I Can't Be a Hero

by ShadowBlitz

Rating: teen
Tags: Human, Main 6, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Luna, Original Character, Random, Adventure, Princess Celestia
Length: 6448

With enemies on all sides, the arrival of war seemed inevitable, Celestia decided to use the Elements of Harmony to summon a hero. Unfortunately she got me.

Equestria didn't know what to expect. The Griffin nation had grown tired of politics. They wanted land and they wanted it yesterday. The Diamond Dogs were tired of being cut off from the prosperous wealth Equestria had to provide. Even a few ambitious dragons felt they wanted in on the action. With enemies on all sides and the arrival of war becoming inevitable, Princess Celestia decided she needed to use the elements of harmony to summon a hero.
They got me, and boy are they in for it.

Note: This is my first story ever. So I would really appreciate constructive criticism on both story and grammar.

Published 2013-05-12 09:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-05-12 09:30:01 UTC

Prologue

I Can’t Be a Hero
Chapter 1: Prologue

Princess Celestia and the Elements of Harmony were all standing in a large circle in the courtyard outside Celestia’s palace. Luna’s night sky was dimly lit by the soft glow of its own pale moon. The only sound that could be heard was the excited breathing of each pony in anticipation of what was about to unfold.

They were preparing to cast a summoning spell with the Elements of Harmony. A feat never before attempted. "Desperate times call for desperate measures" Celestia had said. And each pony knew the elements themselves would serve little purpose for prophesied war, a war which the Equestrian border had not seen in more than three thousand years, none of the Equestrian Guard had been in any real battles prior to the changeling invasion, and there they had only shown their inability to operate in circumstances even remotely resembling an all-out war, even then it had never been their enemy's intent to kill off their own food source. It had become clear to Celestia that the Guard was essentially a highly militarized police force, trained to subdue and detain a single, or possibly a small group of insurgents; they were never trained to fight life and death battles where the enemy’s numbers would often exceed their own.

“Are you ready, my little Ponies?” Celestia asked the bearers of the Elements.

“We are, Princess,” replied her most faithful student, as five others nodded their heads in determination.

“Then we shall begin,” said the princess as her horn began to shimmer, casting its light to the middle of the group.

Immediately, all the elements began to glow, each contributing its power to the center of the circle, as soon as the seven strengths met they began to flow up into the surrounding sky. The many colors created an artificial aurora that, on this clear night, could be seen for miles as they wafted through the sky around Canterlot. The beautiful glimmering shadows were largely missed by the population that slept beneath, and so, except for a few guards unlucky enough to be on duty at the ungodly hour, the night’s beauty would not to be remembered as it could have been.

But the purpose of the lights was far greater than that, and so once she felt enough power had been massed Celestia focused her magic to a single point, drawing with it the lights of harmony. Slowly the magic began to focus itself and blend into what appeared to be a small white star above the group of tiring ponies. Celestia again focused her magic to perform the final step of the spell, her horn now shining intensely as sweat began to slide down her brow, as she forced the star’s power to search the universe over for a creature who would meet their needs, one who could stand beside her guard and protect her little ponies from one of the few things that she could not.

All the ponies were beginning to feel the effects of the fatigue that so often comes from the use of such powerful magic. They all eagerly awaited the conclusion of the spell, but such things had to finish of their own accord and took time, the spell would take as long as it pleased before it would reach its conclusion. Without warning the star began to sink towards the ground, drifting until its center was level with the solar princess’s head. There it paused waiting a few moments seemingly for the sake of tension, and then almost as if out of spite, the object exploded.

There was a loud ting, as if a giant silver coin had been dropped from the heavens. Expanding air knocked six ponies back as they shut their eyes against the blinding white light, and still, the princess hadn't moved. She needed to know the outcome of her spell and could not be bothered to look away. As the other ponies lifted themselves off the ground and began to look upon the epicenter of the great spell what they saw horrified them. Not because, as they might have expected, they saw a horribly disfigured or evil looking creature. No, the fear they felt rising in the pits of their stomachs came because in front of the Princess there was nothing. Nothing but a single singed spot of grass, to taint the well kept yards. Before the royal pony there was no creature to which they could pin their hopes, they had nothing to show for the months of careful planning, calculation and preparation for the events of a night when all was right in the universe for such a spell. Now they would have no ace in the hole for their upcoming battles.

