//------------------------------// // A Return To The Familiar... Somewhat // Story: A Tale of Tails, Sunsets and Burned Bridges // by Ozone31 //------------------------------// (Third Person POV) "So... uh... sorry." Sunset Shimmer began awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck as she tried to avoid eye contact with any of the seven people positioned all around the modest living room of her guardian's home. It was a large room at the front of the house, directly on the left of the front door when one enters the building. While not exactly lavish, it was homey - illuminated by a number of cosy wall lamps and centred around two modular couches and three lavish armchairs, evidently perfect for hosting a complete posse of probing people. "For making you worry... and stuff..." "For making me worry?" Luna's voice was like a blade of ice when she spoke, cutting deep into all present and chilling them straight to the bone. It was little wonder why she was such an effective teacher, you couldn't even listen to her speak without shivering let alone try and speak over her or goof off. "You absolutely terri-" Kurama decided to stop listening after that point, closing himself off from Sunset's senses and resting his chin on his paws - she'd already chewed him out plenty enough and he had no interest in a repeat of the experience. Instead, he reached beyond the fiery teen and sought for another mind. A sleeping mind. Let's see how they're doing in there he thought idly as he used his chakra to search the room for what he sought. Luckily the close proximity of Vinyl's sleeping form made finding her unconscious mind easier and before long his scenery began to shift, the calmness of his lake and cave fading away and being consumed by bright light and plenty of green. From what he could discern, the 'inside' of a Jinchuuriki's seal was an amalgamation of several rather obscure things. It reflected both the prison's and the prisoner's current mindsets. For example, in Sunset's youth it had looked a lot like the basement of a prison from a horror movie - representing her feeling of being a monster and his feelings of being a prisoner. However, since it was also just a construct of magic, it was also malleable to an extent - which was why the cave in Sunset's seal was there, simply because she put it there. His last observation of the 'Seal Space' as he called it, was its rather odd connection with memories. Atop his 'home' there grew a tree, it wasn't particularly impressive - a simple oak, maybe only a few decades old. But it was familiar to Kurama, for it was the tree that had been planted by his family when he was born. Its presence was both obvious and a complete mystery to him, it was obviously one of his most treasured items but it was also a world away now and sixteen years older than it had been when he'd last seen it. This too had an obvious but equally mysterious answer, it was older because he was older. However he only knew its sixteen year old appearance and younger, so how could his mind conjure up an image of a thirty two year old tree he'd never seen? He shook off his ponderings as the world around him finally came into focus. Hazy green splodges became fine needles, blank, brown towers became trunks covered in bark and a painful, high-pitch whistling became melodic bird song. It was a pleasant space, a peaceful pine forest standing proud under the light of a sun that didn't exist. At his full size, Kurama towered over everything - the trees rustling harmlessly against the thick fur of his wrists and ankles, cool river water barely even elicited sensation on the base of his left foot. At least he towered over almost everything. Blocking his view of the horizon's curve directly ahead was a dense collection of far taller trees, absolutely behemoth flora that stood far taller than him and, if anything, looked a tad more imposing. Their colossal trunks were wider than he was while their immense branches were longer than his tails. They also appeared to be curved, bending inwards on each other and forming a dome of thick green pines. Like a birdcage... his thoughts echoed through the world around him, prompting a rather abrupt scream from something on the forest floor below. By angling his snout downwards Kurama was able to spot the sound's origin, unsurprisingly it was a tiny person - with alabaster skin, neon blue hair and shockingly scarlet irises. "Oh Faust." he heard her words as clearly as if she'd been standing right in his ear and couldn't help but smile as she began to approach him at a sprint. In a great explosion of smoke his titanic fox form disappeared, leaving a scruffy-shirt clad man in its place. Vinyl covered the distance between them in very little