You weren't exactly sure what you did wrong this time. You couldn't even count the number of trips you had made in your balloon before this time, but you'd never had to make a sudden landing like this before. Usually, you just floated for a few hours until you found a new city to explore. You could even see a small town in the distance. If you could just keep it afloat for a little while longer...

CRASH

Your heart dropped into your stomach as the basket slammed into the canopy of the dense forest. You gripped tightly onto the side as you were pitched forward, for fear of being thrown out entirely. For your troubles, you receive a jarring blow in the side that seems to knock all the air out of your lungs. While you gasp for air, you try to remember your preparations and where it could have gone wrong. You should never have trusted that colt to help. He had been just like all the others when he figured out the truth about you, and you should have recognized his "change of heart" for what it was: an attempt to get close enough to you to do some real damage. Well, you weren't going back there anyway.

You try to stand up in the now slanted basket, but the creaking sounds from the branches below make you nervous. Looking down, you can see that you are still an impressive distance from the ground. Better take this slowly...

As you lean forward to better gauge the distance, you hear a sickening crack, immediately followed by a second of silence that seems to last forever. You hold your breath and prepare to move all the way back into the basket, but there is another loud crack, and suddenly the basket tumbles forward and over, spilling you over the side and onto the hard forest floor, where everything goes dark.

The light starts to creep back into your eyes much later, and the first thing you recognize is the intensity of the headache. But while the inside of your head is throbbing, you slowly start to realize that the rest of your body is oddly comfortable for resting on the rocky ground of the forest. A forest that has a small circular window through which you can see the moon.

You sit up with a start in the small bed, which turns out to be a very bad idea, as you immediately feel dizzy and have to lay back down. You hear footsteps approaching, and a striped face pokes its head into the doorway.

"I am glad to see you have awoke / You're lucky that your bones aren't broke," says the mare, in a deep, heavily accented voice.

"Where exactly am I?"

She walks over to you and applies a compress to your head. The cold makes you jump back at first, but you quickly discover the chill soothes the pain. "You took a hard hit on your dome / I found you and I brought you home."

About this time, you realize that your caretaker has only been speaking in rhymes. Your head injury makes it a little more difficult to put two and two together, but time clears some things up. "You're a zebra, aren't you?"

She nods. "Zecora is this zebra's name / Did you know some from where you came?"

"I don't really come from anywhere, but I've seen your kind before." You take the compress from her and apply it to the other side of your head. "If you don't mind me asking, why are you speaking in rhymes?"

"I do not speak your words with ease / But rhyming makes it quite a breeze."

You chuckle at this clever little rhyme, which causes Zecora to narrow her eyes at you. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," you say, waving your hoof. "I swear I'm not making fun of you. I'm just kinda fascinated. Could you ask me if I want an orange?"

Zecora gives you a wary look, then sighs. "Would you like to have an orange? / Then you can fix my squeaky door hinge."

"Uncanny," you say, smiling. You're very tempted to throw words at her like "silver" or "purple", but you don't want to press your luck. It's good to get to talk to somepony who genuinely listens to you, for once. The fact that its a mare is just a nice bonus. You take your first real good look at your surroundings, and discover that you seem to be in some sort of hollowed-out tree, decorated with all sorts of unusual artifacts that you assume are from Zecora's homeland. "So where exactly am I, Zecora?"

"In the Everfree Forest you took your spill / Just to the west of Ponyville."

"Ponyville, huh? So why do you live out here?"

Zecora shakes her head. "The city life is not for me / Would you like a cup of tea?"

You nod and she ducks back into what appears to be the main room of her house and returns carrying a tray holding two small bowls of a deep red tea. The drink is sweet, with a slightly nutty taste. Its a drink you've had before, but it has never tasted as good as it does now.

The zebra takes a sip of her drink and sits down on the floor facing the bed. "Now it is question time for me / What brought you to the Everfree?"

"My balloon did," you say, taking another drink. Zecora cocks her head to the side, and you realize that this is hardly a satisfactory answer. "I don't mean to be flippant, but that's pretty much how I get everywhere. I just travel from place to place, wherever the winds take me. I haven't had a proper home for more than a few months at a time."

Zecora nods, looking thoughtful. "You asked why I don't live in town / But what keeps you from settling down?"

For the first time since you came to, you feel hesitant about the conversation. Zecora was easy to talk to, and quite friendly, but now she wants to know what keep you moving.

No, she wants to know what keeps you running. You look down at your lower half, covered by the leopard print blanket. Had she not seen?

