Bring the Thunder

by Ze Guest

31: Sleep Easy

As if a slumber party and a surprise birthday party wasn't enough. We had been invited to a ball in Canterlot. The palace was fixed up pretty quickly, mostly because unicorns could do anything under five minuets. I guess I had to go since it was basically about us. Rarity was able to make a tuxedo for me when I was half expecting a dress. I'm just glad I got what I got. Oh, and by way, yeah, I had to keep the dresses Rarity gave me. I gave Twilight the makeup though. In fact she used it for this occasion.

But anyway, my tuxedo was a nice, dark shade of grey so it didn't blend in with my black-as-night fur. I was looking in the mirror adjusting my tie when Rarity came up. "How is it?' she asked.

"It looks nice. I'm very impressed. I prefer this a lot more than a dress." I said.

Rarity giggled. "Now I'll never let you forget it."

Great. I finished with my tie and turned to Rarity. "Well, how do I look. Good enough?"

Rarity looked closely at me. She put a hoof on her chin and looked closely at my shoulder. "Is that- cake?" she asked. I looked at my shoulder and there was a little brown crumb. I looked back at the plate of brownies. Pinkie Pie had helped Rarity make the batch and Sweetie Bell, Rarity's little sister, stole one for me since I was in the club now. I half expected her to get her cutie-mark for that. Wait, did I say cutie-mark? I meant... oh nevermind. If you can't beat 'em... I'm still saying someone, though. Because like I said, not everyone is a pony. "I remember when I first saw you in that hospital bed..." Rarity mused.

I felt a wave of awkwardness over me. "Oh, you do, huh?" I asked.

"Yes very well. You looked so beat up and a little uncomfortable. I could certainly tell that when Pinkie Pie came up and spoke to you. And, well to admit it. I sort of had a crush on you."

My eyes widened and I shot back. "Whoa! What?!" I asked.

Rarity laughed. "Yes, yes. I mean, if you could fight a bear, you must be strong. Right?"

"Well, it was more like I was almost killed by it and was wrapped in bandages and rescued by females. So..."

"Well, yeah." She said. "But we're friends now. And to be honest, I don't think I'm quite ready yet."

Wow, friend -zoned. "Well, I guess same here." I said. Rarity hugged me. Well, I wasn't! I had never dated anyone so obviously I wouldn't know what to do and- "Oh crap! We're going to miss the train!" I shouted.

"What? Oh dear! Where's Derpy?"

"Derpy?" I asked. Right then, there was a knock at the door. Rarity threw the door open to a grey fur pony with asymmetrical eyes like I've never seen before. I guess Maiden was right. Make a silly face and it gets stuck that way.

"Hi Rarity." Derpy said.

Rarity was rushing out the door and pulling me alongside her but she stopped for just a moment. "Hi Derpy. Listen we need to go now. I'm sorry for the commotion. Oh, and there's twenty bits on the table for pizza. Okay bye."

Just before I was dragged away I saw Sweetie Bell. She was sitting on the floor. She winked at me and gave a very mischievous smile. Oh crap. She saw that!? "You keep your mouth shut you little-"

"Come on, Volt! We need to go!"

We hurried along to the train station and made it just on time. The rest were all standing around looking both kinds of anxious. Me and Rarity were lucky we didn't get on the train, though. "What are you guys rushing for?" Fluttershy asked. "You're ten minuets early."

Me and Rarity looked at each other, exchanging confused looks. "Ten minuets? But Twilight, you said twelve o' clock." I said.

Twilight snorted a laugh. "I said I was going to be at the station at twelve. The train comes at twelve ten." Twilight's dragon friend was sitting on top of her. Talking to Pinkie Pie about something in which I wasn't paying any attention to.

Rarity dug her hoof in her face and sighed. I just brushed a little of the brownie off my shirt that Rarity didn't see that I just found. I checked one more time, just in case. Alright I got- oh wait. Okay, now I got it. As we waited, we all just kind of stood there in silence. Thinking to ourselves. Imagining the outcome. Well- I was at least. I wondered what everyone else was thinking.

I was actually quite surprised that Applejack and Rainbow Dash were wearing dresses. They didn't seem the type. But hay, the looked alright. And no, I do not plan on trying their dresses out. The train finally pulled in after ten minuets of mostly silence. I checked my pocket for my ticket. Had it. I brought my twelve bits too for some reason. I wasn't going to need it.