time at all, reality seemingly bending around them to make the gap smaller. Upon getting within a few feet of him she catapulted herself into a bone breaking hug, almost knocking him off his feet and leaving him rather bewildered as he awkwardly accepted what was happening. "Ah, okay, we're hugging now..." he forced the chuckle out gracelessly, like a ham through a wood chipper, it was easy to get through but the result wasn't pretty. He gave her a few stiff pats on the back before she eventually let go and stepped away, grinning at him. "Hehe. Sorry 'bout that Kurama." the new Jinchuuriki continued to smile as she apologised, clearly just happy to have the company. "I've kinda just been sitting here, alone, for ages. Seriously, you're the first person I've seen in..." she paused as what she was saying was processed by her brain, causing her smile to fall from her face and her pupils to dilate as a horrifying prospect suddenly dawned upon her. "I don't even know how long! How long have I been out?! What happened to the crazy wizard guy?! And The Eight-Tails?! Is Sunset okay?! Please tell me she's okay!" "Relax, relax." he reassured, waving his hands lightly at her to try and calm her down. "Everyone's okay, no one died... 'cept maybe an island's worth of jungle creatures... and maybe a hermit." he let out another slight chuckle, slightly more nervous than the first, as he realised that he had no idea what had become of the mind controlling whack-job that instigated this entire mess. "Just as important as all that, it's good to see that you're still in here." he smiled a genuine smile as he said that, glad to see she was alright on the mental front and not slaved to a malignant intelligence - although he would be keeping a sharp eye out for any such force, in light of the 'Kyuubi - Sundown Incident'. "Thanks, Kurama. Glad to see that you're okay too." her smile returned at that and she let out a sigh of relief as flopped, spread eagle, onto her back. They lay and stood, respectively, in silence for a little after that, letting Vinyl revel in the knowledge that her family was safe and allowing Kurama to take in the sight of the gigantic cage of trees standing not too far from them. He narrowed his eyes at the immense construct, one of the teen's questions sticking out in his mind as he glared at it. "And I think you know what happened to the Eight-Tails." his voice had a dark edge to it as he spoke, aligning well with his scowl and slightly bared teeth. She followed his gaze and once again her face fell, but into a more neutral expression this time. They kept their eyes locked on the cage for some time before the DJ pulled her stare away and returned it to what was directly above. "I was kinda hoping that this was all just a dream..." she whispered grimly, gazing into the bright, skyless sky wistfully. Her mind was filled with hundreds of nagging questions and screaming worries. What's gonna happen now? Will I be stuck with this monster forever? Will he try and take me over like before? IS HE GONNA TRY AND STEAL MY SOUL?!. Kurama also looked away and turned to face her, kneeling down at her feet. He did nothing immediately, other than stare blankly at her. "What?" "Nope." "... Come again?" Vinyl blinked in confusion at the fox-man's statement, her racing mind tripping over itself as it tried to wrap itself around the simple input of information. "It ain't a dream. On toppa' that, the path ahead of ya is gonna be rocky, winding and long." there was a foreboding sense of finality in the way he spoke, a grim tone that sent a chilling wave through the one listening. His expression and posture matched the tone, his face creased by a thoughtful grimace that showed off his overly long canines - while his back was straightened out of its usual slouch and his shoulders were squared. "It ain't gonna be easy Vinyl..." "But..." in the space of a word everything about him changed. He relaxed, the tension in his neck and collar simply melted away, his eyelids fell back to half-open, his brow uncreased and his snarl was suddenly upturned into a lazy grin. "At least now you got a life partner around for the road, that's good right?" Before Vinyl could respond, he changed again and cut her off - his grin bleeding off into a sincere smile. "He's a great guy, he was just a bit... mind controlled before." all the teen offered him as a response was a blank deadpan stare, unconvinced. "Please just give him a chance, he's probably just as scared and confused as you are right now." "Why? What makes him so trust worthy in your eyes?" in stark contrast to Kurama, Vinyl's expression had remained entirely fixed in a neutral stare during this part of their conversation, stoically analysing the situation