Short stories from the Idea Farm/Writing Exercise 255s
255s were born of random IRC conversation. These are collections of stories with a minimum word count of 255, and a Max of 500. They're all, as a qualification, complete stories.
“Hey Lariat...How’d you get so good with that rope, anyway?” Aegis piped up, pointing to Lariat’s Cutie mark of a Lasso being spun horizontally in the air.
“Ah, amigo, that is a long tale, indeed...but first, tell me, have you ever heard of the vaquero before?” Lariat idly coiled the rope he had been showing off with, putting it neatly away before sacking in for the night. Entertainment was hard to find in the middle of the Congo, and Lariat’s rope tricks never failed to amuse neither human nor Equestrian.
Aegis could only shake his head no. “What’s a buckaroo, anyway?”
Lariat chuckled. Aegis had warped the word ever so slightly, just as the gringos that had borrowed the term had done before. Aegis couldn’t be blamed; the native Equestrian had probably never heard espanol before. There was no way he could be expected to pronounce it correctly on the first try.
“A vaquero is what we of...well, what we formerly of, heh, Mexicano culture call our herders on horseback. Never thought I would be the caballo!” Lariat laughed, but none of the other ponies or humans around the campfire did, only glancing at each other in question. “Ah, lo siento, amigo, caballo means horse...of course, I mean pony, in this case.” Lariat poked at the fire.
“Back to your question, amigo, ropework was very important, be it on a drive or simply showing off for the los niños pequeños.” Lariat smiled and placed the rope back in his saddlebag. “And what better reason to do anything, eh?”
Club looked mighty ridiculous with his mohawk parted right down the middle the entire length of his mane, with a white bow tie struggling to stay attached about his mighty neck. The cafe was filled with ponies of every type, all of them staring at the behemoth waiting alone at the small table.
Then she arrived, the apple of Club’s eye. The red coated, brown-maned, blue-eyed Earth mare had chosen to wear a flower in her hair, a white chrysanthemum. Club gulped.
“Um, hi, uh, Club... how do I look?”
“Just fine, Ancile.”
Ancile giggled a little. She found Club’s brevity of speech charming. “I’m not late, am I?”
“No.”
“Have you ordered yet?” Ancile sat down across from Club, taking up a breadstick to nibble on. Club suddenly found himself with a goofy smile. She was so cute when she did that.
“No.”
“Oh, okay...umm...think they have a good celery sandwich here?”
“Probably.” Club couldn’t stop staring at the mare, and hoped he wasn’t going to freak her out. It’d taken a lot to ask her to this lunch; Club was a stallion of few words, and stringing more than the three needed had pushed him to his limit.
“My brother said he’d love to meet someone brave enough to ask me out.”
“Your... brother?”
Ancile nodded happily. “He’s a Captain in the Guard; maybe you know him? His name is-”
Club glanced at her red coat, her brown mane, and her blue eyes again, a terrible thought in his head.
It had been a day like any other, as far as the average citizen was concerned; Get up, go to work, go home, relax, go back to sleep. It repeated itself, an hour offset all around the globe. The sun was shining at high noon above a certain spot in the Pacific Ocean when a small, bright sphere simply *popped* into existence.
In some universes, it grew slowly, in some it would grow then stop. In others, it consumed and destroyed all it came into contact with, converting it into new lands on its inside.
In this one, it raced faster than perception allowed. In desperation, a single long, white horn broke the surface of the bubble, A single yellow-white flash arced across the barrier, a single spell cast in the hopes of saving those doomed on the other side. It flew, a world’s length, barely faster than the barrier itself.
Where the spell struck, human flesh became pony flesh. There was no choice.
There would be no HLF, no PER, no IHSA, no HEA. Not in this world. You were human, doing human things, then you were pony, staring at a set of hooves while wondering why you could no longer “human.”
There was massive loss of life as vehicles failed and crashed, be it air transport or ground car. Trains rolled to stops in the middle of nowhere. Electronics simply fizzled out, more than a few igniting terrible fires.
Somewhere, sitting on a throne while an indigo mare she called sister tried to comfort her, an alicorn of white sobbed, a broken thing.
"Mommy, can I have a pony?" asked Megan again. The ponies had shown up out of the blue last year and ever since, Megan had asked her mother, Patricia, if she could have one, not understanding that the ponies were people too.
"I'm sorry, Megan, but you can't have a pony." Patricia had tried explaining to the four year old, but the logic couldn't penetrate the happy haze of childhood. Real ponies were, of course, right out of the question. Megan would have to settle for the rented version at her birthday party this afternoon. All Megan's human friends had been invited, but the few now-pony friends she had had left with their parents to Equestria.
