The Visitor
Jason woke up to the sound of running water, as he rolled over into the area Dash should have occupied, still trying to figure out how water could have possibly be running in a cloud house. He rolled off the bed tiredly, following the sounds into the bathroom.
"Dash?" He asked. "How the hell does a shower work in a cloud?" Dash had evidently not heard him coming. She yelped and jumped into the cloud wall.
"What are you doing?!?!"
"Well, let's recap. No one actually wears clothes here, you didn't actually close the door, and I heard running water and got worried since the house is made of vaporized water."
"Oh, yeah." She rubbed the back of her head, then twisted a dial and the water turned off.
"Aww..."
She smirked. "Wanted to shower with me?"
"I'd like to do anything with you, we don't really get any time together. I mean, it just annoys me, you know? We should be one of those couples that are all inseparable and stuff, but all this shit keeps popping up." He paused. "By the way, how did you turn off the shower like that without pipes?"
"Stop questioning everything."
"Answer me this, how do you get the water hot?" He crossed his arms smugly.
"You turn the dial a few more times." She said. His smile fell.
"You took a few cold showers, huh?"
"It was definitely bracing." He chuckled. "It's a good thing you were gone, there was a lot of un-manly screaming for the first few seconds."
"Yeah, so the shower gets hot, for future reference." She pulled a towel off the wall, throwing it over her back.
"Tomorrow, see how fast you can get your work done, and we can maybe actually do something fun." He looked around over-suspiciously.
"Oh, I see what you're saying." She gave him a sultry look. "I'll get my work done, promise."
"I'll look forward to that." He chuckled. "I gotta go wake up Scoots and take her to school, probably figure out her punishment, all that stuff. You leaving for work soon?"
"Yeah, I'm going to leave in a few minutes here, I just have to get some food and obviously dry off."
"I didn't really buy any breakfast food, mostly because I don't know what you guys really consider breakfast food, but hopefully there's something you can eat in there."
"You work too hard." She leaned over and nuzzled his chin, getting it wet.
"I work too hard?"
"Well, yeah, you do it of your own free will, I'm forced to do this stuff with the weather."
"And you do a great job from what I've heard."
"Oh, stop it you." She batted a hoof at him. "We on for lunch today?"
"Sure, but you have to figure out where to go."
"Well seeing as anything I like, you like by default, I'm not going to have too much trouble."
"You're really liking this whole changeling thing huh?"
"Well it comes with a lot of advantages, if you know what I mean..." She wiggled her eyebrows.
"When was the last time I told you I loved you Dash?"
"Too long ago." She wrapped him in a hug. "I miss seeing you as a changeling. That's what I fell in love with after all." Jason pushed her arms off him and backed up a little, dropping his disguise for the first time in days.
"That better?"
"Yeah. I love you too, Jason." She ran a hoof along his chest before she hugged him again, slipping a little on the smooth chitin. "Yeah, so sorry to ruin this, but I have to get going."
"Yeah--Hey! We never showed Scoots that scooter last night, you want to bust it out right now?"
"Sure," She gave him a look. "How do you want to do this?"
"I don't know, I haven't ever really needed to give big gifts to people before."
"We'll just keep it simple then, bring her downstairs and just call for me. I gotta dry off, because somepony's been delaying me," she shot him an accusatory gaze, "Then just call for me."
"Aren't you going to be late to work?"
"Meh, they can wait a few minutes, we're still way ahead of schedule. I am their captain after all."
"Good to hear." He nuzzled her neck, then leaned back slightly to kiss her. He turned and walked into Scoots' room to wake her up. Scoots got up a few minutes later and came downstairs, sleepily trudging into the kitchen.
"What's for breakfast?" She asked, yawning afterwards.
"You want toast?" He asked.
"Man I love toast! I didn't really get to eat toast all that much before..."
"Jeez Scoots, it's just toast." He threw a piece of bread in the air, cooking it as it hung in the air. He handed it to Scoots, who had a look of awe on her face. "Liked that huh? It took a few loaves of practice."
"How do you light your arm on fire without hurting yourself?" She asked through a mouthful of toast.
"I don't know why it generates heat, but I'm just transforming the arm into itself, and I guess the absence of a use for the power transforms into heat energy, so yeah. I don't know why it doesn't burn me though."
