Silent Night

by Beraias

The Night, meets the Pink.. ie Pie

The sun shines down on the Everfree as it clears the horizon, signalling another bright new morning in Equestria. The sound of birds and small creatures fills the the air as the forest springs into life, animals going about their business with single minded purpose. The rising sun blazes in the sky, slowly continuing its upwards journey, and the light continues to bathe the forest canopy. As it passes by one section, however, a place of twisted trees and strange unnatural growth, it seems to briefly focus. A sunbeam manages to pierce the veil of leaves, lighting up a large tree at the center of the corruption. A tree that has been made into a pony’s abode. Inside, the sudden light disturbs the rest of the occupant, breaking into her dreams. But as quickly as the sunbeam appeared, it vanishes, leaving the pony to wake to her normal, darkened room.

The pony beneath the covers growled lightly as sunlight pierced through her blanket and woke her. “By Discord can’t I sleep through one bucking day?” She muttered and slumped out of her bed.
Her blue, reptilian eyes briefly strayed across her room’s single mirror, pausing as she looked herself over. Her deep purple coat was slightly ruffled, and her deep, lustrous violet mane was mussed from her long night. The unicorn turned to levitate her usual cloak from its hanger, a midnight black affair that covered her from head to hoof. She paused, her eyes furrowing with confusion as nothing happened.
This had her most confused, normally her chaos magic came to her call easily and telekinesis was something every unicorn could do by young adulthood. “mm.. Strange.. perhaps father is free again and playing tricks.” She said, smiling and grabbing the cloak by her teeth before throwing it over herself. It wasn’t the first time that she had had to do things manually, hell she remembered one time “daddy” Discord had actually turned her into an earth pony for a few days as a laugh, she had thought it was funny to for a while, now it was more annoying.
She quickly left the house after fastening the neck of her cloak, heading for Ponyville, planning to take the train to Canterlot and see if Discord’s statue was still in the gardens.

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It took her a good few hours of walking before she made it out of the Everfree and into the outskirts of Ponyville, and by the time she was at the town proper the sun had reached its midday peak. As she walked through Ponyville, most of the ponies she passed gave her polite smiles and a word of greeting to the unfamiliar newcomer. Night didn’t return a single word of it, glaring at all the overly friendly, obnoxious ponies as she headed to the marketplace to get her lunch for her trip.

“Ohmygoshyou’renewherearen’tyou?!” a bubbly, cheerful voice gasped from behind her. Night couldn’t help but groan at the sound of the voice behind her, it sounded more over the top and stupidly cheerful than anything she had heard in her entire life.

A pink blur came racing around from behind, somehow stopping immediately in front of her and wobbling a bit as if magnetized to the ground. “I’m Pinkie Pie! I know you’re new here because I’ve never seen you before and I remember every pony I see because I’m friends with everypony and everybody wants friends and oh my gosh are those your eyes those are so cool mmghfffph-” The bright pink pony’s voice was cut off as Night shoved a hoof right into her mouth. “I don’t give any sort of cares to what you have to say, I do not want or need friends, so go take your lies and falsehoods and leave me be.” She said with the most menacing glare she could muster.