The afternoon arrived quickly, and the attendees gathered in the backyard, hiding. Megan's father, Patricia's ex-husband Stanley, was bringing her for the surprise. Patricia could hear Stanley send Megan to put up the bags and, afterwards, come to the backyard. Stanley then rushed out and hid as well.
When the gel capsules rained from paintball guns, the adults were briefly angry before the startled screams, but were then silenced as the changes began. Each one begun twisting and turning, taking the form of a pony.
Several minutes passed before Megan entered the backyard, then squealed happily as she ran and hugged the nearest newfoal.
"Mommy, Mommy! You didn't just get me one pony, you got me a bunch!"
Patricia, the one Megan had happened to hug, smiled silently. They'd visit the bureau tomorrow, but for today Patricia would be happy to be her daughter's little pony.
They were at it again, babbling in their little language, utterly incomprehensible to the decent, legal, hard-working average Joe. And Preston had had enough.
He stood up, leaned over and shouted across his cubicle wall. “Shut up that babble! I don’t care how fresh off the boat you are, learn frickin’ English!” There. that shut them up...for a moment. Until the younger one started to cry, babbling something to the elder, who spoke to Preston in a broken English.
“She try very hard to learn your language, Mister. But it is..very hard.”
Preston ignored that, sneering, and motioned for them to be on their way. At least he could work in peace.
* * *
And then, suddenly, Emergence. Everything changed. Preston, eager to escape his go-nowhere cubicle life, was among the first to sign up when the Bureaus made it to his city. A new life, new opportunity, just waiting to be seized? Yes please.
After his two weeks orientation (he had been ponified on day 14, of all things) he was herded onto some sort of dirigible and soon found himself in a processing center in Equestria. As a unicorn, he had been assigned a temporary job cleaning until he had use of his magic.
He was not good at it. He was having to learn to use his mouth for everything, which led to dumping a bucket of sudsy water all over the hooves of another unicorn. She yelled something he couldn’t understand at him in a tone he very much didn’t like, but then, sneering at him, she spoke all-too-slowly, and all-too-angrily as he began to sob:
Really, it had been all too easy. What ponies called 'security' Lockpick couldn't even call practice. Lookout kept watch for the next helpfully illuminated nightguard unicorn to circle around for his patrol route. Getaway and Wheels were circling invisibly overhead in the night sky, waiting for Lockpck to light his horn as the signal in the agreed-upon pattern. The ...liberated... skycarriage had been painted not black, but the deep blue of the nightsky. Anypony who called the Equestrian sky black was a fool.
The newfoals, all four of them, had been locked up in an Earthside prison before they'd been ponified. With a simple promise to 'be on their best behavior' the four had ponified and moved to the horsie homeland. None found hard, honest work to be quite to their taste, and fell back into old patterns.
That was when Lockpick had the grandest of ideas: Rob the mint. Live like kings.
Lockpick sent the signal and the two pegasi with the sky carriage landed. They had a half-hour before the guard rounded again. The Earth pony Lookout started loading the coinbags, three massive bags at a time. The skycarriage was at capacity in seven minutes. The four rose into the sky and escaped.
They had done it. Lookout and Lockpick grinned, sifting their hooves through their ill-gotten gain.
"Uh...Lockpick...?"
"Yeah?" Lockpick turned his gaze to Lookout, curiousity aroused.
"Where's the nation of Equoostria?" the sharp-eyed Earth pony asked.
Lockpick, Lookout, Getaway and Wheels had just managed to relieve the Equestrian Royal Treasury of approximately two tons of scrap metal.
Bright Hope gently wrapped the human in his telekinetic field. He’d been camped on the doorstep of the bureau, all alone. The human had been waiting to be the first into the bureau for the day. Luckily, Bright Hope had found him.
The stallion had come to Earth with his family, two daughters and a loving wife. They had happily volunteered to staff a Conversion Bureau. St. Louis had held promise, and for a time, that promise held true. The quiet, peaceful bureau in the suburbs had been their workspace and home. Little Sparkleberry played in the daycare, while her older sister Cross Stitch worked in the laundry room. His wife High Hope ran the front desk, her helpful attitude a boon for the position. Bright Hope himself acted as quartermaster, going on supply and grocery runs as needed. He was out on one the day it occurred.
He had gotten trapped when a stray detonation caught him beneath the grocery shelving. A can perfectly caught him in the temple and darkened his vision for hours. When he came to hours later, he made his way painfully back to his Bureau.
His world had been destroyed in one fell afternoon.
The human awoke, breaking Bright Hope from his dark reverie. The human began to wail, the thaumatic energy keeping him aloft burning his flesh.