"So why are you a changeling today? Are you going into town like that?"
"No, Dash just wanted to see me like this."
"Oh, okay." She looked confused.
"Speaking of Dash, we've got something to show you Scoots. You hear that Dash?!?!" He heard a muffled reply as Dash walked down the stairs with the scooter. Scoots was either speechless or in the process of having a stroke as she locked her eyes on the gift. After a few moments, where their thoughts had started to shift to the second of those two options, Scoots finally broke out of her trance and ran over to Dash, tackling her to the ground.
"Thank you thank you thank you!" She quickly jumped off of Dash and ran over to the scooter, quickly pulling it upright and examining it closely.
"Scoots, you should probably be thanking Jason, this was his idea."
"Thanks Jason!" She immediately went back to her examination. Jason looked at the clock and jumped a little, slightly annoyed that he had managed to get down to the wire on something again.
"Scoots, not to burst your bubble or anything, but we gotta go to school. You wanna ride that? I mean I can drop you off in town and let you ride there, but I still have to talk to Cherilee." Scoots nodded as the scooter floated over onto Jason, now in his pony form, and she jumped on right after. He was going to kinda miss flying her to school every day. "Good luck Dash."
"Yeah, good luck trying to find stuff to do today Jason, I know you tend to get bored."
"I got the map to fall back on. Pinkie's party is at seven tonight, don't forget."
"We can still talk about stuff over lunch, so no rush. Meet me in the market square." She leaned over and kissed him. "Don't forget." Scoots didn't protest the kiss, and Jason had to check that she was still on his back.
"Isn't this usually the part where you say 'ew' or something Scoots?"
"If it means you two are happy, not so much." She replied.
"Aww..." They both said.
"Not like I'm going all mushy or anything." She crossed her arms in a defensive manner, causing Dash and Jason to chuckle.
"Alright, let's just get going at some point today." Dash said.
"Sure, see you at lunch." He walked out the front door behind her, taking off in the opposite direction, planning to land with Scoots in the town square. After a minute or so of spiraling downward, he landed in the square and let Scoots off, handing her the scooter immediately afterward.
"Hey Jason, wanna race?"
"If you think you can keep up."
"Oh, it's on." Man she sounded like Dash right now. Of course, she always said how much Scoots sounded like him, so apparently she was taking after both of them, although he really didn't see it. He came back to his thoughts to see that Scoots had already taken off down the road. He took a deep breath and sprang off the ground, flapping his wings rapidly to speed up and follow the dust cloud on the horizon. After a full minute he managed to pass over Scoots on the ground, who was looking fairly determined as she buzzed along towards the school house.
The real question, though, was whether he should try to win or not. Winning against a kid wasn't exactly something he wanted to be remembered for doing, but then again he really didn't want to lose. He wasn't as competitive as Dash, but that didn't mean he liked to lose. He smirked, having thought of a plan, and pulled back to a slower speed. He waited until Scoots was closer to the schoolhouse before breaking into an all out sprint, attempting to tie with her. He was at least a few seconds behind, and arrived to a heavily breathing, but clearly celebrating Scoots.
"I beat you, I beat you. Ha."
"Good job Scoots." Ugh, losing. "Let's get you to class." She nodded, and they both trotted over to the door. Jason walked in behind Scoots, and immediately walked over to Cherilee's desk, waiting her to look up from the paper she was grading. She stamped a large 'D' onto a paper with the name 'Snails' and turned to look up at him.
"Oh, hi Jason, what are you here for?"
"I was just wondering what your final punishment was for Scoots so that I knew when to pick her up from school."
"Yes, I thought on what you said about it. Scoots will keep her detention along with the rest of them, besides Tiara, of course. So just pick her up a half hour later today."
"Alright, see you then. Is there still the parent teacher meeting? I wanted to see how she was doing in school."
"Why didn't you just ask? She's doing fine! sometimes she's a little distracted, but her grades are much higher than average."
"That's good to know then. Thanks."
"No problem." He nodded to her and took his leave, not exactly eager to remain under the stare of Diamond that he was sure that he was receiving. Scoots quickly waved to get his attention though, stopping him before he reached the door.
