There was a time, long ago, when Equis was still wild. Ponies huddled together for warmth and security in the dark, keeping a wary eye on the shadows of things they knew were there, but couldn't see. The thought of a building was a fleeting idea in the mind of a pony still years unborn, and the thought of nations was further off still.
In the place of civilizations and shops, politics and currency, there were vast expanses of land, uncharted and untamed. Trees grew tall, and their children reveled in verdant homes. Countless creatures lived in those forests. Forgotten species and lost truths were left in the forests of the Old Times.
Life is a cycle, and all things must end. So when ponykind made their first advances towards civilization, the time of unbridled nature gave way to invention, cities, and the like. When the first stallion reflected on distance and spatial relations, the blank parchment map of the world began to be filled in. Granted, the stallion was just wondering how to get to the other side of a canyon quickly, but all things must start somewhere.
And start it did. The flame of civilization had been lit, and it consumed the wild world, burning away leaf and wood, leaving in the ashes the building blocks for progress. The Old Times had ended, and modern Equis was born.
Of the billions of ponies, griffons, dragons, and other creatures going about their business on Equis, less than five thousand know of the Old Times even having existed. The subject isn't taught in schools, not talked about among friends, and and mentioning the name of the era would in all likelihood bring up the thought of nostalgia and reminiscence.
Of those few that know the truth, less than one hundred still live who lived through the Old Times. These creatures are dragons, alicorns, spirits, all of them extraordinarily long-lived, most of them very, very powerful. The experience of having lived through the Old Times lends an air of nobility and superiority among these survivors. They conduct themselves with dignity and respect, priding themselves on their wisdom and knowledge. These things are only fitting when it comes to those who experience - and endure - so much.
Most of those traits of nobility and dignity vanished from the mind of Cain when he woke at the bottom of a gorge, half crushed by a massive boulder.
Cain's eyes had opened slowly at first, flinching away from the sunlight. He went to roll over, to get his face away from the light, but something had him caught. Drowsy confusion told him to try again, but his second attempt failed as well. Something was holding his arm in place, and it didn't want to let go.
"What in hell...?" Cain's voice sounded as if it had been rubbed raw with sandpaper. Disorientation was having fun messing around inside of his head. Too much fun. Frustration snapped into existence like flame from a lighter, and Cain's eyes snapped open to find the cause for his discomfort.
A boulder the size of a small building was half-resting on top of him. Cain looked up and down the rock formation, and gave his arm another experimental tug. Nothing doing.
"Fuck."
The boulder must have crept over his sleeping form, not fallen, else Cain might never have woken at all. The rock covered Cain's limb from fingertip to mid-bicep, immobilizing it effectively. Cain had snarled at first, then tried worming his arm out from beneath the rock. When that didn't work, lifting came next, but that was just as useless. From his position, and weakness from having just woken up, Cain could no more lift the boulder than turn into a frog.
If Cain had been younger, he might have tried howling for help, hoping that someone or something would hear him and come to his assistance. Betrayal and paranoia had tempered that naivety, however, and Cain knew that if anything hungry chanced upon him while he was trapped like this, it would mean his life.
Which is still something I'm trying to hold on to. Cain thought, And no two-bit beast is going to take it from me.
Despite the bravado, Cain knew the words were hollow. If he'd been at his full strength, he'd have been confident that he could fend off anything that came hunting for him, despite his disadvantages. But having just woken up, having not eaten or drunken anything in however long? Thinking of the odds brought Cain's lips together into a thin grimace, a fair mix of trepidation and disgust.
His thoughts flickered back to before he fell into torpor, the sleeping curse that he'd been afflicted with. There were too many memories, too many near-deaths, too many close calls. There was many a time when Cain wasn't sure if he'd live to see the next dawn, but he'd come through. He was a survivor, even by the standards of his own kind.
Cain snarled at himself, determination replacing his reflections, chasing away the memories. He craned his head this way and that, taking in the surroundings, searching for anything that might be of help. He wasn't going to die here, Cain decided, and that meant taking things seriously. If he could find something that would help him, in any way, it might just make the difference.
But Cain was at the bottom of the gorge, with towering cliffs of red and gray on all sides. There were rocks, and other rocks, and some more rocks, and nothing that Cain could use to get free. His head slumped against the ground, lip curling in disappointment.
