Choir wings stared at the ground, his mind far away as his legs moved for him, memory serving as his map for the roads he traversed.
Ponyville was a sunny as ever, with clear blue skies and a nice southern wind that complimented the early spring air that sprung up after winter. Ponies of various colours and races trotted about through the streets, chatting with one another and getting from place to place at the leisurely Ponyville pace. There was no rush for anypony, and as for the three teens and one bunny that walked the streets, they kept their energy ready for a moment’s notice.
“You ok, Choir?” Prism Arrow asked, bending her neck down to get in Choir’s line of sight.
“Yeah, I’m just thinking,” Choir answered, lifting his head and peering forward. “I never really thought about it, but I don’t exactly know why my mom’s acting like this.”
Meteos gave him an odd look. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I don’t know what the catalyst for my mom’s relapse was. I don’t know how it happened.” Choir replied, returning Meteos’ gaze.
“Ok, hang on,” Prism stated, stopping right in her tracks. The other two ponies stopped and turned to look at her. “You haven’t told us anything about what’s happening to your mom. A relapse? A relapse into what?”
Choir grimaced. “She… She relapses into certain behaviours from time to time, and usually my dad and I are there to handle it and help her control herself until is passes. This time she escaped, and well, when she relapses, she, uh, she’s a bit unstable. She does things and doesn’t really know what’s going on until after the fact. She can’t control herself.”
The two other ponies were wide-eyed. Aqui looked indifferent but kept close attention to Choir’s words, her ears tilted towards him while she sat on his back.
“Are you serious?” Prism asked. Her eyes checked Meteos to her left for a split second before going back to Choir. “That sounds kinda dangerous.”
“Yeah, sounds like something from a freaky novel, like Dr. Coat and Mr. Hide.” Meteos piped in.
Choir looked away. “It’s not that serious. Well, most of the time it isn’t. She’s never really hurt anypony before, so it’s not like she becomes dangerous exactly, but…”
“But?”
“But she gets so unpredictable that, ooh, I just can’t think of what will happen!”
“Choir I’m serious. Like, what if your mother has multiple personalities?” Meteos asked.
Choir met him straight in the eye. “I’m certain. Trust me on this one, my mom might be a bit messed up right now, but it’s not because she has two minds in one head,” He put his hoof to his chin and stared absent-mindedly into the sky. “Well, at least I’m somewhat certain that she doesn’t.”
“Ugh, ok, same things go,” Prism said, feeling like she got nowhere with her confrontation. “We find your mom, subdue her, and get her back to your house, right?”
“Right. And we’re gonna need to try to keep her out of sight once we get her. And we’re gonna have to find her before either Applejack finds out that I lied to her or she finds us after finding my cottage empty.”
Prism raised an eyebrow. “Why do we have to keep her out of sight?”
Choir wanted to punch himself. He felt keeping his mother’s secret under wraps was getting harder by the minute. “I’ll explain everything once we find her. For now, we need to get going to the market.”
His eyes went back to the pavement however when the three made an agreement and got moving again. “But I still have no idea what’s causing her to act this way. She normally only does this at night. Why is this happening in the middle of the day?”
As the four headed south through Ponyville they came upon a familiar, candy-themed building. The walls were sugary beige with chocolate-shaded wood planks holding up the majority of the frame, the roof seemingly made of gingerbread and the pink flowers near the front looking like they were grown from pieces of lollipops. Frosting covered the shingles all over the top and the height of a single, towering room touched the tip of the clouds with a triad of candles forever burning as cut-outs painted in orange and red. There was a pony holding a candy cane sticking out the side of the building, letting itself get pushed by the gentle wind and a picture of a heart-coloured cupcake hung from a board to the immediate right of the front door. The bakery was one of the larger buildings in the town, with several extensions build from the original design to create more lounging space for customers, a bigger and more robust kitchen, a proper supply room and more living quarters for the half-dozen workers who experimented there.
