//------------------------------// // Ch 1- An Unexpected Arrival // Story: Equestrian Skies // by RomeoDKat //------------------------------// “I can’t believe they had me work two extra hours at work just to sign off on a few forms. Yes, I know there’s a rainstorm scheduled the day after tomorrow, and on Wednesday next week, I’m the one who scheduled them you idiots! Hopefully Blue understands why I missed dinner tonight.” Yelled Storm Chaser to no one as he flew home. He was a pegasus stallion with purple fur, a short, gray mane and tail, and a thunder cloud as a cutie mark. Yet, despite the frustration of having to deal with the bureaucracy involved in managing Ponyville’s weather team, he couldn’t help but to look forward to finally seeing his family after a long day at work. He wondered if his wife was still looking forward to do what they planned to do tonight, though. He made his descent to the ground as he approached his home, and landed at the front door. As he opened the door he called out, “Girls, I’m ho- oof.” He was interrupted when a cerulean ball of fur flew into him, knocking the air out of him slightly. When he looked down at what flew into him, he found his two year old daughter, Cloudchaser, trying to hug him. He laughed and said, “Cloudchaser, I know you’re happy I’m home, but you’re going to knock me down on the ground on of these days.” Cloudchaser just happily giggled as she hugged her father as tight as she could. Storm Chaser smiled and returned the hug as he heard hoof steps approach the two from the kitchen. He looked up to see his wife, Blue Typhoon, walk up for a hug as well. She was a blue pegasus mare with a long white mane and tail and a hurricane as a cutie mark. When she reached her husband, she embraced him and brought her lips up to him for a kiss. Cloudchaser just stuck her tongue out in disgust of her parents’ public display of affection and flew back to the living room to continue playing with her toys. Storm Chaser watched his daughter fly off when he was done kissing his wife, she chuckled, and said, “It’s still amazing how good of a flyer she is at such a young age.” “It is, but it’s also helped her to be quite a hoofful as well.” Blue Typhoon tiredly replied. “So, how was work today?” She asked as she and Storm began walking to the kitchen. “Long. I had to discuss with the higher ups about my choices for scheduling the rainstorms, then I had to redo the paper work just to confirm when I had them scheduled again, and then I had to stay to make sure we were ready to get our shipment of clouds for tomorrow.” Storm said in a frustrated tone. “Well, that explains why you missed dinner.” She said as she continued cleaning the last of the dishes. “But if that’s the case, I’m sure that you’re going to be more than looking forward to tonight.” She said with a sultry tone. “Wait, you still want to go through with it?” Storm asked with a mixture of surprise and excitement. “I was beginning to wonder that you would have been too frustrated with me to actually make love with me tonight.” “Honey, we planned to do this tonight, because you have the day off tomorrow. Besides, you had a good excuse as to why you got home two hours after you usually do.” Blue reassured him. “Now why don’t you bring Cloudchaser to bed, while I finish up down here?” “You just can’t wait to get to the bedroom tonight, can you?” Storm asked as he leaned up against Storm, knowing her answer. “You know it, sweetheart.” She responded as she leaned back into her husband and rested her head under his. Storm felt all of his stress fade away as he stood there with his wife, keeping an ear out for Cloudchaser as well to make sure she was playing safe. Sure, today hadn’t gone entirely to plan, but with his wife saying that the event he was looking forward to the most was still going to happen, he felt as though his crappy day never even happened. He knew that there was nothing that was going stop them from following through with their plan. *Bang* Suddenly, a large sound accompanied by a flash of light came from behind the house, startling both Storm and Blue. They looked around and got into defensive stances, getting ready for anything to happen after the sound went by. Cloudchaser, also startled by the large sound in their backyard, flew into the kitchen, crying loudly in fear. Blue reached up to bring Cloudchaser to the ground and tried to calm her with a loving embrace. “Shhhh, it’s okay, sweetheart. You’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay.” Blue calmly assured, despite being terrified as well. Thankfully, her attempts to calm Cloudchaser worked, as Cloudchaser eventually stopped crying and returned her mother’s embrace as a way to seek comfort. Blue gave a small smile to Cloudchaser, thankful that she calmed down, but then she started to hear something that caused her to believe that the situation had not passed. Although it was slightly muffled, she was able to hear the distinct sound of somepony crying outside their house, in the same direction the loud sound had come from. Storm had heard the crying as well, and realized that it was coming from their backyard as well, knowing full well that it was also the same direction as where the loud sound had come from. Deciding what he needed to do, he looked to his wife and said, “Stay here with Cloudchaser, I’ll see what’s causing that crying.” Blue gave him a worried look, to which he assured, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Although she didn’t like the idea, Blue nodded to Storm to go ahead and check on that crying. Storm nodded back and carefully made his way over to the back door. When he started to open the door, the crying started to sound familiar to him, but it did nothing