"Jason, don't worry about picking me up, I'm gonna crusade until the," She started to whisper, clever girl. "Party." Jason nodded and chuckled, tipping an imaginary hat to the trio of fillies. He left the schoolhouse and quickly walked into town, trying to figure out what he could possibly do with his day, considering all the shops he had already gone through. He sighed, and one of his ears flicked at a sudden sound. He had never really been able to get used to the new ears, with their consistent pivoting and uncontrolled reactions to noise. They had definitely not proven themselves to be a hindrance though, not in the long run.
Jason stopped and turned, looking around the general area for something that could've caused any noise. It was the crunch caused from hooves on gravel, which let him know that it hadn't come from the smooth street cobblestones or any of the nearby bushes. He turned to continue walking, but immediately heard another crunch, followed by some quiet muttering. A few ponies walked by, giving him strange looks. He sighed and continued to walk, feeling a strange sense of deja vu, probably because of that wolf he had been forced to fight when he first came here.
Furious clopping of hooves came from behind him, and he started to turn, only to be hit by a hooded, burly stallion. He flopped onto the ground, bouncing a few feet away and onto his stomach. He rose to his hooves and turned, managing to get a hoof in front of the stallion's right hook and deflected it to the side. The hooded figure slid a knife out of it's sleeve and ran at Jason again, aiming for his chest. He knocked the knife to the side, only to be punched across the face with the stallion's other hoof.
His head cracked to the side, but he recovered in enough time to duck under the next punch and grab the stallion's arm as it passed over his head. He got hit again in the face as he simultaneously flipped the stallion over backwards onto the ground. Jason quickly pressed a hoof to his throat and kicked the knife further away. He looked around at the small crowd of ponies that had gathered through the course of the fight, many of them looking at him with a mixture of fear and awe. He looked back to the stallion, who tried to lunge forward before Jason landed another punch across his face.
"Is there some sort of police department around here?" He asked to the crowd. There was a shuffling as a large pony with a police vest and hat pushed out the front of the crowd.
"Yes." He was breathing heavily. "Just got here." He walked over and pulled out a couple pairs of hoof-cuffs, tightening them around the criminal's legs. The cop slid a hoof under the still hooded stallion, and threw him over his back. "You're going to need to answer some questions, Boss." He started walking. "Name's Dusk."
"Boss?"
"That's what you're called, right? The changeling in Canterlot?"
"Yeah, but they seriously call me Boss?"
"I've heard that a few times, yeah. Mostly from ponies that were in Canterlot at the time though."
"Ah, okay that makes sense I guess."
"Say, where's the other one, they call her Boss too."
"Dash?"
"Yeah, sure." The pony pushed open a glass door in front of him and walked inside, holding it open for Jason. He leaned over the welcome desk and whispered a few words to a secretary before gesturing for Jason to follow him and moving into a new room. He threw down the stallion in a cell and locked the door before pulling Jason into an interrogation room and closing the door behind him. Jason took a seat on one side of the table, sighing as he rested his head on a hoof. At least he had found something to do with his day.
"So, obviously you beat up a stallion in town a few blocks away, what were the circumstances surrounding that event?" He pulled out a pencil and notepad, waiting for Jason to start talking.
"Well this stallion just jumps out of an alleyway and kinda tackles me, then he pulled out a knife and tried to stab me. So basically I was acting in self defense."
"Did you have any relations to the pony in question?"
"Not specifically, but a few ponies in the same alleyway told me yesterday to get out of town. I'm sure you know I'm not really that well liked around here."
"Yeah. Listen, I'm sure you have a life to get back to, and I think I have everything I need from you. I got a motive, a culprit and a possible lead."
"That's it?"
"So long as you stay in town so that we can question you if need be, yes. Of course I'll also be adding to your account with several of the villagers'. Don't worry, I'll make sure that they aren't biased. Thanks for your work in Canterlot, Boss."
"You don't need to thank me." He paused. "Thanks for the fair trial and all though, I appreciate it."
