Luke followed the thestrals into the kitchen. Shadow had reached the fridge and already had it open. He had his left hoof on the door handle, and Luke was startled to see that, although Shadow was both shod and not physically grasping the handle, he was nonetheless somehow holding it anyway.
Meanwhile, Bright Night opened the right door and wasn't even bothering to hold it, instead just shoving it aside with his right shoulder as he explored. "Oooh, cheese! Tomatoes!" He nosed his way into the meat drawer. "Beef dogs!" he exclaimed, then pulling out a pack of hot dogs from the bin where he had found them, depositing them on the counter just behind the two.
"No baloney..." Shadow muttered, apparently not paying attention. "No bacon... Mostly beef products... almost no vegetables... some apples..."
Aurora loudly face-hoofed. "Bright!" she sharply snapped to her son as she removed her hoof from her face. "How many times have I told you not to touch things without permission? Especially when it's food, and specifically when you're using your mouth?"
"Sorry, mom," Bright said, looking a little down for a second or two, before eagerly turning back to the pack of hot dogs.
"No! Turn back and face me, young colt! And Shadow... just rummaging through a host's fridge like that!"
"Hey, our host did say-"
"That's no excuse for plundering someone else's food stock!"
Shadow looked slightly abashed, as did his son.
"I am so sorry about that," Aurora said in an apologetic tone to Luke. "I hope their minds can overcome their stomachs from now on, given that we now have plenty of food and some shelter."
"I forgive it. You're all hungry, even after a meal from MickyD's. I think those hot dogs that Bright grabbed, if his fangs haven't broken the pack, might be the thing."
Luke checked the pack. It was not broken, but it had been a near thing; there were several noticeable divots in the packaging.
"I'll microwave a few of them at a time. Fastest way to cook them. I'll get out the plates and the hot dog buns."
"I'd like to help," Aurora said. "Where are the plates?"
"In that cabinet," Luke said, pointing as he walked to get some glasses.
After taking out the glasses, Luke turned around. Aurora was standing on her hind legs; she used her forehooves to open the cabinet, take out a stack of paper plates, and set them down. "Are these the ones?" she asked.
"Yes. Thank you."
In almost no time at all, the hot dogs were ready. Luke took them out and gave the first three dogs to Bright, who almost gobbled them then and there before remembering that there were condiments. He hastened to add relish, mustard, and ketchup to them while Luke prepared another three dogs, these for Shadow. Bright had already consumed one hot dog and half of a second by the time Shadow's were ready, and when Aurora's were done, the yellow thestral had almost finished them all.
"Thank you," Aurora said again, as Luke passed her her dogs and Bright made the last of the his meal vanish. "To put it bluntly, we needed a break."
"It's alright." Luke sat down in a chair in the dining room table, around which the others were currently sitting.
Bright was finally satisfied; he hopped off his chair and made for the couch in the living room before the others had even started eating. He curled up and yawned, revealing a mouth of teeth that were mostly flat, with a pair of fangs on either side of the mouth. As he closed his eyes contentedly, he made a faint but pleasant "Creeee," that Luke was barely able to hear.
"He'll be alright," Aurora said, for once looking completely relaxed. "Our kids make that noise all the time when they're happy and about to fall asleep."
"Too bad he's going to be sleeping during the nighttime," Shadow muttered as he began eating, but Aurora pretended not to hear him.
"Glad to help," Luke said. "Please forgive me for being curious, but I've never seen thestrals before tonight. A couple pegasi and an earth pony, and of course all three kinds of ponies on TV, but..."
"Most don't see us. We're nocturnal, as Shadow loves to harp on, and our primary occupations consist of protecting and serving Princess Luna. You were right to note that we were involved in the Lunar Guard. Those not in the active Lunar Guard are generally blacksmiths or weavers to support them, shoeing, armoring, and clothing our people. I used to be a blacksmith myself." She paused, then added, "Oh, I might have forgotten to mention it earlier. Don't worry about the horseshoes and nails. We literally can't feel them. The hoof wall is made entirely of hard, unfeeling, unbending, nerveless keratin. We can't even feel the nails."