Eventually, the form stilled, and Bright Hope dropped him into the dumpster where he’d carried him around back. After the loss of his family, Bright Hope had been contacted by others of like mind.
Bright Hope, now Broken Hope, would do his part to see that no Human or ‘newfoal’ ever placed a hoof in his beloved Equestria.
“Congratulations, it’s a filly!” The doctor placed the small light pink filly in Aegis’ forelegs. It didn’t matter to him if the little filly had horns, wings, or neither; this was his little angel.
And, while it didn’t manner, of course, she had a horn.
She kept him up all night, and running all day; Her mother, Aegis’ beloved Fireball, did everything she could to keep up as well. With Aegis being deployed half the time, and Fireball out doing weather duty, the little filly mostly took care of herself once she was old enough.
Aegis taught earthcraft to his little nephew Breaker. The filly learned spellcraft from her Uncle Flare; it was a fair trade.
Aegis looked at his little daughter, but couldn’t recognize her. No matter how he squinted, no matter how he stared, her face was a blur; was she the baby foal, still in the crib? Was she a teen, out on her first date? Was it her wedding day, or was she holding Aegis’ first grandfoal?
“You never loved me!” screamed the blur that was his daughter, be she ten or twenty. “You always wanted a Colt! You always wanted an Earth pony! You only love Breaker!”
“No... No, I love you...I love you...” Aegis struggled, pleading.
“Do you even know my name, ‘Daddy’?” the firstborn daughter sneered.
Aegis opened and closed his mouth, several times. He could not answer. What good a Father who did not know his Daughter’s name?
“I’m going to go live with Daddy Flare. I know he loves me.”
* * *
Aegis awoke in a cold sweat, looking about; he was still in his room in Hawaii, laying beside his very pregnant wife. He rolled to his side, placed a hoof on her swollen stomach, and quietly whispered “I don’t care what you will be. I will always love you."
A small motion, a kick from within the bulging belly, signaled a response: “And I will love you, too, Daddy.”
“Gentle Breeze” sauntered offstage, then practically ran back to the shared undressing room. She all but collapsed into her chair, just as the alchemical concoction wore off, the particular shade of silver she used fading away as her own natural teal re-asserted itself. Her red mane practically flashed back into existence as the blue gave up the ghost. Her cutie mark had, thankfully, been covered before the group of off-duty guardsponies had entered the dressclub.
How had she managed to forget that Flare’s bachelor party was tonight? It had all worked out, though; Lariat, Flare, Cloudhammer, and Aegis had failed to recognize her.
The extra bits she earned dressing were going to a very good cause. Soon enough, she’d have enough saved up that she could go back to just the one job, cloud relocation technician. For a while, at any rate. The twins she’d just learned she was going to have meant she’d only be flight-worthy for a few more months. Maybe she could sell some of her mixtures? She wasn’t too bad of an alchemist, if she didn’t say so herself.
She was done for the night, despite the calls for her return to the stage. The Human “school girl” outfit had proven popular as usual, but with some of her friends and, practically, family out there, she wasn’t going to risk it. She opened the door...
….to find Flare standing there, being led back to the....private session...rooms. By luck or providence, he didn’t turn her way.
Slowly, “Gentle” Breeze closed the door, and decided tonight was a good night to stay until closing.
The PER aligned newfoal pegasus ran for her life, dashing around a corner. High Spirits had no idea what had made the earth pony who'd broken her wing so mad. She'd been ordered to invite the grieving stallion to the PER after the death of his wife in the Bureau Attack. The pain had receeded to a dull throbbing, but her only hope might be the bureau she was so close to. She dashed across the pathetic plot of land that represented an abandoned backyard in the dull brown city alleys, only to, as she turned her head away, run flat into the earth pony. The massive stallion had no trouble knocking the lighter pegasus to the ground, pinning her with a hoof.
"P-please, wh-what have I done?"
The stallion glared at her, then took a small packet and dumped it on and around the newfoal. They were... seeds? More like pits.
"Do you even care that she was here to help you, 'newfoal'," spat the stallion. "She said 'Poor humans, they need our help, Tangle!' So we came. We...helped... but no. No, you humans couldn't have that, could you?" He put more pressure on the hoof holding her down.
"I'm a pony, one of the first converts! Not a human!"
"LIAR!" he screamed. "You wear our form but you're still the same monster inside!" The stallion closed his eyes and began doing....something. The seeds he'd scattered began to writhe, green shoots breaking free of the husk of the pit. She felt them growing, roots starting to grasp her mane, crossing over her legs. She panicked, to no avail.
"She was at your precious Bureau that day. Your fellow Man decided that our gift wasn't good enough." Tangle leaned down, breath hot and heavy in his anger, and spoke right into her ear. "Equestria is for Equestrians." He paused, wiping a tear. "She was pregnant."
