Outlanders

by Pizza Parker

Chapter 1: Journey

Chapter 1: Journey

Silence.

The rays of the afternoon sun slowly baked the emerald-green fields of Equestria. A lone bumblebee docked itself onto a hot-white lily, picking up a delivery of pollen. Two fawns were playing a game of tag with each other. A small group of monarch butterflies perched themselves atop a bouquet of vividly colored flowers. The trees slowly danced to the silent melody sung by the wind.

An aggravating creak and crackle of wood resonated through the air. Silence was broken. In an instant the once lively part of the woods became nothing but a quiet picture of grass and trees; winged insects broke off into a retreat, the fawns ran home to their mothers, and small foragers dived into their holes.

Clack

Two stallions, both unicorns, were hauling a cart down a forest path. One was dressed in a coat of blue-grey hair, adorned a nicely combed mane atop his head, and has a camera plastered on his flank. The other dons both a black mane and coat, the mane having a darker shade. A star is pictured on his flank. Their names are Avant Garde and Night Sky.

Clack

Avant is a kind stallion, but one may find his ramblings of science and conversations with himself unsettling. He believes there are multiple ponies in his head, and supposedly is able to quickly gather information using all of them to observe his surroundings at the same time. Even though this may seem like a superb ability, schizophrenia and insanity come with it.

Clack

Night is a socially awkward stallion who is knowledged in astronomy. He doesn't have many friends. In fact, the only pony he would call a friend is Avant. Although he is terrible in common vanity spells, he is skilled in combat spells. He'd make a valuable asset to a team, being skilled at knowing navigation and battle magic, but lacks the ability to socialize and work with other ponies. Most of the work he does are solo jobs. He also doesn't like attention, and would rather have his face inside of a book rather than in front of another pony.

CLACK

Both Avant and Night were madly irritated by the clack of the wood every time the right wheel made a full rotation. The cart wasn't the best out there. In fact, one could call it one of the worst out there. Still, it was barely strong enough to hold the two unicorn's stuff, but it was enough.

Clack

Night glared back at the cart. "Ivan, why is that cart making such a terrible noise!?" His voice was gentle, almost a whisper. "Ivan" was the nickname Night gave to Avant.

Avant gave a sharp exhale. "I have nooooooooooo ideaaaaaaaaa, you're the one who bought it." His voice was slightly deep and coarse, but kind and gentle at the same time.

Clack

Night frowned. "Okay, fine, maybe it is my fault for getting a terrible cart, but at least it was cheap and can hold our stuff in it. You should be lucky it even can hold your stuff in it." They both looked back. More than sixty five percent of the contents of the cart was Avant's belongings and photography gear. The rest consisted of Night's belongings, furniture, dishes and whatnot.

Clack

Avant cracked his neck. "Hey, Night, are we even getting close to Ponyville? We've been walking for hours, and this cart's getting really, really, really heavy." Avant rarely whined, but he never really had a stable personality.

Night made a quick observation of the darkening sky. "According the position of the stars we should be getting close, maybe another half and hour or so. We could stop and rest for now if you want."

Avant smiled and chuckled as they let down the cart. "Yes, let's."

They parked their cart behind a wide tree so that any passersby wouldn't be able to see it, and laid some blankets in a ditch. Quickly, they fell into a light slumber.

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Three hours had passed.

Night had awoke and took a long, noisy breath from his nostrils. "Ivan, its time to get moving again." He shook Avant.

"But I don't want to get moving again, we can get there tomorrow," Ivan moaned, face sill buried in his pillow.

"Get up, Ivan."

Avant turned around, facing Night. "Nope."

"Now."

"No."

Night rolled his eyes. "Oh, Ivan, I've been meaning to show you this: a new flashy light thingy for your cameras."

As Night Sky said that a very bright light shot from his horn and down into Avant's face.

"GAAAAAAAAAH, my eyes! I can't see!" Avant flailed his front hooves around, hoping to get revenge on Night.

"Heh, I call it flare. Anyway, relax, it will wear off, but at least it got you up." Night chuckled and helped Avant up. He looked at the path ahead. "We need to keep moving if we want to get there, help me pull this cart will you?"

Avant's vision was clearing up. "Alright, fine." The two locked themselves into the cart and slowly started to trudge along the road.

The next three hours or so were filled with the sound of CLANK, clack, and more CLANK.

Avant looked up from his hooves and noticed some buildings and a dim yellow aura in the horizon. "Night, look! Ponyville!"

Night sighed in relief. "Ugh, finally my hooves are killing me. You have the directions to our home right? And I trust you have the key to the house?" He looked at Avant, eyebrow raised.