"Okay." Luke scratched his chin. "So, your family's horseshoes are your work?"
"Mine and Shadow's, yes. My shoe work isn't specialized enough for a growing colt like Bright, though; that was the work of a more skilled neighbor of ours. I could also make and repair good armor; it's not so good as to be a mastery of the craft, but enough for my husband and his needs."
"Wouldn't that eventually lead to too much armor being produced for the Lunar Guard?"
"No. I said I could make good armor, but my job in that regard was mainly to repair and maintain my husband's, to be honest. I also made a set for myself, if our house were to come under attack or there was an emergency. The Lunar Guard can call up the wives of active Guardsponies to double the numbers in an extreme case. We all had to learn military skills, involving extensive training with spear and sword, and, more recently, with guns, including assault weapons."
"Ponies can use guns?"
"Not ones with the trigger guards that you humans use, but we modify the ones we make so that the trigger can be depressed properly with shod hooves. In any case, even thestral mares receive a great deal of training. That's without reckoning with the stallions, who usually train most of their lives to perfect their craft."
"What other occupations are available besides the military?"
"Unfortunately, the crops we can grow are a bit limited; our crops are rhubarb and chicory mostly. And that's again largely to feed ourselves and our families. We do some mining with stone, but nothing substantial."
Aurora stopped and chewed on a hot dog for a few minutes. Luke waited, eager to learn more.
"We do have a few stonemasons, to use the stone that we dig. Not that many, because we mostly dig out what we need to house ourselves. Our population is small, but growing."
"Do you live in houses?"
"Only a few live in houses in the main districts of Canterlot, which, being closest to our Princess, is where the vast majority of us live. As I said, we're not fond of sunlight. Most thestrals live inside Canterhorn Mountain, in carved-out underground districts."
"That sounds like a rather... rocky experience."
"I'll forgive that joke. Anyway, some of us, my husband and myself and our little Slugger, live in houses in small forests just outside the city. You probably wouldn't like it; vines everywhere and virtually no sunlight, even in the daytime. 'Bat City', as it's nicknamed by various wits, is the thestral part of Canterlot, which, as I said, was carved inside Canterhorn Mountain. Given that the entrance is hidden, and most inhabitants don't bother to look anyway, few outsiders enter."
"You must have gone there a lot, despite living outside the city yourselves."
"We're in the minority; we're part of a small community in the forest outside the town. The majority of thestral business - the thestral bureaucracy, the Guard barracks and training center, the market; basically anything that cannot be made, fixed or repaired by thestral blacksmiths or weavers, or done the Palace itself - is taken care of inside Bat City."
"I assume that most houses there are stone."
"You'd be wrong. Most are made of wood, like most pony homes, and come with the same access to luxuries and services. Though some of the stone we mine is used as construction material, it's not the primary one."
"How big is it compared with the rest of the city?"
"Not all that big. We aren't as numerous as unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi. And, for obvious reasons, largely the nocturnal life pattern and the fact that we scare a lot of ponies, we're homogeneous."
"I thought you guys liked the moon. How can you see it from, ahem, 'Bat City?'"
"In the sole exception to only digging out what we need, we have hollowed out the northern side of the mountain, enough both for us to fly out of and to light the district with moonlight. It also allows us to build tiers of housing in the sides in a circular shape."
Luke scratched his chin. He was feeling a great desire to soak in more knowledge. "Pardon my asking but where did you all go when... Princess Luna... disappeared, a bit over a thousand years ago?"
Aurora lost a bit of her smile at that point. Shadow grunted discontentedly.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize-"
"Don't apologize. It's... only natural to ask that question eventually." Aurora had her hoof make a couple of circles on the cloth in front of her as she thought. "The time after the 'Great Corruption,' as we call it, was... terrible. We had been Princess Luna's lone supporters, and even we didn't know how far she had descended... She kept her jealousy to herself and her sister and a few officials. Our ancestors didn't ask questions; their job was simply to protect their Princess, and they didn't question her. As is proper," she said, heading off Shadow, who had been about to interrupt. "Our duty is not to question, but obey. I do wish she had talked more to us about the moon issue, though; she would have found great support among us."