For the longest time none of them moved. Princess Celestia stood, rooted in her place, the sweat on her body now mixing with the tears that rolled down her face. Her own spell had failed without explanation, and she knew her ponies would suffer because of it. All seven continued to stare at the spot each feeling the weight of the failure pressing into their souls.

They would have stood there waiting until Luna, as her sister had asked, attempted to raise the sun for the first time, so her sister could recover.

They would have stood there waiting…

If the Great Princess Celestia hadn't collapsed.

As the night faded and the sun began to grace the Everfree forest with its warm rays there was a blinding flash of light on the edge of a short waterfall that fed into a wide spring water pool. Out of the light shot a grey Toyota Camry. The unlucky vehicle went right off the edge of the waterfall, at forty miles an hour and landed in the crystal clean water below with a loud splash, settling to the sound of breaking glass, and the protests of a suddenly waterlogged engine. It bubbled and sank into the shallow depths; its now useless frame came to settle on the white sand, the hood of the car stopping just over the surface of the water. Moments later a sneaker came smashing through the front windshield, knocking the broken glass out of place, the offending article retreated back into the vehicle and in the seconds that followed the car’s only passenger crawled out onto the hood.

An adolescent human male sat for a moment in a dazed state of confusion before reaching back inside the car that had already began to fill with water, he pulled a small lever and the trunk of the damaged vehicle popped open. He slipped waist deep into the water and waded to the rear of the automobile. Within five minutes of landing in the water any belongings the creature thought were remotely valuable were dry or drying on top of the car. With a sigh and a few choice words the hairless beast removed the cloth covering the upper half of his body and swam the short thirty or so yards to the nearest shoreline.

Author's Note

My first story ever. So I would really appreciate constructive criticism if you want to point out any grammatical mistakes I would also be grateful for it that.

PS: And for the most part I will be writing the rest of the story in first person.

PPS: Big thanks to alexphoenixwing for being the first to give me any writhing advice.

The Forest

Chapter 2: The Forest

DAY 1

Somehow I had ended up in the middle of a mountainous forest. One minute I’m exiting the highway, then something like a flashbang goes off in front of my car, and the next, thing I know I’m hurtling off the side cliff.

All things considered though I wasn't in bad shape, my car was totaled, but by some miracle of God I had escaped without any injuries beyond a couple of bruises and a massive headache. As far as supplies I was also on the lucky side. Taking inventory I had a backpack full of my regular camping gear (now soaking wet), my iPod and cell phone, a thirteen inch US-Marine ka-bar (combat knife), a 12-Gauge semi-automatic Beretta shotgun, one hundred and seventy-five rounds of target ammunition, five rounds of home defense ammunition, my pocketknife, an old machete and one o so precious bottle of coke. I had had a GPS, but when I kicked the windshield off of my car the damn thing went flying into the water and by the time I realized what I had done it was too late.

If you’re wondering why I just happened to be so prepared to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere, the answer is actually quite simple. I had just been on my way to a friends new deer lease for a weekend packed with manual labor and some friendly skeet shooting. A weekend adventure, that due to my current circumstances, I was pretty sure I would have to put on hold.

I don’t tend to be one who dwells on how a problem arises, and because my appearance in this strange land seemed for now to be an inexplicable phenomenon, I pushed questions of how aside in my mind and moved my thoughts to getting back from wherever it was I had gotten myself stuck. My fist idea was to check my phone and call for help. Naturally, I had no service, so that kind of help was out of the question. My next brilliant idea was to figure out where exactly I had ended up, the only way I knew to do this was to check my surroundings and use my somewhat expansive knowledge of North American plants and terrain to figure out where I was regionally.

