> Pipsqueak the Moonpony
>  by Banatato
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Ponies on the moon?!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Pipsqueak woke up, expecting to see either the blue sky of day or the purple sky of night, but he didn’t see that, he saw complete darkness in the sky.  A stallion was poking him, the stallion was white with a blue mane and was probably an earth pony, at least it looked like he had no horn or wings to Pipsqueak, and his cutie mark kind of looked like some white stones, like the ground.  Wait, what is this ground, Pipsqueak thought and stood up abruptly.
“Are, are we on the . . . moon?” he asked the stallion.
The stallion nodded.
“Okay, I’m, I’m Pipsqueak, who are you?”
The stallion shrugged a little.
“You . . . don’t know who you are.”
He nodded.
“Well, I’ll call you, um . . . Moon Rock!  Do you like that?”
Moon Rock raised an eyebrow to show that he was confused.
“Look at your cutie mark, it looks kind of like moon rocks, don’t you think?”
He looked at his cutie mark; though it looked a little hard to bend like that, then he nodded.
Pipsqueak stood quietly for a little while, just looking at him.
“Is there anypony else here?” Pipsqueak asked.
Moon Rock shook his head.
“Can you speak?”
He shook his head again.
“How can we breathe here?”
He took out a piece of paper and drew the sun; it looked like the sun that was Celestia’s cutie mark.
“Celestia?  Is that why we are here?”
He nodded.
“It’s, cold.  Do you have a place of shelter?”
He nodded, and began walking, beckoning Pipsqueak to follow him.  They walked for a pretty long time, or at least it 	seemed to be long, there was almost nothing on the moon besides rocks, and it was a little eerie.  Finally a house came into view, or possibly what could have been a house.  The house seemed to be made out of the moon rocks that were on the ground.
“Is this where you live?” Pipsqueak asked.
He nodded.
Moon Rock walked in and Pipsqueak followed him in to the room.  It was a small room.  There was a table made out of wood, but a strange, gray wood.  On the table there were some trinkets that seemed to be part of some machine, machines are like . . . you know, water mills and, uh, cameras.  There was a rack made with identical wood, on the rack were a variety of different moon rocks.  There was also a strange plant in a pot made out of moon rocks; it was growing in darker gray dust.  There were two doors going to other rooms and the entrance door; all three were made out of that same gray wood.  There was also a glass-like screen that was slightly tinted gray that seemed to lead to a garden.
“This place is weird.” Pipsqueak said to himself, then, to Moon Rock while pointing to the garden:  “Are those plants . . . growing on the moon?”
He nodded, and then he brought Pipsqueak what looked like some sort of fruit, it was purple and oval-shaped.  He mimed eating.
The foal took the fruit and ate it, then he said:  “What is that?!  It’s so good!”
He pointed outside.
“You grew this?”
He nodded.
“What’s this stuff on the table?”
He pointed to the ceiling, which Pipsqueak noticed was made out of the glass, he specifically was pointing to Equestria.
“So, this is for returning to Equestria?  Why would you want to do that?  You’ve got all of this neat stuff and lots of moon 	rocks.”
He sighed and shook his head.
“Are you . . . lonely?”
He nodded.
“Well, maybe I can help you get back to Equestria.”
He shook his head.
“Why?”
He wrote something on a piece of paper:  Danger.
“Is it dangerous to try to get back?”
He shook his head.
“Is there . . . danger here?”
He nodded.
“Then why are we still here?”
He wrote another thing on the paper:  Safe.  And then he wrote something longer:  To get to the pieces that we need to finish my machine we need to go into dangerous areas of the moon, we don’t have space suits and cannot breathe outside of Celestia's bubble of oxygen.  We need some type of space suit; we don’t have materials for those.  And, besides, there are monsters out there, Pipsqueak.
“Oh, that makes sense, there are, monsters though?”
He nodded.
“What kind?”
He wrote:  Bad.
“You don’t know what kind of monsters there are at all?  How do you know there are monsters?”
He pointed to his ears.
“You hear them.”
He nodded.
“That’s, freaky.”
He shrugged.
“So, you built this place?” Pipsqueak said after a little.
He nodded.
“That must’ve taken forever, how long have you been here?”
He wrote down something on a piece of paper:  Since a week after Princess Luna returned to us.
“Why did that happen?”
He then wrote:  I supported Princess Luna too much when she returned.  I asked to be moved to be her guard and she said no, later, when I told her that if she was less stubborn and jealous of Luna than others would like her better than Luna and she wouldn’t have to keep making Luna seem bad.  She didn’t like that and one day I woke up and was here, what’d you do to make her banish you to the moon?
