The early February chill had descended, bringing with it a thin film of frost and ice upon the streets, making them doubly perilous for pedestrians and drivers alike in the small yet crowded seaside town. The university town was crawling with students trekking up and down the hill to their seminars all the year round, regardless of the consistently abysmal weather conditions, but at this particular time of the year such journeys were perilous.
One such student currently was lounging in one of the campus’ cafés, sipping idly at a freshly made cup of tea. He (for it was a he) was rather short for his age, barely brushing five foot three- a point of malcontent for many years. His hair was a dark brown and fairly long, brushing just past his shoulders. He wore a simple pair of jeans, a band t-shirt, along with a black fleeced coat and a thick scarf for the icy weather. His name was John Lane.
Sighing, the young man checked his phone. No messages, which meant his friends were either very fashionably late or had decided to ditch him completely. They could have least let him know before he had to wait so long! Oh well, he thought. Another time then. Gulping down the rest of his beverage, wincing as it scalded the roof of his mouth, he exited the café and made his way home. John lived only a short ways from the campus, and there was nifty shortcut behind the back of the town hospital. The house he was renting out was rather large, at the cost of having to share it with three other people. Humming a tune to himself as he turned the keys in the lock, he entered and bustled himself into the kitchen. Looked like no-one else was in. Quickly pouring himself a glass of water, he headed upstairs to his room.
Said bedroom was fairly typical of a university student’s room- though perhaps cleaner than most. A single bed rested against one wall, along with a desk (upon which his laptop and assorted miscellanea lay). A chest of drawers adorned the wall opposite the bed, next to a walk in wardrobe housing all his clothes and assorted other items. Shelves rested on the walls, adorned with pictures of family, ornaments, figurines, and a hefty collection of DVDs and games. The remaining wall space between the wardrobe and the window was a large bookcase containing a wide array of titles, primarily fiction, though also some material relating to his course and a few other interesting non-fiction works. His walls were plastered with posters of various things- mostly video game or band related. Inside the walk in wardrobe, lay a box containing a television and Xbox system. He’d been meaning to set it up somewhere, but there wasn’t really any space left, and they didn’t have a TV licence.
Yawning and stretching, he removed his jacket and tossed it carelessly on the bed- he’d put it away properly later. He booted up the laptop, deciding the see what was up with the world today. He idly checked a YouTube channel he was subscribed to, and saw they had updated with quite a long video, so he decided to check it out…
~
Luna paced her chambers restlessly. She had awoken nearly 5 hours ago to raise the Moon, and bid goodnight to her sister. The Night Court had begun swiftly, and she had spent her time bored out of her skull, addressing the requests of her subjects. She was still getting the hang of things- reintegrating into modern society was proving more difficult than she had expected, and she had only been back for a couple of months. Many things had changed in a thousand years. Canterlot castle, for example, simply had not existed. The capital city itself had, certainly, but in those days the Diarchy ruled from the now ruined castle in the Everfree, which had become extremely wild and untamed since she had last seen it- a result of the magical backlash from the intense battle that had taken place. The nearby settlement of Ponyville, where the Element Bearers now resided, had not existed either. There were many new scientific advancements, both technologically and magically. Oh, and apparently using the traditional Royal Canterlot Voice to address the subjects had fallen out of favour. Ridiculous…
Such issues she could get used to, no matter how inconvenient. However, since awakening she couldn’t help but feel particularly uneasy about something. There was something she couldn’t quite place her hoof on…as the Princess of the Night, part of her soul was always within the Moon and Stars, guiding them, just as a piece of Celestia resided within the Sun. Her Domain felt…charged, almost like an electric current. It felt like it was…expecting something? She couldn’t fathom it. And so she had ordered a brief recess from debating the finer points of the controversial Fritter Tax, and retired to her quarters.
For a brief moment she had feared the seal on Discord was weakening, but that wasn’t it- the Draconequus’ chaotic influence had a unique and memorable ‘flavour’ of magic, and this was not it. Besides, he had not shifted from his stone prison in nearly five millennia, and she didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Luna struggled to place the foreign influence. She could think of no living being other than herself, Celestia and Discord with the power to affect the heavens. Maybe Cadence, if she proved to be a true natural born Alicorn in a few years and not the slightly more common but less potent Winged Unicorn. Perhaps even Twilight, if certain schemes her sister had in place bore fruit (though she had severe doubts about that). The only other being would be…the Nightmare, which of course was vanquished by the Elements of Harmony. Luna involuntarily shuddered at recalling that particularly personal foe, but it gave her pause. The Nightmare was a creature without true form or substance, parasitic in nature. When Luna was at her most emotionally vulnerable a thousand years prior, it had reached out to her from the darkness, whispering lies and false promises in her ear until she was no longer recognisable to the general populace.
