Chapter XIX: Promise
"Hey, shorty, how was your last job?"
"I don't want to talk about it, and stop calling me shorty, Kalin!"
"Hey, when everyone is over a head taller than you, the name sticks. Besides, why don't you want to talk about it? Were the natives trying to tie you up and roast you over a spit? Or did you end up going to another wild planet where you were chased by giant newborn bugs again?"
"It was a planet with a sapient species. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
"Come on shorty, that barely tells me anything. We all have embarrassing stories to tell, so why not tell us your latest one?"
"... There was a Venanite infestation."
"Ouch... were there any efforts to rescue the natives?"
"No, the infestation is too far along. The V.D.I. had to wipe the planet clean. I was... barely able to get out alive."
"It always sucks when the Venanites get a ho-"
"Gah!" I said, as I awoke from a sudden feeling of something cold and wet hitting me in the face. Opening my eyes, I saw the Crusaders above me with a concerned Cheerilee, with Scootaloo holding onto an empty glass.
"Scootaloo, I don't think you should be waking ponies like that," Sweetie Belle said.
"Eh, she's awake now, so no harm done," Scootaloo said, only to receive glares from her companions.
"Aether, are you all right? What happened?" Cheerilee asked. Wait... why was I uncon- oh... yeah... that sun and moon deal... how the hell can these ponies move the moon, much less the sun‽
Rolling onto my hooves, I stood up as I sheepishly said, "Sorry, I am fine, just was... surprised by what I heard. I'm fine."
"By what you heard? You mean about the princesses raising the sun and the moon?" Cheerilee asked as the class tilt their heads in confusion. Grand. Guess it's short story time now.
"Errr... I never learned... err... that. Or anything from... before... so... I did not know that someone raised the sun, thought it did it by itself," I said, as I rubbed the back of my head with a hoof.
"How could you not know the princesses raised the sun and moon?" Diamond Tiara said, which earned her a stern look from Cheerilee.
"Now Diamond, you can't blame Aether from not knowing since she came from a different culture. It may have been possible that they didn't hear of the princesses before. Now everyone, back to your seats, it's time to continue the lesson."
As I returned to my seat, Cheerilee continued with the history lesson, which honestly made little sense to me, but I'm gonna just chalk it up to 'magic'. So I just sat there, trying to make heads or tails of the lesson until it was lunch time, at which point Cheerilee dismissed the class... classes are only in the morning... that explains why these foals are so behind in their education.
As we filed out of the the classroom, the Crusaders crowded around me, as Scootaloo asked, "Hey, Aether, do you have any more awesome ideas for a cutie mark like that rock climbing one?"
Are these fillies gluttons for punishment? I thought to myself as I gave Scootaloo a blank stare, before giving her a twisted grin as an idea came to mind. "Why yes, I do have some ideas..."
"Are you sure you want to do that Scootaloo?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Yeah, I don't think this is a very good idea," Apple Bloom said, as the two fillies look up at the small obstacle course that I’d set up in some alleyway through the use of boxes and discarded wooden boards. I manage to set things up so that it was a course perfect for the practice of parkour, though explaining the matter was... difficult, to say the least. Eventually I had to resort to giving them a live demonstration, as I vaulted over and slid under various obstacles, eventually leading to a sort of climb on some wooden crates where I demonstrated a wall jump at the narrowest portion of the alley. Apparently by the expression of wonder the fillies had, this wasn't something you saw everyday in this world.
"Hey, if Aether can do it, so can I," Scootaloo said as I simply watched from the roof I was casually lying down on. While Scootaloo was confidant that she could repeat my performance, I had my money on her messing up before she even got to the wall jump. Before the other two Crusaders could say a thing, Scootaloo had already started, dashing down the alleyway to the series of wooden boards propped up on boxes of various sizes. As I watched her, she leapt over the first one, then tried to slide once she reached the ground underneath the next one, only to collide with the box holding the board up. Her crash instantly stopped her momentum, which only served to cause the board the box was holding up to come down on her head.
