Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here

by Blank!

Prologue or He Came From Outer Space

Prologue

Hello. My name is Merrie. Merrie Naht. A bit of a weird name, isn’t it? When people inevitably ask, I just say that my parents are foreign. That is only half-true, but it’s enough that I don’t feel dishonest. There’s another thing about me that surprises people: my colour--or rather, the lack thereof. Everyone here has such vivid colours, and, by contrast, it would seem like I’m only one colour, and not a very interesting one at that. But that’s not quite true. My coat is raven, as are my wings. My mane is a flowing stream of jet. My eyes are like two pieces of onyx--save for the white cornea. The overall look is rather somber, but at least it gives me awesome camouflage in the night sky. I'm still pink on the inside, just like everyone else, though. Like most Pegasi, I have a wiry, supple build, with little to no fat to smooth the edges. I am not entirely comfortable with that. I think it makes me look like I’m a big ball of intertwined sinews on the verge of snapping, even though I’d like to think I’m a pretty laid-back mare. To my great embarrassment, I am also the reluctant owner of long eyelashes. The only time I saw someone with more ridiculously long eyelashes was when that one butterfly-winged Unicorn mare dazzled us at the Young Fliers’ Competition, and I would bet those were fake, at least, and removable. I find mine frankly undignified. Ponies keep complimenting me about them--and asking me if I use some sort of product. I’ve thought of cutting them, but I feel like it might make things worse...

I could tell you the story of my life--easily too. First, because it's been quite short, and second, because it's flashing before my eyes. Right now. It looks like I'm about to die. And, well, I'm finding out that cliches really do happen in real life.

I’m a quiet mare; I mind my own business. Even as a foal, I was never fussy, never willful, never stubborn. I took what was given to me; I seldom asked for more. I did as I was told. My parents were thankful for that; my little sister was enough of a parakeet for both of us. At school, I blended in. My unusual traits had attracted some attention, but only at first. See, I never had much to say about anything. I never spoke or acted out--not even when I should have. Right now, I'm ashamed of that, but it's a little too late for anything other than regrets.

Even in the skies, I was never fond of fancy tricks and pirouettes. I flew straight lines, followed the easiest currents. I paced myself. I never tried any stunts (unless I was told to). I never overexerted myself (unless I was told to). I strived to be disciplined, precise, and clean.

Except in choir.

I wasn’t there by choice. You see, Cloudsdale's flight school had a choir. One that was famous, and had lots of tradition behind it. But nowadays, we students weren’t enthusiastic about that kind of stuff. So every year, the choir director went to every class, scouting for ‘talent’. To our dismay, he often settled for ‘capacity’ instead. I was among those that got volunteered. I didn’t want to go. However, I had never done a sloppy job before in my life, before or since. I simply refused to drop my reputation--no, my principles-- because of this choir. That’s what I had told myself, back then.

So sing I did, even through gritted teeth. That, as I discovered, would be as hard to do metaphorically as it would be physically. It wasn’t long before I loosened up. I started enjoying myself, much to my surprise. I couldn’t remember ever having had that much fun.

When you sing, if you want to sing properly, you have to open yourself to the feelings that the song wishes to convey. When you sing a requiem, you remember your dead. You cry for their peace and lament their absence. When you sing a song about spring and hope, you remember how it felt to thaw the world in Winter Wrap Up. And I’d never confess to it in public, but I’d never have enough of those silly love songs...

At first, however, I was dismayed. I would stand out. I would be teased. It wasn’t mainstream enough. Not like, say, Flash-ball, or Battle School (not that I’d stopped attending either). But, as the lessons passed, I discovered something. I liked myself when I was singing. My voice was only part of an ensemble; I had the excuse that that wasn't ''me'', that it was just the ''song''. I poured out feelings I didn't even know I had in me. It was a safe release, a welcome breather.