The sand of the large pond that held my car was a bright white but the stone of the waterfall that feed the pool, and the surrounding mountains, seemed to be composed of a grey granite. The water in the lake was cold, probably less than 50° Fahrenheit, that’s 10° Celsius for those of you who are not in America. But the point is that this meant that the water probably came from snow or glacier runoff, instead of rainwater or a spring. Which, it being July, indicated that I was nowhere near the east Texas town I had just been driving through. I was also tipped off by the fact that instead of being in the high nineties as it had been minutes before outside my car, the outside air was a cooler room temperature with an easy breeze that that seemed to be coming from nowhere.

The next thing that caught my attention was the flora. What bothered me about it. I recognized nothing. I couldn't recognized any of the plants. A few of the trees looked like they could be oak, most of the others were short, smooth, angular, and were adorned with leaves that resembled maple. The grass seemed to be as normal as it could, but the flowers that appeared among it with startling frequency, were mostly bright solid colors, with pedal and stem configurations I was sure I’d never seen before.

I sat there for probably half an hour trying to figure out where I was, and every time I thought of a possible region, I would notice something that made it seem wrong. The southern half of the US was out of the question because of the temperature. Colorado? No the trees were wrong for that elevation. Actually the trees seemed off for anywhere I could think of. The trees were just wrong. And since I didn't think I was in some part of Canada with stunted deformed maple trees, I could now say with the utmost confidence that I did not have any idea where I was. However this information was entirely unhelpful. So, having thought about my predicament I was returned to square one, only now I was more confused than when I began, and a little pissed off at my own incompetence.

Drawing a blank for everything else I figured I might as well take account of the more specific terrain that surrounded me. Assuming my watch was still correct after my seemingly magical teleportation it was about eight o’clock in the morning, noting that the sun appeared ninety degrees to the left of the short waterfall meant that that was east and the waterfall was south. To the north the pool emptied into a slow moving stream. To the east and west there were mountains with steep inclines and barren rock surfaces. The peak of the one on the east side, the side on which I was currently sitting, didn't look to be more than a thousand meters away. With nothing better to do I put the sheath of my combat knife through my belt and slung my shotgun over my back, while my other things were left to sit and dry. So in the interest of forming a real plan I began my ascent.

****************************

Reaching the top of the mountain was a rather uneventful endeavor. Most of it was pretty steep but almost the whole thing had been covered in cracks and crevices with which I could easily support myself on my hands and my feet. When I when I reached the top and began to survey my new domain I immediately lost my breath to the vast wilderness before me. I had landed in a small enclave a surrounded by mountains which stretched to both the east and west as far as I could see, to the north the dark emerald forest continued to the end of my vision before disappearing into nothingness.

When I finally caught my breath and got a good look at the forest I realized I may not be in as much trouble as I first thought, part of the illusion had come from the thin fog that seemed to sit just on top of the forest if only to obscure my view of the area. The runoff water stream that I was now orienting myself with met with several others that snaked down the mountain and then met with a river that seemed to be traveling along its base. Further along the river branched out and part of it seemed to disappear into a large area filled with slightly larger and lighter trees than the ones that dominated the other areas, this I assumed was some kind of swamp. Squinting as I stared off into the distance I could see what I thought could be a break in the trees and probably the fog but it was impossible to tell for sure. The spot seemed to be a few miles past the base of the mountain. And if I wasn't completely out of my mind (definitely not ruling that out as a possibility at this point) I believed that the angular obstructions in the distance resembled buildings. Buildings meant civilization. Civilization meant people. People meant answers. And answers meant home.

In my head I mapped out the easiest route I could, I could take the longest part along the base of the mountain, then travel through the forest following the river to the “town”. I could feel my heartbeat starting to slow, it eased my mind a little knowing that now I had a plan, it would take days to execute but with a lotta luck it would help me get this whole mess figured out.