High Spirits sobbed silently, her muzzle already wrapped shut by the ever-growing plant. Tangle sneered at the pegasus as her eyes rolled wildly, her last glimpse of light obscured by small pink petals before being denied light for the final time. A muffled scream was all to be heard from her again.
"May your death nourish these cherry blossoms in life as it nourishes my Cherry Blossom and Sprout in the Summerlands." Tangle turned and strode away.
The cherry tree, in full spring bloom, was gorgeous.
Cornerstone leaned back from the speech-to-text microphone. He had a date! An actual date! He’d even let her see his MyFace profile and she didn't run screaming. She had shared hers, as well, and she looked good too. It was exciting, actually.
He went to his profile and began to blog about it, but then he suddenly realized something.
He hadn't updated his profile picture since he’d gone pony.
Chad, his roommate, came running in when he heard the loud thud of something heavy striking the floor. Cornerstone lay there, the earth pony staring at the ceiling, one hoof still resting in the chair.
“Brett, dude, what’s wrong?”
“Chad, you gotta help me! And it’s Cornerstone, now, remember?”
“Uh, right... So, whatcha need?”
“I have a date, and we’re meeting up in an hour.”
“Hey, that’s great, man, congrat-”
“And she thinks I’m human!”
One hour later, Chad was heading to the cyber-cafe they had agreed upon as the halfway point neutral ground to start their date at. Chad was looking for a blonde with a red scarf, while ‘Chickenwengs’ was to watch for the red ballcap Chad was now wearing. Cornerstone followed along. They took a table upon arriving and waited.
It wasn't long before Chad spotted the scarf sitting at a complimentary computer-station across the way. He went and began to chat her up, leaving Cornerstone alone.
Cornerstone sulked alone for a few minutes before being joined by a pegasus.
“Um, hello. is everything ok?”
“Oh, yeah, hey. Name’s Cornerstone.”
“Glidepath. You’re a newfoal, too, huh?”
“Yeah. I was here to meet somepony, but it isn’t gonna work out.” Cornerstone sighed.
“Me too, but he’s chatting up my friend instead. He thought I was human, but, well...” Glidepath waved a wing over herself.
“Heh, yeah, same here. At least my friend is having a good time. He’s over there.” Cornerstone pointed at Chad.
“And Mindy’s over there.” Glidepath pointed the same direction.
Cornerstone looked at Glidepath, and Glidepath returned the glance.
“BriickDewd?”
“Chickenwengs?”
Both laughed, and trotted to the other new couple across the cafe to share the good news.
She could feel it, that all-consuming pull of the earth at her hooves. She’d always felt it, so badly that to be without it, to step above it, even upon a bed to sleep at night, would drive her mad.
Her name was Ancile, and she suffered from geomagicka addiction.
It wasn’t her fault, it couldn’t be. She was ‘born’ when she was cast off of her ‘brother’ when he was turned male again after a lab mishap during a job had reversed his gender. She was an earth pony, as he was, but she was a new soul. She hadn’t the capacity of an adult earth pony with regards to their connection to the earth, yet her connection was just as strong.
Mostly, it wasn’t a problem. Being separated from the ground for very long would drive her mad, however. Her dear friend, very nearly a sister, had learned that the hard way trying to take Ancile for a flight.
That same pony this very day had introduced Ancile to an alchemical powder she’d created. Ocean Breeze called it ‘pegapowder’ and it had changed Ancile’s life. During that brief hour, Ancile had known freedom from the binding earth, had felt clouds beneath her hooves. She knew that she could, in fact, be happy. She hadn’t been meant to be an earth pony. Her brother’s father, and her father by default, was a pegasus. She had been meant to be a pegasus as well!
And now, thanks to Ocean’s alchemical expertise, she would be one for the rest of her life. She glanced once more at the bag of perma-pegapowder, took a deep breath, and doused herself.
The wind whipped through red feathers as joyous laughter echoed through the clouds above, the pull of the earth once more denied by the call of the sky.
The yellow former pegasus Skyshard didn’t know how those accursed humans had done it, but they had. They’d stolen his wings.
At some lab he’d been drugged and taken off the street to, they’d shot him full of something. They said it had been some kind of variant of the potion used to make newfoals. They’d also said it was a failure. Skyshard was grounded for life, his wings simply gone.
And yet, he felt stronger somehow, something slowly replacing his now-missing weathersense. Something ancient.
Something powerful.
The humans, it was their fault. They played with the fire of the gods, and Skyshard would ensure that it was they who burned.
They weren’t going to let their ‘failure’ waste space, and so they tranquilized him again and hauled him away. The earth pony he now was, however, proved more resilient than they had anticipated, and shook off the tranquilizer much quicker than expected.
