Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain... life-giving, coat-drenching, chill-inducing, sniffle-inciting, unwanted, unwelcome, BUCKING NIGHTMARE-DAMNED RAIN!!! ... And you couldn't even blame it on the pegasi... bucking Everfree...

The rain continued its relentless and completely unsympathetic downpour upon you as you struggled through the forest. And that was the only word for it, not walking, or trotting, or even trudging, but struggling, struggling every damn inch of the way! Because your left foreleg was in a sling, your zebra was unconscious, and you were loaded down with her CRAP! You'd slung her firefly lantern around your neck so that the loop was resting against the base of said neck and the actual light-casting lantern was hanging in front of your chest. It provided light in the dark of the night, so it wasn't a complete bucking annoyance, but the flame-cone thing on your horn was also lighting your way, albeit in a purple tint, so really the lantern wasn't doing shit for you. You'd also had to pick up her saddle-bags, complete with bamboo staff, and fasten them on your back. Then, because there wasn't another good place to grab onto her, and you could barely carry her on your back when ALL your legs were in commission, you'd had to chomp down on her tail and start pulling. And no, zebra tail did NOT taste good. Mainly sweat, hair, and hints of dirt. Not appetizing.

And that was where you were right now. Moving butt-first through the most dangerous forest in Equestria, dragging a zebra by her tail through the quickly muddying dirt, a leg out of commission, your body loaded down with junk, you having to stop every few moments to look over your shoulder just to see where you were going, and you didn't even know if this was the RIGHT BUCKING DIRECTION OR NOT! Your muscles were aching, your sweat was mixing freely with the rain, and your mood was rapidly plummeting to new rage-filled lows.

If there was anything, ANYTHING, that you could be thankful for it was that at LEAST the purple fire cone hugging your horn was keeping the chill from your bones, and sending a steady stream of steam up from the spots where the rain droplets impacted the flame... ... though that was, uh, kinda more of a symbolic revenge against the rain than anything particularly practical... still felt smugly satisfying... BUT maintaining the flame was drying up your horn-based magic reserves AND taxing your stamina, not unlike dragging an unconscious equine through the mud in the deadliest forest in Equestria at night during a storm using only three legs... ... You'd ask yourself what you'd done to deserve this shit but the universe had made it pretty clear that you were to be the world's kicking bag from colthood, so buck it.

your horn and magic don't mix. So blood=magic so more blood from Trixe will give you more workable magic. and hopefully the two will mix and you will be able to use your own hybrid magic.

Your hooves dug into the mud as you grunted and pulled the zebra along, constantly twisting your neck to look back over your shoulders, a painful crick already developing from the movement. You were sore, aggravated, impatient, tugging on zebra tail, and having a decidedly bad night. You didn't even care that there was probably some sexual innuendo you could make about tugging on zebra tail. You were just THAT pissed.

You stopped for a few moments to rest, snorted out heavily, teeth still clenched down on Zecora's tail, then breathed in deep through your nose, started pulling again and-

"HNGH!"

Your eyes went wide and your right foreleg immediately shot to your stomach as it was suddenly gripped in a sharp, ferocious pain. Your left foreleg pulled against it's cloth constraints to try to get to your belly, and your mouth flew open, letting go of Zecora's tail-hair as you shot up onto your back-legs, more out of reflexive muscle movement than practical reasoning. You stumbled backwards, gasping for breath as moisture built up in your eyes, your left back hoof sliding forward in the mud out from under you and-

SLIP!

PLOP!

Your plot hit the mud, coating your flank in the cold, wet, dirt, sending a sudden and focusing chill up your spine. Between the sudden shot of stomach pain and the sudden shock of cold, your concentration was thrown off and-

pft.

The fire-cone around your horn snuffed out, with an unimpressive noise reminiscent of passing wind and not a single ounce of regard for your well-being. As the fire bid it's impromptu and undesired farewell with a 'buck-you' to your health thrown in for good measure, the pain in your gut subsided with it's cruel goal achieved and the damage done. The protective warmth gone, your teeth began to chatter in response to the immense chill spreading out through your body. Between the rain, the wind, and the mud caking your bum, there was no shortage of shiver inducing cold-sources, and you began desperately reaching back into the small foreign magic-cluster below your horn to get your fire-cone started again so you could continue your daily appointed schedule of not freezing to death!

