The Society
Chapter 1: Two Worlds, and One Family.
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Author's Tips: If you see a YouTube link in the text, it's advisable to click it. Often times there will be a character playing music, or I just want to set the mood. This is a story that will probably have more chapters than I can count on my hands and feet. Now, why don't we get this show on the road?
In the middle of the Everfree, the tree hut of a very familiar zebra was filled with the clatter of wood-on-wood. The strong smell of herbal medicine filled the air as Zecora was hard at work making potions to re-stock her shop. She'd had a spike in customers after the misunderstanding with the citizens of Ponyville had been cleared up. Her train of thought was cut short as she heard a loud roar come from the distance. It was soon followed by a a haunting, otherworldy shriek, soon cut short by the sickening crunch of a manticore digging in flesh. The sounds of the manticore rumbling with contentment filled her hut.
For Zecora, manticores hunting had been no problem, and she usually just shirked them off. But the fact that she had heard it kill something that sounded wrong, for lack of proper words, had left her curious. She knew the manticore by the sounds of it's roars, though given there was only one manticore in her section of the forest, she thought it best to get into contact with the nearest of her friends to help deal with it. For now, she'd have to whip up some manticore repellent, in order to even get close to the kill.
With a sigh, she trotted over to cuboards and quickly produced a large black fruit. It felt like a water balloon, and she carefully held it by the stem, so as not to pop it. She placed it into her cauldron and poured in a thick, green syrup. It smelled incredibly bitter and when it touched the fruit, it seemed to produce a sickeningly sweet smell, like that of vomit after eating ice cream. The next ingredient seemed like the most harmless, it's name being Heart's Desire, but from previous expirience, she had seen what it had done to little Apple Bloom. She tipped it into the bitter-sweet smelling concoction, turning it from a brackish green into a pale brown. She quickly stored it in a specialized pot and made haste for the manticore's kill.
Luckily for her, the manticore was close to her home, so all she needed to do was get within range of the kill. She laid down the pot and stepped back. With a quick twist on her front hooves, she bucked the pot onto the manticore, covering the beast in a thick paste. It got up and walked away, the repellent working it's magic.
Slowly, Zecora made her way to the kill. The forest was rather dark, so it was hard to make out what kind of animal it was exactly. She placed it in a large sack and placed it on her back, carrying the dead animal to her hut. On the way there, she slipped and part of the animal slipped out of the sack. From the light of her hut, she could see that the animal had a thick layering of red fur on it's limb. She put the limb back in the bag and walked into her hut, placed the sack onto an operating table in a corner of her hut. She covered it in heavy amounts of salt and set out for Fluttershy's cottage. She'd know better about what kind of animal it was.
Fluttershy groaned as she answered the door. Her mane was unkept after she had to care for an injured bear the previous night.
"Oh, um, hello Zecora. Good morning." she politely gave. Even if she was irritable from her lack of sleep, she needed to be kind to a friend, even they came knocking at the most in oppurtune of moments.
"Sorry to disturb you, timid Fluttershy, but I have a deceased animal that I need you to identify." Zecora pointed in the general direction of her home.
The words 'deceased animal' hit Fluttershy like brick wall. She fought back tears, imagining the animal to be something small and cute. "Oh my... What killed the poor thing? I hope it didn't suffer too badly."
"A manticore attack, of that, I'm sure is fact."
"Oh, Courage killed it? Why didn't he just go to a river and eat some fish? He'd have to be really hungry to not think to come to me for some food. I should go talk to him about it when I'm done with your corpse."
"Yes, well, we must hurry, before the scavengers begin to scurry."
Off in the distance, an alabaster unicorn trot the path to Fluttershy's cottage, taking careful note that Zecora was at the doorstep.
"Oh hello Fluttershy, Zecora. Sorry to interuppt, but it's about time for our spa appointment. I'd hate to keep Aloe and Lotus waiting."
"Sorry Rarity, but Zecora needs me for something urgent. Could you have the appointment moved back? That is, if you don't mind..."
"Oh don't you worry one bit. I wouldn't mind at all! But tell me Zecora, what do you need her for?"
"It is an animalis incognito, so to explain, it's best to show."
"Oh, but I wouldn't want to be a burden on you two."
"No no, Rarity. It' would be no problem if you came with me."
"If you insist. But please take us through a route that won't leave my coat dirty. I just had a bath.
Zecora laughed at this, getting her a friendly glare from Rarity. Once she had finished, she gestured towards the Everfree, and once Fluttershy had gotten her examination tools, they made haste for Zecora's hut.
