> Bloodshot on the Left
>  by Dolphy Blue Drake
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1:  The Clan Secrets
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even at first glance, almost anypony could tell that the Veins weren’t normal ponies.  They were a family that consisted of Thestrals and bat-winged unicorns, and most ponies were confused as to whether they should shun the family or admire them.

But what most ponies didn’t know was that the Vein clan held multiple dark secrets that were almost never willingly divulged to anypony who wasn’t about to marry into the clan.

One of those secrets was that they hadn’t always been Thestricorns.  In fact, Thestricorns never existed before the family patriarch, Free Vein, had become one.

Free Vein hadn’t always been known by that name, but nopony except for his family and the Princesses themselves knew who he used to be.

Free Vein was once known as Norman Green, and he used to live in another world, one filled with creatures called “humans”:  a race considered to be either myth or extinct in this world.  Not only was he from the world of humans, Norman had been one of them.  There had been an accident with a black hole generator at the facility Norman worked at that had torn him from the human world and dropped him in this one.

Norman had appeared in the Canterlot palace garden, and he passed out from the shock of appearing in another world.  Unfortunately, he didn’t stay passed out for long, as a searing pain shot through his eye socket and woke him up.  That pain was the family’s second secret.

The pain was something Norman was used to, but the intensity of it was difficult to cope with, and his only method of ending it was back in the human world.  As the intense agony increased, Norman got to his feet and screamed, pacing back and forth to try to make the pain more bearable.

The scream caught Princess Celestia’s attention, and when she arrived, she found a creature out of myth in her gardens, wearing a white lab coat and pacing back and forth while screaming and holding a hand to his left eye as if he were in incredible pain.

Celestia tried to sedate him with her magic, but the incredible agony he was experiencing cut right through the spell and forced him awake again, so she did the next best thing she could think of:  she tried to calm him down.

“Sir,” she said in a gentle tone, “I can tell that you’re in incredible pain, but screaming won’t help anything.”

Norman glanced at her with his one uncovered eye and stopped pacing for a second before he shook his head and resumed pacing.

“It makes me feel better,” he told her through clenched teeth.  “Distracts me from the horrible agony!  Unless this place has O2 tanks or Cafergot, I’m gonna be stuck like this for a few hours!”

He stopped screaming anyway, though.  However, he replaced the screaming with biting his own arm.

“Stop that!” Celestia said, appalled.  “You’ll hurt yourself like that!”

As she said that, she used her magic to force him to release his arm, eliciting a glare from him as he removed the hand on his other arm from obscuring the eye that was in pain.

Celestia took a step back at the sight of his mismatched eyes.  His right eye was normal, but his left was half-shut, bloodshot and filled with tears.

“What happened to you?” Celestia asked as he resumed pacing, covering his eye again as he started breathing like a mare in labor.

“Cluster Headache,” he told her.  “I’ve had them since I was fourteen.  Where I come from, it’s called ‘the most painful thing known to medical science.’”

“But if you have a headache, shouldn’t you lie down?” Celestia asked.  She’d never heard of these ‘Cluster Headaches’ before, but weren’t all headaches something that could be solved with taking aspirin and lying down?

“Lie down?” Norman said, stopping to stare at her in disbelief.  “Lie down?  All my life, it’s been ‘can’t you just take a tablet and lie down?’  I’m sick of it!  Clusters defy the ‘scientific’ definition of a headache!  Lying down makes it unbearable!”

Celestia gasped at how much pain and anger filled his voice as he responded.  He’d apparently had this conversation with others of his kind so many times before that he couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she apologized.  “I didn’t know.  I’ve never heard of that kind of ailment before.”

“Figures,” he muttered as he resumed pacing and breathing like mares usually did when giving birth.  “Even most other humans have never heard of them, so why should I expect a non-human to understand?  As far as the field of medicine has determined, only humans even get them!”

An idea popped into Celestia’s head right at that moment.

“You said only members of your kind get them, correct?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he responded, uncovering his bloodshot eye and looking at her in confusion.  “Why?”

“What if I turned you into something else?” she suggested.  “Something that doesn’t get them?”

“As if,” he snorted, “even if what you did with your horn and that glow was some kind of magic, I still don’t believe you could turn me into something that doesn’t get Clusters.”

Celestia rolled her eyes before saying, “that was magic.  I’m powerful enough to move the sun, and while my sister is… out… I control the moon in her stead, as well.”

“I don’t know…” Norman replied, doubt heavy in his pained voice.  However, Celestia could see the hope in his eyes, so she pushed further.

“As you said yourself, only your kind even suffers from this kind of pain,” she continued.  “If I turned you into one of my little ponies, the pain might end.”

The offer was too much for Norman to pass up.

He fell to his knees, clasped his hands together and said, “If you can really do that, please do it!  I’ve had to live with this pain for twenty years, and I was afraid I’d have to go through my whole life like this!  If you can take it away just by changing my shape, then I’ll be forever in your debt!”

“Be warned, though,” Celestia cautioned.  “I have limited control over what form you’ll take.  I can ensure that you’ll become a pony, but I don’t have complete control over what race you’ll end up being.”

“I don’t care!” Norman said.  “I just want the pain to end!”

“Very well,” Celestia said.  “One final thing, sir:  what is your name?”

“Norman Green,” Norman replied.

“Well, Mister Green,” Celestia said, “I shall attempt to grant you the freedom you so strongly desire.”

With that, Celestia’s horn glowed, and magic enveloped Norman’s body.  It rapidly changed shape, and when he had transformed, he had become something Celestia hadn’t expected:  a Thestral.

He had a blue coat and a red mane, and his eyes were a brilliant green.  He also had a Cutie Mark of an eye next to a bubbling beaker.  Strangely, the mark on his right flank differed slightly from the one on his left:  the right one was normal, but the left one was bloodshot.

He wept happily as soon as the transformation was over.

“The pain’s gone!” he cheered.  “It’s gone!  I’m free!  I’ll never have to worry about another inflated vein again!”

Celestia tilted her head in confusion at the last statement.

Norman noticed her confusion and explained.

“Human science doesn’t fully understand Clusters, but as for what we… I mean, they know about them, the pain is caused by a blood vessel expanding and crushing the most sensitive nerve in the human body, the Trigeminal Nerve.”

“Ah,” Celestia replied.  “Well, your current name won’t fit in very well in this world, so we’ll have to change it.”  Celestia thought for a moment before saying, “does the name ‘Free Vein’ sound good to you?”

“Oh, does it ever!” Norman replied, spreading his new wings.  “A name to remind me of today’s victory?  I’ll take it!”

“Then that will be your name from now on,” Celestia told him.  “I, Princess Celestia decree that from now on, you shall be known as Free Vein.”

Free Vein blinked.  “Wait, you’re a princess?” he asked.

“Oh, I must have forgotten to mention it,” Celestia said.  “Well, Free Vein, I must warn you of something:  your new form is called a ‘Thestral’.  They aren’t exactly well liked.”

“Who cares?” Free Vein laughed.  “I’m free of pain!  That’s all I…”

He stopped as he sniffed the air.

“What is it, Free Vein?” Celestia asked.

“I thought I smelled someone lighting up for a smoke,” he replied.  “Not that it matters anymore.  Since I won’t get Clusters anymore, I won’t have to stay away from the three main triggers anymore, either!  I might even—“

He cut off as his eyes widened, and he quickly covered his nose with a hoof and squeezed his eyes shut while muttering “no, no, no, no, no, no…”

“What is it?” Celestia asked.

“It didn’t work,” he said dejectedly.  “I can feel the pain coming back.  The smell of smoke must still trigger them.”

Celestia looked around to find the source, and her eyes fell on a unicorn stallion in a suit coat smoking a pipe.  She galloped over to him and said, “Please put that away for now.”

The unicorn complied, but looked at her in confusion.

Celestia had no time to elaborate, however, as the new Thestral let out a blood-curdling scream.

Celestia galloped over to Free Vein’s side and watched as he paced back and forth again, covering his left eye with a wing as he fluttered his right wing in an attempt to make the pain more bearable.

“Is there anything that could help?” Celestia asked hopefully.

“Pure oxygen,” Free Vein said through clenched teeth.  “That’s what I used back in the human world after they took Cafergot off the market.”

Instead of asking what ‘Cafergot’ was, Celestia picked him up in her magic and carried him towards the palace’s medical ward.

“Hurry, please!” Free Vein begged.  “I have to start inhaling it in the first ten minutes or it does nothing!”

Celestia nodded and picked up the pace, breaking into a full gallop with her newest subject in tow.

She burst into the medical ward and told the nurse, “He needs oxygen, and fast.”

The nurse saw that Free Vein was conscious and gave Celestia a confused look, but she let her put the Thestral in a hospital bed and the nurse placed an oxygen mask on his face.

Free Vein took deep long breaths through his nose, breathing out quickly with his mouth between each inhale.

Celestia watched as his left eye slowly opened fully, signaling that the pain was fading.

After a few more minutes of inhaling the pure oxygen, Free Vein smiled, took the mask off and got out of the bed.

“Thank you,” he whispered.  “It’s too bad that transforming me didn’t help, though.”

“I’m sorry that my attempt to help you failed,” Celestia said somberly.

“It’s okay,” Free Vein replied.  “At least I can fly.  I wish I could at least better resist the pain, though.”

“Then there may still be something I can do to help,” Celestia told him.  “There is one thing I can still do to alter your form.  It won’t take the pain away, but it will at least give you the ability to endure it better.”

“I’ll take it,” Free Vein replied immediately.  “Even a little bit helps.”

“This will be much more than a ‘little bit’,” Celestia said.  “Please accept this gift as my apology.”

Her horn glowed again, and Free Vein gasped as he felt his muscles get stronger and felt a horn sprout from his forehead, along with a sense of power fill his mind.

“What did you just do?” Free Vein asked.

“Normally, I’d say I turned you into an Alicorn, like me,” Celestia said, “but there’s a few differences between you and me.  First, your wings are still Thestral wings.  Second, your new magic is stronger than most unicorns, but it’s still far below my own.  Third, you are still fully mortal, unlike me.”

“Wait, you’re immortal?” Free Vein asked, his eyes widening in surprise.

“Not entirely,” Celestia replied.  “There are limits, but very few.”

“Okay,” Free Vein said.  “So, if you didn’t exactly turn me into what you are, then what did you turn me into?”

“We actually don’t have a term for what you’ve become,” Celestia admitted.  “However, I think I’m going to call you a ‘Thestricorn’, seeing as you’re now a Thestral-Alicorn hybrid, in a way.”

“Sounds fine to me,” Free Vein said.  “So, how will being physically stronger and having magic help?”

“The strength will help you to have more endurance,” Celestia explained, “and your new magic should help you to at least relieve some of your pain.  Both new abilities should make your pain more bearable.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing,” Free Vein commented.

Celestia nodded in agreement, and the rest of the day went without incident.

The headaches returned every few days over the next few weeks, always at certain times of the day depending on the day of the week.  Each time, Free Vein was rushed to the medical ward and put back on oxygen, even after he’d trained enough in the use of magic to be able to reduce his pain somewhat.

However, once summer started to roll around, the headaches stopped completely.  Celestia allowed him to leave Canterlot after that, and few ponies saw him after that.





Free Vein married a Thestral mare named Night Wing, who changed her name to Night Vein.  They had six children, but only two were Thestricorns like their father.  The other four were normal Thestrals.

Ironically, the two who were Thestricorns also inherited their father’s headaches, while the four who weren’t didn’t.  The two Thestricorns also had the oddity of slightly mismatched Cutie Marks, like their father:  both had marks that had an eye in it, but the flank that matched the side of the head each one got headaches on had a bloodshot eye, while the opposite flank had a normal one.

The children eventually married and had children themselves.  Once again, only the ones who inherited the headaches were Thestricorns.  Some of the children of the four who didn’t inherit the headaches got them anyway.

By this point, the family had noticed a trend:  only the children who inherited Free Vein’s Cluster Headaches were Thestricorns, and each one’s Cutie Mark had an eye somewhere in the image, with one flank having a normal eye, while the other had a bloodshot one, and the bloodshot one was always on the flank that matched the side of the head that the child got the headaches on:  if their headaches were on the right side, the right flank had the bloodshot eye in the Cutie Mark.  If the headaches were on the left, the left flank had the bloodshot eye.

Each time a member of the clan had a Thesticorn foal, the parents spent a day grieving for the pain their little one was cursed to endure.

> Chapter 2:  Dye Vein
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ponies stared at the oddity walking down the path towards Ponyville.

At first glance, he looked like a Thestral, which was already rare enough, but a second glance would reveal that the royal blue bat-pony with a silver mane and tail and purple eyes also sported a horn.

Even stranger was his Cutie Mark:  It was an image of a paintbrush dripping paint in a rainbow of colors with an eye next to it.  However, the eye on the right flank looked normal, while the one on the left flank was bloodshot.

Dye Vein disregarded the stares.  He was used to them.  Though Grandpa Free and Grandma Night lived in a cottage hidden in the mountains, the family was free to settle wherever they wanted, and Dye’s father, Gold Vein, had moved to Canterlot to raise a family.

Gold Vein was a Thestricorn as well, so Dye Vein had known from an early age what to expect when he reached adolescence.  His Thestricorn cousins who were born to normal Thestral parents learned about the family curse the hard way, since their parents thought the curse had skipped their lines entirely, when it had just skipped the parents specifically.

The sign at the side of the road said, “Welcome to Ponyville”.  Dye smiled a little.  He’d heard of Ponyville, but he’d never been here before.  By most accounts, the life there was surprisingly exciting for a village, and the ponies were very friendly for the most part.

Dye was a painter by trade, and the hustle and bustle of Canterlot just didn’t suit his style.  Not only that, but the only part of the city he could get a home in was very near a café, and he knew that being around the smell of coffee was just asking for a Cluster, so he passed up the location and left for the countryside.

Unfortunately, spring was starting.  Oh Celestia, he hated spring.  Fall, too.  Both of them marked the start of headache season, and only summer or winter could bring them to a complete end until the next headache season (well, complete except for ones brought on by the three triggers:  tobacco smoke, alcohol fumes and coffee fumes.  Supposedly, actually consuming one of those substances instead of simply smelling the fumes was even worse, but none of the clan members dared to put that to the test).

After checking to make sure the oxygen tank in his right saddlebag was still securely inside, Dye took to the air and flew over Ponyville, taking in the view from above the village.