Avant rustled through his saddlebag. "Um, yeah I got them right here." He rapidly blinked for a bit and squinted at a small piece of paper. "It's, uh, 2546 Ponyville Lane"

Night nodded and stopped walking. "I think we should set up camp here on the outskirts of town. Our cart makes alot of noise and seeing how it's two in the morning, we might disturb somepony's sleep."

The cart clanked, as if to say, "You don't say?"

"I see what you mean." Avant walked over to the cart. "I'll set up the stuff."

The two unicorns set up their sleeping equiptment and talked for a while, but then decided they needed to sleep.

Night closed his eyes and thought to himself, Gosh, I wonder what Ponyville will be like, kinda nervous. I wonder what Ivan's thinking. I'm not even sure if he thinks at all. Night realized his pillow was a rock.

Rocks are hard.

Night sat up and rubbed the back of his head. "OW! What the- why is my pillow a rock!?" Night looked around.

Avant.

Night scowled. "IVAN!"

Avant groaned as he awoke. "Yes, Night?"

"Where is my pillow!?"

"I don't know," Avant sarcastically remarked.

Night's scowl became a mischievous smirk. "Huh. You know, what? I wanna cast a spell!"

Avant's eyes shot wide open. "Wha- wait, no, no please! Here, take your pillow, just PLEASE don't cast flare!" Avant tossed Night's pillow to him and shielded his eyes.

Night caught the pillow mid-flight. "Thanks."

Just then, a familiar light beamed from Night's horn and into the unprepared pony's eyes.

"SWEET CELESTIA , MY EYES! MY EYES! IT BURNS!" Kneeling in the ground, Avant screamed as he furiously blinked and rubbed his eyes.

Night rolled himself in a more comfortable position. "I'll bet it does, now go to sleep."

Night sighed in his mind. I hope things will go well when we get to Ponyville. Finally, sleep took over the two unicorns and they both drifted off into a quiet slumber.

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Six thirty in the morning. Most ponies were still fast asleep. The wind seemed sleepy too; only a few trees waved to say their hellos to it. The frail fingers of a chilling fog caressed the buildings and rolling hills around Ponyville. Baby birds, still not as extravagantly dressed as their parents, sang "Good morning!" to their families. The clip-clop of a blue-gray pony's hooves could be heard wandering the town. His conversations with himself could be heard too.

Avant was still adjusting to the atmosphere of Ponyville. For most of his life he woke up to the rumblings of huge carts being towed by stallions four times as strong as he, the blares of the trains departing and entering the nearby train station, and the smell of the coal being burned in the factories whose mass-produced goods were in high demand.

Avant was reciting formulas of various potions and poetry from one of his mother's books aloud.

A little too loud.

"Hey! Keep it down would ya? Most ponies around here are still sleeping," a middle-aged mare behind him hushed with a strict tone. Avant turned around and scratched the back of his mane. "Sorry."

"Thanks." The mare continued her morning walk and disappeared around the corner. Avant continued his walk as well, keeping his thoughts in his head.

Five minutes passed. Avant found his house. The numbers two, five, four and six were etched above the door. "Here we are," Avant sighed. He reached in his saddlebags for the key.

It wasn't there.

He levitated the bags in front of him, frantically using both hooves in a desperate search for the key. He found snacks, trinkets, and twenty bits, but no house key. "Aha!" Avant exclaimed. He'd remembered where the key was: in a small steel box. A box he had slipped in Nights saddlebags. Avant groaned in frustration and banged his head against the door. He walked back to the improvised camp site he and his friend made, head hung low.

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Night woke up to the pleasant sunlight and warm forest breeze. Shortly after he got up he noticed that Avant was missing, so he called out to him and got no response, he called again, still no response.

"Strange," Night mummered to himself.

As Night went through the cart to get some of his belongings, he noticed the box which held the key was inside, but not the paper with the house's address.

"So, he broke off to go find the house, but he forgot the key," Night quietly chuckled to himself. "I'll have some time before he gets back."

After rumaging through his stuff Night found his spell book, picked it up and started to read it while waiting for this rather strange companion. He'd found spells like teleportation. Too basic. Levitation. Not too special. Flare. Night smiled upon seeing this. Double Flare. Night's eyes went wide and welded themselves to the text and instructions of the spell.

A sinister grin etched itself onto Night's face. "This'll be fun."

Shortly after he closed his book and praticed his new found spell.

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As Avant neared the camp, he felt the warmth of the sun on his back and a present forest breeze. For some reason it was much brighter than it should be at this time; it looked as if was noon, but it was only eight in the morning. Closing in on the camp, Avant could hear some abnormal sounds not usually heard from barren patch of grassy land. It was like a flame. Not a traditional campfire flame, but a gaseous one.

Avant tried peeking over the hill that separated the camp and he, but couldn't lift his head high enough. "What's that noise?" Avant said aloud. "Is it coming from our camp? We didn't bring a gas stove."

