Forgotten Kin

by This Account Is Dead

Chapter 2: Work Issues

Chapter 2: Work Issues

As the first sunrays shone over the horizon, a rooster decided it was time to wake the citizens of Ponyville with its crow. By this a certain sinister looking being was torn from its contemplation about its plans on what it should do next rather roughly, but not without being offered another option. It had no concept of day and night since neither had meaning nor existence where it came from but something buried deep down in its memory told him that there was more activity in this realm when the sky was bright. It had been here before, a long time ago, but not for very long and it couldn't remember why. Some basic things slowly came back now that there was a first crack in the dam. Maybe it would break if the creature learned more about this world. It had to go out there and learn what it could. It had planned to observe the residents of this place to try and approach them without inducing fear and terror anyway, so it could do both at the same time.

Finally it rose from its place on a bookshelf and shot a short glance to the sleeping forms of the unicorn and the dragon to ensure there wouldn't be something potentially important happening with those two in conceivable time, and hovered outside through a slightly open window.

---

A stretch away above Ponyville, a blue pegasus let out a tired groan and cursed whoever decided that work starts in the morning. Normally she would have plainly ignored the rooster’s crow and kept sleeping for quite a long time, but Rainbow Dash knew she had to clear the bunch of clouds that were drifting towards Ponyville. Today was supposed to be sunny with only some cloud patches for a tiny bit of shade. Of course she could have done that yesterday but fly three hours just to kick some clouds? Booooring! Putting it on someone else’s back wasn't really an option either. Last week she had skipped weatherwork almost half of the time and thus, the rest of the weather squad was rather pissed for having to do extra work. Even if the pegasus was the captain of the team, she had to keep the moral up, so she really had to do it this time. Being a role model was cool but sometimes it was just too hard to find the scrap of motivation she had somewhere.

Yeah. She had to do it. But it was early. But there was no one else to do it. But...

"Aaaaargh..."

Finally the rainbow maned pegasus accepted her fate and started her first attempt to drag herself out of bed. She failed horribly.

After about five minutes Rainbow realized that all she managed to do was to stick her upper half out in the open to instantly rest it on the floor to get another five minutes of sleep. Dammit...

After 15 more minutes of fighting her remorseless cloud bed she was finally standing in her kitchen and ate a bowl of cereal she managed to ready herself. The tired pegasus devoured her meager breakfast rather quickly since she only chewed about five times over the entire time. Sadly, the battle against her extremely potent aversion to do her job was not over yet, though it was only a matter of time until she would finally do it and go outside.

In the kitchen’s corner a tortoise was startled by the loud slurping from its owner and was somehow able to comprehend what was happening. Maybe Tank wasn't a very agile pet but he was surprisingly intelligent and was bold enough to ignore the rules of courtesy. So it was yet again clear to the pet what he had to do. Wake up the blue mare for good. He activated his magicopter and flew up to the pretty low ceiling over a certain somepony’s head before switching it off again and letting gravity do its job.

Klonk!

"AAAaaaoouuurrrrgggnnhh.... Why, Tank? Why?"

Rainbow held her head where her pet hit her but quickly stuck it under cold water from the sink to cool it down. The whole ordeal was very refreshing though and slowly it dawned the cyan mare that her pet was really not nearly as dumb as he seemed sometimes. However that didn't ease the pain and the tortoise was well advised with his current course of actions to hide in his shell and not showing a single bit of his wrinkly skin.

Eventually, Rainbow Dash finished her early morning torture and started busting the clouds above Ponyville. Her calculations about the cloud movement where right and they were all very close to her home so it was an easy task but it had to be done quickly since the clouds were drenched with water and if it would take her too long the rain would start anyway. Admittedly her speed suffered a bit from her drowsiness so early in the morning but she was still sure she would make it.

Soon the thick cloud cover was nearly entirely vaporized and the pegasus felt almost fully awake. Just that last nasty cloud there and I'll go practicing my routine, she thought and flew to the small pitch-black patch and gave it a casual kick on a fly-by.

Usually that wouldn't be a problem and the cloud would be vaporized in an instant but this cloud was surprisingly solid. Dash, dumbfounded by this, lost her control and almost fell to the ground but regained her composure in time to stabilize her flight. She turned around to inspect the cloud she hit her hoof on just to see a blank sky. Rainbow stretched her head in a loss. That cloud felt like she hit a brick mid-flight but clouds couldn’t get so dense even when magic was involved. On the other side the sky was clear and she could do whatever she wanted the rest of the day. Ultimately she shrugged it off and flew away to her training grounds just outside the village to start her training for today. She had time to relax at her weekly reading session at Twilight’s afterwards anyway.

---

The dark creature was as just as confused as the colorful pony that kicked it out of nowhere. It didn't understand what the purpose of her actions were but it was pretty sure the kick wasn't a hostile action towards him, instead it was mistaken for a cloud. Then again how could she see it in the first place?

Oh! Right... It forgot to refresh the invisibility veil. As reaction to being kicked like that it used every bit of cloaking and stealth magic it knew and amplified it even further since it was still the main priority for the otherworldly being to stay hidden.

It waited for the pain, the kick induced, to fade while considering to follow the pegasus. The creature was sure it wouldn't be spotted this time but now it had some respect for the strength the pony had. In the end it decided to follow her but not without keeping a safe distance.

Alas, the animated darkness was kind of disappointed. All the cyan mare did was flying around in circles and spins and made some flight maneuvers. Sure, some of them were pretty interesting and daring but after three hours it became kind of boring.

After the twentieth repeat of the latest stunt it decided to look for another pony to observe. By now the small town wasn't really filled with life but there was a decent amount of activity to be seen.

The shadow flew the short distance back and started looking for a worthy target for its observations. After a while and after it dodged a falling couch that was dropped by a grey cross-eyed pegasus, it realized that the ponies often entered a building and left it shortly after with bags or something like that. Some of the buildings even changed their appearance!

Apparently that was an interesting observation. One worthy of an investigation. With newly sparked curiosity the creature waited beside the door to follow the next pony to enter the house.

Comments

[EpilepticWombat]

I'm going with nightmare creature, or the nightmare itself. either could fit

[Tattered Ribbon]

2915669
Ya I didn't think of that, it maybe the nightmare that made nightmare moon.

[This Account Is Dead]

2915669
2925106
Interesting thoughts... but not what I had in mind. It will take a while until I clear that up anyway so you dont have to think to much in it unless like to make conspiracy therories...