"No problem." He tipped his hat as Jason got up and left the room. He went back through the lobby, walking towards the front door until the secretary stopped him. He went back to the desk, where she gave him a small pile of paperwork, informing him that he should bring it back completed within a few weeks. He knew there was a catch somewhere here. He sighed and put the papers into his saddlebag, realizing that the knife fight had left a cut in one of the bags, making it virtually useless until he could get it fixed. Looks like he had more stuff to do today. Hooray.
He left the police station and turned down the street, getting a few more mixed looks from the villagers as they cleared out in front of him to create their normal wide path. Something bumped him in the side, and he looked over to see Lyra. He sure was seeing her a lot lately.
"How's it going, Jason?"
"Not so good, some stallion just tried to kill me."
She looked over with a smile playing on her lips, seemingly expecting him to laugh and say that he'd been joking. After a few moments her expression turned to shock and she averted her gaze to the ground. "Sorry, I thought you were joking."
"Yeah, I wish I'd been joking."
"So where's the culprit now?"
"Ponyville jail. The cop figured I was innocent, because it was pretty clear that I was, and let me go so long as I stay in town."
"Oh..." She was silent for a few moments. "So, I think I have a bass guitar player for you guys, you'd never guess who it is!" The ability for ponies around here to change topics always seemed to leave his mind reeling.
"I really have no idea."
"That's what I thought! I'll bring her by at the party tonight."
"How many ponies are coming to this party exactly?"
"Well let's see, I am, then there's Bon Bon, Twilight and her friends, Scootaloo and her friends for some reason, and then my bassist." She smiled over at him.
"How did Pinkie manage to invite everyone I know? I didn't even know you until yesterday, and I haven't talked to her since-- whatever. I don't care that much."
"So how do you know the foals?"
"Oh, you don't know? Well obviously not. Anyways, I adopted Scoots a few weeks ago, and I guess Pinkie invited her friends. Although I was enrolled in Ponyville school for part of a day, when I was disguised as a foal, so I know them for that too." They had started to walk through the park.
"That's nice of you to adopt Scootaloo, although I didn't know she was an orphan."
"Yeah, I didn't either until a couple of weeks ago."
"So you were disguised as a foal, huh?" She asked.
"Yeah, they're really short. And I mean really short." He said.
"Okay, not exactly the answer I was looking for, but hey, you're from out of Equestria, right?"
"Yeah..."
"So I was just wondering, are there humans there?"
"They used to exist there."
"Wow, do you think they still exist?"
"I'm pretty sure, maybe." This conversation was steadily getting weirder.
"Ha, wait until I tell Bon Bon! She said that I was never going to find anything new." Jason suddenly became distracted as he noticed a glint in some mud to the side of the path.
"Hold on a sec." He pulled at the corner of the object with his magic, liberating it from the mud. It was a thin square of some sort, hopefully not something from his world, although he had a sinking feeling it was.
"Why're you going through trash on the ground?"
"Shh.." He wiped off one side with a hoof and gasped. Lyra looked unimpressed. "No surprise that you don't know what this is, it's music from where I came from." He further wiped off the front of the case, getting slightly annoyed as the emblem of Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' stared back at him. Fuck.
"What is it?"
"Well, a band from where I come from put together an album of songs onto this little disk thing." He opened the case to show her.
"They fit a bunch of songs onto that tiny thing? No way, you're pulling one of my legs."
"No, there's seriously, god I don't know the number, at least fifteen songs on here. We were a lot more advanced than you are here."
"So how did it get here?"
"I have no idea, I'm going to go give this to Twilight and see if she can find out. Now listen, you can't tell anyone about this stuff, just grab any super futuristic stuff you see and bring it to her or me. I really don't want ponies setting off weapons if they come over."
"Sure thing, but how exactly can you 'set off' a weapon?"
"Explosives, like 'bang' explosion. Probably deadly."
"Yeah, I'll be on the lookout then. Anyways, I gotta go get ready for the lunch crowd, Bon Bon's probably mad about me being late again. See ya later!"
"See ya!" He said back, but she had already galloped off. Jason sighed and continued at his walking pace, turning back into town. He passed by Rarity's, before having second thoughts and deciding to see if she could mend the saddlebag for him in a few minutes. He went up to the door, knocking the side of his hoof against the door, an action that made exponentially more noise than with the bottom of his hoof.