He kept walking. "I suppose I'll find out sooner or later. Hopefully I'll make it back in time befre Night wakes up."

About 5 minutes later, Avant made it to the camp. Night appeared to be sleeping.

"Great, he's still asleep. I can just pretend I didn't go into town," Avant quietly cheered.

From underneath the blankets of where Night was sleeping a muffled voice shouted, "I wanna cast a spell!"

"Ponyfeathers." was the only word Avant could muster, for he knew too well what was coming his way.

In no more than a second, Night removed the covers from atop of himself, hopped up to his hooves, and prepared his finishing move. "I cast double flare!"

As he said those terrible awful words, two bright lights formed in Night's hooves. As he brought his hooves together, those two bright lights shot directly into Avant's face. Night laughed hysterically as Avant screamed in pain, face dug into the ground.

"Now that one was a double flare! I'd say that's what you get for heading into town without waking me up!" Night laughed as he helped up Avant.

"Its twice as bad as the normal flare," Avant mumbled in a bit of pain while he rubbed his sore eyes.

"Yeah, well good to see you made it back. How was ponyville? Nevermind, no time for questions. We have to get to the house before nightfall, and with this cart it will take about 3 hours. Possibly more now that your temporarily blinded."

Avant was still blinking. "Fine, lets start moving."

The two friends packed their belongings and readied the cart for the journey ahead. A seemingly long journey that filled the air with the sound of CLACK.

--------------------------------

Two and a half hours passed since the two friends continued on their trek. They had finally reached the entrance of Ponyville. It made Night happy, Avant a little disappointed since he was already here earlier in the morning.

"Ugh, we're finally here, Ponyville," cheered Night.

"Seems to have gotten a little bit more lifelike from when I was here," observed Avant.

"So, uh, which way to the house?" Night turned his head in several directions.

"It's uh," Avant took a quick look around, looking for landmarks. "This way." Avant lead the way while Night pulled the cart.

Fifteen minutes later they arrived at their house. It looked like more of a small studio apartment, maybe even a shack. As they opened the door, they noticed there was nothing in this house. Absolutely nothing, just four walls. It had appeared that that not a single soul had touched the interior of the house ever since it was built.

"Sweet, looks like its completely new, so its all nice and clean," Avant cheered.

Night looked at Avant, then at the interior. Dust had carpeted the wooden floor, spiders had made their homes in the corners, and the drapes were hung over the windows, protecting the darkness from any light that attempted to barge in.

"I don't know, the architectural style looks a little outdated, and it looks like nopony has maintained it in a long time," Night said as he went back outside to move the cart and retrieve his belongings.

"How would you know, and why would you care? It's new. That's all that matters," Avant said bluntly as he also went to get his belongings from the cart.

"I read a book on house designs and how they have changed over the years. This definitely is two years old. Also, it says that they don't hold up that well against moisture, wind, and whatnot," Night remarked.

"You read too much," Avant said as he set up some of his belongings.

Night shook his head, remembering Avant's late nights reading science textbooks and poetry books his mother gave him.

Night clapped and rubbed his hooves together. "Avant, we need to take stock and see how much food and bits we have."

Avant dumped the contents of their bags on a table. "Okay, so, looks like we got 3, no, 4 apples, 2 oranges, and 10 carrots left." Avant quickly counted their currency. "And about 150 bits." Avant noticed some white and brown liquid dripping from the bags. "Oh, and a few ice cream sandwiches. Melted ones.

Night looked uncomfortable. "150 bits? That won't get us too far. We should look for jobs after we set up."

Avant raced to the cart and took out a box. He rushed back into the house. "I forgot, we also got some pizza!" Avant held the last syllable for a few seconds.

Night cringed at the noise. "Not so loud Ivan, I'm thinking. Wait, did you say pizza?"

"Heck yeah," Avant said as he set the pizza on the table. "It's pizza time," he continued with a cheesy smile.

For the next hour the two friend were talking at the table and eat their cold pizza. They didn't mind it being cold or using magic to heat it up; they hadn't eaten any breakfast anyway.

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Night looked at the clock. "Wow, we spent an hour eating pizza."

"Worth it," Avant replied quickly.

"Yes, well, we need to go seek employment. 150 bits won't last long." Night got up from the floor.

"I suppose you are right, hey maybe I can get a job for the Ponyville newspaper! I'm sure they have one," Avant exclaimed.

"Great, let's go look for some jobs," Night cheered.

The two friends put away the pizza box, which still surprisingly had some pizza left in it, and took a walk into the streets looking for somewhere to work.

------------------------------------------

The two unicorns had walked for a while through Ponyville looking for work. Most business weren't looking for help, and the ones that did didn't look appealing to the two.