"You said that after she... left..."
"We were in a bad spot. The news about the Corruption got out quickly. As Princess Luna's strongest supporters, we were deemed traitors by the population at large. Princess Celestia tried to stop the hysteria, but she was struggling with both the loss of her sister and the needs of running the nation. Some Royal Guard units at the time even helped the other tribes to drive us out; from what I heard, Princess Celestia punished them severely for it, but it happened nonetheless."
"How did you survive?"
"Princess Celestia managed to encourage us to come back and live quietly and secretly in the woods, first in the Everfree, then, later, near Canterlot. She actually helped get Bat City started by having ponies mine the mountain. She claimed that she was looking for riches, and that was true, but mainly - and secretly - it was to give us a place to live."
"And your people and their ways survived?"
"We did. We served as Guards at night, when we were least likely to be detected by the other ponies."
"You retained loyalty to Princess Luna for a thousand years?"
"Yes. Don't get me wrong, most of us love Princess Celestia, but back in our little town, or in the smaller communities outside Canterlot, we would remember our beloved Lunar Princess, of the jealousy that had... corrupted her. It was hard for us not to blame the Solar Princess for the banishment, given how she had not heeded the warning signs. Surely, after all, our beloved Princess would have told her sister how she had felt, and the Princess of the Sun had not heeded her. We maintained our society, but it was..."
"Stagnant."
"Well, we felt a deep sense of... abandonment is not the word I'm looking for, but... We lacked a... oh, how do I say this? We wondered what our purpose was. Constantly. Oh, we could shrug it off and do our duties and provide for our people and, secretly, for Equestria, and even engage in fun. But somewhere inside, in those little moments when we were alone or in private, we felt that something was amiss. Other ponies shunned the night, or so we convinced ourselves, as they had when our Princess was banished. One half of the Diarchy was missing. We were the kingdom's secret defenders, but we felt that something was missing."
"And then Luna came back."
"Princess Luna. And yes, she came back. Imagine our joy when we heard; our glorious Princess of the Night had returned!"
"We could barely believe it, even though, nocturnal as we are, we could hardly miss the long night, and the disappearance of the Mare in the Moon. But then Princess Celestia took her sister to visit our district, hidden in the mountain. We were moved by her return. We once again had a purpose. To protect our Princess, and serve her."
"It also meant our freedom. Freedom to be out and about openly in Equestria again. We've been viewed with some suspicion, true, but not with the efforts to banish us that had occurred after Princess Luna's Corruption. We could at last stand tall, and reason to do so."
Aurora allowed herself a few minutes to breathe, and to eat. Finally, she said, "Most of the past eight or so years has been good for our people. We've managed to become moderately prosperous, though at heart we remain a militarized society. And we've gained confidence."
"Alright." Luke tried to think of more questions. "Earth ponies have strength, pegasi have flight and can control the weather, and unicorns have magic. Is your ability to see at night your equivalent power?"
"Our nocturnal nature is simply... us. So yes, I'd say it is. That, and our fangs give us an extra set of weapons if we have nothing else at hoof."
"Sorry for all the questions," Luke said after a few seconds' pause. "I must seem like a poor host if I'm making you feel like I'm interrogating you."
"What? Oh, no, no, no. For one thing, we're trained to sniff out interrogations. Trust me, if I thought you were a government agent or something trying to get secrets out of Equestria, we'd be gone and you... wouldn't be so well off."
Luke managed to prevent his hand from going to his neck, but it was difficult. "Can you walk on clouds as well?"
"Actually, yes. Shadow and I used to do so on nights when we were dating."
"Please, spare me the memories," Shadow said from his side of the table.
Aurora didn't openly acknowledge that statement, though her left ear twitched. "Anything else?"
"Not yet..." Luke brought a hand to his forehead as he remembered. "I'm so sorry, I brought out those glasses and forgot all about getting you fellows something to drink."
"It's alright. I'll have of the orange juice or whatever the orange drink in your refrigerator was."
"Sunny Delight, otherwise known as Sunny D. I'll get it right away. Shadow-"
"Just a bottle of water."