The door was opened to Sweetie Belle, who looked up at him for a moment before recognizing him. "Rarity, it's Jason!"
"Well let him in dear, it's freezing outside." He rolled his eyes. It was maybe sixty eight. His earth house was like fifty six, and he didn't even have fur then. Rarity walked into the room, doing a good job at hiding her flinch. "What can I do for you darling? I'm not quite finished with Scoots' Nightmare Night costume, so you'll have to come back for that."
"I was just wondering if you could possibly take a minute to sew up this cut in my saddlebag. I can't really carry anything on this side and it's kind of annoying.
"But of course, just hand it over." She didn't wait for a response, and simply floated it off his back and over to her sewing machine, where she immediately started to mend the cut. "What happened here, Darling? This is the least ragged tear I've ever seen."
"Some stallion tried to stab me, and apparently cut the saddlebag." Rarity looked over at him, slightly stunned.
"What happened to him? He isn't dead, is he?" Jason was slightly taken aback.
"What am I, a murderer? He's in Ponyville jail." Rarity opened her mouth to respond before closing it again. She turned off the sewing machine and handed him the saddlebag, bidding him goodbye as he pushed open the door to leave. God damn, did everyone in this town expect him to go rogue or something? This was just ridiculous. He didn't need recognition for his efforts, he just wanted them to realize he wasn't dangerous.
He slowly walked over to the library, realizing a little too late that Dash would be in the market square for lunch soon. He broke into a gallop, quickly making his way through the streets to Twilight's library, a task that became much easier when the ponies cleared out in front of you. He arrived at the door, suddenly realizing that he needed to take out the album booklet, it probably had pictures of the band inside. He pulled it out and stuffed it into his saddlebag as he knocked on the door, watching the clock tower strike another minute closer to noon. Spike opened the door, then quickly backed away and closed it.
Twilight opened the door a few seconds later, smiling over at Jason. She gestured for him to come in, and she sat down with some tea.
"Okay so listen, I've gotta go meet up with Dash so I'm going to try to go through all of this really quickly. I found this, it's a compact disk from my world. Don't bother trying to reverse engineer it. At this point it's still a coincidence, so don't worry about that either. I just wanted to drop it off here. How's the whole steel thing going?"
"Fine," She sipped her tea, obviously not mindful of his lack of time. "I sent blueprints to Celestia, she should be getting back to me in a little while on whether or not there are any problems with my design."
"Alright, I'll see you later then, bye." She waved as he trotted over to the door, carefully closing it behind him. He sprinted over towards the market square as the clock struck twelve, and arrived a few seconds later. Dash was already there, smirking at him.
"When I explain my day so far, you're going to be wondering how I even got here at all."
"Okay, let's get to the park first." She picked up a picnic basket in her teeth, and took off into the air. Jason made sure the pocket in the saddlebag with all of the papers inside was completely and totally closed before he took off after her, quickly catching up to the lazy pace she had set. Lazy for her anyway.
Because of the 'lazy' pace, they arrived in the park only a few minutes later and set up on top of a small, rolling hill. Dash quickly laid out a small blanket and handed him a sandwich and an apple. He thanked her and looked out over the park for the second time in as many days. Even with the lack of detail this world had, it could still be incredibly pretty.
"So what's this epic story you've got for me?"
"Well, I'll just start after I dropped off Scoots. She's doing well in school apparently. Anyway, I was walking past that same alley as yesterday, which was kinda stupid in hindsight, and then this stallion with a hood on jumps me with a knife. I fought him off, and then got pulled into the police office for interrogation, to get my story straight. Anyway, I'm not really sure if the cop was in Canterlot or if he just knew people there, but he seemed to like me and let me off the hook. Not like I committed a crime in the first place. Apparently the ponies there call me and you 'Boss'. How cool is that?"
"Pretty damn awesome."
"Yeah, then I bumped into Lyra again, and we chatted, and I found another thing from my world, which is worrying, to say the least. Then I went to Rarity's to get the saddlebag sewn up, because it got slashed in the fight, then I delivered the thing to Twilight, which was a music disk, like a record, and then I ran over to the market square." He took a deep breath. "So how was work with you?"
"That's it? You're not going to say anything about the stallion that jumped you?"
