I sowwy for not updating in over a year… I really am… (My elaborate explanation had been over two paragraphs long, but I decided to remove it because I assume that it doesn't really matter… but if you really want one, then you can message me and I'll give it to you.)

NOW TO CONTINUE!

~0~0~0~

Somewhere in a Rohirrim village…

Simbel hadn't dared to move all night. When the sun finally came up, her heart beat faster in fear that the wild men had returned. From her small stable, the sunlight looked like the blazing fire of their torches. As the light grew brighter, she relaxed a little and took a moment to take in her surroundings. Thankfully, the men never set any flames to her stable, but from her small window she could see their destruction. Her master's house had been burned to the ground, along with his neighbors, and their neighbors, and so on. The whole village was nothing but ashes, and Simbel was the only survivor.

But at the moment, that wasn't her main concern. The evening before, her dumb and swarthy master had left her tied up to her stable door, out of reach of her food and water. She was probably the oldest (and smallest) pony in all of Rohan, why on earth would she need to be tied up in her locked stable?! That fool never knew much about raising animals, which she learned as soon as soon as he had first bought her. Of course, it might had been out of pity since if no one had bought her at the market that day, her hide would be reduced to leather. She had been fully prepared for the latter.

Simbel yanked the rope as hard as she could, but nothing happened. She snorted with expected defeat. Finally the end, she thought.

But that thought went away as soon as she heard an echo through the hills.

"GORLUK!"

She gazed out through her window to pinpoint the source of that noise. Whatever it was, it seemed to be running straight for what was left of the village.

"GORLUK! WHERE ARE YOU!?"

Whoever was saying that seemed to be purely desperate. Simbel's eyesight wasn't the same as it once was, but she could detect something brown and furry running through the cobblestone roads. It looked like a large dog, but she knew that they were too dumb to speak, as far as she knew. As it ran a few yards away from her stable, she realized exactly what it was.

"You, Warg!" she neighed through her window. She was in the shadows of her stable and couldn't be easily seen from the outside, but she could see the Warg clearly. The Warg froze in the middle of the road.

"Who goes there?" he called out hesitantly.

Though she was old, Simbel had never seen a Warg show this much fear. "I am Simbelmynё, but you can call me Simbel. If you don't mind, I am in need of your quick assistance."

The Warg relaxed slightly and peered at her window. "I am Faroth. What assistance do you need?"

"As you can tell, the entire village has burned down and there is no one to untie my rope and open my stable door. Is there some way that you could do that for me?"

Faroth thought about it. "I can't open doors very well, but I could jump through your window and bit the rope off."

"Please do," Simbel said in a tone that would not expose her excitement. She personally knew the true nature of Wargs; even if this one did act like he had some form of kindness, he would still kill her eventually for her meat. That seemed like a much more adventurous way to die than starvation.

The Warg trotted closer to the window. "I'm coming in so move out of the way!"

Simbel moved. The Warg jumped in.

She did not expect the blood curling scream that soon followed.

~0~0~0~

Faroth could only stay frozen in the corner of the small stable. The pony had taken obvious shock to Faroth's scream and had backed up as far away as her rope could let her. For several moments, they stared at each other, wondering the other's intention. At least she isn't a horse, Faroth thought. Not only was she not a horse, but she was very, VERY, old. And very, VERY, small. In fact, Faroth was almost twice her size. Her grey fur was so fluffy that it made her appear to be a small storm cloud. A tiny storm cloud of terror.

Faroth shrank further into the corner when the Pony stepped forward. "What are you waiting for?" she snorted. "Kill me!"

Faroth blinked in surprise. Did she say what he thought she said?

"Didn't you hear me you nitwit? Don't think that I'm stupid; I won't fall for that trick!"

The pony stomped her hooves which made Faroth scream again. "Please don't be angry!" Faroth wailed. "I swear I mean no harm to you!" He curled himself into a ball and trembled.

This seemed to puzzle the pony even more. "What kind of a game is this?"

"I-It's a lot to explain…" Faroth stuttered, "I really was going to help you, but I had no idea that you were… a Pony."

"It's Miniature Pony, to be exact," she snapped. "What do you have against that?"

Faroth didn't want to answer her complicated question. He stood up and made a cautious step forward. "Do you promise not to hurt me?"

The Pony rolled her eyes. "Sure."

Within half a second, Faroth had dived towards her rope and snapped it in half with his jaws and had jumped out the window. He landed softly on the ground, shaken and glad to be alive.

"Hey!" The Pony poked her head out of her window and stared down at him crossly. "Quit laying around and try to open my door!"

Faroth instantly obeyed her command. It took him a few minutes to figure out how the lock worked, and a few minutes more to unlock the door with his clumsy paws, but eventually he slowly backed away as the door swung open.

The pony took a few steps out and peered at him closely. "You're definitely the strangest Warg I've ever seen. What on earth are you doing out here and who's Gorluk?"

"Gorluk's my friend… I've been searching for him all night. Did you see anything strange last night at all?"

The pony nearly laughed. "Other than you? There was that large group of men that burned down this entire village, if that's what you call strange."

Faroth sighed. "I assumed that that was them. We got separated when we first saw them last night, and I was so busy running that I had no idea that he was gone until the men were completely out of sight. It's all my fault…"

He looked up and saw a glimmer of pity in the Pony's eyes. "Can you remember where you last saw him?"

Faroth thought hard. "Not exactly… but I remember that there was a small house nearby."

Her eyes widened. "Was it there on its own? And entirely made of wood?"

Faroth grew excited. "Yes! Do you know where it is?"

The pony slightly nodded, but it was clear that she seemed troubled. "Oh… That's not good. He'll be lucky if he got away from that place unscathed like you did."

"What? Why?" Faroth asked in panic.

"It's a long story… but I can tell you it on the way there."

Faroth gasped. "You're willing to take me there?"

The pony shrugged. "You did save my life, so I might as well return the favor. What say you?"

Many hesitant thoughts spun through Faroth's head. Was he really prepared to travel alongside one of his greatest fears? But a voice whispered in his mind: Gorluk would do the same for you.

He knew what he had to do. "Okay Simbel. Let's go."

~0~0~0~

I know that the chapter is a little rushed, but I was just dying to update the story as soon as possible! I'm baaaaaaack!

~Tatharwen