He felt like a wolf caught in a trap, doomed to wait for the hunter to -
Cain's eyes shot wide, and his attention immediately went to his arm. The idea kindled in his mind, still too new to be shut down. The wolf would be doomed to wait for a hunter to return, to find and kill him. It was inevitable, unless the wolf chewed his way out of the trap.
Looking at his shoulder like a hunter looks at prey, Cain surveyed the joint objectively. If he angled his head just right, he might be able to - Cain shook his head suddenly. "No. No. There's got to be another option." Chewing his arm off was ridiculous, and the thought of the pain alone was enough to make Cain's coat crawl.
"What other option do you have? Huh?"
"Something. Anything. I could try to lift it again, I could..."
"You could nothing, and you know it. There's one way out of this, Cain."
Cain clenched his jaw, and threw away the childish dreams Hoping for some miracle to happen was impractical, and he hadn't survived this long to let hope kill him. He glanced back at his arm. The muscles were tense, drawn like a bowstring. He hadn't made it through the hell of his life just to die here.
With a growing sense of dread, and although it took all of his willpower, although his lips were drawn back in repulsion, Cain brought his muzzle around to his shoulder and closed his jaw forcefully around his bicep. Lightning screamed up from his arm as Cain gnawed a mouthful of fur, skin, and muscle from his arm.
With a wet, tearing noise, he yanked his head back, and the amalgamation of his body fell with a thwack to the rock. Cain's face was contorted, as if tortured by a devil, and his breath came unevenly. His head fell back, and a silent, wordless howl ripped from his lungs. His stomach tensed and untensed, as if trying to force the pain of what he'd done out of his body.
Cain looked back down at his arm. Blood and raw, red and dripping. One bite. He panted, steeled himself for the next attack on his body. One bite. His bicep screamed at him, demanding to know why it was being tortured so mercilessly. One bite.
One bite.
Determination. Weakness. Dauntless. Asha. Agony. Hunger. Capable. Thirst. Help. Sacrifice. Help. Need. Asha. Survice. Help. Pain.
Help.
Soft voice saying things I don't understand. Ignore. Favor unconsciousness. Slip back into unconsciousness.
More voices. Two? Three? Tired. Pain. Sleep. Don't care. Humming noises. Don't care. Sleep.
Jostling. Movement. Bump. Pain. Hurts. Pain. Death is coming. Humming gone. Want to sleep.
The first thing Cain was aware of was being awake. For a moment, he was content to be half-asleep, warm and comfortable on the bed. Wait, bed? What? The thought ambled lazily through Cain's sleepy brain, to be dismissed swiftly. No need to worry, he was so comforta- pain. A muscle twitched, and agony drove into his bicep with the force of a minotaur. Cain's flesh felt like his arm was being whipped with venom, and it took all of his willpower to clench his muzzle shut to stop the roar from breaking free.
Cain forced the injured limb and lay there, pained growls filling the room's silence. It felt as if he had another heart beating within his arm, pushing upwards against the surface of his arm. When the red cloud blurring Cain's vision faded, he found himself looking upwards, towards a ceiling. "What the hell?"
Cain brought his body upwards, core and uninjured arm helping him with the move. He looked around, trying to gather his bearings. It was one of the first rules that he'd learned, to constantly be aware of your surroundings. If you weren't paying attention to the things around you, then you wouldn't notice the things that were paying attention to you, and that would be the end.
With a look of confusion, Cain took in wooden walls, furnishings, the floor, a ceiling, and the bed he was sitting up in. It took a moment for the information to register. There must have been some mistake, some misunderstanding; but no, there Cain was, sitting in a cottage.
Questions popped up in his head, disturbing little things that made his hairs stand on end. He reached back into his memory, but found nothing as to how he arrived here, save the blurry recollection of movement and voiced.
Someone brought me here?
Cain groaned. Helpless. He'd been helpless! Disgusting. And someone had brought him here to help him. It was enough to make him sick. He'd made it through years uncounted on his own, thinking and acting swiftly. That he'd been at someone's mercy stung his pride, and it exacerbated his paranoia. The answers to too many of his questions were unclear, and that could only mean one thing.
