Chapter 1: Good news, bad news, and lots of glazing
Figment
At two o'clock in the afternoon, a dark blue pegasus arrived at a specific and memorable tree in Stalliongrad Central Park. This place had always been as close to a sanctuary as he had ever been able to find. Sitting under the tree's generous shade, the pegasus sat his bag at his side and adjusted his black vest. Taking a deep breath of the fresh park air, pulled his pocket watch out of his vest and checked the time. He had about three hours until he needed to start heading home to cook dinner. With this in mind, he reached into his bag and procured his most prized possessions: an enchanted tome that never ran out of blank pages, and a silver pen that was enchanted to have endless ink.
The pegasus began to write, but was interrupted by another pegasus calling down from a nearby cloud, "Hey Figment! When are ya gonna figure out that books are the wimpy unicorn's jobs?"
Figment sighed inwardly at the mind blowing ignorance of the question. "Considering the fact that, by accepting the idea behind your question as truth, I would have to deal with you and countless other dolts like you... I'd have to say never." At that, he went back to his writing.
He'd always been an anomaly when it came to "being a pegasus." Figment was not an athlete. It wasn't that he lacked the ability, but that the prospect of being one simply never appealed to him. He fancied himself as more of a philosopher; it was all too fitting of his coat's near prefect impression of a starless night sky. Philosophy, to him, was all an act of perception; a trick between the views posed by society and the views of the individual. It was his job to examine both and, from that, discern the truth, hence the prismatic eye that adorned his flank.
Within minutes the author was so engrossed in his work that he failed to no
tice the violet pink puff that had just phased into existence with a slight "pop." It floated just behind him for a few moments then seemingly inflated to a spherical cloud about twice the size of Figment's head. Suddenly, a bright almost irritatingly orange unicorn fell from the cluster with a thud with the cloud resting proudly on top of his head.
"OHMYGOSHFIGMENTIHAVEGOODNEWSANDBADNEWSWHICHONEDOYOUWANTFIRST?!" The strange colt said.
Figment didn't even turn around to look at his colleague as he calmly responded, "Both at the same time."
The unicorn reached into his afro and triumphantly retrieved a tape recorder. "I thought you might say that."
He pushed play and began to speak along with the recording. The noise that ensued probably couldn't be passed
off as language, and many of the bystanders were looking over to the sudden influx of sound that had just taken place.
When the gibberish ceased, Figment turned to face his comrade with a small smile. "Okay, Spazz, you win. What's the news?"
"Well... the bad news is that we may have been evicted from the apartment."
Figment remained unimpressed, "What...Again? What did you do this time?"
"I think the 'Taco Tuesday' incident was the last straw."
"That would make sense, I'm still finding corn chips in places I never knew I had."
The unicorn's broad smile remained unbroken, "The good news is that I met this one dapper guy in a tuxedo, I think he was a secret agent or something, but he gave me a great deal on some doughnuts! Three bits for a dozen! He was very suave."
At that, he proudly reached into his mane and retrieved a pink box that was assumed to contain said pastries. "Well," Figment said with a shake of his head, "It's good to know your priorities are straight."
After a moment of silence a sudden realization hit the dark pegasus, "Wait, wasn't that the last complex in the city
we hadn't been banned from?"
"Yep." Spazz chirped, clearly not seeing a problem with this.
It wasn't the first time they'd had to leave a city for something like this. In all honesty, it wasn't even the fifth time.
After a moment of thought, Figment looked to his colleague again, "How many cities have we be-"
"Twelve and a half." Spazz immediately replied.
"Twelve and a half?" the pegasus asked, confused, "How does the half work?"
"Remember Manehattan with the whole-"
"Ugh, don't remind me"
"Want a doughnut?"
With a sigh, Figment accepted the pastry. If I'm going to have to find a new house, I may as well have eaten first.
He sat down to begin eating. Spazz had apparently eaten already, he began bouncing around and humming some
unknown tune.
Figment looked up at his friend once the doughnut was consumed and asked, "Where do you think we should go
now?"
Spazz inexplicably stopped in midair, seeming to ponder the question. "Where can we go for free?" He wondered
aloud.
"Why would it need to be free?"
Spazz rolled his eyes, "Because I spent all our bits on doughnuts... DUH."
For the first time he could remember, Figment found himself furious at the impulsive unicorn. Usually, he was able to put up with his hijinks, but had simply gone too far. "EXCUSE ME?!"
Spazz was unfazed by this uncharacteristic display, "I spent all the money!!" he shouted, extending his
forelegs to each side.
"Where are we supposed to live, and how are we going to cover other costs?!"
"Huh," the unicorn said in a thoughtful tone, "Let me thiiiiiinnnnn-OHMAHGOSHIDEA!"