“Uh, well, when I was, banished, I guess, it was on Nightmare Night, I think.  Princess Luna was there, but everybody 	thought she was Nightmare Moon, but Twilight Sparkle showed her that ponies would respect her and I told her ‘Luna, you’re the best princess,’ I guess that’s why Princess Celestia banished me, oh, and I was a pirate for Nightmare Night.” Pipsqueak explained.
Moon Rock wrote down:  That figures.  Are you tired?  I have an extra bed in which you can sleep.  Pipsqueak read it 	and noticed that he was used to writing with a quill in between his teeth.
“Oh, yeah, I am tired, it was a long Nightmare Night and I ate lots of candy.  I should probably get some rest.” Pipsqueak 	said, yawning.
Moon Rock led him to the door on the left, there was just a regular room with nothing in it besides a bed that felt very soft, but different than all of the other beds Pipsqueak had felt, a small bedside table, and a little rack for putting things on.
Moon Rock waved him good night and pipsqueak went to his bed, he was very tired, but he thought that he would never sleep, but, after a while, he was sleeping soundly. . . .

> As regular as a day on the moon can be.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Pipsqueak woke up the following morning to the smell of fruit, the same fruit that he had had earlier and stranger moon 	fruits.  He yawned and got out of bed, then he went over to the main room of the house, he didn’t see Moon Rock until he noticed that he was sitting outside at a table, politely waiting for Pipsqueak.
He walked outside and said:  “Good morning, Moon Rock.  That fruit smells good.”  Pipsqueak had never had fruit that smelled so much, but at least it was delicious smelling.
He sat down and looked at the plants that Moon Rock had growing.  There were many of them, each one strange to look at, but attractive in a way.  There was a tree of some sort that grew the oval fruit that Pipsqueak had tried, but the leaves were on the bottom and the roots were on the top, and the fruits themselves seemed to defy physics by hanging off of the leaves, but hanging up.  There was a rainbow bush that grew a small, completely black crop that was hard to tell if it was a fruit or a vegetable, or possibly even a nut or goober.  Then there was a vine that continuously moved as if it were an animal.  Small, orange pyramids grew from it, each one glowing a little bit in a blue color.  Then there was a plant that seemed to be a corn-like crop, but it grew hourglasses instead of corn.
There were many more crops, but the other ones Pipsqueak couldn't see.
“This is . . . quite a garden.” Pipsqueak said.
Moon Rock bowed his head, which probably meant something like “thank you.”
Pipsqueak then ate his food, he especially liked the little pyramid fruits, they tasted sour and sweet at the same time, and sometimes even salty.  Once Pipsqueak and Moon Rock had finished eating, Pipsqueak wanted to ask Moon Rock something.
“Moon Rock . . . do my parents . . . remember me?” he asked.
Moon Rock wrote something:  Why did this come up so suddenly?
“Because, how can we be here and my parents know?  They would try to stop Celestia, wouldn’t they?”
He then wrote:  I’m sorry, Pipsqueak, she makes it so they can’t interfere. . . .
“Oh.” He said sadly.
Now Moon Rock wrote:  Can you help me with my chores, Pipsqueak, there are lots of things that need doing today, and if you help me then it would go faster.  It’ll take your mind off of things, at least. . . .
“Okay, I can help.”
Moon Rock wrote up a list:
Harvest water from the spring.
Water the plants.
Search for more seeds for new plants.
Harvest the rubber-like plant for making a spacesuit so we can get out of the Celestia Bubble.
Collect moon rocks for Moon Rock’s collection.
Clean house.
“Can I do the stuff that’s inside the house area, like watering plants and cleaning the house?”
Moon Rock nodded.
“Okay, I’ll water the plants, harvest the rubber-like plant for making a spacesuit so we can get out of the Celestia Bubble, and clean.”
Moon Rock nodded.  He then put the list on the table and pointed towards Harvest water from the spring.
“Okay, you’ll do that now?”
He nodded.
“I’ll harvest the rubber-plant, which one is it?” he asked.
Moon Rock walked to the other door instead of the garden, which was where Pipsqueak thought the plant would be.  He walked into the room and then pointed towards multiple plants.  He then wrote:  Harvest every single white thing, the black ones aren't ready, I don’t get why it works like that, but only white ones are ready.  Oh, and that basket over there is where they go after being picked.
“Okay.” Pipsqueak said.
Moon Rock then left and Pipsqueak started working.  The plants were a gray color with black and white ball shaped things growing off of them.  When he started pulling on them with both of his hooves he understood why he said “Rubber-like plant.”  When he pulled on the white ball-things the plant stretched, it kept stretching, and finally, once he had gone far enough back, broke the white ball off of the plant.  The ball itself felt different from rubber, it was similar to rubber, but somewhat hard, and a lot more flexible.  The work was invigorating and time-consuming, but getting water was too apparently, because about the same time Pipsqueak had got the last ball off of the last plant and put it in the basket, Moon Rock got back with a huge thing of water that had to be wheeled into the garden.
