Elements of Resonance

by Daemon McRae

The Nite Shift, Part 1

Chapter 3: The Nite Shift, Part 1

The first thing Octavia was aware of upon awakening was that she was not in her own bed. Not being a pony of promiscuous or adventurous standards, this obviously raised a great deal of internal conflict. A large portion of which, however, was resolved by her noticing her friends all in similar beds around her. Thus, she remembered that they had taken a shared room at the inn. Making a conscious effort to steady herself, one other question did arise in her head after a moment of rational thought.

"Why am I the only pony awake right now? Usually our alarm goes off…" she pondered out loud, and glanced over to the alarm clock that she had set next to her bed, mainly to keep the other two from fiddling with it. If Kwan Do had his way, they would not have anywhere near as much sleep as they needed. Artimare, probably too much. So Octavia took it upon herself to keep them all on an even schedule. Her simple train of thought on the matter derailed, however, when she noticed the time. To nopony in particular, she asked, "Why the hay am I awake an hour and a half early?"

"Hoo," was her reply.

And it was one she was not expecting in the least. Leaping all but parallel sideways out of bed, she crashed unceremoniously onto the floor, flank over teakettle. Staring up, (or down, as her current pose would have her), she noticed a rather handsome Tawny Owl staring wide-eyed at her from the windowsill. She assumed this creature to be responsible for her abrupt and early eve.

"Well, hello there," she greeted, steadying her voice, and heart, by talking slower than normal, and righting herself til she could stand on all four hooves. "Who are you?"

"Hoo," the bird responded, blinking slowly. It fluttered down to the hoof of her bed with a soft flap of it's wings.

"Yes, who?" she asked kindly.

"Hoo," was the reply.

"Yes, that's what I said," Octavia confirmed, a familiar twitch forming in her brow. One usually attributed to a black-and-gold coated Pegasus who-

"Owlicious?" came a voice reminiscent of late night adventures and awkward pauses. The owl turned its head. Octavia shuddered slightly at the sight of the body staying perfectly still.

"In here," Octavia called in response, sure that the feathered creature would simply stand there and wait for Golddusk to find it. Sure enough, the owl stayed put, and Gold's head popped into the window the owl had come through moments before.

"There you are!" the gold-trimmed Pegasus exclaimed. He scrambled the rest of the way into the window, all but falling on his face, and only as a last-minute precaution used his wings to right himself. "Listen, buddy, I need you to show me where the B&B is, I can't find it. All the signs are kind of hard to understand. I must have walked into three different furniture stores before I found you."

The grey filly blinked, and then blinked again. Surely he's not that bad. He can't be. We've been friends for years, he can't be that-

"Oh, hey, Octavia!" Golddusk said excitedly, having finally spotted her.

"Yes?" she asked innocently. Ok, good. He should at least remember that I'm staying at the B&-

"Do you remember where the B&B is? I can't find it for the life of me. Thank Luna Owlicious found you to ask, he's such a smart bird," the colt all but cooed, holding up a hoof for the owl to land on. He nuzzled the bird affectionately, which coerced a soft "Hoo," from it.

Octavia facehoofed, then responded, slowly, surely, and keeping her voice as flat as freshly stomped dirt, "Golddusk? We are in the B&B. I and the others told you this morning that we would be staying here. Owlicious came here because this is the building you're looking for."

Golddusk looked slightly confused for a moment, just a moment, before his expression started to break. As if he was physically restraining himself, his mouth slowly etched and morphed into a slight smirk, then grin, then an outright smile. With obvious strain in his voice, he told her, "I know."

The musical mare blinked, dumbfounded. "You… know?"

"Yup."

"So you already knew where we were when you asked the bird?"

"Owlicious? Totally." His smile was unmistakable, and he looked ready to burst for laughing.

Golddusk then became aware of many things at once. The first being that he was now upside down. Having no recollection of the time and or space between standing upright and being flat on his back, he made an attempt to orient himself. Thus he became aware of the second thing. Octavia was rather handy with a pillow. A realization followed rather rapidly by the knowledge that fluffy things can hurt, and, he would come to realize later, waking up a sleeping pony early simply to prank them was one of those things he would have to file away later as 'socially unacceptable.'