He found a cloud and set himself down on it before lighting up his horn with the silver aura of his magic and levitating his art supplies out of his left saddlebag and setting them down on the cloud next to him (he’d placed a permanent version of a cloud-walking spell on them so that he wouldn’t have to keep levitating all of them while he painted).

His compact easel was the first thing he set up, followed by a sheet to paint on.  Next, he set up his paint set, levitated his brush into the green paint, and started painting.

Brushstroke after brushstroke ran across the sheet, and slowly a painting of a top-down view of Ponyville took shape on the sheet on the easel.  This was his favorite way to paint.  Almost nopony ever bothered him when he painted scenes from a cloud, and the best part was that he could sell his paintings to Earth Ponies and unicorns who would most likely never get a chance to see a view like this otherwise.

After about an hour, the painting was complete, and Dye Vein used his magic to roll up the sheet and bind it with a cord from his saddlebag.

He then returned all of his art supplies to the bag and levitated the newly finished painting alongside himself and dove off the cloud towards the ground below.

Right after he touched down, something pink knocked him to the ground, and he lost his telekinetic grip on the new painting, dropping it to the ground.

“Hey!” he snapped.  “Watch where you’re—“

He didn’t get to finish that sentence, however.

“A new pony!” the pink thing said.  After blinking a few times, he could tell that it was an Earth Pony with a frizzy mane and tail.  “What’s your name?  What’s your favorite color?  What’s your favorite drink?  Mine’s sarsaparilla!”

She kept speaking, but Dye only partially listened after that.  When they said the ponies here were friendly, I didn’t think they meant this friendly! he thought.

“Lady, I’d love to answer your questions,” Dye said as he put a hoof over her mouth, “but you have to stop talking long enough for me to speak!”

Once he was satisfied that she wasn’t going to resume talking his ears off, Dye smiled and removed his hoof from over her mouth.

“First, my name’s Dye Vein,” he told her.  “As for my favorite color…  I’m a painter, so I work with all colors, but I do love a nice sky blue and neon orange.  And my favorite drink?”  He scratched his head for a second before answering.  “Rosehip tea, heavy on the honey.  It’s an okay treatment for my condition.”

“Condition?” the pink pony asked, tilting her head.

“Don’t ask,” Dye told her.  “I don’t like to talk about it.”

“What kind of cake do you like?” the pink pony asked next.

“Well, that’s not an easy thing, actually,” the Thestricorn said, rubbing his forelegs together awkwardly.  “Grandpa Free always made ice cream cake for family celebrations, and I loved it a lot.  Ponies outside the Vein clan don’t even know what ice cream cake is, let alone how to make it.”

Her mane seemed to deflate and lose its frizz in response to what he said.

“Oh wait a sec,” Dye said, and he lit up his horn and levitated a book out of his right saddlebag, being extra careful to not disturb the tank in the bag.

The pink pony’s eyes widened when she saw his horn light up.

“You’re a bat-pony with a horn?” she asked.

“Yes,” Dye replied.  “I am.  The only Thestrals with horns are among the Vein clan.  Nopony else is like that.  We’re called ‘Thestricorns’.”

Dye levitated the book over to the pink pony.

“Anyway,” he said, “this is a copy of Grandpa Free’s Book of Frozen Confections.  Don’t show it to anypony, okay?  Grandpa’ll tan my hide if he finds out I taught another pony his secret recipes.”

The pink pony’s mane regained its frizz when she saw the picture of an ice cream cake on the cover.

“He’ll turn you tan?” she said.  “That’s silly!  How could a blue pony turn tan?”

“It’s an expression from where he came from,” Dye said, glad he could avoid giving away that Grandpa used to be human (humans made leather from cows, and there was a process involving that leather called “tanning” that Grandpa never elaborated on, but Dye was pretty sure that Grandpa’s old career in science somehow covered that process).

“Anyway,” he said, changing the subject back to the book, “the cake on the cover isn’t my favorite.”  Dye used his magic to flip through the book to the section on ice cream cakes and turned to a cookies and cream cake recipe.  “This is my favorite cake,” he told her as he pointed at the picture.  “Grandpa made it for my tenth birthday, and I’ve always wanted to have one again.”

“Okie Dokie Lokie!” the pink pony said as she took the book and somehow hid it in her mane.  “By the way, I’m Pinkie Pie!  The party’ll be tonight at Sugar Cube Corner!”

“Party?” Dye echoed, tilting his head.

“Yep!” Pinkie replied, smiling brightly.  “Your ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party!”

“A party for me?” Dye said.

“Yep!” Pinkie said.

“Well, that’s certainly different,” Dye muttered.

“Bye!  See you tonight!” Pinkie said before bouncing away towards what Dye guessed was the building she mentioned.

Dye shook his head and smiled a little as he used his magic to pick up the rolled up painting and dust it off.

Dye whistled to himself as he trotted through the town to take in the sights up close.  The boutique took him by surprise while he had been painting, as did the library.  He hadn’t expected a (relatively) small village to have a fashion store of its own, nor had he ever seen a library made out of a tree before.

He visited the boutique first, just to see what kind of attire was available.

The interior threw him for another loop.  The styles on display were very similar to the ones at the boutiques in Canterlot, but they seemed… better somehow.  He couldn’t put his hoof on how he could tell, though.

As he was inspecting a blue suit coat, he heard somepony approach him, so he turned around to face them.

“If you like that one, I could modify it for you,” the white unicorn mare said.

“Oh, no need for that,” Dye said, blushing slightly.  “I’m just browsing for the moment.”  He pointed to the Cutie Mark on his right flank.  “I’m a painter by trade, and I thought I might need some outfits for models at some later time.”

“I see,” the mare said.  “Well, if you ever need an outfit, darling, I’ll be happy to make you one.”

Dye took her hoof and kissed it, making her blush.

“My name’s Dye Vein, Miss…”

“Oh!  My name is Rarity,” the mare said as Dye let go.

“Well, Miss Rarity, I look forward to conducting business with you in the future,” Dye replied.  “From one artist to another, I can tell you put your whole heart into your work.  It’s quite magnificent.”

He turned to leave, and opened the door with his magic before turning back to look at Rarity and adding, “as for an outfit for myself, I might just request one at some later time.  I like my suits to have a little something for my wings, though.  It’s just a personal preference.”

With that, Dye went out the door, spread his wings, and took to the air to fly in the direction of the library.  Rarity stared after him in shock for a few seconds before shaking her head to clear it and returned to her work.

Dye stopped at the library next, flying around it a few times to get a good look at its exterior before touching down in front of the door and knocking.

“Pinkie, I told you—“ the purple Alicorn who answered the door cut off when she realized that the pony at the door wasn’t who she thought it was.

“Sorry, I thought you were somepony else,” the mare said, blushing in embarrassment.  “Anyway, how can I help you?”

“I just moved here this morning,” Dye explained.  “This library caught my interest, so I wanted to check it out.  Maybe even read up a bit on the town’s history.”

“Please, come in,” she replied, motioning for him to come inside.  Dye did so, and he could feel her eyes lock onto his wings, and then dart back to his horn.

Dye turned to look at her and took in her astonished expression.

“What, you’ve never seen a pony with wings and a horn before?” he chuckled.  “Don’t you have a mirror?”

Unfortunately, Dye’s wisecrack seemed to go right over the mare’s head, because she continued to stare.

“Wait a minute…” Dye said, his own eyes widening as something dawned on him.  “Aren’t you Princess Twilight Sparkle?”

The mare nodded, still staring at him in shock.

“I…  I didn’t know Thestrals could become Alicorns,” Twilight finally whispered.

“Ah, about that,” Dye said, shifting uncomfortably.  “I was born like this, as was my father.  My grandfather’s a Thestricorn, too, but how that happened is something my family usually doesn’t talk about.”

“I see,” Twilight said, looking Dye up and down.

“Anyway, my name’s Dye Vein,” Dye said with a bow.  “Professional painter extraordinaire.  I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Highness. ”

“Oh, there’s no need to be so formal, Mr. Vein,” Twilight told him as he stood back up.

“Well, if you say so, Your—“ he coughed.  “I mean, Twilight.  And while we’re dropping the formalities, please, call me Dye.  Mr. Vein is my grandfather.”

“Well then, Dye,” Twilight said.  “Did you have a particular book in mind?”

“Not exactly,” Dye said, his eyes darting around to take in the sight of all the books.  “A book on how to build a cloudhouse might be nice, though.  I paint most of my scenes while sitting on clouds anyway, so living in a place where I could do that whenever I want doesn’t seem like a bad idea.”

Twilight motioned for Dye to wait where he was, and she started searching through the shelves of books for a book that matched his request.

Dye took in the view of the interior of the library while he waited for Twilight to return.  He was starting to get the itch to paint again, but he forced himself to ignore it for the moment.  This was Twilight’s home, and he knew better than to paint anypony or their property without their permission first.

After a few minutes, Twilight returned with a book entitled Cloud Construction 101, and levitated it over to Dye, who took it in his own magical grip and put it in his right saddlebag.

“Thank you,” he said, nodding.  “I’ll return it as soon as I’ve finished, I promise.”

Twilight smiled when he said that, and Dye bid her farewell and left.

Dye started to look for another place to visit, but then he changed his mind and took to the air.  He landed on a cloud, took the borrowed book out of his bag and started reading up on how to construct a cloudhouse.





By the time the sun started to set, Dye had managed to construct a simple shack out of clouds.  It was only temporary, but it would give him a place to sleep until he had the whole house complete.

The house in question was still in its beginning stages, seeing as he favored somewhat larger houses than the ones common to Ponyville because he grew up with seven siblings and had lived in a house meant for such a large family.  He’d given it a porch and a front yard, but the walls he’d managed to construct were only a foot and a half tall at the moment.

Sighing, Dye dove off of his new property towards the ground below, touching down in front of the building he had earlier confirmed to be Sugar Cube Corner.

The lights were off, and Dye shook his head.  He knew they were going to try to surprise him.  His family had tried this for his seventh birthday, and he’d been caught completely off-guard.  This time, however, he decided to do something completely different than what these ponies probably expected.

He lit up his horn, cast an invisibility spell on himself and his saddlebags and chuckled.  He was going to turn their surprise on its head and be the one to do the surprising, instead.

Walking as quietly as he could, Dye slipped into the building without a sound and looked around.  His night vision allowed him to see all the ponies who thought they were hiding.  There were quite a few of them.  Dye smiled, used his magic to force the lights on and watched the ponies’ confusion as they tried to figure out who turned the lights on.

Smirking, Dye cancelled the invisibility spell and shouted, “surprise!  I’m already here!”

The ponies stared at him in shock, and then a cyan Pegasus mare with a rainbow mane and tail flew up to him and said, “That was awesome!  You even got the drop on Pinkie!”

“Thanks,” Dye said.  “I’ve always wanted to do that.”  He shot Pinkie a wink, and she smiled.

When the ponies saw Pinkie smile, everypony relaxed, and the party got underway.  Dye took a slice of the cake right away to see if Pinkie had managed to replicate the recipe perfectly.

She had.  It tasted exactly like Grandpa Free’s cookies and cream ice cream cake was supposed to taste.  Grandpa had said that ice cream cake was a human creation, and ponies had never thought of it themselves.  However, Pinkie had just proven that even somepony without a drop of ex-human blood in them could do just as well as Grandpa did.

Dye savored the flavor that he hadn’t tasted since he was ten years old, letting the upper layer of cookies and cream ice cream blend with the lower layer of fudge ice cream in his mouth.  It had been a long time since he’d tasted it, and it was as good as he remembered.

He looked in Pinkie’s direction and nodded his approval.  She broke into a huge grin in response.

After two hours of games and socializing, Dye found that he was getting thirsty, so he sampled some of the cider that had been brought by the family that managed the nearby apple orchard.  He didn’t notice it right away, but after a few gulps, he realized that there was something wrong with it:  the cider burned.

Panicking, Dye stopped drinking the cider, dashed outside and spat the cider that was still in his mouth into the grass.  Some of the ponies noticed his sudden reaction to the cider and watched him with concern on their faces.

Dye trotted up to the orange farm pony who had earlier introduced herself as Applejack and asked, “that wasn’t normal cider, was it?”

“Depends on whatcha mean by ‘normal’, Sugercube,” she replied, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

“I mean,” Dye said, the panic very evident in his voice, “was that cider spiked?”

“Wait, yer sayin’ ya can’t hold yer liquor?” Applejack asked.

“That’s not what I meant,” Dye said, shaking his head.  “It’s just very important that I don’t consume alcohol.  So please tell me:  was that hard cider?”

The farm pony’s eyes widened in shock.

“Ah’m sorry, Sugarcube,” she said, hanging her head.  “That there is hard cider.  Ah didn’t know—“

Dye bolted for the door, his eyes wide with panic.

“No, no, no, no, no, no…” the ponies heard him say as he dashed by.  They all exchanged confused glances, and Pinkie’s mane went flat and straight as she looked at the ground sadly.

> Chapter 3:  Pain, Air and Truth
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash darted after Dye and followed him as he flew back to the shack he’d built and she hid inside it while he set himself down on the clouds outside it.

Dye didn’t notice her following him though.  Once he was back on the mass of clouds he’d managed to put together, he levitated the oxygen tank out of his right saddlebag, put the mask on, and waited for the inevitable.

After a few minutes of nothing happening, Dash poked her head out of Dye’s shack and said, “Are you okay?  What were you panicking about?”

Dye stiffened at the sound of her voice.

“Go away,” he said firmly.

“But—“

“I said, go away!” Dye growled as the throbbing in his temple started.

“But we can—“

“I'm begging you, please go away!” Dye sobbed as he used his magic to turn on the tank in response to the rapidly building pain.

Nothing happened, though.  No air came out.  Dye looked at the gauge and saw that his tank was empty.  He’d forgotten to get it refilled before leaving for Ponyville.

“No!” he sobbed as the throbbing turned into a piercing sensation.  “Of all the stupid things I could’ve done, I forgot to refill my tank!”

“Wait a minute,” Rainbow said as she walked towards him on the clouds.  “What’s wrong?”

“The family curse!” Dye snapped as the pain got even worse.  He could now feel the dreaded sensation of a super-heated poker stabbing him in the left eye socket.  He threw off the mask, kicked the empty tank aside and did the only thing he could:  he began to pace while covering his left eye with his left wing and screaming in agony.

Dash watched as the Thestricorn howled in pain, her face painted in an image of complete shock.  “Your family’s cursed?” she asked.

