Luke opened the right door of the truck and helped Bright Night in. The colt was bigger than he'd expected; most ponies were much bigger than they appeared in the show. A colt there that seemed no bigger than a cat was in reality nearly, if not quite, as big as a labrador, and a pony that was about as tall as a sheepgate in the show was almost the size of a human in their late teens (counting the neck and head, of course), and that was when they were on all fours. Shadow actually didn't need that much aid, and got in the front easily.
"Tuck your back hooves down toward the floor," Luke instructed. When the foal obeyed, Luke strapped pulled the seat belt across his barrel and heard the satisfying click as it locked.
"This isn't very comfy," Bright complained, pointing to the belt.
"It's the law. And if we get in an accident - may God forbid it - it should help keep you safe. Keep your front hooves inside; I'm going to shut the door."
The colt obeyed, and Luke closed the door. He went to the back of the pickup and grabbed the blue tarpaulin, unfolding it and shaking it. It was, obviously, wet, and the bed would be likewise, but at least only one side was wet. He quickly turned it so that the side that was less wet was facing downwards.
Shadow walked up behind Luke as the latter stretched the makeshift roof across the bed. "I'll help. I still don't think this is a good idea, but my wife's made up her mind."
"That's great; I'll need help when I go to hold this thing down and attach the bungee cords."
"I'll help too," Aurora put in.
It took about three minutes to make the improvised shelter. While the thestrals probably didn't have the energy to fly far, they were able to fly as much as the job required. With their help, Luke was able to set up a roof for the bat-like parents to take shelter under.
"Well, it'll be wet," Aurora muttered, "but at least we'll be out of the rain."
"Are you sure-"
"Yes, Shadow," she said impatiently. "It's too late to reconsider. The only other option would be to let him ferry us one at a time to his house, and you'd hate that even worse."
"Is this... legal?"
"In Maine it is, for anyone 19 and older."
"Then our little slugger wouldn't have been able to fit back here with us," Aurora noted. "At least he's safe in the front."
"Warning you now, mister," the stallion said, poking Luke in the chest with a shod hoof; "you hurt him or my wife at all, you won't be going home tonight, or ever again. Understand?"
"Perfectly," Luke answered in a calm voice, though inside he felt a twinge of fear. "Rest assured, I have no intentions of hurting any of you."
"I wish I could believe that, stranger," the stallion replied. "I really wish I could."
"Then at least let him prove it," Aurora urged. "We have nothing to lose. We're penniless. We're hungry. We're tired. We need shelter, food, and drink."
Shadow didn't try to convince her otherwise, but he grumbled as he climbed into the bed, his wife following. Luke lifted the bed and locked it in place.
"Try and lie down; you'll probably end up sliding from side to side whenever I turn if you sit," Luke advised. "I'll try and be careful, but I can't guarantee comfort."
"It's okay," Aurora said. "Thank you so much."
"It's my duty." With that, Luke went to the left door, got in, shut the door, locked it, and slowly pulled away. He breathed a sigh of relief that no one had entered the street behind him during the entire encounter.
"Whoa," Bright said in excitement. "What's making this cart go? Where are the ponies to pull it?"
Luke tried to hide an amused smile at the young pony's innocence, at the same time remembering his own curiosity about numerous subjects in the past, and how he had asked the same kinds of questions of others. "It's got an engine, kiddo. Doesn't need ponies or steam to make it go. Just needs a full tank of gas, and it's set." He took a gander at the gas meter; it was roughly 75% full, far, far more than enough.
"Wow. How fast can it go?"
"Hmm... Probably a hundred and twenty miles an hour. But going that speed is illegal almost everywhere off a racetrack; we'll probably be sticking to between thirty to forty five." He slowed down as they approached a red light.
"Why are we stopping?"
"The light's red," Luke said, pointing. "When the light's red, you can't keep going. Other drivers need their chance to cross the street."
"Where's the police po- human to direct traffic?"
"Unless the lights aren't working, or unless there's an accident, the light are the norm at crossroads. We let the drivers on the roads to the right and left to go while their lights are green, and then when our light turns green, we go."
The light turned green. Luke turned to the right, making sure to take the turn slowly in order to try and keep the couple in the back from sliding too much.
"You guys okay?" Luke asked, looking back. He groaned as he realized that he hadn't opened the back window yet, and when he stopped again, he made sure to do so, and repeated the question.
"Yes," Aurora said. "We slid a little bit, but we're fine, and we'll remain so as long as you don't go too fast."
"I hope it's not too uncomfortable," Luke said, turning his attention back to the road and accelerating.
"It's better than freezing our hindquarters off on a wet sidewalk," Aurora replied. "Could be better, though."
"Wish I'd brought a blanket," Luke remarked. "It might have helped. Not much room in this thing for it, though." trying to alleviate the situation, he added, "Your son seems curious about my truck."
