat or attempted to have been brushed off. There are none of these flecks of dirt on his mane or tail, but they both look unkempt and frizzy. If you hadn't seen where he emerged from the twisted forest, you would think he had just played an energetic game of tag with his friends. His legs have nothing of note on them besides what look to be small cuts, still in the process of healing. Judging by where he just came from, you could discern that these are from thorns or some other spiky implement. It's all guesswork, but it is the most likely conclusion.

He looks around to his left and right occasionally as he makes his way through the flat field over to the cottage. It didn't seem to be paranoia or anything of the like, just casual glances towards his environment. The sack he carries doesn't seem to visibly be weighing him down too much, but his neck does angle downwards a bit from carrying it. Before you know it, he has found his way to a small dirt path that leads to the cottage itself. Behind him, the town can be seen in the background, slowly fading out of view as he makes his way.

The nature around is much nicer here than the twisted trees of the Everfree. Light green grass lies below mellow brown trunks that make the basis for the trees around. More and more instances of birdhouses hanging from these tress are quite noticeable the closer he gets to the cottage. He seems to take all of these facts in himself as he glances at the scenery.

Soon enough he finds himself on a small bridge over a small river, filled with small fishes swimming in the small streams of said small river. Various animals are skittering about. Rabbits, squirrels, mice, and even an armadillo. The colt stops for a second to take in these sights, his gaze lingering on the mice and armadillo longer than anything else. Perhaps he found their presence strange among the more common animals like the rabbits. He begins his walk again, crossing the bridge and down a small path that leads to the front door of the cottage.

The front door is split into two sections: an upper and lower part. Judging by the animals scattered about, the door was mostly likely there to make it easier for them to get through. The lower section ended around his height as well. The cottage itself was synonymous with the nature around it, the middle and upper parts of the roof decorated with leaves and moss similar to the shades of green to the fauna around it. There are a few windows around the lower interior, though none facing directly in front of the cottage. The upper part of the cottage seems to have a couple of rooms stemming off of it. These rooms still did not directly face the front of the house.

The colt sets the sack down in front of the door, before walking up to it. He raises a hoof to knock, but hesitates right before it hits the door. A rabbit was inspecting him with its nose, sniffing one of his hind legs. He flinches for just a moment as this happens, not anticipating the creature's unwelcome nose against him. He gently taps the creature with his leg to shoo it off. The rabbit looks downtrodden that the visitor was resistant to its inspection, but scurries away nonetheless. After looking around for any other creatures coming his way, he finally does the one thing he set out to do.

He knocks.

Author's Note

Just a small introduction chapter. I will attempt to write more in future installments of course. Let me know what you think of this so far.
I'm mostly writing these in my free time out of boredom, so don't expect these to be masterpieces or anything lol

Setting Up

A light yellow pegasus roams her cottage carrying a hefty bag of animal feed over her back. Her long, pale pink hair falls over her face as she tries to blow it out of the way of her eyes in order to see what's in front of her. You already know her name: Fluttershy. Eventually, Fluttershy tosses her head to the side to remedy the issue, her hair finally resting over her shoulders instead. Various furry friends of hers skitter around and between her legs in excitement, their first meal of the day just a bag opening away. She gives a small smile at their energy as she sets the bag down. One of the beavers had already taken it upon themselves to open up the bag with their teeth.

“Now now Skitter…” she gently pushes away the eager beaver from the bag. “We've gone over this…. wait until I fill the bowls up, okay?”

The beaver nods with regret, though it was easy to tell it didn't take the lesson to heart.

As soon as Fluttershy reached for the bag, a resounding noise flooded her ears.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three steady knocks. Three steady vibrations through the front door. Who would be visiting this early in the morning? The sun had only come up an hour ago. She came up with no answers. Were one of her friends in trouble...? She might as well see.

•

Knock. Knock. Knock.

He steps back after making his presence known at the door, probably waiting to see if someone was even there to answer in the first place.

He didn't have to wait long. Light hoofsteps from inside the cottage make their way towards his location. He steps back a little bit more, just out of range of the door if it were to open. The bottom half doesn't open, but the top does.

Fluttershy peaks her head through it and looks around, her teal eyes landing on the colt with hesitancy. Her shyness seemed to already be kicking in. This soon fades though, as she sees only a colt.

“Um… hello?” she says meekly, tilting her head in curiosity.

It takes the colt a second to respond. “...hi. Who are you?” His voice was scratchy and rough, almost like he was going through some kind of reverse puberty. He sounded like he needed to clear his throat… but also didn't. It was too natural.

