//------------------------------// // A Sizzling Introduction // Story: Penumbral Prodigy // by JakTheYak //------------------------------// The lasts inky vestiges of shadow slowly dripped from the emerging mare’s grey coat, and, with a habitual motion, she stretched her body and shivered in the cold autumn chill of the Manehattan dusk. The alley she had materialized in was a simple one, bereft of an outlet and kept separate from the street by an iron gate topped with a wicked array of barbed wire. The alley was bathed in the red and yellow neon from the lighting of the establishment she had come to “visit”. All the brickwork surrounding her was obviously among the oldest in the entire city, being a mahogany hue. The stonework beneath her hooves was also betraying the neighborhoods age, as it was made of earthen grey cobble stone. This was a favored pit-stop in an all-night pillaging spree throughout Equestria, as homelessness is a powerful motivator. This particular mare just happened to have been a unicorn, and one fairly gifted in the magics of the shadows to assist in her ‘hunts’. Those few ponies that she did have repeat contact with, the damned few as she liked to call them, had taken to calling her Spookums. She had never been properly named, being an unwanted and discarded filly with but an alcoholic to call a father, a shadow of the stallion he used to be. The name was a childish stand-in, but apt given her aptitude for irritation via jump-scaring ponies from walls and ceilings, along with general shenanigans. Spookums rarely spared those she came to know much thought past the obvious entertainment value and possibility of getting free food or clothes for winter. Said clothes would be quickly pawned off for bits given she could just near instantly travel to warmer pastures. While her mind was ensnared by thought her body moved on muscle memory, deftly rummaging through the Neighponese eatery’s large, industrial trash bins. At this hour, the food was fresh and had yet to be soiled. The labored creak of an overtaxed door caused Spookums to jump in surprise “Oh, hiya there sir! I hope ya don’ mind, I just needed a little food to help me get through the night...” Despite traveling all over Equestria, she still bore an accent from the place of her birth, good ol’ Manehattan. The old, graying Neighponese stallion simply yelled some manner of curses in his native tongue. Spookums simply gave him her usual level stare, they had done this dance many times before, but he had always relented in the past. All of the sudden, the earth pony heaved a massive pot of boiling water, which had been hidden behind the door, upon Spookums. The blistering liquid dosed the mare, sending her into shock as her flesh began to bubble under the heat. She let out a single agonized cry before jagged tendrils of shadow rocketed from her own and nearly decapitated the old stallion, who barely managed to close the door to stop himself from meeting a gory and umbral demise. The pain quickly overcame the tortured mare, who promptly crumpled to the floor and melded into a vast abyssal plane of obsidian nothingness. All around her the darkness writhed and shifted in a dance of darkness that only a truly mad mind could comprehend; All was ebbing and flowing within the blackened an ocean of night. The poor pony bucked, cursed, and shook in unimaginable pain as the normally lifegiving liquid betrayed her and became her nemesis. She couldn’t focus enough to pull herself from this lower plane and simply kept riding the tides for what could have been as long as a lifetime, or short as a New Year’s resolution. She continued slipping through this lower reality; all the while she traveled wherever the currents took her, from Yakyakistan to Griffonstone to the undiscovered west and anywhere in between or outside. After some unknowable time, another’s form dove through the veiled barrier between worlds and, in a flare of stark white brilliance, cast away the abyss and gently took the injured Spookums in her hooves and slowly ascended to the surface and crossed back into the real world. ^^^ Spookums’ eyes slowly, painfully cracked partially open to reveal a quartet of goddesses, the lowly outcast had suddenly been inducted into the company of all four Alicorn princesses. She was only half conscious, with blurred vision and ringing ears. It was taxing to just to try and understand what was being said. It is considered a rare honor for those outside Ponyville to see even one, and a once in a lifetime opportunity to be in the presence of them all. Celestia was the first to react,  “Luna my sister who is this pony?! What happen to her? She looks injured!”  Her voice was firm and commanding, yet still shaken, given the sudden appearance of a third degree burn victim before her. The pony that had wrenched Spookums from the maw of the unknown was, in fact, the younger royal sister, Luna the Princess of the Moon. She spoke to her sister in a shaky voice, “I had observed this pony traveling by way of an ancient technique I had believed only myself capable of. She appeared as though to be in pain so I went and retrieved her. I hope she will be alright” A pinkish Alicorn, maybe Twilight Sparkle -Spookums never knew which was which outside of the original two- interrupted. “Who cares?! This pony needs help now!!” All the Alicorns looked to Celestia, who simply shook her head and all of them began to execute some unspoken plan. The last thing Spookums remembered was her feeling herself be lifted by a gentle ethereal grip. ^^^ “Uuugghh….” The groans of pain echoed the throbbing pain in her head. The high-pitched beeps of medical equipment jolted the sleeping Spookums to full attention. She was vaguely aware of her surroundings, limited mainly to her being laid on her back. Gingerly rubbing her eyes and peering around the room, her sensitive, unadjusted pupils were screaming at the sparkles and reflections cast by the orgy of polished marble adorning the columns about the rooms walls and the blistering sunlight pouring in from the massive windows. Outside of the windows, the ground was nowhere in sight, so Spookums assumed her must be on a higher level, maybe the Princesses put me up in a tower like a damsel in distress. She chuckled to herself at the thought, then slowly came to realize that it felt as though she was being constricted around the whole of her body. “Sweet Celestia!” she exclaimed, looking down upon her ravaged form in horror to find herself wrapped in all manner of gauze, oozing healing salves. “Now now, that’s know way to use my name.” the