//------------------------------// // Quality Confections and High Expectations // Story: Displaced // by LeafBug //------------------------------// The walk progressed quickly, and soon Albus was wandering the snow covered streets of Ponyville square. Despite the frigid atmosphere, ponies were out and about everywhere; especially enterprising entrepreneurs. Hot chocolate, coffee and pastries, oh my. Numerous stands and stalls were cashing in on the cold weather, selling various warm confections and the like. Everywhere he went the sounds of sales pitching ponies seemed to follow him, creating a cacophony of voices wherever he went. It was a good thing he had a poor sense of smell, or the sheer amount of enticing scents may have driven him to attempt and spend money he didn't have. Stopping for a moment beside a rather stylish wooden cart, Albus extracted himself from the hustle and bustle of the seemingly growing throng of ponies. Sitting next to the cart, the gryphon barely even got half of a look from the orange mare running it; she seemed much more fixated on selling various apple pastries and piping hot apple cider. Whilst before the smells of the various delicious fares strewn about the square had not really affected him, sitting next to the cart was more than enough to get even his dulled sniffer's attention. Mmm... was the only relatively coherent thought he could form at the moment, being caught up in the novelty of being able to smell something nice again. This did not, however, keep him from noticing the fact that the orange mare was now talking at him. “Y’all got a mighty fine nose fer' quality there, Mister,” she said. “Mmn, the irony of that statement is quite rich, ma'am,” he replied, giving a small chuckle, “But I find myself in agreement with you. This is quality fare you have here.” Taking the compliment with a wide smile, the pony boasted, “Best apples in Equestria! Grown right outside'a Ponyville, too; which is why we can afford ta' sell 'em for so cheap, an' all.” That's a sales pitch if I've ever heard one. Too bad I can't afford even her 'cheap' prices. Actually taking the time to look at the mare for the first time, he noted vaguely that she looked a bit like Apple Bloom. Same accent, too... Hmm... More specifically, she possessed a healthy orange coat, and sported a blond mane – funnily enough tied into a ponytail – and tail – also tied at the end –. Her eyes were a striking green, and she had three white... freckles on each cheek. Another trio adorned her flank, though this one was of apples, not strange white pony-freckles. Oh, and she was wearing a hat; an awesome cowboy hat. Only hat more awesome than that hat is a fedora. Giving her an amiable smile, Albus responded to her pitch with, “I'm sure, local food is always the best anyway. Unfortunately for us both, I'm a bit... hard up for cash at the moment, so I don't think I'll be able to buy anything from you,” he paused for a moment before adding, “Unless you accept services for goods, of course,” as an afterthought. Giving a shake of her head, the pony said, “No can do, pardner; bad for business.” She did, however, stop for a moment and then say, “But, Ah'll tell ya' what. Since you're obviously new 'round these parts, I'll give y'all a sample, on the house.” Before he could even reply, there was a warm apple fritter sitting atop the orange earth pony's outstretched hoof. Albus considered protesting for a moment, but... free food. And it looked pretty good, at that. So, of course, he took the apple based pastry in his claw and said, “Well, thank you miss...” “Call me Applejack,” she finished for him. Giving a mischievous grin, Albus continued his thanks with, “Well, then, thank you Miss 'Call me Applejack',” she rolled her eyes at that, but didn't say anything, “My name is Albus; Albus Vires. It's a pleasure.” He then attempted to hold his claw out for a shake, but forgot two things; that he was holding the fritter with one talon already and that he was no longer bipedal. The result was him floundering for a moment before landing chin-first on the ground; with a byproduct of Applejack trying and failing to contain her laughter. Pushing himself up into a standing position, he gave a slightly-less-than-amused chuckle and said, “Yeah, yeah, yuck it up.” Once Applejack had ceased laughing at his expense, the gryphon clamped his fritter in his beak and held out his claw again, thankfully not greeting the ground with his face again. Applejack seemed slightly perplexed at this gesture before apparently getting the gist of it and sticking out her hoof as well. Albus noted the barely perceptible tilt of her head as he grasped her hoof and shook it up and down, giving a muffled, “Nife to mee oo,” from behind the pastry in his mouth. After the apparently foreign gesture, Applejack opened her mouth to speak, but seemed to notice something out of the corner of her eye. Because of this, she paused, and then said, “Y'all enjoy that now, and come back fer' more when ya' can afford ta,” she gave a somewhat sheepish grin at this, and then