Two months. I spent two freaking months alone in the woods. That’s a lot of time spent alone, especially when you are in such an unusual situation. During that time I had freaked out twice because I couldn’t believe what was happening to me, but I finally came to terms with my situation. I had decided that going all angsty and emo over my situation wouldn’t help, so I stopped complaining and whining and decided to just go with the flow and enjoy it. I had to cross the Pie family’s rock farm again, as I had been travelling away from Ponyville when I went to Fillydelphia, but I managed to avoid being seen by anypony. I wasted a lot of time surrounding farms, until I realized I could just fly over them as owl.

I left the normal forest and entered the Everfree Forest at some point during the fifth week, and soon I was surrounded by creepy trees and dangerous creatures. I ended up hating all of them, but at least I learned a lot about my condition. I learned that I gained energy whenever something chaotic happened to a living being. Due to that, doing magical feats that were essentially chaotic was almost cost-free. As a rule of thumb: if something unexpected, physically impossible or disharmonic happened to a living being, I gained energy. The amount of energy depended on my physical proximity, my involvement and how much chaos was involved. The Everfree Forest, being a land untamed by ponies, gave me a small but constant flux of energy, which was rather nice. Even so, trolling the animals gave me much less energy than what I did at Fillydelphia.

I also discovered that the chances of going berserk increased whenever I was forced to act harmonically for too long. I tried to do nothing chaotic and, after three days, I snapped just because I had to stay still for a few minutes because I thought I had heard hoofsteps. Fortunately, I was mistaken, or I might have killed a pony again. Being “not chaotic” also made me feel severe withdrawal symptoms, but I suspected that chaos was something my body really needed, like breathing and sleeping, so I decided not to consider it an addiction. I also found impossible to focus my mind and think rationally when I restrained myself from doing chaos, as I couldn’t stop thinking about doing it.

I learned that transformations didn’t waste energy per sé, but I couldn’t do strong magic when I wasn’t a draconequus, just some really weak spells like moving light objects. I didn’t need to eat, as I could feed myself with my energy, directly or materializing food. However, eating reduces the amount of energy I spend, so I usually slept during the day in my tree form to feed via photosynthesis. Whenever I left a form time stopped for it so any injury would remain as it was until I went back to that form and waited for it to heal. They were, for all intents, completely independent bodies. Also, the transformations were cancelled if I was startled.

I also finally got used to my main form, to seeing my muzzle when I looked down and to the mana bar. The latter was really useful, as it would show me how much a spell would cost if I thought about performing one but I didn’t willed it to happen. When I say “will it to happen”, I mean that the part of my mind that wasn’t there when I was human and controlled the magic took part in the thought process so I would really do magic. That meant I could do almost anything without learning spells or memorizing formulas, like healing myself (but not others, for some reason), teleporting or creating illusions.

Last, I learned that my magic wasn’t only meant to create chaotic and random things, like explosive pies or flying pigs. I could also perform mental manipulation. I had found that I could do the Discord’s discording trick, which made my target change his behaviour and become grayish. I could also “enter” the mind of my victims and do a lot of manipulation. It wasn’t real hypnosis, as I couldn’t force them to do whatever I wanted, and I couldn’t read their memories either, but I could make them perceive whatever I wanted and manipulate their current thoughts. For example: I made a bunny believe a rock was a carrot, and it broke its teeth trying to eat it. It kept on gnawing on it, as I made it unable to feel pain, until it fainted due to blood loss. Then I ate the bunny.

I could go on, but I don’t feel like telling the few interesting things that happened to me over those two months The general idea is that I spent sixty days walking and doing terrible things to any animal who had the bad luck of entering my field of vision (all in the name of science, of course), and eating the weirdest things, as my draconequus form can eat anything my other forms do, including gems and some rocks (which taste like sweet and salty, respectively).

Also, manticores are stronger than bears and teen dragons, and resilient to mind magic, so I had a hard time when one attacked me. When I say “I had a hard time”, I mean that I only survived because I had a lot of magic reserves, so I could go pew pew on the monster until it fled.

I had decided I was ready to try social interaction again, and I hoped the ponies would have forgotten about me, so that night I changed into owl and flew out of the forest (“I was ready to try social interaction again”?, that sounds SO autistic). I flew as high as I could and looked around. The Everfree was huge, but I could glimpse the end of it by looking southwest. I changed into dragon for extra speed and protection against possible predators and flew in that direction.