Even now, she and her sister were uncertain as to the creature’s true origins or motives. It had been purged from her body…but could such a being be truly killed? Had it retreated into the void, biding its time until it could seek round two? Perhaps even now it sought a new host…
Feeling more troubled than before, she stepped out onto her balcony overlooking the city. Even at this late hour, lights twinkled from down below, primarily from the nightclub area on the east side. Luna continued to be pleasantly surprised at all the new ways ponies had come up with to enjoy the night, though she personally preferred quieter alternatives, as evidenced by her balcony’s haphazard collection of books and stargazing equipment- although the latter was somewhat redundant given her position, she did enjoy viewing the heavens from the viewpoint of her subjects.
With a sigh, she glanced across to the tower across from her own, where her sister rested. As to be expected, there were no lights. Celestia was the type of pony to work late and rise early, but even she wouldn’t be up at this hour often. Alicorns could go for many days without rest, but having pulled double shifts for the previous millennium, the Sun Princess was entitled to a bit of extra naptime. Luna, on the other hand, had done nothing for a thousand years but rest, both physically and mentally, imprisoned in her own body (Both Mortal and Celestial). Finally freed, she was imbibed with the need to do things, to act, but very little opportunity to do so. The past three months had been split between frantically cramming as much knowledge of the new modern world into her head as possible, and formally reintegrating herself into the political system. There was much progress to be made on both accounts. One issue she was hoping to solve as soon as possible was to retrain some guards.
Traditionally the two Princesses had always had a faction of guards each, one to pull dayshifts, and the other the night. Similarly, in the olden days they both had their own elite Air Squadron of Pegasi, the Wonderbolts and the Shadowbolts, who were both elite military officers and aerial stunt teams. Competitive events were often held which the general public could attend, drawing large crowds and even larger growth for the economy. Now though, only the Wonderbolts were still in operation.
It would be some time before that would change though- the paperwork alone could take a year to get through at the rate the Council bumbled around! A thousand years passed, but politicians were still as ineffectual as ever.
Huffing, Luna glanced once more to her inky black canvas. It held no answers to her earthly concerns, nor to its own erratic behaviour.
Nearly a quarter of an hour gone by. Just as she was resigning herself to return to the throne room, Luna paused as she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. High in the sky, she could make out an object rapidly falling through the atmosphere…
~
Something had gone seriously wrong. The person he was subscribed to must have been hacked, or developed an untimely poor sense of humour. Upon clicking the link that should have taken him to the video page, John’s laptop had begun making worrisome whirring and beeping noises, the screen lighting up in a kaleidoscope of flashing colours. Good thing I’m not epileptic, he thought, and then frowned as he realised that someone else falling for the same trick might suffer more than just a messed up computer. The moment I get this fixed, I’m reporting that guy…assuming my computer CAN be fixed. Urgh, and I had so much stuff on there…
He was brought out of his thoughts as the screen flared up even brighter than before, engulfing the room in a bright luminescence, causing his eyes to sting and water, followed by the screen blinking to black and becoming silent. That was the least of concerns though- in synchronisation with the laptops bizarre behaviour, the entire building gave a sudden powerful lurch, throwing the puzzled male toward the wall with a strangled yell. There was a shrieking of metal being ripped apart by some great force, and the lights in the room fizzled out of existence.
The confused, bruised and dazed student found himself pinned to the wall, experiencing a powerful g-force. Outside, he saw not the overcast grey of a winter afternoon, but the dark void of night haphazardly painted with a swirl of stars and nebulae, rapidly accelerating past the window in a blur. Somehow…he was falling, and falling fast. Overcome by shock and fear, he passed unconscious, still stuck to the wall even as all of his belongings tumbled dangerously in the enclosed space.
~
It was a house.