****************************

As the day began to draw to a close I sat in front of a small fire and gnawed at a hard apple I had found. I had made good progress in my travels throughout the day but by now I was frigging hungry. I’d eaten a large number of blueberries when I found a decent patch of blueberry bushes and I had filled the remaining space of my backpack with half ripe apples when I had found a surprisingly large apple tree. The apples were hard and sour but I’d definitely had worse and at least they gave me some sustenance, which I hoped would hold me over until morning.

I wanted to get to the town soon. If I didn't I would have to start hunting, all my ammo was heavy but something told me I should conserve. On top of that the only ammo I had a lot of was target shot and I was not looking forward to having to pick out all the tiny beads from my food.

Crack. The sound of a breaking twig interrupted my thoughts.

I lifted my eyes from the fire and stared straight ahead into the darkness. Ahead of me two red orbs reflected back the light of my fire. Immediately my heart began beating fast, I stared ahead for a few moments and waited for them to move. They didn't even blink. My eyes darted to the fire and then my side, the gun was unloaded but my machete was easily within reach. My eyes fell back to my uninvited guest. Still it hadn't moved. Slowly I began to reach my hand towards the fire, not allowing myself to break eye contact again. When I reached the end of a larger log sticking out of the fire, I let my hand slowly close around it. Once it did I paused, probably for a few seconds but it had seemed like and eternity. Suddenly I shifted my weight forward and flung the burning log so it would sail over the creatures head. Instead, the projectile struck a low branch and in a flash of light and sparks the entire area was illuminated.

In that instant I saw that creature, it was about four feet tall with a body seemingly made of hollow black bone, covered in rotting flesh and black muck. In front of the eyes there was a short blunt snout with jagged broken teeth that that reflected the same red hue as its demonic eyes, I could see all the teeth and every aspect of its mouth because it was left completely exposed by the vile creatures lack of lips. On top of its head rested a few stray strands of hair that seemed to spring from around a large area of exposed skull. And then, before my fear could take hold, it was gone. Before the light of the falling sparks died away the creature had disappeared.

I sat there for a moment with the image of the creature burning in my mind. Suddenly I was struck with the impossibility of what had just happened, but the knowledge that such a creatures existence was impossible did little to calm my nerves. I looked down at my apple before tossing it into the fire. Clearly something about this strange forest was getting to me. Even though my heart was still beating a mile a minute, I decided it was time to call it a night as I lay down on the ground and pulled my sleeping bag over my frame. Then I stopped, reached over to my pile of clothes and took my knife from out of my belt loop and slid both knife and sheath into my sleeping bag, then closed my eyes and listened to the fire as I waited for sleep to overtake me.

****************************

DAY 2

After walking for most of the day I reached the far end of the mountain. I only had a few hours left of daylight and after the previous night, quite frankly, did not want to re-enter the forest again after dark, so I decided I should call it a day and sleep out on the mountain. I had spotted a cave on the rock face about twenty five meters away from the lowest mountain path. The path, essentially the edge of the mountain, dropped off directly into the forest below on the other side, a straight fall of about ten meters. I let my eyes continue to follow the path to the down the northeast side of the mountain which appeared to carve its way down the side of the rocky slope for a mile or so before finally meeting and disappearing into the woods. I had had some wood with me since about midday, when I had spotted the path that ran along the side of the mountain, and had decided the day’s journey would be easier without hindrance of trees and underbrush.

Now I was laying on the cave floor, the ceiling was about five feet high and the cave was about nine feet deep. More than enough room for me and all my stuff, provided I didn't try to stand. Most of my things were scattered in the corner and I was content to wait until dark before lighting myself a small fire and eating what was left of my now meager ration of apples. I lay there for God knows how long, simply breathing the fresh air intentionally avoiding thoughts of my position and marveling in the emptiness of my mind. Most likely I would have just fallen asleep inside the mouth of the cave but in the absence of my own thoughts I became dimly aware of the sound of voices drawing nearer to my current position. I couldn't tell what they were saying, but the voices got progressively louder as the group approached. One voice was shouting and another was quietly whimpering as its owner was berated by its partner. Their conversation reached its climax just as I began to understand what it was they were saying.

