Fireflies.
Hundreds of fireflies, dancing about like stars in the night’s sky. The forest was peaceful, void of any sound but the gentle whispers of wandering spirits. She trotted to and fro, standing beside the occasional lost soul and sheparding it back towards the spring of light. The frightened ghastly foals she scooped beneath her wing, cradling them towards the requiem of radiance.
There was a vortex growing from the shadows nearby. She did not know what it was or what was causing it, but she could sense that it was malevolent. She stood her ground and extended her wings as if to prove that she would not back down, and that the intruder should leave her and her spirits well alone.
Something strange was happening.
The fireflies had all disappeared, and the wandering spirits became unusually hushed. She felt the air grow colder and the hairs alone her spine stand on end as a grimly figure rose from the vortex of gloom. Its flesh was sickly pale and its face was obscured by a mop of pitch black hair. It loomed over her, eclipsing the moon with its great horrible head and plummeted the forest into darkness. Her heart was pounding as it opened its great maw, its skin stretching and tearing apart to reveal a festering hole. It opened its eyes; they radiated a menacing placid green that stood in great contrast to its washed out skin and grungy strands of ebony hair…
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She jolted out of her slumber at the sound of her front door slamming shut. She blinked her weary eyes and rolled over slowly, sitting up to rub them with her hooves. “Red… s’that you?”
“Nightshade, where’s the first aid kit?”
Her ears pricked up. “Under the bathroom sink.” Her arms flopped lazily to lap, but despite her sluggish movements she was wide awake. “What happened? You ok?”
But her roommate did not answer, only zipped past her and into the bathroom. There was the clattering of objects being moved about; the smoky colored Pegasus leaned over the side of the bed to see what exactly it was her friend was up to. “Red? Did you hear—”
She was cut off by the sound of a heavy mass collapsing to the floor in front of her, and she turned her to examine it.
She froze.
It sat upright, its long, slender legs twisted in ways that would be impossible for any pony, and its front legs ending not in a hoof or a foot but in some sort of meaty claw; these were folded gently over its lap. Its mane was black and fell in thin strands over its face and shoulders, with one patch to its right side tinted the russet color of drying blood. Her staring gained its attention, and it returned her gaze with as much intensity with deep emerald eyes.
“Nightshade, are you sure—” Red paused as she reemerged from the restroom empty-hoofed and noticed the tense exchange that was occurring between her roommate and the other. “Oh…” She cleared her throat, but her grey friend’s stare did not break. “Umm, Night, this is Oil. Oil, this is my roommate, Nightshade.”
The creature called Oil nodded in greeting, but Nightshade remained motionless and equally speechless. After a few moments of painful silence, she finally managed to find her voice. “R-red Kiln… can I speak with you for a moment….”
“Uh oh…”
With that, the darker mare launched herself from the bed in which she sat and tackled her crimson friend into the bathroom, bucking the door shut with one swift kick of her hind hoof. “What the buck is that thing?” she shouted, her heart finally catching up with the adrenaline that raced through her veins. “And why did you bring it home with you?”
“Him,” corrected Red, dragging herself from beneath her frantic friend. “I found him outside Everfree while on-call for cloud clearing. There was this winged housed-thing—I think he called it a ‘plane’— that seemed to have crashed from out of nowhere. All of his friends were dead, Night, and he was hurt. I couldn’t just leave him there; what if he got attacked by timberwolves, or worse?”
“So what if he did!” Nightshade threw her arms up into the air in emphasis, neared clipping Red on the nose. “What do you know about this thing? He could be dangerous!”
“You don’t think I thought of that?”
“I sure as hay hope you did!” She took a deep breath. “Look, Red, what if he’s a shape shifter or something?”
“A shape shifter?”
“Like, what if he only is putting on this fleshy façade, and he’s actually this unknown apex predator that feasts on the brains of naïve ponies?”
“A shape shifter.”