We all stepped onto the train and the conductor was taking the tickets. I stepped up to him and smiled. "Hello sir! May I..." A young stallion, late-twenties, thin, taller than me and yellow fur which complemented the way he looked. I remember him. And he remembered me. "Uh. T-ticket?" He asked, very nervously.

I just kept smiling at him. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my ticket, with a little something else. "Here you go." I said. I gave him the ticket along with twelve bits. He looked down, surprised. "For your help." I said and walked away dignified. I don't know why, though. I had given him the last of my bits. You know what? Let him keep it.

None of us were expecting it. But we had a car all of our own. The seats were all warm and fluffy and there was a little cart of appetizers and some fancy looking guy with no other importance then to bend over and massage your hoofs. Now I know what it's like to be pampered. I don't really care for it, though. I'm really more of an outdoorsy kind of guy. But this is fine. Spike and Astheno were hogging all the food for themselves and Neon just inspected them. Probably wondering what food tasted like. Or maybe what taste tasted like. But I didn't mind. I wasn't hungry.

The train stopped and when we all got out. We were escorted to the palace. The silly looking palace was looking silly as usual. And when I walked in the place was fixed! I really liked the way Malice did it but they just had to fix it. We were soon met by the princesses. Celestia, Luna and Cadence. And Shining Armor and Blueblood were there, too. But everyone forgets who they are. I bowed and so did everyone else when we saw them. Rarity saw Blueblood and gave him the utmost nastiest look I've ever seen her make. They must have some type of history. Blueblood just backed up awkwardly. I didn't ask any questions. Just watched things happen.

The rest of the day was basically the same way. Ponies walked up to me and shook my hoof and went on to the next pony to shake hoofs with. Some would strike up conversations and others wouldn't look me in the eye. I walked into a guard and almost had a heart attack. He had a scar across his neck. "Remember me?" he asked in a strict voice.

I remembered him. The guard who's throat I slit, but not enough to kill him? Yeah, him. He winked at me and just walked away. That was weird. At least I know he's not after me. So later, we had to go up as Celestia ands Luna spoke on and on about our heroic gesture and their gratitude and all that stuff that takes a hour and a half to finish. At the end we were given money for some reason. But hay, three hundred bits ain't too bad, you got to admit. The rest of the party was very anti-climactic so you wouldn't want to hear about all that. I liked it, though.

When the whole thing started to play down and ponies were leaving, Celestia asked us personally to stay a little while longer. When everybody left, or at least we thought everyone left since the place is so freaking big it's easy to miss someone, Princess Celestia led us to her throne room and locked the door behind us. She took a deep breath and finally started to speak. "There is something I feel I should admit to you all." she said. "It has to do with Malice."

Wait. I think I might know this story. "When I was young, in the prime of my rule, I met a young filly." she started off. I shifted uncomfortably. "Her name was Charm. She was very gifted in magic and I wanted her to become my apprentice." She started to pace back and forth. "She had passed all of the tests I had given her except one. The last one. She spent months trying to figure it out. And she did it. Or so I thought." Ooooo, so dramatic. Much scare. "She used an illusion spell and I was- I was stupid enough to not see past it. I gave her what I had given Twilight. But it turned out, Charm never existed. It was Malice all along." Huh, I don't remember Malice saying anything about illusion spells much less pretending to be someone else.

Twilight's eyes widened in complete shock. "Wh- what happened next?" she asked.

"She got away." Celestia said. "I never saw her again. I didn't act fast enough to revoke the spell and gave her exactly what she wanted. When I saw her a month ago, I almost didn't want to believe she came back. And after all these years, I simply couldn't remove the spell anymore. She had become one with it."

I guess you could say that everyone was shocked but me. I was already told. But now the truth was out in the open. I looked around at everyone. Twilight was walking up to Celestia. For some reason, I felt that Twilight was going to just slap her across the face. I know how much that whole quest pissed her off in the end, but that didn't happen. Twilight hugged Celestia. "Every-pony makes mistakes, Princess." Celestia seemed to approve of this and held Twilight a little tighter.

