A True, True Friend

The night started to fall. Slender Mane formed in the shadows, hiding behind a tree and waiting. There, he waited for some unfortunate creature or pony to venture within...

He resented his diet for cutie mark powers and fear. While he felt better about consuming fear, as fear did not affect the pony it was being taken from, a cutie mark draining changed a pony forever. The pony would lose it's motivation for their special talent, and their mark would fade to black, white, and grey...

Slender caught sight of a little rabbit. Not bad, as there was no cutie mark, but it would not last...
He crept forward. Without a face, he did not make a sound from breathing. The tentacles in his tail twisted in the darkness, casting dark shadows around the forest floor. The bunny ran away, and Slender absorbed the thin wisps of fear through the pores in his black limbs. He felt the energy seeping back into him, but he had lost the rabbit.

He teleported to the rabbit, scaring the thing half to death. He took in the fear and let the rabbit be, and it scampered away.

Slender remembered his miserable childhood. His mother screaming and dying at his birth, his father casting him out, and the whole of the zebra population shunning him. All because he didn't have a face. Or stripes. Or a mane.

That was where he got his name. Slender Mane. His extremely tall and skinny body combined with the amount of mane on his head. He had no way of expressing emotion, no way to get them to read his attempted scribbled notes, to understand he was upset. So the jabs and screams of terror went on...

Slender learned how to see as he got older. There was an interesting way that he could envision things in his brain, and they looked the same as they did in real life (not that he'd know). He breathed through his tentacles.

One thing that sparked his need for cutie mark energy was the lack of his own. He had no talent. No special thing that motivated him each day. So he took it from others. It was exciting, at first, but, as the long years went by, the poor zebra lost his interest, and finally started feeling remorse. The suit he donned had a hastily scribbled x within a circle where the mark should be. It was his cover-up.

Slender was alone. the terrifying thought that "you might be next" frightened the ponies all across Equestria. He never had somepony to talk to, somepony to cry (or as much as an eyeless zebra could cry) with, or somepony to share a kind exchange with. Slender had hardened from the rough treatment he had received, seeming ruthless and cruel, but there was something he really wanted.

He wanted a cutie mark, he wanted to stop harming others, but what he wanted most was a friend.

((We decided i was second))

Silent Smiles stepped into the infamous "Slender Forest."
According to society, where she belonged.
She ran away from her Great Granny in Canterlot, and took the first train here.
No one liked her, or cared for her, or saw her as a pony.
They saw her as a monster.
The only reason her great grandmother ever took her in was because she owed Silent's mom.
She needed to go to a place she would not be ridiculed.
Or avoided.
Or anything like that.
Silent Smiles, with her forever big grin, was looking for the parents and family she never had.
With the sun setting it was hard to see, but she felt as if she were being watched.
But she had no fear.
Whoever was staring at her, be it a pony or beast, was going to regret it when they saw here grin.
Her terrifying grin.
Silent trudged through the forest, and swore she saw something in the distance.
"Hello?" she called out.

Fractured fossil was ecstatic. He was given permission to be able to dig in the so called "Slender Forest". The pony has heard legends of it, very infamous legends. He did not believe such were true though, what he did believe was that there was a jackpot of fossilized dragon bones. Fractured was gonna be the first Pony to ever dig, and receive such a mass amount, the paleontologist committee would be astonished. Fractured Fossil pulled the shovel off of his back, and put a flashlight in his mouth as he trotted in.

Red Harvest was shaking with fear. A couple ponies he met not too long ago dared him to go to a place called Slender Forest. He heard the rumors of it, and it was terrifying. At least to a pony like Red. He trotted in, trying not to look like a coward. The dare was he had to spend at least four hours in there and come back alive. If he won, he would make a lot of bits. If he didn't make it, well... We'll just have to see. The only thing he took was a half dead flashlight, since he couldn't afford batteries. And that brings us back to the dare to if he makes it he gets paid

Slender Mane sensed many different ponies entering his forest. Why...? What kind of idiotic ponies would do such a thing, when such a monster as he lived in the darkness?

He would try and approach one. He wanted to see if he could control his hunger. He wanted to meet somepony who would accept him as he was...

Slender rode on the shadows, galloping at a speed that many would call teleportation. The few ponies he had restrained himself from harming called it Slender-Trotting, but he just found it convenient.

He used an ancient zebra magic to fade into the shadows, concealing himself from anypony's eyes. He crept forward, letting his sense pull him to a life source.

He watched a little filly from the back enter his home. She was walking with a lowered head, seeming dejected about something. He felt a morbid curiosity, and he extended a tentacle, snapping a branch twenty feet away.

