[The sparse interior of the small home of my host is very cold. My host, Mister Mortar, seems unaffected by it but still apologizes for the lack of any heating, as it was too expensive to pay for an air conditioning system, magical or otherwise. I quickly tell him that it's no bother at all, in spite of the fact that I can see my breath. The large earth stallion is well muscled, no doubt from a life spent on a rock farm, yet there is a certain gentleness to him that becomes apparent when our interview begins.]

I can't recall exactly when I first noticed all the rumors of these new folks coming around. I didn't even know that they were just showing up, popping up out of thin air out of nowhere. I just thought that they were vacationers, tourists or something from other parts of the globe. It's a big world after all, and Equestria is well known as a good place to go to for a number of reasons. Before I even saw one though, I started to hear rumors about these "entities", at least that's what I heard other ponies call them. They would tell me stories of strange creatures that were just showing up for no reason. In all honesty I didn't really believe it at first. I mean, do you know how crazy that sounds in context? Just people, ponies or whatever coming to Equestria with little to no explanation of how or why they got here?

[Mortar shrugs.]

'Course, I changed my opinion real quick when I first saw one for myself. To tell you the truth I didn't know that it was one of them Displaced to begin with. At first I thought I was just seeing some weird species of bird or something, just a bit more scaly, and a lot bigger.

Can you tell me what happened when you first saw it?

It tried to eat me.

[An uncomfortable silence ensues for a few moments between us. Mortars face is blank.]

I suppose I was just unlucky, I guess. Unlucky enough to meet one of the socios(1) of the bunch. Not good for a first impression. I suppose you want the whole play by play?

That would be appreciated.

'Kay then. Well, it was already a couple of months into the whole Displaced fiasco, where ponies from all around Equestria were trying to figure out what should be done about them. I had somehow managed to not meet a single one during that whole time until, just barely after I sent a card to my daughter for her birthday, one of them showed up right on my farm. I was just going about my way like usual, making sure nothing was going on with our crops. See, My great grandparents had taken to growing a special type of quartz that's used in magilectric stuff. It's pretty hard to replace, making it pretty valuable, and more often than I care to recall I'd sometimes find thieves trying to make off with a whole cart of it.

[Mortar grumbles something under his breath that I can't quite make out.]

Well, as I was saying, I was out one afternoon to check on our stock, when I notice this trail of giant three toed footprints, going right by the shed where I keep my supplies. I had no idea what they were supposed to be, and I didn't recognize them as anything that usually lived around those parts. Biggest critters we usually got were mountain lions and the occasional bear, and even those were hardly ever seen so close to town. My first thoughts jumped straight to a dragon, which, considering my line of work, was really bad news. Thieves may steal a couple cart fulls, but a dragon could eat the whole crop in one sitting. I wasn't going to stand for that, not one bit. So, I decide to gather up a bunch of the other townsfolk to see if we could at least persuade it to go somewhere else. But as you know, not many ponies are willing to take on a dragon in any situation. There were only five other ponies willing to help me.

[Mortar shakes his head before continuing with his story.]

In hindsight, we probably should've known it wasn't a dragon. I mean, if it really was then half my stock would've already been missing. I guess I was just too focused on protecting my land to consider other possibilities. Anyway we traced the footprints back to the edge of the woods, not too far away from my own home. We were all just standing there, wondering what to do then, when all of sudden the beast came out of the brush. It must've been camouflaged, like a chameleon or something, because there's just no other way that something that big can hide right in front of our noses.

[Mortar sighs and closes his eyes, as a deep frown becomes etched across his face.]

Poor Swift Wind never saw it coming. None of us did, not until we heard her screaming her lungs out just before it came down outta the bushes and bit her in half. . . . I can only hope that it was quick.

[I am hesitant to press Mortar to continue, and the scratching of my quill on parchment has stopped as I wait.]

She was my friend you know. She always came by my place every once in a while to make sure that this aging stallion was still taking his vitamins. She was a good filly, fresh out of primary school, always trying to do the right thing. . . . I know that I probably shouldn't hate the guy or gal or whoever was in there. I know that it was just it's instincts driving it to feed on whatever it found. You hear about that a lot in cases like this, where just can't control themselves. But still, not a day goes by where I don't wish that the Royal Guard had just killed the thing when they eventually showed up instead of carrying it off to Celestia knows where.

Did anypony else die?

No, thank Celestia. Not unless you count my leg as a casualty.

[Mortar motions with his head to the stump that used to be his left hind leg. In its place is a prosthetic.]

The beast was still chewing on it when help finally came. Couple of other ponies in town heard the commotion and rushed over. I'm not sure what happened after that. I think I passed out from blood loss. All I can remember is waking up in my house with a tourniquet around what used to be me my leg. Somehow they had managed to get me away from that thing before it could finish me off. We could still hear it walking around out there, looking for us. It was at least another ten minutes before the Royal Guard finally showed up and took it down.

Can you recall what they used to subdue it?

What do you think? Another damned displaced of course. Some weirdo dressed in green. I remember he had a symbol of something like a lantern or hourglass on his chest, but that's pretty much it.

[Mortar sighs again.]

I lost a lot of things that day, thanks to that bastard. I lost my friend. I lost my leg, and thanks to that I lost my ability to work as well as before. The only family I had left was my daughter, and I'd be caught dead before I asked her to give up her life in Fillydelphia just to come and help her dad. The rest of the ponies in town tried their best to help me, and I got little money from the royal treasury to pay for the damages and my leg, but there was only so much they could do before I eventually just had to accept the reality that I was going to lose the business. So I decided to just pack it up, sell off what I could, and move somewhere else.

[Mortar looks at me sternly and thrusts a hoof in my direction.]

Now before you do anything else, I want you to know that I don't hold all of them accountable for what happened. I know that not every Displaced is like that. Everypony does. But what everypony doesn't seem to realize, or is either too willing to forget, is that when they started showing up, throwing their weight around without fear of consequences, a lot of lives were uprooted in the process, and I'm not talking about just mine. I know you've heard about what happened in Appleloosa. I've read the papers. All those ponies, suddenly finding themselves without a roof over their heads, all because one person couldn't stop to think about what he was doing for one moment. Bless those buffalo for giving them a place to stay until they rebuilt. And that's just one example out a of a dozen others, like Manehatten, Las Pegasus, even here in Poyville, all of them at least partially leveled in one way or another by a socio.

[Mortar seems to relax as he settles back into his chair.]

If nothing else, the one thing I suppose that you should take from all of this is that you shouldn't hold a grudge like I did. I hear that one bloke actually did get rehabilitated. Turns out that he or she was one of the lucky ones. Not all of them were able to realize what they were becoming, what they were turning themselves into. Or maybe they did, but just didn't care.

[Eventually I take my leave of Mister Mortar's small house located on the edge of Ponyville. Despite what amount of horrors the small community has witnessed in the past, Mortar claims that it is still one of the better places to retire, due to the overall sense of calm that the town exudes.]

(1) Socios; short for sociopath; a term coined by ponies used to describe Displaced individuals who have been rendered mildly insane by the aspects of their new body, either by having their mind taken over by the body's urges or the feeling of power that their new body grants them.

Author's Notes:

Hello all. Here's another chapter that came to me out of nowhere. I'm going to be taking some time to read up on some of your suggestions for the next chapter. Should be out fairly soon.

Until then, I hope you enjoyed reading this entry, and as always be sure to tell me whatever suggestions you have for more entries.