rather than openly reacting to everything as she normally did. "Well, he did save my life..." Luna was asleep. So was almost everyone else in the room for that matter. The vice-principal's five minute rant about responsibility and recklessness had been too much for the group of teens and even Luna herself and after she'd finished they'd all nodded off in quick succession - collapsing onto the selection of couches haphazardly and falling asleep. Luna herself had promptly passed out upon finishing and had fallen onto Sunset, who had then fallen asleep before she could pry her foster mother off herself. Vinyl's sleeping form had been laying near the fiery haired teen when this had occurred and thus had gotten tangled up in her aunt's and adoptive sibling's limbs as the latter had been trying to free herself - the result of this being the family of three turning into a crazed mess of quiet mumbling and snoring that took up one of the two couches almost entirely. Pinkie Pie had been able to force out a single explosive laugh at the sight, before she too fell straight to sleep against her already snoozing sister - laying onto Maud's upright form as the older girl kept herself propped up on the arm of the couch that the five had been inhabiting. Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Fluttershy claimed the second couch, the former sprawled out over her armrest and snoring loudly, the latter stretched out between the middle seat and Dash's - her head resting on a pillow that the athlete had been using to keep her legs warm. Both she and Rarity had been provided with clothes, but because of the former's short, lithe stature the only thing that they had in the house that fit her without dragging along the floor were shorts. The same could not be said of Rarity, who was around the same height as Sunset and thus had been able to fit quite comfortably into a pair of joggers that she only kept for sick days - spent lounging around the house, watching TV and sipping soup. The Fashionista had curled up against her own armrest and was now snoring quietly into a cushion, occasionally mumbling about fabrics and "Fabulous new shirts". The sight made Applejack smile as she draped a blanket over the last of her uncovered friends (and teacher). She was the last one up, although only just. She took a step back to take in the sight of her recently re-acquired friends sleeping peacefully against one another. "I can see why Sunset says you're the 'Big Sister' type." the sudden voice cutting through the peaceful silence, regardless of how quiet its owner was trying to be, almost made the farm girl jump clean out of her skin. She whirled around to face the source of the voice and had to do a double take when she caught sight of a pint-sized, dark-orange, multi tailed fox sitting on one of the armchairs. "Oh come on, I'm not that scary, am I?" the tiny terror grinned slyly, his voice seemingly just emanating off him, rather than pronounced from his mouth. "Can ya blame me?" Applejack sighed, the fright tension leaving her muscles with the breath, as she slumped into the neighbouring chair like a section of falling cliff. She was exhausted, there was too much excitement going on in her life at the moment and she wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week at this point. There was a faint *poof* from the chair on her left and when she looked over to it with the lethargic pace of a tectonic event, she found Kurama's human form staring sympathetically back at her. "Not really. I must admit, I'd be pretty afraid of me too..." he chuckled, turning away to stare at his hands - observing the way they still trembled slightly, feeling how warm they were. "Ya 'fraid of yer power? Or somethin' more along the lines o'... bein' afraid that one day ya won' be?" the middle Apple child was surprisingly sharp, refreshingly so even. Sunset was constantly dealing with her own issues, so Kurama rarely got to discuss his own with anyone - for fear of pressing his Jinchuuriki even further into dispair. If she couldn't rely on him to be her 'rock' then who could she? But, despite how much he wanted to, Kurama didn't bite onto AJ's probing questions - instead choosing to clench his fists, lean into the armchair's soft embrace and bottle everything back up. He'd deal with it later. "It's nothin', just pointless fretting over nothing." he sighed, releasing his built up tension just as his current companion had. They sat in silence after that, Applejack simply shrugging in response to Kurama's dismissal of his own trouble and going back to simply enjoying the comfort the armchair provided. "Ya know..." the farm girl was the first to break the almost-quiet (Rainbow was snoring like a walrus with sinus problems), her country drawl further accentuated by how tired she was. "If ya'llre bored in the day, mah Pa could always use an extra pair o' hands on the farm. 