Bon-Bon didn't like having to do this to Lyra. She looked into the padded cell, tears running down her cheeks as she watched Lyra sit in the corner with a horrified look an her face, the muzzle they put on her and the glass of the viewing window only muting her screams of terror slightly. She shook her head as she trotted out of the room, to fill out paperwork for the institution of Lyra into the Canterlot Psycheatric Hospital. She had been admited because one morning, Lyra began to scream, and wouldn't stop. When Bon-Bon had asked her, Lyra squealed ''They' really finally did it! 'Those' maniacs! 'THEY' BLEW IT UP! CELESTIA DAMN 'THEM!' CELESTIA DAMN 'THEM' ALL TO HELL!" Bon-Bon immediatly knew something was wrong, but when Lyra began to talk about how the planet was going to be a barren wasteland, she had to finally admit that Lyra had broken. Sure Lyra had weird hobbies, like speculating about worlds where there was no magic, or worlds were weather wasn't controlled, but she just chalked that up to the fun of imagination.
Lyra knew she was right. 'They' were nothing but trouble. 'They' had to be stomped out before that future could come to pass. She didn't care which ones, 'They' all had to be stopped. She screamed in terror as another one of her visions of the future coursed through her skull. In the distance, she could see the massive metal monstrousities that dotted the landscape. They were all that remained of 'Them'. Sure she could wonder just how 'They' had brought the world so far, but she didn't care. In the proccess, 'They' were killing it. Soon the vision ended on a somber note. The metal monstrousities began to creak and groan, no longer able to support their weight. One by one, with a loud metalic screech, the towers toppled. On top of one of the fallen towers was a sign. It said 'Welcome to the Everglades'. Below it were the fossilized remains of an aligator, an anaconda, a pony, and one of 'Them'.
The vison ended there. Lyra's screaming stopped. Once she became fully awared of her surroundings, she broke down into tears, her voice hoarse from all the screaming. She sobbed for all that she had lost because of some stupid visions froma future that might not be real. She'd lost Bon-Bon. She lost her lyre. She lost her sanctity of mind. She'd lost her happiness. And she knew what had to be done.
"'Dey muh prrh. Arh ah 'dem' shhhr knuhh dah hrry wrhth uf Lhrh Hutsdiinhs." Lyra mumbled through her muzzle as her gaze hardened and fire burned in her eyes. She barely registered her cutie mark shifting in shape, from a golden lyre to a skull and cross bones, similar to the fossil skeleton of one of 'Them' that she had seeen in the visions. Her new talent? Wiping out 'Them' before 'They' spread faster than a swarm of parasprites. It'd be simple too. After all, 'They' are just a bunch of damn dirty apes.
By the time Zecora and her visitors had made it back to her hut, there was a racoon digging at the sack on the table. Fluttershy flew foward and shooed it away. Zecora swept away what little of the salt the racoon hadn't scattered. With care, she untied the sack and pulled out the corpse, gently spreading the body out on the table. Rarity sat in a corner, amazed that it didn't smell, but never-the-less turned green at the sight of blood.
Fluttershy made haste with measurements. The animal was as tall as a pony, standing at a little less than two meters tall. It weighed around the same as a big cat. Certainly not something like a lion, but closer to the weight of a male jaguar. The arms were much shorter than the legs, so she ruled out that it was a quadruped, and was dealing with a biped.
She pulled on the limbs, moving them around until she felt resistance. The knee and elbow joints showed a range of movement close to 180 degrees. The feet moved about 90 degrees up and down and about 50 degrees left and right. The paws seemed to have one of the greatest ranges of movement, able to move in a small ellipsis. The hip and shoulder joints seemed to have ball-in-socket joints, judging from the exposed bones on one side of the corpse, but it would hurt to check. Fluttershy looked amazed as she moved the arms and legs as a whole, the limbs moving in alomst 360 degrees in all directions. Moving onto the neck and spine, they too moved in almost all directions.
"Amazing, such a wide range of movement on a bidped. Even birds only really hold their bodies parallel to the ground, like most animals, but this one seems like it held itself perpendicular, like a bear does when it browses the trees for fruit. But how it'd do so without falling is beyond me. The range of movement suggests it lives in the trees, but the size of its legs and the shape of its feet tell me that it would walk on the ground."
Zecora took note of this, looking to Rarity, who was sketching dresses based on the various keepsakes that Zecora had brought with her from home. She rolled her eyes, knowing it futile to stop Rarity when she was inspired.