This didn't stop him laughing the entire beating through.

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOI

Golddusk all but hobbled out of the building a few minutes later, to allow Octavia and the rest to sleep for their last hour or so. He, however, was way too wide awake and excited to sleep any more. His evening had started much earlier than he had expected, having been awoken by the owl now riding on his back. Twilight had apologized, but he had dismissed it almost instantly.

"This little guy is awesome; I've never seen a bird quite like him at the castle. I usually stay indoors, and the only bird that goes inside is Wilhelmina," he'd explained. "Can I keep him with me while I'm doing rounds tonight?"

"Of course," she'd told him. "Just make sure, if you get lost, to ask Owlicious the way home. He's a very smart bird."

"Excellent! Well," Golddusk thought out loud, "Where should I start? It's a little after sunset, so I don't know who all is up right now…"

"Oh," exclaimed the purple mare. Golddusk would swear he'd seen a light bulb appear from nowhere above her mane. "Pinkie Pie doesn't go to sleep until she absolutely has to, and she's doing most of the event organization. Maybe she could use a bit of your input before the others wake up. That way, they'd have something to do when they start, instead of having to ask around." She sounded almost cheerful at what he could only assume she'd seen as a really great idea.

He had to admit, though, it had sounded… practical.

Golddusk chuckled to himself. "Pinkie Pie, practical. Oh, that's good."

After having taken in a meal and some polite conversation, most of which Twilight spent grilling him about his work at the castle, and the Moon Princess, topics he was most happy to answer about, he'd set off to find this… Pinkie Pie, whatever her name was.

Thus began his next lesson in interpersonal relationships. His first instinct was to find a crowded room, and ask loudly, "Anypony here know a Pinkie Pie?" A notion that was quickly abolished by a brief memory of stumbling into a room of sleeping day-shift ponies, who did not take well to being woken up simply to be asked where the break room was.

His second idea didn't fare much better than the first one would have, but it did save him a potentially sound beating and a room full of angry ponies. Plus, most all the rooms full of pony he could find were ponies' locked houses. So, he decided to simply try to deduce for himself which filly was Pinkie Pie. The only clues to go on being her name and the fact that he was looking for a mare, he figured the best course of investigation would be to look for a pink girl with a pie-related cutie mark.

A task which would have taken him all night, save for one simple grace. Namely, her spotting him first. From across the Main Hall, mind you. He'd no more than taken a single step into the building before he'd heard a rather audible gasp, and, flash of pink blur later, the pony in question was standing right in front of him.

And she was talking. A lot. "Ohmigosh are you one of the night crew my name's Pinkie Pie what's yours are you here to help with the party I love parties I throw the best parties in Ponyville do you want me to throw you one do you do you do y-"

Golddusk blinked, as no sooner had she begun rambling than a sky-blue pony with multi-colored mane and tail had shoved a hoof in her mouth. "Pinkie Pie, you may not need to breath, but if you keep talking like that, he might forget that he does," she explained in a cool, confident demeanor. Golddusk made note of Owlicious flying of to a rafter to escape the rambling pink filly.

The black Pegasus blinked. "Um, I'm going to assume that you're Pinkie Pie, at least I think I heard that name in their somewhere," he mused. The pink pony nodded vigorously, and Rainbow shook violently with the movement of her hoof still lodged in the party pony's face. "And you are?"

The other girl shook her hoof free, wiped it off, and posed. All in a rather hurried gesture. "My name's Rainbow Dash. Best flyer in Equestria!" she declared, puffing out her chest in pride.

It had taken a second for the name to register in the colt's mind. "Wait, the Rainbow Dash? Winner of the Best Young Flyer competition? Wow, I'd totally thought you'd be-"

"What, that I'd be hanging around the castle, flying with the Wonderbolts? That I'd make some kind of flashy entrance with thunderclouds and a Sonic Rainboom?" she joked, still somehow slightly egotistically.