Luna gazed upon it incredulously, momentarily frozen. Something about the earthbound object had piqued her curiosity, and she had flown out to investigate, her powerful wings accelerating her skyward at a speed that only a Wonderbolt or Rainbow Dash could hope to best. It was too small to be a comet or meteorite, and lacked the heat trail that most space debris falling through the atmosphere were characterised by, which implied that the object in question was not from space at all, which had drawn her interest.
What greeted her was certainly not what she was expecting. The abode looked to consist of two floors plus an attic, roughly one and a half times larger than the average Ponyville household, seemingly constructed for beings somewhat taller than ponies. The architecture was similar to modern Manehatten styles of building, though curiously it lacked any form of chimney, and instead had a curious spindly metal device attached to the roof that served no obvious purpose. Several thousand feet up, there was nowhere for it to have originated from. Around the base it had uprooted the surrounding ground, a mesh of dirt and concrete, along with a bunch of severed pipes and wires that must have supplied the place with water and electricity. It was as if someone had plucked it off the ground and tossed it into the air carelessly.
Bringing herself out of her stupor, Luna reminded herself that houses tended to have occupants, and unless she acted swiftly they were about to meet a messy end. Gliding next to the rapidly descending building, she concentrated and wrapped it in a protective sheen of magical energy, delaying its appointment with the ground significantly. Already they had travelled some distance from the capital, the dim streetlights of Ponyville visible below. Idly Luna noted that she was late for court. It could wait.
As gently as she could, she guided the house onto the banks of a hill about a five minutes walking distance from the outskirts of town. A few ponies who were staying up very late (or rising very early, perhaps) gazed in awe as she flew overhead, carrying her prize. The house settled rather lopsidedly on the grass due to its oddly shaped base of earth, stone and metal. Luna charged a minor terraforming spell, shifting the earth of the hill to merge around the offending irregularities, so that the building at least stood at the proper angle.
With a crisis averted, Luna peered cautiously at the structure. Other than the severing of the pipes and wires, it did not appear to have suffered any significant structural damage. Warily she approached the front door, and found it unlocked. Interesting. The interior had not fared so well; she found herself in a hallway, with stairs leading to the next floor on her left, and a corridor ahead. Two doors adorned the right wall, while ahead a doorless arch led into what appeared to be a kitchen. One door led to some kind of living room, with two sofas, a dining table, an armchair, several small side tables, and a curious boxlike object with a screen. All of these objects had been tossed around ruthlessly, and the device had rather large cracks across its surface.
The kitchen fared little better. Most of the shelving and cupboards were built into the walls, as was the oven, but their contents had been thrown all over the place. A fridge rested on its side, door ajar amidst a pile of canned goods with labels in an unknown language. An inspection of the fridge revealed the resident of this place to be omnivorous, evidenced by both a stock of fruits, vegetables and cheeses along with packaged, cut meat. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Luna moved back into the hallway and tried the other door. Locked. Next she ascended the stairs, finding herself on a landing with 4 other doors and little else. The first two she tried were locked also. The third led to a spacious bathroom, which had also fallen prey to a disarray of objects littering the floor, mostly toiletries. The fourth room…was especially interesting.
It was clearly a bedroom, with all manner of furniture and personal effects strewn about. Unconscious on the floor was a creature completely alien to the Princess. It appeared to be bipedal, and she estimated that standing at its full height it would be half a head taller than her. Its head was topped by a brown mane, but otherwise its skin was bare and pinkish. Its face was mostly flat, with a short stubby protrusion that appeared to be its nose. It had hands, with five digits whose ends were not tipped with claws as she expected but a blunt covering of hard material. The rest of its body was obscured by clothing.
Gingerly, she poked it with a hoof, eliciting no response. She was rather at a loss as to what do. In all her many years of life, she had never seen anything like this creature. It certainly appeared to be civilised, and she was fairly confident that Celestia would have informed her of a new civilisation emerging in the world during her 1000 year…absence. Where on Equis had it come from?
The mystery being did not appear to be in good shape- the fall had clearly tossed him around like a ragdoll, and the splintered remains of a desk lay across him. He was at the very least badly bruised- possibly suffering from internal damage. She bit her lip. Healing magic had never been her forte…her skills lay mainly in enchantment, illusions and combat magic. She needed to get this fellow to the nearest hospital- Ponyville General. Carefully, she levitated the debris off the creature’s body, before gently encasing him in her aura, lifting him off the ground. His arms and legs hung limply at his sides.