Night abruptly halted. "Wait, hold up," Night ordered, stopping Avant with his hoof.

"What is it?" Avant replied

"Do you feel somepony's watching us? Not like in those plays where the character says that they're being followed, but like somepony is actually stalking us?"

"Now that you speak of it, it does feel like we are being watched," Avant said as he looked around.

As Avant looked around, he saw a peculiar pink mare staring at them. As soon as she noticed that Avant was staring at her she gasped loudly and dashed away.

"O...kay, that was weird," Night said, eyebrow raised.

"Seemed normal to me," Avant replied as he quickly shook his head.

"You're not normal," Night commented.

After their strange encounter with this pink pony, they kept walking. Down the path they found the central market, riddled with all sorts of stalls and carts with food and such. As they walked in they got a lot of stares and overheard comments about them.

"Who are those ponies?" A pony asked of them asked another

"I don't know. They look new to town," The pony replied.

"That one looks rather dashing."

"You think they're, you know, gay?"

Immediately upon hearing this, Night looked confused and took a few steps away from Avant.

Avant and Night decided to leave, for they were attracting to much attention and did not want to cause trouble. Any trouble would be bad for them.

Night scratched his head. "Weird."

When Night turned back around he found himself face to face with the same pink pony earlier, and this pink pony was really close to his face.

"AUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!" Night yelled, his senses not being able to take in the sudden pink filling his sight.

"Omigoshomigoshomigosh!" The pink pony yelled. "Are you two new to town? I saw you earlier and I didn't recognize you, but maybe I did so I watched you for a little bit longer. You're new around here, right? You know what that means, right!?"

"Um...you leave us alone?" Night responded hesitantly.

"No silly, It means I throw you a PAAAAAAARRRRTYYYYYYYYYY," screamed the mare who seemed like she had more energy than all the coal-powered machines in Manehattan had.

Night rubbed his ears. "For just moving here?" Night was now very confused.

"Oh silly me I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Pinkie Pie," chirped Pinkie Pie.

Night nodded. "Uh, sure I'm Night Sky and this is my friend Avant Grade."

Avant waved and said, "Hello!"

"It's nice to meet you both! Gosh, when should we have the party? How about Wednesday? Oh boy! There will be streamers andcakeandpieandbrowniesandpunchandgamesandmoregamesandfunandandand!" Pinkie said at a speed quicker than a runaway train racing down a 75 degree mountain with it's brakes broken.

Celestia, how does she even manage to talk that fast? Night thought. He shook his head. "Where's this party going to be?"

"Sugar Cube Corner, silly," responded Pinkie. "Oh but I haven't welcomed a new pony, let alone two, in a very, very, very, very, very long time! I'll need to dust off my old welcoming supplies! See you later!" Pinkie dashed away in a blink.

Night took a minute or two to process everything that just happened in such a short time. He looked over to Avant.

Avant had sort of froze up just staring in the direction that Pinkie Pie had dashed off to.

Night shook his friend. "Avant? Avant. Hello?" No response.

"Alrighty then." Night reeled back.

And came back with a tremendous slap to Avant's face.

Avant was disoriented. "Huh, what!? Augh, my cheek, it hurts," he groaned as he rubbed his sore cheek.

"Good, because I just slapped it. You zoned out." Night chuckled

"Right, so let's split up and keep looking for a job?" Avant asked

Night agreed. "Sure, you take left I'll take right."

The two friends split up and started to look for work. Avant looked for the Ponyville newspaper while Night looked for work at anything that had to do with books, magic, or spells.

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Comments

[DamagedQ]

good story. I like it so far, I'll keep watching to see how it develops.
BTW, schizophrenia is often associated with or used as a synonymously with Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personality disorder), but they are pretty different. DID is much less common and much more severe than most types of schizophrenia. In some cases, DID can be a subclass of schizophrenia, but they are usually completely separate. I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and believe me when I say that I do NOT have more than one person inside my head.
But seriously, good first chapter. thumbs up.

[Pizza Parker]

895842

Ah, thanks for the info. I didn't really research things lol.

[RecordScratch]

GIGGIDY! Love it, Very few errors, Hope to see WAAAY MORE!
25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqpuxdZN421r0ojhto1_250.gif

[Sapphire Awesome]

I like. I like a lot. Keep up the good work.

[musicman722]

HAHAHAHAHAHAH! I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE WITH THAT FLARE!!

i gotta watch that series again. lol lololololololololol

"Alright, I wanna cast a spell...."
"I'm a Lumberjack."
trololololol

[Pizza Parker]

898198

hahah yeah, Unforgotten Realms great animated series and such, also my friend and I will try and update this story at least every two weeks or so, It's also creepy, when someone pushes the "watch" button I got a notification saying "So and So is watching you." xD and Lumberjack is not a class, its a legend.