And I thought we were normal. How wrong I was.

   I open my eyes lazily to see a magenta mare leaning over me and tentatively knocking her fist against my forehead.

"Good morning." Berry yawns quietly to me before standing up groggily.

"Good morning." I moan in response before checking the time, 5:17, and looking at her downtrodden face.

   Her eyelids droop down over her eyes and her hair lies in a disarray of sorts. My eyes travel downwards and she looks to be wearing a simple white tank-top and a pair of gray sweatpants. I guess she just got up too.

"I'm going to go and get ready to leave. You need to be ready in the next fifteen minutes so we can leave." The older mare tells me before walking out of the room.

I guess there isn't much time to mess around then. I think as I get out of bed.

   I decide that I'll still bring all of my items with me and I grab a set of clothes and walk into the bathroom. I just hope today goes well.

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   I walk out of my room and pleasantly enter the main room only to see that Berry is either not done getting ready or she is already outside waiting. Considering that I took about 17 minutes getting ready, I assume the latter and move to climb up the ladder.

   I exit the small blue box and close the doors behind me before I notice something I should've noticed before, there's no lock on this door. I guess I'll have to figure something out. I might just get a padlock and put it on. I decide as I turn around to face the forest.

"You're late." Berry scolds me as I face her.

   Not too much seems to have changed in her attire besides that she replaced her old pants with a simple pair if blue jeans and she is now wearing a pair of glasses with an oval shaped thin black frame for each lens. Her hair looks to be back in its usual semi-straight style.

"Yeah I know. You wear glasses?" I ask in an attempt to change the subject.

"Not usually, but I don't think my contacts are the best choice for this, considering we will be out there for a couple of days." She answers as I close some of the gap between us.

"I guess you have a point. I guess we need to be going then?" I ask her as I pass by.

"Yeah; I guess we do need to get a move on. It'll look bad in both our parts if we're late." The older mare says before taking the lead ahead of me.

   The early morning seems to have an oddly mystical feel to it. The faint blue light comes through the canopy and gives off only enough light for the area to be seen. A few birds chirp occasionally but for the most part the utter silence comforts me as I watch the motionless leaves and branches. An occasional squirrel runs up a tree from time to time and the small shakes as it climbs from tree to tree, but more than anything the stasis of the forest comforts my mind and allows me to crack a small grin. Utterly peaceful; if only it lasted a little longer.

   I pull my book out of my pocket and flip to one of the spells I skipped over learning yesterday and I begin to read the details of it. I may not get to test them but at least I'll know how to use them.

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   As we turn the corner around the back of the Apple family house I see Applejack and her siblings all doing various things to prepare. Applejack is collecting items off of the ground and putting them into various backpacks. Big Mac is bringing out various other supplies such as canteens and the like. Applebloom is simply playing around with the backpack she is carrying while running around in a small circle. Cute.

"Good morning." Berry greets them for me as we approach the group.

"Mornin'; sleep well?" The orange mare responds while loading the last of their supplies.

"Well enough. Have you heard from Dash or Thunderback at all?" I answer after noticing the absence of the two ponies.

"Thunderback is locking up the barn and Dash should be here in a few minutes." Macintosh informs me before throwing a duffle bag at me which I promptly catch. It's heavy, but it shouldn't be too troublesome. "Those are some supplies for you."

"Thanks." I say as he tosses Berry her own bag and I put the strap around one side of my neck and let the bag hang loosely under the opposite arm.

"Any chance you could carry mine for me Sonata?" Berry asks in a whining manner. I may be indebted to her, but there's no way I can expect her to remove any of the debt so...

"No." I say flatly, but she proceeds to wrap her bag around my neck in the same fashion as the other except for the sides being inverted.

"Thank you dear." She remarks sarcastically and with a happy grin. Really?

"You would've been carrying two bags anyways Sonata. Here's another bag Berry." The red stallion says before throwing her a medium sized backpack. I still think I'm getting the raw end of the deal, but at least I feel a little better.

"Damnit." The magenta mare moans as she puts on her pack.

"Alright the barn is locked up and I left the keys with Granny." I hear the familiar once of Thunderback come from behind me and I turn to meet him.

   The dark grey pegasus, in compliance with what I thought he would be wearing, is simply wearing a black hoodie with a pair of somewhat tattered blue jeans, but in the dim light it seems to be a natural tattering rather than it looking as though he bought them with that style. I hope they don't sell clothes like that here; it's something I could never understand back on earth,

"Thank you." Applejack says as she finishes putting supplies into their bags.