You take a deep breath. "I'm going to let you see something now. I hope it doesn't freak you out." Before she can protest, and before you give yourself enough time to change your mind, you whip the blanket away from your legs, and exposing the solid, unpatterned color of your haunches. "I'm a blank flank, Zecora."

You hang your head in shame, waiting for the inevitable backlash. In the last town, it had occurred when you had allowed yourself to get too cozy with a mare. When in public, you always wore your saddlebags, but your new fillyfriend was one who liked public displays of affection, which included tickling you in front of others. This time she made you laugh so much, the bags slipped off, revealing you as a full grown stallion without a cutie mark. The whispers were immediate, the small betrayals followed soon after, until eventually there was no other option but to leave town.

And after almost no time and with no balloon to escape in, the first kind soul you had come across in this forest already knew who you were and was surely about to

"I'm waiting for the other hoof to fall / Is there something else, or is that all?"

You look over at Zecora with surprise, only to see her confusion matches yours. "That doesn't bother you?"

She shrugs. "If you want me to, I can say yes / But why I would I cannot guess."

"You don't think that makes me weird?"

Zecora smiles and shakes her head. "My heart, it is not made of stone / You have not felt this pain alone / When myself the ponies did see / They all would run away from me / My colors and my verbal rhymes / Kept them away til recent times / We know not what your flank intends / But that does not mean we can't be friends."

Without thinking, you leap out of bed and wrap your forelegs around Zecora's neck, your face beaming. It catches her off guard, and you can feel her face flush next to yours, but eventually she reaches her hooves up and returns the embrace. As you feel your eyes start to tear up, you nuzzle your snout against her jawline, right above the rings she wears on her neck.

"Thank you so much. You have no idea how much that means to me."

The two of you talk well into the night. She talks about her life in the Everfree Forest and how difficult it is for her to venture into town, as the townspeople are confused by her looks and her rituals. As such, she prefers her secluded if somewhat disturbing-looking home, as it placed her within walking distance of many of the herbs that she needed for her potions.

You tell her about your travels, and as you relate your own personal adventures, you find something strange happening. Stories that were once tragic tales of rejection now seem almost humorous to you in retrospect. Zecora and you laugh at how you tried to keep your secrets, and always failed in some comical fashion. Everyone of your tales seemed to end with a bunch of close-minded ponies getting their manes in a twist over something as stupid as your blank flank.

And when one story has a mare that you had to leave behind, Zecora smiles at you and gives you a rhyme that causes you to blush. You're not new to flirting, but for some reason you find yourself all butterflies around her. At first, you assume it is just because of her exotic nature, but upon further reflection, you realize you just feel very comfortable with her, and the prospect of something more causes you to blush even deeper.

You look away, trying to hide the redness of your cheeks, only to notice through a window that the sun has begun to rise. "Oh Celestia," you say, pressing your hoof to your now completely clear head. "I've got to get moving. I need to find a place to stay."

Zecora looks around the house, sizing it up. She says, with not a little apprehension in her voice "Even though there's not much space / You are welcome to share my place."

You smile, but shake your head. "I couldn't do that to you, Zecora. We'd be constantly cramped, and next thing you know, we'd be sick to death of each other. And I'm hoping that we'll be able to have more conversations like this soon." You start to stand up.

Zecora looked up at you as you rose to your hooves. "I'd like that," she says, eyes shining. Then you both stare at each other for a moment, as you realize what just happened. You can't help but laugh, and she quickly joins in.

You quickly compose yourself. "So Ponyville is to the east, you said? I hope they're more accepting of blank flanks than of zebras."

She thinks for a moment. "Another option, if you please / A settlement beyond the trees / Where ponies smile and never frown / A little place called Sunny Town / Perhaps if you stay in Everfree / You will spend more time with me?"

Zecora smiles as you stand by the door, pondering her words. The idea sounds intriguing enough: a nice, quiet hamlet in the woods where everypony is happy. And in walking distance of Zecora? Sounds like heaven, and if it doesn't work, you can always leave. "I think I might have to check that out. Do you have a map?"

She grabs a parchment off her shelf and shows you the directions. Aside from one turn that is a little bit hidden, it seems easy enough to find. You're on your way out the door when Zecora calls you back.

"Grayhoof!" You pause. "I suddenly feel quite ill / Perhaps you should go to Ponyville / I fear that if this road you take / It may become a great mistake."

You walk over to the worried zebra and nuzzle her. She looks at you anxiously, but you kiss her softly on the lips. "Don't worry about me, Zecora. Everything's going to be just fine." And you step out the door. Next Chapter: Black Bones Estimated time remaining: 16 Minutes