said, “Ah gotta get back ta work now, these things ain't gonna sell 'emselves.” After Albus gave her a nod, she turned back to the crowd and started tending to the small line of somewhat impatient ponies that had accumulated some time during their conversation. Uh... oops. Sorry Applejack. Apple fitter still clamped firmly in his beak, the gryphon walked a small distance away to an also small bench. Sitting down on the bench much like how you would expect a human to, Albus noted that even though his body wasn't really made for sitting like this it wasn't all that uncomfortable. Though his wings felt a bit confined, at least his tail slipped through the space between the seat and backrest. Whilst eating the sample of Applejack's confections, he was fairly certain he heard a green unicorn say something along the lines of “Told you it isn't weird,” to her cream colored companion after seeing him on the bench. No, it's pretty weird, He thought to himself. The only reason he was even doing it was because he was used to it. Other than that slightly noteworthy event, the gryphon was more focused on trying to savor the taste of his treat than anything else. Which, unfortunately for him, meant that he didn't notice a bright pink pony notice him, gasp loudly, and speed off in a magnificent show of defying the laws of physics; which seems to be a common theme among ponies. After finishing his treat, which unfortunately he didn't really get to taste all that much of, even given his efforts; Albus hopped off the bench and, after a moments deliberation, headed towards the field he had first crossed in order to get to Ponyville. After some 30 minutes of walking and trying to find his way, he reached the sign which announced the Ponyville border, 'Come back soon!' it said cheerily. He followed the actual path out of town for a small while, then branched off into the snow covered field proper, a good few hundred yards out of the town. Yes, yes, this will do nicely. Clearing the snow as best he could in a rough circle, Albus pondered for a moment before deciding to start small. Flaring out his wings, he slowly started to beat them; he frowned a bit as he noted the muscle's slight protest from disuse. Regardless, he continued this pattern of slow motions until the stiffness was gone, and then started flapping more powerfully. He knew just flapping like this wasn't going to get him off the ground, but he felt the need to do a stretch of sorts; much like an athlete before a sprint. Funnily enough, even though he probably wasn't going to get off of the ground fully without jumping or something similar, he could still quite clearly feel the lift his wings were attempting to give him. While he was doing these 'stretches', he couldn't help but think about how strange moving his wings felt. Now that he was flapping with more force, the airfoils of his wings began altering his wings' paths ever so slightly; instead of simply going up and down, they were curving slightly. He could clearly feel his strong breast muscles pulling his wings about, and on particularly hard thrusts he could feel the ligaments straining on the keel in his chest.* Abruptly, he stopped. That's enough of that, he thought, Time to try and get off the ground. Gathering himself, he imitated his jump back at the library, crouching low to the ground like a cat about to pounce. With a small shake of his rump, he launched himself into the air; quite high, in fact. Knowing that if he landed without at least slowing his descent it would probably hurt like a bitch, Albus ignored the slight panic he felt at being up so high and began beating his wings. Again, his wings met air, and he was surprised to find himself hovering; for the most part at least. In the position he was in – what looked somewhat akin to him trying to stand bipedal in midair – he was pushing himself back slightly with every beat of his wings, and was very slowly descending back to the ground. Albus leaned forward in an attempt to level his flight, and mused briefly on how this might be easier for him if he had read that book on the dynamics of flight that he had borrowed from the library. Wait... books... SHIT! I left them at Fluttershy's! This train if thought distracted him from the task at hand, and he forgot to keep flapping. Needless to say, this was a bad thing, and the reaction was rather instantaneous. The weightless feeling of free fall snapped him out of his thoughts, and he quickly flapped his wings in an attempt to right himself. This, unfortunately for him, led to him going from 'standing upright' to 'laying on his back'; which, in case the reader was unaware, is normally a very bad position to be in while flying. Of course, that's normally, and Equestria scoffs at such ideas as 'normality'. Albus began to panic, thinking he had effectively screwed himself, but an urge in the back of his mind made him start flapping in a different manner. This led to him floating on his back in midair, wings flapping and trying not to piss himself. Fucking magic bullshit... Scared the shit out of me... he