"Hey Sonata; how've you been? Is Berry treating you nicely?" The pegasus says with a wink.

"More or less; how've you been?"

"Same old, same old." He says as we walks over to the pile of bags and Applejack hands him a set consisting of a backpack and a duffle bag. "Thank you."

"Yer' welcome." The orange pony says before going putting on her own set of bags.

"Now that I think about it; what about your grandmother? Will she be fine her by herself?" I ask with thoughts of my own grandmother. Now she was probably the one person in my family who I knew that really did care about me genuinely. I am going to miss her. I think with a little tear in my right eye.

"She'll be fine. Our cousin, Braeburn, is coming up from appoloosa tomorrow anyways. He said he'll take care of her while we're away." The mare answers back to me as a faint shadow crosses overhead. Good morning Dash.

"Hello everypony." Rainbow Dash says after doing an admirably stylish landing besides me.

"You're late." Applejack, my mentor and I all say in near unison.

"Was that rehearsed?" The blue pegasus says while putting her left hand behind her head and dragging it through her mane.

"No; it was natural instinct." I answer her before handing her one of the duffle bags from around my neck. "Here you go."

"How was that natural instinct?" She responds while taking the bag from my hand and putting it over her neck like I did mine.

"You were late so we called you out on it. What happened anyways; did you sleep-in again?" Applejack answers her for me.

"What of it? I'm here now so we can go. Isn't that all that matters?"

"If you had been here on time we could've already left." I say as I turn to face her.

   The athletic pegasus is wearing a simple blue hoodie and a pair of black running pants which I guess she just wore for comfort. Turning back to face Applejack, I notice that she is wearing a simple green t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans and her sister is wearing something of a similar manner except that her shirt is more of a tan colour. Her older brother is wearing a deep red t-shirt with a pair of jeans as well and after noticing all of this something dawns on me. I'm the only one who is in no way dressed for this event. Damnit; note to self: make sure to but casual wear.

"Fair enough." The blue pegasus mutters as Mac throws me and her a backpack each which we proceed to put on at our own individual paces.

"Well if everypony is ready, and you seem to be; let's go on then." Applejack says before turning to walk off towards a path I can see amidst the apple trees.

   We separate into semi-natural groups as we begin to walk down the somewhat narrow path. Big Mac takes the lead by himself and Thunderback takes the position after with Applejack and they take up a light conversation which from what I can tell Thunderback seems to be more interested in than Applejack is. Berry and Rainbow Dash walk along behind them and the older mare is seems to be giving her bits of information which I can't really make out very well. This order however leaves me to walk along with and entertain Applebloom. I know I said she was one if the only kids I ever actually liked, but that sentiment only goes so far.

"So... How are you?" I ask the small pony awkwardly.

"Ah'm doing ok I guess. What about you?" The little pony answers with a slightly less significant southern draw than her sister's or brother's.

"Fine; I'm still getting used to it around here, but it's not too bad." I say and she merely nods in response.

"Oh; mah sister said you were new around. When did you come to town?" Applebloom responds in a more interested manner.

"About a week or so ago."

"How're you related with Ms. Berry anyways?"

"She's my aunt and teacher. Why do you ask?" I ask her as she seems to be well interested in the topic.

"Mah sister told me you were livin' with her and not to pick up on her habits too much. So; ah was wonderin' what you thought of her." She explains as best she can and I nod back to her.

"Well it's true that I'm living with her. As for her habits though; I'm not sure. She's definitely got a few that you shouldn't pick up, but as a pony she actually seems to be nice enough." I say with disregard to her profession.  That is definitely a habit she doesn't need to pick up.

"Oh; ah guess that makes sense. So what about you?" She asks as I duck under a low hanging branch.

"What about me?" I answer her back while raising an eyebrow.

"What do you do? Like with your cutie mark?"

"Me? Well I guess whatever comes up, really. My cutie mark isn't of much use in today's world." I elaborate to a minor extent.

"What is your cutie mark?"

"It's not important. I was just given an inconvenient one; it's not very useful to me." I tell her as a lie.  Something tells me it will be awfully convenient in times to come.

"Oh; I hope I don't get one like that then." The small filly says in a sorrowful manner.

"Oh don't worry about it. Mine is quite uncommon; you'll probably get a nice one. Have any of your other friends gotten their's yet?" I ask and her look turns a little downtrodden.

"Everypony in my class has their's besides Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle." She answers me back.

"Oh; does that make it hard on you three at school then?" I ask before thinking of the potential backlash. Damnit; I didn't think again.

