It was noon and once again Twilight was still in bed. She had somehow managed to fall asleep, though not until six in the morning. Much more of this and those three would successfully turn Twilight nocturnal.
Twilight pushed herself out of bed, rubbing the sleepy out of her eyes. Sleeping through the morning and waking up at noon made you hate the sun. The crash wasn't nearly as bad this time, maybe because she had less candy or maybe because she didn't stay up for twenty-four hours straight yesterday. Celestia knew.
The main problem with waking up at noon now was that Twilight was starting work tomorrow and wouldn't be able to sleep from six in the morning till two in the afternoon anymore. As always her friends has a solution to this as well – stay up all night, go to work and then go to sleep. She started work at six in the morning, so she could sleep from two in the afternoon till ten at night and never have to see the sun again.
Just like Luna intended.
Twilight looked at her tired face in the mirror. They really were trying to turn her into a vampire, literally or not. And Twilight was tempted to try it, too. She was so exhausted in so many ways she could probably sleep till after dark. Rarity said she could come over tonight to help with finances if Twilight was still awake...
And then there was a knock at her door. Twilight banged her head against the bathroom sink and moaned. It felt like ages since she'd opened the door to anything other than bad news and really, should she expect this to be any different? Life was just a series of horrible things happening, it seemed. Literally the only good thing in her life right now was the delinquent candy vampires, and even they were sketchy.
Oh how she wished it was one of her new friends, but Twilight knew they slept all day. Twilight braced herself and threw open the door.
Fluttershy was standing on the other side, a basket covered in a blanket in her mouth. Today Twilight learned that Fluttershy did indeed carry stuffed animals with her everywhere. There was a large fox on her head and two more on her back, near the base of each wing. She gave a muffled 'hello' through the basket handle before setting it down and giving Twilight a warm smile.
Twilight had honestly forgotten Fluttershy even existed. Had that seriously only been two days ago? It felt like an eternity.
“Fluttershy!” Twilight was relieved to see her. She was pretty sure that basket didn't have any bad news in it, and at this point an obsession with stuffed animals had become a welcome sort of insanity. “How are you doing?”
“Oh, I'm always doing wonderfully.” Fluttershy put the basket down to talk. “I brought you a few things, just some fruit. You don't mind right.”
“Of course not,” said Twilight. “I would love the company, actually.”
Fluttershy came inside and set the basket down on the table. That fruit would be coming in handy. Twilight needed to save every bit she could now. She pulled the blanket off and it was actually a very expensive looking gift basket. It had a spread of all sorts of fruits as well as chocolates and cheeses.
“Oh, wow! Thanks. This is really nice of you.”
“I, uh, did have something else to say.” Fluttershy carefully placed her fox plushies nearby, as if they were guests at the table too. Then her expression became rather serious for someone who had just set her stuffed animals up for tea. “It's about the dreadstalker. It, uh, got another pony, the night you and me got to Ponyville.”
And then Fluttershy grew quiet for a moment, lowering her head. So it was bad news after all. Twilight felt bad for whoever died, but this new was hardly as crushing as yesterdays. Really, it didn't affect her at all. She already knew there was a monster on the loose.
“And the reason that's important is because he was in his house, in the middle of town when it happened.” Fluttershy opened her eyes again. “That means it isn't a normal dreadstalker, since they wouldn't typically go into town at all. And then add to the fact that I'm having so much trouble finding it... normally I would have already brought it back south by now!”
Twilight's ears perked at that news. This sounded much more pressing on a personal level.
“And, uh, how worried should we be about this?” that seemed like the most important question here.
“Not too much more than you were,” said Fluttershy. “It's mostly just that it's going to take a lot longer to find this animal than normal and that you aren't necessarily safe in town at night, not alone anyway.
“Yeah. I'm not really an expert like you, but it coming up this far north and wading through ponies and streetlights, it sounds like it's sick even to me.” Twilight folded her forelegs and thought about it. “Why are you having so much trouble finding it, though? Shouldn't it be easier to find if its sick or something?”
“The only explanation I have for this is that its got some kind of dark magic implanted in it- that's something that hurts animals a lot and something they don't get better from.” Fluttershy made a small, slight whimpering noise. “That means that I may have to... you know, put it down.”
She looked pretty shaken up about that, too. Fluttershy was probably one of the few ponies in the world compassionate enough to care about the dreadstalker. Twilight almost thought she'd cry for a second, but Fluttershy pulled herself together rather quickly.
“But that's besides the point! I'm supposed to hand out these pamphlets. They're about dreadstalkers.” Fluttershy pulled out an orange pamphlet and put it on the table. “Since it might be a while till we catch it, it'd probably be good that everypony knew more about them. You know, to stay safe. Oh! And normally I put these in the mailbox, so I thought I'd just bring in your mail, too.”