He walked over to Pipsqueak and wrote:  Are you ready to water the plants?
Pipsqueak nodded.
He then wrote:  Okay, you need to water the roots of the plant, even if the roots are in the air, the roots.  Got that? 	When Pipsqueak nodded again he continued:  Okay, I’m going to search for more seeds and get some moon rocks.
Pipsqueak walked outside and Moon Rock left to do other things, there was some sort of hose connected to the big thing of water, it was obviously for the plants.  Pipsqueak made sure to water the plants on their roots, even if their roots were on the top of the plant instead of the bottom, there weren’t that many of those plants though.  It wasn’t as hard as harvesting the rubber-like plants, but it was still as time-consuming as it.  The water looked different from other water, and, on the container of it, it said, in very, very big lettering:  DO NOT DRINK!  So Pipsqueak did not.  When he studied the water more he noticed that it was slightly metallic, more specifically, slightly silver.  But it was completely see-through, and it also reflected better than completely still, regular water.  
He had finally finished watering and walked inside, now it was time to clean, which wasn’t all that interesting, so we’ll skip to the good part. . . .
> The Test of Material
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	After Pipsqueak was finished cleaning the house, Moon Rock was back in the house with lots of little rocks and some seeds, Pipsqueak walked over to him.
“Do you think there is enough of the Rubber-like plants material to make the spacesuit?” Pipsqueak asked.
Moon Rock wrote:  There probably is, but I’ve no idea how to make it.
“Oh.”
Pipsqueak watched as Moon Rock quietly placed the rocks on his rock rack.
“Those rocks look nice.”
Pipsqueak saw Moon Rock nod twice quickly, which he took to mean ‘Thank you.’
“Do you . . . even have an idea of how to make a spacesuit?”
Moon Rock thought for a moment, and then he shook his head.
“Do you know how to make those into anything?”
He nodded, and then he walked over to the basket and picked it up.  He held the ball in his hooves and then closed them tightly, when he opened them the ball was all wobbly, and he easily molded it into a sheet.
“Well, then all we need to do is to be able to combine multiple balls and then shape them into suits.”
Moon Rock turned around to look at Pipsqueak; he then smiled brightly and nodded a lot.
“But we also need to make sure that it works.”
Moon Rock nodded.
“And we need a way of having enough air to survive over there.”
Moon Rock nodded again.  Then he wrote:  We need to test the material before anything else can happen.
“Yeah.”
Moon Rock walked into another room and returned with a fishing pool.
“Why do you have a fishing pool?  Are there fish on the moon?”
Moon Rock shrugged.
Moon Rock picked up two fruits that were practically identical and a couple balls of the rubber material, and also some of the clear rubber stuff that looked like it also came from the plants.  They began walking left from where the entrance for the house was, while they were walking, Moon Rock was encasing one of the fruits in the rubber material with a little window.  When they finally had made it to the edge of the Celestia Bubble, Pipsqueak could tell.  There was a completely clear force field, but outside the force field everything looked a lot more menacing and darker.
Moon Rock hooked the fruit that wasn’t in the rubber-like-plant-material.  Almost right when the fruit was outside of the bubble, the fruit became a shriveled up pulp.  He lured it in, and put the one that was in the material, they both watched it through the little hole, and it stayed the same as it was before.
Moon Rock grinned and reeled in the fruit.  He then took it out, let Pipsqueak examine it, and then he ate it.
“You know, for a pony who once was one of the stiff, unemotional Canterlot guards; you sure are nothing like that description.” Pipsqueak said.
Moon Rock laughed.
“Wait, you can laugh?”
He wrote something on the piece of paper:  I can make sounds that don’t involve words for some reason, I can also say onomatopoeias, but I can’t make regular words.
“So, it has something to do with magic?”
He nodded.
They then walked back to the house and sat down to eat dinner, or whatever meal it was, if you ever go on the moon you will understand that time is hard to measure there.  Anyway, they had some sort of soup made from space vegetables; the soup was apparently delicious, by the way.  Then Moon Rock went into the room with the rubber-material, let’s call it moonrubber, and began trying to make one big sheet of it.  When he saw Pipsqueak sitting there watching him, he wrote:  Pipsqueak, you seriously need to go to bed, you look like you are going to fall from a previous position of sitting down.
“Ok . . . good night. . . .” Pipsqueak said, going to his room and sleeping. . . .