The lone grunt that had been ordered to dispose of Skyshard quickly found himself staring into a set of crimson eyes, two hooves pressing into his chest.
“Hello.”
“Uh, h-hey, Glad to see you’re awake, I j-just saw you there, you, uh, ok?” the human lied pathetically.
Skyshard didn’t waste his breath replying. Something else was talking to him. Something powerful, begging for acknowledgement. Skyshard answered, and the human began to scream.
The power of the earth is the power of the earth ponies, channeled through their mighty hooves. Skyshard finally felt what they spoke of, and it was... exhilarating. Like flying through a thunderstorm, like creating a tornado, all on your own.
The human felt only agony as earth magic leapt up through his body, turning organs to mush and charring flesh. the agony refused to stop, for even as the magic itself destroyed him, the inherent life energy being channeled supported him. Only when he had no lungs remaining could he halt screaming.
Skyshard, coming out of his forced communion, stared at the perfect circle of green surrounding him, then down at the dessicated corpse left below him. He startled, realizing what he’d done.
And then he remembered them, the group who’d been warning ponies that humans were bad news, and knew he would have a home. He stared once more at the torsoless corpse.
“The land will be fertile. You take from me the sky, to the earth I give you.”
Ancile sighed, staring up at the sky. She could have been staring down at the ground from a cloud, but, while she wasn’t an earth pony anymore, she still enjoyed the feel of the grass on her back.
Hers was an unusual case, to put it mildly. Weird would probably be much more accurate.
She was, in fact, a native of the space that the Cross-Dimensional Cafe occupied. Whatever this world was in the big scheme of things, she had no alternate selves on other worlds.
She was ‘born,’ so to speak, when this place’s Aegis Exemplar had been turned female thanks to a lab explosion. She had been splintered off when he had been cured, her poor head absolutely empty of anything that was specifically ‘Aegis” in origin. It had been hard on her, but thanks in no small part to her ‘brother’ Aegis, her good friend Ocean Breeze, and her ‘father’ Cloudhammer, nevermind all the other friends she had made since, she had finally begun to find her place in the world.
Of course, in the world of the CDC, that had included brushes with geomagicka addiction, foalizer, masculinity, species changing, and Summerlands knew what else; she’d lost track at this point. Through those means (and especially Ocean Breeze’s alchemical concoctions) Ancile had shed the ill-fitting earth pony form and found her peace as a pegasus, like her father.
The thought of which brought her back to a minor predicament of her own; two, in fact. She was still a poor flier at best, and, in her thoughts, the big one: anything that was ‘Aegis’ had left her, including his cutie mark. Ancile was an adult blank flank, like a lot of those ‘newfoals’ so many visitors to the CDC kept talking about. She was beginning to get impatient about the whole thing. She wanted her cutie mark, and she wanted it-
Ancile’s thoughts were interrupted as a number of doorways appeared in the field surrounding the CDC. New visitors. Ancile hopped up, stretched her wings, and trotted over to greet the newcomers.
Ancile gulped nervously. She’d been on a few dates before, of course, but she wasn’t quite the same pony she was now that she was then. Bolt, for one, had settled down with Ocean Breeze’s cousin, and even had foals, a set of twins. Then there had been Lariat, but she’d decided there was something more akin to a friendship rather than a relationship. She’d had a lunch date with Club, but he had suddenly had to go.
She had been an earth pony then, too. Thanks to one of Ocean’s alchemical concoctions, she was a pegasus now, and finally felt... right. And now she was waiting, nervously, for her date tonight.
She’d met him when her brother, Aegis, had taken her to his hometown of Snaffleton. Aegis was moving Earthside, to Hawaii, and needed somepony to watch his place. It had helped that at the time Ancile’s own home had been a cozy spot between the roots of a tree. With winter coming on, however, and an empty house available, it wasn’t a difficult choice.
Gregor had stopped by Aegis’ home, and just babbled for a moment, then gathered himself. Introductions were made, and Gregor was asked to check in on Ancile every now and then. Aegis grinned like a fool the whole time.
Gregor had tracked her down to the Cross-Dimensional Cafe later, formally asking both Aegis, who had no problem with it, and Cloudhammer, Ancile’s father, for permission to date her. Cloudhammer wasn’t as convinced as Aegis, but begrudgingly allowed it, only threatening Gregor a little.
And now, it was almost time! Ancile didn’t know what they were going to do, but it was a date! A real date! She caught herself giggling and bouncing from hoof to hoof, earning the red pegasus several odd looks from the other current patrons of the Cafe.