to stop his confusion. Now that the sound wasn’t muffled, he started to recognize the cry as that of a foal’s cry, but he couldn’t find a reason as to why there would be a foal outside in their backyard. When the door was fully open and he was able to see what was outside, his thoughts fell even deeper into confusion. Outside in his backyard was a simple wooden crib. While this answered where the crying was coming from, it now left another question. “Where did this crib come from?” He asked out loud. He looked around in a feign attempt to find whoever left the crib there, but, as he expected, he couldn’t find anyone. At this point he was beginning to wonder if that loud noise from earlier and this cribs sudden appearance were connected, but his thoughts were interrupted when he got a very loud reminder of the crib’s occupant with the foal’s cry. “Well, guess I do have to check on the foal.” He said hesitantly, as he began to carefully trot towards the crib, getting ready for anything to happen. When he reached the crib, he looked in it to see its occupant, but what he found caused him nothing but more confusion. “Whelp, wasn’t expecting the foal to look like this.” He shakily exclaimed. Inside the crib was, well he honestly didn’t know. It certainly sounded like a foal, but it looked nothing like any foal he’s ever seen before. Instead of hooves, it had weird, little appendages on its limbs, it was almost completely hairless, except for a little bit of hair growing from the top of its head, and its face was flat in comparison to a pony’s snout. It was also wearing a yellow onesie, was kicking around a red blanket and was loosely holding on to a stuffed rabbit. It honestly looked more like a little hairless ape than a pony, but the way it was acting and the different items it had arrived in kept him from thinking that it was a random ape in his backyard. Something else he noticed was that this infant was slightly larger than the average pony foal. Still not sure what he should do, he turned back to the house to call to his wife. “Blue, can you come out here quickly?” He shouted. When Blue Typhoon heard him, she wasn’t exactly sure what to think, but decided that she should agree to her husband’s request. “I’ll come out in a minute, just let me bring Cloudchaser to her room!” She then picked up Cloudchaser, who she was still holding on to, and flew her to her room upstairs. When she got to her room, she placed Cloudchaser down on to her bed. “Stay here.” She sternly commanded before flying out of the room to join her husband outside. It didn’t take her long to fly through the backdoor, since Storm Chaser left it open, and reach her husband outside. Needless to say, she was confused about the crib that was in their backyard, but was even more about the foal that was inside the crib. “What is that?” She asked Storm. “I don’t know, it looks like some sort of ape, but it acts like a normal pony foal instead of an infant ape.” He said in a matter of fact tone. Blue nodded in agreement to Storm’s assessment, as she tried to calm down the infant in the crib. After a few moments, Storm asked, “So, what are we going to do with it?” “Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to bring it inside.” She said bluntly. “Oh, okay...wait, what?!?” Storm exclaimed in confusion. “Are you sure? We don’t even know what that thing is!” “Regardless, it’s still an infant, and staying out here in the middle of the night is not going to be good for it. Now come on, you pick up one end of its crib and I’ll pick up the other end.” Blue said as she started to grab the end of the crib that the infant’s head was near. While Storm didn’t like having this unknown creature in his house, he couldn’t argue with his wife’s logic, especially with how cold it was getting. So, he went to the other end of the crib before saying, “Okay, lift your end on three.” Blue nodded in acknowledgment and got herself ready to lift the crib. When Storm got himself in position, he called to his wife. “Ready?” “Ready.” She responded. “Okay. One…Two…Three.” He stated as both he and Blue lifted their end of the crib up. The infant in the crib started crying even louder, clearly scared about the situation it was in. Thankfully for both Strom and Blue, the infant wasn’t that much heavier than Cloudchaser, its crib was about the same size of Cloudchaser’s old crib, and that the backdoor was still open. When they got into the house, they set the crib down in the middle of the living room and Blue Typhoon immediately tried to calm the baby down. “Shh, it’s okay sweetie. Everything’s alright. No one’s going to hurt you.” She said in a soothing, motherly tone as she stoked the top of the baby’s head to calm it down. Thankfully, her attempts to calm it down worked as the baby gradually stopped crying and looked up at the pegasus. It’s sense of fear was replaced with a sense of wonder and curiosity as it stared up at Blue Typhoon, trying to figure out what she was. Storm Chaser was standing on the other side of the room looking at the two with mixed feelings. On one hoof, he was glad that Blue was able to calm it down and that it wasn’t proving to be a danger to his wife. But on the other hoof, he was concerned as to how this infant was related to the flash of light earlier and what danger it might hold for his daughter. “Honey, what are we going to do with it?” He asked Blue, hoping that she had a solution for how they were going to deal with this. Blue walked over to when she determined that the baby wasn’t going to cry at the moment and said, “I think what we should do is let it sleep here for the night and take it to the princess first thing tomorrow morning.” “*sigh* I can agree with bringing it to the princess, but I’m not comfortable with letting him stay here for the night.” Storm said with mild frustration. “Oh come on Storm, it’s clearly a foal. Is it honestly going to hurt either one of us?” Blue said, losing her patience with her husband. “One of us, no probably not, but it’s Cloudchaser that I’m worried about.” “I understand that, but unless you have a better idea, then it’s going to stay here.” Blue said with anger. “Anywhere but here is comfortable for me.” Storm responded. “Oh really, and where would that be?!? Going door to door to our neighbors and asking them, ‘Hi, how are you doing tonight? We’re doing great. Oh by the way, would you like to take care of this infant we found in the middle of our backyard after we heard a loud sound?’ I’m sure that conversation is going to end well!” Blue yelled sarcastically. While Blue Typhoon and Storm Chaser were arguing, Cloudchaser was starting to make her way down stairs. Sure, her mother told her to stay in her room, but she still had toys down stairs. She didn’t want to be a bad daughter by going to bed and leaving her toys around the house for her parents to trip on. As she made her way down stairs, she heard her parents arguing. While she didn’t like hearing her parents argue, she also knew that this would make sneaking in to the living room much easier. But when she made it to the living room, she immediately forgot about her mission when her eyes caught the sight of the crib that clearly wasn’t there the last time she was in the living room. She flew up to the crib to inspect what was in it, to find the same infant that her parents were arguing about. When the baby saw Cloudchaser, he was filled with the same amount of curiosity that Cloudchaser was filled. Cloudchaser, feeling adventurous, decided to fly into the crib to get a closer look at the unexpected guest. When she came within arm’s length, the infant decided to reach out and grab Cloudchaser with a hug and started to hold her tightly. Cloudchaser was starting to regret trying to sate her curiosity as she started to feel the pain from the hug she was getting, and was starting to squirm around to try to get out of the infant’s grasp. Fortunately for her, the baby sensed her discomfort and decided to loosen his hold on her, but still kept Cloudchaser in a hug. While she was still somewhat distressed that she was still in grasp, she did eventually stop struggling to get out of this creature’s grasp when she realized it loosened its grip for her comfort. She then decided to return the hug as well to let it know that she appreciated having it loosen its grip. After a few moments, she heard the creature yawn as it started to doze off to sleep, which caused Cloudchaser to realize how tired she actually was and she too decided to doze off to sleep too. While all of this was going on, her parents were still arguing. “Well, if you have a better idea, then I am all ears.” Blue Typhoon yelled as she made a small glance at the crib. “So please tell me what you have to-“ She immediately stopped yelling in order to turn her head toward the crib in order to get a good, hard look at what was going on in the crib and to make sure that her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. When she realized that she was indeed seeing the infant and her child sleeping contently together, she couldn’t help but smile at the sight. “What is it?” Storm asked in confusion when Blue suddenly stopped arguing to look at something. “Look.” She simply said, pointing a hoof at the crib. When he looked at the crib, he couldn’t help but smile at the sight as well. While he still wasn’t sure about having an unknown creature staying in his house, he still saw the sight of his daughter sleeping contently in the creature’s grasp heartwarming. “Well, looks like somepony has nothing to worry about when it comes to the safety of his daughter.” Blue smugly said. When Blue said that, Storm knew that he lost the argument, since the cause for his concern was comfortably sleeping in the embrace of a creature he knew nothing about. And when he realized that Cloudchaser was going to be safe with this unknown infant, he realized that there was only one option as to what to do with it. “Fine, it can stay the night, but we are bringing it to Princess Celestia tomorrow morning.” He finally relented to his wife’s idea. “Thanks dear.” Blue said as she came in to hug Storm and kiss in on the cheek. During the hug, she heard a somewhat depressed sigh escape from her husband, which caused her to look up to him and ask, “What’s wrong dear?” “I guess nothing went exactly as planned tonight, right?” He responded. It took Blue a few moments to realize what he meant, which caused her to look down to the floor. While she was glad she won the argument and felt like she was doing the right thing by having the baby stay in their house instead of the cold, she would be lying if she said that she wasn’t disappointed that there wouldn’t be any late night fun with her husband. “Well, I guess it is what it is.” She finally said. “Yeah, can’t be too mad at the little guy though. Can’t exactly control being dumped in our backyard, can it?” He said with a slight smile. Blue chuckled before responding, “No, I guess it can’t.” They stood there for a few moments, watching the two children sleep before Storm nudged his wife lightly and said, “Come on, let’s go to bed. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.” “Yeah, I agree.” Blue said as she and Storm began to head to their bedroom to sleep, leaving the children to sleep in the living room for the remainder of the night. As they did, both of them knew that, even though their night tonight was interesting, their day tomorrow was going to be even more interesting.