Everyone else went up to do the same thing. Me and Neon just watched and smiled at this group hug I never would have imagined to see. I went to turn to Rock Well to see what he thought of this. He wasn't there, though. I turned to look at Neon. "So..." I said.

Neon shrugged. "What?" he asked.

"I don't know." I said. I certainly wasn't planning on hugging a princess. It made me wonder how they could even do that without getting interrogated by some guards or whatever. Well, I guess Twilight basically helps with that matter, so yeah.

Once we were dismissed, I was about to walk out the door when I realized something. Maverick. "Hold up you guys." I told them. I walked back up to Celestia. "I think I should bring up a matter that needs some tending to." I said.

Celestia looked at and smiled warmly. "Yes?" she asked.

I thought very carefully about what I was going to say. "Slavery, I think we should do something about it." I started off.

Celestia's smile shrunk. "Say why."

"Well, Malice said that one of the things that helped her gain power was the whole slavery thing. I just thought that maybe, to prevent someone like her from coming, it should be abolished." I awaited her reaction.

The princess sighed. "I've been doing my best to take care of that. Scarcity of jobs is what is keeping me from getting rid of slavery. But maybe your insight might support the issue. I'll see what I could do."

When I was finished and walked away, Twilight came up to me. "That was a good thing to do. I think Celestia will be able to change a few minds with that."

I smiled. "I hope"

On the way home, it was nothing but talk. We talked about random things that came to our minds for some reason. Me, Spike and Applejack were in a rough match of Go Fish. Spike has quite a poker face, I'll tell you that. Applejack's on the other hoof, well, it can be troubling to be so honest all the time. So thanks to Applejack's horrible skill at card games, I won. I actually won somehow! What did I win? Absolutely nothing! The game was fun, though. Intense.

Me, Twilight and Spike were walking home in the dark, but we used Neon's light to see the way there. When we got the Library, Twilight asked an interesting question. "Where are you going, Neon?"

Neon shrugged and gave an interesting answer. "I don't know. Maybe I can find a lake or something. I might live in one of those."

"You're going to live in a lake?" I asked. It was certainly odd that someone would live in a like.

Neon just gave me a are-you-kidding-me look. He disappeared and reappeared in his liquid form. "Yeah. I am."

Oh, that made sense. He could turn into water and go in a lake and- yes, yes indeed. Heh. "That's cool." Spike said, marveled.

So anyway, since Neon had himself figured out, me and Twilight said goodnight and walked inside. Spike went right to bed and I pulled off my tux and threw myself on the couch. "Night, Twi." I said, falling asleep.

That didn't last, though. "Volt?" Twilight said. "What's this?" Twilight was looking at a crumpled up piece of paper illuminated by a purple light. Wait...

"Crap!" I nearly shouted as I fell off the couch. I ran up to Twilight and snatched the paper out of her possession. "Oh, That?" I said with my mouth full of paper and ink. Didn't taste good. "Ish noshing. Jus paper. Noshing important." I spat it out. I couldn't take the taste anymore.

Twilight swung a hoof around my shoulders and held me tight. "I'm glad you're staying." she said. I wanted to, I almost, nearly, did, I did hug Twilight back. "If you need anything," she said. "I'll be here. I'll be right here.'

We both yawned when we let go of each other. "We should probably go to bed now." I said.

Twilight smiled at me. "Goodnight." And she headed upstairs. I watched her as the darkness of the top floor engulfed her. And listened as she walked herself to bed.

I threw myself back on the couch. Astheno landed on my nose and looked down at me. I smiled at her. "Goodnight." I said to her.

She flew off to perch herself on a bookshelf to go to sleep. I could feel myself sinking onto the couch. You know how when you had a really long day and you finally lie down and your muscles feel like they're melting and it feels so good and relieving? That's what I'm talking about. I haven't felt that ever since the quest. Now that I feel it now, it's almost too good to be true. I was slowly dosing off to a long sleep and everything just lost it's meaning. When I wake up it'll be a different day. Different things and different places. And I wasn't going anywhere tomorrow. But do you know what the best part of this sleep was? No bad dreams. For once in over a month, I was finally able to sleep easy.

The End

Author's Note:

I can't even believe you made it this far. I thank you for that. Credits? Phufft. You kidding me? I didn't get any help!