“Yes!” Dye sobbed.  “Not cursed by magic, but by my grandfather’s heritage!  Celestia tried to cure him, but she couldn’t, so that’s why she changed him into a Thestricorn!  It was her way of saying sorry!”

Dye’s screams got even louder as the pain got even worse.  It had never gotten this bad before, so apparently the assumptions were right:  actually consuming one of the three main triggers produced even more agony than just being exposed to them did.

If the pain he’d experienced before could be compared to a super-heated poker, the agony he now felt was more like a molten-hot drill.

By this point, Dye’s screams echoed through all of Ponyville, and everypony in town could hear them.

“Oh Celestia, it hurts!” he screamed as Twilight and Fluttershy landed on the cloud on either side of Rainbow Dash.  They stared in complete shock at the stallion who had been happy and lively a half hour before but was now sobbing and screaming as if he was in more pain than anypony had ever felt before.

“Dye, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked.

Dye uncovered his left eye and looked at the three mares with his mismatched eyes: a perfectly normal right eye and a half-shut, tear-filled and bloodshot left eye.

“Being a Thestricorn isn’t as great as it may seem,” Dye said through clenched teeth while he lit up his horn with magic.  “Everypony in the Vein clan is either a normal Thestral or a Thestricorn.  The ones with horns are the unlucky ones.”

The aura emanating from Dye’s horn enveloped his head as he continued speaking and pacing, breathing like a mare in labor as he tied to reduce the pain with his magic.

“Thestricorn members of the Vein clan all share the clan curse,” Dye said bitterly.  “We experience pain greater than anypony should ever have to endure.  Take everything you know about headaches and turn that on its head, and you’ve pretty much got what I have to live with.”  He stopped pacing long enough to scream, “and I forgot to fill my freaking tank!”

As he resumed pacing, he broke down into tears.  “Almost nopony knows what a Cluster Headache is,” Dye sobbed.  “Almost no one knew where Grandpa came from, either.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Fluttershy squeaked.

Dye stopped pacing and sighed.

“Not unless you could get me on oxygen in the next five minutes,” he told them.  “If I don’t start inhaling pure oxygen in the first ten minutes of an attack, it’ll have no effect.”

“Five?” Rainbow repeated.  “I can do it in under two!”

Dye’s right eye widened and his left actually managed to fully open in spite of the pain.

“You can get me to a hospital and on oxygen in under two minutes?” he whispered in disbelief.

“No sweat!” Dash told him.  “Get on my back and I’ll show you!”

Dye shook his head.

“I’m probably too heavy!” he said, but before he could he could list more reasons, Rainbow threw him onto her back and zipped off towards the Ponyville Hospital.

Dye held on tight, both his eyes wide in shock as everything around them whizzed by like a blur.  In under a minute, Dash burst into the hospital and zipped right up to the counter.

“This stallion says he needs oxygen!” Rainbow told the nurse at the counter.  The nurse started to hoof them a clipboard, but Dye growled and knocked it away with his magic as he got off Dash’s back.

“I don’t have time for that crap,” he snapped.  “I’m in more pain than you’d believe, and only O2 can take care of it, but I need it right now!”

The nurse shrank under the glare of Dye’s mismatched eyes and nodded.

“Follow me, sir,” the nurse said.  Dye followed, once again covering his left eye with his wing and trying his best to suppress the need to scream in pain, but only succeeding in groaning instead of screaming.

The nurse led him to a room with hospital beds in it, and he promptly lay down on the bed as the nurse got him on oxygen.

Though lying down made the pain worse, Dye gritted his teeth and started inhaling the pure oxygen through the mask.  He took long and deep breaths in through his nose and breathed out quickly though his mouth before inhaling again.

The pain slowly decreased, but it was completely gone after a few minutes.  At that point, Dye took off the mask and smiled at the nurse.  His eyes matched perfectly again, and that caused the nurse to relax and turn off the air.

“Sir, what happened?” the nurse asked.

“Something almost nopony knows about,” Dye replied as he got off the bed.  “Certain members of my family have a medical condition that most ponies haven’t heard of.  I just had a run-in with it there.”

The nurse hoofed him the clipboard from earlier, and Dye sighed as he filled out the form on it.

“Normally, I’d just use my own personal oxygen tank,” Dye told the nurse.  “Unfortunately, I apparently forgot to refill it before I left for Ponyville, so I was lucky Dash was able to get me here so fast.”

Dye levitated the clipboard back to the nurse after completing the form, and she took it before motioning for him to follow her back to the front desk.

“I admit that I’ve never heard of the condition you wrote down on the form, Mr. Vein,” the nurse said after she’d taken a seat behind the desk again.  “However, Dr. Stable might—“

“I doubt it,” Dye Vein cut in.  “Very few ponies have heard of Cluster Headaches, and most of them are in my family.”

“Well, Dr. Stable will probably want to see you about them either way,” the nurse told him.  “If he does, he’ll be sending you a letter in the mail.”

“I’ll be back here in the morning, anyway,” Dye said.  “I’ll need to get my tank filled since it’s empty.”

“Well, I guess we’ll just give you your hospital bill then,” the nurse said.

Dye sighed and turned to leave.  Rainbow had been waiting for him, along with Rarity, Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie and Fluttershy.

“Wow, you were all worried about me?” Dye asked as the six mares stood up.  “You barely even know me!”

“Almost everypony in town was worried, Dye,” Rainbow told him.  “Your screams could be heard all over Ponyville!”

“Well, it did hurt a lot,” Dye said.  He wasn’t being defensive, though.  He was merely stating fact.  “On the bright side, I can let Grandpa know that his suspicions were right.”

“Suspicions?” Twilight asked, tilting her head.

“I’ll tell you later,” Dye promised.  “For now, I’ve got to let everypony know I’m okay.”

“While ya were talkin’ ta Nurse Redheart, Pinkie told the crowd of ponies outside that yer fine an’ dandy,” Applejack said.  “Sorry ‘bout the cider, Sugarcube.  Ah didn’t know that it’d do that ta ya.”

“It’s fine,” Dye chuckled.  “It’s my fault for not making sure it was safe before drinking any.  Well, all’s well that ends well, right?”

The six mares agreed, and the seven ponies left the hospital and went their separate ways.

All of them, except for Twilight and Dye, that is.

“Can you tell me about your grandfather’s suspicions now?” Twilight asked.

Dye sighed, but nodded.

“I’ll tell you quite a bit more than that, but only because you’re a Princess,” Dye said.  “However, other ponies might overhear, so I think we should talk at your place.”

Twilight nodded in understanding, and the two ponies walked to the library.

Once inside, Dye put up a spell to block sound from leaving the library, as well as a spell to prevent magical eavesdropping, just in case.

The two ponies sat down on chairs, and Dye began to explain.

“There’s a reason almost nopony knows about Clusters,” Dye said.  “It’s not a condition that’s supposed to be able to affect ponies at all.”

“Wait,” Twilight said in confusion.  “If it shouldn’t affect ponies, then how come you have that condition?”

“Before I answer that question, I have to swear you to secrecy,” Dye warned.  “Only my family and Princesses Celestia and Luna know what I’m about to tell you.”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Twilight said, making the motions for a Pinkie Pie Promise.

Dye shook his head.

“Not good enough,” he said.  “My family has a promise that we see as truly unbreakable, and I need you to use that one.  No other promise will do.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow while Dye used a quill pen to write down something on a sheet of paper.  He levitated it over to her and said, “Read it in your head first, and then recite it.  Be warned, though.  Grandpa said that where he came from, breaking this promise would provoke the wrath of angry spirits who would torment the offender for all eternity unless the mistake was corrected.”

Twilight read the words on the sheet.  They said:

Cross my heart,
Hope to die,
Stick a needle in my eye.

She gulped, but recited them word for word.

Dye nodded, and then he began his explanation.

“Twilight, have you ever heard of ‘humans’?”

“They’re just a legend,” Twilight said.  “Most ponies agree on that.  The only pony around here who doesn’t agree with that is Lyra Heartstrings, but it’s just an obsession of hers.”

Dye shook his head.

“That’s not entirely true,” he told her.  “Whether they ever actually existed in this world is unknown, but where Grandpa came from, humans were everywhere.  It was an entire world full of them.  About seven billion, actually.”

“But what does that have to do with your condition?” Twilight asked.

“Grandpa wasn’t always a pony, Twilight,” Dye replied.  “He used to be human.  An accident tore him from his home world and sent him to this one.  Princess Celestia found him, and she turned him into a pony at his request.  Clusters aren’t a pony condition, they’re a human condition.”

Twilight stared at Dye in astonishment.

“Why did he want to be a pony?” Twilight asked.

“He thought it’d cure his condition,” Dye replied.  “He was suffering from a Cluster at that moment, and Celestia suggested that perhaps turning him into a pony would take it away, since ponies don’t get Clusters.”

“But they were wrong, weren’t they?” Twilight whispered.

“Exactly,” Dye said bitterly.  “Grandpa became a Thestral, and the pain ended, but it came back as soon as he was exposed to one of the three main triggers.”

“You mean, like your reaction to the cider?” Twilight guessed.

“Exactly,” Dye replied, nodding.  “The very smell of tobacco smoke, alcohol or coffee can force a headache, even out of season.  Somepony lit up for a smoke, and Grandpa had another headache almost immediately.”

Twilight’s eyes widened in realization.

“So, the suspicions were…”

Dye nodded grimly.  “We’d suspected that directly consuming one of those substances would be even worse than just smelling them, but none of us dared to test that, since the pain is already horrible enough as is.”

“Anyway, Celestia turned Grandpa into a Thestricorn after that as a way of saying sorry,” Dye added.  “The Earth Pony strength is to better endure the pain, and the unicorn magic is for reducing it somewhat.  The only foals in the clan who get the headaches are also the ones who are born as Thestricorns.”

“When a Thestricorn foal is born into our clan, the parents spend an entire day grieving,” he continued.  “I was six years old when my parents had their third Thestricorn foal.  My youngest sibling—Blossom Vein—is the Thestricorn in question.  Mom and Dad were so heartbroken to have a third child to have to endure the family curse.  She started getting them a few months before I moved out.”

“Well, since you’ve sworn me to secrecy, I can’t talk about this to anypony who doesn’t already know,” Twilight said.  “However, I think there’s somepony else you should at least divulge the secret about your grandfather being human to.”

“And who’s that?” Dye asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Lyra Heartstrings,” Twilight told him.  “I mentioned her before when you first brought up humans.  For years, she was the only pony in Ponyville who believed the legends about humans were true.  Everypony else treated her like she was crazy.”

“Wow,” Dye said.  “Sounds like she really deserves to know.”  He smiled a bit and added, “okay, I’ll tell her.  It’s only fair.”

At that moment, there was a knock at the door.  Twilight motioned for Dye to wait and then trotted over to the door and opened it.

Lyra herself was right outside.

> Chapter 4:  The Believer and the Mailmare
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Lyra?” Twilight gasped.  “What are you doing here?”

“After Pinkie told everypony what had happened to Dye, I thought his condition sounded like something I read about,” Lyra answered.  “So I looked through my personal collection of books and ran across this!”

Lyra levitated a book out of her saddlebag entitled Human Suffering:  A Collection of Myths Concerning Human Diseases and Plagues.  She flipped through it to a myth called “the Curse of Agony” and showed it to Twilight.

“Whatever Dye has sounds a lot like the condition from this story,” Lyra told her.  “It says the pain was so bad, some humans actually took their own lives because they were so desperate to be free of the pain.”

Dye trotted over to the door and said, “That’s correct.  The official term for the condition is ‘Cluster Headache’, but there are a lot of other names for it, including the term ‘Suicide Headache’.”

“How did you—“ Lyra began, but Dye placed a hoof over her mouth to silence her.

“Twilight said that you believe in humans while almost nopony else does,” Dye said.  “I can give you some of the answers you’re looking for, but you have to keep them a secret.  At least for now.”

After Lyra came inside, Twilight shut the door and Dye showed Lyra the same paper he had shown to Twilight.

“Promise to keep what I’m about to tell you a secret for the time being, and then recite this oath,” Dye instructed.  Lyra barely glanced at the paper before saying, “I promise not to tell anypony what you’re about to tell me until you say otherwise.  Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”

“How’d you get it right with only a glance?” Dye asked while he stared at her in shock.

“I ran across that promise in one of my books,” Lyra explained.  “I remembered it right away, so I didn’t have to memorize it.”

“Well, since you already knew the promise,” Dye said.  “And I just showed it to you, you must know part of what I’m about to tell you, right?”

“Of course!” Lyra said, grinning happily.  “You were about to tell me humans exist, right?”

“Yes, they do,” Dye told her as the three ponies sat down at a table.  “But not here.  If they ever did exist in this world, they either went extinct or are very good at hiding.”

“However,” Dye continued.  “There is a world full of them.  My grandfather is from there, and he used to be one of them.”

Dye went on to explain to Lyra everything he had told Twilight, pausing to answer every question Lyra asked him.

After Dye finished, Lyra said, “All those answers only gives me more questions!  I have so many more I want to ask you!”

“That’ll have to wait for another time,” Dye replied.  “It’s pretty late now, and I’m sure Twilight’s as tired as I am.”  Dye suppressed a yawn.

Twilight nodded, and Lyra appeared as if she was about to pout, but she smiled instead and said, “Okay.  I’ll ask you later.  I’ll be seeing you again soon, right?”

“Maybe,” Dye said, fighting down another yawn.  “I have to get my house built, and until that’s done, I’ll be sleeping in a small cloud shack, so I want to get done quickly.”

“Does that mean you won’t be going out very much for a while?” Lyra asked.  The tone in her voice sounded like she didn’t like the answer she expected.

“Yes,” Dye said, nodding.  “I’ll only be going out for shopping and important business for the next few days.  If you run into me and I’m not in a hurry, I’ll chat with you for a little bit.”

Lyra smiled a little, and Dye added, “However, I’ve got to get home and get some sleep.  Goodnight, Lyra.”

With that, Dye got up to leave, opened the door, looked back over his shoulder and said, “thank you, Twilight.  I’m happy I could finally tell somepony about some of my family’s secrets.  I feel as if a weight’s been lifted from my shoulders.”

Twilight nodded tiredly, and Lyra followed Dye outside, watching as he took to the sky to return to his new property.

Dye landed on the cloud platform he’d constructed, picked up his tank and mask with his magic, and returned them to his saddlebags.  After he got inside his small shack, he took his saddlebags off, curled up, and fell asleep almost immediately, too tired to even bother with the blanket he’d brought along.



