“Uh… hi?” asks in a questioning tone as he waves with his first two fingers and thumb while the other two loosely clutch to the neck of a bottle. Said bottle appears to be… no… is he really?
“Null? What are you doing here? And have you been drinking?” I ask with a bit of nervousness that I can’t shake. If he’s drunk, he’s even more unpredictable than before.
It’s now that I notice that his strange eye is clenched shut, with traces of blood around the rim of it. There's only one thing I know he can do that causes that, and the thought of what he might have done terrifies me.
He takes a moment to process my question, raising a finger in thought, then looks around confused. “Why am I here? Hm…. oh. Oh yeah! I saw something shiny over in this direction from Canterlot and I wanted to find out what it was! And wandering around town, the only source of light is coming from here. So I figured, this must be where the shiny is!” he explains as if this was normal.
One thing seems to stand out to me though… “how did you get here? The girls and I took the last train of the day, and Canterlot is at least a couple hours away. And why would you want to FIND something shiny anyways?”
He makes a snapping sound with his fingers, and chuckles. “I teleported! It hurt like hell though… still does. My guess is the farther I try to go, the more it hurts.”
I stare at him wide eyed. HE CAN TELEPORT?! while this is a better reason than the alternative, that he killed someone and was coming for me next, it’s still baffling to think that he can do it. “And.... my second question?”
“Huh? Oh! I… actually don’t know why. Just felt compelled to.” he states. We stand there for a bit longer in awkward silence, before he clears his throat and looks directly at me. “Listen, I don’t think I can make it back to Canterlot on my own… and I’d rather not be alone with my thoughts. Can… can I stay here? Just for the night?” he asks.
I cringe a little internally, not really wanting to let him into my home. But standing the way he is in the doorway, he just looks… pitiful. So different from when I first saw him. So vulnerable instead of angry. Suddenly, an idea pops in my head. If we can make friends with him, then he’ll have more people to listen to! And he won’t kill anyone!
Hesitantly smiling, I nod and motion for him to come in with a hoof. “Sure! Everyone else is upstairs right now. Um. you should probably go to the bathroom and clean up a little bit before coming upstairs though. There's still a bit of blood.”
He touches around his eye and winces a little, and looks at his now bloodied finger. He sighs and looks around. I point him in the direction of the downstairs bathroom, but before he can start, I step in front of him. “What’s the deal Twilight?”
I gulp and decide to push my luck a bit. “I think you’ve had enough to drink tonight. You shouldn’t even be drinking in the first place, you’re a child still; at least physically.”
He narrows his eye at me, and looks at me for a couple seconds before letting out a sigh while shrugging. He hands me the bottle, which I take in my magic and step aside to let him to go the bathroom. Looking at the bottle, I decide to dump the rest of it just in case he decides to try and take it back. I take it into the kitchen and proceed to dump it all down the drain, and deposit the bottle into the trash, and head back upstairs. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, everyone looks at me.
Dash speaks up first, evidently done with her hoof wrestling. “Who was it?”
“Had to be someone noteworthy if it took you so long.” Rarity tacks on.
I close my eyes, take a calming breath, let it out, and open my eyes again. “It was Null. he’s staying the night.”
Suddenly everyone looks at me wide eyed and they all let out a collective string of questions, ranging from why, how, and for some reason something about oatmeal from Pinkie.
I clear my throat and stamp my hoof to stop everyone's yammering. “Apparently, he teleported. I guess he can do that. As for why, he can’t make it back. It hurt him too much to get here and he asked if he could stay the night.”
“And you said yes?!” Rainbow questions.
“Of course I did! We can’t just let him wander around unsupervised. Who knows what he’d do? Besides, I had a great idea! If we can make friends with him, then he’ll be less likely to hurt anyone. Not exactly the best reason to try and make friends, but the ends justify the means, don’t they?” I explain. “Besides, this way we can learn a bit about him instead of just assuming bad things and writing mean songs about him.” I narrow my eyes at Pinkie at that last sentence, who shrinks back with a sheepish grin.
I then hear a flush from downstairs, and following that, steps up the stairs. Looking towards the stairs, I see Null climbing them. He trips over the final step, and falls flat on his face. “Owie…”
I help him up, and Applejack voices a new question. “Is he alright Twi? Something seems off about him.”
“He’s fine, just a bit intoxicated is all.” I answer.
“He’s drunk?” Dash asks with a mischievous grin on her face.
I glare at her. “Yes, which means no playing any pranks on him.”
Null speaks up from beside me. “I’m not drunk, just a bit tipsy.”
Applejack gives him a leveled look with a raised eyebrow. “Really? I can smell the booze off your breath from here.”
He waves a hand dismissively. “Bah, I’m drunk… so what?” he then heads over to the couch and flops down on it.
“While it may not be the best way to go about making friends, it certainly makes it easier!” Pinkie chirps as she hops to his side. Most wouldn’t be able to tell, but having known her long enough, it's easy to tell how uneasy she is with the situation. She’s scared. Of course, I don’t blame her one bit. I think we all are a bit scared here.
Null turns to look around the room, stopping for a second to look at each of us. We all look back. He takes a deep inhale and lets it out. “Come on, I’m not gonna do anything, so stop lookin’ at me like that.” he says with a bit of annoyance in his voice.
At that, everyone snaps their vision to anything but him. This time, he groans. “Stop that, all of you. If I’m that big a wrench in the works that y'all can’t go back to whatever it was you were doing, I can just go. It's not hard to see where you’re not wanted.” he gets up to go, and none of us make to stop him. We all just stand there guilty looking, but not wanting to admit he’s right.