“Dammit kid, I said shut up!” a loud angry voice screeched.

“Bu.. Bu… but..” the stuttering voice was cut off.

“Leave the kid alone.” A slightly more masculine voice replied.

“You stay out of this you lowly bastard!” Immediately the voice was followed by two loud cracks. Which were followed by a grunt and the muffled scream of a child, respectively.

That had been all I needed to set me in motion. I scrambled out of the cave as fast as my legs would carry me and began running towards the first thing I saw breaking the line of the horizon. As I approached I noticed a few things about the small party I was now descending upon. First the group was much larger than I first thought, what I’d thought would be three or four was actually more like seven or eight, and at least half of them were children. I also noticed that their proportions were very, very wrong, a fact I became more painfully aware of as I reached the group and the sun no longer blurred my vision. Whatever they were they were not human.

I skidded to a stop in front of the group and took a minute to gawk at what I saw. There were three griffons whose coats were various shades of grey and brown, between them there was a group of five ponies each with ropes around their hooves to restrict their movement, four were just kids and one was a full grown stallion. The adults of the group were all around four feet tall and the children ranged from one to two. Most importantly the entire group was now staring at me, all looking as confused as I probably did.

“What do you want?” a gruff sounding voice called after an awkward silence, its griffon owner walked around from behind the stallion and a small colt who was crying on the ground.

As soon as I snapped out of my stupor I immediately noticed that he had a bullwhip wrapped in his claws, I also took note that the griffon that was leading the group was carrying a long spear, the third and smallest griffon to his left had a long dagger in a sheath at his side. This brought to my attention the fact that I had left my shotgun in a heap with my other things. The only armament I had was my old machete, and the only reason I still had it was because I was to lazy to remove it from my belt when I had laid down.

I didn't really think but the words flowed all the same. “I’m a traveler passing through. I wanted to know what all the commotion was.” More or less I guess I didn't want to lie and there was no point to overreacting if my initial assumptions were wrong.

“That’s none of your business. Now get lost before you get hurt.”

“Clearly they are either prisoners or slaves, because if it’s the latter I would likely be willing to trade.” I had no idea where I was going with this but I still needed to know what was going on.

“Well in that case, we're slavers. But I don’t see that you have anything to trade.” His voice had dropped a few decibels, like I had flicked a switch in his tiny little brain. Suddenly he thought there was a potential for profit.

“All of my goods are up over that ledge. I have some good cloth, useful novelty items, and a weapon or two. But before I do any trading I need to know how and where you came by these captives. I consider it a matter of principal to know what I’m buying.”

“Ponyville, on the other side of the forest. We raided a schoolhouse on the outside of town and captured these kids. We would have had the nice piece of flesh that was the teacher, if this goody-two-shoes soldier and his friend hadn’t showed up.”

Now I had more than enough information to act. “Well I’m afraid that’s not a very fair way to come by your merchandise.” I reached my hand over and placed it on the handle of my blade and continued. “So you and your friends are going to have to let them free or this ain't gonna be pretty.” As I finished I began sliding my old blade out of my belt loop. I had my heart began to speed up and before I fully realized what I was doing my mind began run over dozens of possibilities for attack, defense and escape. Just like dad taught me, the switch had been flicked.

Now the three griffons looked as confused as when I had found them. All four of the kids looked up at me hopefully and the stallion simply kept his steely gaze on me, waiting to see how this turned out I supposed.