"Okay."
Luke poured himself and Aurora a glass of Sunny D, took out a bottle of water for Shadow, and came back into the dining room. Aurora made a sound not unlike the one Bright had just a few minutes before. "Much obliged," she said. She took the glass and held it, stopping for a moment as Luke stared. "Oh, right, you're probably curious about how I'm holding this with just the frog of my hoof."
"The thought had occurred to me, yes."
"It's fairly simple. All ponies in Equestria - and most if not all creatures with hooves - have a magical ability that allows objects to stick to our hooves. I've heard it described as a sort of bio-magnet or electro-magnet, only we're able to pick up non-metallic items as well. It's effect extends to the inner edge of the hoof wall, and doesn't extend through it or outside of it."
"I see."
"That's the simple version, anyway, and the one I think will suffice for now." Aurora yawned, then took a sip. "Ooooh, tangy."
"You're tired? At night?"
"Well, being on the streets and going hungry will do that." She sighed, sipping again. Meanwhile, Shadow was simply chugging the bottle of water down.
"What determine's a pony's coat and hoof colors? I notice that while both of you are dark colors, Bright is... well..."
"Our little star in the night. That's how we describe it." Aurora gulped down half of what was left in her glass. "He's an unusual color for a thestral, no doubt about it. To answer your first question... I'm not a geneticist. I don't know. You can get two ponies who are both blue or both red, and they'll get a foal that's green or white or gray or bay or orange or pink or some other color. It's true that most ponies will have similar colors to those of their parents, but not always." She yawned again.
"Not until daylight, please," Shadow said, stifling his own yawn.
"I can't help being sleepy, Shadow. And don't act like you're above falling asleep. A few seconds on that couch and you'd be sawing logs."
"I can provide some place for you to sleep. There's the guest bedroom on this floor, and a couple of empty rooms upstairs. I don't have any furniture in the extra upstairs rooms, but the guest bedroom is fully furnished with a bed for two people, and I have an inflatable bed and some sleeping bags in the garage."
"I don't think the sleeping bags will be big enough, but the bed might be feasible. And we'll definitely need the inflatable one; I doubt it will hold all of us. I don't know if you've noticed, but we're a lot bigger than we're portrayed in My Little Pony."
"I noticed."
"So you've seen it?"
"...I have."
Aurora didn't press him any further. Seeing that Shadow was done eating, she said, "I'll go and inspect the bedroom with you both."
Luke led the way out of the dining room and into the guest bedroom, which was only a few steps away.
Shadow and Aurora examined it. "Not super spacey," Shadow observed.
"Oh, hush. The bed's just big enough to be comfortable, and there's enough room for the inflatable bed, I think. We should be fine, for now at least."
"Oh, alright," Shadow said in a grumpy tone.
Aurora sighed in exasperation, but didn't do more than cuff him on the back of the head with one of her wings as she turned her head around. "It'll do. I think our Slugger will sleep through the night and most of the day. I hope the inflatable bed will support him for that long."
"I think it might do so, if he doesn't roll too much. Speaking of that, I'll go and get it."
--------------------
As Luke left, Aurora turned to her husband. "What is your deal?" she demanded, in a whisper so low in sound that only another thestral could hear her. "I know we've been through a lot, but we've gotten a great break here."
"I'm trying to keep us on the very tips of our hooves here! We've been betrayed too much to trust anyone else ever again."
Aurora rolled her eyes. "You know perfectly well that that's not going to happen here. We both took training in order to find out who is lying and who is being honest. He hasn't."
"That we can detect. You gave up way too much information back there!"
"Still on about him being an agent for somebody?"
"He could be..."
"No proof. You're just bitter over what's happened."
"They. Tried. To--"
"We've survived despite everything. As long as we're still alive, we have hope. I'm not giving up. And I'm not happy with how ungrateful you are."
"Ungrateful...?" Shadow growled. "I'm just being cautious!"
"And you're doing all too obviously. There was a time when you'd be almost undetectable at it. Please, for the sake of our son..."