thought rather sourly, quite deliberately flapping his right wing harder than his left in order to flip himself. Thankfully, this worked and he was simply hovering in midair in no time. Making a mental note to go to Fluttershy's house sometime soon to grab his books, he began his attempts in forward motion. And, surprisingly, it worked. Mostly. More accurately, it worked, but he was only going forward at a snail's pace. Frowning, he tried flapping harder, but that only made him gain altitude, so he filed that tidbit away and tried something else. Eventually, he realized that in order to go forward he had to, quite obviously, lean forward; kind of like a helicopter. Duh. Experimenting with his new form of locomotion over some period of time, he found his range of motion to be very free formed; meaning that he could move just about however he wanted once he got the movements down. He tried not to think too hard about the fact that he was at least 20 feet off of the ground, and it didn't bother him; much to his relief. His first landing was... embarrassing, to say the least; and he was thankful that he had chosen to aim for a large snowdrift beforehand. Eventually he got both landing and taking off down to some extent, though; at the very least, he had most of the basics down. Eventually, he found himself hovering some hundred or so feet off of the ground, debating whether or not to try and land on the cloud below him. It was a strange cloud – as were the rest of them, come to think of it – and looked much more dense and together than a cloud on Earth; which were pretty much all wispy and... not-together if one got as close as Albus was to his current object of fascination. Giving a shrug, a feat in itself considering he was still flying, he promptly dropped onto the cloud with a small *fwoof*. Hmm... squishy... he thought as he kneaded the cloud with his claws. It was an odd feeling, very soft and squishy, but it had a rather high tension threshold; only tearing when he applied considerable force to it. Although... he thought, scratching at his chin, Dash did say that gryphons couldn't manipulate clouds as well as pegasus ponies, so I guess it's not too surprising. Checking the time, so to speak, he was moderately shocked when he noticed the sun was almost all the way to the horizon. Time flies... heheh, flies... Jumping off the cloud, he glided down to Ponyville – which came strangely naturally to him at this point – and landed once again in the square; this time thankfully not bowling over any hapless ponies. Oddly, there were very few ponies about. Given the fact that it was still pretty cold out (for them at least, Albus didn't really feel it), it wasn't too incredibly surprising that most ponies would be indoors; but there were very, very few ponies out at the time. To be specific, there were 3. And he couldn't help but notice that they kept glancing at him. Ignoring them, he took to air again after noticing there was nothing worth sticking around for, and headed to Fluttershy's to pick up his books. Hopefully without any awkward moments this time. Landing in front of her familiar domicile, he sighed when he noticed the lights were off and a note was on the door. Walking over to said door, he read the following: Albus, if you're reading this, then I'm currently at the library visiting Twilight Sparkle. I hope you don't mind, but I brought your books back for you; feel free to stop by if you want to get them back or just say hi. ~Fluttershy~ ...okay then. Might as well. Taking wing once more, he headed back to the large, unnatural tree-dwelling that Twilight and Ponyville's library resided in; noting that the ponies that kept staring at him were gone from sight now, leaving the square looking eerily deserted. He also noted that Twilight was looking of one of the first floor windows at the moment, and waved to him when she noticed him. Waving back, Albus landed in front of the weird hollowed out tree – thankful that no one had been there to notice his failed attempt of landing on a patch of ice – and entered the library. “SURPRISE!” came the ear-shattering welcome from the gathered ponies. Albus, upon being greeted like this, promptly gave another one of those undignified 'Squawk!'s and jumped some 10 feet into the air; barely managing to avoid landing on Twilight Sparkle and her uncomfortable looking horn. His reaction got a laugh from the crowd of assembled ponies, and Albus only had a moment to take it all in before his vision was suddenly filled with pink, white, and blue. “HI! My name's Pinkie Pie and I threw this party just for you! Do you like it? Were you surprised, huh huh huh? I'll bet you were, you jumped, like, super duper high and were all like-” Before she could imitate his already embarrassing exclamation, divine intervention appeared in the form of Rainbow Dash playfully shoving her out of his face, saying, “Geez, Pinkie, not even gonna let the guy enjoy his party for two seconds before you're all over him, huh?” at that, she turned to him and suddenly had a horrible grin on her face, continuing