Seeking

Chapter One

“Hey!  Hey, you’re Tempest right?”

“Wha-”

“Come on, wake up!”

Tempest felt a nudge on his face and his eyes flashed open.  The room was dim, the only light came from a lantern that was hooked on the saddle bag of the pony who stood beside his cloud bed.

“Wha-who are you?”  Tempest asked, slowly realizing that there was a strange, uninvited pony in his room, “HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE!”

“The name’s Crow and your window was unlocked.”  The strange pony said cheerfully, “But please tell me, you’re Tempest right?  Or is this the wrong house….again?”

“No I am Tempes-WAIT!”  Tempest jumped out of his bed, “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

“Jeez, do you treat all your guest like this?”

“Wha…who do you thin…Get out before I call the guard!”

“They’ll be here soon, that’s why I need you up!”  Crow turned around and trotted to the bedroom door, “Come on, let’s talk over some food, I’m starving!”

“What the hell do yo-”

The door slammed and Tempest could hear Crow make his way down the stairs.  Tempest felt an urge to go back to sleep in hopes that this was some sort of crazy dream, but if it wasn’t…who was this pony?  Tempest flew over to the door and made his way down into the kitchen.  There the strange earth pony was setting the table with candles and two plates, each with a slice of Tempest’s apple pie.

Tempest’s jaw dropped, “You’re…You’re…”  Tempest pointed his hoof at the earth pony.

“What, hungry?  If so, yes very.”  Crow took a bite of his slice of pie.

“No! You’re an earth pony!”

“Dear Luna! A racist!”  Crow shook his head, “Well I need your help regardless.”

“No, I’m not!”  Tempest hit his face with his hoof, “No that’s not important, how are you standing here?!”

“It was the challenging process of checking several houses until I trotted over here.”

“No, not how you got here, how can you be standing on clouds?”

“By not walking on clouds.”  Crow took another bite of his pie, “Mmmm, this is good!  Did you make it?”

“Is it really?  I put some nutm…”  Tempest stopped himself from blushing, realizing that he was getting off topic, “WAIT!  SERIOUSLY HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT?!”

“It’s funny…”  Crow tilted his head and gave Tempest a funny look.

“What?”  Tempest took a few steps forward toward the table.  It was tempting to take a bite of pie, but he still had some questions.

“You are.”  Crow took a final bite of his pie, “A minute ago you wanted me to leave and now here we are talking.”

“Then get-”

“But to answer your question my mother was a pegasus, I guess some of it rubbed off on me, but either way I’ve been trotting on clouds since the day I was born.”  Crow started to laugh obnoxiously loud, “The first day I found out I could walk on clouds, you should of seen the look on my parent’s faces!”

“That seems unlikely, but please, just who are you.  Before you leave I want to know.”

“You’re just like your father, so curious, he said I would like you and he was right,”

“You knew my dad?”

“Yeah, he was a gre-” Crow was interrupted by a loud banging at the door.  The two ponies both turned to door.  “Well, that would be the guards.”  Crow was whispering now, “You better go answer it.”

“You actually called the guard?!”

“Ha!  No, they’re looking for me, it was only a matter of time before they came here.”

“This is the Cloudsdale Guard!  Open this door!”  The guard called from outside.

“Hurry up, go and answer it, they won’t wait forever.”  Crow said with a grim tone in his voice.

Tempest looked at Crow, studied his facial expression.  It was serious, his once happy expression was completely gone.  Tempest looked back at the door.  The guard banged harder on the door, “I’m coming, don’t worry!”  Tempest shouted.  He slowly flew over to the door and answered it.  Standing outside were two armored, snow white pegasi.  The beefier of the two shoved his way past Tempest and the other followed in.  To Tempest’s surprise, Crow was nowhere to be found.  Had he left?  Or was he hiding?

“The beefy guard stomped over to Tempest and snorted in his face, “Where is he?”

“Who?”  Tempest asked, though it was obvious who they wanted, but why?  Tempest wanted to know who this pony was and why he was here.  On top of that, Tempest didn’t care too much for this guard pony's attitude.

The guard shoved Tempest back against the door, “Don’t play games with me!”

“Hey!”  The second guard yelled, “Let him down, he’s done nothing wrong, we’re here for Crow.”  The guard lightly pushed the other guard aside and smiled at Tempest, “We have reason to believe a dangerous pony by the name of Crow is looking for you.  He is described as…”  The guard took a notepad out of a pouch he wore around his side, “A light brown earth pony with a short, messy, pale brown mane.  He was bright purple eyes and his cutie mark is a lantern, it is believed he always carries that lantern on him.  While we don’t know for sure, we’re pretty confident that he is in his early twenties.”  The guard put his notepad back and looked at Tempest expectantly, “So have you seen this pony I just described or not?”  There was no doubt about it, that was Crow.  Tempest looked around the kitchen, where did he go?  The guard looked with him.  “So, he’s here, right?”

“Um…I don’t…I’m not-” Tempest stuttered.

‘I’m sick of wasting time!”  The beefy guard shouted, “Tell us before we force some answers out of you!”

“Go ahead Tempest, tell them!”  Crow called from outside, “Why lie, you know I’m here.”  The beefy guard shoved his way past Tempest and out the door, the second guard quickly followed, only bumping into Tempest.  Outside Crow stood, lantern in hoof, he smirked as they ran out.  “Tell me, how’s the queen doing?  Does she miss me?”  The two guards hissed at Crow.  Tempest recovered from getting knocked down and made his way outside where to guards circled Crow.  “Tell me something.”  Crow laughed, “Are my eyes really a bright purple?”  He swung his lantern and a circle flame surrounded him.  The nicer pegasus was able to jump back and dodge the flame, but the other was completely consumed by the fire.  There was no scream, the fire was too intense, all that was left was a pile of ashes that slowly floated beneath the cloud level.

“Umbra!”  The other guard shouted, but he did nothing, he kept his distance from Crow, fearful that he would join his friend’s fate.

“You….you killed him…” Tempest took a few steps back into the doorway, “How could you?”

“Umbra is a weird name for snow white pegasus don’t you think?”  The tone of his voice was dead, there was no emotion, his facial expression was completely blank, “So tell me, why haven’t you changed, it’s much easier to fight when you’re not hiding behind a layer of fake skin.”

“You bastard!”  The guard pony shouted, “I’ll kill you!”  The pony’s body was engulfed in green flame and in place of the once snow white coat was a pitch black, bug like skin.  His eyes were deep blue with no pupil, it’s fangs dripped with a green, acidy liquid.

“A changeling.”  Tempest whispered.  He slowly realized what was happening.  Crow wasn’t resisting an arrest, he was defending himself.  Somehow he knew that these were changelings.

“Aren’t you a pretty one?!”  Crow mocked the changeling.  The changeling surrounded itself with a green fire and dove down toward Crow.  Crow quickly jumped back a swung his lantern again and another bright orange flame shot out, completely obliterating the changeling into nothing.  Crow let out a large sigh and turned to Tempest, “So!”  He said with a smile, “Are you ready to talk?”