Your grasping internal tendrils of magic-sucking expanded from your horn, and ventured back into the small patch of energy just below it. You almost began to panic when you found it seriously depleted. The duration of the fire-cone's life had been short but expensive. Already the power cache felt close to empty, eaten up in creating the flame. There was still some there though, and while it probably wouldn't last long, and would be a mother-rutter to utilize, it was still worth the cost to stave off this bucking cold, even for a few seconds! You bit your lower lip and squeezed your eyes shut, working hard to pull the dregs of sweet unicorn energy up from their tiny magic cache and into your horn. Slowly, but surely, you felt the slivers move into the bone-like protrusion, starting to pool, inch their way up towards the tip and-

BOOOOOOOOM!

A brilliant burst of lightning flashed accompanied by a particularly loud roar of thunder. The sudden close-sounding crack and bellow of the storm caused your eyes to snap wide, your heart to ramp up a few beats per minute, and your focus to COMPLETELY shatter in response. You lost your hold on the magic as it reached the tip, the purple energy sparking away from your horn uselessly into the mud before you, all that effort wasted in the bat of an eyelash.

"OH BUCK YOU TO!!!" You shouted up at the sky. Only to catch some rainwater in your mouth and eyes, the Everfree showing you what it thought of your attitude. You shook your head, spitting out the water for the sake of spite, letting a growl roll low in your throat as you blinked your eyes a few times to clear away the unwelcome liquid, then held them shut tight, trying to concentrate again on drawing magic into your horn... Only to find the tap run dry.

It was empty. Finished. Kaput. The last dregs of energy had been expended and what was left in the tiny magic cache beneath your horn wasn't enough to light a damn candle. You could feel some more energy gathering in the cache, but nowhere near quickly enough. Your body wasn't suited to the production of this magic, not like Trixie's was... Trixie... ... It was after you took her blood that you first gained your horn... ... perhaps, if you'd taken some more of it, then you would have had more magic to work with... Maybe, hypothetically, in a purely imaginary setting, Trixie's blood could act as a buffer to your own abilities, make you stronger... Perhaps you should devote some thought to the future pursuit of Trixie blood? A few red liquid donations from the local showmare could allow you to test this purely fanciful and imaginary theory...

Perhaps you should find shelter nearby minion for you and your Zebra. Maybe even start a fire (preferably very large) to stop you from freezing to death in this Damon storm you got yourself lost in. Preferably there will be a cave or something nearby for you to shelter in. After all you and I both know how shit you are with directions.

But that was an experiment for another purely hypothetical time, right now you had other shit to worry about. You were cold, tired, angry, and in the middle of the Everfree while there was a bucking storm going on. Plus, because you were absolute shit with directions, it was likely that even if Zecora's hut was over the next DAMN incline, or just around the next BUCKING tree, you wouldn't be able to find it if it became sentient, grew legs and a mouth, got up, chased after you, and bit you in the flank! And considering the kind of shit that went on in this forest that wasn't even an unlikely a scenario.

All in all it was a bad BUCKING situation to be in and you were stuck smack dab in the middle of it. You needed some kind of shelter, someplace to hide, like a cave or some shit like that. You probably weren't going to find a cave though, not in the middle of a bucking forest. And as tall as these trees were their canopies didn't exactly seem to be eager to block out the rain. Then there was the whole problem of lightning being attracted to tall trees... ... ... and you. You hugged your rods down to your back a little tighter, just for reassurance.

You looked around, gritting your teeth together, the firefly lantern swinging from your neck, casting the light about the trees and making shadows flicker. You weren't exactly sure what you were looking for. Well, yeah you were, you were looking for shelter, but buck if you were going to find any. After all, it wasn't like some suitable shelter was just going to pop up into your sight because you happened to be looking for it! That sort of shit never happened in real-

You stopped your thoughts and your eye movement as the light illuminated something... or rather the absence of something. You blinked, then furrowed your brows, peering closer at the offending spot in the dark as you tried to identify it and after a few moments came to a simple conclusion... it was a hole.

