Author's Note

When boredom strikes...

Well you know what I mean, I suppose

1: The Strange Creature.

Deep in a dark forest, a woman in white and purple walked through a path decorated with red stains and bones. She didn’t seem bothered by this as she calmly continued her stroll down this unnerving road. She casted a disappointed look at her surroundings while shaking her head and sighing heavily.

A short distance away she could see a small mound made of skulls and decomposed limbs, if the sight alone couldn’t deter a passerby of continuing surely the putrid stench could. Regardless of these the woman proceeded forward, as if this was just a normal pathway. Passing by the mound she reached a more open area where the trees had a wider gap between them letting the moonlight pierce through the darkness.

On the center of this illuminated area sat a small blonde short haired girl no much taller than four feet, her body dressed by a black vest and skirt, a white blouse with a red tie and a red ribbon on the right side of her head. These clothes seemed old and ragged with rips and holes in many areas except for the ribbon in her head.

The girl was happily munching what looked like a leg of some unknown animal it was far too mangled to resemble a limb of any conventional creature; her face and clothes covered in stains from the dripping blood. This made for a creepy contrasts with her innocent looking bright red eyes.

“Hmm~” she let out some happy moans as she enjoyed her late night meal.

The woman purposely stepped on a twig in the ground to make her presence be known.

Turning around the girl saw the taller woman looking at her with her arms crossed, tilting her head in confusion she just stared as the woman said something she couldn’t understand with a stern expression.

“Uh?” was the only thing the girl said, getting a rather long sigh from the woman.

The woman then raised one of her arms in front of her, ready to do something. Until the wind blew some dust in her face, making her sneeze losing focus which made her unconsciously snap her fingers. This created a gap below the girl, who fell through it soon after. When the woman recovered she noticed the lack of a small girl in front of her and proceeded to promptly panic, as another woman in white and blue behind her face palmed.

Oopsies?

Despite the gap looking like it would have been a long extensive journey, it was actually rather short as the girl was unceremoniously dropped butt-first in a very similar looking forest to the one she was previously.

She looked around and saw an old looking structure in the distance, she stood up and with her arms extended at the sides of her body she started walking in a random direction while curiously looking around her. The forest was similar yet different, it looked more colorful than before if that made any sense, with a swamp and some cliffs.

This was until she heard shuffling behind her followed by a loud growl, turning around she saw some kind of feline creature with wings and a stinger. It roared angrily due to the girl invading its territory.

But rather than being scared, the girl grew an almost impossibly big smile and pounced into the beast.

The next morning Princess Celestia’s most faithful student, a unicorn named Twilight Sparkle was currently researching part of the mysterious and unexplored Everfree Forest alongside her best friend and number one assistant Spike the dragon.

He was a little bit unnerved by being in this particular forest, “Twi, why are we here again?” he asked as his eyes darted back and forward at every sound in the area.

“We are just going to take some samples. Plants, maybe an insect and who knows we may be lucky and find something unique Spike, aren’t you excited?” Twilight said with glee, being oblivious of her assistant’s nervousness or just plain ignoring it.

“Yeah… excited… hurray…” he threw one arm up with totally non fake, non-sarcastic enthusiasm.

“That’s the spirit, Spike,” Twilight said with high spirits.

It was a good thirty seconds before she suddenly stopped, almost making Spike fall down from her back, “woah, at least give me a warning before doing that, Twi,” he complained with a frown.

She didn’t answer for a fat second, “sorry Spike, it’s just…” she trailed off as she got a magnifying glass from her saddlebags before looking at something in the ground, “something happened here.”

“What do you mean, what sort something?” he turned around to try and see what she was referring to.

“It looks like some creature’s traces,” she pondered for a few seconds tapping her chin with a hoof, “but these don’t look like anything we have seen in the forest before, for one these footprints are very small, and their shape…” she inspected the footprints more closely, “it’s strange.” She followed the trail and soon enough she found even more footprints, “and now there’s manticore’s paw prints here.”

Spike poked her in the back of the head when he noticed something in the trees ahead, “emm… Twi?”