"Ohhh... that has got to hurt," Sweetie said as Scootaloo got up from the mess and resumed her run. She jumped over the third and fourth board, but misjudged the fifth one that was built for sliding under, as she tried to jump that one as well. Instead, her hoof caught onto the edge of the board, causing her to fall down face first into the dirt. If only there was some way for me to record this, I thought to myself with a chuckle as I watched Scootaloo get up and wipe her face clean. Still determined to mimic my own moves, she pressed on, jumping onto the crates near me for the wall jump. Once she reached the top of the crates, she jumped onto the wall next to them, then launched herself off of it.
Apparently, confidence can only get one so far, for instead of landing onto the opposite wall with her hooves, she instead landed with her face, followed by the rest of her body. Stifling a laugh, I simply watched as Scootaloo slid down the wall for a moment before peeling off it, landing on her back as the other two Crusaders run up to her with concern shown in their faces.
"Scootaloo, are you alright?" Apple Bloom asked as she helped Scootaloo onto her hooves.
"Yeah... I'm fine," Scootaloo said.
"I told you that you were not ready for the last part," I commented, watching the three from my perch above them.
As Scootaloo mumbled to herself and her face begins to redden, Sweetie asked, "How did you get so good at this?"
"This is simple, but I had a lot of practice. Also, do not feel bad Scootaloo, when I first started, I landed on my face a lot too," I admitted, hoping that the fact that I had similar mishaps on my first try at parkour would cheer her up.
Thankfully, it worked as Scootaloo chuckled to herself as she said, "You probably landed on your face so many times that you broke your muzzle."
Rolling my eyes, I jumped down onto the crates, only to hear someone yell out.
"What in tarnation‽ What are you fillies up to now‽" Looking down the alley, I saw Applejack coming down on us, fuming with anger as she carried a cart of apples via some sort of... saddle.
Raising an eyebrow, I jumped off the box as I saw the Crusaders grinning awkwardly as Apple Bloom said, "Hi there, sis. What are you doing here?"
"I was walkin' back to the farm when I plum saw Aether jumpin' off a roof and that-" Applejack paused as she looked at the rest of the alleyway before continuing, "-obstacle course you darn fillies had set up!"
As the trio began to sweat, I saw it was time for me to take over as I said, "What do you think? We are 'crusading' for our Cutie Marks."
Looking at the alleyway one more time, Applejack gave me a stern look as she said, "Let me guess, this was your idea, Aether. Didn't I told ya to not give these fillies dangerous ideas."
"This is safe, nothing here is dangerous," I said, deciding that after being caught in the rock climbing and now this, there was no point in hiding that I knew how to handle myself in situations where one has to take odd measures to get something done.
"Nothing here is dangerous‽ You plum jumped off the roof of a house!"
"It is safe when you know what you are doing."
"You are a young filly, I doubt that you know what you're doing," Applejack said as she glared at me.
Giving her a huff, I decided to demonstrate my wall climbing again, and before Applejack could say or do anything about it, I was on the rooftop again. "Do you think that I do not know what I'm doing now?" I asked, challenging her as the Crusaders gape at my open defiance.
Blinking in shock, Applejack shook her head clear before giving me a stern look again. "Now look here, Aether. This kind of stuff ain't something a filly should do, or even know about."
"Well, if the filly is normal, but if the filly has been living alone for thirteen years, then maybe this might not be so strange to know," I said, glaring back at her, causing her look to change from anger to shock.
"Well I... I mean... Aether you sti—" Applejack tried to say before I decided to hammer my point home.
"Applejack, I have live by myself for thirteen years, they were hard years, and I had to go through things that are not easy. Some dangerous things. I do not want to talk about them, and I can not explain them since I still do not have the words to explain them yet."
"Alright... alright. I'll won't argue on if you’re really able to do that, but you still shouldn't be showin' the fillies how to do that stuff. Now I want you to make a Pinkie Promise that you won't show the Crusaders that kind of stuff again."
"Pinkie Promise? There is a promise named after Pinkie?" I asked as I tilted my head.