While hesitant to listen to another one of Spazz's... unique... ideas didn't appeal to him, Figment decided it
couldn't hurt to hear him out on this. "Let's have it."
"Mah famileh can help meh!"
"I thought they you shunned, and said to never come anywhere near them... ever."
"Most of them did, yeah," Spazz said, his optimism suddenly wavering, then his head perked up again, “But one of my cousins never did! She's really nice! There was this one time, at hearth's warming eve where I was playing with her in the snow and..."
The rambling story faded into the background as Figment thought about the idea. Until now, all he knew about his colleague’s family was that they had been very judgmental and intolerant of the unicorn's eccentric ways. Most ponies were, as well. There had been several occasions where the pegasus had been asked how he dealt with it, and his response was always the same: He may not be the smartest, he may not have the best judgment, and he may not be quiet or still for more than a few seconds at a time; but he has one thing that makes him indispensable to me: Creativity. It didn't hurt that, once you got used to it, he also had a way of making almost any situation entertaining in some way or another.
Perhaps this cousin of his saw the same things in him that I see. If she did, it would give me a lot more time alone. Even I need my peace sometimes.
"...And then she said 'Those weren't nachos, they were poisonous jelly!' and boy was my face red!" Spazz
concluded his story.
Jarred from his inner monologue Figment addressed his friend, "Alright, we don't really have any other options. Where does she live?"
"A small town called Ponyville."
"Why does every city have to have some sort of equine pun or something in the name?" This had been bothering the author for quite some time, "Is it just to remind us what sort of creature we are? We all know we're horses, why can't we just name a place for something besides that?"
"Because we're ponies... that's just how we roll." Spazz crossed his front legs in a mock 'rapper' pose to
emphasize that last point.
Another defeated sigh, "I assume you already have our things packed away for the trip, somehow."
Spazz gestured to his mane "You betcha!"
Nopony quite knew how that unicorn managed to store such a vast array of items in that mane of his. Figment had repeatedly tried, and failed, to obtain an answer to his methodology, but he never got one more detailed than "Stuff goes in... stuff comes out... I can't explain that." That was why the question of the "all knowing 'fro" was on Figment's list of questions the universe wasn't yet willing to yield answers to. Most of the list had something to do with Spazz in some way. Sometimes Figment guessed that violating the laws of nature was his special talent, after all, nopony knew what his cutie mare was, let alone what it meant. Some thought it was just a design, but to Figment, it looked like a strange contorted face.
(Please read the following in a British accent, thank you): At this point we, the authors, would like to skip the whole long and rather drawn out description of Spazz's cutie mark and simply state what it truly is: a troll face. Why the skip? Because we're kinda lazy and want to get on with writing the fun parts of the story sooner. Why didn't you have Figment or Spazz know what a troll face was? Allow us to answer THAT with a question of our own: Why would a race of ponies that live on a world with neither internet connections nor humans recognize a human internet meme such as troll face? Why does Spazz have a troll face cutie mark? Because shut up. It's our story and we'll do with it as we please! Thank you for your time.
"Ready to go, ol' pal ol' buddy of mine?" Spazz asked, still bouncing around.
Figment shrugged, "Why not?"
"Well, either of us could be tired or hurt or sick or hungry or-"
"Why did I even bother?"
As he followed his brightly colored friend, Figment realized he hadn't gotten this pony's name yet. He shrugged it off, thinking to himself, All in good time, I suppose.
Fluttershy
Today was shaping up to be a great day for one timid pegasus in particular. The woodland creatures she was caring for were all tended to for the day, and it wasn't even lunch time yet. Fluttershy had decided to take this opportunity to go see her coltfriend. Just thinking of him made her smile. He was so kind and gentle, yet strong and brave. It had surprised her when he asked her out, he could've had any mare in Ponyville if he wanted.
Arriving in the market, she looked around at the seemingly endless sea of ponies scurrying from one stall to another, making various purchases or talking with various friends. After a few moments of searching she saw the highly decorated apple cart. She began to trot happily towards the cart but before she could go to her "Mic Mac" as she called him, she saw another colt and stopped dead in her tracks. The violet-pink afro brought back memories from a long forgotten foalhood.
When he finally came into full view, she could feel her eyes widen, half from excitement and half from fear. She locked eyes with her old cousin. After a moment of regarding her from a distance, he squealed with glee and scurried towards her... babbling jumbled and ecstatic greetings all the way.
Even though she knew what was coming, Fluttershy could only manage a startled squeak before she the tackle hug suddenly overcame her.
"Cousin Fluttershy! Oh, how I've missed you so!" he shouted, as the hug grew tighter.
Maybe it wasn't such a good day, after all...