Shadow kept her gaze for several seconds before finally looking away. "Fiiiiinnnnneeee..." he reluctantly moaned.
Aurora hummed in gratitude, but deep down knew that this matter was far from resolved.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Luke somehow managed to find the inflatable bed (and a pump to fill it with) in the mess of a maze that he called his garage. He brought it and the pump out to the guest bedroom.
"I think that will suffice for our son," Aurora said. "Once its blown up.
"About to do that. You might want to wake him up beforehand; this thing is loud and I don't want him to be surprised by it."
"I'll take care of it," the thestral mare replied.
She walked up to the couch where Bright was sleeping. She began doing something in his ear; it looked like she was talking to him, but Luke could hear absolutely nothing coming from her lips. It must have had its desired effect, however, because Bright moaned, then raised his head. "Is it night again?" he asked sleepily.
"No, my precious little nutkin. It is time for you to go to bed, though."
"Great, where is it?" the young pony said, looking around.
"Mr. Luke is getting it ready. The pump he's using will be loud, so you might want to cover your ears."
"Huh?"
"Cover your ears, dear."
Bright did so, though somewhat slowly; he was still half-asleep.
Luke started the pump. Bright still jerked in surprise, but he didn't run, jump, or do anything destructive. After the first few seconds, the yellow thestral simply laid his head upon the arm of the couch.
"Poor little thing," Aurora murmured. "He's put up with everything, and with hardly a complaint. He'd make a great Lunar Guard as a grown stallion."
Shadow made another growling sound, but this time, Luke could sense some measure of respect in it.
"This could take a few minutes," Luke said, as the pump continued to loudly do its work.
"We don't have much else to do," Aurora replied.
Luke sat down next to the couch and began petting Bright's ear. The thestral colt moaned, though not in pain or discomfort, and then made another "Creeeee" sound in contentment.
"Cute little guy."
"We're NOT cute," Shadow said, sounding insulted. "We're a warrior race, and will be addressed as such!"
"Oh, lighten up, honey," Aurora replied, ears slowly flattening against her head in anger. "It's not like he's treating us like barnyard animals."
"Might as well, if he thinks thestrals are cute. Even other ponies find us menacing, and that's an image I want everyone else to have, not that of cute baby kittens to be cuddled!"
Luke couldn't help sighing in a mixture of amusement and exasperation. Shadow was making nothing easy.
"Please don't mind him," the mare went on. She raised an eyebrow briefly. "Though I'd also ask you to please refrain from calling us cute in the future."
"Of course," Luke replied. "This is my first real encounter with Equestrian ponies. I've seen some, but I haven't spent any long amount of time with them. I saw pegasus sitting in a Burger King not far away from me a few months back, but that's the closest I got to talking to one."
"I'm not surprised. A lot of ponies like to stay in Equestria, near the communities where they were raised. Naturally, there are a lot of enterprising ponies who want to check out a new world and see what its like, but the majority prefer, well..."
"The provincial life."
Aurora chuckled. "Yes, that's one way of putting it."
Luke stepped away briefly to check the pump's progress. It was still working, and was about a third of the way done.
"As I was saying," Aurora went on, "ponies tend to be a more homely folk than outreaching. We like our communities, and while we might go outside our towns for a vacation or for business, we love our home towns."
"How many out of ten would you say are on Earth at anyone time?"
"Which Earth?" Aurora asked, before unveiling an amused smile. She put a hoof to her chin as she considered. "Maybe one or two out over every ten. Of course, given our population size, that's still quite a few. Forget the barely inhabited towns you see in the show; Equestria has a massive population. Ponyville is small, true; maybe a few hundred living there. But Manehattan, Las Pegasus, and Canterlot have populations in the hundreds of thousands; Manehattan has maybe four to five million ponies and many thousands of other species, now including some humans, living there." She yawned yet again.
"How much longer can you hold on?"
"Maybe an hour or so," the mare responded, yawning even as she said it.
"Shouldn't have to be that long. The pump should be done in a few minutes."
"Great." Aurora managed to stifle another yawn. "Another misconception is that we can hang by our tails. Utterly ridiculous. Do you know how much a grown pony weighs? And how strong a tail we'd need to make it work?"