I was soon flying over a small prairie, but dragon’s had a worse night vision than I expected, so I went back to owl. I would have smiled if my beak could do such thing, as I could see an apple orchard relatively close, which led to some buildings too far away to recognize them, even for an owl. I flew towards the buildings without changing form to avoid drawing attention to me. Please let it be Sweet Apple Acres, please let it be Sweet Apple Acres, please let it be Sweet Apple Acres, please let it be Sweet Apple Acres. That was pretty much my train of thought until I was close enough. FUCK YEAH! IT IS SWEET APPLE ACRES! Ponyville here I go!

My original plan was to arrive at Ponyville, find the mane six, ask Twilight to ask Celestia if there was a way for me to go back to Earth, then wait for an answer. However, I doubted they would let me leave unpunished after the Fillydelphia incident, so my new plan was to meet the mane six to satiate my brony needs, then try to learn more about Equestria. I thought I may be lucky enough to find a way to return home by myself.

The first thing I did when I reached the farm was to take a peek inside the house. I almost made the owl equivalent of an hysteric girl shriek when I saw Applejack sleeping in the bed of her room, but I managed to restrain myself. I watched through all the windows in a totally non-creepy (well, maybe slightly creepy) way, until I had seen the four Apples. Then, I decided I should sleep the rest of the night so I wouldn’t be tired the next day. I landed on a tree branch, changed into rattlesnake because I couldn’t resist the temptation of making a biblical reference (even if only I would ever know I did it) and fell asleep.

And I said unto the mare, Yea, hath Faust said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?
And the mare said unto me, Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat:
but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, Faust hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And I said unto the mare, Ye shall not surely die: for Faust doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as Faust, knowing good and evil.
And when the mare saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her stallion with her, and he did eat.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
And they heard the voice of Faust walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the stallion and his mare hid themselves from the presence of Faust amongst the trees of the garden.
And Faust called unto the stallion, and said unto him, Where art thou?
And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
And she said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
And the stallion said, The mare whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
And Faust said unto the mare, What is this thou hast done? And the mare said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
And Faust said unto me, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the mare, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

I woke up hyperventilating, rattling and hissing out of instinct. It took me a whole minute to regain my composure, as the dream had been really vivid. I had felt the power of God-Faust cursing me for eternity, and I still felt at unease. I felt like the universe had just told me “so, you think it’s funny to be the serpent in the apple tree? Well, think again, faggot.” Well, fuck you too, universe.

I got that idea out of my head and paid attention to my surroundings. It was early in the morning, I estimated that the sun had been shining for less than an hour. I could taste/smell a pony nearby with my tongue, and using my sense of hearing (I suddenly knew that snakes hear with their jaw, by feeling the sound transmitted as ground vibrations) I determined the pony’s position, pace and weight. (I try not to think too much into those things, as my draconequus/human/whatever mind is ill suited to deal with that kind of sensory information, so trying to remember things I experienced with other forms tends to give me headaches.)

I feared that my bull and dragon form would be recognized. My only options to have a conversation with ponies were moose and diamond dog. I chose diamond dog, as the only moose I had ever seen in the show was a chocolate sculpture. Let’s try diamond dog, the worst case scenario will be that the pony will try to give me a beating, so I will just escape and try again as a moose.
I slithered to the base of the tree, looked around to make sure nothing could see me, and changed form. I had learned how to do it without being a draconequus for a short time, but it consumed more magic. Alright, what’s my alibi? I am... I am a diamond dog named... Garrosh, (will my Raid Leader be mad because I suddenly stopped playing?) and I... have been banished by my pack because... Because I freed some pony slaves and the others found out. Yeah, that will work. Oh! Now I remember, I used to play World of Warcraft when I was a human! This shitty idea of storytelling is working!

I walked towards the sound of hoofsteps, and soon I saw Big Freaking Macintosh pulling... some kind of farm machinery fifteen meters away from me. He hadn’t noticed me yet. Diamond dogs talked like Gollum, right?

“You there! Big pony!” I said, and he turned his head towards me. He started frowning as soon as he saw me, but he didn’t look like he was going to attack... yet.

“I mean no harm to pony!” I said, slowly closing the distance, “I be Garrosh. I friend to ponies. You friend to Garrosh?”

His frown became deeper for a moment, and suddenly it disappeared, “eeyup” he simply said. I could feel my ears unfolding as I calmed down.

“I banished from pack. I travel alone. Lost in forest. Forest dangerous. I need place to rest. Ponies help me, I help ponies. You help me?”

“Eeyup,” he said after considering it for a few moments.

“What is name of big red pony?”

“My name is Macintosh, Big Macintosh,” I could almost hear James Bond’s theme when he said that.

“You really big for pony!” I said, nodding, “I thank Macintosh for help Garrosh.”