"Yeah, it goes like this. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," Sweetie Belle said as she placed a hoof over her eye.
"Is that.. needed?" I asked as I looked at Applejack again with a skeptical look, who only gave me a firm nod. Sighing, I said, "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my-ow!" as I repeated what Sweetie Belle did, except I poked my eye with my hoof. Next time I should close it if I ever had to do that weird promise again.
"Good. Now remember, Aether, breakin' a promise would be losing a pony's trust in you. And losin' a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend forever," Applejack told me, to which I was about to roll my eyes to when suddenly one of the nearby boxes open to reveal Pinkie's head that stopped right before my face.
"FOREVER!" Pinkie yelled in my face, to which I yelped and swung a hoof at her, for only her to dodge it. "I was ready for that one! Sorry for surprising you," Pinkie said before disappearing into the box as its lid closed. Rushing to the box, I opened it to find nothing inside. My mind completely numb, I looked at the rest of the ponies with a flabbergasted face.
"Yeah... that's Pinkie for ya, and you don't want to break a Pinkie Promise or she'll get ya," Apple Bloom said, to which the others gave a nod to.
...I think I just screwed myself over, I thought to myself, as I simply stared at them with my dumbfounded face.
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Except sometimes breaking a promise is necessary for survival. I already see Aether breaking so many promises. Or at least trying to.
5920988 and Aether never finished it so it dus not count
I think I'm too used to 10,000+ word chapters in other stories... when I got to the end of this one it felt like only a minute had passed.
Liked it nonetheless :P
5921520 I agree with you there. This chapter, timed, only took me 7 minutes.
I just see him showing them mathematical equations of how the earth rotates around the sun on the chalk board.
Technically she did not say "eye" so the promise is not complete.
I'm not sure why she is under the impression that she is screwed. She was saying how annoying it is to have to hang around with the crusaders, she could probably use that promise to get out of having to from time to time.
5923040
The nurse talking about the weird things going in town, if this is both after NMM, Discord, and Lesson Zero, she would sound more resigned than anything.
5921108 It was apparently close enough to being finished that Pinkie was alerted.
ALRIGHT! Now we are getting into something that shows this can't just be an HiE. Up until this point the difference between a non-human and human were really small. Though, it still could be humans in the future! Though I would think it fun if all the inhabitants looked something like the characters from DreamKeepers.
Adapted to the new body pretty quick, wonder if it isn't something uncommon in his line of work.
I guess no more parkour for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Ponyville just got a tiny bit more safe.
Aether almost acted like a proper 27-year-old alien orphan. Honestly, it's almost like they've lost their sense of self in becoming a young pony of the opposite sex.
And not only has Applejack been in the same position of making her way as an orphan, but also she knows the CMC have done arguably more dangerous things, with or without supervision. If anything, teaching them a relatively safe sport isn't worth a Pinkie Promise.
One does not simply not read that with an evil voice.
I love that reference!!!
Aether: "Oh, but Applejack? It's okay for fillies to catapult themselves across a field?"
"
Applejack: "Have you been teaching them that, too--wait--I remember. That was just after the Tesla coil incident...alright, I guess rockclimbing and this ain't so hazardous, after all. Carry on."
Aether: "
5923407 nor did she say what she promised to do. it's an invalid Pinkie Promise.
That ending!
I thought i had a lead. I googled that. Nothing, niltch, nada. This is a lot to make up...
5921520 I can't enjoy those. I have to get up and do stuff quite often, and after a while the page expires. Finding where i was in a 30K word chapter is the worst. I much prefer having many more, 3K word chapters.
*the moment you click the sidebar by mistake and see spoiler via sequel description. *
no. Spoiled again? You kidding me? ... FUCK!
*cough* anyhow, onwards.
Really was hopeing that Aether would start to get emotional.
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10426996
That man's dead.
On a re-read. Parkour isn't really that dangerous. Especially compared to what the Crusaders usually get up to. Maybe the wall jump was pushing it but she acknowledged it's an advanced move.