"Alright." Luke mentally crossed off a question he'd wanted to ask.
"Perhaps a few hundred thousand ponies on this planet, maybe a million or so. I haven't counted" - here she yawned again - "and I certainly won't be starting right now. What I know is, most of them are concentrated in the capitals of major nations."
"A few pegasi tried to become weather directors here."
"Yeah. Poor fellows; they might have been rich if your clouds weren't so..." She twirled her hoof in the air as she tried to think of a word. "Incoherent. I learned real quick that you can't nap on these fall-through things you call clouds. I was fortunate I was miles in the sky and had a lifetime of flying experience."
"Wow. Sounds like quite a fall."
"Like I said, fortunate."
Luke checked again; the pump would probably take another few minutes. "I hope Equestria is doing well. Militarily and otherwise."
"It is. Our military has modernized and we're being extremely careful with who we let in from here. And we have good relations with several countries, this one included." Aurora yawned for the umpteenth time and clicked her tongue a few times. "I heard it gets very cold here in the winter."
"In Maine it does. I'll check up whether or not they sell winter suits for pegasi; closest you'll probably get. And they don't sell many of those, not here. Barely any ponies living up in this state. My guess is its either too cold or too distant from the portals."
"Probably both." Aurora let her head lean on the couch.
It was obvious that the whole family was simply too tired to carry on a big conversation. Luke remained silent as the pump continued. Upon checking it a third time, he discovered that it had completed its work. He quickly set up some sheets, a blanket, and a pillow upon the inflatable. "It's done."
"Oh thank..." Aurora walked into the room yawning once more, followed by her husband and son.
"Hee hee," Bright giggled as he climbed onto the bed. "It's like a bouncy house!"
"Don't go jumping on this," Luke cautioned. "Otherwise, it'll pop."
"Behave, my little Slugger," Aurora said as she climbed onto the guest bed, with Shadow following.
Luke went to check on Bright, but the young pony was already conked out, head on the pillow. Looking up, he saw that the same was true of the parents as well; each of them was falling asleep.
He got up and left the room, quietly closing the door.
Poor things. Luke made sure to be quiet as he walked up the stairs and went into his room, sitting down in the chair at his computer desk.
"Thestrals," he murmured as he googled the word. Unfortunately, the search turned up nothing that he hadn't already known or been told. They were generally a militaristic society that served Princess Luna with enthusiasm, and they were nocturnal. Well, the sources he found said it in more detail than that, but it was essentially what they said. Even the whole eating meat bit didn't turn up, only the myth that they were vampiric, as well as the effects that this and their connection to Luna had on their relations with the other pony tribes and other species. One source did claim that they were just pegasi whose armor concealed their true identity, but given that he just had seen, talked to and cared for an entire family of ponies tonight - none of whom were wearing armor - that was just some wild theory.
I guess I know as much about them as I'm going to, he thought to himself. At least, for now.
He was curious. There was so much information about the current situation that he was lacking, which in turn made it more difficult to face the current situation.
Whatever happens, we'll manage.
He walked to the window, facing the north. It was still raining, but the beautiful forest around the suburb was visible and a patch of the sky was clearing up, revealing the moon and a few stars.
None of the works of man or pony can match the works of our Creator, he thought in contentment. It wasn't such a bad night, rain and all.
He knelt for a moment. "Lord, please help to take care of this family. I ask your guidance and patience," he whispered. "Thank you for providing for our needs already, and please do so in the coming weeks. Please forgive me for the mistakes I may make, and please lead me to do better in the future. Amen."
He stood up and thought about what else he could immediately do to help his sleeping guests. Other than make sure the alarm was on, he realized there wasn't much; they were all fed, they were comfortable, they would have further access to services in the house if they needed them, and they were capable of helping themselves as necessary, as well as asking for help for anything they didn't know about. He used his phone to check that the security was on - it was - then got dressed for bed.
It was with irony that Luke noted, as he reached for a book on his nightstand, a lack of exhaustion in himself at the moment, whereas the nocturnal thestral family was currently asleep.