Choir, Meteos, Prism and Aqui all routed around the building clockwise, meeting a familiar sight sitting at the bottom of the stairs near the back door of the confectionery.
“Hey, Mince,” Choir greeted.
She looked up. Her maroon, almost brown complexion met perfectly with her angled, thick eyelashes and her straight, plain blueberry mane hung over her forehead in a perpendicular cut. Not many ponies understood why she wore a loose blue t-shirt that was partially see-through, sleeves cut short and the bottom exposing her midsection. The dark-green skirt she wore was loose and flexible, and she impossibly crossed her back legs as she sat upright with one hoof on the pavement and the other holding a strawberry smoothie. She turned to meet the others, her dull red eyes matching the solemn, neutral expression she made as she looked at them back.
“Hello,” Mince answered back.
“What’cha doing?”
“Oh. I’m on my break,” she said, looking down of what remained of her rapidly depleting drink. “Since school got out early the shop’s been going non-stop for the past three-and-a-half hours now. As soon as I got home I was put on shift because apparently Pound got some kind of cold from one of the customers.”
“Oh, cheese,” Choir said, wincing. “I hope he’ll be alright.”
Aqui nodded on his back.
Mince Pie waved a hoof in dismissal. “Ah, he’ll be alright. We're talking about one of the Cakes, not that stupid party planner with the rubber chicken. No, Pound's gone through worse.”
“Worse? What kind of worse?” Prism piped up, stepping forward.
Mince's gaze whipped around to meet Prism and a sudden shiver went down Prism's spine. The earth pony’s eyes seemed to glow crimson in the daylight. “The kind of worse that would tear your bones from its ligaments, turn them into a mush and pour the remnants into a bowl as a thick batter. The kind of worse that would make you pull your coat from the roots and use as a fine topping for sprinkles. The kind of worse that makes your insides perfectly soft and malleable for a decently sized soufflé.”
The four all gave each other nervous looks.
“That’s the kind of worse he’s handled.”
Suddenly, it all hit them. They turned to Mince and all voiced at once “Pinkie Pie?”
“Yep. My mum.” Mince stated, taking a sip of her drink.
Aqui, thoroughly disturbed by the description leading to Mince's answer, folded her arms before giving a disgusted look and pointed her paw into her open mouth as she gagged, sticking her tongue out. Meteos was the only one to notice and a giant grin sprouted on his face with his muted giggling.
“So. What are you guys up to?” Mince asked blandly.
“We’re looking f-” Meteos began before Choir’s hoof slammed home, a distinctly grumpy expression on the Pegasus’s face.
“We’re looking for a, uh, a bird. Yellow wings, pink plumage. Have you seen anything like that nearby?”
Mince turned away from them, staring off into the distance as the ambience of the outdoors reigned over silence. A few ponies passed by in the streets, not noticing a thing. Tumbleweed blew across the road, right between the houses, sticks cracking on the stone. Mince took another sip of her concoction. The group gave each other curious looks, Meteos scratching the back of his head and Prism giving a shrug when Choir’s eyes met hers. After some time had passed, she turned back to them.
“Nope. Haven’t seen a thing.”
Meteos rolled his eyes and sighed. Prism facehooved.
“Are you sure you haven’t seen anything like that?”
Mince shook her head. Choir’s ears folded back and he looked at the ground.
“Well, have you seen Fluttershy anywhere?” Prism asked. Choir immediately turned his head and glared at the offending culprit, his eyes wide open and his mouth twisted into a teeth-baring frown, striking his hoof across the bottom of his neck in a cutting motion.
“No, I haven’t either. But why are you looking for Choir’s mother?”
Choir opened his mouth, but Prism beat him to the punch again. He flinched. “I dunno exactly, but according to Choir she’s under some kind of influence that’s not making her act right and she’s wandering around Ponyville acting as some kind of general danger.”