 

When Dye woke up in the morning, he was a little sore and stiff from sleeping on the cloud ground, but not very much, since clouds are still pretty soft.

He groaned as he stretched his stiff legs and wings, wincing slightly as some of his joints popped.

He started to gather some more clouds to continue constructing his house, but the growling of his stomach quickly put an end to that.

Dye returned to his shack and rummaged through his saddlebags, hoping that he hadn’t actually eaten all the food he had packed for the trip.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t any food left besides a few cracker crumbs.

Dye grumbled as he fished around in the bags for his money.  It took him a few minutes, but he eventually pulled out the pouch containing all the money he had to his name:  one hundred twenty bits.

He’d earned every single bit himself by selling paintings back in Canterlot.  He sold them for six bits apiece, so it had taken him a while to save up that much money.  He hadn’t thought he’d be dipping into his meager life’s savings so soon, though.

Sighing to himself, Dye put the pouch back in his saddlebags, put them on, and dove off his property to the ground below to buy food.

Dye headed to Sugar Cube Corner first.  He could’ve taken the time to buy groceries, but he was too hungry to have the patience for that at the moment.

Dye paid little attention to Pinkie as she tried to strike up a conversation with him.  He was there for food, and no other reason.  He pointed at a tray of twelve chocolate muffins priced at a bit apiece and said:  “I’ll take the whole tray.”

“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie chirped as she boxed the entire dozen.  “That’s twelve bits!”

Dye levitated his coin pouch out of his saddlebags, opened it, and levitated two five bit coins and two one bit coins over to Pinkie, who took them and gave Dye the box.

Dye took the box in his magic and levitated it alongside himself as he returned the pouch of coins to his bags before leaving the bakery and taking a seat at a table outside.

As soon as he opened the box, a gray wall-eyed Pegasus mare was next to him, and she didn’t look very happy.

“May I help you, Miss?” Dye asked, a little upset himself that she had interrupted him before he could even start to chow down.

“You took the entire dozen!” she snapped.  “Now I have to wait for them to bake more muffins!”

“Aren’t there other muffins on the other trays?” Dye asked as his stomach growled again.

“In case you didn’t notice, those were the only ones left!” the mare huffed.

“Look,” Dye sighed as he shut the box and gave the mare his full attention.  “For the last week, I’ve had nothing but peanuts and crackers to eat.  The party last night was mainly ice cream cake and candy.  I haven’t had a proper meal for a little over seven days, and having the abilities of all three races causes my body to require more food than most ponies so I don’t burn myself out.  I’m starving, okay?”

The mare continued to glare at him.

“Okay, okay,” Dye said, rolling his eyes.  “I’m sorry.  Here.”  He reopened the box and levitated a muffin over to the mare, using his magic to make it as warm as if it were straight out of the oven.

The mare took it and smiled.

“Sorry for getting so mad,” she said before taking a bite out of the reheated muffin.  “I just…“

“Really like muffins?” Dye chuckled.  “I admit, I’d be pretty upset if somepony bought the entire stock of my favorite food before I could even buy one.  Sorry about that, Miss…”

“Derpy Hooves,” the mare said, extending a hoof.

Dye met the hoof with his own and shook.

“Pleased to meet you, Derpy.  I’m Dye Vein,” Dye said.

“Oh, everypony here knows your name, Dye,” Derpy said.  “Even those of us who didn’t come to the party last night found out your name from Pinkie when you were at the hospital.  Everypony could hear your screams and wanted to know what was going on.”

Dye hung his head in embarrassment.  “The whole town heard that?  Good grief.  That’s not going to be forgotten any time soon.”

Dye reheated another muffin with his magic and took a bite out of it.

“It’s too bad you couldn’t make it to the party,” Dye said after swallowing his first bite of the muffin.  Oh Celestia, it was great to finally have some proper food again.

“I was helping the Doctor with something,” Derpy told him.  “We both wanted to go, but we were too busy that night.”

“I thought Dr. Stable was home and in bed,” Dye said, raising an eyebrow.  “They told me that’s why he wasn’t at the hospital himself.”

“Oh, not that doctor,” Derpy said, shaking her head.  “The Doctor I’m talking about just goes by ‘the Doctor’.”

Dye took another bite out of his muffin, chewed and swallowed before saying, “wait, there’s another doctor in Ponyville?”

“Oh, he’s not a medical doctor,” Derpy said.  “He’s a different kind of doctor.”

“Oh, he’s got a PhD,” Dye said after finishing off the muffin.  “What’s he a doctor of?”

“He’s a doctor of a lot of things,” Derpy replied.  “He even has a degree in cheese making.”

Dye had just bitten into his second muffin, and the piece got stuck in his throat, causing him to cough.

“*Cough* A cheese *cough* making degree?” Dye managed to get out before properly swallowing.  “What kind of university gives out PhDs in cheese making?  Better yet, how’d he even get a Bachelor’s for making cheese?  If that isn’t “Piled higher and Deeper”, then I don’t know what is!”

The Pegasus stated at him in confusion, and Dye elaborated.  “It’s a pun Grandpa makes about what he sees as pointless doctorates.”

“Oh,” Derpy said, still not getting the joke.

“Never mind,” Dye said, taking another bite of the muffin.  Derpy had finished hers by that point, and she got up to leave.

“It was nice talking to you, Dye,” she said as she spread her wings.  “I own the post office, so if you’d like to chat some time, just stop by.  The Doctor said that he wanted to meet you.”

“Well, once my house is done, I’ll look into it,” Dye said as he polished off the second muffin.  “Later, Derpy.”

Derpy smiled and took to the air to fly towards the post office on the other side of town.

Dye watched her for a few seconds before chomping down on his third muffin.  He still wasn’t full, and Dad always said that it’s important for Thestricorns to eat until they’re full, not just until they’re no longer hungry.

Four minutes and two more muffins later, Dye closed the box and squeezed it into his saddlebags before flying over to the hospital.  He really needed to fill his tank, especially since headache season was starting.





Dye sighed as he paid his hospital bill from the night before.  Last night had just cost him ten more bits, and Nurse Redheart told him that refilling his tank would cost him another fourteen.

Dye gave the nurse the payment for filling his tank, and she asked him to wait while she took it to get refilled.

He had already spent thrity-six bits in one day, leaving him with eighty-four remaining.  And he still had to buy a few groceries!  At this rate, he’d be nearly broke by the time the day was over.

Nurse Redheart returned with the refilled tank and gave it back to Dye, who returned it to his saddlebags.

Dye bid farewell to the nurse before heading out to buy some groceries.





Dye was not happy when he got back to his shack.  He’d just spent another thirty bits on groceries, leaving him with fifty-four.  Over half of his life’s savings had already been used up in less than twenty-four hours, and he knew that he’d have to start selling paintings again soon if he was going to be able to support himself, let alone the family he wanted to start in a few years.  At least the dozen apples only cost him twelve bits.  A bit apiece was a steal given that the first apple harvest of the year was still a ways away.

Of course, there was another thing Dye dreamed of doing, but that was probably never going to happen:  Dye wanted to see the world Grandpa came from and bring paintings of it back to the pony world.  Grandpa sometimes talked about how he missed his old home.  He wished he could see it one more time, but that was probably not going to happen.  Grandpa was getting up there in years, and even if he wasn’t, nopony who knew about the human world knew how to get there.

Dye shook his head and got back to working on his house.

Stop it, Dye, he scolded himself.  When you made that promise to Grandpa, you were just a colt.  Grandpa smiled and chuckled, so he knew that it wasn’t going to happen.  Using that human oath was a foolish thing to do, and the only way you can fix it is by making Grandpa proud of you.

With that thought held firmly in his mind, Dye continued working on his house, managing to get three rooms complete (minus ceilings) out of the seven he had planned for the first of three floors before sunset.

The best part, though, was that he hadn’t gotten a headache all day!  That alone had been enough to allow Dye to go to bed a happy stallion, curling up under a blanket in his shack and dozing off for the night.

> Chapter 5:  A Rude Awakening, Construction and Style
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dye woke up in the middle of the night with pain rapidly building in his eye socket.

He grumbled to himself as he put on his oxygen mask and turned the tank on.  He had no clock yet, so he had no idea what time it was.  He knew the day of the week, though.  It was Tuesday (he could at least tell that it was still before midnight by looking at the moon’s position in the sky).

As the pure oxygen flowed into Dye’s nostrils, he pulled out a small blank covered book that he’d taken to calling his “headache journal”.  He flipped through it to the first empty page, pulled out a quill and inkbottle, and started to write.

Tuesday, night.

He didn’t write any more than that for the time being.  He’d add the time of night next Tuesday, after getting a watch or wall clock.

Not every headache season had the same pattern for attacks, so Dye kept a journal to jot down the weekly pattern of headaches so he could be more prepared the next time that time of day and day of the week came around.

Unfortunately, he could only prepare so much for the attacks that would wake him in the middle of the night.  He went to sleep with his tank nearby every night, so he couldn’t improve on that very much.

Dye closed the book and waited for the pain to fade away.  The oxygen was starting to work by this point, and he could feel the horrible sensation get weaker.

After a few minutes, the pain was gone, and after about another minute just to make sure, Dye shut off the tank and removed the mask from his face.

The pain had forced him wide-awake, and it would take a while to get back to sleep again.  He considered painting a picture of the night sky, but changed his mind and decided to just wait to get tired again.

The time it took for him to get tired again felt like half an hour, but Dye was only guessing.  He pulled the blanket over himself again, curled up, and fell back to sleep.





Dye groaned as he woke up in the morning.  The headache in the middle of the night had robbed him of some of his sleep, so he was still a bit tired.  However, his house needed to be worked on, so he couldn’t just go back to sleep.

As Dye began rummaging through his food, he realized he’d forgotten to do something with it.  He’d learned a “stay-fresh” spell to keep his food from spoiling until he could properly store it, and he’d entirely forgotten to cast it after buying his groceries.

After facehoofing at his own mistake, Dye lit up his horn and cast the spell.  None of the food had gone bad, but none of it was entirely fresh anymore, either.

Dye levitated a muffin out of the box and inspected it.  It had lost a little moisture, but not that much, since the box had protected it a little bit.

Using his magic, Dye siphoned a small bit of moisture from the cloud ground and added it to the muffin before reheating it with his magic.

Once he was satisfied with restoring the muffin, Dye took a bite out of it, and after a few more bites, the muffin was gone.

He repeated the process with another muffin (leaving four remaining), and then started on the apples.  He ate two, and then he finished by downing some milk from the jug he’d bought.  It was a little warm, but it hadn’t gone sour yet, so he simply chilled it with his magic.

Now that Dye was full and satisfied, he constructed some shelves out of cloud for the back of the shack and placed the food on it.  The stay-fresh spell would have to be renewed once a day, but since he didn’t have an icebox or refrigerator yet, the spell would have to do for the time being.

Dye set out to gather some more clouds for his house, and by the time he got back an hour later, he’d managed to collect what he thought was about a hundred cubic feet of cloud.

Dye got to work reshaping the cloud into usable walls and floors, which took him a while since he was doing the job all by himself.  Thestricorn or not, cloud construction wasn’t a quick job, especially solo.

By the time he stopped for lunch, he had finished the whole first floor (still no ceilings yet, though).  After taking a few minutes to eat, Dye grabbed his art supplies and set them up in his new art studio.  Even without a ceiling, the room looked wonderful just by having everything set up.  He almost stopped his construction to paint something, but he forced himself to focus on the house.

By mid-afternoon, Dye had gotten all the first floor ceilings installed and had just started on the second floor walls when he heard a voice call out, “Dye?  I’ve got a letter for you!  Are you home?”

The voice was that of the mare from yesterday—Derpy.

“I’m a little busy right now, Derpy!” Dye called over his shoulder as he reshaped a portion of cloud into a wall.  “Just leave it in the mailbox!”

“But I don’t see a mailbox!” Derpy called back.

Dye sighed and walked over to the front end of the second floor.  “What d’you mean, you don’t—“

Dye cut off when he realized Derpy was right.  He’d forgotten to put up a mailbox.

Shaking his head at how forgetful he was being lately, Dye glided down to right in front of the mailmare.

“Sorry, Derpy,” Dye said, blushing.  “I guess I forgot to put a mailbox on my property.”

“That’s all right,” Derpy said as she hoofed the letter to Dye, who took it in his magic.  “Some ponies don’t even bother with a mailbox, so I have to deliver the mail to their doors all the time.”

“Well, I think a mailbox is an important thing to have,” Dye said.  “It saves time for the mail carriers such as yourself.  I promise I’ll have one up by tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Dye,” Derpy said.  “Well, I’ve got to continue my mail route!  See you later!”

Dye waved as Derpy flew back down to the houses below to continue delivering mail.

Dye opened the letter and read it:

Dear Mr. Dye Vein,

Nurse Redheart recently informed me of what happened to you Monday night.  I would like to schedule an appointment with you so I can learn about your apparently rare condition.  The appointment will be free of charge, seeing as I am the one requesting the appointment.  The only thing I ask of you is to consider granting me permission to send an order for a duplicate of your medical records from Canterlot.

Please come to the hospital at your earliest convenience to set up a time for your appointment.

Sincerely,

Dr. Stable, M.D.

“Huh,” Dye said to nopony but himself.  “He’s not going to charge me for this one.  That’s a shock.  At least my medical records aren’t confidential like Grandpa’s are.”

He decided to get the appointment scheduled right away, so he set down the letter, put on his saddlebags, and made a beeline for Ponyville Hospital.

Four minutes later, he was speaking to Nurse Redheart across the front counter.

“Hello, Mr. Vein,” the nurse greeted him.  “May I help you?”

“Yes, you can,” Dye replied.  “I just got a letter from Dr. Stable requesting an appointment about my condition.  When will he be available?”

The nurse pulled out a schedule binder and flipped though it for a few seconds before stopping.

“His next available time is this Friday, at 11 AM,” the nurse told him.  “Will that time be acceptable to you?”

Dye nodded immediately.  “I won’t have a schedule of my own for at least a few more days, so that time works out just fine.”

Nurse Redheart wrote something down in the binder, closed it, and shook Dye’s hoof.  “We’ll see you this Friday at eleven, then.  Have a good day, Mr. Vein.”

“Thanks,” Dye replied.  “You too.”

Dye made his way to a clock shop called the Timepiece Emporium next.  He’d need a watch if he was going to guarantee that he wouldn’t miss the appointment.

There was a middle-aged dark green unicorn stallion with a brown mane and tail and a pocket watch Cutie Mark at a workbench in the back, and there was nopony at the counter.  However, there was a bell with the words “ring for service” taped onto it, so Dye rang it once and waited.