Night was briefly surprised as Pinkie grabbed her hoof and pushed it away. “Lies and falsehoods? No friends?” the pink pony exclaimed, sounding genuinely hurt and confused, “Everypony wants friends, even if they don’t know that themselves…” Pinkie’s eyes narrowed and she leaned in close, scrutinizing Night, and somehow managing to make the aloof pony uncomfortable.
“Stop staring at me and leave me be!” She exclaimed with frustration.
The pink pony didn’t seem to hear her, instead raising a hoof to her chin and stroking it in thought, all the while muttering to herself. Suddenly, a look of inspiration came to her eyes, and she sped off, a faint “seeyoulaternicetomeetyoubye” trailing over her shoulder.
Night shook her head and continued on with her walk to the marketplace, confusedf by the strange pink pony. She shook away the though as she browsed the food on offer for purchase. “mm, Apples sound nice.. maybe Daisies..” she muttered to herself, making her way from stall to stall.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a hoarse, shouted warning from above. Night instinctively turned and looked, reptilian eyes going wide as a trio of fillies tumbled through the air from the roof above her, covered head to hoof in goggles, sweatbands, and other random sports wear. Her confusion was interrupted as the three crashed into her, making a jumbled mess of hooves, legs, and bodies.
Night groaned as the dust settled, finding herself awkwardly positioned with her face in the dirt and her flank in the air. “Ah, geeze, I’m really sorry about that, lady.” An orange filly said, looking off to the side, embarrassed.
“See Scootaloo, ah told you Parkour was a bad idea!” a yellow filly exclaimed with a look saying ‘I told you so’ plastered across her face as she extracted herself from the pile.
The third, a white filly with a somewhat flighty look in her eyes, simply stared at Night’s face for a bit before speaking. “What’s up with your eyes?”
“Sweetiebelle!” the yellow one hissed quickly, only to be interrupted by Night.
“Do you have a problem with my eyes little filly?” She growled, her eyes narrowing as she began stand. “You children should be not doing such stupid acts. Why don’t you go.. play with your toys or something..” She continued with a slight sneer.
The white filly, Sweetibelle, pouted and looked right back in Night’s face. “Well, I waaaaaas going to say they were cool, but if you’re going to be a meany-head then I guess I’ll just leave,” she grumbled before trotting off with her friends, the trio talking amongst themselves about their next ‘idea’.
“Children..” She scoffed as she walked off to get some apples from the market. After a small amount of searching she found what seemed like a suitable vendor and approached the orange farm pony at the stand.
“Hey there, ah ain’t seen you around here before! Ah’m always happy to welcome a new face to town,” the pony smiled cheerfully. “Anything catch yer eye?”
Night Shrugged, at least she wasn’t like that obnoxious pink pony. “Indeed you have not, and you would do well to forget i was even here, I simply wish to buy some apples and be on my way.” her tone was flat, mostly annoyed from the day’s events thus far.
The orange pony gave her a confused look before seeming to shake it off, “Alright, sugar, how many did ya want?”
“About 6 I should think. The trip will not be that far.” Night replied, fishing the bits out of her cloak, having mild difficulty with the task due to her missing magic.
“Alright then, that’ll be five bits,” the orange pony smiled and put the apples in a bag before reaching a hoof out for the requested money. Night nodded and handed over the bits.
“If ya like ‘em remember it was the Apple family that sold ‘em to ya!” the orange pony called out as Night walked off, heading for the train station.
Night quickly made her way out of the bustling marketplace, scowling from under her hood at the various ponies she passed along the way, finally emerging onto the far less crowded main street. It took her a second to remember where the train station was, since it had been quite some time since she was last in Ponyville, and after getting her bearings she headed down the cobblestone road towards her destination. The bright colors and innate cheerfulness of the town was starting to get under her skin, and she spent most of the walk grumbling under her breath and sending barbed looks at various smiling townsfolk. When she arrived at the station she headed straight up to the ticket window with determination in each step.
“My Destination is Canterlot.” She said flatly to the ticket pony.
“mmm...alright the next train is in 10 minutes. Here you are ma’am, that’ll be 30 bits,” the pony responded, pulling out the requested ticket, and taking Night’s bits in exchange.
The deep purple pony turned around only to find herself face to face with the pink one from earlier.
“You’re going to Canterlot? I loooooooove Canterlot!” She exclaimed enthusiastically. Night groaned as she heard the pink pony’s voice. “Yes, I am going to Canterlot. Did I not tell you to leave me be you annoying pink pony?” She said venomously.
“Well, you might have said it but that was, like, twenty minutes ago! I wanted to throw you a welcome to Ponyville party, but if you have to leave in ten minutes I’ll have to think of something else instead…” Pinkie Pie faded off as her eyes glazed over, deep in thought.
Night rolled her eyes. “I think I will pass on whatever asinine thing you wish to throw.” Even if parties could get Chaotic, and she did love a little chaos now and then, she did not want to associate herself with this pink pony. It hadn’t taken her long to connect the dots and figure out that this insanely bubbly creature was one of the six that had brought about Discord’s second demise.
Pinkie Pie didn’t seem to take notice of her response at all, instead she just sat there, thinking. Night gave the pink pony a questioning look before rolling her eyes and walking over to one of the station’s benches to wait for the train to arrive. A few minutes later, the train arrived right on schedule, pulling up to the station with the hissing of steam pistons and the screech of badly oiled brakes.
“Gosh darnit, Grease, you were supposed to oil those before we left the station!” a voice faintly called out over the sound of releasing steam and ponies exiting their train cars, followed by a meek “sorry sir, I’ll get right on it.”
As the rush of disembarking ponies slowed to a trickle, a sudden voice called out over the train station from the speakers set on the walls. “1:30 train to Canterlot, now boarding!”
Night sighed, it was about time, and now she could leave this stupid town. She stood up and walked towards the nearest train car, ducking inside and quickly heading to the almost empty back car before finding a seat. “Finally some silence…” Night grumbled as she shifted on her seat and pulled out her lunch, still having a bit of trouble without her magic.
“All aboard!” somepony cried out up ahead, and with a hiss and a lurch the train kicked itself into motion, slowly building speed until it was comfortably chugging along the countryside. Night decided to relax and enjoy her lunch, munching on the savory apples she had purchased. She was surprised and a little confused to find an extra apple in the bag.
“Huh, she must not have counted very well, oh well more for me.” She was a bit of a fan of the apple family’s products, though she’d never admit it aloud. They were certainly masters of their art, although she would hardly consider growing apples to be an art form.
She finished her light meal, saving a few of the apples for later, before leaning back to rest and wait out the rest of the journey. It didn’t take long for the gently swaying cars to constant soft chugging of the train engine to lull her to sleep.