As the moon coasted through the night sky of Canterlot, Clean Sweep let out a deep sigh of relief as his shift approached its end and the streets were nearly cleaned. As he finished sweeping up the last of the confetti from the huge parade earlier, he pondered what the parade had been like.
He didn’t get out nearly often enough, he recognized that. Not like anypony really expected him to. His work hours had made him quite the nocturne and his daytime was usually spent with the blinds drawn and his face down in a pillow.
He appreciated his work to some small degree. He had realized some time ago that if he didn’t take care of the everyday litter and such, nopony would voluntarily take up the job. He did not however, appreciate the pay. Not one bit.
His coworkers had never really met him, seeing as that they were so spread around the city. He had few friends otherwise. While he didn’t find it an amazing life, he figured it better than complete poverty. He’d seen a number of ponies in the alleyways of Canterlot, few of them looked like they’d eaten a decent meal in past months.
He was snapped out of his thoughts by a sound a short ways down the road. His ears pitched towards the sound and he soon recognized it as the sound of wheels. Upon turning towards it, he found a rather worn-looking cart being pulled in a bit of a rush.
“Watch it, you bozos! I’m working here!” he yelled as the cart sped by him, wheels kicking up loose pebbles and debris. “What has them in such a hurry?”
He watched the cart go and shook his head, turning back to the streets to make sure he didn’t have anything more to clean. Luckily for him, the only thing to fall out was a small box; something he could worry about carrying to wherever the cart was off to after a good day’s sleep.
He dropped the broom onto the pavement and picked up the box with care. He placed the box into his bag, grabbed the broom, and slowly set off to his house, making sure to bounce as little as possible. He was pretty sure that anything fragile would have already broken, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
His house wasn’t far from where he had ended for the night, thankfully. As he entered, he placed the broom on a rack that organized all of his other various cleaning tools. It took Sweep a little while to find a place to set the box down, seeing as that there were few furnishings around the house that could.
He grabbed a small screwdriver from his kitchen drawer and plopped down into a chair. The tool, thankfully, was small enough to enter through the miniscule keyhole and tinker about. It was after several minutes of coaxing and turning that the lock finally clicked open.
He opened the lid to the box with the sort of anxiety one would have if they had found a treasure chest. He stopped and shut the lid as he tried to imagine what the contents might be worth. It could be some sort of jewelry box, in which case his gambling would be well sustained.
He peered into the box once more, closing his eyes at first to increase the drama of the moment.
His eyes widened, as did his smile. Inside was a simple, ivory pendant with a cut sapphire in the middle. A pair of wings were situated at the sides of the circular ivory, almost giving off the appearance that it could indeed fly by itself.
Sweep was going to be rich. There was no sense in denying it. Who wouldn’t pay top bit for a piece of jewelry like this? In his mind, it was the most beautiful piece of fashion to ever grace his vision.
Despite having no education in dancing whatsoever, he began to do a victory shimmie next to his kitchen table. His next week at the slots was going to be more fruitful than ever with this new luck.
“I love you!” Sweep said as he kissed the pendant repeatedly all over its sapphire. He did not notice that the gem had begun to glow faintly with an inner light. “You are a life saver! No, a life changer! I’m going to get back to those slots and cards and turn my life around!”
After several minutes of exorbitant kissing and cheering, Sweep had finally worn himself out and sobered up from his excitement. He checked the clock in the living room and saw that it was quickly approaching four in the morning.
“Time to hit the hay,” he said with a yawn. He gazed at the ivory pendant one more time, admiring its superb craftsmanship and gleam. Without necessarily thinking, he took the pendant by its supporting wire necklace and put it around his neck. “I think I might wear you to sleep, you're so beautiful.”
Sadly, this was never to be. The pendant shined with the brilliance of burning magnesium, causing Sweep to avert his gaze. The room became a lightshow of white and blue, dancing around the walls in a sort of spectral waltz.
The pendant latched itself into the middle of Sweep’s midsection, bringing a chill to his skin not unlike that of a blizzard. With a yelp, he fell on his sides and began rolling around as if he were on fire. His chest met the floor with force in the middle of his rolling and he could hear a minute crack come from the pendant.
The frigid fire did not cease, but the brilliant lights began to flicker in and out of existence. He felt unimaginably tired from what he was going through, oddly enough. The pain from the pendant coaxed him further and further into sleep.