He moved his hoof to signal me to wait and he took air.

“APPLEJACK!!!” he shouted with the power of a thousand suns, causing all the apples from the nearest trees to fall.

I was dazed for a few seconds, my sensitive ears overflowing me with pain. I cocked my head to one side when I recovered. What is he planning?

“Ah am too busy to help ya, mah sister will take care of ya,” I nodded in agreement.

I heard Applejack galloping toward us a minute before she arrived. Fuck yeah I’m going to meet Applejack, I hope I don’t mess everything up.

“What in tarnation?!” she exclaimed when she saw me, “brother, why is there a diamond dog in the orchard?!”

“He will tell ya, Ah am busy now,” the stallion said as he continued doing... Whatever he had been doing before I arrived.

Applejack stared at me, she was clearly ready to buck me into next week if I said anything that rubbed her wrong.

“Hello, orange pony!” I said with a shy smile that probably looked more like an aggressive display of my sharp teeth, “I be Garrosh. I travel a lot. I lost in dark forest. Very dangerous. Creatures more strong than Garrosh. I need place to rest. Ponies help me, I help pony. Big pony say you help me,” I tried to give her the puppy eyes.

“Well, Ah reckon the Everfree is mighty dangerous, but Ah don’t trust ya yet. Why would a diamond dog travel alone? Y’all are always in your caves.”

Shit, this is the Element of Honesty. Does that mean she can detect if I’m lying?

“I always different. Don’t like having slaves, makes Garrosh feel bad. One day, I free slaves. Pack knows it was me, I banished. I want to find new pack, diamond dog without pack is nothing,” I really hope she can’t detect lies.

“Ya really did that?” I nodded with enthusiasm, “well, that’s mighty brave and noble from you, but Ah can’t let you stay in mah farm, ya might scare the cows,” I used the puppy eyes again, “but Ah think my friends will find a place for you to stay. Ah will go to Ponyville with ya so ya don’t have no problems.”

She started walking and I followed her, but she surprised me by turning back and tackling me when I was close enough, pinning me down with a surprising amount of strength for a being that was half my size.

“Ah am going to trust ya,” she slowly said, “but if ya do something bad to anypony ya will be in deep trouble, understood?” I nodded frantically, “good.”

She released me and continued walking as if nothing had happened. I was worried, but I decided to follow her anyways. Do ponies trust Applejack enough to accept my presence? Moreover, what do ponies think of diamond dogs in general? Are they even considered persons with rights, or little more than animals? Agh, I should have learned about all these things before doing this.
I was so focused on my thoughts that I didn’t notice we had already left the farm and Ponyville was on sight. I noticed it when we were about to reach the first houses.

“I fear going to pony town, feels weird,” I simply said.

“Don’t ya worry none, it will be fine.”

The ponies who saw me talked between themselves in whispers while casting sideways glances toward us, but that was something I expected. I felt like a tourist in a city full of monuments, trying to see everything before the tour was over. I recognized some of the buildings from the show, as well as some background ponies. Is that Lyra? Now I want to know if her hands/human fetish is real or just something made up by us. I saw that we were going to Twilight’s library, and everyone knows that Twilight is best pony, so I was practically beaming with delight. There was another thing I noticed while following Applejack, which is really embarrassing to admit: I found some of these mares attractive! I had never been into clopping before, but now I suddenly thought about mares like I thought about women back home. I managed to repress those thoughts until I had time to deal with them, the part of my mind that thought “Oh god gross! I’m not gonna fuck a pony!” winning the battle (for now).

“Alright, this is Twilight’s,” said Applejack, “Ah think she’s the best suited to take care of ya, Ah’ll introduce ya to her and Ah’ll be on mah way.”

“I thank you, strong pony,” I said with real gratitude. She’s just like in the show, honest and dependable.

She knocked on the door and we waited until a purple baby dragon which I, and probably you too, knew as Spike, opened it.

“Hey Applejack, what are you-” he paused when he saw me, “watch out! There’s a diamond dog behind you!”

“Calm down, Spike. This is Garrosh, he was exiled from his pack and got lost in the Everfree. Ah believe he’s a good fella, so Ah thought Twilight could find a place for him to pass the night.”

The baby dragon shrugged and let me in, “Twilight! We’ve a guest!” he shouted.

“I’ll be there in a moment!” a female voice I knew too well answered.

“Ah have work to do in the orchard, so Ah’ll be leaving now,” she said as she closed the door behind us.

We looked at each other for a few seconds, until I decided to say something.

“You be Spike, right?”

“Yes...” he said, still uncomfortable around me.

“You very small dragon. Never seen dragon so small.”