"Yeah; they call us 'blank-flanks' and make fun of us all the time. It's just horrible." The small one says with great hate and sadness. I guess it's time to play damage control again.

"Well look at it like this; whenever you get your mark it might be great and all but think about it. Doesn't it kind of lock you into one thing? If you don't have one there's still the wonderment of the mystery. You don't know what you may become but that doesn't matter. You've got to be in it for the race itself rather than the finish line if you really want to enjoy it. The race is always changing and becoming new, but the trophy at the end doesn't change into anything new. It's just a trophy. Not to say the trophy isn't great, but the trophy is only half of the greatness. If you rush the race you're just likely to not enjoy it. So yeah; they can make fun of you for not having your mark, but you just remember that you're still running the race and that the race is what makes half of the experience." I say to try and stabilize her but she just looks back in a confused manner. I probably went a little bit out of kilter on that one though. That's what I get for being the only person amongst my old group who actually tried to help others out. Seriously though; Uefi was a little bit of a loon before I talked to him. Then again; I'm not sure I helped him. I think he just learned to suppress his emotions like me a bit, although I am much better at it than he was.

"Umm...what?" The little earth pony questions me in a bewildered manner.

"Sorry about that; I forgot your age. Basically, even though you don't have your mark, you still get to have fun looking for it." I elaborate for her. "And if anypony keeps giving you trouble just tell me. I think I could convince them otherwise." I finish with a chuckle. Implying that convince equates to scaring them a little to make them know how it feels. You know; eye for an eye and the like. Besides, it's not like a couple of eerily moving objects would hurt too much. It's not like I'm going to stalk anypony and scare them all individually. It'll be a like a little ghost story in a sense.

"Oh; well I guess that makes me feel a little better." She responds after a light pause, but she does seem to be in better spirits. Once again I somehow avoid a bad situation by spewing out the first seemingly prophetic idea to come to mind. Maybe I should begin to take not of these things...

"Well good; just remember I come to me if they get on you too bad rather than trying something yourself, alright?" I ask to reassure myself of the situation. It's probably a good idea to make sure she didn't distort it too much in her head.

"Alright then." She answers in a more natural, upbeat, tone.

   We walk along for most of the rest of the way uneventfully before we enter the forest and Applebloom becomes a bit frightened.

"Have you ever been in here before?" I ask her with truthfully only somewhat genuine worry.

"Yeah, but Ah'm still not very used to it."

"What's there to be afraid of?" I ask her. I can't think of anything more scary than just weird, besides that pack of wooden wolves that is, but I believe that was a special situation.

"Do you not know anything about the Everfree?" She answers me back in an almost offended tone.

"Not much besides that it is supposed to be scary."

"Well yeah. It's got manticore and timberwolves and cockatrices and a bunch of other scary stuff." He answers back to me a bit of a loud manner. I'm just gonna be honest.

"What's a timberwolf, manticore or cockatrice?"

"You really don't know much about the area do you?"

"Not a lick." I respond in a little bit of a hurt tone. I just got here a week ago. It's not as if you can expect me to know all of the town's characteristics.

"Well timberwolves are these wolves made of wood that can hide inside of trees and other wooden things. Manticores are weird faced lion things with a scorpion tail that poisons your nerves so you can't move. Cockatrices are the worst though; they're half chicken half dragon-like things and if they look into your eyes they can turn you into stone." She explains with an exaggerated sense of fear. While I can't doubt her knowledge too much considering that she is right on two accounts of appearance at least and on one account of abilities; I don't know if they're really that scary.

"Oh; I guess there's more to know than I thought. Although I'm pretty sure I could avoid a cockatrice and that I could outrun the other two." I say to put on an air of confidence over an air of fear.

"Yeah right." The little pony says as the group stops ahead of us.

"Ok we're here." Mac calls from the front and the rest of us move around into a circle.

"Ok. This where we break off into our groups. Due to the fact that I didn't much think about the group division on the way over we'll just go by gender. Applejack, RainbowDash, Applebloom and I will form team A and the rest of you will form team B." Berry directs us.

"Doesn't that give you the upper hand though since you have four teammates at her than our three?" Thunderback complains simply.

"Scared of what a few mares can do?" Applejack taunts him with a small jab at his side.

"Not at all; forget that I mentioned anything." He reforms himself and we join into our separate groups.