“What is it, Spike?”

“There’s b-blood in the trees!”

Now this caught her attention, “what?” she asked before looking at the path ahead and indeed there were blood stains in the tree branches and in the bushes further ahead. But that wasn’t all, she also saw a bulk in the distance. Twilight magicked her magnifying glass to Spike, “Spike hold this for a moment,” and got her binoculars to check from a safe distance, she could see something white poking out of some rocks far ahead, “what is that?” she mumbled under her breath.

“Should we go back, Twi? Continuing doesn’t sound like a good idea,” Spike tried to get her to back away, now even more nervous after these new findings.

Twilight nodded, “You’re right Spike, but at the very least I want to confirm what is that behind the rocks. If you notice something dangerous let me know and we’ll teleport back.”

“Got it,” Spike replied with a more calmed tone.

Twilight trotted on the unnerving path carefully, paying attention to anything that dared to move around them. Spike did the same from her back. Sweat slowly formed on their forehead from the tension in the air, it didn’t help that they saw a manticore’s detached tail under a bush; they got a bit green in the face with an audible “eww…”

“Maybe two creatures fought each other here, whatever it was must have been enormous to have done that to a manticore,” Twilight expressed her disgust.

“But didn’t you say there were only those weird small footprints and manticore ones here?” Spike pointed out, “do you think, this t-thing may be a f-flyer?” he stuttered.

With this theory on their mind, they scanned the sky and the top of the trees but saw nothing.

“This is strange, those blood stains around seem recent as are the traces,” Twilight took another cautious look around, “but nothing points out at any disturbance on the trees, or confrontation by that matter; not even at ground level.”

“What does that mean, Twi?” Spike didn’t like how Twilight said that, it felt foreboding.

Twilight took a shaky breath in, “what I mean is, whatever took down this manticore did it in such a way and so easily that it didn’t even affect the area around them other than decorating them in blood,” then she looked at the rocks from before and got closer, “which means…”

She poked her head over the rocks to see past them, a disgusting smell attacking their nostrils almost immediately. They covered their noses to block the stench.

“Just like I thought, it’s the manticore’s carcass,” she said with revulsion.

“Can we go now? I’m starting to feel sick,” Spike covered his mouth trying to hold the nauseating feeling.

“Yes, we better go before…” Twilight was about to ignite her horn but a subtle sound caught her attention. “Do you hear that Spike?”

“Huh?” he looked confused for a moment before focusing on listening, “hmm…” a moment later he did hear a soft snoring like sound, “oh yeah, what is that?”

“It seems to come from…” Twilight heard it again from the body in front of her, “the carcass?” she moved to the front with some hesitation, the unicorn was disgusted enough already, ‘be strong Twilight, be strong!’

But she wasn’t strong, it wasn’t common for the average pony to find something like this after all. So she took a minute, to ease the feelings.

Spike wasn’t faring much better but he managed to hold it in.

“Sweet Celestia, I will need a very warm bath after this…” she said tiredly with the occasional gag reflex. Her eyes then fell into the curious form calmly sleeping in the middle of all that, “What is this creature?” she focused on the creature trying her best to ignore the rest of scene in front of her.

“Hmm, doesn’t have hooves or claws instead the appendages end in fleshy digits, no muzzle; similar eye size to a pony’s; must be bipedal from how its body is proportioned hind legs being longer which means the front ones are arms; lack of fur except in the head so it must have the need to cover itself in clothing for warm. But the fact that it wears clothes must indicate that it has some level of intelligence, that said it seems these clothes have been used for a long time to be so worn out,” she inspected the creature as she wrote in a notepad.

Spike got down from Twilight’s back and looked at the creature quizzically, “any idea of what it is, Twi?”

