It was mid-morning when the zebra mare trotted into Ponyville.

Her appearance was striking, even compared to the citizens of the town with their brightly-colored coats and manes: the zebra's coat was a very light grey with black stripes on her legs, tail and mohawk-like mane. A large jagged pattern of black ran down her spine and halfway down her barrel, dark grey sun-like whorls were set upon her flanks and her muzzle was squared off as opposed to having the dainty rounding of most mares.

A series of golden rings encircled her neck from her collarbone to her jaw and another similar set were worn in the middle of her left foreleg. A large golden hoop hanging from each ear completed the exotic picture.

The zebra mare's name was Zecora. And she was becoming annoyed.

A small group of the daily crowd had stopped going about their routines - shopping, visiting friends and such - and were staring openly at her. She was still a source of curiosity for many, and her infrequent visits merely fueled that.

Zecora stared right back at the group, her eyes slowly narrowing.

With a slight jingling sound, a door to a nearby shop opened and a yellow pegasus wearing a full saddlebag backed out, waving a forehoof and bidding farewell to the shop's proprietor. Fluttershy gently and quietly closed the door, and turned away. Raising her head, she noticed that a number of ponies had come to a complete halt, all appearing fascinated by something at the town entrance.

She followed their gaze and saw Zecora standing there, clearly irritated from the undue and frankly rude attention she was receiving. Fluttershy gingerly worked her way through small group, apologizing quietly to each pony she bumped as she made her way to the zebra mare. With a final apology, she reached the head of the crowd and addressed her. "Um...hello, Zecora. What brings you here today?"

Her voice lowered to a near mumble. " If you...if you don't mind saying."

Her voice fell further still until it as practically a whisper. "Um...You don't have to..."

She stopped, blushed and looked down, scratching the ground self-consciously with a forehoof. Zecora smiled appeasingly. Fluttershy found her appearance and straightforward mannerism particularly intimidating, and she wanted to put the kind-hearted pegasus at ease. She replied quietly:

"You need not be nervous - need not shy away, for soon you will know why I have come today. I'm not here to fetch herbs for my potions or brews. Instead I have come bearing interesting news..."

Fluttershy blushed harder and shamefacedly looked up at Zecora through her pink mane, which had drifted across her face. Zecora smiled again.


The quill broke in two with the tiniest of cracks.

"Oh darn it!"

Twilight frowned, looked down at the snapped quill on her writing desk and grumbled. Just when I was starting to get somewhere, too...

A cursory search produced no further quills - she'd have to put her work on hold to get more. She hated putting work on hold, especially when she was deep into a project.

She sighed and turned to the library door, gathering up a small pouch on the way and checking the contents to ensure she had enough bits on hoof. Seems my quills are breaking sooner every day. It's gotten to the point where Davenport's offering me a discount for buying in bulk. I don't mind so much, but I wish he'd stop trying to sell me a lounger whenever I make a visit...

Emerging from her library, Twilight heard a faint murmuring sound. Curious, she turned to look for the source. She saw the small crowd that had formed, and trotted up to see what all the fuss was about. Upon reaching the grouped ponies, she saw Zecora and Fluttershy, the pegasus becoming more visibly anxious with the attention they were attracting.

Twilight approached the two, shooing away the gawping ponies with a combination of nudge and glare as she passed them. Fluttershy gave an audible sigh of relief and a thankful look to Twilight as the group dispersed, using the opportunity to quietly creep away to her cottage. As Twilight stopped in front of Zecora, she noted that the shamaness wasn't wearing the medicine bag she stored her purchases in. She clearly wasn't here on business. Twilight's eyes widened slightly.

That was certainly new.

"I'm sorry about them, Zecora," said Twilight. "They really should know better," she added slightly louder. One or two of the stragglers hung their heads as they left. "It's good to see you again - a purely social call is new for you; we usually come visit you ."

Twilight gave Zecora a smile. "If you'd like, I could brew us a pot of coffee back at my library - Rarity introduced me to a new roast a short while ago and it's quite nice. Then we could all get together and we..."

Zecora raised a forehoof and politely declined Twilight's offer.