Choir glared at Prism, lifting his hoof threateningly to shove it like he did with Meteos. She stared right back, shooting daggers out of her eyes and growling deep like a lion, her eyebrows forming into a scowl. A weak smile appeared onto the pink Pegasus’ face and he sweated buckets, bleating as he put his hoof back onto the ground and turned to look at Mince again.
“Well, I mean,” Choir began, not able to meet Mince’s eyes as he tried to form a coherent response. “Yeah, she’s kind of out of it right now, but I’m just worried that she’ll her herself in her confusion. She's not in the right mind, you know? I need to get her home.”
Mince blinked once. “Is it estrus?”
Everyone except Mince and Choir fell onto their backs laughing. Choir dropped to his haunches, grinding his teeth and throwing his head up in frustration, his hooves shaking with barely controlled energy.
“Oh my Celestia! Why does everypony assume it’s estrus? It’s not! For the love of the stars, it’s not estrus!" Choir ranted, shouting right into Mince’s face. She turned away from the spray assaulting her and let Choir try and calm down, the others laughing behind him.
Choir zipped to a nearby mare trotting by, a white rose in her pink locks. "My mom's not in estrus, ok! You got that?" he shouted, making her go wide-eyed and increasing her pace while he breathed heavily, eyes slightly bloodshot.
Mince blinked again. “Estrus is a perfectly fine and reasonable explanation. The time of year is perfect for it and it’s a common mistake between mares to forget to take their medication one day.”
“But you don’t get it, it’s not estrus! How many times do I have to say it? She's-”
Choir stopped in his tracks, looking up to the sky to the side of Mince’s head, his ears folding back. The others behind him stopped their laughing once they realized that he went silent.
“C-Choir,” Prism began, wiping tears off her cheeks. “What’s-”
“Igottagoberightbackseeyouguys!” Choir rapidly proclaimed, suddenly launching himself into the air, Aqui squealing on his back as she held on for dear life. He rocketed forward and took a sharp right, entering straight into one of the Sugarcube Corner’s second floor windows. Mince got up abruptly.
“Where’s he going?” she asked, a sudden seriousness in her voice, looking at where Choir Wings exited. Prism and Meteos shared knowing looks, their faces pale.
“I think he just found that bird,” Meteos said.
“And Fluttershy at the same time,” Prism added.
“Oh,” Mince simply stated. There was silence for a few seconds as the two waited patiently for the Pie Sister to continue her response. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much.
“The bird and Fluttershy are the same things!” they both shouted at once.
“Oh.” Mince said, realization coming to her. She then opened the back door and motioned for everypony to follow her in.
Choir narrowed himself, shooting through the gap of the open window and sliding in with the grace of a crashing eagle. He landed on his hooves but slid on the shiny floor for several seconds before ramming into a table with a thud. He rubbed his shoulder, dazed, and looked around the kitchen before he winced at something hitting the back of his head. He peered over his back to see a disgruntled Aqui shouting and squeaking at him, hopping in place and making various angry gestures with her paws.
Choir suddenly took Aqui in his hooves, which at first she wasn’t happy with. “Oh, I’m sorry Aqui! I’m just not thinking right now. I want to save my mom so badly that I keep forgetting about you!”
Aqui, hanging from Choir's crossed forelegs, folded her arms and muttered something under her breath, although her owner still heard her.
“I’m really sorry Aqui, and I’ll try my best to never let it happen again! I just get so wrapped up in the chase that I… Will you ever forgive me?”
Her ticked off expression seemed to falter as she slumped in her position, her ears tilting forward as she processed a thought. With a grin she nodded and spoke some more, patting the top of Choir's hoof soothingly.
“Oh, thank you Aqui. You’re really the best friend a guy could have!” Choir declared, hugging Aqui close and nuzzling her. She smiled and rubbed back, enjoying the affection thoroughly.