Surprisingly though, someone does stop him. Fluttershy, of all ponies, walks up to him and tugs at his pants just before he can take the first step down the stairs; causing him to stop in his tracks. The room is silent, all of us fearful of what he might do.
“...Y-you don’t have to go Null. I’ll be the first to admit... were all s-scared of you.” we all cringe at that, thinking he’ll just get more angry. “We all know what happened. And while I don’t agree with you… I understand your reason. I’m personally terrified… but, I don’t want to have to be. None of us want to. And we certainly don’t want to fight you, or see you fall that far. So please. Don’t go.”
He stands there for a moment, his back still turned to us. After a moment, he speaks. “You know why Luna fell victim to Nightmare Moon, right?” nobody says anything, but Fluttershy gives a small ‘mhm’ in response. I’m a bit confused as to why he’s asking such a thing, but brush it off in favor of concern for Fluttershy’s immediate safety. He then lets out a sigh and turns back, looking down on Fluttershy, who offers him a soft smile in return. He opens his left eye, which causes us all to visibly flinch, and my heart rate to skyrocket in fear. He watches Fluttershy for a moment, then smiles. He actually smiles.
He then drops to his knees, and were all startled when he wraps his arms around her in a hug, and starts babbling incoherently. Only thing I’m able to catch is something about a ‘one eyed bloody monster’. Tears are brimming from his eyes, and surprisingly, no blood is coming from his left eye; just tears. Fluttershy hugs him back after getting over her initial surprise from the sudden contact, rubbing his back and whispering calming things into his ear.
I can’t help but find myself smiling at the display, and a quick glance around the room shows everyone else has a small smile as well; even Dash can’t help a small grin.
Eventually, Null lets go of Fluttershy, and stands up, wiping away the tears from his eyes. Fluttershy herself turns and looks to the rest of us. “How about we continue this little get together then, hm?”. We all nod in agreement, and Null moves back to the couch with a smile plastered on his face.
I notice Rarity hesitantly poke his knee to gain his attention. “Hm? What’s up.” he questions.
“I can’t help but wonder, how did you know our names? Back when we first met?” she asks.
“Huh? Oh. Oh! That’s because of my eye.” he says as if that’s a normal thing.
I tilt my head and shamelessly take this opportunity to learn more about his eye. “Can you elaborate?”
He looks at me confused. “Huh?”
I roll my eyes. Small words Twilight, small words. He’s drunk after all, so I should also take everything he says with a grain of salt. “I mean, can you explain how that works?”
“Oh. well basically… how can I put this how you’ll understand… imagine a card. And that card has a bunch of information about you. And only I can see that card. It just kinda floats around whatever it’s for.” he looks at me. “So for example, your moms name is Twilight Velvet. Now, I don’t know what she looks like, how she behaves, or even how she sounds. I just know that's her name, and she’s your mom. Another example, that book you have laying on the table has 246 pages. I don’t know what’s written on those pages, or how many words are in the book.” he explains surprisingly well.
My curiosity outweighs my unease at the fact that he can just know all this. “So it works on objects too… wait, doesn’t it hurt to do that?” I ask, recalling the blood from when he teleported.
“I mean… not anymore? It never hurt in the same way the other things make me hurt. When I first got this eye, I couldn’t see anything because of it. Remember those cards I told you about? Imagine them everywhere; So many that it blocks your vision. Little info cards about every little insignificant thing. I had to keep my eye closed, otherwise I’d be pretty much blind. Took me… I’d say around 200 years to be able to use it properly.” he says.
My eyes bug out and I can’t stop myself from saying what I say next. “TWO HUNDRED YEARS!? Just to learn to use a single spell?!”
He frowns a bit but shrugs. “First off, it's not a spell. I don’t know what to call it, but I know enough about magic to know this isn’t directly a spell. Or if it is, it’s constantly active; Never really had a chance to get someone to scan me for magic. And no, that doesn’t mean I’m asking you to do it right now. Second, yes. Two hundred years. Small amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but I can see how that would seem like a long time for you. But when you’ve got nothing to do but watch and observe the world in front of you, ocular abilities tend to be the only thing you can work towards. Now I can keep my eye open and not see a single card unless I want to. But I generally let it show me cards that would be of interest. How it knows what’s useful and what's not… I don’t know.”
I’m at a loss for how useful such an ability could be. Still dangerous, but useful. I’ll have to scan him later…
And just like that, the questions went on and on, ranging from what else my eye could do, what snacks I liked, what I was, and even fashion. I answered them all as best I could, even if Twilight didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t know what else I can do besides what she’s seen already. I did make a show of teleporting around for them though. They freaked out when they saw the blood, but I washed it up. They didn’t let me teleport anymore after that; bunch of party poopers. The rest of the night went on like a regular party, and I was actually happy. Drunk, but happy. I like these ponies. They’re nice.
So now I find myself laying on the couch in the dark now, since I don’t have a sleeping bag and I’d probably be too big for one here anyways. Everyone else has already went to bed in their sleeping bags, or actual bed in Twilight’s case. Apparently Twilight has an assistant as well. He went to bed before I showed up, so I didn’t get to meet him, but I’m sure we will in the morning. I take one last look around the dark room, the ponies scattered around on the floor. Pinkie somehow cleaned up in less than a minute, which scared the piss outta me, but at least they have a clean space to sleep. Taking one last look around the room, I smile and close my eyes, drifting off to my first peaceful sleep.