The stallion at the workbench stopped what he was doing and trotted over to the counter.  Dye could now see that he had been working on repairing a cuckoo clock.

“Welcome, Mr. Vein,” the stallion said.  “My name is Pendulum Cog.  May I help you?”

“Well, Mr. Cog,” Dye said, glancing around at the hundreds of clocks lining the walls.  “I need a watch.”

“Do you have any particular style or brand in mind?” Mr. Cog asked as he unlocked a display case full of watches.

“Not really,” Dye said, shaking his head.  “It just has to tell time and not cost too much.”

“You’re in luck, then,” Mr. Cog said.  “I just struck a deal with Miss Rarity of Carousel Boutique and Mr. Frame of Frame’s Frames.  Our three stores are offering a joint deal for the next three days only.”  He cleared his throat and added in a very sales-pitchy tone, “For the low price of eighteen bits, you can get a custom outfit consisting of both a stylish watch or pair of frames and a new dress or suit!  For just six bits more, you can get all three!”

Mr. Cog finished the pitch with a flourish, looked around to make sure nopony was watching, and then whispered, “the truth is, Rarity kept complaining that my watches and Mr. Frame’s glasses were clashing too much with her clients’ outfits.  Our only way to get her to cut it out was to come up with this deal.  She actually threatened to run both of us out of town before we told her the idea!”

Dye stared at Mr. Cog in disbelief for a few seconds before getting a hold of himself.  He hadn’t spoken to Rarity very much yet, but that just didn’t sound like what he knew about her.

“Well, what watch do you think she’d recommend?” Dye asked.

“How should I know?” Mr. Cog said, shrugging.  “That mare’s sense of style is beyond my understanding.  I just work in timepieces, not fashion.  I usually rely on my customers’ preference.”

“So, I should head over to Rarity first, then, shouldn’t I?” Dye asked.

“If you don’t want her to make you return the watch I’d give you, yes,” Mr. Cog said, nodding.

“Well, I guess I’ll be back later, then,” Dye said as he turned to leave.  “I’ll be back once I’m done getting my new suit.”

Mr. Cog waved as Dye left the shop.

Well, at least I’ll be getting the suit I was probably going to buy later anyway, Dye thought.  As Grandpa says, ‘might as well kill two birds with one stone’.

Dye flew over to the Carousel Boutique and stepped inside.

“Hello, Dye,” Rarity said when she saw him enter.  “How may I help you, darling?”

“Mr. Cog told me about some kind of deal involving your shop and his, so I decided to come to you first,” Dye told her.  “I think it’s time I got myself a proper suit, since you never know when you’ll need formal wear, just in case.”

“Oh, right,” Rarity said, frowning slightly for a second before smiling again.  “What did you have in mind?”

“When I was a colt, I had a suit jacket that had been specifically tailored to me,” Dye said.  “I don’t remember what my parents did with it after I outgrew it, but I actually liked dressing up as long as I got to wear it.”

Dye took a breath before continuing.  “It was the same color as my coat, with pinstripes matching my mane and tail.  The shirt was just plain white cotton, nothing special, really.  But the tie was really nice, too.  Purple, to match my eyes.”

Rarity had started sketching while Dye was talking, and she looked up after he stopped.

“Didn’t you mention something about having something for your wings the last time you were here?” she asked.

“Oh, right!” Dye said, smacking himself in the forehead with his hoof.  “How could I forget about that?”

“Well, that suit had a part of the back that acted kind of like sleeves for my wings,” Dye told her.  “They mainly only covered the forearm and a little bit of the membrane behind it, but they were nice and comfy.  I could easily slip them off if it got too hot, too.  I guess you could say they were more like hoods than sleeves, but I always called them sleeves.”

“It’s a good thing I know a bit about wing anatomy, Mr. Vein,” Rarity said as she resumed sketching.  “Otherwise, I’d have no idea what you’re talking about.  What you are referring to are, in fact wing sleeves.  They were the height of fashion for Pegasi and Thestrals a few decades ago, but they’ve long since gone out of style.”

“You, on the other hoof just might have the looks to pull off such a style,” she added, setting down the sketchpad.  “Now, I’ll need your measurements before I get to work, so please hold still.”

Dye stood as still as a statue as Rarity took his measurements.  She measured his shoulder width, his chest, his neck size, the length of his forelegs, and even his wings.

“Please spread your wings, Mr. Vein,” Rarity requested.

Dye complied, spreading them to their full length, which was about two and a half feet per wing.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had to take wing measurements,” Rarity said as she jotted down Dye’s wing measurements.  “Wing sleeves are almost never used anymore, whether by mares or stallions.”

As she finished with the measurements, Dye relaxed and folded his wings again.

“For such a rare outfit, I’ll need you to stay here, Dye,” Rarity told him.  “I don’t exactly have something I can use in place of your wings for the sleeves.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Dye assured her.  “I didn’t have anything planned today, anyway.”





After over three hours of alternating between waiting and test fitting, the shirt and tie were done, and the jacket was getting there.

“I assure you, Dye, this is the final test fitting,” Rarity said as she had Dye try on the jacket for the fifth time.  “I just need to make sure the sleeves fit your wings.”

Rarity shook her head and had Dye return the jacket again.

“Still too loose,” she said.  “They won’t grip your wings at all like that.  They’ll slip right off as soon as you try to fly in it.”

Dye huffed and sat down again while Rarity got to work adjusting the sleeves again.  That was the third “final test fitting”, and the sleeves still weren’t right.  Dye looked at the clock on the wall.  It was half past six.  He wished he’d thought to bring something to eat, but at least he hadn’t been exerting himself very much the last few hours.  If he had, he’d have been hungrier than he was.

After a few more minutes, Rarity had him try on the jacket “one last time”.  He sighed, slipped the jacket on, and he immediately knew it fit perfectly this time.  The wing sleeves were nice and snug, but he still had to wait for Rarity to confirm it.

She inspected them a lot longer than she had the last few times, inspecting every single minor detail.

After what felt like forever and a day, she stepped back and nodded.

“It’s perfect,” she announced.  “Remember, though.  That jacket is dry clean only.  If it shrinks in the wash, you only have yourself to blame.”

Dye nodded and levitated eighteen bits out of his coin pouch and over to Rarity as payment.

Rarity took the coins in her own magical grip and put them away before levitating a slip of paper off of a stack and writing something on it with a quill pen.  She then levitated the slip of paper over to Dye, who took it in his own magic and looked at it.

“That voucher will tell Mr. Cog which watch he should give you,” Rarity explained.  “He’ll get his cut of the money later, so don’t worry.  Just take him that slip of paper and he’ll get you the watch that will best accentuate your new suit.”

Dye Vein nodded and put the slip of paper in his saddlebag before bidding farewell to Rarity and flying back to the Timepiece Emporium to give Mr. Cog the voucher.

At the shop, he rang the bell again, and Mr. Cog trotted up to the counter to meet him.

“Ah, Mr. Vein!” Mr. Cog said.  “That new suit sure looks nice on you.”

“Well, I’m going to be sticking it in a closet for quite a while, I think,” Dye said with a chuckle.  “Unless some fancy do comes up, I’m probably not wearing this again for quite a while.”

Dye levitated the voucher out of his saddlebag and gave it to Mr. Cog, who read the description on it before folding it up and putting it in a drawer.

“That watch?” Mr. Cog muttered as he started searching through display cases.  “Three customers returned it at her request.  I thought I’d never sell it to a pony who would keep it.”

“Ah ha!” Mr. Cog said as he levitated a shiny metallic watch out of a display case.  “This little beauty is something special, Mr. Vein.”  Mr. Cog levitated the watch to the counter and showed it to Dye.  “It’s the finest blue gold watch I’ve ever seen, to be honest.  The lines of purple gold and pure silver accentuate it into something magnificent.”

Mr. Cog was right.  The metal band and face were a brilliant blue with purple and silver highlights running along the edges of the band.

“You say that that blue metal is gold?” Dye asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Eighteen karat, to be precise,” the unicorn told him.  “Seveny-five percent gold, twenty-four point four percent iron, and point six percent nickel.  After letting it oxidize for a few days, it turns the blue color you now see.  Much sturdier than other blue golds, too.”

“And the purple lines are also gold?” Dye asked, now quite interested.

“Once again, eighteen karat,” Mr. Cog replied.  “Twenty-five percent aluminum, seventy-five percent gold.  It’s normally quite brittle, but the manufacturer magically reinforced it to strengthen it.”

"Normally, it would cost fifteen bits,” Mr. Cog continued.  “You’re lucky Miss Rarity requested this watch on your voucher.  I admit, I’m quite lucky, too.  I’ve sold it three times before, but each time, the customer requested an outfit from her, and she told them the watch clashed too heavily with her outfit ideas.  Each one of those ponies returned it, demanding a full refund.  I was starting to think I’d never get to sell it to a pony who’d keep it.”

“Well, Mr. Vein, try it on!” the unicorn urged.

Dye levitated the metallic work of art onto his right foreleg, just above the hoof and fastened it on.  It fit perfectly.

“Thank you for finally taking that watch off my hooves,” Mr. Cog said, shaking Dye’s hoof.  “You have no idea how much finally being allowed to sell it means to me.”

“I may not, but I can guess,” Dye chuckled.  “Have a nice evening, Mr. Cog.”

The shop owner waved as Dye left the shop.  Dye checked his new watch, which read as seven fifteen.  The sun was starting to set, so Dye flew back home to finally get something to eat.  He was down to only thirty-six bits now, but he had a feeling that he’d manage somehow.

> Chapter 6:  Strength (or the Lack Thereof) and Health
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dye had planned on eating as soon as he got back, but things don’t always go as planned.  Especially if you’re a Vein clan Thestricorn.

Right after Dye had prepared two sandwiches for himself, another headache struck, killing his appetite, and Dye grumbled as he got his tank and mask out again.

He turned the tank on, pulled out his headache journal and looked at his watch before writing, “Wednesday, 7:20 PM”.

At least I’ll only have one attack each Tuesday and Wednesday during this cycle, Dye thought to himself as the pain stopped increasing.  It’d be really nice if I get at least one headache-free day per week, though.

The pain started to decrease, and Dye could feel his appetite start to come back.

By the time the pain was completely gone and the tank was shut off and put away, he was even hungrier than before, so he prepared another pair of sandwiches before starting to chow down.

The four sandwiches were washed down with some milk, and Dye sighed.  He had planned on getting the second floor at least halfway done before going to bed, but it was too late in the day for that, now.  He considered pulling an all-nighter and sleeping after sunrise, but he shook his head.  Even though Dye was physically part Thestral, he was diurnal out of habit, like most of the Vein clan.  Switching to nocturnal, even for just one day, would feel very odd, indeed.

Dye busied himself with transferring his belongings from the shack to the finished portions of the house for the next hour.  By nine o’clock, he’d managed to get all the food stored in a makeshift pantry in the otherwise empty kitchen, and he’d also managed to craft a somewhat comfortable bed out of cloud for his room.  The bed was only temporary, but it’d have to do until he could buy a proper one.

Dye was getting sleepy at this point, so he climbed into his new bed, pulled his blanket over himself and fell asleep.





Thankfully, Dye slept through the whole night without getting a headache.  He woke up at six in the morning, ate another breakfast of two muffins, two apples and milk, and renewed the stay-fresh spell on his stored food before getting to work on the house again.

By ten in the morning, he had three second floor rooms complete.  He suddenly remembered that he still hadn’t put up a mailbox yet, so he promptly took a piece of cloud and started reshaping it into a suitable mailbox.  Before he could finish it, though, another headache struck, and he had to put the mailbox on hold so he could get rid of the pain with his oxygen.

Dye grumbled as he turned on the tank and the pure O2 flowed into his nostrils through the mask.  He wrote, “Thursday, 10:05 AM” in his headache journal and waited for the pain to go away again.

As he waited, he heard a voice from the front of his property.

“Hey, Dye!” he heard Rainbow Dash say, “you busy?”

“Whatever you wanted to talk about can wait, Dash,” Dye groaned loudly.  “I’m not in the best condition for a conversation right now.”

Rainbow flew over to the unfinished room Dye was sitting in and saw the half-finished cloud mailbox at his hooves.

“Why’s it…” she trailed off when she saw the Thestricorn with an oxygen mask on his face taking long breaths in through his nose and short breaths out through his mouth.

“Oh,” Dash said, looking away.  “Bad timing?”

Dye grunted in reply as the pain started to slowly fade.

Dash waited until Dye took off the mask and shut off the tank before asking, “why weren’t you screaming that time?”

Dye turned to look at her, his left eye still a little bloodshot.

“I only scream when it gets really bad,” Dye told her as he picked the mailbox back up with his magic and continued reshaping the cloud into a working mailbox.  “If I get on my O2 right away, it usually doesn’t get bad enough for that.”

“Hey, why do you need such a big house, anyway?” the Pegasus asked, changing the subject.

“Well, the Thestricorns in our clan have a tendency to have larger families than the ordinary Thestrals,” Dye said.

“Why’s that?” Dash asked.

“Um…  Well…” Dye’s cheeks turned as red as a brick.  “A good way to deal with a Cluster is to get the blood pumping, which relieves some of the pressure on the nerve caused by blood pooling in the vein next to it.  And a really effective way to get the blood pumping is…  Um…” The burning in Dye’s face had extended to include his ears by this point, and he couldn’t finish his statement out of sheer embarrassment.

“Foal making?” Rainbow snickered.

“Yes, that,” Dye said, trying to look very interested in completing the mailbox.  “It kills pretty much any Cluster, guaranteed.  Mom and Dad soundproofed their bedroom for more than just Dad’s screams, you know.”

“So, you’re planning ahead, huh?” Rainbow chuckled.

“I guess you could say that,” Dye said as he finished the mailbox.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to set this up.”

In a blur of red, blue and silver, Dye zoomed over to his front yard and started trying to get the mailbox upright.  His first few attempts resulted in it leaning in random directions.

Dash flew over to him.

“Hey, d’ya want some help with that?” she offered.

“No, I’m fine,” Dye said without looking at her, trying to hide his still-crimson face.

Unfortunately, his ears were still red, so Dash wasn’t fooled.

“Aw, c’mon,” she said.  “It’s not that embarrassing, is it?”

Dye knocked the mailbox over in surprise.