Trouble.
Cain's decision was made. He would leave, and keep an eye on the cottage for a few days to get a feel for whoever lived here, but waiting here for their return wasn't the smart thing to do. Cain swung his legs off the edge of the bed, and promptly fell onto the hard wooden floor with a muffled thump, all attempts at stealth shot before they began.
The impact had jarred Cain's arm, and his body stiffened at the pain. With shut eyes and a clenched jaw, he waited out the pain. Gods, it's like my arm's ablaze. In his haste to get out of the cottage, he's ignored the most important thing in his life; himself.
Riding over waves of hurt, Cain berated himself while on the ground. His hurry had gotten him to overlook checking on his arm, and he was paying for it. The last thing he remembered was being back in the gorge, trying to gnaw it off. He hadn't succeeded, of course, Cain could still feel his hand. It seemed that despite his resolve, his jaw was too weak to finish the job.
Cain glanced down at his arm, and noticed a white, paperlike material stretching around his muscles. Bandages? Who the hell...? It was in the middle of that thought that two somethings clicked. The first was a doorknob opening, and the second was internal, an answer to a very important question. There had been something off about the cottage, other than that he'd never been there before. The furniture was oddly proportioned, the architecture vaguely familiar, and it took just a few moments to put the pieces together.
It was a pony cottage.
Cain's mind flashed back, flickering between images of charred trees and scorched fur, the smell of burnt flesh and the screams of - No! A burning mixture of dread and rage replaced the memories, and Cain felt his good arm brace itself against the ground. His knees moved into position, mind steeled for the pain standing up would bring.
A small voice piped out from the direction of the doorway, fragile as a butterfly's wing, and in a language that Cain couldn't understand. Cain's head shot up towards the source of the voice, and took in the sight of a yellow mare with a long, pink mane. She seemed to be hiding behind her hair, peering out at him with large blue eyes. She said something again, this time trailing off.
"What?" The word was rough, a representation of Cain's confusion. The mare spoke more words, more meaningless sounds, more - wait a minute, what was that? Cain's head cocked sideways, arm swinging slightly as he went to his feet. The limb ached, but that wasn't important. Pain was transient, it would be there later. This stranger, who'd apparently taken him in, had said something, and it sounded like Equestrian.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" Cain asked, enunciating each word carefully. If this mare could speak Equestrian, then maybe she could - but no. There was a flicker of recognition in the mare's eyes, but she shook hear head, continuing to speak slowly. Cain growled, ignoring her. "Of course not. Wonderful."
Cain moved to the door, walking past the mare. The movement prompted more unintelligible words from her, which went unheeded. "I'm leaving," Cain said, standing in the doorway, "Thank you, for the help." He gestured to the bandages, and managed a smile. Cain knew he was prideful, but he wasn't one to forget a kindness.
Wait a minute. How did she even move me here?"
Cain turned towards the mare, who seemed to be trying to point out something. She was a slim, slender thing, definitely not strong enough to move him. "Hmph. Doesn't matter." Cain's hand was on the doorknob when the undertones of that observation hit him.
She had to have help. Other ponies helped her. Others know I'm here.
Cain turned back to the yellow mare. She wasn't the only one who knew. She, and who knew how many others, could go looking for him at any time. If those alicorn sisters had succeeded with their 'country of harmony' thing, then a creature like him wouldn't be tolerated anywhere near it.
Cain frowned, and looked down into the mare's eyes. He hadn't noticed them before, but they were familiar. He'd seen eyes like them before he'd fallen into torpor. Cain looked at the mare's posture, reflected on her tone of voice. No, that's ridiculous. That this pony would help one of his kind was preposterous. Herbivores and carnivores don't mix well.
But the proof was on his arm, in the shape of the white bandages. Cain shot the mare a wary look, and got down on a knee. "You're just trying to help me, aren't you?" He said, slowly.
He didn't know if the mare understood his words, or his tone, or if it was his body language, or all three. Later, when he knew more about Fluttershy's cutie mark, he'd understand her innate understanding of him.
Regardless of what Fluttershy understood then, she reached out with her forehoof, and laid it on Cain's shoulder. He glanced at the member, and grimaced.
"Well, this is complicated."
