Homecoming of a Jumper

by tosety

17 Nightmare Night

“So, who are you?” Steelskin asked Valus, looking at the warg pup’s gold colored fur and glowing orange eyes.

Valus spit out the crescent shaped blade and grinned at Steelskin. “One of the most dangerous of the titans. I’m Skoll, the treacherous. He’s Fenrir’s brother and originally sided with him against the others, but near the end, he got Princess Celestia alone and attacked her.”

“Oh! I hadn’t heard that story,” Steelskin said, eyebrows rising with interest.

“There’s a few accounts, but the one Dad believes is that the two of them were walking on the east coast of Equestria when Skoll lunged at Celestia. She moved fast enough that it wasn’t a killing blow, but his teeth sank into her shoulder. She used the strength of his own bite to lift him over her head and slam him into the ground. What followed was one of the most fearsome battles of the Great Purge. When Fenrir and Luna showed up, both of them were bloodied and limping. Fenrir grabbed his brother by the neck and threw him into tartarus.”

“That’s amazing!” Sweetie Belle squeaked. “I didn’t know Celestia fought titans.”

She and the rest of the girls came trotting up, wolf costumes on and spikes attached to their masks.

“Hey, Valus, could you teach us how to howl?” Scootaloo asked, sidling up next to Steelskin in what she thought was a subtle maneuver.

“So this is a celebration of being scared?” Tallic asked me as we lay next to each other in his cave.

I looked out of the cave mouth, watching the stars twinkle in Luna’s sky. “Yeah, it was started by Princess Celestia to help ponies deal with their fear of the night after Nightmare Moon was banished. The sun being eclipsed by the moon for two hours made them even more skittish at night than they were before.”

“You do not seem as excited as I would expect,” Tallic noted.

My heart grew heavier as I thought about the reason for that. “I’ve been through so much that it feels a little foalish... Also, I can’t help but remember the times my parents and I went door to door in Baltimare.”

“Well, I believe it would do you well to spend time with hatchlings your own age. Tomorrow I will take you down and you can find those Crusaders for Cutie Marks.” Tallic’s grin grew wide. “I have seen how you look at that orange pegasus and she strikes me as a worthy choice for a mate.”

I was glad it was just us because my face grew hot and I was pretty sure it was the color of Big Mac’s coat. “I-I’m a little too young and she doesn’t have her cutie mark yet...” My voice trailed off for a moment. “Also, we’ll be jumping and I wouldn’t want to leave her like that or bring her with us.”

“Ya know how Rocky ‘n Rumble’s been talkin’ about scarin’ everypony?” Apple Bloom asked with a glint in her eye. “What say we turn the tables on them?”

Everypony snickered and nodded.

Steelskin, Valus, and the girls quickly gathered on either side of the door to Carousel Boutique.

“Remember,” Valus whispered. “A proper howl comes from the back of the lungs.”

Shushing filled the air as the door opened. Out trotted Rocky and Rumble, side by side.

AWOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo

As expected, both Rocky and Rumble jumped a full tail length into the air before freezing in fear. As everypony rolled around laughing their plots off, Fei snuck around behind Valus.

AAHHWW!

Valus spun around, the fur on his back standing straight up.

Once he saw Fei, he broke into a wide grin. “Well played,” he growled in amusement.

Fei smiled nervously, glad her ploy ended well.

“She got you good,” Snips said from the doorway.

“Yeah,” Snails agreed.

“That she did,” Valus said, reaching out his paw to Fei for a bump.

Suddenly, both Snips and Snails felt something on their backs. They bolted across the street, leaving a surprised unicorn behind them.

“And I was going to praise them for being so brave,” Rarity mused.

Tallic dropped me off near Stronghammer’s shop before flying off in the direction of the Everfree Forest.

“Hi, Stronghammer,” I said as I trotted into the smithy.

“Ready for another day of work, little dragon?” Stronghammer asked with a fatherly smile.

“About that,” I moved to the bellows as I asked. “Could my payment be help with a Nightmare Night costume?”

“What did you have in mind?” he inquired as he got started on the day’s work.

“I’m still surprised you’re okay with us dressing up like this,” Sweetie Belle said as Fei started casting illusions to make our costumes better.

“It’s not the same. Everyone wants to be scared, so I don’t need to worry about trying to be nice or make friends. I don’t have to try to look weak to fit in,” Valus replied, looking more relaxed than he had since they first met.