“Um…  You see…” He took a deep breath and faced the mare before speaking.  “My family are sticklers for morals, and it rubbed off on me.  A lot.  Any mention of the subject causes me to turn as red as a colt who just went into the little fillies’ room by mistake.  The reproduction unit in my high school Health class was absolute torture for me.”

Rainbow burst into laughter, and Dye returned to trying to set up the mailbox.  After finally getting it to stand up straight, Dye grinned sheepishly and added, “and that was after Mom and Dad gave me ‘the talk’.  When Dad revealed how effective… it is on Clusters, my face got so hot that Mom almost mistook it for heatstroke.”

Dash was rolling on the ground laughing by that point, and Dye took a few deep breaths to calm himself down.  The burning in his ears was now gone, and his cheeks were cooling off a little, too.

“Okay, I get it,” Dye said, rolling his eyes.  “I’m an incredibly awkward stallion when it comes to… that, and you think it’s funny.  Now could you cut it out?”

Dash got to her hooves, still snickering.

“Okay, fine,” she said.  “Still, it’s funny that a fully-grown stallion like you can’t talk about that without going red in the face!”

“Sure it is,” Dye said flatly.  By this point, his face had returned to its normal royal blue color.  “Anyway, I’m sure that wasn’t what you wanted to talk to me about.”

“Oh yeah!” Dash said, breaking into a friendly grin.  “I was gonna ask you if you wanted to join our hoofball game this afternoon!  You’ve gotta be pretty tough, right?  I mean, you’re an Alicorn stallion!  Every Alicorn I’ve met before you is a mare.”

“I’m a Thestricorn,” Dye corrected, “not an Alicorn.  Still, you’re right, to an extent.  I have above-average abilities from all three races.  However,” Dye sighed, “I’ve never been much for physical exertion, so my physical strength is actually a bit lower than that of your average Earth Pony stallion.”

“C’mon, that’s still pretty good, right?” Dash said.  “That still sounds as if you’re about as strong as AJ, right?”

“Let me put it this way,” Dye replied.  “If I tried to hoofwrestle Big Mac, not only would my foreleg get pinned immediately, he’d probably break it, too!”

“Wow,” Dash whistled.  “You’re really that weak?  You don’t look like a wimp to me.”

Dye sighed and constructed a block out of cloud and set it in front of him.  It was about the same height as an average table.

“I’ll prove it to you,” Dye told her.  “Hoofwrestle me right now.  I bet you’ll win without breaking a sweat.”

“Stop putting yourself down like that!” Dash told him.  But she did as he said and sat down on the opposite side of the block.

Dye rested his right foreleg on the table and waited.  They quickly locked hooves, and Dye said, “on three.  One.  Two.  Three!”

Dye pushed back with all his strength, but just as he predicted, Dash pinned his foreleg in three seconds.  Dye was sweating, but Dash hadn’t broken a sweat at all.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” she said.

“No, I wasn’t,” Dye panted.  “I’ve got about as much strength as one would expect from a painter.  I don’t physically exert myself very much.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be a weakling,” Dash told him.  “You should work out or something.”

“Eh, I’m as strong as I need to be,” Dye replied.  “If I need to get tougher at some point, I’ll consider it, but painting is my life, and that comes first.”

“Suit yourself,” Rainbow said.  “Still, if you ever change your mind about toughening up, talk to me.  I could really help you with that.”

“We’ll see,” Dye said.  “Well, I’ll see you around, Dash.”

“See ya,” Dash replied before taking to the air and flying away.

Dye shook his head.  Everypony expected his family to be tough for one reason or another, and only his own kin understood that bat wings don’t automatically mean a pony is tough.  Not every single Thestral in the world was in Princess Luna’s Night Guard, after all.  Being a Thestricorn stallion just made things even more difficult, though.  Ponies often assumed that he should be similar to the Princesses, but physically tougher.  All he wanted to do was be an artist and paint wonderful pictures!  Where in that job description did it ever mention that he had to have the strength of a professional linebacker?  Nowhere!  But when ponies looked at him, most of them just saw what they thought was a souped-up version of a Night Guard.  He was sick of it.

He got back to working on the house, only stopping for lunch before resuming construction.  As he worked, he got to thinking.  Maybe toughening up just a little wasn’t a bad idea.

Dye made a mental note to give the idea some serious thought later and continued to work on the second floor.  Another headache struck around four in the afternoon, so he added “Thursday, 4:10 PM” to the entry after getting rid of the headache.  Now each Thursday was going to have two attacks in one day.  Dye was not happy about that at all.

By sundown, Dye had completed another floor, and his house was now two stories tall, complete with ceilings for the second floor.  All that was left was the third floor and a roof, and his home would be complete.  Unfortunately, he’d almost run out of cloud, so he’d have to gather more the next day.

Dye ate dinner and went to bed, hoping Friday would be headache-free.





It wasn’t.  The horrible pain woke him up at four in the morning, and Dye groaned as he wrote “Friday, 4:00 AM” in the headache journal and waited for the oxygen to do the trick.  At this rate, he’d be out of O2 again in a week.  That thought was far from comforting.

Dye managed to get back to sleep once the headache was gone, waking up again at seven-thirty.

Dye pulled himself out of bed, renewed the stay-fresh spell, ate breakfast (he consumed the final two muffins, and the apples were half-gone now, too), and got to work on the third floor.

By ten, Dye had gathered more cloud, finished two rooms and was working on a third when a scroll appeared in front of him in a burst of green flame.  He caught the scroll in his magic, opened it, and read it.

It was a reminder for his appointment at eleven.

Dye stopped what he was doing and got ready to leave for his appointment.  He groomed his mane and tail to be presentable in public, put everything he’d need in his saddlebags, and packed a snack, just in case.

It was ten-thirty by the time he was done preparing, so he headed off to the hospital for his appointment.

After he arrived, Nurse Redheart had him sign in, and he sat down to wait for his name to be called.

While he waited, he picked up a copy of the Canterlot Chronicle and started to read the newspaper from the city he grew up in.

Almost nothing caught his interest.  Almost all of the boring articles were about pointless things such as the private lives of celebrities or some politician kissing up to the public with empty promises.

However, one article took him by surprise.  It was about his family.  One of his cousins, Cosmo Vein, had simply vanished the day before, and nopony knew what had happened to him.

Cosmo was a magical researcher who had been researching the arcane, and had gained acclaim with his journal article on using magic to revive recently deceased ponies who died of unnatural causes.  The magical theories hadn’t been tested yet, but they were so groundbreaking that Cosmo had been awarded the “Order of Starswirl” by Princess Celestia herself!

But now, Cosmo had simply vanished into thin air, leaving his family and his fiancé in a confused panic.  There was no ransom note, no indication that he had been thinking of running off…  Nopony knew if he had been ponynapped or if he had simply ran away.

As Dye read the article with interest, he heard the nurse call his name, so he put down the paper and trotted over to the desk.

“Dr. Stable will see you now,” she told him.  Dye nodded and followed another nurse to a room where said doctor was waiting for him.

“Ah, Mr. Vein,” Dr. Stable said, shaking Dye’s hoof.  “Please, have a seat.”

Dye sat down on the observation table while the doctor levitated a clipboard and quill over to himself.  “Please, tell me about your condition,” he requested.

Dye complied.  He explained everything he could that wouldn’t raise suspicions about his grandfather’s origins.  It took half an hour, and by the time he was finished with his explanation, Dr. Stable looked thoughtful.

“That’s a strange condition, indeed,” the doctor mused.  “According to the medical definition of a headache, it’s not really a headache, but it is head pain, so there’s little reason to call it anything else.”

“And you say that the only members of your family who have it are Thestricorns?” the doctor said.

Dye nodded in confirmation.

“That is strange,” Dr. Stable remarked, putting a hoof to his chin in thought.  “Do you have any idea why?”

“I can make an educated guess,” Dye replied.  “However, it’s based on information that has been classified by the order of the Princesses, so you’d have to request the information from them directly.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to consider doing that,” the doctor said as he set down the clipboard he had been writing on.  He then levitated another clipboard over to Dye and said, “Please read this carefully before signing it, Mr. Vein.”

Dye read everything on the sheet before taking the quill the doctor offered him and scrawling his name on the indicated line.  He’d just granted Dr. Stable permission to request duplicates of his medical records from Canterlot.

“Thank you, Mr. Vein,” Dr. Stable said after Dye returned the clipboard.  “I’ll send you another letter once I have your medical records, unless my request is denied.  In that case, I’ll let you know that I’ll be attempting an appeal.”

Dye nodded in understanding, shook hooves with the doctor again, bid farewell, and left.

As he left, he passed by a chestnut Earth Pony stallion with an hourglass Cutie Mark and a green tie.

“Good day,” the other stallion said.

Dye just nodded and started to spread his wings, but the stallion spoke again.

“You’re Mister Dye Vein, right?”

“That’s right,” Dye replied.  “I’m actually quite busy, seeing as I have a house to finish.”

“Ah,” the stallion said.  “My apologies.  Here, have a Jelly Baby as my way of saying sorry.”

Dye turned around to see the odd stallion was offering him a strangely shaped orange piece of candy.  Dye eyed it for a few seconds, and the stallion said, “oh.  You don’t like orange?  That’s my favorite flavor, but I guess that’s just me.”

The stallion started to rummage through a bag, but Dye stopped him by saying, “Actually, I like orange candy.  I’ve just never seen anything like that candy before.”

Dye took the piece of orange candy in his magic and put it in his saddlebag for later.

“Well, Jelly Babies are foreign,” the stallion admitted.  “Very foreign, actually.”

Dye nodded, bid farewell to the odd stallion and flew back to his property.

He ate the snack he’d packed, and then got back to work on the house.  As the sun started to set, Dye wiped his brow and smiled to himself.  It was finished.  Every single floor, wall, ceiling and door had been installed.  Most of the rooms were completely empty, but Dye didn’t care.  He considered the house complete, so complete it was.

Suddenly remembering the odd stallion’s candy gift, Dye levitated the “Jelly Baby” out of his saddlebag to take a look at it before eating it.

Now that he was able to get a closer look, the shape of the candy took Dye by complete surprise.  It was shaped like a human infant!

Where in the world did he get this? Dye thought to himself.  The only way the shape could be this accurate is if it was made by somepony who’s seen human beings firsthoof!  How is this even possible?

Dye popped the candy into his mouth and continued to think as he chewed.  He’d forgotten to get the stallion’s name, so he didn’t know where to look for him.  He could ask around the next morning, at least.

Dye decided that that plan was better than no plan and made himself dinner.  Having fangs meant that he could eat meat, but he usually didn’t, since most ponies thought the concept barbaric.  This time, however, he’d managed to acquire a single strip of jerky from a griffon who had been asking for directions.  The griffon hadn’t expected a pony to ask for something like meat, but he gladly gave Dye a strip to show his gratitude.  Dye had no idea what kind of jerky it was, but the griffon had assured him that it was meat from some kind of ‘dumb animal’, so Dye accepted the strip immediately and stowed it away for later.

Dye had decided that later was now, so he munched on the delicious piece of dried meat, savoring every bite.  Meat had already been a rare dish even when visiting Grandpa, but while living among regular ponies, meat was nearly impossible to come by.

Of course, all that mattered to Dye at that moment was that he was eating a piece now, so he stopped thinking about how lucky he had gotten and just focused on enjoying the rare treat.

Once he’d finished off the jerky, Dye went to his studio to do what he’d wanted to do ever since he’d gotten everything set up:  paint.

Instead of painting a scene he knew, Dye began painting something he saw in his mind’s eye.  A highly detailed painting of a human family warming themselves in front of a fireplace took shape on the canvas.  Once it was finished, it was a beautiful work of art.  Every little detail was visible:  the hairs on each human’s head, the wrinkles and folds in the clothes they wore, the expressions of how happy they were to be together in spite of their shivering…  Every single detail was perfect, and he knew exactly whom he wanted to sell it to.

Dye rolled up and bound the new painting before storing it in a bag with the painting of an aerial view of Ponyville.  He’d try selling the painting of humans tomorrow.  The aerial view of Ponyville would be displayed as an example of his work.

With that, Dye went to bed, hoping for some profit the next day.
> Chapter 7:  The Pony Who Wasn’t A Pony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dye woke up around six-thirty in the morning and made French toast for his breakfast.

He quickly ate the food, washed it down with the last of the single gallon of milk he’d bought, and renewed the stay-fresh spell again.

Next, Dye put on his saddlebags, stuffed his art supplies into them, and packed up his tank.  After that, he picked up the bag of two paintings with his magic and left his house with the paintings in tow.

He checked his watch, which read as three past seven.  Most of the other ponies were probably just getting up at this point, but Dye wanted to get some early morning painting in before he started trying to sell his work.

Dye landed on a cloud, set up his art supplies and got to work.

The first painting of the day ended up being a picture of the odd stallion from the day before, with seven human males flanking him on either side (oddly enough, one of them appeared on both sides, so there were technically thirteen humans instead of fourteen).  

He stared at his work after finishing it and shook his head.  What he saw in his mind’s eye didn’t always make sense.  When he saw a pony and painted them (usually with permission), he’d sometimes manage to paint something bizarre that made no sense to him but somehow always seemed to strike a chord with the subject being painted.  A lot of the time, the pony in question would actually offer to pay more than Dye’s standard price of six bits, and since Dye needed all the money he could get, he’d always accept the generous offer.

Dye rolled up the painting, bound it, and added it to the bag before starting another painting.

This one was more normal than the painting of the odd stallion.  Once again, it was of something he’d never seen firsthoof, but it was something that he’d heard enough about to accurately paint without appearing to have some kind of wacky sixth sense.  The painting was of a sonic rainboom.  Though he’d never actually seen one happen, he’d heard enough about the incredible feat to paint one without stretching his mind too much.

His watch now said it was nine-twelve, so Dye rolled up and bound the new painting, put his supplies back in his saddlebags, and made a quick stop by a store to buy a three-legged stool for ten bits and a package of painting frames for five bits (leaving him with twenty-one) before setting his art equipment up in the park and displaying the example painting (the aerial view of Ponyville) next to himself.

He levitated his old sign that he used in the parks in Canterlot out of the painting bag and stood it on the ground.  It read “Quality Paintings and Portraits:  6 Bits”.  For the first half hour, everypony who saw the sign just kept walking, but Dye was used to this.  He’d gone many times without making a single sale in Canterlot, and Canterlot was full of high-society types.  Ponyville was a village full of more common and down-to-earth ponies, so Dye knew selling art here was going to be harder than Canterlot.

Around nine forty-five, Lyra Heartstrings walked by with a lyre case floating next to her.