“I’m not small, I’m young!”

“Why you have no wings?” I had always wanted to know the answer to that.

“Well, you see, some dragons-” he was interrupted by Twilight’s timely arrival. Shit! I wanted to know that!

“Spike, step back! I’ll take care of this!” she said as she galloped downstairs, her horn already glowing.

“Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait!!!” we both said in unison, Spike waving his arms while I covered my face.

“Huh?” she said, the glowing disappearing.

“I mean no harm to ponies! I come with strong pony! You tell her!” I asked Spike while I took cover behind a couch, scared of Twilight’s magic. What if her magic breaks my transformation? I can’t risk it!

“He’s right, Applejack brought him here and told me that he’s nice and he needs a place to pass the night.”

“Why would she bring him here?” the purple unicorn asked, clearly confused, “she has plenty of room in the farm.”

“Strong pony said I may scare cows,” I added from behind the couch.

“You can come over here, I promise I won’t hurt you,” I did as I was told, “okay, what’s your name?”

“Garrosh,” Man, I am already sick of this name. I should have gone with Balto.

“Nice to meet you, I am Twilight Sparkle. Why are you in Ponyville?”

“Long story. I don’t like slaving. I free slaves. I exiled. Now I travel.”

“You came all the way over Gem Fido to Equestria alone?”

Yeah, I don’t know where or what that is, so I’ll just nod like an idiot.

“Why would you come here of all places?”

Know what? I’m tired of speaking like an idiot, and it’s harder than it looks like.

“Well, I heard one can find diamond dogs in these lands, and so far away from Gem Fido the chances of them knowing I was exiled are next to zero, so I chose Equestria.”

“What the... Why are you suddenly speaking properly?” she asked.

“I have found that ponies are even warier of me when I speak like this. I think your kind feels safer if you think you are dealing with someone less intelligent. You promised you wouldn’t hurt me, so I guess I can drop that so we can have a proper conversation.”

“This is great!” said Twilight after a few moments of deliberation, “I have so many questions about diamond dogs!”

So adorkable! Wait, questions? Oh shit, I don’t know jackshit about diamond dogs!

“Can’t it wait? I have just left the forest you call Everfree where I almost got eaten by a manticore, so I am really tired.”

“Alright,” she said, unable to hide her disappointment, “you said you want a place to rest, is that what you are going to do? Sleep all day?”

“Both the ponies out there and me would be uncomfortable if I decided to take a walk, so I was thinking I could read the newspapers.”

“You can read, too?” she asked with a cocked eyebrow, “why all the weird ones come to Ponyville?” she said to herself, so I ignored it.

“I haven’t been in civilization for two months, do you have some kind of monthly or weekly newspaper here? I would like to know what are you ponies up to.”

“I always keep all the numbers of The Equestrian Observer for the last three months. It is a weekly newspaper,” she replied.

“That’s good... Libraries are free, right? I have no money.”

“Yes, you can read anything you want for free. I will bring the newspapers now.”

I knew I was walking on thin ice, acting as a diamond dog when I had no idea about them. I wondered when would they decide I was a changeling.

“Spike, baby dragons eat gems too, right?”

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“I am a bit hungry, and I don’t think ponies will be happy if I eat meat. For all I know, I could be eating their friends. Where can I find free gems?”

“Well, there’s a place with many gems, but it’s already occupied by a pack of diamond dogs.”

“That’s bad, if they find me taking gems from their territory it won’t be pretty. Are they friendly to you?”

“They are a bunch of jerks!” Spike exclaimed, “they took Lady Rarity and forced her to pull a cart in their mines!”

I facepalmed, “and here I hoped it would be easy to find a pack in Equestria that didn’t resort to slavery.”

“Here are the newspapers,” said Twilight as she dropped them behind us with her magic, “be careful with your claws around them, they aren’t books but still they are public material.”

“You mean to tell me you are afraid of my claws damaging the paper when ponies without magic turn pages either with their mouths or their hooves? Now that I think about it, how do you ponies do most things only with your hooves and mouth?” She gave me an exasperated sigh.

“I have been trying to find how we do things with hooves since that crazy alien griffin asked me the same question. I still don’t know the answer.”

“Crazy alien griffin?” Dafuq? Is that something from Season 3 which has already happened or something?

“You will read about him in those,” she pointed at the newspapers, “I have to leave and do some chores. Spike, I leave you in charge.”