“Ow. Ow ow ow,” Sweep repeated as he felt every cubic centimeter of his body simultaneously cramp. “Muscles, why do you betray me? Is it because I don’t work out? I thought you’d be happy with that arrangement.”
Sweep could already tell that standing up wasn’t going to be on his to-do list for a little while. He lay spread out on the floor, waiting for the occasional spasming to die down. After a minute or two, he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and scanned the room. Light passed through the drawn blinds with blinding brilliance, signifying midday.
“I hate waking up early,” he said, standing himself up. “I didn’t even sleep well. Stupid freaky magic amulet- wait, the amulet!”
He looked all over his chest where he had last worn it, yet there was no such jewelry there. He searched on and below the table, finding nothing still. He checked the floor behind him and found a small pile of white and blue dust with a necklace wire buried within.
“No no no,” Sweep said in disbelief. “Oh sweet- oh no! You were my ticket out of here! I can’t sell this…” He hung his head in defeat, denied of his fantasies of grandeur and inexplicable wealth. He hung his head low enough for his forhead to embrace the floor.
Oddly enough, something stopped him on the trip down; a protrusion previously unnoticed hit the floor first. He felt a slight jolt of discomfort, as if someone had just splashed a tooth cavity with ice water.
He drew up from his position to rub his head. His hoof me the protrusion and scaled up until he met its rounded peak. A horn.
“What in the world?” He scrambled to find a mirror and ended up in the bathroom. He scanned his head and confirmed his suspicions. A unicorn horn was placed neatly in the middle of his forehead. “What in the world?”
He examined the newest addition from all angles, turning his head to ensure that this wasn’t some sort of illusion. During his impromptu inspection, he spotted something in his peripheral vision. He rotated himself ninety degrees to get a better look from the mirror.
“Wings?!” As he yelled, his right wing flared out to full size in response to his surprise. He looked over to his left and cried out again, causing that one to extend to full size as well. He tried to bring them back to their folded position, but had no idea how to move them.
He began reaching back to manually bring them under control, but he couldn’t quite reach them. As he turned about the enclosed space, he knocked over most of his toiletries onto the floor. The wings, oddly enough, resettled on their own after several minutes of Sweep’s failed attempts.
“I’m just going to get the newspaper,” he sighed. He was officially overstimulated to the point of dispassion. “Then sleep this off like a bad hangover. Maybe this’ll be gone by then.”
Wishing for noone to see him, he opened the front door, grabbed the lone newspaper on the step, and shut it in a second. He sighed as he slumped down and propped himself up against the door, unfolding the newspaper to see the front page.
“‘Burglary in Canterlot!’” he read aloud. “‘Late last night, the Canterlot Museum of Antique Artifacts was broken into by a group of three ponies. The group was apprehended by officials an hour later...’ yadda yadda yadda ‘...numerous priceless artifacts were stolen...’ blah blah blah ‘one of which was the Alicorn Amulet itself.’”
Sweep paused and reread the passage.
“‘...the Alicorn Amulet grants the wearer the power equal to or less than any alicorn in existence. Use of the amulet has been strictly forbidden due to an incident in Ponyville that took place several months ago. The curators’ only description of the amulet as having ‘a fiery gem placed in the middle of a material the color of Death itself with wings on both ends’. Though the artifacts were taken from the thieves, some of the artifacts are missing. The Alicorn Amulet has yet to be accounted for.”
Sweep’s eyes widened as he finished the paragraph. There was no other possible explanation; he had found the Alicorn Amulet.
“And broke it.” He finished his thought aloud. “Oh no. I'm going to get locked up for sure.”
“Maybe not.” his inner voice said.
“I’m pretty sure everypony is going to notice a new alicorn walking around and connect the dots from there.”
“It never says that the amulet makes the wearer into an alicorn. Besides, you’re not wearing it.”
“I guess so. But what if somepony notices, regardless?”
“Maybe they’ll think that you’re part of the royal family?”
“They’ll know that I’m- well…” Sweep pondered the thought. “Nopony really knows me, now that I think about it.”
“They’ll treat you like they would the royal family. No one will be the wiser, except the princesses.”
“Yeah, I’m right! I could milk this for a while. Then find a way to fix this, of course.” Sweep nodded with newfound confidence. “Thanks for that. Didn’t know that I talked to myself, though.”
“You don’t.”
“Thanks for the clarification,” he said. “Now that I know I’m going crazy, I’m going to try and get some beauty sleep in.”
“You don’t need it with that complexion.”
"Oh stop it, you.”