"Apologies, Twilight Sparkle, but I've not come to play. I have something else planned out for this day. A thought had struck me, one that can't be ignored: of my hut I grow tired, of my forest I'm bored. I wish to travel about, to see what is there - to leave Everfree Forest, to 'get some fresh air'. I came to tell you of my wish to roam, for if you come visit, I'll not be at home."

Twilight looked surprised and then pleased at the zebra's new outgoing attitude; it was one thing to simply make a social call, but this was something entirely different, especially for Zecora. "That's a great idea, Zecora. It'll be nice for you to get out and see the world beyond your forest and here."

"I'll say!" came a voice from above. "All you ever do is hang out in your hut day in and day out makin' potions and stuff! Booor-ing!"

Rainbow Dash peered down at the two from a small pegasus-sized cloud overhead; the noise of the crowd had woken her from her morning snooze and tanning session. Too curious to fall back asleep, she'd been listening in from above until deciding to give her two bits worth. "I mean come on...If I hadta choose between that an' chewin' my own wings off..."

Twilight looked up at her. "Come on, Rainbow, you should be happy for Zecora; this is something completely new for her. And you don't need to go casting aspersions - she 'hangs out in her hut day in and day out making potions and stuff' because she enjoys doing it."

Rainbow blinked. "Castin' whozit, now?"

"Making fun of her," replied Twilight with a sigh and a roll of her eyes.

"Aw, Twilight; all I meant was..."

Twilight turned back to the zebra. "Don't mind her, Zecora. Sometimes she has a tendency to say what she's thinking before she thinks about what she's saying."

"Oh, I don't gotta take this..." muttered Rainbow. She snapped her wings open, blew a raspberry at Twilight and flew off to find a new snoozing spot, dragging her cloud behind her like a deck chair.

Twilight shook her head at the departing pegasus and sighed before returning her attention to Zecora. " Anyway, I hope you have fun on your trip - a change of scenery can really open your eyes. It certainly had for mewhen I moved here from Canterlot. "

"And when you get back, we can have a great big 'Coming Out' party for you!" shouted a cheerful voice from behind her. Twilight's ears shot straight up, she let out a yelp and jumped up nearly three inches. She turned and glowered behind her. A massive, messily-curled mop of a mane confronted her, the neon-pink explosion of hair crowning the head of a mare with a coat that was only slighy less pink than her mane.

Pinkie Pie, gleefully oblivious to the fact that she had probably scared a year off of poor Twilight's life, giggled at the two. She was wearing an apron and a baker's hat, each of which had dollops of frosting on them. The warmth of the clear summer day was softening the icing, and it was slowly beginning to ooze off.

She had somehow learned of Zecora's arrival, despite nopony having told her, and had raced from Sugarcube Corner, clearly while in the middle of baking something.

Pinkie frowned for a moment. "Wait, no...that kind of party is for something entirely...excuse me just a sec..."

A small dab of icing had dropped off of her hat, landing on the tip of her muzzle with a tiny 'splat'. Her eyes crossed momentarily and she snapped her head back absentmindedly, catching the glob of icing on the tip of her tongue and swallowing before returning to the conversation. "...something entirely different. Maybe a 'Coming Out Of The Everfree Forest to Explore Beyond Ponyville For The First Time Ever' party?"

Zecora blinked, nonplussed at Pinkie's reflexive display of icing disposal.

"Yeah! We can call it a 'C.O.O.T.E.F.T.E.B.P.F.T.F.T.E' party!" exclaimed Pinkie, quickly warming to her idea.

Zecora blinked again.

"Well okay, so the name 'C.O.O.T.E.F.T.E.B.P.F.T.F.T.E' is obviously a W.I.P..."

Saying nothing, Zecora headed back to the entrance to Ponyville and the path beyond. She turned to bid farewell to them.

"Kwa heri, Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie, my friends. Here my journey begins, when I return, here it ends."

She then turned back to leave. Just as she was exiting the town, her sharp ears picked up an exchange between the two:

"Well, at least you didn't sing a hello song when she arrived, Pinkie..."

"Of course not, silly. I already know her!"

Zecora chuckled under her breath and continued on.


Zecora made her way down the trail from Ponyville to her forest until she reached the first of the paths that branched off from the main route, which she took for no other reason than that. Soon the path she was on was soon bordered on both sides by pure white fences, the whiteness of the paint accentuating the grass and making it seem an even brighter shade of green.