I wasn’t unpopular. You see, everyone made the same mistake I did. In their mind, acting grown-up was cool. Polite aloofness was maturity. Keeping one’s hoof clean of conflicts was clever, if not outright wise. Fillies confused my quietness for “mysteriousness”. Colts sought to be on good terms with me. Some tried to enroll me into their posses. That never quite happened; I stayed in the margins. Teachers constantly encouraged me to participate more: they were under the impression that I held back my “true potential”.

That was only half true. I did hold back, undoubtedly so. But that was only to hide that there wasn’t much to hold back at all.

The bullies, the sadists, the abusers--I managed to neutralize those, too. At worst, they left me alone. At best, they thought I was their friend. They would explain to me me how they planned to, say, dump the egghead with the prosthetic wings, and what a pathetic, wretched thing he was, right? And I would nod at that, and smile curtly, and they’d confuse that for approval.

Yup, that was the foal’s crime: having a birth defect. In pre-Celestian times, back in the days of the Junta, the baby would have been discarded at birth. Pegasi had grown much more merciful, since then, but there is still a deep-seated aversion to physical weakness. That’s what happens when you routinely fly for miles at a time, at breakneck speed, so high above the ground. Weaklings are a liability.

Still, I thought to my self, no reason to harass ponies about stuff they can’t help. Those thoughts I kept to myself. I smiled. I nodded. At jokes others found uproarious, I would smile slightly. When they expressed outrage and indignation, I would affect a stern gaze--just enough to be part of the group. But I’d always try not to look too distant, to show some warmth in my eyes, as if I was saying “I don’t think I’m better than you; it’s just that I’m not as intense”. I never went out of my way to help others, sometimes politely refusing even when I was asked. I seldom did refuse, but sometimes I would say “no”, out of principle. I wanted people to think that I was nice, but not a paragon (someone to hold out for) or a doormat (someone to step on). It worked.

As my father told me, in his strange, broken dialect, “Be not child-light,” a pushover, “but be not a prick, either. The people may well you more like, when you let them not on you step, but they will not you like, if you on them step. There are to this rule exceptions: of them I will you tell, once you older are.” We had emigrated when I was young. I took to the new language with infuriating ease, but he didn’t have such an easy time.

It may seem like my father’s speech is a mess, but it isn’t. Though our language and Equestrian are fairly close, my father never really managed to get over the grammar differences. Rather than speak an Equestrian with messy grammar, he preferred to just strictly adhere to his original language’s rules, and basically translating word-for-word.

Anwyay, I listened to my father. I didn’t go out of my way to help others, or hurt them.. When my schoolmates would plan to bully someone or start a fight, I'd try to excuse myself. If that wasn't possible, I'd always keep to the margins. In a melee, you'd never find me in the thick of a fray. And I'd never get caught. So maybe people thought I just knew the right crowd from the bad. Of course, they always thought they were the right crowd.

Now I’d never confess this in public, but, as far as I was concerned, the “right crowd” consisted of only one Pegasus in the whole school: Andromache. Some of my classmates call her “weird”. “She’s from another world”, they say. And they have a point. That filly is something else. It’s not just the way she sings, but that’s a big part. She sings like she’s got nothing to lose, like she wants to harmonize with the entire world. I sing to get the pain out of my chest. I sing to get the real me out, to express myself. For me, singing has become a way to shout it all out, in a place where my voice would be better concealed than by any silence.

But she sings like she’s just a medium for music. Her voice would draw tears out of your heart like water out of a deep, forgotten well. It would burst though all barriers, like they were nothing but hollow resonance chambers; they only amplified her voice. And she would do all that with a face so deadpan it was comical, like she was completely unconcerned with the torrential stream of emotions she was delivering.

Speaking of streams, you’d have to see the way she flies. She certainly wasn’t the fastest young flier I had ever seen, nor was she the most enthusiastic or artistic, but she was precise. She had a deep understanding of movement and flight and air, and flew like one would solve a mathematical equation--with humble yet undeniable elegance.