"We usually just fly to get where we're going, if it's not obvious," the mare went on. "We generally don't need to worry about roads."
"I suppose that's partly why kiddo here is asking so many questions about my truck and rules of the road."
"It would be. We don't have motorized vehicles that are available for public use. Our hooves and wings have worked more than well enough for millennia. We have railroads, but the trains can't go everywhere, of course."
"Oh, naturally. The maintenance costs would be ridiculous. And as far as I'm aware, no one has ever built functioning rails out of clouds."
That jerked a surprised laugh out of the mare. "That's true, even in Equestria."
"So, if I might venture a question, what are a family of Equestrian citizens doing here in America?" Luke asked.
"Well..." Aurora took a moment to answer. "We're not Equestrian citizens anymore. We're going through the process to become Americans."
That caught Luke by surprise, though practice had taught him to keep hi eyes on the road.
"It's... a long story," Aurora said hesitantly. "Wait, why are you...?" she asked as Luke slowed down and pulled into a McDonald's drive in.
"You said you guys have gone the last three days with pretty much nothing to eat. I could wait until we get home, but I think it's better to get something in your bellies as soon as possible."
Before she could reply, Luke had stopped; there was a car in front of them, the driver taking their order.
"Okay, they serve mostly burgers, nuggets, and fries here, but since Equestria made the portals-"
"We'll be fine with a couple large Big Macs and some large fries," Aurora said.
Luke looked back at her.
"We have restaurants not much different from this in Equestria, and we've been in America for three months. We're not ignorant bumblers."
"You want hay burger patties, I assume?"
"...We're thestrals. We're omnivores."
Luke glanced at her, again surprised.
"I hadn't heard that."
"It's not a fact that we advertise to our fellow ponies. We're already suspected of being vampires; we don't need to confirm their already negative suspicions of us."
"Alright. What what about you, little guy?" Luke asked, turning toward Bright.
"Hey! I'm not little!"
"Okay, then what would you like?"
"A big burger, like momma and daddy ordered! And fries! Lots and lots of them!"
"And for drinks?"
"Big soda!" Bright shouted eagerly.
"What brand?"
"The big black stuff!"
"You mean Coca Cola?"
"Yeah, that!"
"Okay. What about you two?"
Aurora and her husband whispered to one another for a few seconds. Then Aurora said, "We'll each have a Coke as well."
"Okay then." Just then, the car in front moved forward. Luke drove up and made the order, then waited, moving forward one car length at a time as each vehicle in front received, and paid for, their orders.
Eventually, he was able to pull up to the first window, pay for the food he'd just purchased, and following that drove up to the second.
A man in his twenties came up to the window. As the man handed Luke the food he'd ordered, he noticed the occupants of the vehicle. "Here you go," he said, handing over the bags, but he sounded disapproving, as did his scowl.
Luke suppressed a sigh. Some people still didn't care for ponies, despite the fact that they were no longer merely characters on a television show. While many of the show's fans had been elated to know that their beloved world of Equestria was real, those who had been opposed to it tended to remain hostile. That didn't look like changing anytime soon. "Thank you, have a great one," he replied, trying to keep the ponies calm.
"Next time, keep your animals in the barn," the man said snidely, shutting the window.
Luke opened his mouth, but Aurora said, "Don't. It's not worth it. And he's gone now anyways."
"I know, but... curse it, that was low."
"Don't you think we feel that even more deeply than you?" she replied. "And we're all starving."
"Oh, right. Sorry." Luke drove away from the window and found a place to park in the lot nearby. "Right, so large cokes for everyone," he began, passing out the drinks. "A whopper and fries for kiddo," he went on, passing the box to Bright, who opened it and began wolfing it down.
"Fank 'eu," Bright said belatedly, mouth full.
"And that means the rest of the bag is yours," Luke said, handing it out the back window.
"Thank you," Aurora said as Shadow began nosing through the bag. "You don't know what this means to us." She didn't say anymore at the moment; she dug into the bag, gave Shadow his share of the food, and simply dug in.
Wow, these poor guys are really hungry! I hope I bought enough for 'em! Luke thought about it for a moment. Then again, I have more food at home if they aren't full by the time we get there.
"You want to finish eating in the parking lot, or do you folks mind if I get started on the journey home?" he asked.
"If you don't mind," Aurora said after she'd finished her first few bites, "we'd prefer not to have to worry about sliding everywhere."
"Okay, so we'll just sit here, I guess."
"Mmm-hmm," was the only answer he got; the thestral mare had proceeded to chop down on her food, leaving little time to talk.
Luke sat quietly as the ponies ate; having kept the radio off, the only sounds were that of the family eating and of the engine lowly rumbling.
"Is this food going to be enough?" he inquired after a few minutes.
"I think we'll be satisfied for a while," Aurora answered. "I think we'll need more soon, though."