"There's a stream not to far ahead. We'll have our camp on one side of the stream and yours can be on the other side. We cannot however have our camps directly on the stream. A 75 meter minimal distance has been established around it and within that area you cannot form a camp. Although camps may be divided by the stream, any member can cross the stream at anytime to gather resources and any flags they see. Sabotage of any sort is prohibited, however if somepony from the other team is trying to get a flag and you take it before he or she gets to it, that is acceptable." Berry explains as we begin to walk ahead and I hear the faint sound of moving water.

"Isn't that last part a little unfair?" Applejack asks her elder.

"Hey; if you snooze, you lose. Of the game was entirely fair it wouldn't be any fun." The magenta mare responds to her question as we stop near a shallow stream.

"We'll take this side." Applejack and Dash say at nearly the same time and they both run across the stream to two separate red flags hanging branches on one side.

"We're already losing." Thunderback says in an irritated manner. "I blame you, Sonata."

"How is it my fault?" I ask him in an offended manner.

"You're the new guy; who else would I blame?" He says as the mares gather on the other side of the stream.

"Shut up you two. From here on we are two separate groups and we will only co-operate in situations of emergency. This is not to say that we will not talk or anything; it's just that we don't have to help each other outside of the specified situations." Berry says as I lazily watch the water move in the stream.

   The stream itself at this point is only about 15 centimeters deep and it runs slowly with a fairly clean quality of water. Small bits of algae are stuck to the rocket bottom and an occasional minnow comes by briskly.

"Well goodbye then; see you whenever." Mac answers her and we walk off into our own section of the forest. After that, I hear another cry of victory come from behind me. I guess they found another flag. My luck is terrible today.

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   After we find a suitable collection of trees about 15 minutes later which is about the prerequisite of distance from the stream.

"We'll make our beds up in the trees." Mac says while looking up at the dense canopy of low hanging branches.

"Why don't we just make it on the ground? It'd be better sleeping than in the trees." I argue with him.

"We would, but knowing my luck, we'd wake with a cockatrice staring you in the face. Then we'd have to go all of the way back to town while carrying your stone body so a unicorn could treat you. Although they're part dragon, they can't very well climb or fly so if we stay up there we'll be fine. Manticore's also prefer to hunt on outside of the stream sense it's close to their den. If we're up in the trees I think we stand less of a chance on being attacked in our sleep. Being that manticore's don't tend to look up in the trees for prey, this should give us better protection." Thunderback says while throwing his luggage up into the dense canopy,

"We also didn't get any tents in our bags. Ah let Applejack take our three tents for them to sleep in." Big Mac says between branches as he climbs up a tree into the branches. I guess they do have a point. After all, what do I know about this place? Of course that doesn't mean I'm going to climb that tree.

"Fair enough." I mutter as I shape a ladder out of magical boxes and climb up it.

"Cheater." Thunderback scolds me as he flies up to where Mac and I are.

"You're one to talk." I respond while pointing at his wings.

"Quit it you two. We've got work to do. Sonata; I want you to go get us some water from the stream. Thunderback go get us some berries or something so we can have some food. I'm going to get started on making this place more comfortable and safe." Mac directs us as he tosses a few canteens over to me.

"Taking the easy job Mac?" Thunderback mocks him as I unload my bags and Mac hands him a blade which seems to be something like a miniature machete.

"So he gets a weapon and I don't; remember this when I get mauled by a manticore." I say sarcastically and they laugh a little. They may be a little off, but at least they're enjoyable.

"We only have one and he'll make more use of it than you could. Now go get the water and make sure to look out for any flags while you're at it." He says and I begin to climb back down my ladder.

"You don't have to tell me twice."

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   I walk out of the trees and I see the stream ahead of me. From what I can tell no pony is around besides me so I walk up to the water's edge and I unscrew the cap off of one of the round canteens. I hold the canteen down under the water and I let it fill for a few moments before removing it from the water.

"They've got you doing this too, huh?" I hear Dash's voice say and I look up from my work to see the mare standing over me with a few canteens in her hands.

"Yeah; a little boring, but I guess somepony has to do it." I say after filling my second canteen on closing the cap on it,

"I guess." The athletic mare responds with a nod before kneeling down and filling her own canteens.

   We finish filling our canteens before standing back up and I stretch to the sky lazily,

"Well I guess I need to get back then." I say, but something feels odd in this moment. I can't quite figure it out, but something is off.

"Yeah, I just hope they have camp set up by the time I get back." The mare says, but to be honest I only pay a light amount of attention. What is it?

"Be quiet for a moment. Doesn't something seem off to you?" I ask her as I scan the surroundings.

"No; why?" She responds and then I figure it out.

"Because the animals stopped moving and I don't hear any birds." I realize as a roar rips through the tranquil air. Fuck.