A/N: Alright, this one will be a little more short in general. But the next chapter should be very promising.
XXXGHOSTXXX123: Well don't worry, the character is still alive.
Brayden: ...I see. Well, glad you're enjoying the story as well.
The forest looked dark and had the hidden feeling that nopony had ever bothered to clean it up after a possible hundred. I could feel the wet dirt below my bare feet when I moved forward through the wooded area. My eyes could only look at what was ahead of me.
The occasional bird would come out flying through the forest to search for worms probably digging under the ground. My eyes kept focus on the certain robin that pecked at the ground making tiny holes into the dirt. It sometimes twisted its head towards me to watch me for a few moments and then poked a hole into the ground to pull out the slimy worm. I watched the worm squirm around in the robin's beaked mouth. The worm struggled to break free from the robin's grasp, but stopped moving altogether in a few moments. The robin began flapping its wings and flew past me through the trees. It was probably going to feed its offspring with the worm.
Ahead from where the bird flew, I could see a quiet little green pond ahead from the small shrubs and with very little light from the sun shining onto the medium sized rock. My feet trample a bit on the grass when I walk over to the lone rock sitting all by itself close to the pond's dry sands. The feeling of the sand was quite a relief after walking for hours in the wet forest grounds. I could use a bit of a break from all the walking as well.
I lower my back down towards the stone and gently place my head down on the top of the stone, my legs are given rest on the dry sand. I could only look up through the trees into the clear blue sky. Sounds of nature and the frogs by the pond could be heard in the distance in my own silence. A thought of the past where spewing into my head like crazy, and all I could only do was sit there and watch it replay over again. This of course, brought me into a flashback when I was on Earth.
Earth, May 2012
I am sitting on a bench in the doctor's office waiting to be called. The walls in the waiting room are in the colour of peach. A couple of patients are there, probably in the same position I'm in to talk to the doctor about my problems in life. A nurse at the desk just stacks some papers together and continues to sign what I assume was medical records for every patient.
A teenage girl probably in the age of 17, a year younger than me passes by me and proceeds to take her seat next to me on the bench. Her hair is coloured brown and she is wearing a short-sleeved yellow dress. She seems to be looking down at her own hands. I turn my head a little bit to face her, but to not grab her attention. I really wanted to see what was in her hands. I did see a glimpse of what she was holding in her hands.
It was a plushie of Fluttershy that she was looking down at. It also looked new as well with the eyes patched on right. If I could recall, Season 2 just finished last month in late-April with A Canterlot Wedding. "Fluttershy?" My voice slipped, grabbing her attention and she turned to look at me with her blue eyes.
"Yeah…" She said in a bit of a shy and quiet voice. I could tell that this girl was probably shy around the others that tried to communicate with her. I moved a little bit closer to her and decided that it would be wise to try and make friends with her, seeing how I like talking to people.
"You know, Fluttershy happens to be my second favorite pony on the show. Well, Twilight does happen to be my favorite pony." I said, looking at when she looked down at her plushie of the yellow pegasus I knew in the show.
The teenage girl raised her head and said "Umm, that's… nice… Fluttershy is my favorite… though." She had a look on her face that she was nervous of talking to me.
"I mean, did you see how she took care of that cockatrice in the episode when she was babysitting all three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders." I said, putting a smile on my face in hopes of having this girl talk to me.
"And she… had that cute squee in the episode." The girl said to me and I could swear that our hands were close to touching one another. She had a shy and small smile on her face.
I decided that it would be a good time to introduce myself to her. "I forgot to tell you who I was, my name is Brayden," I said, opening my right hand to see if she'll shake my hand. "What's your name?"
The shy girl looked down at her feet shyly and shuffled them together. "My… my name is… Ann." The girl says in her quiet voice.
"Ann is a beautiful name and it fits you well. If an angel were given that name, most people would look at you and think you're a blooming, lovely rose." I complimented and placed my hand on her shoulder since she was too shy to shake my hand. She looks up at me and her cheeks are as pink with a smile. I managed to flirt with her in a good way.
"Well, if… if you're wondering why I'm here in the doctor's office for an appointment… it's because I want to talk about my trouble at school." Ann told me quietly.
I was beginning to suspect that her quietness was probably because she was possibly being bullied at school for being a pegasister. "Why, are you being bullied?" I asked with a tone of concern and caring for the girl in a friendly way.
"Well, I've… been bullied since I was a little girl because… I have a small disability of being Bipolar." The girl said sounding a bit sad.
"Bipolar? I'm so sorry to hear that Ann." I said to her, taking her hand and holding onto it gently. The girl looked down at my hand and seemed to be blushing again.