Fluttershy decided to combine the next joint measurement with the dietary analysis. She opend the jaw and moved it. Small degrees of movement side-to-side, and a little less than 90 degrees up and down. Looking at the teeth, she saw a wide variety. In the front were large, flat incissors, with four large canines next to them. Behind those were four matching bicuspids, and behind those were indescribable molars and pre-molars. They seemed to have features of both herbivores and carninvores. Based on the fact that the front teeth seemed like those a monkey, she assumed the animal filled a similar niche, at least until she could take a look at the stomach contents. For now, she moved onto the outer features.
She looked at the fur on the animal. It was thin, with most of the fur being small hairs that covered the entire body. The exceptions being thick patches of red fur that covered the head, neck, back, torso, genitals, and limbs. On the topic of limbs, the forelimbs seemed rather monkey-like, but the back limbs, which had been established as those of a non-arboreal species when she performed the movement tests. While it could have been a chimera, like a griffon, it was highly unlikely, as the feet still matched the paws, right down to the pale color and sparse red hairs.
"Hmmmm."
That was the most puzzling thing about its exterior. The fact that it had pale skin, yet lacked a thick coat of fur or armour. She chalked it up to mange as she examined the face. It was the same pale white as the rest of the animal, but there was something different. Flecks of light brown covered it, as though melanin seemed to clump in those small spots. The ears seemed mismatched, and didn't move around much, unlike a monkey's. The nose seemed broad and very much confirmed her theory that it was a monkey. She looked into the eyes. They looked back at her with the souless gaze that most wild animals had, though once she looked into it's eyes, she couldn't help but feel like something was very wrong with the fact that those eyes seemed so cold and glazed. Shaking the thought from her head, she looked to the others.
"So far it looks like some sort of monkey."
"A monkey? Like a 'lives in the trees 'ook ook' monkey.'"
"Yes."
"Why would a monkey be in the Everfree? Don't they live in more exotic places?"
"Well normally, yes. But there are some northern ones." Fluttershy clarified, though it was pointless. Rarity had gone off into some fantasy about a cruise in the tropics.
Flipping the corpse over, she took note of one thing, and one thing only. This was no monkey. Though she never saw it during her movement tests, she had assmued it had a tail curled up behind its back. It did not. Rather, all it had were a pair of extremely muscular buttocks. In fact, the entire back seemed like muscle and bone.
"I guess I was wrong. It must be an ape. Not that there's much difference beyond the fact that one is small and has a tail while the other is big and lacks a tail."
There was little else to note about it, so she flipped it back over and began to cut into the exposed stomach. When some fruit popped out, she felt overjoyed that her assumption was correct. Then a chunk of meat forced itself out of the stomach. The most notable thing was that it had a cutie mark on it. It took her a moment to process that information.
An animal with an herbivore's teeth and little to no weapons had somepony's half digested cutie mark in its stomach. She quickly looked to the mouth and noted the incissors, canines, and bicuspids, and strange molars and pre-molars that she had attributed to a frugivore or insectivore. She expanded on the insectivore part and looked at the teeth again. They looked more and more like those of a carnivore, and less like an herbivore. The thought repeated itself, though it was shrunken down as she comprehended it.
An ape ate somepony.
Fluttershy felt chills run down her spine as she realized what this animal's closest living relative would most likely be. The word screeched across her mind, the shrill screams of the ape blazing through her psyche like wild fire. Chimpanzee. The one known ape to prefer meat to fruit. She thought about the various things chimps did during hunts. Swing their arms and throw, be it a rock or a powerful punch. They killed, often without need for food. They killed others in their groups. It was one of the animals she had learned were barely considered intelligent, let alone 'primitive sapient'. She looked into the creature's eyes and once again got the feeling that something was very, very wrong about its death. Chimps were one of the few animals who seemed to have concept similar to what Griffons called 'revenge'. They'd kill what they thought of as a threat or had been established as a threat.
She looked over to the half-digested cutie mark and took a piece of paper and pencil and traced the ragged shape. She promptly colored it in and let the touched up image soak in her brain. It resembled something like a beige, cracked egg encased in dark brown rock. The fur surrounding it was a bone white. She recognised it from somewhere. Then it clicked. She had a distant cousin with this same cutie mark. They had met only once, and they never spoke until they learned that they both had loved animals. Granted, one loved the still living ones, while the other seemed obsessed with long extinct ones. Cousin Shy Bones. Her mind screeched to halt when she remembered chimps tore their prey limb from limb.