“The closest thing I can think of is a furless minotaur, but even then it lacks many features from them,” Twilight resumed her inspection, meanwhile the creature kept on peacefully sleeping with a silly expression and some drool leaking from the side of its mouth, “doesn’t seem in pain or injured, so all the bloodstains have to be from whatever happened here,” she brought a hoof close to its mouth and slightly pulled upwards to reveal its teeth, “Incisors, canines and flat broad molars in the back, must be an omnivore and despite being the size of the average adult pony it doesn’t strike me as an adult, the face structure in particular reminds me more of a foal. But then again this is just speculation at this point, it would help if we could talk with it. We could learn so much from it Spike, this is a very rare opportunity!” Twilight was getting more excited by the second at the prospect of learning about a new unknown species.

Spike rolled his eyes, recognizing that insatiable curiosity Twilight has when it comes to learning new things and even more when said things were unknown.

But then he noticed something, “Twi, since it is an omnivore, do you think it could be dangerous?”

Twilight thought about it for a moment, “It could be, I guess. I’m assuming the blood on it comes from feeding of the manticore remains.” She admitted, “But if it has any level of intelligence like I think it does, then we could probably reason with it.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Spike inquired.

“We could always follow Equestria’s Biology Department’s protocol and have a cage ready just in case,” Twilight tested the waters and used her magic to levitate the still snoring creature, to her surprise it curled up inside her magic as if trying to be more comfortable but nothing more, “but I want to leave that as a worst situation possible option. I don’t want to jump to conclusions and encage an intelligent being that could also be sentient.”

Seeing as how everything was in order so far, Twilight decided return to her library in Ponyville.

“Should we ask Fluttershy for help just in case?” Spike brought up the topic, considering they were dealing with an unknown species.

Twilight gave a quick nod, “It would be great help yes, but I think we should find a way to clean this creature first. I don’t know how Fluttershy would react if the first thing she sees is this bloody mess. In any case, hop on Spike we have to return to the library if we want to get anything done and this place is getting on my nerves on more than one way.” Then they resumed their way home, being relatively close to the edge of the forest helped to calm their nerves.

The trip was uneventful, with it being so early in the morning not many ponies were out and about on Ponyville’s roads. So the duo didn’t have any awkward encounters along the way.

After entering her home, Twilight let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Spike let out a sigh of relief, got off from Twilight’s back; took her saddlebag and hung them in the rack next to the door before returning to Twilight’s side.

“Well that sure was an experience, so I hope to return to that forest never, thank you very much,” Spike expressed his honest feelings, still shuddering at the thought of what they just witnessed.

“Good idea Spike, as much as I want to go explore some more to see if there’s more members of this species out there, it’s obvious something big and vicious is roaming the forest right now and I don’t want to stumble upon it if I can help it.” Twilight mimicked Spike’s shudder. “But now where should we put it? I don’t exactly want it to stain the books or the cushions,” she looked around for a good place, both of them oblivious of the movement in her magic. “Can I put it in your bed Spike?” she asked innocently with a smile.

“What? No way! Why don’t you use your bed? Is big enough for it to fit comfortably,” Spike replied with a deadpanned look.

“But the blood Spike, the bloooood. It will make a mess in my bed,” Twilight said in a whiny voice.

Then they heard the sound droplets.

“Huh?” both said in unison looking out a window to see if the weather changed, but they knew today there weren’t any scheduled rains so that theory was discarded pretty quickly.

They heard it again, confused by this they turned around and saw a small puddle forming behind them, with droplets falling every few seconds their eyes followed the droplets up to their origin and saw bright red eyes staring back at them with wonder and expectation. They yelped in surprise and a bit of disgust because the creature in Twilight’s magic was drooling all over the floor. But they didn’t sense any malicious intent behind that stare.

“Hmm…” Twilight hesitated for a moment, “Hello?” she waved a hoof in its direction to appear friendly.

The creature tilted its head it looked rather confused, “He… llo?” it tried to mimic Twilight’s words in a female filly like voice and also her waving with a hand.

This already started exciting Twilight, but what she heard next wasn’t something she expected.

The creature’s stomach rumbled loudly and its face turned into one of distress, “can… eat… you?” it rubbed its belly, “hungy.”

“Eh…” their brains did a small pause before what it requested settled in, “EHHHH!?”

This is how the relationship with the strange being started. Let’s hope for the best everypony.