“Worry not, stranger,” She muttered more to herself than anything. “We will not allow further harm to befall thee so long as thou art within Our borders.”
Focussing her magic briefly, she warped the space around them, reappearing in the hospital reception with a burst of light, her charge still floating behind her. The mare pulling night shift let out a startled gasp, nearly falling off her chair from behind the welcoming desk.
“P-princess Luna! This is most irregular…” she stammered, surreptitiously sliding her copy of Muscle Manes Weekly out of view with a blush. Her eyes focussed on the second guest in the room. “Ah, forgive me for being nosy, Your Highness, but what IS that thing?”
“I am afraid we are as confounded as thou…er, you are, good nurse, as to the identity of this creature.” Luna informed her, restraining herself from dipping into her outdated vocabulary. “It is a most curious thing…the whole tale can wait, however- it has been most unpleasantly thrown around and knocked unconscious, so I thought it best to bring it to those with medical experience.”
“Hmm…well we mostly know about ponies, not animals…although the veterinary doesn’t operate at night and I’m fairly certain Fluttershy would not appreciate being disturbed at this hour. We’ve only got one doctor in the building at the moment- I’ll go fetch him. Err, in the meantime could you please place it on one of those gurneys, Your Highness?” She asked timidly while gesturing to a group of said devices lined up against the wall, her professionalism clearly clashing with the fact that she was essentially giving orders to royalty.
Luna nodded, and levitated the creature onto a gurney as the nurse dashed off through a set of double doors. She only had to wait a few minutes before the nurse returned with the doctor, a creamy-yellow unicorn stallion with a short brown mane, his cutie mark obscured by a lab coat. A pair of glasses perched on his nose, and an identifying label on his coat read ‘Doctor Stable’.
His eyes widened as he saw the patient. “My goodness…what a bizzare looking thing!” He turned to the Princess.
“Regardless, I can sure you that it is in capable hooves, Your Highness. It does looks a bit roughed up but I’m sure it’s nothing too serious.”
Luna nodded. “Then we shall take our leave. We will return in the morning to check on things, and speak with the creature. In the meantime, we have business to attend to.” With that, she teleported into the town square, which at this time of night was silent as the grave.
“Hm…”she mused to herself aloud. “I should inform Twilight Sparkle of this development…and the Mayor as well. But I don’t want to wake them at this hour, and a note may not convey the situation fully…”
“Ooh, ooh, that’s an easy one! You just get somepony to pass on a message!” Luna gasped and swivelled round, her heart thumping in her chest at the sudden arrival of another. A pink pony with an extremely poofy magenta mane stood there with a huge, friendly grin on her face, seemingly oblivious to her faux pas of eavesdropping and sneaking up on others. “It sure would be a convenient solution if somepony who personally knew the pony you want to send a message to just happened to turn up out of nowhere!” Said pony continued happily. “But really, what are the odds of that?”
Recognition sparked in Luna’s mind. “Ah…Pinkie Pie, the bearer of the Element of Laughter, yes?” She asked uncertainly.
“That’s me!” Pinkie exclaimed, following up with a giggle that was almost a snort. “And you’re Princess Luna! You used to be super evil and scary and then we all ran into the Everfree forest and found some cool necklaces that shoot rainbows all PEW PEW and then we made you good and nice again!” She didn’t pause to take a breath once. “Heeeey, you look kind of different! Your coat is a darker blue and your hair is sort of all shimmery like Princess Celestia’s and also you’re taller than before! Are you a shapeshifter or something? Can you teach me? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anypony your secret.”
Flabbergastered, Luna attempted to regain some control of the situation. “Er…nay Miss Pie, We are no shapeshifter…” (She decided that being able to disguise herself with illusions did not count). “This is closer to Our natural appearance…Our purification at the hands of the Elements of Harmony left Us quite magically drained, and Our power is slowly returning us.”
Pinkie beamed happily, lightly bouncing in place. “Aw shucks, you don’t have to call me ‘Miss Pie’- just call me Pinkie! All my friends do!”
Luna hesitated. “All of your…friends?” She felt a tightness in her chest. “We are…friends?”