And the “weirdness” doesn’t stop there; like so many exceptional people, she’s an outlier in more ways than one. For one thing, she’s the nicest pony I’ve ever known. She helps people with their homework and with their flight practice. Taking advice from her is not a matter of pride, not even for the most arrogant Griffins or the most aloof Pegasi, because, as a matter of fact, she is almost always right. Still, few actually follow her advice, because, while sound, it is hard. Even basic stuff like keeping a meticulous diet, maintaining a fixed sleeping schedule, doing your abs every morning, not using those damned WHISPer gadgets to listen to music while training and focusing on your technique instead... People want shortcuts. They don’t want to go through all that work. And then they twitch and moan about not getting the results that require that work, as if they were entitled to have them for free.

My dad taught me otherwise; I’d never do a sloppy job if I could help it. Thus, I was the only one in our year who listened to all her advice, and I followed her example as closely as possible. If her flight looked like solving equations, mine looked like accountancy--It was boring as hell, but it got the job done.

I can’t help but think she somehow knew I was holding back--she’s always been a perceptive one. When I was around her, I felt something completely unlike what I felt around the others. A kind of muffled fear. Like she was everything I pretended to be and then some more. She wasn’t afraid of standing out, or speaking her mind. I would never pull that off. I would never be like her.

Cool, calm, mature, grown up... I wasn't any of those things. Yet that was how they thought of me. Deep inside, I was as lazy, as selfish and as horny as any of them. I just tried very hard to meet expectations, so I had better results.

But all this... working hard every day, never complaining, always keeping a “cool” facade, a low profile, faking interest, faking strength, faking maturity... it took its toll. Every weekday after school, I'd go back home, I’d have dinner, I’d tell my parents about my day at school. My father would congratulate me. Then, he and he would dispense some wisdom. On how to avoid envy and contempt, on how never to dream dreams so great they couldn’t be embraced. Practical stuff. Sound stuff. I’d help out with the chores. My mother would give me her usual sad, fond smile, and pet me a little. Then, I’d leave for my room, where I knew I'd be left alone.

Then I'd be free to give in.

I'd keel over into my bed, and, I did something that I found strange, and shameful. I broke down crying. I didn’t know why I did it, I thought there was no good reason to. Everything was fine, right? And yet, there I was, whimpering as quietly as possible. It didn't happen every evening--but it happened fairly often. The closer we were to Friday, the heavier the lump in my throat got. I felt like I was choking. On what, I didn't know. Everything was fine. Lots of folks liked me well enough, and nobody hated me outright. My teachers and my parents had what they wanted. I had what I wanted. Didn't I? So why? Why was it that every day felt like a long, soft, warm, clammy torture? Why was it that, at the best of times, I felt empty and drained and worn out, and at the worst of times, I felt like I was being buried alive, like I was choking on my own breath?.

Thankfully, every weekend, I somehow felt a little better. Choir practice was Friday evening. My parents often left for the chalet during the weekends, with my pest of a little sister. So I was left home alone with my books and my music sheets. I'd lose myself in fiction, or in music. I held on to those moments, wished I would never let them go. But no matter how far I wanted to stretch it, a weekend could only hold so much time. That was just enough. By Sunday night, I usually felt happy and content--eager, even!

By Monday morning, the break was over. Time to sneak back to reality. No matter how many times I went through this, I was always nervous. But, on the surface, I was calm, and ready. That would do. It always did--or so I thought.

Then came Rahal, and my life changed forever.

It was a routine assignment. It really was. My homework for the day was to improve my time at the endurance test by five more minutes, in regards to last week. Teachers trusted me to record my own performance faithfully. And so I did, just in case. One should always tell people freely and frankly anything that they could easily find out some other way, as Father always says. I took the least traveled circuit, as usual. I flew at night, under a pale crescent and a starry blackness. I was practically invisible. I was perfectly alone. I could tell.