Spike saluted as Twilight left us while I took the oldest publication. This will take many hours, I should do something chaotic now or I may go mad again. I know, let’s troll Spike! I began reading, waiting for a proper situation to troll Spike. I read a lot of weird shit in the newspapers, like reports of changelings, a winged wolf, a pirate griffin named Griffin that travelled around on a flying ship with laser guns, a lot of weird creatures attending to the Grand Galloping Gala, where they ended up fighting against Nightmare Moon who possessed an earth pony while a black teen dragon beat and kidnapped Princess Luna?! What the fuck am I reading.
I had my opportunity to troll Spike when he picked up a book and left it on its place in the bookshelves. I waited until he turned his back on it and made it fall with my magic.

“Huh?” he said, confused, but he put it back on its place. Then I made it fall again.

This time he growled while he put it back. I made it fall again.

“Why are you making so much noise?” I asked, trying to sound annoyed, “I’m trying to read here.”

“It’s this book, it keeps on falling off!” he exclaimed.

“Maybe there’s a mouse in there?” I asked, faking curiosity.

“Shh! If a mouse is eating the books Twilight will be REALLY mad!” he said, nervous.

“Just take a look in there, it might not be a mouse,” I suggested.

He did as I told him, and when his right eye was between the two books I tried to make him see a jack-in-the-box sprouting out. Unfortunately, dragons had a bigger resistance to magic than I expected, so I almost changed into draconequus to complete the spell. I decided I should keep on reading after that.

“There’s nothing in there,” said Spike. I answered with a shrug.

I had already seen all the front pages, and luckily I had not seen myself in them, so I started looking through the insides of each number. Twilight came back an hour later with her saddlebags filled with who knows what. It was then that I found an article about me.

The front page of that number showed a griffin giving Celestia, and the headline, 'Sir Griffin North declares Princess Celestia as 'Best Pony' after knighting ceremony faux pas. See page 3 for more details.' This is the first time in my life I feel grateful because people (and ponies) pay more attention to gossip than to catastrophes.

My train of thought was interrupted when I felt a source of chaos energy so vast that I started chattering. Whatever it was it was approaching the library. I felt that, if I could somehow acquire such power, I would be able to conquer Equestria, make Discord my bitch and force Shay Nimrod to send me back to Earth without breaking a sweat. That chaos powerhouse opened the door and the next thing I saw was a pink blur in front of me.

“Ohmygoshadiamonddogwhatareyoudoinghere?waityouaren’tameanieareyou? BecausethatwouldbebadohbutiseeyouarereadingthenewspaperandSpikeisthereandnoponyispanickingsoyoumustbenicesotheniguessishouldsayhimynameisPinkiePiewhatsyourname?”

“What?” I hadn’t understood a single thing, and even if I was sure it was Pinkie Pie, I had yet to have visual confirmation, as she kept on bouncing around me too fast, “Spike! How do you turn this off?!”

“Pinkie, you are scaring him,” he deadpanned.

The pink blur slowed down until it became a pink earth pony.

“Hi! My name is Pinkie Pie! What’s your name?” she said, this time slow enough for me to understand her.

“Hello, I am Garrosh,” I said while I tried to find a way to take a bit of her energy. Normal ponies only produced chaos energy when they were trolled, but Pinkie Pie was constantly emanating it, giving me enough energy to compensate what I spent feeding my body. I could only guess how much power she would give me if I trolled her.

I was so focused on finding a way to taker her energy that I didn’t realize I had grabbed her and was physically inspecting her.

“Hey! That is a private party area!” she said, breaking my concentration and making me acknowledge that I was grabbing her by the tail and looking at her ‘private party area’.

I dropped her and turned red behind my fur.

Must-not-think-about-THAT...

LOL crotchboobs. Dat ass, nice plot, candy vag.

Fuck you brain!

Luckily for me, doing that counted as trolling, so she released a burst of energy that I greedily took.

“Eh... Sorry? I wanted to make sure you were a real pony, never seen something move so fast,” I said when I noticed she was waiting for an apology.

She gave me her trademark huge smile, “it’s alright, I forgive you!”

Hnnnnnnnnng, so cute! Wait, what’s that?

I felt that part of her chaos energy was being directed somewhere else. It was the first time that something like that had happened, I had always been able to take all the energy in my surroundings. I began following the energy current, leaving the library.

“Hey! Where are you going?” asked Spike, but I was too focused in following the energy to reply.

I followed the flux around the library to a nearby bush. I was about to peek inside when a squeaky hammer hit me strong enough to break my jaw.

“I have been waiting for you,” a female voice said, “father will be pleased when I destroy you.”

The blinding pain was combined with a blinding pink light that blocked all my other senses, the only thing I could feel was the powerful magic that was enveloping me.

Wait, what’s that? Shit, I’ll have to leave this in a cliffhanger.