“Sure we are! There aren’t many things that ponies can do together that DOESN’T result in them being friends, and defeating an evil meanie spirit that possesses ponies isn’t one of them!”
Luna allowed herself a small smile. “Very well then…We would very much like it to be your friend, Pinkie.”
“Woohoo!” Pinkie cheered exuberantly, causing Luna to wince as several lights switched on in nearby houses, disgruntled ponies peering out of windows to see what all the fuss was about. “Friend GET!” She yelled, pumping her hoof into the air.
“Pinkie,” Luna started when the bright pink party pony had calmed down. “We have to depart now for Canterlot. We shall return on the morrow, but in the meantime, We would request that you pass on a message…”
~
Twilight was known to be an early riser. She was also known to be a strict follower of routine. Every morning at six thirty AM, her alarm clock would let loose its shrieking wail, prompting her to leap out of bed and ruthlessly smash the accursed thing against the floor with her magic, before reluctantly repairing it and placing it back on her bedside table, ready for another gruelling battle tomorrow. Spike would groan sleepily from his basket, still half-asleep and mumbling about some dream (which usually involved either Rarity, gems, ice cream, or some combination of the above. She dreaded when he would inevitably hit puberty). She would give him a grace period of ten minutes as she made toast and coffee downstairs, reading over her self-assigned schedule for the day. If he had not arisen voluntarily, she would forcibly extract him herself, much to his displeasure. Ten minutes for her draconic assistant to join the land of living and feed himself, fifteen minutes to triple-check the checklist to make sure she didn’t miss anything when she double-checked the checklist, and then half an hour’s cleaning and setup before opening the library to the public at seven thirty.
Twilight was known to be an early riser…out of self-discipline, not natural inclination. She HATED mornings.
Which is why she was less than impressed when her alarm was not the only thing in her bedroom making borderline-demonic noise at absurd hours in the morning.
“Woooo, woooo, woooo! Time to wake up Twilight! You got a biiiiiig day ahead of you, sister!” Twilight had to hand it to Pinkie, she had a powerful set of lungs, her voice all but drowning out the shrieking alarm which was currently being enthusiastically tossed in the air repeatedly by the bright pink pony as she bounced on the spot with such frequency and fervour that Twilight was concerned her friend was about to undergo metamorphosis into a commercially viable fusion reactor. Pinkie also had a remarkable talent for forcibly entering property and sneaking into the bedrooms of her friends while they were sleeping.
Groaning, Twilight crawled out of bed, plucking the infernal device out of Pinkie’s clutches, forgoing magic out of the desire for senseless, cathartic destruction as she threw the offending object on the ground with fury, applying enough violence behind her throw that it shattered in a kaleidoscopic explosion of glass, wood and clockwork, sharp fragments of expensive timepiece spinning wildly under the bed, into the floorboards and embedding themselves in the ceiling. A particularly kinetic shard sliced a piece of Pinkie’s bubblegum-esque hair clean off as it flew past before crashing out of the window, showering the street below in a storm of jagged, broken glass. The chunk of magenta hair bounced along the floor before coming to rest in front of the still asleep Spike, who instinctively grasped it in his stubby claws and pulled it to his chest in a tight embrace.
“Pinkie…why. Why do you do this.” It wasn’t so much a question as a cry for help.
“Because silly, I’m here to give you a super important message from the Princess!” Pinkie explained cheerfully, completely unphased by Twilight’s grumpiness.
At this, Twilight’s mood brightened considerably, her ears perking up in interest. “Princess Celestia? But…why wouldn’t she send a message via Spike if it were important? How did she tell you…is she in town?”
Pinkie shook her head and clucked her tongue as if trying to explain simple concepts to a young child. “Not Celestia silly- Princess Luna! I was up late last night and I saw her in the town square and stopped to talk to her! She said that she saw a house fall from the sky and in the house was an alien but the alien was hurt which is really sad so she took it to the hospital and he’s there right now aaaaaand she thought you should know because you’re really science-y and stuff and you’re Celestia’s student and because a new species is apparently a really big deal!”
Twilight groaned and rubbed at her eyes blearily. Princess Luna? A falling house? An alien?
“Before I do anything else,” she muttered, making her way to the stairs. “I’m getting a coffee…”
“Oooh ooh, can I have one! I take mine with 10 sugars please!”
“Of course you do…”
It was going to be a long day.