"Well, I did find the show that you also watch that helped me out over my depression of being teased… but I fear that if everyone at my school figured out that I was a pegasister, they'd tease me more for it." The girl said, sounding a bit worried.
"Ann, you don't have to worry. I was in the same situation you were in when I first watched the show. And I eventually let out the truth that I was a brony. So there's nothing to be afraid of." I said, gently rubbing her hand that I was holding.
"Brayden?" A voice said behind me, I turned away from Ann to see a nurse standing a few feet from me. "Dr. Herbert is ready to talk to you."
I knew I was probably never going to see Ann again after this chat with the doctor and I let go of her soft hand and said "Goodbye Ann."
Ann looked at me and said "Bye." The farewell seemed to be in the tone of a crossed whisper and normal talking. I turn away from Ann and follow the nurse towards the hallway full of the rooms that had doctors filled with patients.
I followed the nurse down the hall towards the door at the end that had 'Dr. Herbert' placed onto the door. The nurse turned the silver handle on the right side of the door and pushed it open. "Come in." I heard a calm voice say. I walk steadily into the room and could see my doctor on a single chair.
"Good afternoon Brayden," Dr. Herbert greets me and sits back in his comfy chair. "I only have a short time to spend with you as I need to take a bit of lunch break according to my schedule, but I'm sure that'll be enough time for you to tell me your problems."
I walked over to the couch close by to where the doctor was sitting and lowered my back and sat down onto the leather couch. "Now, what are your problems Brayden? I can help you with the good advice I can give." Dr. Herbert said, taking out a pen with a sheet of paper, ready to write about my problems.
I sighed and held both my hands together when I looked at Dr. Herbert. "Well doc, it's all about my friends. It's just that I keep feeling that I am abandoning them over a show that I watch and a video game that I play at home."
"What is this show and video game?" Dr. Herbert asks.
"Well, for the video game, it's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim… the show is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic." I said, watching him write down the details.
"I see… and why do you like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic?" The doctor asked, looking up at me from writing.
"Well, the reason I watch the show is because it's beyond what others would expect from the show, it's funny, has a great storyline and has adorable characters you can love," I said just looking down at the carpet on the ground. "But a few of my own friends don't approve of me watching the show and thinks that it's for little girls."
"Isn't the show for little girls though?" Dr. Herbert said.
"I knew you'd say that, doc. It's more than just a little kids' show. When Lauren Faust made it, she said that the target audience was for everyone to watch." I said, now looking up at the doctor. "I've just been keeping it secret since I watched it in December and nobody knew at the time."
The doctor wrote down the detail and said "Well, it seems like you are having a rough time with your friends over that show. But I do suggest that you keep it easy on them and try not to force them into watching the show."
"Well doc, they'll always bring it up and pretend that they're trying to kill my favorite characters just to set off my anger towards them. But something I did learn was to Love and Tolerate, the more I ignore their hate towards the show, the sooner they'll forget it even existed." I said, sitting up a bit on the couch.
"That's a pretty good idea." Dr. Herbert suggested, after writing down the last detail of advice on the piece of paper, he hands it to me to look over. "Here, this is your advice for the problem you have. I sure do hope that it works out."
I could hear a roar in the forest that interrupted the flashback I was having and snapped out of it to see what it was making that noise. I turn to the right to the location of the sound and keep an eye on that location. A few yellow eyes was seen in the forest and I got up off from resting on the rock and moved forward with my feet touching the wet forest floor once again. The few yellow eyes started to get closer and I could see the resembling of the eyes that looked so familiar. Timberwolves.
The few yellow eyes jumped out of their visible hiding spot and there was five Timberwolves surrounding me with their eyes fixed upon me. All of their mouths were snarling and drooling now that they saw me as their lunch of the day. "Why did I have to run off from Ponyville in the first place?" I said, standing still in hopes of them not eating me and regretting that I left after disappointing Twilight.
The timberwolf leader growled and roared at me which was a sign that he told the pack to pursue me. The four other timberwolves jumped up and tried to pounce onto me of pinning me down. Luckily, I found an open spot under one of the timberwolves to roll quickly under before they could snatch me.
I rolled under the third timberwolf pouncing towards me and I began to run once again, but this time it wasn't because I was upset, but because it was to try and save my life. The timberwolves began to take pursue and I was running a bit faster than them since I decided to pick up the pace and just sprint.
I continued to sprint and my breathing was starting to pick up and my legs starting to grow tired once again. I did keep running through the forest and would occasionally look back to see if I lost the timberwolves. There was no luck for me… they kept chasing me in pursuit. "Well, I'm not going to become your lunch, buddies!" I shouted and stuck out my tongue at them. The front of my body hit something, causing me to stop and recover briefly.