with, “You've just got the mares all over you today, don't you?” Okay, maybe not so much 'divine'. Albus attempted reply to that – noting thankfully that most of the other guests were already more focused on enjoying themselves than to bother paying attention to Pinkie's antics – but was interrupted by Twilight interjecting with, “Say what?” Clearing his throat loudly, he got trio's, no, actually, sextuplet's – as apparently Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy had joined their little debacle – attention as he turned to Pinkie and said, “Thank you, Ms. Pie (this got a giggle out of her) for the party,” he noted out of the corner of his eye the cheerful banner that said 'Welcome to Ponyville, Albus!' in bright lettering, before continuing with, “You certainly know how to make someone feel welcome.” “But... a little personal space would be nice,” he added as an afterthought, scooting a bit farther away from the pink pony. Taking a moment to observe said pony, he noted how apt her name was. Pink, pink and more pink. Her mane and tail were giant cotton candy messes in and of themselves, but her eyes were a rather nice shade of blue; those combined with her cutie mark of three various colored balloons were the only break that a body's eyes would get from the blindingly pink mass that was Pinkie Pie. Suddenly, Dash's foreleg was thrown over his shoulder, pulling him tightly into her with her saying, “Yeah, Pinkie. Haven't you heard of a personal bubble? Geez.” Albus could only sigh and shake his head as the rest of the group laughed. After Dash extricated herself from his person, not much outside of idle chitchat happened for a short while; that is, until Pinkie presented the rest of them with a plate of 7 cupcakes. Examining the frosted treats while Pinkie went on about how she made them in honor of Ponyville's newest arrival, Albus remembered from somewhere in the back of his mind that he generally didn't much like cupcakes; they were always nastily, sickly sweet to him. Way too much of a good thing. Picking up one of the proffered stark white cupcakes, he eyed the red sprinkles on the frosted top with a hint of distaste before figuring, Well, I don't have much for taste anymore anyhow. I doubt it'll be that bad. And, upon taking a bite from the sugary concoction, he found it was rather nice; a pleasant level of sweetness with a quite wonderfully moist bread in the middle. However, while he was enjoying the novelty of being able to taste something as clearly as he used to, he noted that, other than Pinkie – whose cupcake had disappeared down her gullet the second after he had taken his – the ponies were showing various levels of apprehension when attempting to take another bite, a frown gracing all of their faces. Rarity was the first to speak up, saying, “Pinkie, dear... It's not bad, per se, but it's rather...” she trailed off trying not to offend the party pony of the group. Applejack picked up for her with, “It's a might too sweet, Pinkie.” Pinkie seemed to contemplate this for a moment before saying, “Well, I did make them for Alby,” Albus could be heard groaning at this, “And I think I heard somewhere that gryphons can't really taste all that well, so I thought, 'If I make it super duper sweet, he'll be able to taste it just as much as we can!' but since I don't think there's a thing as 'A might too sweet',” she imitated Applejack's southern twang humorously here, but before she could continue her ramble Twilight interjected with, “I think we get the idea, Pinkie.” “Okie dokie lokie!” she replied cheerfully, evidently not perturbed in the slightest by being interrupted. “Well, Pinkie, I think it's rather nice of you to consider my tastes in this; no pun intended. And I have to say, the cupcake was pretty darn good,” Albus complimented her, trying not to think about how her smile was getting almost too big for her face. “Aww, gee, thanks Alby!” he winced at the repetition of that horrid nickname, but it seemed to have stuck, “You're really nice! Much nicer than that mean-meany-ol'-nasty-pants Gilda!” He was pretty sure he remembered Dash say that name, but given how she – and Fluttershy – had flinched a bit at the mention of it he decided not to open that potential can of worms for now. Rarity, being the social genius she is, picked up on the reactions as well and quickly changed the course of the conversation towards something along the lines of complimenting Pinkie's choice in the décor and some such. Admittedly, Albus wasn't paying attention to the conversation anymore; more inclined to space out and think about this 'Gilda' character. Another gryphon, perhaps? It would explain the comparison, that's for sure. Although, given how Dash and Fluttershy reacted to their name I doubt it would be a good idea to ask either one of them about it; a shame, given the fact that they're the two that I'm actually somewhat close to. His thoughts continued much like this for quite some time before he was snapped out of it in the form of something poking at the base of his wing. Albus let out a yelp