“It could bucking happen!” She cried. “I mean, anything imaginable could come from that god-forsaken forest! For Luna’s sake, what were you thinking?”
Red pushed past her roommate and pulled open the door just a crack. The frightened Pegasus peeked over her friend’s shoulder. The creature named Oil was sitting right where they had left him, but he had picked up one of the vases Red had made and was staring at it with admiration. Red closed the door. “Does that look like a brain-eating apex predator to you?”
“He may not look like one now, but what if he turns into one?”
“Well, unless we clean up that wound on his head soon, he’s going to be an apex predator eating brains through an IV while in a vegetative state.”
“Oh, ha ha,” Nightshade mocked. “Great, go enable him. But when he’s crunching your skull, don’t come crying to me!”
“Nightshade, you’re being ridiculous. I’d expect this kind of behavior from me, not you, of all ponies.”
“Well, look how the tables turn!”
“Why don’t you just go talk to him? He seems really nice, and he’s surprisingly gentle for his size.”
“You let him touch you? Do you have grass for brains? That’s how they control you!”
“I thought they tricked you with a façade.”
She hesitated. “W-well, that too!”
“I’m starting to see some loop-holes in your theory,” Red stated matter-of-factly. “Now go out there and make sure he hasn’t passed out yet before I buck you straight to the moon.”
“You couldn’t do that.”
“You’re right, but I know some ponies that could.”
Nightshade gritted her teeth. “Fine,” she muttered and she threw open the door.
As she entered the room, the monster looked up at her with his great green eyes. She flinched as she caught their gaze, but quickly looked away. She didn’t understand it, but she felt her heart racing and her face growing warm. She felt as if she were dragging her hooves towards him, all the while avoiding eye contact and clenching her jaw tightly. When she stood but a foot away, her legs began to tremble nervously. “H-hellllo….” She stammered. She could feel his powerful gaze burning through her.
"Um...Hi,"he said with a hint of amusement. Despite the confident look on his face, there was a glimmer in his eyes that betrayed just how addle he really felt. His voice was deep and dark like the rolling rumble of distant thunder, but smoky like a cloud of ash. It was surprising pleasant, but this only seemed to further confirm her theory. This must be how he seduces, she thought, glaring up at him through her mane. “I’m onto you, you creep. You won’t be eating my brain, not now, not ever.”
Oil’s face twisted in a combination of bewilderment and disgust. "W-what?" From there he stared silently at her, and the longer she stared back the softer her glare became. Slowly, the sleep began to seep from her muddled mind, and the ridiculousness of her words began to sink in. “…wait…”
“You’ve got to stop reading those mystery novels before you go to sleep.”
Nightshade turned to see her lime-maned roommate standing behind her, the first aid pack clamped tightly between her wings. She trotted past him with a scowl on her face, then placed the pack down beside her. “Are you going to help me with this or not?”
The darker pegasus rubbed her head for a moment and sighed. “Yeah, I guess.” She waited for Red to pass before she shook her head in the attempt to remove the sleep from her mind and joined her friend to prepare an antibiotic cleansing salve. Red examined the wound. “Doesn’t look like you’ll need stitches, but then again, I’m no vet.” She staggered over to the kitchen sink to wash her hooves just as Nightshade finished preparing the salve. She took some deep breaths to get more oxygen to her brain as she dipped her hoof in the light colored mixture and reared to near the man’s head. “Hold still.”
As she placed her hoof over the wound he watched her with genuine intrigue and a bit of anxiety. As soon as it touched him he flinched away, clenching his teeth and hissing in pain. “Look, I know it stings, but please, hold still! The sooner you let me do this, the quicker it’ll be over.”
He turned his head just enough to glare at her from the corner of his eyes, and Nightshade could almost hear his heart pounding in his chest. With a pang of irritation in her gut, Nightshade sighed. “Listen, I know we got off on the wrong hoof. But right now, I need you to trust me.”