Gregor chose that moment to stride into the Cafe, folding his brown wings to his side. “Ah, there you are! Are you ready to go, Ancile?” Gregor asked in a light Stalliongrad accent. Ancile trotted over and caught him in a hug, planting a kiss on his feathered cheek.
“You bet I’m ready! I’ve been waiting for this.” Ancile grinned at Gregor. Cloudhammer was mildly dissaproving of Ancile’s choice in coltfriends, but he cared more for his daughter’s happiness than the fact that Gregor was a griffon.
That was what background investigations were for, after all.
Several years ago, Windy Echo was making a delivery in Cloudsdale to "Miss Smith," which was a very odd name for a pony to have. Unfortunately, just as the package was being hoofed over to the teal pegasus with the funny hat and sunglasses, it burst, splashing all over Windy! Perhaps he’d delivered it too fast.
"Gasp!" gasped the teal pegasus, "That was my weekly supply of R63 serum!" she moaned. "And the perma version, too... It's going to take me months to get the cure together!"
So Windy, stuck as a mare for the time being, wandered the streets of Cloudsdale, mildly confused, but not altogether feeling too bad for a pony in her situation, when the sound of revelry coming from a cloud tavern caught her attention.
"Sounds like they're having fun. Why shouldn't I slip in, just to see? I could use a little fun right now..."
Within, a celebration was going on! The guest of honor, one Slip Breeze, had just been chosen to join the Night Guard, and was celebrating in the grand old tradition of one-too-many very strong drinks.
Windy got caught up in the celebrating, and along with Slip was introduced to something ponykind was simply just not ready for: a human import, from a country very similar to Stalliongrad, vodka.
The night blazed by, and Windy and Slip awakened in a daze, several days later. They parted most amicably, having no real memory of what went on.
Windy checked back in with the shady shaded, funny-hatted teal pegasus, who had decided to pick up her alchemy supplies from the post office herself from then on. Miss Smith told Windy that it would still be awhile before she had the cure ready.
Windy went back to work, but a couple months afterward she started feeling... oddish. Windy went to a doctor, but found that despite not being a baker, she had a bun in the oven.
Nine more months later, Night Breeze the little batpony entered the world, and Windy Echo was finally cured of her condition... but decided she likes having the option, so she (now he again) kept in touch with the teal alchemist, who kept available the temporary version of the formula.
Soon enough, about four years post-nookie, Windy Echo, delivery pony extraordinaire, zipped to a little Cloudhouse with a pair of deliveries. One a package expected, one most unexpected. He met a batpony at the door, most recognizable.
"Hold on, I have somepony you need to meet... Slip." Windy Echo reached back to the saddlebag not filled with very important letters and pulled out his very important passenger. "Night Breeze, meet... your, um, other father."
“What are you talking about?” replied Slip, a very confused pony.
Windy Echo grinned, a vial of cherry-flavored elixir already making its way down his throat...
Slip Breeze laughed, enjoying a day in Canterlot with his little daughter, Night Breeze. He’d gotten to know her quite well, as her mother had been kept very busy with deliveries. He had been quite surprised to even find out he had a daughter, but he’d made the best of it. Another surprise was the fact his daughter had been born with the bat-like wings that it took armor enchantments to give him.
He worried about that. Even if she had the wings (and eyes) without the armor, she was only half batpony. Her coat was mottled, the dark grey of the night guard interspersed with a beautiful complimentary cream color. The enchantment appeared to be incomplete, and that meant there was a good chance her little batwings may never allow the part-pegasus to fly. They were on their way to a specialist in half-breed pony health to see what could be done.
“But daddy, why can’t I keep my real wings?” asked Night.
“I... look, hon, you know i want the best for you, yes?” Slip wrapped a feathered wing around Night as they waited. “And I just want to make sure you’re able to fly right, when the time comes. It’s easier to remove the lingering enchantment than to get a filly into the Night Guard.” Night giggled at that, a great relief to Slip.
Their wait in Canterlot General Hospital wasn’t long, and Doctor Silverheart soon had Night on the cold exam table.
“Well, this is interesting, Mr. Breeze.”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“I’ve done some research since your first visit, and young Night here isn’t a unique case. This happens, occasionally.” Doctor Silverheart smiled as he handed a beaming Night Breeze a lollipop. “You should know, despite several sweeps, there’s no enchantment at play here. Night is among those rare natural born batponies. They had died out after Nightmare Moon’s banishment, but since Princess Luna’s return there are more and more of them being born. Congratulations.”
“Does that mean I get to keep my real wings, daddy?”
Ancile cried into her pillow. She couldn’t stop crying, at times. Her pillow, the frilly pink one her ‘Mom’ had given her to use in the spare bedroom, was soaked. The spare was her room since she had given up on trying to live on her own without the skills she needed to do so. Morning Sun had been thrilled at having a daughter, even if not of her own flesh and blood.