*WHUD*
Big Macintosh stood mouth agape. The trees in the field were fine. But almost all of his crop had disappeared overnight. All of his family's hard work, gone. Somepony had pulled an apple heist and snuck almost all of his pride and joy out from under their noses. He could excuse a wild animal or two eating apples that had fallen off of the trees. Critters had to eat too. But the fact that almost all of the farm's crop was gone was not the work of some racoons. It was a damned heist. How did all of this sit with Big Macintosh?
He was right well livid. He stomped his way back to the farm house, in order to get the paperwork to report the grand theft of apples, leaving a trail of smoking craters in his wake. It took a lot to get Big Macintosh angry. His sisters could fly off the handle at almost anything, but whenever something did get the draught horse angry, it got him PISSED. He wouldn't yell or throw a tantrum. He'd direct his rage towards the thing angering him, and get to work on fixing it.
Applejack was at the breakfast table when she heard the door creak open and Big Macintosh stomped in, leaving smoking holes in the floor, so naturally, she knew not to ask until he had calmed down enough to form coherent thoughts.
She collapsed into a heap next to the table. "FLUTTERSHY!" Zecora and Rarity shouted as they dashed over to help the timid pony as well as see what made her faint.
Rarity looked over the soggy paper next to the corpse. It had what looked like a cutie mark on it, but she'd have to ask Fluttershy for full details. Zecora poured a bitter medicine down Fluttershy's throat, reviving her.
"What made you faint Fluttershy? The ghastly fumes from the corpse or something else?" Rarity held her muzzle with a hoof, using a hoof-fan to waft the smell away from herself.
"Fluttershy cares for animals, I doubt she could faint from something so trivial." Zecora held Fluttershy up, carefully setting down the emptied medicine bowl. Fluttershy trembled in her grip, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She gasped for air as she fought them back, though she was failing. "C-c-c-c-cousin Sh-shhhy B-b-b-bones. M-m-m-monster a-ape." Her chest heaved as she broke down into hysterics.
Rarity looked to the drawing of the cutie mark. It did indeed have the words 'Cousin Boneshy' written under it. it the same beatiful mouth-writing that was pressent in the rest of the notes about the animal. She gagged when she saw the chunk of flesh. She, then realizing how rude it was to nearly hurl on the remains of someone's loved one, so she made way for a window to get fresh air. Zecora just comforted the timid pony. From what she could infer about what Fluttershy had said, it involved her cousin and some sort of ape. She knew it must've been the remains of the animal sitting on the counter. Looking over the edge of the table at it, it did indeed look like the chimpanzees from her homeland. She knew them to be animals who lived in the Sombongo Jungle to the southwest of the plains she called home, before the incident happened. She cringed at the thought.
Everyone's thoughts were cut short when they heard wailing coming from outside the hut door. Rarity pulled her head inside, shut all the windows, put out the fire. The only light was the small amount that made it through the forest canopy. The wailing continued. Rarity looked through the shades when she saw a tacky animal fur sitting in a bush. And then she stopped being condescending as soon she saw what was bundled up in that fur.She levitated the bundle over and was met with the reward of the wails stopping. A little face poked out of the bundle, looking at the alabaster unicorn with curious brown eyes. It gave out a sudued grunt as it tried to grasp onto Rarity's horn. It suprised her a little when it nearly grabbed it, and she nearly dropped the bundle, but it had managed to grab onto her horn before she could. She was still very cautious about the small creature. From what she could see of it in the low light, it looked like... the ape sitting over on the operating table.
"Oh my! Zecora, could you relight the fire? This poor thing has been sitting out here for so long! I bet the little thing is scared." She nuzzled it as it held onto her horn. It gurgled with happiness, giving off a feeling that it was very different from the dead beast that sat on the table. As soon as the fire relit, the little ball of flesh laughed as it saw the various masks that Zecora had about the room. As it let go of Rarity's horn, she sat it gently on a cushion.
It stared wide-eyed at the three equines. In fact, as Fluttershy noted, the little creature was probably the juvinille form of the creature sitting on the table. It looked a little different though. For starters, it had a somewhat darker skin tone, rather than a pale white, it looked like the color of wet sand. It had somewhat browner hair, and its eyes seemed entirely different to the souless doll's eyes that the adult had. All was calm in the tree hut as the rooms occupants, ape and equine alike stared at one another.
The calm would not last long, however, because soon the baby had begun crying. No smells filled the room, so it couldn't be that it had soiled itself. Nothing seemed to be bothering it either, so that left 'hungry'.