After about two seconds the first griffon snapped out of his stupor and lashed out at me with his whip. The supersonic tip would have struck me in the face if my left arm hadn't decided to act on its own and intercept the leather coil, It wrapped around my arm digging into the flesh but I immediately yanked back as hard as I could. Much to my surprise the owner did not lose his grip on the handle, instead he was pulled off his feet and his body was pulled towards me. Rather than dodge his body, a quick flick of my wrist let his own weight slice his throat on the end of my machete. At the same time I realized that the second griffon, the largest one armed with his spear was charging me. In hindsight he probably had the best chance of killing me, but because I saw him at the last second I was able to use my own weapon to parry his spear and close the distance between us in an instant. I placed my hand on his head and pushed it to the ground. Almost before he slammed onto the rocks, I had brought my machete back around and down onto the back of his neck. Finding the resulting snaps that emanated from his neck and skull to be far more satisfying than they should have been. I paused taking a fraction of a second to revel in the kill. His warm blood ran over my hands and the fresh scent of the kill reached my nostrils.

With renewed vigor I turned my attention to the last of the three griffons. He was clearly smaller and younger than the first two, and I guessed had never seen combat because even now, he had not yet drawn his blade. I rose slowly from my crouched position and began to approach the terrified rookie. As I did so a wide grin spread across my face. He was shaking uncontrollably. He had seen me kill his two companions in just a few seconds, and my hands were now covered in their blood. I was also fairly sure I had felt the stuff splatter across my chest and face.

I reached the young creature and stared down at him for a moment. Words escaped him. So I reacted for him. I dropped my machete and reached down to take his weapon from its sheath, at the same time reaching under his forelegs and flipping him over on his back. I brought my face close to his, my smile growing ever larger as he found his voice.

“W-what are you?” Was all he managed to get out.

“What am I?” I asked as condescendingly as I could. “I am but an apprentice of death. I come as an omen of what is to befall you, should your path lead you astray. To simply put it, I am human.” I finished my little psychological attack and followed up with a simple question. “Can you fly?”

“Fly?”

“Yes fly. With those pretty little wings of yours.”

“Y-yes.”

“Good then go tell any others what you have seen here today. Oh, and even though it was fast, make sure they know your friends tried their best.” With that I grabbed onto the tuft of hair on the front of his chest and heaved him off the side of the cliff, after a few seconds he had recovered and was flying away in the opposite direction as fast as he could. I took note of the way he flew, like a bird of prey, I would have expected as much from a creature so large.

With them gone my attention was brought to the former captives. The children seemed to be looking at me with a mix of fear and reverence, the light blue stallion had a look on his face that told me he thought he had just come out of a frying pan and into one helluva fire. For a moment I contemplated just leaving them, then I realized they would have nowhere to go, if their town was anywhere near as far away as I thought it was they had at least a twelve hour walk. Which looking at them I decided would be far beyond anything they wanted to do. So I approached them slowly so I could cut their ropes.

“I don’t really know where you've come from but you’re safe for now.” I said as I cut the ropes on the nearest filly.

“…” I was meet with silence as I cut the ropes off the next two.

“There is a cave just over that ledge we can spend the night in, then tomorrow I’ll take you back to your town.” When I got to the last colt, the one who had been crying when I arrived, I realized how terrifying I probably looked, so I added “None of those things I said true I just said them to scare those griffons.” By now I was starting to wonder if these ponies were even sentient and if I had just killed two talking griffons over some cattle.

When I got to the stallion his gaze had change he seemed less imposing than he had before like he had finally realized I didn't intend to eat them. “Thank you.” he said as I cut the last of his ropes.

****************************

We were now all inside of the cave. Outside it had begun to storm. The foals were all curled up on my open sleeping bag, munching happily on the little apple pieces I had given them. Blissfully unaware of the fact that they had just cleaned me out, except for a few pieces of jerky I had found in the saddlebags of the two nameless griffins. Jerky would be fine for me but I didn't think my new companions would be very fond of a protein based diet. Other than that there was nothing of note in the cave except for the grey walls and the very small fire I had started to keep myself and the creatures warm.