She stopped when she saw the Thestricorn painter.

“Oh!  Hi Dye!” she said.  “How’ve you been?  I haven’t seen you since…  You know.”

Dye nodded.

“I finished my house yesterday,” Dye told her.  “I painted something last night that I think you might be interested in.”

Dye levitated a painting out of the bag, unrolled it, and showed it to Lyra.  It was the painting of a human family.

Lyra’s eyes grew huge at the detailed painting of humans.

“Dye, how did you…” she trailed off, too shocked to finish the sentence.

“Let’s just say I have a strange knack for painting things I shouldn’t be able to,” Dye said, shrugging.  “You want it?  Like the sign says, it’s six bits.”

“Only six?” Lyra said.  “This is worth at least fifteen!”

“I’m open to offers,” Dye replied.  “Six is just my basic asking price.  If you feel it’s worth more, you’re welcome to pay more.  If you want it, but feel that six is too much, I accept haggling, too.”

“Well, I’m paying fifteen,” Lyra said as she levitated a ten bit coin and a five bit coin out of her saddlebag and over to Dye.  “You’re short-changing yourself with such a low price.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you know,” Dye said as he put the coins in his coin pouch.  “Some other ponies would see this as complete garbage, I’m sure.”

Using his magic, Dye framed the painting and gave it to Lyra, who happily took it in her magic.

“Have a nice day, Lyra!” Dye said as she turned to leave.

“Thanks!” she replied.  “You, too, Dye!”

With that, Lyra left, and Dye was by himself again.

A headache struck at about ten-ten, so Dye added “Saturday, 10:10 AM” to his journal as he took care of it.

After the headache was taken care of, he saw Derpy with the odd stallion from the day before.

Dye waved to the mailmare, getting her attention.  After she waved back, she tapped the odd stallion on the shoulder, who watched her point in Dye’s direction.

The stallion turned his head, noticed Dye as well, and said something to Derpy, who nodded and said something back.  Dye watched as the pair trotted up to him.

“Hello, Derpy,” Dye said after the pair was close enough for him to speak with a normal voice.  “Who’s your friend?”

“Didn’t I tell you about the Doctor?” Derpy asked.

“You did,” Dye replied.  He turned to the stallion and said, “So, are you the ‘Doctor’ she mentioned before?”

“That I am,” the stallion replied.  “The Doctor, at your service.”  The stallion extended a hoof, and Dye shook it with his own.

“Well, then,” Dye said as he levitated the painting of the Doctor out of the bag.  “I got to painting earlier this morning, and you won’t believe what it turned out to be.  I still can’t explain how something so bizarre popped into my head.”

He unrolled the painting and showed it to the Doctor, who stared at it in complete shock.

“Doctor?” Derpy said, looking just as surprised as he was.

“How could you have possibly known about that?” the Doctor asked quietly.

“Known about what?” Dye asked back, puzzled.

“You mean, you painted this, but you didn’t have any knowledge of what you were painting?” the Doctor asked.

“Pretty much,” Dye shrugged.  “It happens every once in a while.  I try painting somepony, and the picture turns out bizarre, but the pony I painted seems to somehow recognize what I painted, even though it looks like something I couldn’t possibly know about their past, or something simply impossible.”

“I’d love to explain your art to you, Mr. Vein, but I can’t do that here,” the Doctor said.  “If you come back to the post office with us, I can give you an explanation of who those men were and how they’re connected to me.”

“Nopony’s actually offered to explain one of them to me before,” Dye said.  “They’d usually just look at me weird before offering to pay me at least double my asking price.”

“Well, I guess this is your lucky day, Mr. Vein,” the Doctor said, “Because I’m offering that right now.  Oh, and I’ll pay you fifty bits for the painting, if that’s fine with you.”

Dye stared at the Doctor in absolute disbelief.

“F-fifty?” Dye stammered.  “Nopony’s ever offered me that much!”

“Well, it seems you’ll be having quite a few firsts today, then,” the Doctor replied as he offered Dye a fifty bit coin.

Dye simply nodded and took the coin.

He stared at it for a few seconds before putting it in his coin pouch and framing the painting, which he then levitated over to the Doctor.  Derpy used a piece of string to help the Earth Pony to tie the work of art to his back, and the pair turned to face Dye again.

“Well, Mr. Vein,” the Doctor said, “Are you coming or not?”

“Sure,” Dye said before packing up his equipment, including the sign.

The three ponies departed the park after that, and Dye followed Derpy and the Doctor to the post office, where Derpy lived.

As soon as they entered, a purple unicorn filly ran up to Derpy and hugged her.

“Mommy!” the filly said, nuzzling Derpy.  “You’re back early!”

“Hello, Muffin!” Derpy said, nuzzling the filly back.  “The Doctor and I met somepony who the Doctor needs to talk to.”

The purple filly noticed Dye at that point.

“You’re the new guy in town, right?” she asked.

Dye nodded.

“Oh, Dinky, this is Dye Vein,” Derpy said, motioning to the Thestricorn.  “Dye, this is my daughter, Dinky.”

“Wait, you’re married to the Doctor?” Dye asked.

Derpy and the Doctor started laughing.

“Oh, nopony’s asked me that in a long time,” Derpy giggled.  “He just lives here.  He lives in the attic.”

“But, you have a daughter, and you live with him,” Dye said, confused.  “How could you have a daughter, if you’re not married?”  His eyes widened in shock as a thought occurred to him.  “Wait, you didn’t—“

Derpy’s face went bright red, as did the Doctor’s.

“Oh!  No, Dye, I wouldn’t do something like that!” Derpy said.  The Doctor nodded in agreement.

“Then…  How?” Dye asked.

“Oh, I’m a widow,” Derpy said sadly.  “Dinky’s father died three years ago.  She barely remembers him at all.”

“Oh,” Dye looked at the ground.  “Sorry to bring that up, Derpy.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Derpy assured him as she started smiling again.  “Geeky wouldn’t want me to be sad.  He’d want me to move on and take care of Dinky, and I am.  I still miss him, though.”

“I take it Geeky was your husband?” Dye asked.

“The greatest stallion I’ve ever met,” Derpy replied, nodding.

“Hey!” the Doctor said.  “What about me?”

“I don’t know Doctor,” Derpy said with a cheeky grin.  “What about you?”

Dye’s grandfather would’ve said the Doctor looked like “a deer caught in the headlights”, Dye wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was the only thing that came to mind.

Dye snickered.

After a few seconds, the Doctor started to laugh as well.

“You’ve got me there, Mrs. Hooves,” the Doctor chuckled.

“Well, Doctor,” Derpy said, changing the subject, “Do you think we should show him?”

“Show me what?” Dye asked in confusion.  “I thought you were going to explain my wacky painting to me!”

“Yes, but to do that without driving you bonkers, I’ll have to show you something,” the Doctor replied.  He motioned for Dye to follow him up a set of stairs.  “Come along, Mr. Vein!”

Dye shrugged and flew after the Doctor, with Derpy and Dinky following behind.

On the second floor, there was a ladder leading to a trapdoor.  The Doctor climbed the ladder, threw the trapdoor open, and climbed into the room above.

Dye simply flew up into the room.  He looked around, not seeing anything out of the ordinary at first, but then…

“What in Celestia’s name is that?” Dye shouted as he pointed a hoof at a tall blue box on the other end of the room.

“Oh, that?” the Doctor said casually, as if nothing were out of the ordinary.  “This is my TARDIS, Mr. Vein.  It’s a time machine.”

“Oh,” Dye said.  Suddenly, what the Doctor just said struck home.  “Wait, no.  What is it really?”

“Do you really want me to explain every single little detail?” the Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow.  “That’d take days, Mr. Vein.  Do you really have that kind of time?”

“I guess not,” Dye replied.  “But there’s no way it can be a time machine!  Time travel is barely possible at all with magic, and even then, the caster gets sent back to the point in time they started from after spending only thirty seconds in the target time period!  Time travel is impractical at best, so why would anypony waste resources on a machine for something so temporary?”

“You are mistaken, Mr. Vein,” the Doctor said, speaking as if he were talking to a young colt instead of a fully-grown stallion.  “The TARDIS doesn’t use magic to travel through time and space.  It uses technology that even humans are far from capable of right now.”

“Wait, humans?” Dye asked in shock.  “I thought nopony knew…” He coughed to try to cover up what he almost revealed, but the Doctor wasn’t fooled.

“Knew what, Mr. Vein?” the Doctor asked.

“Uh…” Dye looked around nervously.  He hadn’t noticed Derpy and Dinky entering the room, but they stood between him and the ladder back down.  There was no way he could escape.  He’d have to come clean.  “I thought nopony knew that humans exist besides my family and the few ponies we’ve told.”

“And how did your family come to know about humans?” the Doctor asked.

“We…” Dye took a deep breath.  “My grandfather is a former human.”

Derpy stared at Dye, Dinky looked incredibly confused, but the Doctor just said, “Ah, that makes sense.”

“Wait, it does?” Dye said.  “How could that make sense?”

“For starters, you suffer from a strictly human condition,” the Doctor replied.  “Your headaches are something that is completely unique to humans, and yet, you still have them.  Having the blood of a transformed human in your veins would make it possible for you to have the condition as well.”

“Okay then,” Dye said.  “How do you know about humans?”

“Well, Mr. Vein,” the Doctor said, clearing his throat before continuing, “like your grandfather, I’m not actually a pony, either.”

“You used to be human, too?” Dye asked in surprise.

“Well, yes,” the Doctor replied.  “But not for very long.  I wasn’t originally human, either.”

“Then what were you?” Dye asked.

“For that, I’ll have to show you the inside of the TARDIS,” the Doctor told him.  “It’ll make explaining much easier.”

“But the thing looks like it’ll be really crowded in there!” Dye protested.  “That box looks like it was intended for humans, not ponies!”

“You’d be surprised, Mr. Vein,” the Doctor replied.  “Just wait a second while I open her up.”

“Her?” Dye asked.

The Doctor didn’t reply.  Instead, he produced a key and unlocked the box with it.

“You first, Mr. Vein,” the Doctor said as he motioned for Dye to enter the box.

Dye did so, and he couldn’t believe what he saw on the inside.

“It’s…”

“Go on, say it!” Derpy said, giggling.  “He loves it when ponies say it!”

“The interior doesn’t match the external dimensions!” Dye whispered.  “That’s impossible!”

The Doctor looked disappointed as he entered.

“That wasn’t the phrase I was looking for,” the Doctor said.  “But it’ll do, I suppose.  For future reference, you’re supposed to say ‘it’s bigger on the inside’.”

Dye nodded, but he wasn’t really listening.

“How is this even possible?” he asked.

“My people made stuff like this all the time,” the Doctor said.  “Now that you’ve seen what we can do, I can tell you what I am without you doubting me.”

“And what are you?” Dye asked.

“I am a Time Lord,” the Doctor said.  “I come from the planet Gallifrey.”

“’Time Lord’?” Dye repeated.  “Sounds pretty boastful to me.”

“The name is boastful, but saying I’m one of them isn’t,” the Doctor replied.  “In my universe, they’re pretty much the scum of the universe.  Ten million years of absolute power tends to do that to a civilization.”

Dye blinked.

“Wait, your universe?  There’s more than one?”

“Billions upon billions, actually,” the Doctor said.  “Billions per multiverse, and all the multiverses put together forms the omniverse:  an endless expanse of existence without limit.”

Dye’s head was spinning at the revelation.

“My existence suddenly seems so insignificant,” Dye whispered.  “I’m just one living thing out of a number that’s too high to count!  How could anything alive really be important with so many?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” the Doctor chuckled.  “Out of all the people and ponies I’ve met, every single one is someone important.  Why, in the future, you—”

Derpy cleared her throat and glared at the Doctor.

“Sorry, Mrs. Hooves,” he said sheepishly.  “Spoilers.  Right.”

“And to think, you used to be the one shushing me about the futures of other ponies!” Derpy huffed.

“So, it really is a time machine,” Dye whispered.

“There you go, Mr. Vein!” the Doctor said, giving Dye a hearty thump on the back.  “Now you understand!  Except, it travels through time and space, not just time.”

“Actually, I don’t,” Dye said, shaking his head.  “How are you connected to all those human men in my painting?”

“Ah,” the Doctor took on a much more serious expression at this point.  “All those men are past versions of me, Mr. Vein.”

“But, how?” Dye was getting more confused by the second.

“Time Lords regenerate, Mr. Vein,” the Doctor replied.  “I am no exception.  When I’m about to die, I get a new face, a new voice, a new everything!  Strictly speaking, I should’ve only been able to do that twelve times, but I was gifted with a complete reset of my regeneration count, so I’ve got a lot of lives left.”

“But if you were once humanoid, how did you become a pony?” Dye asked.

“Simple,” the Doctor said.  “I started dying here in Equestria, so I regenerated into a form befitting of the dominant sapient race:  ponies.”

“This is way too much for me to digest,” Dye said, holding a hoof to his head.  “I think I’m going to go home.”

“Well, be safe, then, Mr. Vein!” the Doctor said as Dye left the time machine and descended the ladder.

Dye didn’t reply.  He just went down the stairs and left Derpy’s house before spreading his wings and taking to the air.

His mind was still reeling when he got home, so he got into bed to rest, even though his watch said it was only eleven-thirty in the morning.

Right before he fell asleep for the nap, a thought occurred to him:  if the Doctor could travel time and space, could he take Dye to the human world?

Dye fell asleep right after that thought finished crossing his mind, leaving the thought for another time.

> Chapter 8:  Researcher on the Run
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dye woke up at five in the morning to the sound of somepony pounding on the door to his house.

He dragged himself out of bed and trotted groggily over to the front door to tell whoever was bothering him at this hour to go away.

He opened the door and said, “It’s five in the morning!  What…”

The words died on his lips at the sight of the pony standing in front of him:  he was a fellow Thestricron stallion with a yellow-green coat, a black mane and tail, shifty indigo eyes with bags under them, rectangular gold glasses, a pair of black saddlebags, and an image of a golden comet curling around an eye for a Cutie Mark (the one on his right flank was bloodshot while the left one was normal).

“S-sorry to b-bother you, C-cousin,” the stallion stammered as he glanced around fearfully.  “C-can I crash here f-for a f-few days?”

Dye was instantly wide-awake.

“Cosmo?” Dye exclaimed, “The paper said you disappeared!”

“I-I’ll explain inside,” Cosmo said, looking around in fear again.  “P-please, j-just let me in!”

“Sorry,” Dye said, “please, come in.”