solar Princess cooed with a gentle smile, not that it was seen. Spookums startled and tried to turn to see her visitor, but to no avail as her head was sat sunken so deep into egregiously fluffy pillows that she couldn’t move her neck far enough to see her visitor. Slowly her eyes began to adjust to the unending assault buffeting them, and she became aware that she was in fact in a private room, and ironically one of the towers from the negligible distance between the windows and clouds. Celestia slowly trotted into view, along with a slender red and white stallion with a pill bottle for a cutie mark. The two must have been in the room prior to her awakening. Maybe they had been discussing treatment, not that it really made much difference to Spookums. “She’ll be fine, but the scaring will cause discoloration of her coat once it grows back. She’ll have to dye it if she wants to appear normal, but given her natural image I’m not sure it will even be worthwhile”. The snide doctor didn’t spare a glance to his charge, looking dead at the Princess like Spookums wasn’t even there. “Hey you snobbish mother-bucker, ‘she’ is right her!!” if there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was others looking down their muzzles at her. “I am aware” He looked over just to fire off a look like he was gazing upon a pitiful, wounded animal and not a fellow pony. Turning to Celestia, he continued “Unfortunately, this particular miscreant doesn’t seem capable of taking care of basic hygiene, let alone paying for medical services. I will be pilling the court, if you should come to your senses and decide otherwise, you can contact my office. My work here is done, make sure she stays in bed and doesn’t move more than absolutely necessary.” Without even giving a moment for a reply he cantered out of the room with a flick of his mane and tail. “Good to know you keep great company” Spookums spit like a caustic venom.  “Even though he may not be the most, hmm…” she paused a moment to mull over which word she wished to use “agreeable, of ponies; Doctor Paresthesia did work wonders on you. Suffice to say, you owe him a great debt.” Spookums rolled her eyes and made a small ‘uh huh’ under her breath. “Now Miss… uh, what was your name again?” the Princess asked. “Ponies call me Spookums” the bandaged bum was now fully agitated and in the most abrasive of moods “what’s it to ya?” Her accent was coming in thicker than usual, the way it always did when she felt offended or threatened. The Princess was taken aback at the toxicity spewing from the crippled pony before her. To her credit, Celestia did persist and try and get anything resembling personal information and the story behind her injuries for a good twenty minutes. Finally she gave a defeated, “Perhaps I am not the best pony for you to talk to…” and walked out of the door. What followed was a string of awkward introductions and half conversations as the other Princesses tried to connect with the wayward soul. Spookums did feel some twinge of remorse for her tongue lashing of the well-meaning if out of depth Twilight, who had little to offer outside of several factoids on burn treatment and offers to read her some medical journals. Then came Cadence, form who she felt much of the maternal affection she had been missing for so long. Spookums simply stuck to awkward small talk and dodged any real questions. Despite the motherly tones Spookums picked up from the pink princess, she still didn’t trust her. Finally, Cadence took her leave promising fresh baked cookies. There was a pause for a few minutes after Cadence took her leave, and Spookums could hear hushed arguing outside. Eventually the door opened, and in stepped the Princess of the Night. Luna entered plainly, as if she understood that there really was no flowery way to talk to this particular pony. Where all her predecessors had opened with some manner of cheesy ice-breaker, Luna simply moved to the foot of Spookums’ bed and sat down. The two stared at each other, firing and receiving a bout of sizing-up. Finally, Luna spoke “you lack the normal bubbly and care-free disposition of near all ponies, save few.”  “What tipped you off?” The venomous Manehattan bite begun to fade. “You are the first mare I have seen in a very long while with her coat not covering her hooves, you smell as though you’d never had a proper bath up till now, your coat is shaggy and poorly groomed, as is your tail, and you wear a braid so you don’t have to bother with your mane.” Luna made a circular motion with her hooves in front of her muzzle to accent her words. “Wow tell me how you really feel why dontcha?” Silence descended over the two like a shroud, broken with a quizzical initiation, “I don’t mean to be rude, but why do you Alicorns care about some peasant anyway?” That word peasant hung in the air, like a bubble ready to pop. Luna paused and carefully considered her words, conversational and social nuance was never her forte, “Why would you think that we wouldn’t?” “When I was little I heard the other kids talking about ‘All powerful and ever caring Alicorn overloads’, they were going to school while I was picking their saddlebags. Celestia had plenty of time to come down from her castle and go ahead to stroll down the gutters and alleys to try and help some of her poor subjects.” As the sentence came out Spookums felt years of pent up anger all spilling out, getting louder and louder with every word. “While she was sat up her on her soft, gold throne being kissed up to and never having so much as lay eyes on a pony without a noble bloodline as old as her, a little mare spent her childhood praying every sunrise that a sun Goddess would spare her and her overworked and out-of-depth dad time to look to the shadows she cast to deliver them from hell in a concrete and asphalt cesspool!!” The unicorn was now shouting and crying uncontrollably. “She decrees what is wrong and what is right while others waste away in prisons for daring to do what it takes to survive!” Her body began shaking slightly and tears streamed down her face. She was tired. Tired of struggling, tired of hurting, tired of never having anypony or even a place to stay a night. As she lay there, in the throes of a breakdown, Luna walked around the bed and simply wrapped her hooves around the suffering pony. Luna stroked Spookums’ mane and did anything else she could remember to comfort her. She heard hinges creak and stole a look to the doorway and saw her sister and Twilight grinning at the sight of Luna with this seemingly unapproachable pony clutching her desperately.