Prior to coming in to discover how my new friends had settled down, I ha left the cave and raided the bodies of the two griffons I had killed which left me with some alcohol and bandages, that is of course after I hid the jerky and gave my new stallion friend the spear. I had cut open the bodies of the griffons. For scientific purposes I told myself. After all how many people get to learn about the biology of mythical creatures. I had discover that their bones were hollow like those of birds and were relatively weak but still quite flexible. Most of the organs I recognized, except for two located right next to each of the kidneys, they looked like two disks that swirled out from the center with hundreds of tiny tubes that branched off into the rest of the body, almost like a secondary circulatory system, but the tubes and organs contained nothing but regular blood. When I finished confusing myself with the bodies of the strange animals I rolled the bodies off the path into the forest below and allowed the then torrential rain to wash my hands of the blood.

I sat with my head pressed back against the wall contemplating my peculiar position and allowing myself to dry, when I realized someone was speaking to me.

“I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn't come along.”

I opened my eyes to see my largest companion facing me with his hoof outstretched.

“The names Steel Blue. I’m a member of the Royal Guard. I was seeing my parents in Ponyville on leave when those griffons showed up.”

I reached out and took his hoof in my hand giving it a firm shake. “So they attacked a town with just the three of them?”

He diverted his gaze and brought his hoof around to scratch the back of his neck. “Well actually there were four of them. A friend of mine killed the fourth one when we got to the schoolhouse.” When he finished he brought his eyes back to me.

“So, they killed your friend?”

“No, they knocked him out, but he was too big to carry so they left him behind.”

“That was stupid.”

“Excuse me?”

“The smartest thing for them to do would have been to kill him. Especially if he had already killed one of theirs.” My new pony friend looked skeptical. So after an awkward pause I decided to change the subject. “So you’re military?”

He took the bait. “We're more of a police force really. Equestria has never really had a need for a military.” he paused “Until now.”

“The griffins?” No harm in asking.

“Actually several discontent armies are gathering outside of Equestria. Nopony is sure why, but we know they're not here to play nice.”

“Where did this group come from?”

“They came from an camp of rogues southeast of here. One of the largest that’s actually pushed into Equestria. I never would have thought they were bold enough to make the trip all the way to Ponyville though, it’s at least three days walk.” His tone had taken one a new solemnity.

“Think they’ll be back?” I really didn't like the way he sounded.

“I know they will. The one in charge of bringing us back had a big mouth. All forty of the troop are planning to take the town themselves, they think that we won’t put up any kind of fight.” He stopped and took a deep breath “And if this last raid was any indication their right. When we get back to town I don’t think there’ll be any time for the guard to get there. That and Celestia has taken the bearers of harmony to Canterlot for some spell or something.” Another pause “And…”

“Let me guess, after I've pulled your ass out of the frying pan, you want me to put my head right back on the chopping block.” I spoke with poison as I felt anger rising up from a source I hadn't known existed.

“…” Blue Steel just stood there staring at the ground.

I realized then that the kids had stopped eating and were all looking at us. Our conversation had not gone unnoticed. Goddammit, those eyes. “Look, Blue Steel.” I said, as I held the bridge of my nose. “To be honest I have had a rough couple of days, I haven’t slept much since I got here and I’m more confused than anything. How about I take you back tomorrow and then we can decide what to do from there.” In reality I intended to drop them off and if they didn't have any way of sending me home, which they probably didn't, I would just keep moving in a straight line until I found something useful. I admit, it wasn't the most logical train of thought but I was tired and still hyped up on adrenaline so I was not really willing to change my plans for anything. Hell the only reason I was sure I was taking them back was because that was where I was headed anyway, that and there was a good chance they would at least feed me for bringing back their children.

That seemed to be enough, Blue Steel looked at me and forced a smile. “Thanks… By the way I don’t remember your name.”

“I never gave it.” Can’t believe that he still wants to talk.

“Well what do I call you.” He asked with genuine curiosity.

“I don’t know, first tell me where I am.” He didn't seem to see how his words had prompted my question. “One basic question for another.” I said.

“Um, we're in Equestria, more specifically the Everfree forest.”

“Then call me ‘Everfree’”. I had only just begun to realize that I may be beginning a new life. But somehow I saw the opportunity to leave an older one behind. And I took it.