Fluttershy put a few letters on the table and gave Twilight one of those squeak-smiles. That was kind of weird, but then again, Fluttershy was kind of weird.
Twilight noticed the letter on top had red stripes on it and the word 'URGENT'. She also saw that it was labeled as an insurance notice. Her heart sank when she saw that and snatched it off the table with her magic, forgetting Fluttershy was there for a moment.
“You don't mind if I-” Twilight looked back up at Fluttershy.
Fluttershy smiled and prompted her to go ahead and so Twilight tore the letter open. Her eyes tore though the contents as fast as possible to get to the important part.
It had a check for fifty thousand bits in it! Was this for real?!
“Is it bad?” Fluttershy must have noticed Twilight's stunned expression.
“It says it's for my parent's life insurance.” Twilight was still reading the letter over. “It's fifty thousand bits! But I didn't think they had life insurance. That lawyer guy said they didn't.”
She took a moment to study it more carefully. “Clear Living Insurance?” Twilight eyed the letter suspiciously. “I don't think I've ever heard of them before. You don't think this is a scam do you?”
“I actually have insurance with those ponies,” said Fluttershy, “Clear Living Insurance, I mean. I know the company is real at least.”
That much was reassuring. Maybe Twilight was just getting a bit paranoid after all bad luck. Maybe she was jumping straight to the worst case scenario. The letter did look legit and it was entirely possible Twilight had just missed something about her parent's insurance. Celestia knew she was young and didn't know a lot about this stuff.
She combed over it several times for any sign to the contrary, but slowly she began to let herself relax and accept that this thing might just be for real. Twilight couldn't stop a smile from creeping onto her face.
“This is-” Twilight held the note against her chest and smiled, tears in her eyes. “This is exactly what I needed! Now I won't have to get a second job and I can go to school and buy books again! Oh! Thank you so much mom and dad!”
Twilight balled up in excitement, then gave a leap into the air. She was so excited she started to jump around the room, listing off all the horrible things that wouldn't happen to her. Everything was going to be great now! Somewhere in her excitement she remembered Fluttershy was there and that she was making a rather ignoble display in front of her.
“Oh! I'm sorry.” Twilight froze in place and blushed.
“It's okay with me,” said Fluttershy. “I'm just happy you're not going to starve and, uh, all those other things.”
“Yeah.” Twilight plopped back down on the floor, a little exhausted. Excited as she was, she had just woken up. “Of course, I still need to have the bank look over it to be completely sure it's real. But if it is, I really think things are going to work out!”
“Oh, and speaking of things working out, did you make any friends like I suggested?” Fluttershy smiled at Twilight expectantly, like she was asking about her colt friend or something, way to optimistic about getting a positive answer. “Hm?”
Had Twilight made any friends? Those three flashed into her mind immediately, as did the crazy nights she shared with them and most of all the fact Pinkie had called her a friend.
“Well I kind of met these three ponies.” Twilight rubbed the back of her head. “I dunno if we're 'friends' though. I mean, we hung out and I've never done that before, but I'm not sure if we're friends.”
“I think that's good enough to call them your friends.”
“Maybe, but- It's just they're kind of strange.” Twilight looked down at her tea. She was less certain of that than Fluttershy. “They listen to loud music and stay up all night eating candy and they curse and hug each other and... well lots of weird stuff.”
“They aren't pressuring you into doing anything you don't want to, are they?” Fluttershy asked. “Do you want me to talk to them?”
Twilight found the idea of Fluttershy going up against those three to be even more of a mismatch than her going against the dreadstalker. Fluttershy was nice, but – well actually that was exactly why she probably wouldn't be able to stand up to them.
That did raise a good point, though. These ponies were exactly the type those educational films warned about– the kind that use peer pressure. Were they pushing Twilight into all of this deviant behavior? She thought about everything they'd done so far.
“Well, no,” Twilight concluded, somewhat reluctantly. “Really, it's almost the opposite with them. They're constantly saying everything's my choice and I can leave whenever I want. ”
“Do you like doing, um, whatever it is you do with them?” Fluttershy asked.
Twilight frowned to herself. That was exactly what she didn't know the answer to.
“It's fun,” Twilight admitted, “but I don't think it's what– well most ponies wouldn't approve of it.”
“Don't tell too many other ponies about this.” Fluttershy looked around, then leaned forward and spoke to Twilight like she was sharing a secret. “I actually have a huge stuffed animal collection. Most ponies think it's really strange for a mare my age to have those and for a long time I used to keep it a secret. I'd run around and hide all of them every time somepony would come over. But eventually I decided it was best to just be myself.”
“I can kind of understand that,” said Twilight. "But I don't know if what they're into is what I really want to be doing.”
“I don't see any harm in finding out,” said Fluttershy.
Twilight yawned. She was tired. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad an idea to give those three a chance. Yeah. Twilight decided to go back to sleep for a few hours once Fluttershy left... until night came.