She had never traveled down any of the side paths before today; she'd never needed to. The only place she had explored to any great detail was Everfree, and that was primarily out of necessity - she needed to know where to find herbs and food for herself.

Now that she'd decided to take another path, she saw how much she had missed by not choosing to do so before today. If not for her sudden burst of wanderlust, this would likely still be unknown to her.

Most of the fenced areas were farmland of one sort or another which were being tended by earth ponies, who were either tilling the fields, planting seeds or harvesting their crops, and almost all of them had a greeting for her, which she returned. Every bit of land here seemed to serve a purpose; practically none of it was wasted.

There were many patches of wild flowers alongside the path, in color combinations similar to many of the ponies back in the town - she saw Cheerilee in one patch, Rarity in another and young Scootaloo in a third. She heard a buzzing sound and a small metallic-green bird, its wings almost invisible from the speed they were flapping, zipped past her and headed for a flower. Hummingbirds were a very rare sight in her forest and she'd never seen one this close up before.

The sun was bright and warm as always, but seemed brighter somehow, perhaps affected by the whiteness of the picket fences in much the same way the grass had been. She heard roosters crowing in the distance, the chirpings, callings and chitterings of birds and various forest creatures not found in Everfree and the lowing of farm animals.

Eventually the sweet smell of apples caught her attention above all else. Finding herself more than a bit hungry - hunger which was only strengthened by the smell - she followed her nose, soon passing a billboard which welcomed the reader to Sweet Apple Acres. She came to a sudden halt, spellbound at what lay before her: Sweet Apple Acre's prize apple orchard.

Orchard was too small a word to describe what she saw. It was practically a forest. Just the trees nearest her held more apples than she could count in a dozen days. The distant treetops were practically red with them.

An orange-coated mare, blonde-maned and wearing a brown and well-weathed stetson, was working through the trees, stopping at each and bucking it with a hearty 'CRACK!' As the apples of the current tree fell into a waiting bucket, she took a short breather, pushing her hat back and wiping the sweat from her brow. Looking over past the fence, she saw Zecora slowly approaching, the zebra's eyes wide and her mouth hanging open in awe.

"Oh my..." she whispered to herself. "Hey, Zecora! Zecora!", she shouted as she ran over to the fence. "Goodness, filly, I ain't never seen you outside yer forest unless yer vistin' Ponyville! Where y'all off to?"

Zecora shook herself free of her amazement and bowed her head in greeting.

"Greetings, Applejack, I see you are well. I decided to leave and travel 'just a spell.' My destination unknown, I don't really care, I have left Evertree forest to see what's out there."

"Hey! Did you say Zecora?!" A yellow and red blur shot towards the two and stopped in front of the fence, revealing a yellow filly with a red mane. A large pink bow on the back of her head shook slightly as she came to a quick halt. Amber colored eyes looked up at Zecora and the filly smiled. " 'Mornin' Zecora - I ain't seen you proper-like since my big sis became my little sis! You remember me?"

Zecora smiled.

"Of course Apple Bloom; you're the first friend I had, you didn't fear me like others, and for that I was glad. While I've not really seen you since then, it is true, I can say honestly that I won't forget you."

Apple Bloom beamed.


As the conversation between the three friends continued, a huge red stallion, with green eyes and a bored expression on his face turned his head towards Zecora, curious as to who her sisters were talking to. The stallion's eyes locked on the zebra and they shot wide open. The sprig of wheat he was always chewing on fell from his mouth as he stared openly at her.

Zecora raised an eyebrow slightly at the shell-shocked stallion and then turned her attention back to Applejack and her sister. After another minute or so of conversation, Zecora bade farewell to the pair and Apple Bloom streaked off back to the house.

Applejack turned and headed back towards the orchard. She noticed Macintosh, still rooted in place and practically drooling as Zecora continued onwards. Applejack shook her head. "Macintosh, are you thinkin' what Ithink yer thinkin''?"

Macintosh gave his sister a slightly embarrassed look, scooped up the sprig of wheat and composed himself. "Nope."