"Taller," he'd responded.

She all but deflated. "Wh-what?"

"I totally thought you'd be taller. Best flyer in Equestria? I'd just assumed you'd be about Luna's height or a bit… I don't know… less short. Makes sense, in flanksight. Spitfire's about the same build, and she's practically a goddess in the air," he thought out loud.

Rainbow Dash looked readily crestfallen, and Pinkie Pie had collapsed into laughter. "Ahahaha, taller! You're a shorty-shorty skimpy-shrimp!"

Golddusk had stared at her for a second, slightly bemused. Then something dawned on him. "Aren't you two the same height?

It was the blue pony's turn to fall down laughing. "Bahahahaha. Way to go, Pinkie! Who's a shrimp now?"

The black and gold colt stood there a second, letting the two laugh it off. After a few moments, they righted themselves, and Dash asked him, "So, what do you need? I hear you're one of the night-shift ponies, right? Does that mean we can go to bed?"

"Absolutely not!" a rather haughty and somehow more sophisticated voice rang out behind them. Golddusk admired the acoustics in the large room. "There's still a great deal to be done, and we have hours before we can call it quits!" Gold turned around to spot a white unicorn with a purple mane and tail combo cantering up to them. "Oh, hello, sir. Are you here as part of the evening help?"

Golddusk nodded, shifting from hoof to hoof slightly at the slowly but steadily growing collection of ponies now talking to him. "Um, yeah, I'm Golddusk. Sorry, I know we weren't supposed to show up for another couple of hours, but I woke up early and Twilight said it'd be a good idea to track Pinkie down and get assignments for everypony when they wake up so they don't have to go asking around."

The new pony bowed her head slightly. "Yes, I'm sure she'd be eager to throw you into the thick of things as soon as she could. If I remember correctly, you're the official liaison to Princess Luna?"

The colt shied away just a little from that. "Yeah, I guess. Although I'm still not sure how I got the position in the first place. My normal job in the castle is mostly keeping things tidy and keeping an eye on the sky so Milady can do her work. Honestly, I've only really spoken to her once or twice. And I don't think I made a very good impression…" he slightly trailed off; embarrassed that he was acting so insecure, when he was supposed to be representing the Princess. He shook his head gruffly, straightening up. "But anyway, what can I help with?"

The three fillies all exchanged glances, and Rainbow Dash asked, slightly cautious, "Well, um, what're you good at?"

Golddusk took a moment to think about that. "Well, I do quite a bit of cleaning and heavy lifting around the castle, so I guess my best jobs would be manual labor and delivering messages and stuff."

Pinkie cocked her head sideways. "You sound all iffy-tiffy. You don't get out much, huh?"

He had to shrug a bit impishly at that. "Well, I'm usually with my friends, and they do most of the talking. To be honest this will be my first time ever spending more than a day outside the castle since I was a little guy."

"Guess you don't get a lot of chances to pull pranks or have a lot of fun, huh?" Rainbow Dash asked, giving him a slight elbow to the ribs.

Gold blinked. "Pranks?"

"Yeah, you know, practical jokes?" she explained.

"...nope. Still drawing a blank here," he admitted. Rainbow and Pinkie stared blankly at him, while Rarity all but scoffed.

"Well, I think it's commendable that you don't partake in anything so… childish," she added, a slight tint of disdain in her voice. "Well, I must be going. A great deal to do. I'll be sure to call you if I need any help," she told Golddusk, smiling warmly, and then cantered off.

"Alrighty," he acknowledged, giving a slight dip of his head. "So, um, pranks are bad, then?" he asked the two mares still standing there.

Rainbow Dash shook her head. "No way, pranks are awesome! Come on, we've got something so much cooler for you to do than clean," she drawled. Pinkie hopped along after them, as the three trotted off to a corner of the room, and the two fillies explained to the colt the finer points of their favorite brand of humor.