Ancile and Gregor got on well, very well, in fact. They’d dated for months now, and they could see the rest of their lives with each other. And now, as Ancile saw it, they didn’t have a choice.
They had tried to be so careful, too. Their intimate moments were few and far between, thanks in part to being separated by a multi-day journey between their jobsites. Ancile worked for Forest Feather in his spa site, south of Canterlot a ways, and Gregor had taken over Aegis’ old job in Snaffleton, south of the Everfree Forest apace, as a sort of safety patroller. They were three day’s average travel apart, and so they had to make time where they could to see each other.
This last time had been far closer than either had realized, though, leading to Ancile’s current predicament.
She had gone to the doctor, her father’s old friend Doctor Silverheart, with her father Cloudhammer in tow, and he’d nearly broken down the door when he heard her crying. Doctor Silverheart had given her the news, and it wasn’t news she was prepared to hear, let alone news she’d wanted.
“Oh, I just know you’ll like him, Jinglebell, he’s exactly your type,” Kerito insisted as she swung the cafe door open with a light grasp of green magic.
“Oh, and how could you possibly know that, Keri?” asked the pegasus of her unicorn friend. “Oh, sure, you have a good record for this sort of thing, but you’ve been trying with me for so long now…”
Kerito giggled, her light ‘tee hee’ drawing no real attention from the cafe patrons as they entered. “Hey, now, I just have a talent for it, you know. Crossed horseshoes, crossed lives!” she insisted. That particular cutie mark, of course, was very common, and could be translated as many, many things. Kerito simply saw hers as bringing lives together. It worked for her, and it worked for those she helped. Of course, she didn’t miss out on the benefits, either.
“Hey, Kerito!” shouted an earth pony stallion across the way. He waved the mares to the table he’d procured, two free seats waiting.
“Theeeeeere he is!” Kerito pointed needlessly. Jinglebell laughed
“I suppose that is him. What was his name again?”
“Open Sleigh. He pulls taxis when it’s not snowy, and surprise, sleighs when it is!” Kerito walked up to Open Sleigh. “Sleigh, this is Jingles, Jingles, Sleigh.” Kerito stood back and watched, waiting for that moment…
Jinglebell walked up to Open Sleigh, and their eyes met. To Kerito, the very air in the room clicked as two halves of a whole finally found their corresponding pieces. A wave of love washed out from the two.
Kerito just sat back, smiled… and fed. Kerito had a condition. She was a changeling who was love intolerant. Direct feeding made her ill, and beyond that she couldn’t bear the thought of crassly feeding from her friends. Thankfully, by chance, she found ambient love, neither directed at her nor extracted from a victim, was tolerable, even palatable.
Crossed horseshoes, crossed lives. Kerito wanted to make sure that every friend she had would find their best one. Maybe she’d find one of her own someday, too.
“My name is Scribble Slate, and my parents are weird.”
Scribble stared at the single line she’d written. She had been assigned this paper with the rest of the class a week ago, and in true studential fashion, had begun it the night before it was due. Her pencil lost its flavor.
“Their names are Henry and Janet. Dad is a pegasus and Mom is a unicorn. I am an earth pony”
Okay, getting the information down. Scribble nodded. This might be easier than she thought.
“Mom and Dad sometimes talk funny. They sometimes say ‘anybody’ instead of ‘anypony’ and ‘someone’ instead of ‘somepony,’ and have a funny way of saying other words, but that’s okay because I still know what they mean.’
Scribble stared at her writing, then took the eraser to the last few lines, but only in spots. Her grammar teacher had been very diligent during the last week, and Scribble had paid close attention. She corrected herself on-page, then thought about what to write next.
“Sometimes they cook weird foods, too, like that poutine stuff. It’s hay fries with cheese and gravy. I really like hayfries with one or the other, but it’s not very bad to eat. Mom says it’s from her homeland, Caneighda or something like that.”
That last part sounded okay, too. Scribble needed something about her Dad, now. But what? Scribble sharpened her pencil as she thought. Her expression brightened as something sprung to mind.
“Dad isn’t a very good flyer, but he says he hasn’t been doing it very long.”
That part didn’t make much sense, because how could a grown-up pegasus not have been flying very long? She left it in anyway.
“Sometimes Mom and Dad get the names of places wrong. They keep saying they met in Vancouver, but everypony knows it’s called Vanhoover. They met at someplace called a Conversion Bureau. They don’t like to talk about it much because they said it was destroyed by something called an Eychelleff. It hurt Dad bad, and that’s why Mom and Dad had to adopt me instead of having their own foal.”
