//------------------------------// // Day - Part 1 // Story: Christmas with New Friends // by DWolf //------------------------------// My eyes open slowly, mouth already stretching for a long yawn. Once that's over with, I pull myself out of bed and stretch soi I can awaken fully. Once I do, I walk to the window and look out onto the street below. The light downfall of snow last night has now become a thin blanket across the city, anout two inches thick. I also notice a certain car and footsteps being tracked down to-- *KNOCK-KNOCK* I exit the bedroom and walk over to the door, Once unlocked, I find two girls dressed in red and white and carrying bags. ...No, not Mrs. Claus and her sister. “Merry Christmas, David!” Pinkie Pie and Rarity exclaim, Pinkie at the top of her lungs. I take a second to smile broadly before making way for them. “Hey, girls, merry Christmas! I didn’t think anyone would be here so early.” “Darling, it’s eight-thirty.” Rarity makes her way to the kitchen. “You really need a clock.” “Which reminds me!” Pinkie pulls out a gift-wrapped box and hands it to me. I rip off the paper to reveal a smartphone… without the phone. “I saw that you didn’t have a phone, so I got you the next best thing! You can download apps, music, videos, pictures, games… Besically, do anything except call my number.” She giggles. “...Wow… This must have set you back a ways, Pinkie.” “Not really. The Cakes gave me a generous bonus, and it was on sale in the mall.” She sacrificed her bonus AND survived fellow last-minute shoppers last night to get me this? “Thanks a bunch, Pinkie!” I grab her in a hug and pick her up off the ground about half an inch. “David?” Rarity looks at me after I set Pinkie Claus down. “Do you work out?” “Sometimes,” I reply. “I guess you can say a lot of my family follow’s something similar to Applejack’s view of hard work.” She nods in understanding. “Well, breakfast is set out and waiting for us.” She ushers us into the kitchen and sits us all down to a small spread consisting of biscuits, sausage patties, ham, hash brown patties, and a bottle of orange juice for each of us. “It’s not much, but I’m leaving room for all of us to have a nice dinner,” Rarity explains. “It’s perfect.” I take a knife to a biscuit and place a piece of ham between the halves, leading the others to follow suit. The rest of the meal is spent with me and Pinkie conversing when our mouths weren’t full, with Rarity chiming in occasionally. Once every morsel is eaten, I pat my tummy. “Whoever fixed that food knows good eatin’,” I sigh. “Thank my mother and I,” Rarity says. “When I told her about you, I asked if I could help with making a bit extra for you and another friend-” “Like me!” “...yes, Pinkie, like you--and she accepted without a second thought.” “Give her my thanks, then.” “Would you like to do so in person?” ...what? “Y’see, I had the GREATEST idea!” Of course you did, you little pink nightmare. “You can spend the day meeting each of our families while getting our presents, and then, after dinner, we were planning on having a Christmas-slash-’Welcome to Canterlot, David’ party at Sunset’s place!” “Sunset? She didn’t say much about her family yesterday.” “Actually…” Rarity delicately joins in, “she doesn’t have any family here, much like you.” “Oh… Anything else you can say about her?” “...I’ll let you speak to her yourself when you two meet up.” Sensing the awkward air about it, I drop the topic and begin clearing the table. With Pinkie and Rarity’s help, it’s done in a flash. Afterwards, I begin setting up my not-a-phone “So since Pinkie gave me her gift first, I get to meet her family now?” I ask Rarity. “Correct. One of the others will pick you up after a while, and it will repeat until we all reach Sunset’s place.” “But first, you really need to switch your pajamas for some layers.” “Will do. I’ll see you later, Rarity. See you outside, Pinkie.” I excuse myself in order to switch my clothes to another set from Rarity’s bag. My old rags are discarded into a nearby laundry basket, and I finish up with my dark gray jacket. I walk out, take a keyring hang from a nair near the door, and exit the building to find the cheerful gal making a snow angel on the sidewalk. I look around, but don't see another car nearby. I clear my throat, and she stands up like a shot, which jars me slightly. “Ready to go?” “...do you live nearby?” “Within walking distance. Come on!” She starts… skipping down the street. I shake my head and join her, pulling out my… screw it, I’m just gonna call it an iPod. Even though it’s not the actual thing, it does all the stuff my world’s parallel does. To my surprise, I’m picking up a signal. “Huh, I got internet access already,” I think out loud. “Oh, that’s a pretty nice perk of living here. Almost all the city has free public Wi-Fi.” “Huh. Definitely makes it a lot easier to use this.” “Yep! Once we get to my place, I can help you get some more fun things for that!” "Hey, Pinkie? Why did you take me in like you did yesterday?" "Because I want everyone around me to smile." She stops her skipping and walks alongside me. "When I saw you walk past, I could tell how alone you were." Her hair deflates slightly. "Nobody should be that alone, especially during a season like this." She looks at me, for once being serious and sincere. "So I thought I'd get you to join in on the fun me and my friends were having." She looks immediately ahead. To be honest, I thought it might not work when I got up this