As everyone knows, Pegasi make a drone-like buzz with their wings... and they can get very noisy at high speed. Since no Pegaus (bar one) has been known to travel faster than the speed of sound, I could easily avoid unwanted company, especially since the endurance test was more about gliding than speeding. That way, my own noise didn't drown out others', and I would be able to avoid any of my speedster classmates simply by listening. Gliding was all about intelligently managing ascending currents. I did my best to be more clever this time. I had to beat that score by five minutes. I had to do as I was told. I had to meet their expectations.

The pace of the flight reminded me of one of the songs we had been practicing most recently. It was from a musical called Big Band Bronco. It was one of my favourites, for some reason... Almost reflexively, I turned on my SoundMeister and just listened for a while, losing myself in the lyrics.

* * *

When I got to the solo after the first chorus, I lowered the volume on my device. The heavens were quiet, and the lights of Cloudsdale were like fireflies on the horizon.

I flew for a while like that...

“Gotta knock a little harder,” I muttered to myself.

Gotta knock a little harder!

Weird, that was a male voice! Why did they change change singers so abruptly? I idly wondered. I wasn't expecting anypony to be around--and the skies of Equestria were notoriously safe (otherwise, I’d never have been given this kind of homework). I certainly wasn’t expecting an enormous flying contraption, with wings ten times the length of my own and thrice the width, carrying some kind of giant horned cat person, silently surging out of the cloud cover, heading straight for my side like a tiger pouncing on prey. It was too late to veer. In the nearly frictionless medium that is air, there are very strong limits on how quick or tight you can steer when you're flying that fast; I didn’t get the time do beat my wings even once. And he sang;

Gotta knock a little harder,

Into the door!

The instant before we made contact was when my whole life so stereotypically flashed before my eyes. It hadn't been that good, but it hadn't been that bad either. I didn't want it to end. I didn’t want to die. I had so much not-dying still left to do.

“Bon appêtit! Open up!” the cat-person said with a savage grin while she wound up to strike me with... a contrabass? But gliders, as the things are rather unimaginatively called, were machines that demanded ''delicate'' handling, and in her haste she somehow unbalanced herself in the movement. This didn’t stop her from ramming the device into me at full speed.

”Oh shit!” she panicked. Why?I thought. I can’t dodge. She’s got me.

She impacted full-on into my barrel right in the stomach. Knocked the air out of me. Hurt. Broke something? Hope not. Hope I wasn't crippled, either; in the air, it wasn’t the injuries that killed you--it was the fall. I didn’t fall. Cloud cover. Clouds, by default, are impermeable to Pegasi. Not always a good thing. Was sent away horizontally, at high speed, against the bumpy clouds. Spun, and rebounded, and skidded, and stumbled, and crashed to a halt. Finally, it stopped. At that speed, it was much worse than, say, falling into a tree. I lay, a crumpled, dark mess, on the moonlit clouds--and I blacked out.

---

Gotta knock a little harder

Break through the door

Comments

[Blank!]

So, this was intended to be a simple crossover between FLCL and Friendship Is Magic, but it didn't turn out the way I'd expected. I swear, these characters have a life of their own...

[R_O_Y_G_B_I_V]

Interesting, I look forward to reading more

[wildberk]

Its nice to see that your not letting the fic rules confine you into telling an original story. I look forward to what else you write up.

[Keeria]

The worst thing about most crossovers (aside from most of them being atrociously written even from a technical point) is that they tend to just be "_______ but with ponies instead of people." Despite having originally wanted to go that route, based on your description, I urge you to just let the story go where it takes you. People already know how FLCL goes, so it's nice that you're letting yourself be a bit more original than that. Best of luck!

[Blank!]

Well, my models for how a successful crossover works are "Shinji and Warhammer 40K" and "Fallout Equestria". Not that I'd want to compare myself to either Charles Bhepin, KKat, or Somber, but I try to follow their example to the best of my limited capacity.

Oh, and I do take suggestions. No guarrantee whatsoever that they'll make it to the story, and maybe a suggestion will trigger a line of thought that will end up with something entirely different, but they're still very welcome.