The pegasus looked perplexed, either because of his voice, his oddly placed question, or both. She still didn't want to seem rude of course.

“Uhm… I'm Fluttershy. Who are you…?” she questions awkwardly. She wasn't quite sure where to take the conversation. Did she ask about his parents? Surely he couldn't be out here without supervision. Was he a runaway? She really hoped not, nopony should be unhappy enough to run away from their own home.

“I'm Zetche,” he says. “Sorry. My parents just moved there. I'm familiarizing myself right now. Is this some sort of animal sanctuary?”

Everything he said seemed to be blunt and to the point. Fluttershy found that odd, but maybe he was just that kind of pony.

“Oh! Um… no. Well, yes? I just… like taking care of animals,” she smiles now, the subject of animals having immediately peaked her interest. This turns into worry in a split second, “I hope they haven't bothered you any…”

He glances towards a rabbit hopping it's way past for a moment, “They haven't. Is the town spread out like your house, or do you just not like other ponies?”

Fluttershy thought that was a rather loaded question, but continued nonetheless.

“Um… no. Most of Ponyville is close together, besides Sweet Apple Acres or something like that…” she says, awkwardly looking off to the side.

“Okay. Thank you.” He picks up the sack, and starts walking away without another word. He's already crossing the bridge by the time Fluttershy recovers enough from the sudden exit.

“W- Wait!” she speaks up in a quiet voice. “Do you know how to get back??”

The colt simply nods, the contents in the sack clinking together like rocks. He's back on the main trail already, walking at a leisurely pace towards Ponyville. He seemed to have gotten what he wanted out of the conversation. The pegasus was just left perplexed, but thought it wasn't that big of a deal. She shuts the top part of the door before she could think about it too much.

~

The outskirts of Ponyville were relatively empty on the way back, just a well-traveled dirt road leading back to the town. The colt seemed to know his way back well enough considering he had just arrived. To be fair, there weren't any other major places to go around here besides Sweet Apple Acres.

Soon enough, Zetche had made his way to the town's edge, no other ponies visibly out and about right now. Fireworks could be heard in the distance, which was odd considering it was the middle of the day. Some kind of festival mayhaps? Regardless of what it was, it was a good opportunity for him to slip in unseen, if that was even his goal anyway. His eyes wander around the streets, soon stumbling upon something that looked like a Farmer's market. Various stalls and stands were set up with advertisements: A bushel of apples for 5 bits, celery sticks for 2, gardening decorations for a “debatable price”; probably bartering.

The colt has already wandered into that section of the street, his eyes darting across the various details of… well seemingly, anything in the area. His eyes lock onto a side alley, and soon enough, that's where he's heading. It looked to contain cast-aside junk. But where any other pony would have seen just that, Zetche seemed to spot some sort of potential. He sets his sack of goods down nearby and goes into the alley. He drags a rather large, wooden piece shoved into the pile and drags it out, with some difficulty, into the street.

It was a stall, more specifically an abandoned one. The wood it was made of seemed to be faded from exposed sunlight, some of the boards making it up cracked and splintered from natural use. One of the legs of it was broken, probably the reason it was thrown out in the first place.

Zetche wedges himself under the thing to lift it up, and attempts to stand it up normally. That proved impossible because of its broken leg. Being the problem solver he was, he uses one of his back legs to scooch a rock over and push it under the stump where the leg used to be. There. Good enough to stand, good enough to use. It was a bit tall for him to stand behind it seemed, so he drags a fully intact stool over from the previous junk pile behind it to stand on. Good use of recycling.

He fetches the put-aside sack and plops it onto the flat surface in the center of the stand. The old thing creaks from the wait, but luckily stays steady. The colt uses his hooves to empty the bag out, setting as many of the little items as he could onto the flat surface in a uniform fashion.

At first glance they could be perceived as very shiny rocks due to the sunlight shining in from the sky, but another look proved otherwise. They were scales, all around the same size as an adolescent pony's hoof. Stoney green in color, the boldness of their pigments showed quite the contrast against the pale wood of the stand. He seemed to be carrying plenty more in his sack as well.

The colt sighs and props his right hoof on the stand to rest the side of his head against, looking bored as all hell. Ponies were coming back now, idle chatter from them revealed common words such as “Trixie” and “Powerful”. The colt's ears twitched at these peculiar mentions, but he didn't seem too keen to ask anyone around what had happened. All he could do was wait.

So he waited.

Author's Note

Bah, tried to shoot for more words. I'll make more stuff happen in the next thingy.