After a moment he put her back on his back and looked around the room. The kitchen was oddly cast in the dark with no lights on except for the sun pouring through the windows. There were cupboards everywhere lining against every wall above countertops, their green doors shut to peeking eyes. Multiple steel ovens lay against the walls along with several spoons and mixing devices. Large brown tables built into the floor took up a lot of the center of the otherwise spacious room, nothing on the tops of the surfaces, the wood wiped clean. The soft smell of baking fluttered throughout the room, skirting by the purple curtains waving in the wind. One of the ovens was on, the knobs on the device turned from their default positions. Several bags of flour and plates stood above the cupboards in plain view, easily accessible for any use. But there was no sign of Fluttershy anywhere.
There was a clatter of movement behind Choir and he turned around, trying to train his eyes to see through the shadows that hovered over the corners of the room. Cake pans fell to his immediate left and he swiftly checked the area, swearing that he saw the end of a pink tail weave around the bags at the top of the cupboards. He heard hooves scuffle from some direction in the nearby vicinity and he crouched down, ready to jump at any moment, ears and eyes up, searching for danger.
“Hiya, Choir!”
Choir and Aqui yelled, but Choir stayed to the ground and his whole body shook with a ferocious shiver. His legs threatened to bolt him out of there but he managed to control them to a stutter, bouncing a few inches forward without his command. He turned around to meet a wildly grinning young mare staring right at him a mere four inches away.
“Cherry! You scared me!”
“Sorry!” she answered back with her excited, high-pitched voice, backing up and giving him some oh-so-lovely personal space. She was of a hardy build, the complete opposite of what one would assume given her current occupation as a baker at the biggest cupcake factory in Ponyville. Her deep red coat seemed bright even in the dim light, and the sugar cane curls of her long mane swooped down her side, her tail barely reaching the ground in shades of dark and light green. The red cherry pie placed on her flank matched the one on the white fluffy apron she wore and her emerald eyes gleamed every single minute of the day, twenty-four seven. “I thought you knew I was here.”
“What made you think that I knew that you were here?” he asked with an eyebrow raised.
“Well, you were crouching all low, looking like you were ready to pounce, eyeing the shadows as if you were paying a huuuge amount of attention to everything and anything in the room!” she chirped cheerfully.
“I am Cherry, or at least I was,” Choir explained, looking left and right once more.
“So,” Cherry started, jumping in front of Choir once again. “What’cha doooin’?”
Choir put his hooves on Cherry’ shoulders and moved her to the side, peering over her. Aqui jumped to the top of his head and kept a look out with one paw shading her eyes. “I’m looking for a bird.”
“Ooo! What kind of bird?” Cherry said, moving back in place to block Choir.
“A big yellow bird with pink feathers, now would you stop that? I’m trying to keep an eye out.”
Choir stepped forward and crossed Cherry just before she fronted him face to face. “Is it the Flubus Migratorius? I’ve heard from your mom that that’s a beautiful bird!”
“Wait,” Choir stated, sitting straight up. “You have?”
“Oh yeah, she’s told me all about how cute its tiny wings are compared to its chubby body, and how it like to get into trouble by poking his head into tree holes that it shouldn’t be poking its head in!”
Choir got distracted from something in the corner of his eye. He turned to see something leap over the fridge into the back of the room. His eyes had a hard time tracking the movement in the dark and he couldn’t keep up with the object.
Suddenly, there was a crash of cardboard boxes falling on top of each other from the tower they were perched. Choir jumped as high as his heart did in his chest.
“What was that?” Cherry asked, turning around.
“N-Nothing! That’s nothing!” Choir said, taking hold of Cherry’s head and turning her right back around to face him. “Now why don’t you tell me more about this, uh, Flubus bird that my mom was talking about.”
Cherry raised an eyebrow. “Why? You should know more than me, and besides you’re the one looking for it.”
Choir was half keeping eye contact with Cherry and half looking behind her. His smile stretched as high as the corners of his lips could go and he could feel a string of sweat trail down his temple. “W-Well, I just want to know what your opinion is of it. Y-You know, what you know about it a-and stuff.”