'Specially a pair that know... wha... they're... doin..." With that she too was out like a light and the room returned to relative silence - excepting for a certain athlete's obnoxious snoring. Kurama was left pondering the Apple's last words, before she'd ventured off to dreamland, and found himself strangely drawn to the idea. Granted, he had never worked on a farm before, nor did he get along with animals particularly well - even before he became 'Kurama', most animals, excepting dogs and (ironically enough) foxes, either tended to give him a wide birth or outright attack him. But even with that taken into account, he still wanted to give it a try. He got bored just sitting around in Sunset's seal all day and had done quite enough sleeping already - he was ready to get up and about, just not in a way that involved fighting giant monsters and mind controlled teenagers. "It'd hardly be glamorous work..." he muttered thoughtfully to himself, idly picking up a pencil from the end table that separated his chair from Applejack's and starting to twiddle it between his fingers - a side effect of his thinking process, his hands had to be entertained while he thought. "But I've never really been one for glamour anyway." he countered himself, his other hand staring to lightly tap on the armrest of his seat. "I have absolutely no experience in the field..." "Now's not the time for puns, idiot. And that doesn't matter, it's manual labour. I can pick up the ropes quickly enough if I put some effort in." "What about the animals? It's pretty obvious by this point that they don't like me..." "Regardless of what they think of me, I'm not going there to battle with cattle. Let them have their beef with me, I won't make the miss-steak of provoking them." "..." "..." "By the Gods, Kurama..." he muttered to himself, defeated by his own terrible humour. Most people would be concerned about having an actual, two-sided conversation with themselves - but for the Xeno-Terran who had grown up having to shout just to be heard in his own home, talking to himself just helped to bring him a sense of clarity. (Kurama's POV) "Ah'm home Pa." "Ah'm goin' Pa." I had to press myself into the pale-peach coloured walls of the Apple residence, as to avoid being trampled by a turbo-charged preteen as she charged past Applejack and me, straight through the still open door and off into the miles of apple trees that lay beyond. I'd decided to take Applejack up on her suggestion to seek employment with her family and being the early riser she was, she'd been more than happy to take me to the farm today, rather than leave me to stumble around town looking for it on Monday. Although, in hindsight, I don't know what I was worried about - half-a-dozen acres of apple orchard is a hard thing to miss, even for someone who's only been awake in this world for about a fortnight. After eating a quick breakfast and leaving a note to inform our sleeping compatriots of our location, we'd left Luna's house and caught a bus, that would take us directly to the farm's doorstep. "You seriously have your own bus stop?" I'd asked incredulously, my brain struggling to understand such public transport development. Considering I had to walk over three miles into town everyday just to catch the Sky Barge to the Academy, the concept of literally having a stop on one's own property was a bit beyond me. "The farm han's were gettin' sick of havin' to walk so far from the 'Outskirts' stop, so they complained to the town council. Coupla weeks later an we had a bus stop parked right at the entrance." her response had been nonchalant, almost dismissive, but even as I walked up the dirt path lined on either side by towering apple trees, I could barely wrap my head around the existence of such convenience. I have to admit, I like the home of the Apple Family of Ponyville. Sure, the bright crimson paint makes me feel like I'm staring at a scene from the 'Cabin In The Shredder Leaves' movie, to this day I am still very wary of helicopter leaves, and the fact that even the dog house looks like a barn makes me want to roll my eyes along the floor. But despite this, I like it - the homey feeling it gives off, the hard work that clearly went into its construction and maintenance, the open porch design - it was all so... Nostalgic. As the comforting feeling washed through me, a slight, yet sharp, pain shot through my head - not quite enough to elicit a physical reaction, but enough to prove annoying. I knew exactly who was pinging my brain and exactly why she was doing it, Day Break evidently being a