It was a rock wall that I had bumped into. With no way up to the ledge, I decided to go right. Two of the timberwolves cornered me and covered me off from even escaping over there. The other two timberwolves covered off the entire left side as well, trapping me.
I watched the leader of the pack start to approach me with its wooden jaw snarling at me. "What's the point of running now?" I said, and rose up my hands, forming them into fists and got ready to fight the leader. I ran forward and threw a punch towards the leader, hitting his hard face. This did not seem to affect the timberwolf though and he was even angrier than I had expected.
"Bad idea." I said, after hearing him growl louder. The timberwolf pulled back its front left claw and threw it towards my right arm, scratching my skin straight like someone jabbed a knife into me. I make a grunt of pain and take a look at my arm. It starts to slowly bleed and drip onto the forest ground. I place my left hand on the injury to cover it as the scent of blood could attract more timberwolves to the area. The timberwolf moves its head back and throws it forward, pushing me towards the rock wall with force and causing my back to hit it.
I'm on the forest ground, still keeping my eye on the leader approaching me while I crawl backwards towards the wall. The others start to approach and surround me as well. My breathing becomes extreme and I'm breathing faster because I knew what was going to happen now. Death.
The timberwolf leader begins to sniff me at first while I breathe hard, finally it starts to growl at me and opens its mouth with a roar when its head descends down towards me. The sound of a beam hitting the right side of its face catches my attention, and I open my eyes to see the light violet beam hitting it and knocking it backwards.
A pair of hooves lands on the ground in front of me and I could recognize the color of the coat being a mulberry colour and the colour of the mane and tail. It was Princess Twilight in front of me facing the timberwolves. Had she come to save me? I continued to think that she was mad though.
"Listen here timberwolves; if you hurt Brayden here, you hurt me and the rest of his friends!" Twilight shouted to the snarling wood creatures, now focused on her as their lunch. She flapped her wings and flew up into the air, firing a few beams at the timberwolves. The timberwolves backed up a bit when she fired the beams of magic towards them.
I started to struggle my body to get up and try to help Twilight fight the monsters. But the pain in my right arm and the blood coming out of the injury prevented me from moving a few inches. I only heard Twilight's magic fighting off the wolves and the roaring that the wolves made. "Brayden!" I heard a soft voice cry out and I turned to see who it was.
The soft voice that I knew belonged to Fluttershy and she was flapping her wings down from the sky and lowering down to see me. I kept watching Twilight fighting off the timberwolves. After a bit of time of having Fluttershy watch over me and the fighting, the timberwolves did eventually run off scared to find more food in the Everfree Forest. Twilight took a sigh of relief and turned to me and gasped in worry from the condition I was in.
With me losing blood from my arm, I started to feel really weak and I couldn't really move it as well. "Brayden! You're… well, bleeding!" Twilight flew down and said, trying to get my attention. The injury made me far too dazed to respond back to Twilight. "Fluttershy, we've got to do something! If we don't, he'll die!"
Fluttershy took my left hand and said "You're right, we'll both carry him to your home and we can take care of him." I watched Fluttershy grab a hold of my other hand that had my injury and struggled to pick me up, only raising my upper body.
"Fluttershy, wait!" Twilight said, and I could feel her soft hooves go underneath my back. "I'll carry him. I worry about his condition more."
I begin to feel like I'm being lifted off the ground with me looking at Twilight and Fluttershy's wings are heard flapping. I can see Twilight flapping her wings and pushing forward to fly straight back towards Ponyville.
Twilight just saved my life. I just continued to look at her dazed and blankly from the Timberwolf's scratch and did not know if the scratch that the timberwolf leader gave me would be poisonous. But another thought crossed me, what if Twilight was still mad at me for lying to her this morning? I just hoped not and would know if she forgiven me by now.
The sun was shining through her beautiful mane that flowed in the soft wind that blew silently. Her eyes just looked straight ahead towards the town of Ponyville upcoming. I slowly turned my head and could see all of the ponies down below me, looking up into the air and seeing me in Twilight's hooves. At first they seem happy but seeing the condition I was in, they started to worry.
Twilight began to fly lower to the ground and flapped her wings fast when her hooves touched down on the ground. She places one hoof around me to help me, and carries me to her door and her magic opens the door. "Spike!" She calls with Fluttershy landing on her hooves behind me.
"Yes Twilight? Whoa! Is Brayden alright?" Spike said, approaching me when he sees the bloody injury on my right arm. He carefully puts his dragon claw around me and starts helping Twilight to carry me up the stairs to her bedroom.
"Spike, Brayden was attacked by timberwolves in the Everfree Forest. The scratch that the timberwolf leader gave him is poisonous. If we don't give him the medicine to treat it, he will die." Twilight said, sounding extremely worried about me.