"I have quite a bit stocked up at my house. You should be able to satisfy any remaining hunger pangs there."
"Oh good," she replied. "I think we'll be able to live through the rest of the night, at least." She looked up at the sky. "Pity we can't see the moon tonight. Your world feels too random, if you'll forgive me for saying so."
Luke shrugged, though he mentally clamped down on what he'd been about to say; that he felt that Equestria had too much control over its weather, and that the Everfree Forest's description in the season one premiere hadn't chilled him at all.
He thought quietly as the ponies continued their feast, such as it was.
This whole thing is just strange. A group of thestrals, perhaps the rarest of all ponies save alicorns, or more appropriate the least seen I guess, appears out of nowhere. I haven't heard many stories of us meeting them, and those were pretty secret. Next, despite the thestrals' vaunted loyalty to Princess Luna, this family is in America. Finally, they're dirt poor and are out on the streets in the middle of late November, homeless, just as its getting colder. It's not my place to pry,
but I really wish I had more knowledge instead of a few scattered pieces of the puzzle.
It was a complex situation, to which he had no answers as of yet.
Presently, Aurora must have had a belly that was at least mildly satisfied, because she looked up from her meal. "What do you do for a living, dear?"
"I work in a history museum. I teach people about military history. I thought about going into the army."
She nodded. "You hear that, my love?" she said, turning to Shadow.
"Yeah." Shadow didn't look impressed. "What hours does he work?"
"Daylight hours," Luke replied.
Shadow snorted. "Typical sunlover."
"Shadow!"
"Well, if more people worked at night, we'd have less trouble, here and in Equestria. I never knew what good sunlovers see in the daytime."
"We could be out on our hindquarters on the street freezing to death," Aurora retorted. "I don't know what's so special about the sun and daytime either, but by Luna, show some respect and gratitude!"
"Just wait. This is just another plan to"- Shadow whispered the next word, and if Luke hadn't been listening intently he would never have caught it - "us over."
"Shhh! Think of our foal."
At this, Shadow went quiet, but Luke knew that this was more due to Shadow's care for his wife than to agreement, or abandonment of the argument for that matter. Whatever had happened must have been scarring.
As the meal was nearing its end, Luke put the truck in drive. "If there's no objections, I'm going to start driving to my house."
"None," Aurora said, finishing a few fries. "And thank you."
"It's practically nothing, really" Luke shrugged. "And we'll be at my house in a couple minutes."
Carefully, Luke drove out of the parking lot and down the road. He turned right into a suburb and pulled into the driveway of his own house. The short drive had been almost entirely quiet; the only exception had been Bright Night chewing what was left of his food, which wasn't much - the poor guy must have been starving in spite of all that his parents had done.
As Luke got out and helped Bright unbuckle himself, he was glad to note that the rain was coming down considerably less hard than it had been a while ago. The family of thestrals were able to get out of the truck without any trouble, and Luke walked over to the door to unlock it.
"Almost forgot, security," he muttered to himself, taking out his phone and disabling the alarm system.
"You can do that with one of those devices?" Aurora asked.
"It's called a cell phone. And yes," Luke answered, putting the phone back in his pocket and getting out the house keys. "You haven't heard of or seen 'em yet?" he asked as he opened the door and held it open.
"Of course we've seen them," Aurora said, wiping her hooves on the mat. "Equestria's bought tons of them," she went on, as everyone came inside and Luke shut the door. "But they're so brittle that a good tap from a pony's hoof is often enough to break them. I mean," she said, turning around and turning her right front hoof upward so Luke could examine it, "do you think that this could tap a phone without putting some major stress on it?"
Luke noticed that her hoof was shod with typical horseshoes, nailed on.
"Our scientists are doing their best to remake the phones so that they are more resistant," Aurora said. "Last I heard, they were close. Been a bit since then, so they might have done it, but as they are, earth ponies, pegasi, and thestrals can barely use them. Doesn't stop unicorns, but then it wouldn't."
"Where's the fridge?" Shadow asked bluntly, interrupting them.
"It's alright," Luke said, heading off Aurora's protest. "Just around the stairs over yonder."
Shadow grunted, then walked away, shod hooves sounding out against the floor. Bright eagerly followed, licking his lips.
"Don't let Shadow get to you," the bat pony mare said, watching them disappear around the corner. "He didn't used to be like this. None of us were."
"I suppose it's no good asking the wife of a former Lunar Guard what's happened?"
She sighed. "Not yet. And how did you know-?"
"I've spent my life studying soldiers. I hope to say that I can recognize one when I see him. Also, I've never read or heard of thestrals doing anything else."
"You'd be surprised... but yes, Shadow is an ex-Guard." She said that last bit with a bit of stiffness in her voice, and Luke could see that she wasn't inclined to discuss Shadow's military career any further at the moment. "He's also a devoted father and husband, so please don't judge him too harshly."
"I hope not to judge him at all."