The pots and pans in the background beside the sink clattered from some hidden push.
“Huh?” Cherry voiced, turning her head again. Choir smoothly went around her counter-clockwise and blocked her view of the end of the room, Aqui jumping down from his crown to his back.
“I-I-I think my mom would appreciate it if she knew how much of her knowledge stuck with you.” Choir forced out.
Cherry sat on her haunches and put one hoof to her chin and the other beneath her elbow, her eyes looking up in thought. “Hmm, let me see here...”
There was another hubbub of sound and Aqui pulled on the back of Choir’s mane. Choir used the utmost amount of head-swivel to meet Aqui’s attention with one eye. She whispered something to him, pointing at the Pegasus-shaped object creating chaos in the dark backdrop, jumping around the scene but still unidentifiable. He nodded slightly, then turned his head back to face his speaker.
“Apparently the Flubus Migratorius is one finicky bird, spending the daytime sitting in sunlight and eating things such as nuts, small berries and bugs on the ground. The first two I can understand, but bugs? Eww, the last time I tasted one of those things was when I was five, and they were not very tasty at all.”
Choir nodded, tuning out most of Cherry’s rant as she continued on. Aqui kept her eyes behind Choir and when the flying monster moved to a different location she rubbed her paws together, stuck out her tongue in concentration and grabbed a hold of the bottom of Choir’s mane, pulling it to her right. Choir winced and his smile almost broke but he shuffled to the right slowly, trying to gauge on how hard his bunny rabbit was tugging him. Cherry prattled on, and suddenly Aqui sharply pulled to the left, causing Choir to hiss under his teeth and jump in the same direction. The mysterious Pegasus in the darkness leaped high in the air and crashed down, creating a cacophony of noise and making Aqui pull at steady intervals to the right, Choir stepping to the beat.
Cherry wasn’t looking at Choir anymore, with her eyes looking up at the ceiling and her mouth bent into a joyful, worriless grin as she recalled all the tiny things Fluttershy had told her about one simple bird. When the thing in the back moved again Aqui pulled, but her mouth dropped open when she realized she made an error, yanking on Choir desperately to the left and pulling a few hairs out too.
“Ouch.” Choir whispered.
“What was that?” Cherry asked, broken out of her stupor. She looked at Choir. “Are you alright?”
He nodded, his cheeks getting sore again. “I’m fine. Carry on.”
And so she did. In the meanwhile, Choir turned his head to the left and gave Aqui the dirty eye, a tear threatening to be let go. “A little gentler, please!”
She apologized with a wave of her paw, but then started pointing at the back with a concerned expression. Choir turned his head to see what she was bothered by: A single door leaned ajar against the wall in the middle of the shadows.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
Suddenly, that door slammed shut without him noticing how, creating reverb around the room.
“Huh?” Cherry voiced, looking over Choir to the door. “Who closed the supply door?”
Choir panicked and tried to wave Cherry off. “I-It’s nothing. I didn’t hear the door. Did you hear the door, Aqui?” Choir didn’t give time for Aqui to answer. “See? She didn’t hear anything either.”
Cherry walked around the Pegasus to the purple door sitting in the back, arching neatly at the top. It rattled violently from the other side and various food articles sounded like they were falling to the ground in some manner of fury. “It must be those darn rats again. Give me a teeny tiny second Choir, I need to deal with this before they create a mess!”
“Dear Celestia! What kind of rats do you have in this place?” Choir had to wonder.
She was inches away from the door, an innocent smile on her face, reaching for the doorknob. The boards of the door vibrated from action from the other side, something banging against the wood.
Everything seemed to slow down for Choir.
“Nooo!” Choir cried, hopelessly diving towards Cherry, his hoof reaching out for her, Aqui mirroring her owner’s actions except for the airborne lunge.
Suddenly, the door to the right of Choir burst open.