She paused and chewed her pencil some more. Mom and Dad didn’t much like talking about that part of their stay at the bureau thing. Scribble hoped it was okay to tell about it in her paper. It was a paper about her family, though, and if it wasn’t for that she wouldn’t be in her family at all, so she left it in. Now, how to finish?
“I love my Mom and Dad very much. Even if my parents are weird, I know they love me back, too.”
“HAPPY HEARTH SWARMING!!” Niche hollered from her window on the second floor above Covert Tale’s book shop.
“Niche dearie,” old Mrs. Clouds said with a chuckle from the street below, where she was watering the weather-hardy pansies planted in a half-barrel, “It’s ‘Hearth’s Warming.’”
“Not the way changelings celebrate it!” Niche responded with a wave, dashing back inside. She returned to, and through, the window, buzzing down to the street below. “Gotcha something!”
“Oh, honey, you didn’t need to do anything for me.” Mrs. Clouds accepted the small box from Niche.
“Open it, open it!”
“I will, I will, give these old bones a moment to catch up.” Mrs. Clouds gently pulled the ribbon binding the package, which pulled the outer paper wrapping free as well, revealing four bite-sized chocolates. “Oh, how lovely.”
“Try one, they’re joy-filled!” Niche was on the tips of her hooves, practically bouncing in anticipation.
Mrs. Clouds chuckled again, then obliged Niche, taking a bite of one of the bonbons.
“Oh… oh my.”
Mrs. Clouds found herself swept back, back to Cloudsdale, a warm fire blazing in the fireplace, Hearth’s Warming dolls formed from cloudstuff floating serenely about the room. Her father smiled warmly as his mother stitched quietly in the rocking chair. The room was swathed in red and green, and the anticipation was building. There were many gifts sitting under the tree, and little Fluffy Clouds was waiting among them. Her mother entered, carrying a fresh tray of cookies. It was the traditional signal! Time to unwrap-
“Mrs. Clouds? Mrs. Cloud, are you okay?”
Mrs. Clouds wiped a tear from her eye, smiling, as she was shaken from her reverie.
“Mrs. Clouds, you’re full of joy, but… but why are you crying?” Niche asked in confusion.
“Oh Niche, honey; Changeling may eat emotions, but you poor things, you don’t really understand them. I want to thank you for your gift. It was a far more precious gift than you realize.” Mrs Clouds smiled, carefully rewrapping the three remaining chocolates; now that she knew what they would do, she wouldn’t be caught up again.
Slip Breeze stared out at the vast savannah stretching before him. Ever since the changeling invasion of Kinshasa and their subsequent disappearance, the Royal Guard and Night Guard had been running small Long Patrol-based scouting unit randomly across the African continent. So far, no patrol had turned up anything. Slip glanced east, towards the lightening horizon. It would be daylight soon, and time to rest. The Day Guard’s turn would soon be up.
Unfortunately, the Long Patrol packed light. Food was plentiful enough in the savannah, so besides water, there was little to pack beyond tents and other sleep gear.
What there wasn’t room for were sleeping frames for the Night Guard’s batpony members.
Slowly and inevitably, the sun rose (on its own!) and shone bright rays across the gently waving grasses. Slip could hear the trumpet of an elephant greeting the dawn in the distance. A small herd of antelope graced peacefully to the northeast, preparing for at least a short nap themselves while their predators would do the same. Slip gently flapped his leathery wings, lifting into the air, then winged away towards camp.
The Day Guard had done well in waking, clearing the tents for their Night Guard compatriots. Slip sighed, then joined a group for breakfast. Thankfully, somepony had made the flight to pick up some fresh fruit. Batponies could easily eat whatever other ponies could, but they absolutely thrived on tropical fruits. Slip heaped his plate and began eying a small bottle placed at the batpony table for their convenience.
Most batponies were only ‘bat’ ponies thanks to an intricate armor enchantment, which darkened their coats and gave them the ability to near-silently wing through the nights, a valued ability for their oft secret missions. Slip, having proven himself, had joined an elite rank of batpony; those for whom the enchantment was made permanent. Very few could claim this at any one time.
Unfortunately, there were… side effects. Slip was now decidedly Nocturnal in nature, and his eyes, now slitted and yellow, were sensitive to the day’s sunlight.
The most relevant at the moment, though, was that the non-enchanted could simply take their armor off to sleep as a normal pony. The enchanted had no such option.
And as everypony knew, bats sleep upside down.
Slip popped a pill from the bottle, then sighed. Sleeping like normal made batponies ill, sick to their stomachs. The dramamine helped immensely. Since Slip was the only enchanted among the group, it was decided the sleeping frames weren’t needed.