Applejack looked up at his big brother and narrowed her eyes "Macintosh... You may be able to fool me some'a the time, but not all'a the time. I may not have experience in this sorta thing myself, but our family's big enough that I've seen that look plenty of times and I know exactly what's runnin' though yer head."

Macintosh sighed. "Guess I won't hear the end of it until you wrangle it out of me."

"Darn tootin', big brother." Applejack grinned. "Spill the beans."

"Well... I'm pretty sure you've already figgered what m'bout to say, but I was just thinkin' 'bout that filly you were talkin' too - she's sure a pretty one..."

Applejack laughed and Macintosh went a slightly darker shade of red. "Zecora? Well, I dunno 'bout yer chances if'n you decide to make her acquaintance; this's the first time I ever seen her outside the Everfree forest 'cept when she's visiting Ponyville, and nopony knows all that much 'bout her – kinda keeps to herself. She's nice enough, though, so you wanna give it a shot, then by all means."

"Mm. Might jus' do that", he replied. "Zecora, you say her name is? Pretty name, too." Macintosh thought for a minute. "S'pose we better get back to work; this farm ain't gonna run itself..."

"Eeeyup," said Applejack and Macintosh smiled.

As Zecora continued onward, she momentarily considered the massive stallion who had been working in Applejack's groves. His reaction wasn't unexpected - he'd never seen her before, after all. She had never in her life seen a pony of such height and girth - his appearance had been quite striking to her in turn, though she'd hidden her reaction much better than he had.

The sight of him had stirred something more in her, especially now that she thought of him, but she put it down as nothing more than a lingering aftereffect of her surprise at the stallion's sheer size and muscular appearance - he looked fully capable of kicking a tree down without breaking a sweat. Perhaps she'd ask Applejack about him upon her return.

Purely out of curiosity, of course.

Zecora put this thought to the side for now and concentrated on her trip.

After two or three hours of travelling the path, her head swinging back and forth to take in interesting scenery and any sudden movements caught out of corner of an eye, there suddenly came the sound of someone playing a rhythm on a stone. Zecora stopped to look for the player and the rhythm stopped as well.

When she continued on, the unseen player returned - she came to a halt once more and again the music vanished. She was bordering on annoyance until she realized the sound was coming from her! She looked down at her hooves and saw that the path had transformed into a series of interconnected stones.

Zecora tapped one of the stones, which responded with a satisfying click. Her face broke into a grin. She continued onward, her hooves clicking on the stones. She started to quietly sing an old tribal song, the rhythm of which matched the tapping of her hooves on the flagstones. Soon she began randomly changing the way she trotted to make new beats for the song and then did a simple dance to accompany her music: Right forehoof forward, tap hoof, slide right, tap hoof, left forehoof forward…

The scenery changed as well, farmhouses and fields giving way to fancy houses surrounded by equally fancy metal fences.

This area didn't seem anywhere near as wild as before the stone path - the flowers were planted in clear patterns instead of just growing free and there weren't any farming fields like the ones she saw before. If anything, all the ground here appeared to be for show - nothing more than great lawns. She could hear the sound of running water and followed it, soon finding the source to be a fountain in front of a particularly grandiose house.

The fountain itself didn't appear to serve any purpose, it was just…there. It was pleasing to the eyes, certainly: solidly built and decorated with shining brass, but it seemed a waste of perfectly useful water to Zecora. She watched the fountain burble and spray for a few moments before shrugging and continuing down the stone path. She accompanied the clicking of her hooves with song and dance once more.


"Oh my. There's something you don't see every day..." commented the well-dressed grey stallion as the zebra trotted down the flagstone street, swaying back and forth slightly and singing something under her breath.

"Hmf. Simply appalling," replied his companion, a yellow mare wearing a white, amber-bejeweled cape. "A grown mare behaving like that. I think that's a mare anyway – I've never heard of a pony looking like thatbefore, all covered in stripes. Do you suppose she has some sort of sickness, Greysmoke?"

The stallion gave Zecora an appraising look as she approached. "Nnnooo…I think she's supposed to look like that, Catseye dear. She certainly seems alright. At least physically. In fact she's rather handsome if you look at her just the right way - she holds a rather athletic appearance."