You turned, leaving Zecora alone in the mud for the moment, and approached the hole with inquisitive eyes, lamp swinging in front of you. As you got closer, more details became clear. It was wide, dug out in front of a nearby tree with an equally wide tunnel angled back towards aforementioned tree. It looked about the size of a Diamond Dog, like the one you saw when you rescued Trixie for the second time. But it didn't look nearly as deep as the hole that Diamond Dog had climbed out of. It looked more like the entrance to some sort of burrow, despite it's size.

But buck it if solving the mystery of the odd-sized hole mattered to you right now. While it wasn't exactly ideal, or non-conspicuous, it WAS a way to get you out of this cold mother-rutting ass-licking piss-drinking buck-hungry rain, and big enough for you to reasonably be able to drag Zecora back out when you wanted to leave. Even if it did have a Diamond Dog inside, or something weirder, you could just utilize your sound rods like last time. Or cut it up with your blade... Buck, it might actually be better if there was something to cut up. Get some bucking stress relief...

In any case, caution be damned, you were taking this hole. You turned back to Zecora and, with the kind of urgency that only shattering chills and pouring rain could bring about, moved your flank over to the unconscious mare. With a grunt and a few mumbled curses, you clamped your mouth around her tail again, which had been laying in the mud and was now oh sooooooo much tastier because of it, and tugged her back over to the wide mouth of the short tunnel. You stopped and let go of the tail, stumbled around to Zecora's front, then shivering, impatient, and lacking in ceremony, you began to shove Zecora down into the hole with your head. It took a few tries but the zebra budged easily enough, and with one more push you nudged her over the edge of the hole and into the dark, sending her tumbling down with her legs flailing... it wasn't very far, so you weren't particularly worried about the drop hurting her. No more than getting dragged around through the Everfree by her tail anyways.

You then leaned back to grasp the bamboo stick in your teeth and slide it out of it's loop, before chucking it down the hole after the zebra. You considered chucking down the saddle-bags to, but you were pretty sure you could fit in the hole even with them on, and didn't want to risk them spilling out... whatever the buck was in them.

As the stick slid down after the zebra, you ducked low and went in face-forward, moving down through the short span of the tunnel, and coming out into a small dirt-cave arrangement with roots descending from the ceiling. Long, curly, thick roots actually, that you bumped your head against forcing you to hunch down after a quick grumble. Aside from that, the dirt-cave burrow was fairly spacious. You weren't going to move a pool-table down here and make it a game room, but you could stretch out fairly easily if you wanted to. You looked down to see Zecora AND Zecora's favorite stick lying on the dry dark dirt beneath you, and out of the goodness of your heart, pushed, prodded, tugged, and pulled them both away from the tunnel mouth, fully out of the rain and cold, to the center of the burrow.

The shelter wasn't perfect. Big shocker. Though it was mostly dry some drops of water still found their way through the soil-comprised ceiling and down to the dirt around you, and there was still a noticeable chill, even out of the wind. But it was nowhere near as bad as being out in the middle of the storm and was as good a place as any to lay your head until the torrent passed. You sighed, lowering said head and slipping the firefly lantern from your neck to sit in the room, letting it cast it's light about, flickering on the walls... You unfastened the saddle bags as well, shrugging them off and onto the dirt next to the lantern, before collapsing, almost literally, onto your side in the thankfully dry dirt. You closed your eyes and breathed in deep, then out slowly, keeping up a pattern of steady rhythmic breathing as you let exhaustion take you... ... ... ... you'd had a rough night.

And now she's unconcious. Right, lightning stirkes are known to scrable thoughts, so buck knows what Zecora will remember when she comes to. So we need to deal with that. Talking to sleeping ponies has worked ok for you so far, and even better they don't talk back and piss you off. Also we need to have this dealt with before Marshmallow shows up with your new clothes. You do not want Harmony investigating you.

After that go about reprogramming your property while it's down,and I'm not talking about suggestions while she sleeps, no these WILL BE ORDERS AND FACTS above ALL ELSE! OUR WORD IS THE LAW! AND SHE IS THE POWERLESS SERVANT OF IT! When she is away you will have her follow your word above all others, and if this should work you shall repeat the treatment to your dog trixie and your planimal soon to be minion. Should you face any unforseen problems from the wild life well, YOU DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THEIR CRAP BURN THEM INTO OBLIVION!!!