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOI

The black Pegasus trotted happily down the lane as he chuckled to himself in recollection. "Ok, those two had a point. That was a lot of fun. Even if Octavia's upset with me. I'll just apologize later. Now, what'd they say to do after I was done? Hey, Owlicious, do you remember?"

"Hoo," was his reply, and the bird set off, Golddusk hoofing after him fast as he could-

"Wait, duh," he said to himself, unfurling his wings. "I can fly."

Mere moments later, pony and bird landed on the balcony of a building Gold didn't recognize. But he'd learned in a few short moments the bird tended to know what it was doing. He took a step toward the window just as Owlicious gave a soft "Hoo." Turning his attention to the bird, it gave him another, much softer, "hoo."

"Oh, you're right. I keep forgetting. Somepony might be asleep in there," he reasoned, and eased the windowpane open ever so slowly. The room was dark, much more so than he'd expected. Even with eyes that were used to night patrols and dark rooms, he had trouble seeing.

Which made the sudden presence of light so much more not ok that it would have been. As he flinched in the sudden brightness, and before he'd even gotten a chance to exclaim in displeasure his reaction, a loud chorus of "Surprise!" echoed in the slight room, followed by what seemed to be an explosion of ponies from every corner of the building.

"Holy Comets!" he exclaimed, making a valiant and furious attempt to pull a 180 and fly straight out the way he'd come in. Forgetting, in the process, that the window had closed behind him.

His collision was followed by an equally large chorus of "Ooh," as nearly everypony flinched from the impact. After letting the constellations float around in front of his eyes for a second, a familiar pink face swam into view. "Ohmigosh I'm so sorry I didn't mean to scare you!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, offering a hoof to help him up.

He took it, and shook his head as he stood. "Owww…. Um, it's no problem, really. I'm just… surprised."

The look on Pinkie's face could only ever be construed as sarcasm, even to somepony who'd never heard the word before. "Well, duh! That's why it's called a surprise party, silly!"

Rainbow Dash cantered up to them. "Yeah, Pinkie Pie nearly exploded soon as you left, rounding up everypony who wasn't busy to throw together this last-minute welcome party! And trust me, when Pinkie Pie throws a party, you want to be there."

"Take your word for it," he said slowly, looking around. Most of the ponies were now regarding him with mixed expressions of concern and confusion. Making an attempt to think on his hooves, he added, "Um, party hard?" Which led him to realize that he may need to get used to loud bursts of noise if he wanted to keep working here, as everypony practically gave a war cry, eager to get the impromptu, if short, party started.

Pinkie Pie gave him a slight nudge into the center of the room. "Come on, there's a bunch of ponies you need to meet, anyway! I know every pony in Ponyville, and I mean everypony. Let's get started!"

The next few minutes proved an exercise in holding himself together amidst a rather large crowd of fillies and colts he'd never seen before. He recognized a few faces from his arrival that morning, but keeping track of the rest of the ponies seemed almost impossible. It didn't help that Pinkie took no time in between introductions. "And that's Lyra, and her fillyfriend Bon-Bon, and that's Carrotine, and over there's Big Mac, and Cheerilee, and…"

But one name in particular made him double-take. One he hadn't heard in a while. "Wait, wait, wait. Back that up. Who did you just say?" he asked, putting a hoof on Pinkie's arm to keep her moving to the next person before she forgot.

"What, who? Oh, you mean-"

But her sentence was cut short as Golddusk for the third time that evening lost all orientation and bearing, having been crashed into at rather abrupt speeds. A half second later, a familiar voice rang in his ears. "Goldy!" it shouted.

Or rather, she shouted. Having been helped to his feet yet again, he took a second to give his assailant a once over. Yup, there was no mistaking it. That blonde hair, those yellow eyes. The grey fur. Saddlebag full of-

"Hi, Derpy," Gold said, slightly exasperated. "I take it you're Ponyville's mailpony now?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She shook her head vehemently, a muffin falling out of her bag. Half expecting her to panic as soon as it hit the floor, he was slightly taken aback as her tail flicked out and snapped it back in. "Yessir!" she saluted. "After Celestia did up that new magicky-scroll thing, I didn't have a whole lot to do. So boss sent me here! And it's a whole lot of fun!"