"Oh, yeah, well the police know about it, and the gang ponies didn't go after you or Scoots so I'm pretty sure they're only going after me, so at least there's a silver lining."
"A what? Don't answer that. Just be careful, okay? I already had to wait through one of your near death experiences, I don't want to have to wait through another."
"No worries Dash." He pulled her over, resting her shoulder against his as they sat. He wrapped a wing around her, bringing her closer to him as they stared out over the park in silence. Dash finally broke the silence.
"I love you, Jason."
"I love you too, Dash." He paused. "What're you thinking about?"
"I'm just so worried. Danger just follows us everywhere. I just want to have a day where we can relax and not need to worry about ponies that want to kill us, or you in this case."
"Yeah, me too. It gets old after a while." They sat there for a few more minutes, quietly eating their food. "I realized I never transformed. Just saying." Dash laughed.
"You do a good job diffusing serious situations, Jason."
"And later, I'll do a great job ruining romantic moments in the exact same way."
"Don't ruin this one." She leaned over and kissed him, throwing a hoof around his back and drawing him closer as Jason copied the motion. They continued to sit there and kiss until Dash suddenly drew herself out of the moment enough to realize that she was missing work. She pulled back and looked at the clock tower, swearing under her breath when she realized that she had to go.
"Hey Dash, my wings aren't like this for the reason I think are they?" She looked over at him and giggled.
"Yeah, that's exactly why."
"Dammit Dash, why do you have to be so pretty all the time?"
"It just comes naturally." Jason managed to get his wings down to his sides after a few moments of struggling, soon enough to wish her good luck before she took off to get back to her job. Speaking of jobs, Jason realized that he really needed to get back to his. The inner procrastinator inside of him had evidently acted, although he didn't really have a choice with most of the stuff that had happened in town. He sighed and took off towards Dash's cloud house, intent on spending the rest of the day planning. The sooner he could forward the plans to Celestia, the better.
He landed in the front yard and walked inside, immediately heading for the map room. Luckily, all the pieces were right where he had left them, untouched by Scoots. If he were to forward these plans, however, she would have to move her pieces. He didn't really want to forward them a battle plan with random pieces on half of the map. Jason smiled and got to work, immediately starting to move the Equestrian army pieces.
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Jason yawned. He'd been at this for at least several hours, possibly more. The natural timepiece that hunger created was gone, considering the fact that he didn't need to eat, leaving him in a perpetual state of not being able to know the time. He finally tore himself away from the work to go look at the time. Five thirty, not too bad. He definitely wasn't setting any records for work in one sitting, that was for sure. He yawned again, and decided that he might as well take a shower. Sure, any dirt and grime fell off when he shifted away from his pony form, but he just kinda felt like taking a shower. Especially now that the water was warm.
He trudged upstairs and walked into Dash's bathroom, turning the dial in the shower several times before the water began to turn warm, and then stepped into the inviting sensation. He missed showers. Well, the warm ones, he hated cold showers with a passion. Showers were supposed to wake you up, though, but this silly little rain shower was just making him more sleepy. The water was just so nice as it...ran...over his....fur.... and mrmnrmnwmne.
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Another long day, Dash thought as she glided back from weather. Ninety percent done though, just a few more charts and minute weather adjustments to make and she was home free. She landed, feeling slightly more energetic as she walked inside. "Scoots? Jason?" She heard water upstairs, evidently Jason had decided to use the warm water he had discovered this morning. She chuckled and made her way upstairs and into her bathroom, looking for Jason. What she didn't expect to find was him passed out on the bottom of her shower. She prodded his shoulder with a hoof, attempting to rouse him.
After a few more attempts, he opened an eye and lazily looked up at her. "Dash, has anyone over told you that the bottom of your shower is really comfortable?"
"No."
"Well it is."
"So, why exactly are you sleeping on the floor of my shower?"
"Because I was tired."
"Are you going to answer any of my questions with descriptive answers?"
"Maybe." She sighed and he chuckled. "I worked on the map for five and a half hours, then I decided to take a shower, and it made me sleepy, and everything in this house is comfortable..."
"Why are you such a goof?"
"I'm not just any goof, I'm a professional."
"Let's just get to that party."
"That should definitely be interesting."