Hugs and kisses! -Pyro the Red

Goodness gracious, Blankey-Blank. You really are not good at this whole 'evil' thing, are you? Doing something like murder only half-way never amounts to anything good. She is now alive to tell the tale of how you struck her with lightning. That's not a tale you want being told right now. But for the sake of my softhearted companions, I suppose letting her live is alright... depending on the circumstances. See if you can use your rusty iron tongue to talk your way out of this one once she wakes up. If you can't get her to keep her damned gob shut, and if you can't get her to agree with your sentiments, then finish the job and make sure she's dead afterwards. Remember; if you kill her, eye contact is key!

Try to have this conversation about you before you return to the hut, if you can. This way, if it goes south and you need to kill her, you can still pile guilt onto Trixie by telling her she's the reason Zecora died!

Sincerely, Seth Speth of the Death Neth

On another note, though, we simply must discuss your zebra. I mean, what is this? She turns on you, accuses you, tries to weaken you and take away what make you yourself? I mean, what if these transformations are what you get instead of a cutie mark, eh? Maybe they're your destiny? How dare she turn on you like that, betraying your trust?! Your love?!

Killing her outright isn't the best option, no, but you need to convince her that you know best. More importantly, though, you need to tell her how she hurt you. Think of all those near-starvation nights in Manehattan! Think of the cold winter months, where you would risk death and disease! Think of all the people who rejected you, allowed you to suffer so because you had no cutie mark! Zecora was the first person to ever accept you, or so you thought, the first to care for you and give you love! But now?! She tries to take away your birthright, accuses you of trying to betray her, and threatens you with death! How could she do this to you? How? All your life you've been spit on and beaten by your surroundings, and when you finally meet somebody who loves you and cares for you, she betrays you! You want her to know what she's done to you! How she's hurt you! Make sure she regrets everything she's done to hurt you, make her grovel and beg for forgiveness! And if she refuses to see reason, well, there are other options open to us.

You lay there with your eyes closed for a few moments, just breathing in and out, slowly, regularly, just letting the exhaustion wash over you and your aching muscles... ... After a couple minutes of this, you sighed heavily, then opened your eyes and looked over to Zecora, laying in the dirt across from you, past the firefly lantern with it's light playing across her coat... ... she looked pretty terrible. The green powder from before had been turned into a thick, paste-like substance, spread across her face, mouth, and front of her chest, sticking to her fur. Then, her legs, back, sides, and hooves, had all become dirty, streaked with mud and with twigs and leaves stuck to them, your rough pulling thoroughly messing up her coat. And also muddying her golden rings while you were at it.

"... ... You look terrible." You spoke, honestly, before smirking slightly, finding a kind of strangely soft humor in that tiny truth. You remembered when you first saw her, how beautiful she looked... that beauty was still there, but now it was buried underneath the filth you'd dragged her through... Kind of made you feel a bit guilty. Not that much though. She did betray you...

You slowly, laboriously rolled over onto your back, laying your head back down on the dirt, eyes towards the ceiling, just staring at the curled thick roots, descending through the dirt from the tree above. You listened to the sound of the rain and thunder outside, and watched as a little droplet of water rolled squeezed it's way out from the dirt above and onto one of the roots, following it's curved body down to the tip, then slowly forming into a tiny water balloon... and dripping straight down onto your nose with a tiny-

plop

As it landed smack dab on the tip... ... And then you smiled. A closed-lipped smile that once again found a soft humor in your environment, and then you chuckled softly, closing your eyes as you let the stress from your body pour out, having dealt with way too much shit today to be worried about a water droplet... ... You opened your eyes and turned to look at Zecora again for just a moment, still smiling softly... before looking back to the dirt ceiling, and finally speaking again.