pony not famous for her subtlety. But, I couldn't figure out Why she was trying to get me to confront my memories, why does she care whether or not I block out the haunting figures of my history? All such thoughts were promptly shelved for later as Applejack opened the door to her family home and called out in greeting to her 'Pa'. "Git back here Apple Bloom!!" a towering mass of muscle and crimson hair roared after the daughter that shared his colour scheme to a near identical level - excepting the eyes, his were bright green while hers were a light orange colour, and the fact that he was a shade or two darker skinned than the tiny terror who had just flown the coop. "YA'LL HAVEN' BRUSHED YER TEETH!!" I did my best to press myself further into wall as said mass came thundering down the hallway ahead of us, before flying on past and out the same door his youngest daughter had just vacated through. As I watched the two go, a phantom shiver ran first right the way down and then all the way back up my spine, my brain left tingling and my eyes widened and misted over by the ghostly familiarity of the scene that I'd just watched play out. "An' there he goes..." the eldest Apple sister watched her father pelt after her younger sister, like a bull chasing down a chihuahua. She sighed as she took note of one of their front door's hinges, hanging loose and away from the frame it had been torn out of. When I didn't respond, she turned to me and waved her hand in front of my face - even snapping her fingers a few times to try and break me out of my trance. "Hey. Hey, Ponyville to Kurama. Ya'll in there tough guy?" "Y-yeah... I'm here." I mumbled slowly, trying to ignore the headache that was forming at the base of my skull and instead trying to get my vision to regain focus. It took a good few blinks and some squinting, but before long my sight cleared up and the pain in my neck subsided to a dull discomfort. "What happened there? Looked like ya'll saw a ghost." "It's nothing. Just... deja vu." I got an arched eyebrow and a confused half-grimace from the Apple teen, but no actual enquiry - Applejack instead electing to simply shrug and continue down the hallway that led to a living room-dining room-kitchen ensemble that took up most of the ground floor, with the exception of a washroom and a small bedroom towards the back. "Guessing you spend a fortune on door repairs?" I asked as I followed her, trailing a hand over the banister of the stairs with my right hand as I went. "Ya'll have no idea, sonny." a different, much older sounding voice answered my question as I stepped into the room, although it was by no means a tired voice - just distinctively the voice of an elderly person. The voice's owner was a squat, old woman with pale, pea-green skin and stark-white hair, although the latter was more likely an age thing than anything else. She was certainly... weathered looking, but hardly the bitter, haggard corpse that was my grandaunt Lucile - Grump's older sister by eleven years. In comparison to her, this apron wearing woman looked downright youthful. She was sitting at the head of an eight-seater, oak dining table - slowly making her way through a bowl of porridge that had clearly gone cold ages ago. In the seat directly to her left there sat a tall, pinkish skinned, late-teenage boy with pale-orange hair and the same green eyes as the raging mass of farmer that had just knocked a heavy wooden door off one of its hinges. Said eyes were half-lidded, but they held a certain sharpness in them, his calm - almost dull - expression being a clever cover for the very astute person I could see he was. I could feel those eyes assessing me in the same way I was assessing him, our two pairs of emerald-green orbs staring straight into each other like a pair of competing hawks before the start of a race. It was a short lived 'confrontation', however, both of us ending it with a blink and a small smile. While we had been doing that, the elderly Apple had risen from her chair to embrace Applejack, cementing in my mind the likelihood that this was AJ's grandmother, or some other elder relation. "Ya'll gave us a shock when ya rang las' night." the older woman said simply, it was not a reprimand nor did she sound particularly worried. She was just stating that they had been surprised, which to me was a bit of a shock in itself - my family would have been livid if I'd gone out, gone radio silent for hours - during an 'Unforeseen/Unknown Astronomical Event' no less - and then casually declared that I would be staying over a friend's house for the night. These humanised ponies are so weird I thought to myself as I watched the two interact, feeling critically out of place in this world, so far as my mind set