"Fluttershy, whatever does the little thing eat?" Rarity whispered to Fluttershy while Zecora kept the small thing busy by making silly faces at it.
"Well the adults are omnivores, but considering this is an infant, it probably drinks milk."
"Milk is something I do not have in my home. It looks like we'll have to give it some of our own."
"But none of us has had any foals, how can we feed it milk, much less our milk?" Rarity raised a hoof, rather sheepishly.
Before she could put her hoof down, Zecora had put the little ape near one of her teats. It grabbed on and began to suckle. Rarity's jaw dropped and Fluttershy blushed behind her mane and curled up behind Rarity.
"I had a foal of my own, but then I lost it, back at home. My stay in Equestria was supposed to be brief, and last only as long as my grief. But then you ponies befriended me, and now I live here permanently." Zecora said in a somber tone as she looked down at the little ape. She looked at the sandy color of its flesh. The light brown of its eyes. The woody brown of its hair. "I shall call it 'Tarzan', for the color of the fur on his head, and his soft little hands." she said as she nuzzled the little ape. It gurgled and looked up at her with bright eyes. Too young to know the obvious differences between Zecora and it, on that day, to it, Zecora had become it's mother. It hugged her around her mouth as she nuzzled it.
Rarity and Fluttershy tried, and failed to supress what was on their minds. "Awwwwwwwwwww. So adorable!"
Somewhere far east of the Everfree...
The smell of smoke and fire filled the air. Sitting around a fire were strange apes. Some of them were a dark brown with black fur, while others where pale white with red fur. Suddenly, one of the apes stood, a large brown one, with several piercings in his flesh. He took a small twig and drew in the sand near the fire. The figures resembled two of the apes, with what looked to be a large manticore. He drew lines from the larger ape to the manticores mouth, implying he was eaten. At this, the other apes were outraged. they beat on the logs they were sitting on, sending out haunting percussion that sounded like a wardrum.
A wardrum it was, when the large brown ape drew the manticore being killed by the others. The other apes rejoiced while the large brown onesat down and nodded, a smirk across his face. He placed the stick in the fire and bellowed. The other apes danced as they beat on their primitive instruments.
The manticores shall fall.
From a distance, Discord watched over the bizzare apes. Ever since been 're-imprisoned', for lack of a better word, Discord had kept his work low key. His form was unlike his organic form, instead he looked like the colored glass he had taken over a while ago. He had helped steer a new species onto the road of chaos. And he regreted it. For once in his long, long life, he regreted causing chaos. Most of his pranks were childish and fun, as long as nobody was too badly hurt. But his magic was unpredictable to even himself. So when it disobeyed him and sped up the rise of the apes, he was terrified of the potential he saw in them. They were actually using order to cause chaos, an idea which sickened him. Sure order sowed the seeds of chaos and vice versa, but using one to directly cause the other was unheard of!
"As much as I hate it..." And then Discord got an idea. A wonderful, awful idea.. "No, I can make this work to my advantage. I hope Celestia likes polka dots! Mahahahahahaha! I'll toy with my little pony for a while before I begin buisness." The clink of the metal fram the held his glass form together sounded from the tree which he sat in, replacing him with a bright light as he made way for Canterlot, a city which was about to get a new coating of paint.
After Fluttershy had straighted things out with the manticore and sent in her reports, both on the new species of ape and the death of her cousin, she was content to finally get some sleep. Rarity had headed back to Ponyville to cancel their spa trip, and had gathered her other four friends to share the news. Currently, she was wondering why this was a good idea, as she rubbed her head from the migraine Pinkie was giving her.
"Os what did you wanna tell us? Huh huh huh? I bet it's your birthday isn't it!"
"Pinkie."
"But your birthday isn't for a few months, so that can't be it. OH! I KNOW ! I KNOW! You've got a friend coming to town and you wanted to tell me ahead of time so you could have me prepared the surprise party!"
"Pinkie."
"But if that's the case, then you'd have talked with me when I got my paycheck, and even then you wouldn't need the others, so I bet you must have something even more important to tell us, like say finding a little apey-wapey thingy-wingy in a bush!"
"Pinki-" Rarity's jaw dropped when Pinkie had actually managed to guess correctly on the third try. Before Pinkie could make it any farther on that line of thought, Rarity shoved a hoof into Pinkie's chattering mouth. The pink pony continued to talk under the hoof, resulting a hilarious muffle that left Applejack and Rainbow Dash on the ground, howling with laughter. "Pinkie, to save us all grief, yes, that's what happened." Rarity removed her hoof and wiped it clean with a tissue.