"Huh. Her parents must be ashamed of her, acting as she is," sniffed Catseye. "Probably explains why we haven't seen her before now – they had her locked in a basement or something."

She laughed derisively.

The stuffy mare continued. "And the accouterments. Those rough gold…things around her neck and foreleg. Rather gauche, if you ask me.

"Oh I don't know," piped up a dark-green mare in a silver ensemble, who had exited a nearby house and joined the two as they commented on Zecora's entrance. "I think they're rather nice, in a primitive sort of way. And I like the stripes as well. I wonder if she can get them in different colors?

"And that's why nopony asks you about these things, Pinebreeze dear – you have no fashion sense whatsoever. I mean really. Stripes? In June?" She snickered. "Ridiculous."

Pinebreeze glared at Catseye, but the snooty mare ignored the dirty look and continued.

"And then there's those earrings! If she's trying to make some sort of fashion statement, it may as well be 'Look at me - I'm on fire!' Just… Oh no. She's looking our way."

As Zecora continued down the path, the ambient noise lessened. The sounds of birds, forest creatures and the whooshing of a breeze through tree branches died away, and soon there was almost no sound at all, save for some bird calls, the sound of her hooves on the stone path and her quiet singing. Despite the huge houses she passed, it seemed that very few ponies lived here – she had seen nopony since arriving, even though the place was clearly inhabited.

As she neared another of the overly fancy fountains, she spied an attractive grey stallion who was giving her a particularly intense look-over. He was accompanied by two mares, one yellow, and the other green.

She approached the three.

The yellow mare - who wore a white cape embroidered with jewels that matched her coat - seemed oddly offended by her and inched away with a scowl as Zecora approached. The grey stallion gave an appearance of disinterest upon her approach - not rude as such, more as though he'd seen all of her that he'd needed to, and the green mare, dressed in silver fabric offered Zecora a somewhat nervous smile.

Zecora smiled back and approached her, as she appeared to be the friendliest of the stopped a polite distance from Pinebreeze and nodded her head in greeting. Pinebreeze replied with a shyly waved hoof and welcomed the newcomer. "Um...good afternoon, Miss...?

"My name is Zecora, and I return your greeting. A fine beginning to our very first meeting."

"Oh, can you believe her?" muttered Catseye to Greysmoke, "She even talks primitively…"

"Sh, dear..." muttered the stallion in reply. "It's quite nice, actually. Soothing."

Catseye grumbled. "Savage, you mean. Why can't she just say 'a pleasure to make your acquaintance' or something, like anypony else?"

Greysmoke gently shushed her again and they watched on.

Pinebreeze, at a complete loss for words, looked over at her two companions nervously and then back to the zebra.

"Um…Yes. Well…um…

She made a valiant effort to reply with a rhyme of her own : " Um...My name is Pinebreeze, pony of black and white - um...you certainly are...er... quite a sight...?"

Zecora smiled joyfully. She was used to being spoken to normally of course, but for one to speak as she did honored both herself and the speaker. Perhaps she had a touch of zebra in her family? Zecora decided to test this: "Salamu, rafiki yangu. Habari gani?"

Pinebreeze began to sweat nervously as the zebra spoke what sounded like nothing more than a short stream of gibberish. Her mouth opened and closed several times, but nothing came out. Zecora watched her, curious as to green mare's reaction.

Pinebreeze slowly backed away from the possibly insane pony.

"Um...um...um..."

She continued to back away until she was behind Catseye and Greysmoke. The zebra was perplexed. She would have expected confusion at the use of her native tongue, but Pinebreeze seemed genuinely afraid. Zecora attempted to approach the mare to help put her at ease, only to have Catseye step in front of her as Greysmoke dealt with the flustered Pinebreeze.

With a glare of pure malice and a sharp nod of her head in the direction Zecora had come, she made it quite clear that the zebra was unwelcome.

Taking the hint, she decided to head back to Ponyville and her forest before things got even more out of hoof. It was nearing mid-afternoon as it was, and she'd trotted for quite some time and distance. She'd seen enough for one day.

Catseye gave the zebra a disdainful look as she retreated. Soon the sound of Zecora's hooves on the flagstones faded into silence.

"Savage..." she muttered to herself. She gave a haughty sniff and rejoined her companions.