as he felt the effects of someone touching such a... sensitive area, and upon further inspection he found a confused looking Pinkie staring at him, head cocked to the side. “What was that about? I just poked you and all of a sudden you were like,” she made a noise that wasn't even close to his embarrassing yelp before continuing with, “Anyway, I saw you were all spaced out and not listening and I thought that I would just leave you alone for a little bit because I like to think to myself sometimes too but then you were standing here for almost two hours and-” That was as far as she got before he blinked and asked, “Wait, two hours?” before looking out the window. Sure enough, the sun had already set, casting Ponyville into darkness. Pinkie's way of replying was to nod her head at roughly the speed of light while going, “Mhm!” Albus blinked again and simply said, “Right, thanks,” before turning his attention to the other guests. Or rather, the lack thereof. Pretty much every single pony that had been present for the party had already left, barring his group of 6, Spike (whom he had oddly not noticed until now) and some gray pegasus with blond hair and gold eyes. Gold eyes which were moving much like a chameleon’s. Strange. Regardless, this slightly derpy** looking mare left not 5 seconds after him noticing her, leaving only him, his friends, and the remnants of a party. Twilight could be heard sighing before she said, “I don't know why I let you hold these things here, Pinkie. There's always such a mess to clean up afterward!” Dash 'Psshaw'-ed and dismissed her bookish friend's complaints with a wave of her hoof, “C'mon Twi, it's not like you have to clean everything by yourself. You never have to clean it by yourself!” she said, inciting everyone present to start picking stuff up, and she spared the newest addition to the group a glance before smirking and adding, “Besides, this time you've got the big ol' lunk over there to help too.” Rolling his eyes at her comment, Albus merely started collecting the pile of streamers that had been near him. The rest of the cleanup with went mostly without incident, the only thing worth mentioning being when Pinkie accidentally tripped up Spike with her ridiculous tail, sending confetti flying everywhere from the dust pan. Other than that little incident, however, all had gone pretty much swimmingly. Upon completing the task at hand, Applejack and Rainbow Dash both said their farewells and headed out to get some sleep. Rarity stayed for a small while to make conversation, but not too long afterward left with a yawn to pick up Sweetie Belle from one 'Granny Smith's' care. This left just the four, which soon dwindled to three as Spike meandered upstairs to get some shuteye of his own. Albus was mostly concerned about his sleeping arrangements, given his lack of housing, and voiced it to Fluttershy who promptly said, “I'm sorry, Albus, I wish I could help, but I need to start setting up for the springtime; Winter Wrap Up is only three days away and I simply must get everything ready for my animal friends. Sorry to say, but with all the delicate devices and such I don't think it would be a good idea to have anypony who didn't know where everything was around the house; it could end very badly. That's not a problem is it?” As he was about to say that, no, it wasn't a problem, Twilight replied with, “Of course it isn't! He can stay here for the night!” she paused before saying, “Erm... that is, if you don't mind sleeping on the couch. I don't have any bedding prepared for the guest bed, so all I can spare is a blanket or two.” “That would work perfectly, Twilight,” Albus said before smiling wryly and saying, “Hopefully the inside of your house is more comfortable than the top of it.” This got a chuckle from Twilight and a look from Fluttershy that honestly made him want to wither up and die, but thankfully she didn't go full on 'Angry Mother Hen Mode' on him. Yet. Giving him another look, Fluttershy said, “Well, I suppose I'll be off then. Have a good night, you two.” And with that, she promptly exited the tree. Twilight and Albus both yawned at the same time, prompting the male of the two to chuckle before excusing himself to the bathroom. Gotta go gotta go gotta go right now, gotta go gotta go gotta go... After doing that, he returned to the main room to see that the couch had been made up as a bed of sorts, a single sheet, blanket, and pillow adorning the piece of furniture that was quite frankly almost too small for him. He noticed Twilight walking up the stairs and thanked her before they bid each other good night, leaving him by himself with only a lonely candle to provide him light. Blowing it out – he didn't really need it, after all – the albino gryphon bundled himself onto the couch; and even though it was a bit of a snug fit, he was quite comfortable. That is, until his stomach let known the fact that he had barely had anything to eat today. Ugh... Whatever. Too tired. Eat tomorrow. With that last thought in mind, the former human nodded off into a restful sleep.