"Oh cool! Is it cute!? Can we see it!? Where is it!? HUH HUH HUH!?"
"An ape? Yah mean like ah monkey?"
"Well, yes. As for where it is, it's at Zecora's. No, we can't see it until she's ready to show the town." She looked at the pink pony, who was already planning the welcome party. "And no parties, Pinkie. It is only a baby after all."
"Awwwwww, no fair."
To the north of Equestria sits a nation. While some ponies live here, the majority of the population is made up of deer and griffons. Currently, one large, green stag was shambling though the mountain paths that seperated the northern country from Equestria. On his back sat a greyish-brown griffon. In one of his vest pockets was a small snake, which was wearing a small hat for some inexplicable reason.
"UGGGHH. When are we gonna get there?" To the surprise of the non-existant audience, it wasn't the passenger complaining about the trip. It was her carrier, the green stag. "Look, you wanna go to some town in Equestria famous for being home to a bunch of ponies that saved that nation, then be my guest. But riding on my back all the time is not an option. You know as well as I do that I'm not the most athlectic stag. And considering the fact that I just shed my antlers and my head is in bandages, I'm in a pretty bad mood. You'll either have to help carry your own weight, or you can hunt while I set up camp." He gestured to the large sack of tents and bed sheet that he was carrying.
"Fine, Kran. I'll go get us some dinner. Not like you have much to hunt with anyway." She gestured to the stag's lack of effective hunting tools. "Sides, you don't look cute when you're too exhausted." She gave him a peck on the cheek, careful not to split his mouth open.
His face drained of blood as she took off to a forest near the path. Sure, he liked Harley, and he knew that Harley liked him, but that was the first time either of them had made any attempt to further the relationship past hugging and nuzzling. He though about the kiss she had given him, if it could be called that. He took careful note that if she had opened her beak to try and perform a traditional cheek kiss, it might've ended with her carrying him to the hostpital, and that would lead to all sorts of awkard situations. Which is one of the things that he hated the most.
Before his train of thought could get any further, he shook it from his head and began work on setting up the tent. It was fairly simple, considering it was more less not a tent and more a small metal shed with insulation. By the time he had finished the bedding, each strip of cloth in the right place, he placed a blanket over it... and jumped in and messed the entire thing up. He was one for both style, and practicality. Thus, it was in his nature to make a bed and then mess it up so it had warm air stored in the sheets.
As he got to his hooves, Harley flew in through the door, with a pair of dead rabbit and a couple field mice. She tossed the mice to the snake in the stag's pocket, which slithered out and swallowed them. As for the stag, he merely started a fire by looking at the fire pit.
"When're you gonna tell how you do that and stop showing off?" Harley asked with mock offense as she placed the rabbits over the fire. "I mean how can a buck that only knows storm magic even use fire?"
"Well fine..." the stag rolled his eyes as he trotted over to sit next to the griffon, not actching onto the tone of Harley's voice. "It's a simple proccess really. See, what I do is I gather water in a thin film over the wood, and send lightning coursing through it. This seperates the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. Send onther spark within the short window of time, and it ignites the gases. With enough practice, you can make it look like you're starting a fire with a glance and not just using basic chemistry." He pulled his front hooves under him as he lay down on the ground. He looked into the fire and watched the rabbits cook. "How'd the hunt go?"
"Same old, same old." She turned the rabbits around to the other side. "'Cept I saw the wierdest thing. Abandoned campfires, just smoking. Judging by the footprints around them, and how much smoke there was, I'd say they were put out not too long ago."
"So what?"
"The footprints look weird. Like a bear's footprints, but more 'soft'." She drew the shape in the ground. "I thought you'd know."
"Not any footprints I've ever seen. They don't look like something extinct either." He looked to the rabbits again. "But hey, I'd say it's time for some eatin'. After all, we got a long trip ahead of us.":
"Yeah, yeah." She punch him in the shoulder playfully, and they began to engoy their dinner in silence. That night, they had pleasant dreams about various things. For the stag, they were mostly about travelling to the ancient past. For the griffon, they were about setting expeditioning records. The snake dreampt of whatever snakes dreampt of. Little did they know, that was to be their last normal night on the trip to Ponyville.
Author's Note: So yeah, this is going to be fun to write. Don't forget to leave a comment, telling me how I could improve.
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