He regarded the mailpony with a mix of amusement and wonder. "And the bag of muffins?"

"Pinkie said bring snacks," she explained, taking a bite out of a blueberry muffin. One he was absolutely positive she hadn't been holding the moment before she'd sunk her teeth into it. Matter of fact, the bag didn't look like it's been tampered at all, save the muffin that tried to escape. She then proceeded to shove a poppy seed one in his mouth.

He chewed slowly, taking a bite, and letting the muffin fall into his hoof. "Riggghhht. So, party?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, and taking another bite.

Both Derpy and Pinkie yelled in chorus, "PARTY!"

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIO

Octavia stirred slightly as her alarm went off. A modest, musical tune that she'd set herself, it did wonders to get her up and moving. At least, until she had to wake the other two. Kwan Do proved to be rather cooperative. Matter of fact, he was already awake, downstairs, had eaten, and was meditating. He'd raised an eyebrow as she stepped into the foyer, but simply acknowledged her with a nod. And returned to his focus.

The real challenge laid in waking up Artimare. A pony well known for her tendencies to do whatever she darn well pleased, without really worrying too much about obligation, outside of what got her paid. Most ponies were convinced that the only thing keeping her from pursuing a life as a soldier of fortune was that the night shift had a tendency to be really, really lax. Thus, she seemed to have learned to ignore most anything that would bother her. Or, indeed, wake her from a pleasant sleep.

"Come on, Artimare, we need to get going," Octavia said quietly, giving the purple mare a nudge to wake up. She then went about picking up her things and making her bed, to give the filly time to get awake and get up. Turning around, however, she noticed her efforts had no effect. Nonplussed, she simply gave the unicorn a nudge with her head. "Come on, Artimare," she said more sternly. "It's time to wake up."

Apparently, the older pony wasn't having any of this, and simply rolled over. Octavia noted that shoving her forehead into the other pony's spine wasn't pleasant, nor was it any more effective. Rearing up slightly to put to hooves on her comrade's back, she shook the mare vehemently. "Up! Get up get up get up! We have work to do! Come on~!" she groaned, achieving no more than giving her shoulder an ache.

Sighing discontentedly, she scoffed and trotted off. "Fine, see if I care! Let's see how you feel after we get all of the work done in a night, and you don't get to freeload anymore! I guess we won't be here long enough for you to try any of the apple-distilled drinks here!" she finished with a huff.

Her journey to the door was interrupted by a hoof on her shoulder. "Now, let's not get hasty, here," said a rather drowsy, if awake, voice.

Octavia grinned to herself, and then turned her head away. "Nope, you can sleep all you want! I guess we'll just have to work extra hard, if you're not in the mood to hang around, we'll make sure you can get home right away! I bet Sir Falchion has more than enough for you to do when you get back," she added, a final stab to a spot she knew well wasn't exactly bulletproof.

Artimare trotted slightly hurried to stand in front of Octavia. Leveling her gaze, she all but growled, "You wouldn't."

"Watch me," the grey filly countered, a smirk of confidence adorning her face.

The two stayed in nonverbal confrontation for a moment, before Artimare gave an almost inaudible sigh. "Fine. Where do we start?"

"Well, after we eat something, I expect the best idea would be to track down Golddusk. He woke me up earlier; all kinds of excited, so I'm sure he's well and wide awake by now. I'm sure he's found several things for us to do by now."

IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIO

As the conga line made another lap around the table, Pinkie noticed that Golddusk, who had been at the tail end of the line, had stopped for a second, lifting the lampshade partially off his head, and looking rather perplexed.

"What's wrong, Golddusk?" she asked, trotting up to him. Well, bouncing, really.

"I'm not sure… I just know that for some reason I'm really, really worried about something." He gave a nonchalant shrug, and rejoined the conga as it passed by him again. "Oh well, no sense worrying about it now, right?"