I could see her bedroom with the other books on the shelf below where she slept. "Oh great, more stairs." I thought to myself when I saw another set of steps to go right up to where Twilight slept at night.
My feet moved across the stairs, softly hitting where each step would take me. The bed seemed quite as how I depicted it to be when I saw the show back on Earth. I felt myself being slowly turned around and could feel a warm sensation lift me away from Twilight. She was using her magic to place me onto her soft bed with the mattress on top feeling fresh when it came out of the laundry.
I watched Twilight turn to both Spike and Fluttershy, saying "Spike, Fluttershy, go and find me the medicine and the book on the poison that Timberwolf scratches have." They both nodded and began galloping down the stairs to search for the items required.
My eyes could see Twilight turning back around to face me and she trotted closer to me and placed her right hoof onto the side of my face. "It's all going to be okay Brayden. I'm here to help you." She says to me in a calm and worried tone. I try to say something, but the poison that the timberwolf probably had kept me from doing so. A surprise came to me when Twilight moved her head towards me and gave me a gentle nuzzle on the side of my face to show that she probably did care for me after all.
Fluttershy's hooves were heard galloping up the stairs. I watched her come up and hand Twilight a small green book. Twilight opened the book with her magic and scrolled until she found out what the symptoms for the poison were, and the cure.
"According to this book, when an individual is scratched by the claws of a Timberwolf or its leader of the pack… the poison itself causes others to barely move, sometimes paralysation. Other symptoms include immense pain, trouble in the blood stream that could reach the heart within a matter of 5 to 10 hours and eventually lead to death." Twilight read, still sounding worried. Fluttershy gasped loudly at the news of the symptoms.
Twilight began to look at the cure's notes. "But in order to cure it, we must first off get ourselves the medicine which is a herb to cure most poison. Aloe Vera." She read, seeing Spike come up the steps of the stairs with the medicine made from that plant. "Ah, here's the medicine."
Spike opened up the small bottle and placed it towards Fluttershy's hooves. The small gel came crawling out of the bottle and onto her hooves. She looked at my right arm and said "Twilight, you might want to hold onto his hand."
Twilight placed her soft, comfortable hoof onto my left hand and she looked into my eyes and said "This is going to sting a bit Brayden." I watched Fluttershy come forward with the Aloe Vera gel and her hooves came forward toward my right arm and placed the gel towards the bloody scratch.
I shouted in pain once I realized how painful the sting was during its curing sequence. Fluttershy flinched briefly when I screamed and continued to rub the medicine into my injury. Twilight kept holding onto my hand and she still looked worried about me. "Spike, do you have the bandage ready?" Twilight says, still watching me.
"Yes! I'll wrap it once Fluttershy is done." Spike said, holding onto the white bandage.
Fluttershy moved her hooves around my right arm, covering the gel all over where I was scratched. She finally let go from rubbing in the medicine and dipped her yellow hooves into the water. Once cleaned, she patted me on the head. "There you go Brayden. That wasn't so bad, was it?" She says to me, gently rubbing my head.
"Yeah, it wasn't too bad, but still stung." I said, looking at Fluttershy.
I then looked at Twilight and gently took a hold of her hoof on my hand and started to hold it. "You saved my life Twilight." I said, sounding calm and relieved.
"I know…" She said, moving her face towards me and sharing a gentle friendly nuzzle with me.
"But… I thought you hated me Twilight." I said, still sounding a bit down after what she said to me this morning.
Twilight kept her nuzzle and said "Oh Brayden, I could never hate you. I was only disappointed in you for not telling me the truth."
I gently placed my left hand onto her soft and silky mane and began to stroke it gently. I turned my head towards Fluttershy and she seemed to be mouthing a word to me that I couldn't make out first. By the movement of her mouth, I finally recognized that she was meaning "Tell her" as in telling Twilight that I had a crush on her.
"Hold still Brayden, I'm going to put the bandage on your arm." Spike said, hopping onto the bed and placing the white starting point of the bandage onto the top of my injury and wrapped it all the way down to the bottom of the scratch. I kept watching to see him wrap it back up to keep the blood from spilling out past the bandage.
"Brayden, you've got to get some rest now to help cure the wound. But don't worry, we'll talk again later this evening." Twilight promised me, taking my hoof. I take a look at Fluttershy and she mouths that it's all okay and knows I'll tell her soon enough.
I finally lay back and slowly begin to close my eyes. The image of Twilight, Fluttershy and Spike begins to blur when I start closing my eyes and I relaxed back, just listening to the sound of their hooves drift off distant. I finally began to rest and promised myself to wake up close to evening.
I wasn't going to miss tonight.