"It's not as bad as Manehatten you know... The storm I mean. Well, the storm itself is actually worse I guess, the rain falls fast, the wind blows hard, the cold eats through to your bones... It's wilder, more violent here. Deadlier even than the winters in Manehatten, where I was shivering next to burning barrels and fighting the wind gusting through my bones, but even that was kept in check... ... You see, in Manehatten the rains, the storms, the weather, is all controlled and regulated. Storm schedules are put in the paper and posted up for everypony to see. Everypony knows they're going to happen and plans accordingly... or gets so caught up in things that they don't plan and, well, get wet. But the thing about those storms is that... they didn't inspire panic. They weren't terrible or horrible or violent. They were professionally planned affairs, regularly administered for established lengths of time. And because of that they weren't something to run from... they were just something to sit through." You sighed, and closed your eyes, a resigned smile on your face.

"Other ponies were busy you see. Everypony in Manehatten was busy. When they were inside, taking shelter from the rain, they were doing something else to. Cleaning, or cooking, or writing, or rutting. Whatever they wanted to. And the ponies out in the rain, they were busy, otherwise they wouldn't be out in the rain in the first place. They were rushing somewhere to do something important, or back from somewhere where they had just done something important... here and there, moving constantly, so caught up in the importance of their own lives that they barely even looked around or noticed the rain... As for me... well, I was usually in a cardboard box, or underneath a blanket. Found an abandoned camping tent once... that lasted me a while..." You sighed again, then opened your eyes and turned to look to Zecora once more, continuing on conversationally.

"I had no place to go, is the point I guess. Nothing to do. Everypony else had somewhere to be, and something to do. Something to occupy their time, to keep busy, to keep mobile, to keep DOING something... But when the rain came, I had nothing to do. It didn't inspire terror, or movement. It was unpleasant but not so terrible that I'd die if I didn't escape from it, but it was unpleasant enough to stop me from scrounging, or begging, because there was nopony else on the street and because even if I did find good things, they'd get wet and ruined by the rain if I tried to get them at the time. Or at least that's how it all felt, so I was just... immobile. Stagnant. Doing nothing, with no goals, no purpose, and no motivation... All the rains in Manehatten were to me was a stopwatch freezing my life in place... and reminding me of how truly useless I was..." You kept smiling, even as the edges of your eyes began to tear up and your vision blurred, you kept the resigned smile towards the unconscious mare.

"So this? This terrifying rain that you have to run from, that you have to actively seek a way to avoid, is so much better... because it makes me move, instead of just staying still and waiting for one more day of uselessness... It makes me fight to stay alive... and so it makes me feel alive..." You closed your eyes and looked back up to the ceiling, trying to ignore the hot sensation building up behind your eyes.

"My whole life I've been stagnant, unwanted, unneeded, and unused... Nothing to do and nowhere to go, no reason to apply myself to anything because I'd already applied myself to everything and been found unnecessary. Oh sure I was ridiculed, bullied, looked down on in school. The foals there were as cruel as you might expect. But by the time I'd grown up that had stopped. As a stallion I was just ignored. Avoided, shooed away, excluded, and passed by without a second thought and... and I think I kind of preferred the bullying, to just not mattering anymore. Being the subject of ridicule, to just being something nopony wanted to see..." You gulped down a lump in your throat, you blinked your eyes a few times, tiny rain drops just happening to emerge from them as you did so and rolling down your cheeks, a little hotter than normal, but certainly just rain drops and not something infinitely less stallion-like.

"And then... then I woke up in the Everfree forest. And I didn't know what was happening or why. I was confused, I was lost, and then the thunder came, promising a storm. And just by the power of that thunder I knew it wasn't going to be one of the storms I was used to. Deep down in my gut, I knew that it was different... And I ran from it. I looked for shelter, sought it out actively, I was so afraid. Of everything by then, not just the storm, but it was that storm that really drove me forward and into the castle that night, that storm that forced me to move into a place that was strange, dangerous, and new, that storm that... that got me to meet you... And also fight some bucking Timberwolves, get a sword, and grow back rods, but that's not bucking important! That's where you found me, remember?! I don't really because I was unconscious by then, but it was all because of that wild, uncontrollable storm, and my fear, and all the running and..." You stopped before your voice got choked up, then moved your right foreleg up over your eyes. You rubbed it back, and forth, removing the excess of water that had gathered there. You took a deep shuddering breath, then exhaled slowly... Before lowering your right forehoof back down to the ground next to you, and opening your eyes.