"Hello?" she asked, wildly looking around. Slender's shoulders heaved in a silent sigh, and his tentacles absorbed the most minute of fear radiating off her skin. But then the filly turned, and he saw her face.

It was spread in a wide grin, but not the kind a pony would normally see on a filly her age. This was a twisted, sinister smile, and her eyes darted around, trying to find someone to show her face to. Slender felt an interest in a pony he had never felt before. Another freak. Another outcast. Maybe he would finally find a friend.

But how to communicate? He didn't want to scare her right off the bat, and he couldn't speak...

The notes! Of course! He had taught himself to write a while ago. The freakishly tall zebra pulled a quill and a piece of parchment out of the darkness. He scribbled a rough drawing of himself among the forest and stuck it on a trees, snapping another branch to lead the filly over...

Silent Smiles, ears perked and aware, heard a branch snap.
A common noise you would hear in the forest.
Instinctively, Silent looked in the direction of the snapping branch.
It was hard to tell by only the light of the moon, but she thought she saw something on a tree.
Trotting over to investigate, Silent found a piece of paper stuck on it.
It was a crude drawing of a tall pony in a forest.
"Hello? Who put this here? I don't bite," She said as she looked around.
Silent sat down on a rock, patiently waiting for an answer.

Fractured Fossil had found his spot. Sure it was dark, but it was as vast a place as he could find in the forest. The Paleontologist turned on his flashlight and started digging. His surroundings were ominous, they were not something he would like to normally be placed in, but he digressed. If only he could get to these bones faster, the excitement was unbearable. Until he finally hit something is when a grin grew on his face. Fractured Fossil had found his first of many bones. "Aha! For I have obtained what seems to be a..." The pony went silent while examining the fossil. "... A 1,207 year speckle back dragon femur! Amazing..." The pony laughed and continued to dig around his discovery.

Red was still wandering around the forest, hoping that if he kept moving, he wouldn't be in Slender Mane's line of sight. He heard branches breaking and his heart started racing. He was scared out of his mind. He quickly hid behind a tree, hoping nopony was taking notice to him. He started breathing lightly and began talking to himself. "It's ok, Red. It's ok. You're a big stallion. You can handle this. It can't be that bad" He slowly stepped back out and continued moving. "Oh Celestia. Oh Luna. Oh Twilight Sparkle, one of you help me..."

Slender let the darkness drop him, and he landed with a light thud on his hooves.

"Hello?"

He stayed silent, for there was nothing he could do about it.

"Curse these forever closed jaws," he thought, lightly pawing at the ground.

Unaware, the filly had plopped herself right in front of the terrifying zebra. The energy radiating from her cutie mark, a smiley face, was so appealing. Yet, he didn't want it, for the first time in his life.

"Oh, Celestia, oh Luna, oh Twilight Sparkle," whimpered a male voice to his left. Slender's head whipped around, and the appeal was not coming from the filly, as he had originally thought. On instinct, his tentacles raised, and the black mist that was the pony's fear seeped in, and it was as if a shark had smelled blood. His resolve melted, and he rode the darkness to the red pony, revealing himself exactly three inches from the pony's frightened face.

Slender was ready for the scream that the pony would emit. They all did. He would take his fear, and then he would take this pony's cutie mark energy.

Silent Smiles heard another pony.
Probably one of those kids who got dared into going to the forest.
She didn't know why he was scared.
She hadn't come across anything to scary.
Nonetheless...she followed where the voice came from.
She ran for a bit, and then stopped.
The boy was face to face with one of the most terrifying ...whatever it was she had seen in her life.
Instead of a mane, it had long tentacles blending into the darkness.
It also had no face, and wore a suit like he was going to one of those parties her grammie never let her got to.
And she liked it.
To Silent, this pony was the most handsome pony she had ever laid eyes on.
Even though her wretched smile could never be undone, right now, she was feeling pure joy.

He was tired. Fractured Fossil was a bit worn out from shoveling dirt. The professor pushed up his glasses, and got a better view of what he was looking at. It was a skull, well, a jaw. The rest of the skull was covered in dirt and it would take some time to get the rest out. The Stallion let out a sigh and sat himself down. He would have liked some assistance. "Hello? Is anybody out there able to give a good stallion some assistance?" He shouted.

Red was ready to scream in fear. Then he looked into Slender Mane's non-existent face. "Huh. That's all it is? That's not scary at all! I expected much worse." Rather than screaming or fainting or running, Red Harvest just laughed at how he was praying for his life. He looked past him and saw there was a filly with a very creepy smile. No way he was going over there. Then he heard a stallion calling for some help, so he trotted over there to see what it was about

Slender felt a rush of fury as the pony started to trot away. What kind of idiot would do that? Slender reached out with his tentacles and wrapped them around the stallion's midscetion, dragging him back.