morning." I wrap an arm around her. "Don't worry. It is." I can see her hair reinflating, her smile returning in force, and I feel her arm wrapping me in kind. ...until she pushes me into a snow-packed yard. I'm about to ask why when she jumps into the yard next to it and wipes her limbs on the ground. "Don't-cha wanna make a snow angel?" I chuckle and mimic her actions. The rest of our walk is mostly uneventful, save for Pinkie occasionally playing in the snow a couple more times and her goading me to join in. As we near her house, she pops up. “Oh, almost forgot!” She hands me a gift card. “So you can fill it up with all kinds of things!” I thank her as we get to the door. “Ready to meet the Pies, Davy?” A hand reaches the knob. “As I’ll ever be.” --- After some careful observations during my time with her family, here are my results: Pinkie Pie’s parents are a nice couple, if a bit set in the past. Her siblings, however… * “Gaze into the eyes of Limestone Pie!” Yeah, if you didn’t sound so psychotic, I’d consider it. * “Mm-hm.” No matter how I try, that’s Marble’s only response. * “I like rocks.” ...I’m certain each and every thing Maud says ends in a period, no exceptions. So the long and short of it: yes, everyone, Pinkie’s family is about as crazy as she is. Good thing I’m trying to stick to her like glue... well, whenever I’m not trying to get a different respone out of Marble. One bright side: Pinkie helps me to move my flash drive’s songs onto my iPod. Fun fact: play any song in front of Pinkie and she’ll sing along like she’s heard it for years, even ones from my world. I try to throw her a curveball with an instrumental-only piece, but she just drums her fingers to the beat perfectly. It takes quite a lot of willpower to not apply my head to the nearest wall repeatedly. *KNOCK-KNOCK* “You’re gonna enjoy me and my dad’s place! This is gonna be so awesome!” “Great, Rainbow, but can you not DRIVE SO DAMN FAST?!” “Just a sec!” She careens down another street in her dark-blue sports car, then drifts into a driveway and stops right at the curb. I unbuckle, open the passenger door, and promptly spill out onto snowy pavement. “Dude, you okay?” Yeah, I just need to keep my lunch down. I glare at her... as best as I can without throwing up in front of her. “...on a racetrack is one thing… Open roads… WITH SNOW… is another, Rainbow Dash!” “All right, I get it, sheesh! You sound like Rarity…” Note to self: whenever Rainbow offers to drive, look for all other possible options first... starting with Rarity. “Did she give you a heart attack yet, boy?” I look up to find a middle-aged face on an otherwise prime atlete’s body. His skin is a paler blue than Rainbow’s, but his hair is an almost-exact match. “Gettin’ there, sir,” I gasp as I take her now-outstretched hand. Once pulled up, I look back to see her with a look of sheer embarassment. I don’t know whether to hug or scold her, so I do neither for now. “You must be her father,” I say to the man. “Rainbow Blaze, to your rescue,” he chuckles. “Come in, I got some cocoa ready.” "Get some antacid, too, just in case." I find during the warm round of drink and conversation that Blaze is a pretty cool guy, especially when I hear that he’s a former pro soccer player that had to end his career early due to injury. However, the money hasn’t stopped coming in, which means that Rainbow could afford to buy a game console, a few accesories, and a gift card for a few games to give me. If only everything save for the gift card could arrive as fast as Dash can run, I’d have it today, but I have to settle for a few sessions on her own console, with a return outside for a snowball fight. Unlike the landslide victory for her outside, I’m able to hold my own against her in the virtual realm. Sure, she had more wins than me, but I made her work for all of them. What doesn’t help things, hoewver, is Blaze coming inevery so often and saying things to Rainbow and I to avoid ‘getting too close’. Now he make not just his daughter red-faced, but I as well. “You know he’s just being protective of you, right?” “Yeah, but he’s just being so…” “‘Dad-ish’?” “Yeah. Besides…” She flashes a smirk. “You need to at least get me dinner first.” ... "A-buh-hee-dah-wa-huh-uhh--" "Baaa-ha-ha-ha-haaah!" She doubles over and starts howling in laughter. After a couple moments, she returns to her upright position, noticing I still have a dumbfounded expression on my face. "...Dude? I was just joking... you can stop with the goofy face now." I shake the look off and glare at her again. "Please don't kid around about that stuff with me." "Why not?" "Just... it's complicated." I turn away and look at the door. "Sure..." She pauses the game for us. "I'm sorry, alright? I didn't think a little thing like that would set you off." I slowly meet her gaze again. Now, she looks genuinely remorseful. "If I knew, I wouldn't have said that to you. I'd NEVER try to put a friend down like that. It's just how I am. You can ask the others, and they'll say the same thing: I move first and talk later, whether it's my whole body or just my mouth. I guess you can say I'm a lot like my car that way. ...I crack a smile. "Now if only you had wings, you could be faster than that tin can. That'd be awesome." Her own grin returns. "Heck yeah, it'd be awesome!" She goes back to the game, as do I. "...that face you made was so funny." She chuckles. ...Okay, NOW is a good time to apply my head to the nearest wall repeatedly. *KNOCK-KNOCK*