“What do we have here?” a snooty voice said as the owner trotted towards them. “Looks like a bunch of fluffy bunnies.”

Diamond Tiara came out of the shadows with a pair of pastel wings strapped to her back, a paper horn, and her hair done up to look like Princess Cadance. For whatever reason, she hadn’t done anything with her trademark diamond tiara on her head.

Apple Bloom grinned as she ducked her head and spread her hooves in a threatening stance. She let out a low growl as she stalked towards Diamond Tiara.

Tiara went wide eyed, turned tail, and bolted, leaving everypony chuckling to themselves.

“Yes,” Valus mused. “I believe this will be a very entertaining evening.”

With Stronghammer’s help, I had a good start on my costume by the time Scootaloo showed up with a lunch for me.

“So, you’re friends with a dragon?” she asked me excitedly. “Do the two of you live in a cave?”

“He’s more like my dad and, yeah, we live up on smokey mountain.”

“And you’re jumpers like my dad?” Scootaloo continued.

Despite myself, I was getting a bit proud. “Yep. Tallic’s even taught me some magic.”

Whump!

Something landed heavily behind us.

“I see you have reconsidered mating with the orange pegasus,” Tallic spoke from where he landed. “I hope you plan to present a respectable offering. A Hydra would be my suggestion.”

Both my and Scootaloo’s eyes went wide; hers from fear, mine from mortification.

Tallic stood unrepentantly with a sack slung across his back.

“No!” I practically shouted. “It’s not like that at all; we’re just friends.”

I noticed Scootaloo’s ears droop and Tallic seemed to be about to say something before thinking better of it and closing his mouth.

“Then would you like to return now or at sundown?” Tallic asked, a twinkle in his eye.

“Sundown would be good,” Scootaloo said, overcoming her fear. “Steelskin was going to tell me about the adventures you two have been on.”

AWOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo

Sweetie Belle cringed as Lilly Valley fell over sideways. “Oops, maybe we should’ve just asked for something sweet to bite.”

Sweetie levitated a candy to each of them from the overturned bowl before righting and refilling it. Valus removed his paw from his face to accept his share.

“You’re getting pretty good at levitation, Bells,” Steelskin complimented.

“Thanks,” Sweetie Belle answered proudly. “Once I could levitate a book, Rarity pushed me to see how many things I could keep in the air at once.”

Steelskin’s smile drooped. “Dad always said ‘you don’t know what you can do till you push yourself as far as you can go.’”

“Wise words,” Valus said as everypony trotted to the next door. “Next summer, if my father deems me worthy, I will be driven into the wilderness and I will find out if I can survive packless for a set of days. If I survive, I will be allowed back into the pack as an adult.”

“How long’s a ‘set’ of days?” Apple Bloom asked.

“What do you mean if you survive?” Sweetie Belle asked at the same time.

“You’ll be an adult next summer? How old are you?” Scootaloo interrupted a half second later.

Valus puffed out his chest. “I’m nine summers old. Next summer I will be two and a half sets, that would be ten summers. And I’m not really worried about surviving; no one’s died on their Proving in generations.”

“Hey, speaking of adults,” Snails interjected. “Why don’t we have anypony walking with us?”

Rocky giggled and pointed a hoof at Steelskin. “Duh, we’ve got him.”

Bang!

A blinding flash erupted at the same time as a concussive blast pounded my ears. Everypony was either whinnying and running madly or fallen over in shock. I fought my own panic as the CMC huddled around me, Scootaloo pressed up against my left side.

Bang!

I caught the motion of something falling out of the corner of my eye just before another flash and bang caused more ponies to keel over in fright. I glanced up to see a large shadow block out the stars and heard low, rumbling laughter.

Just before I looked away, a rainbow blur slammed into what resolved itself into Tallic’s snout.

A loud clang filled the air before Dash’s voice carried across the town. “Buck it, Tallic, what the hay do you think you’re doing?”

Tallic snorted as he landed in the hastily cleared square. “I was merely partaking in the spirit of the holiday. Is this not a night for frightening and pranking?”

Twilight and AJ galloped up just in time to hear this and immediately facehoofed.

“Frighten, not terrorize,” Twilight stated in a longsuffering tone. “Do you have any more of those flashbangs? If so, I’m going to have to confiscate them.”