“Cheryl Audrey Pie! Do not touch that door!” commanded Mince Pie as she forced the entrance open, light from the hallway flooding into the kitchen, Meteos and Prism Arrow hurrying in right behind her.
Cherry turned around, meeting Mince’s eyes. “Oh, hey Mince! Why did you call me by my full name? Ooh, can we start calling each other by our full names? Ok ok, let me start!” she said, clapping joyfully.
Mince facehooved. She began to strut towards her sister. “Get away from the door!”
Meteos, severely out of breath, looked at the hallway behind him. "Jeez, this place is big! Who would have thought it would take us this long to get to one simple kitchen?" he said aloud to no one in particular.
“Why, Minerva, I didn’t think you could be so serious about tiny little rats!” Cherry playfully chided.
The shaking of the door reached a peak and exploded open, ramming the wall as it swung all the way around, hitting Cherry in the rear. Cherry screamed as she was launched forward and flung to the ground. She covered her head and stayed down, her back legs not responding as they sat useless and splayed against the floor, her head not turning, her eyes not looking at the long, dark creature that leapt from the doorway all the way across the room to the windows again, landing on a table with a round object in its mouth. Everything suddenly happened too fast for Choir as Mince, Cherry, Prism and Meteos gasped.
Choir’s ears folded as he tried to make himself small. “I’m dead.”
Standing in the light of the afternoon sun from the closed glass behind her was a monster unlike any of the ponies had ever seen before. Her yellow coat was pale and unhealthy, her mane and tail in tatters, her eyes an evil bloody glow and sharp fangs jutting out from her upper lip. She bend down on the table, sucking on something red and round, a tiny stem peeking from the top. The reflection of a healthy apple in the maw of the creature became apparent under the illumination before her cheeks flexed and the piece of fruit was sucked dry, deflating like a popped balloon in the flash of an instant. The skin of the drained sustenance got stuck to her teeth and she lifted her head, throwing the apple to the side after, the apple disintegrating upon contact with the floor and sending Honeycrisp bits everywhere.
Prism’s wide eyes scanned the threat and stopped when she spotted the image placed on the flank of the monster. The three pink bats looked awfully familiar to her. Cherry finally peeked from beneath her hooves and looked at her assaulter from the corner of her eye. Her breath hitched in her throat. Choir swore he could see a dark aura emanating from his mother’s figure, burning upwards like a black flame, keeping the light from casting over her body properly.
“Choir… Is... Is that?” Prism started, weakly lifting her hoof up to point.
“Eh,” Choir said, pressing his two front hooves together nervously. “Uh,”
Fluttershy took one look at the five ponies before her, leaned forward and hissed angrily, glaring down at them with an evil Mince and Cherry had never seen before. Then, before anypony could do anything else, the vampony leaped through the window, shattering the glass and letting loose outside.
There was silence in the room. Nopony moved. Prism and Meteos shared looks. Mince blinked, trying to figure out what just happened. Cherry’s mane deflated as a balloon popped and let loose its air in the background. Choir kept staring at the now broken window with Aqui, not knowing what to do. Mince rushed up to her younger sibling and scooped her up into a hug, Cherry sniffling with soft tears running down her visage.
“It’s ok. It’s ok. You’re safe now. I’ve got you.” Mince comforted, keeping her sister in her forelegs, looking down at her darkened mane and coat.
“What...” Cherry said, holding on to Mince. “What was that thing?”
“Don't worry about. Don't think about it too much.”
“T-That wasn’t a rat, Mince,” she continued, letting the waterworks loose. “T-T-That looked n-nothing like a r-r-rat!”
“I know. I saw it too.”
Meteos stared at the two, his expression still stuck on surprise. Prism shot a murderous glare at the pink Pegasus sitting on the ground.
“Choir…” she growled.
Choir listened to the distant panicked screams of the Ponyvillans outside the broken window, the summer breeze flowing inside.
“This can’t be happening.”