Cosmo nodded his thanks and followed his cousin inside.

After Dye shut the door, he led Cosmo to his living room—which was empty, save for two cloud couches—and motioned for Cosmo to have a seat.

“Okay Cosmo,” Dye said as they both sat down, “you said you’d explain inside, so please, explain why you disappeared three days ago just to suddenly show up on my doorstep this morning.”

Cosmo swallowed before speaking.

“Well, Cousin,” he began slowly, “I’m on the run.  There’s a group of ponies who demanded that I hoof over all my research notes to them.  Said something about an army.  I refused, and they tried to abduct me.  I escaped, gathered my notes, my oxygen tank, and all the money I could carry and fled.  I didn’t even have time to leave a note for my dear Midnight Lily.  She’s probably worried sick.”

“The paper said that she thought you were ponynapped,” Dye told him.

“If they catch me, it’ll be a lot worse than that,” Cosmo whispered.  “The wedding was supposed to be next month, but we can’t get married like this!  It’ll only put her in danger, too!”

“Who’s to say that she isn’t in danger now?” Dye asked.

Cosmo’s eyes went wide with horror.

“Dear Luna, why didn’t I realize that?” Cosmo groaned, putting a hoof to his forehead.  “This isn’t good at all.  I need to contact her, but how?  Mom and Dad could protect her, but unless she knows what’s going on, she’ll be right out in the open where they can get to her!”

“Hold that thought,” Dye said as he got up.  “I think I have something that could help.”

Dye returned to his room and rummaged through his saddlebags for a few seconds before levitating a lighter filled with a green fluid out of one of the bags.

Holding the lighter carefully in his magic, he levitated a sheet of parchment, an inkbottle and a quill out of his other bag and carried all of the items back with him to the living room, where Cosmo was waiting patiently.

He showed the lighter to Cosmo.

“A dragon lighter?  How will that help?” Cosmo asked.  “How are you going to get it to send a letter to Midnight?”

“I need something related to her,” Dye explained.  “Either some part of her, like a hair, or something that means a lot to her.”

Cosmo shook his head.  “But I don’t have—“

“Did I say something?” Dye put a hoof to his forehead and sighed.  “I meant somepony.”

“Wait…” Cosmo’s eyes lit up.  “You could use me?”

“Sure thing, Cousin,” Dye replied.  “I’ll just need a hair or something.  Make sure you’re thinking about her strongly when you give it to me, though.  We don’t want to send it to some random pony who happens to care about you a lot, like a sibling.”

Cosmo’s horn lit up with an indigo aura, and the same aura enveloped a single hair in his mane.  He magically plucked the hair out of his mane and levitated it over to Dye, who took it in his own magic.

“Thanks,” Dye said as he magically opened the liquid compartment on the lighter and placed the hair inside.  He closed the compartment after that and watched as the hair dissolved into the green liquid.

“Okay, that should be enough for one letter,” Dye said as he levitated the quill, inkbottle and parchment over to Cosmo, who took them in his own magic and began to write.

After a few minutes, Cosmo read over the letter before rolling it up and giving it to Dye.

“I told her what happened,” Cosmo announced.  “It says that I’m staying with you for the time being and that she should seek refuge with my parents.”

Dye nodded in approval, held the letter near the lighter and used his magic to activate the lighter.  The letter became engulfed in green flames for a second before burning into nothing.  Not even ashes were left behind.

“Okay, the letter should be there when she wakes up,” Dye said as Cosmo returned the supplies.

“Good,” Cosmo yawned.  “Is it okay if I snooze on your couch for now?  I haven’t gotten a proper night’s sleep since I fled Canterlot.”

“Go right ahead,” Dye said as Cosmo started to curl up.  “When you wake up, though, stay inside, okay?  If those ponies are still after you, we don’t want to draw any attention to you.”

“But I could help you shop and stuff,” Cosmo said as he stifled a yawn.  “It’s the least I can do to repay you for letting me stay.”

Dye shook his head.

“Sorry, but I can’t allow that,” Dye said firmly.  “Ponyville is small, Cosmo.  New ponies are hard to miss.  And not only that, but one of the ponies in town is a party pony.  If she finds out about you, we’ll have an unwanted celebration on our hooves.  She welcomes all new ponies with a party.  Even visitors.”

Cosmo gave up after that and just went to sleep.  Luckily, he didn’t snore, so the house was silent again.

Dye checked his watch, which now read six-fifteen.  He considered going back to bed and catching a few more Z’s, but changed his mind and prepared breakfast for himself and his guest.  Cosmo probably wouldn’t be awake for a few hours, but Dye was sure his cousin would be starving once he woke up, and he liked to plan ahead.

After he finished making breakfast, Dye renewed the stay-fresh spell again and sat down to eat the omelets and pancakes he’d made for himself.
As soon as he finished, he trotted back to the living room and saw a pouch on the ground with a note attached.  He levitated the note off of the pouch and read it:

Since you won’t let me repay you with my assistance in pony, you can use the money in this pouch to purchase anything you need.

I hope this will be enough.

Cosmo

Dye used his magic to open the coin pouch and looked inside.  It was filled with more one thousand bit coins than Dye could count without emptying them out first.

Wow, magical research really pays, doesn’t it? Dye thought as he removed two coins from the pouch.  He probably wouldn’t even need the complete value of one coin, but it was always a good idea to be prepared.

Seeing as it was Sunday, most stores would either have shortened hours or be closed entirely, so Dye put the two coins in his own coin pouch and left them alone for the time being.  Instead, he went to his studio and started painting.

He produced several paintings over the next few hours.  Not one of them looked like something that his odd ability would have produced, so he doubted he’d get generous offers on any of them.

At ten in the morning, Dye left his studio to find Cosmo scarfing down breakfast at the dining room table.

“Oh, morning!” Cosmo said between bites.

Dye nodded and sat down across from his cousin.

“Thanks for the money, but I don’t think I’ll need an entire pouch of one thousand bit coins,” Dye chuckled.  “I just took two.  I doubt I’ll need more.”

“Well, you could at least get some proper furniture and appliances, right?” Cosmo asked as he finished a pancake.

“I was meaning to do that, but I wanted to do it with money I’d earned on my own,” Dye replied.

“Nonsense!” Cosmo said, shaking his head furiously.  “I noticed that you’re using a stay-fresh spell on your food.  What if you have to leave town for a while?  How are you going to keep all of it from spoiling if you’re gone for more than a day?  It’s not like you can ask a unicorn to housesit for you.  They’d need a cloudwalking spell put on everything!”

“I could always ask Twilight to housesit for me,” Dye said, brushing it off.  “She’s an Alicorn, you know.”

“Right, I forgot that a Princess lives in this town,” Cosmo said.  “Even so, you can’t just wait until you’ve made a few hundred bits selling paintings before you get this place properly fleshed out!”

“I can do everything I possibly need with magic or cloud construction,” Dye replied.

Cosmo shook his head again.

“I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, Dye,” the researcher said firmly.  “It’s Sunday, so there’s not much point shopping around today, but come tomorrow, I want you to buy some proper furniture and appliances for this place.  You can’t keep having the entire building being made of just clouds!”

“And why can’t I?” Dye asked.  “It’s not like anypony who can’t fly could get up here, anyway.”

“My parents live in a cloudhouse, too,” Cosmo said.  “But they have had guests who are incapable of flight over before.  Magic can do incredible things, you know.”

“Yes, I know you and Cousin Violet can teleport other ponies,” Dye huffed.  “That doesn’t mean that I’ll ever get any Unicorn or Earth Pony visitors.”

“I thought you liked to be prepared!” Cosmo said, shaking his head again.  “Has six days in this town really changed you that much?”

“I guess you have a point,” Dye admitted.  “But, I’m no good at interior decorating.”

“I can help with that,” Cosmo began.

“You’re to stay here!” Dye snapped.

“I don’t even have to leave the house,” Cosmo countered.  “I’m a magical researcher, remember?  I’ve read up on quite a few spells that would blow your mind, my dear cousin.”

“And what spell could possibly help with that?” Dye asked.

“The ‘Be-my-eyes-and-ears’ spell, of course!” Cosmo said proudly.  “I’ve managed to meld it with a telepathy spell, so not only will I be able to see and hear everything you will, but I can talk to you with it, too!”

“Okay, now that’s impressive,” Dye said.  “Can you teach it to me?”

“It takes weeks to master,” Cosmo replied, shaking his head.  “I had an ancient manuscript to guide me, but you’d only have me.  I don’t even plan on staying here that long.  Maybe one week at the most.”

“Fine,” Dye sighed.  “But when this is over, could you please teach it to me?”

“I’ll consider it,” was all Cosmo said before he resumed eating.

“I guess that’ll have to do for now,” Dye said as he got up from the table.  “I’m going out for a little bit.  You’ll be okay by yourself for a little while, right?”

“Unless they’ve already traced me here, I should be fine,” Cosmo replied.  “Even if they do manage to figure out that I’m crashing with you, all of them were Unicorns.  They can’t fly.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Dye commented.  “I’ll be back in a bit.”

With that, Dye returned to his room, packed up his tank into his saddlebags, and put them on.

After that, Dye trotted through the house to the front door, opened it, went outside, and closed it behind him.

I’ll need to get a lock for the door tomorrow, at the very least, Dye thought.  With Cosmo on the run, I’ll need to be able to keep him extra safe.

Dye dove off of his property to the ground below and flew towards the library.  He still had a book to return, after all.

He knocked on the library door and waited, whistling to pass the time.

After a few minutes, the door opened, and Spike was standing in the doorway.

“Morning, Spike!” Dye said as he levitated the book out of his bag.  “I’m here to return a book.  Could you take it for me?”

“Sure thing,” Spike said, taking the book.  “Have a nice day, Dye.”

“You, too!” Dye said as he took to the air again.

After flying around aimlessly for a few minutes, Dye set himself down on a cloud and looked at his watch.  It now read eleven thirty-seven.  Dye didn’t have much to do, so he just took in the view of the mountains in the distance.

He sat there for a few minutes with his mind completely blank before he decided to return home.

He spread his wings again and flew back to his property and entered his house.

“Cosmo, I’m back!” he shouted.

His cousin was lying down on the couch, staring at the ceiling.

“Hey, Dye,” the researcher said, sounding bored.  “You got anything to do around here?  Just sitting around is getting old fast.”

“Not really,” Dye admitted.  “I was so busy getting everything built that I had no time to buy anything that I could use to pass the time.”

“Great,” Cosmo grunted.  “There’s absolutely nothing to do around here.”

“How about we just talk?” Dye suggested.  “Tell each other how we’ve been since we last met at Grandpa’s place.”

“Well, you already know that I’m engaged now,” Cosmo said as he turned to look at Dye.  “I don’t have much else.  I tend to keep away from all the stuffy nobles in Canterlot, so I don’t really have any gossip about them, either.”

“Well, I have an idea,” Dye said, changing the subject.  “You could use that eyes-and-ears spell so I could show you around town without you even having to leave the house!”

“Well, that’s better than doing absolutely nothing,” Cosmo replied as he lit up his horn and scrunched up his face in concentration.

The light grew brighter and brighter over time, eventually bathing the entire room in an intense indigo glow.

As Dye was about to say something, the glow enveloped him, and he suddenly felt different.

The glow faded, and Cosmo panted for breath.

Wow, I forgot how taxing that spell is, Cosmo’s voice said in Dye’s head, startling him.

“Gah!” Dye shouted as he turned to give Cosmo his full attention.  Don’t scare me like that! he thought.

Cosmo looked confused.  Why aren’t you sending me any thoughts? his voice asked, once again in Dye’s head.

“I thought I was!” Dye responded out loud.

You have to consciously decide to send the thoughts to me, Cosmo’s mental voice replied.  This spell allows privacy so that we can only share the thoughts we want to share.  Just thinking isn’t enough.

Dye focused for a second before thinking, Like this?

Exactly, Cosmo sent back, smiling.  Now, the sight and hearing is only one way.  I can see and hear what you do, but the reverse isn’t true.  You’d have to cast it on me to gain the same effect.

Okay, I get it, Dye thought to his cousin.  So, how does seeing what I see work?

I see and hear what you do in my mind, Cosmo’s voice explained.  My own senses aren’t overridden, so I can still see and hear my own surroundings.

Now I really want to learn this spell, Dye mentally commented.  This time, he kept the thought to himself, though.

Okay, let’s get the tour started, shall we? Cosmo’s voice asked.

Sure thing, Dye sent back.  I’ll give you the full tour.  Well, as full of a tour as I can give you on a Sunday, at least.





After several hours, Dye had finished giving Cosmo the tour.  Nothing eventful had happened besides Cosmo making strange comments about some of the ponies.  Dye had managed to keep a straight face through each of the comments, so nopony had caught on.

It was now eight in the evening, so Dye flew back home so Cosmo could lift the spell.

No headaches so far, Dye thought happily.

Careful, Cosmo sent back.  You don’t want to jinx it, do you?

Dye hadn’t realized that he hadn’t made that thought private, so he was startled when Cosmo replied.  However, he didn’t respond to Cosmo’s comment and just continued flying home.  He arrived at two past eight.

After he arrived, Dye had Cosmo lift the spell, and the two stallions ate dinner in silence.

“Well, the ponies around here seem nice enough, I suppose,” Cosmo said as Dye did the dishes.

“At least none of them realized what was going on,” Dye replied.  “I was almost sure that Pinkie suspected something was up, though.”

“Eh, you’re imagining things,” Cosmo said, waving a hoof to dismiss the idea.  “You haven’t been here long enough for them to know everything that’s considered ‘normal’ for you.  For all they know, walking to every single location in a town and appearing to ponder each and every one could be something you usually do on your days off.”

“I guess you’ve got a point,” Dye said, smiling.  “If we can make it though the week with nopony finding out about you before you leave, that should help get your pursuers off your trail.  We might even be able to get you some help in getting rid of them entirely so you can return home!”

“I certainly hope so,” the researcher replied, stifling a yawn.  “Either way, I’m gonna hit the hay.  I’m beat.”

“See you in the morning, Cousin,” Dye said as Cosmo left for the couch.

Cosmo tried to reply, but whatever he was about to say got replaced with a huge yawn, so he just shook his head and threw himself onto the couch and pulled a blanket over himself.

Dye looked at his watch and saw that it was now nine in the evening.  I might as well get to bed myself, he thought as he put the newly cleaned dishes away.

And so, Dye did just that.  He trotted over to his room, got into bed, and was asleep almost instantly, having just completed a headache-free day.