I felt the three crusaders trembling against my sides and hyperventilating. I hummed softly, hoping to calm them down at least a little.

“So telling them if their disguise is not good enough they will get eaten is less scary than bright flashes and loud bangs?” Tallic asked, mildly annoyed. “I still find it odd that your princess of the night allows such stories to be told of her.”

“So now we give up the candy we got to a statue?” Valus asked with surprised indignation as they waited in line to ‘appease’ Nightmare Moon.

“You can give as much or as little as you want,” Scootaloo replied.

When they got to the pile, Steelskin dumped all but a few choice pieces into the pile.

When everypony stared at him questioningly, he replied “I’ve got my reasons.”

Everypony else proceeded to give slightly more than they normally would, save for Valus, who only threw in two pieces.

“That story about her refusing to lower the moon makes Celestia’s banishment of her more tolerable,” Valus growled. “But I don’t get why she would be okay with that side of her being celebrated like this.”

As they walked away, Scootaloo piped up. “Dad likes to say that ‘familiarity breeds contempt.’ I think he means that if we’ve heard the story so many times, we won’t really care about it. Up until she came back, nopony even believed in Nightmare Moon anymore and we used to laugh at anypony mentioning her. I think the reason she pretends to be Nightmare Moon is so it can be something stupid we can laugh at instead of a real pony to be scared of.”

“Yeah,” Steelskin agreed. “I got to talk to her in one reality and she said the Nightmare Night parties that she spent scaring everypony as Nightmare Moon were the ones where everypony treated her like a real pony rather than an ‘evil princess’ that was gonna throw them in jail for one wrong look.”

Everypony nodded, thinking about how much less scary Luna was when they thought about her pretending to be Nightmare Moon.

Everypony except Steelskin; he was busy debating whether to encourage bad behavior or not. After a few moments, he made his decision.

“Anyway, anypony whose parents don’t want them eating too much candy can drop it off at my house,” Steelskin offered.

Scootaloo giggled. “Pinkie convinced Dad that sugar is healthy for ponies to eat a lot of.”

That was met with many groans and cries of “Lucky!” as everypony trooped off to stash their candy at Steelskin’s house.

“Very well,” Tallic replied, offering Twilight the remaining flashbangs.

I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like he purposefully tilted his claw too early when passing the last one. Luckily, Twilight was just barely fast enough and caught it in her aura before it could hit the ground and detonate. She scowled at Tallic, probably assuming the same as me. Tallic narrowed his eyes and smiled unrepentantly, daring her to challenge him.

I turned around and nuzzled the still trembling girls. Scootaloo recovered first and spread her wings over her friends. Turning my head, I was able to catch Tallic’s eye and gave him a glare. I was glad to see he got the hint and his smile fell.

“I apologize,” he said after a moment. “I was overzealous in my attempt to enjoy this holiday.”

“Apology accepted,” Twilight replied. “But next time you have a bright idea, please run it past one of us.”

“Agreed.” Tallic gave a nod to Twilight before walking over to me. “I apologize for scaring your friends. Do you wish me to take you back to the cave tonight, or would you rather spend the night without me?”

“You’re lucky to have your own house,” Snips said as they emptied part of their hauls into containers. “You get to do anything you want.”

“Yeah,” Steelskin replied flatly. “Anything.”

It’s not like that, Fei cut in. There’s a lot of responsibilities you have when you’re on your own. Also, Steelskin doesn’t have...

Fei realized what she was saying just barely too late and looked apologetically at Steelskin.

Steelskin took a deep breath and blinked away the tears that wanted to form. “No, it’s okay. I miss them... All three of them, actually... But it’s okay.”

“There’s nopony to protect him,” Scootaloo said to nopony in particular.

“Really, everypony, I can protect myself,” Steelskin said, finding his conviction. “They let me live on my own because they know I can.”

Valus licked Steelskin’s face. “But you feel packless without them, don’t you.”

Steelskin resisted his first instinct to shy away and instead accepted it as it was given.

“A little,” Steelskin replied, getting a little choked up for a different reason. “But you guys are my pack.”

Everypony moved in for a group hug and Steelskin smiled honestly. For a brief moment, everypony jumped as Scootaloo let out a howl. They recovered quickly and joined in.

AWOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo

Outside, a light lavender filly touched her tiara and sniffled.