The man named Oil continued his glare, but she felt his breath slowing just slightly. However, he showed no sign of cooporating with her.
She crossed her hooves over her chest. “I’m sorry, ok? I tend to get a bit delusional when I am startled out of a deep sleep. So buck me.”
Oil leaned away from her, his brow scrunching in such a way as to question the use of Nightshade's word. “Buck?”
Nightshade frowned at him, trying to interpret his tone. “Never mind,” she said, deciding that he was sincerely unfamiliar with the term. Although she was still unsure of him, she decided to take one final resort. “Please, Oil, just trust me?” She crouched down and with ears pulled back gave him the biggest pleading look her luminous green eyes could muster. Oil looked down at her, only a slight hint of surprise in his expression, before he finally sighed softly and hesitantly leaned his head toward her. “Thank you,” she said in relief. She dipped her hoof in the salve again to coat it in a new layer of the medicine before gingerly dabbing it on the matted circle of black hair. Oil winced and a shiver waved through his body, but he did not pull away this time.
Red Kiln returned from the sink and began unraveling the roll of gauze. “Crabapples,” she muttered as she dropped it. It rolled away from her, unraveling the cotton strips and contaminating them on the floor.
“I’ll get it,” Oil said softly, and as he turned to reach for the roll Nightshade lost her balance and began to fall sideways. He swiftly thrust out his arm and snatched up her left foreleg in his meaty claw, his grip surprising powerful. Nightshade cried out in shock and tried to launch herself into the air, but his grip on her arm was too strong and she merely managed to leap a few feet upwards and drag him down with her. She hit the ground and he landed on her rump, her arm still in his grasp. His arm was twisted in such a way that for any pony to be in that position it would have been broken. But Oil simply let go of her and pushed his heavy body upright. “I’m sorry…” he murmured.
“I…umm…” Nightshade was unsure what to say. She was startled and a little intimidated by his strength and flexibility. Did he just apologize? She was not sure exactly who was at fault in this situation. He had knocked her over, but she had caused him to fall. But he had fallen on top of her! She rubbed her forleg where he had grabbed her. If he has that sort of strength, it might be best to keep him placated...“Umm, no, it’s ok. I’m ok—are you ok?”
He nodded as he reached for the roll of gauze, picking it up and brushing off any dust he saw. He then proceeded to wrap the bandaging around his head.
“Here,” Red Kiln said as she trotted over to him. She reared up and helped him arrange the bandages.
“Thank you,” he said softly, and smiled at her. Nightshade noticed a shiver run down her spine. He certainly seemed sweet enough, but there was something eerie, and familiar, about his smile, as if it just did not fit his face.
A small dot of red appeared on the gauze around his head, and it was slowly growing larger. “We might need to get him some help after all,” Red said, watching the blood spread through the cotton. “Maybe he’ll need stitches…”
Nightshade looked out the window. Celestia’s sky was beginning to show hints of deep blue as her sister’s night was creeping up to it. “The sun’s gonna be setting soon,” she said. “If we wait until night, we can try to sneak him to Fluttershy’s house, but that’s still on the other side of town. How long do you think we can wait?”
The spot of blood now had the circumference of a bit, and the faint pink ring around it was still creeping outwards. Oil seemed alright, albeit a bit tired, but that could be due to the walk to the house, or the stress of the crash. “Then again,” the dark mare said, “there’s no guarantee that Fluttershy will let him in.”
“Fluttershy loves all animals. Of course she’d let him in.”
“I really don’t know, Red. I had just woken up and I was ready to throw him out of the house. If we wake her to treat him, she might lock herself inside.”
“So what do you suppose we do?”
Nightshade looked up at Oil, who was now slumping against the wall. He was by no means bleeding profusely, but with each passing moment more and more of his energy seemed to drain away. Making him trudge across Ponyville after all he’s been through that day seemed like cruel punishment, and if there were any stray ponies taking a nighttime stroll, a risky matter.
“We need her to come here.”