"And here in the Everfree, here in the last few bucking days, I've been more alive than I've been since colthood. No... no even more than then, because I felt like I had you to help me along. Do you understand what it means to be talentless Zecora? To be useless!? To be unappreciated and know deep in your gut that there's nothing to appreciate!? And then to suddenly be appreciated by somepony, anypony, much less a beautiful zebra! So exotic, so erotic, so rare and special and brilliant, and yet you still had to go crazy and betray me!!!" This new outburst was accompanied by a well timed-

BOOOOOOM!

Sounding from the storm beyond the hole, though you were a bit tense to appreciate it at the moment. You flung yourself onto your side, opening still wet eyes and glaring over to the still unconscious zebra.

"Do you have any idea how bucking MUCH THAT HURTS!?!? Building me up like that, giving me your support, only to rip it away! I thought you were different damn it! I THOUGHT YOU CARED!!! But no, you had to get jealous, had to get suspicious, had to get paranoid! Why the buck would you do that?! What BUCKING reason would you have for ruining my happiness like that!?!? DAMN IT ZECORA!!!" You closed your eyes again, took a deep breath, and then breathed out slowly again... Then opened your eyes with a sullen glare, looking over to her.

"... ... I still love you Zecora. I still care about you. But I'm not going to let you dictate me anymore. This has got to change. I've been passive for too long, passive when I should have been active, taking it when I should have been dishing it, and that's led us to our current situation... You paranoid, betraying me, and us having to hide in a hole in the mud from an Everfree storm. ... From now on I'm not going to ask you for your love Zecora. I'm not going to ask you to care, or ask you to help. I'm going to DEMAND it... And you're going to obey. Because deep down, you know that that's what you really want..." You muttered, before sighing and looking back up to the ceiling.

"... Buck I wish you were awake for this conversation... ... Though considering I hit you with lightning, maybe it's better that you're asleep... ... Will you even remember that? Does lightning scramble memories? Shit I hope so... could be pretty awkward trying to pick my trenchcoat up from Rarity without Zecora there..." You muttered, brows furrowed as you gazed up at the descending roots and the dirt ceiling.

Well my dear Blank, time to get moving. Now would be a really good time for you to figure out how unicorns levitate things. Now which way back to the hut again?...Wait, what was that sound...the scream again? Out here in the forest, something is...off about the scream. It's coming from everywhere, why couldn't Zecora hear it? What's so diff er...those timberwolves, they did something to you, it's not somepony that was trying to get your attention...maybe it was the forest itself, trying to warn you about Zecora? Put your good hoof on a tree, it probabley has something to show you.

Gaining such a grand amount of knowledge of the forest would be deeply beneficial to us. It simply must be done!

More importantly you are once again in the middle of the Everfree, at night, during a thunderstorm. Nightmare damn it. You really need to start getting the forest to work for you if your going to keep doing that. Start paying attention to it, you've got the blood of the Timberwolf in your veins son, listen to >> MagusNeon and >> TheLordSiffer. Try to connect with the Everfree, you will need it's resources for... things.

You continued to look up to the roots... ... and then blinked. Your ears twitched, and you furrowed your brows... ... ... Something was off. Now that you weren't emotionally pouring your heart out, or running from the lightning, or wallowing in misery and despair, you could hear something... something from the roots like a... like a soft crying? A soft yelling? A soft-

Your eyes went wide. It was the screaming! From earlier! The screams that drew you out into the Everfree! Albeit at a lesser pitch, but it was there! You shot up to your hooves, the three available to you anyways, and looked up to the roots of the tree in wonderment. Well that explained the sound... But then it wasn't a filly in trouble, but the tree? No, the forest itself probably... Giving off not a cry for help but a cry for attention. It wanted something from you and wanted you to have something from it. It wanted to get in your veins... Like the Timberwolf blood... that had to be it, right? That must have been it... because you'd licked up that Timberwolf blood all that time back, now the Timberwolf part of you was calling out to the Everfree, that in turn was calling out to you! And it wanted... in you...

You looked up at the curved thick root closest to your head, eyes still wide, and almost on instinct, stood up on your back legs, lifted your right forehoof and-

SCHINK!