went at least. "Sorry 'bout that, Granny. We all jus' got so distracted on the beach, we didn' even notice the sun go down." if Applejack had been trying to sell that story to me I would have been sceptical, to say the least - especially considering that, from what I've observed of her over the past week and a bit, she is an astonishingly poor liar. But, luckily for us, she technically wasn't lying at this point - so she was able to get through the explanation without letting slip one of her 'tells'. "Ya'll did notice that second sun comin' up though, right?" a deep voice called from the hallway, although not quite as deep as Big Mac's, going off what few words I'd heard him speak during the last few days - mostly through idly listening to lunchroom chit chat from within Sunset's seal. Out from the entrance to the Apple House's main room stepped a towering farmer, head of the Apple Farm in Ponyville and father of Big Macintosh, Applejack and Applebloom - Bright Macintosh. He was dressed simply in a pair of ragged-old jeans, red flannel shirt and perched on his head was a dust-brown stetson - far newer and less aged than the one that his eldest daughter wore. His feet were clad in beaten worker's boots and his hands in leather, finger-less gloves that looked older than Applebloom did. The whole look was topped off by a tiny steel pin, fastened to the left collar of his shirt - a stylised... Jam Jar? Or was it Marmalade? Under one arm he was carrying a particularly grumpy looking pre-teen, pulling a face that one might expect from a very inexperienced lemon chewer. "Ya'd hafta' be blind or on the other side o'the country to miss that, Pa." Applejack chuckled as she approached her father to give him a warm hug, which he happily returned with his free arm. It was actually a little funny to see, how effortlessly he held his youngest daughter like a barrel of ale while embracing his oldest daughter on the other side of him. "Don' Ah know that." he chortled in resonance with his progeny, releasing her from the hug and tussling her hat-clad hair. "Was so bright, it woke me up from mah after-work-nap, had a heart attack thinkin' I fell asleep in mah chair again and missed 'Tractors for Masters'." "As if, ya'll haven' missed an episode since it aired when ya'll were barely old 'nough ta speak." Granny Smith scoffed playfully, having returned to the comfort of her chair at the head of the table. "Ya'll even moved ya bachelor party the day before it was set, jus' so ya wouldn't miss one." "H-hey, ya'll are makin it sound worse than it was!" Bright Mac retorted, the stutter and slightly increased voice pitch accompanying it was rather unfitting for his size and bulky stature. This whole situation was becoming increasingly funny to me, to the extent where I was struggling to suppress the smile that was fighting its way onto my face. "Ah wish Ah was exaggeratin', Mackie - but unfortunately that's exactly what happened." "Ah always finish what Ah start, that's jus' how Ah am!" "Clearly, ya'll have three kids." "Can Ah get down now, please?!" And just like that, my composure shattered. The first guffaw exploded from my face before I even new it was on its way, coming out first as a quick snort before mellowing out into a proper belly-laugh. It had been a long time since I'd last had a good laughing fit, so long that the genuine feelings of overwhelming joy and the splitting aches in my sides felt almost completely alien to me. It would have been a sobering thought, the idea that I had gone so long without the warm, bubbling feeling of a good laugh - but at that exact moment, I didn't care. I was too busy sliding down the wall I'd been leaning against, trying not to throw up from how hard I was laughing. Tears of joy stung my eyes like swimming goggle-less in a salt lake, my stomach clenched painfully with every successive joyous exhale of laughter and I was loving it. I'd forgotten how much fun dying of hilarity could be. I'd forgotten that such happiness existed in the world. I'd forgotten how good it felt to just laugh my heart out, even if I was the only one who found the joke funny. And I was so glad to have finally recalled it all - the joy, the pain, the Laughter." (Third-Person POV) Pinkamena Diane Pie shot up from her sleeping position, against her sister's surprisingly comfortable side, her entire body vibrating like a restaurant table caller. Her gut was churning, her ears were swivelling like radar dishes and her teeth were chattering as if was Sub-Zero in the room. Despite all this, her face was split by a mile-wide grin and she couldn't hold in the joy she felt, from a source external to herself, as she jumped to her feet and bellowed: "SOMEONE'S HAVING FUN WITHOUT MEEEEEEEE!"