Tales of Zephyr Nimbus: Arrival

Part III: Emergence

Somewhere in the Everfree Forest, around 8 a.m., Day One

The crater caused by the meteor was only 15 meters across and 4 meters deep, but there still was a huge, 5 meter rock in the center with 1 meter buried in the ground. The ash around the crater that used to be foliage started blowing around as a hissing noise emanated from the rock. A pack of timberwolves gathered at the rim. Seams appeared around one face of the meteor, steam pouring out when suddenly the bordered side forcibly flew off and landed on the rim of the crater, frightening off the timberwolves. Out of the pod stepped a medium-sized pegasus mare, with a dark gray coat and black mane with a yellow stripe down the center. Her eyes were bright yellow, like the stripe in her mane, and her Cutie Mark was a thundercloud, with three clouds and two lightning bolts. Her head hurt from the impact, and she could not remember anything except for one thought, which rang through her mind like a bell in an empty hallway:

Zephyr Nimbus

She figured, by the arrangement of the words and the echo they left in her, that it was her name. She was about to go explore her surroundings to find out where she was when she heard voices. Based on their increasing volume, Zephyr deduced that they were headed towards her. Panicking, she looked for a place to hide, finding the solution in a large tree’s roots.

Just as she scrambled in, the foliage on the far side of the crater broke to reveal six ponies, two of each subspecies. There was a lavender-coat unicorn, whose Mark was a six-point star surrounded by more: Zephyr guessed that it was for some sort of magic; a cyan pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and Cutie Mark; a light-pink Earth pony with a poofy bright-pink mane; a white unicorn with a Cutie Mark of Diamonds; a light-yellow pegasus  who preferred to walk rather than fly; and an orange Earth pony with a trio of apples for a Mark. All of them were female, and most of them were chatting. The pink one was saying something about a “Meteor Crash Party” and oatmeal. Zephyr couldn’t understand a word of what the pink one was saying, so she focused on the magic-lavender one.

“Odd. The leading face of the meteor has been forcibly removed, only leaving an empty cavity slightly larger than a pony my size in the rock,” she said.

“This whole thing seems fishy,” the cyan one commented.

After hearing that, the pink one started going off on a tangent about fish. Zephyr facehoofed. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The instant she looked up, the pink one was right in her face.

The pink one barraged her with the longest run-on sentence Zephyr had ever heard, “HithereWhatsyournameIhaventeverseenyouaroundbeforeHeydidyoucomeoutofthatrockHowdidyougetinthere?”

And then the cyan one flew up on the other side of Zephyr.

“And why were you hiding in the trees? What do you have to hide? Are you a SPY?!?”

“Wha...?” Zephyr responded, her brain not making any sense of the scene. Suddenly, the intruders were surrounded by a violet mist, and pulled out of the way.

“Sorry for my friends’ behavior. They can be quite a handful sometimes,” the lavender one apologized as she approached Zephyr.

“No kidding...” Zephyr replied

“So shall we start over?” She cleared her throat. “My name is Twilight Sparkle.  These are Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash,” she said, raising the ones in her magical grip. “The ponies back there are Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy.” They each waved their hoof as their name was called. “What’s your name?”

“I think it’s Zephyr Nimbus”

“What do you mean you think?”

“Well, during the crash, as it seems happened, I think I hit my head. I can’t remember anything from before, except the words ‘Zephyr Nimbus’.”

“I see. Well, do you want to go?” Twilight asked. “This forest is quite dangerous, and I don’t want to push our luck. There’s a town near here that my friends and I live in. We could go there”

“Sure. Better than being here, I guess.” Zephyr said.