Your blade jutted out, then in one smooth motion you swung your hoof through the air, the blade singing softly and letting out a reverberating-

Thunkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

As it sliced off the tip off of the root. Immediately, green liquid began to ooze out from the tip and you moved your mouth to it. You wrapped your lips around the opened root and suckled on it like a newborn foal would his mommy's teats. You took in the thick, gooey, acrid tasting substance, letting it move into your mouth, coat your tongue, and slink down your throat... And then you fell back, dispelling the blade back into your hoof and coughing as the sap burned down your throat, running your tongue against the teeth of your upper-jaw, dragging it along to get some of the taste off.

Why did you keep DOING that!? ... Maybe you really were a vampony... Born to suck the life juices out of anything... But that soon went to the back of your mind, as whispers moved into your ears, and they began to twitch. You started to hear the world around you in a strange new way... a way that felt like it was creeping into your brain with grasping tendrils... and then-

"AHHHH!!!" A sudden pain in your ears, warmth spreading out behind them, dripping down your fur, and additional red pooling out from inside them. You gritted your teeth together and squeezed your eyes shut, the pain thick and hot and burning, a wiggling sensation accompanying it and then, just as quick as it started, it stopped... and suddenly... you could hear the Everfree's cries clearly...

MUTATION GAINED: Everfree Whispers: In forested areas of the Everfree or near to Everfree trees, the Host may 'listen' to said trees, and gain directional aid. The trees will guide him, through a mixture of feelings, fringe-thoughts, and sounds, to the destination that he is attempting to reach. If the destination is not in the Everfree, the Everfree trees won't be able to help. As a result of this mutation, there is a vein of small green vines, digging into the lower-back of his ears, rising from the base behind his ear, breaking the skin at both points. Mutation is part of the Everfree Legacy.

You could... hear, the way. It wiggled in your ears, signals, vibrations from things you didn't know to a place that you did know... the forest wasn't speaking to you exactly, but you could hear it guiding you, helping you, like a twitch on the edge of consciousness... And suddenly you knew... you knew EXACTLY WHERE ZECORA'S HUT WAS!!!

Almost giddily you shot back up to your hooves, and quickly got Zecora's saddle-bags back onto your back, moved the firefly lantern back around your neck, and then slipping the bamboo staff back through the loop again. It was so close by! You didn't have to wait, you could hear how close it was, hear what direction you needed to go in to get to it! And on the fringes of your hearing, you could hear the abandoned castle you'd been in to, and the spot where you'd first awoken. The patch of blue flowers you'd rolled down into, and where you killed the cockatrice. The glade that you'd slept in near Trixie, and the spot where you'd just fought Zecora, and then several more that were suggestions of places you had yet to see, all of it was yours! You could hear that there was a path to everywhere and anywhere and the Everfree would guide you! BUT right now, only one mattered... the path back to Zecora's hut.

With a grin you chomped down on Zecora's tail and started pulling. Storm or not, now that you knew where you were going, it wouldn't take you more than ten minutes. You could get back to the warm safe! With the stupid blue unicorn and the freaking weird planimal monster thing! That you'd have to deal with! BUCK!!!

No, no, no, that was NOT going to ruin your good mood! Something was finally going right tonight, and Trixie was likely still asleep from having been drugged, and who cared about the bucking planimal?! You'd get in and figure things out from there, but right now, you were going home!

So, filled with excitement and more than a little anticipation, you backed up through the hole again, hooves digging in and pushing you up, dragging Zecora along, moving out of the hole to get back to the hut... your home.

Author's Notes:

Hello, I want to share this with you. Because I both enjoy this review series, and something he brought up during said review reminded me of the premise of this fanfiction, and how to possible utilize that premise in ways I had not before considered... Something to think about at least for me, I'll leave it to you to develop what opinions you will from the review, and hopefully enjoy it.

FOB Equestria: Bats

Also, I feel good tonight. ... I like feeling good. Hope this chapter helps make you feel good. And I've decided that I'm really going to have to watch until the end of the Season to put this on a proper timeline. There's a good deal from Season 4 I'd like to include or acknowledge, however without knowing how it ends I'm not sure where to put this in Season 4. So, still seeing how that comes along. Also, will be taking down and reposting the Character Tracker as usual, however not sure if I'll actually get to it tonight. Will see, however please don't panic if you don't see it there.