"Screw fear," he thought through his fury.

Slender fixed his nonexistent gaze upon the pony's cutie mark and sucked the white energy out of the pony's skin. He watched the pony's mark fade to black and white as his red flank dulled and the pony withered.

Silent Smiles watched what Slender Mane was doing to the pony.
She didn't understand what Slender Mane was doing, and found it very interesting.
She wondered how the mysterious pony was doing it.
Nonetheless, she observed from the shadows, to embarrassed to say anything.
Whatever was happening to him, the red pony deserved it.
"No, Silent no. Don't think about harming ponies," she thought.
And then she realized she didn't have to worry about being...different.
Or misunderstood.
She was far far away from Grammie, her hometown, and her old life.
Time to start fresh.

Fractured Fossil had just finished digging out the rest of his skull. It seems nopony had come to assist him, but he expected that much. This forest was not one in which somepony would waltz into. The paleontologist took out a cloth and wiped his forehead, then started polishing the dragon skull. "What a find... Now, how am I supposed to lug this thing out of the forest?" He asked himself.

As Red was trotting away, he was grabbed by tentacles. This shocked him, as he was dragged back in front of Slender Mane. "Whoa, whoa! What's goin' on?" Before he knew it, all the energy was sucked out of him. His cutie mark turned black and white and faded, his coat was paler, he felt weaker, and it was like his mind and soul were gone. He fell to the ground, but still somewhat alive, but no purpose for anything. Just a walking shell. Completely grayed out and having no feeling. He was basically a zombie. He wandered around, not having any thoughts or feelings or purpose. Just, forever wandering. Maybe he should've taken Slender seriously. But he would've looked like a coward instead of an idiot, so, it was really a Lose Lose situation

Satisfied, Slender dropped the pony and got on his darkness. He turned around and saw the filly staring at him, her smile still there.

"Was it really that cool looking?" he thought. With one tentacle, he beckoned to the cloud of black he was standing on. He felt sad again when he saw the zombified pony drag himself away.

"Hmmm..." he thought, examining the now-gone stallion. He turned his attention back to the filly when he heard a scuffling noise. The enticing sound of another pony filled Slender's pores, and he was about to go find the pony, but he waited for the filly's answer.

Kid had been running for what seemed like hours now. After not eating for about a week, Kid finally decided to try and steal some apples from a stand. Getting caught, and fearing of going to jail young, he started running with the apples. Despite the guard's honest protests that he wouldn't be sent to jail. Arriving in a forest, hoping it would be a good place to hide. Kid sat down by a tree, opened his knapsack and pulled out one of the 6 apples he had stolen and started eating it. He felt horrible for doing it. But he needed something to eat, or else he would have perished.

Silent Smiles looks at the strange pony in a suit.
"H-Hello, my name is Silent Smiles, what is yours, mister?" she asks politely, remembering the etiquette he great grandmother begrudgingly taught her.
Her big smile shone in the moonlight, casting an eerie light on the pony in front of her.
Even though he was scary looking and tall, Silent felt a deep loyalty toward him.
Silent took out the picture.
"Is this yours, mister?" She asked him as she held out the drawing.

It's not like Red was doing anything important now. All he did was wander the forest, taking glances at the other ponies who decided to trot in, and most likely suffer the same fate.

As Red was doing this, Recurve waltzed into the forest. Most ponies who came in here were often known as "misunderstood" or "hated." Recurve was both of those. On top of that, nopony would leave him alone about his crystalline appearance. At least he found solitude in the forest. He came across a grayed out pegasus, wandering waround. He payed no mind, shoved him out of the way, and just looked around. He then saw Slender Mane, the fabled stripeless zebra who took poor ponies souls, or just straight up murdered them. Perhaps that pegasus was an example? No matter, Slender Mane was like an idol for Recurve. He watched from a distance in amazement from this monster he held so dear to his heart

Slender always gets frustrated when ponies ask him questions that don't involve a nod or a head shake. He pulled the paper and scribbled his name.

SLeNdeR mANe

"Is this yours, mister?" asked the little filly. Slender nodded and picked up the grinning filly, setting her down gently on top of the black cloud.

WaNt To gO tRY iT? he wrote on the paper.

Silent Smiles read the paper with difficulty, as she was still learning how to read at school.
"Sl-slend-slender M-ma-mane? Slender Mane? Well, nice to meet you, Slender Mane," she said with a grin, this time it was of happiness.



"Want to go try it?"

She remembered what her Grammie taught her about strangers.
But this was the Slender Forest, Grannie, or any other pony, didn't matter now.
"Sure. Let's go," she said.
Clinging close to Slender Mane's leg, they set off in the moonlight.