In Sun's Light

Tuesday

Earth

This new guy, Greg, was weird. If nothing else, his fasion sense was. He was rocking a grey and black hoodie that he kept parted enough to show off his sky blue shirt with an insignia of a pencil drawing a sideways letter S. He was in carpenter’s jeans, and all his pockets were literally filled with pens and pencils, and he was wearing hiking boots. He had a gold LCD watch on his right wrist that looked old and completely beaten up. Most striking was his hair. He was wearing a black short brimmed fedora, but underneath was a head of blue hair with a lightning streak of white edging a portion of his bangs. It was wild and pretty long. He looked, in short, like something out of an anime.

The overall effect was astounding. He pushed up his black wireframes as he gave the class a hearty hello and sat down, hanging his bag on the back of his seat and pulling out about a dozen pens to put on his desk, along with a sketchpad that had the same insignia as his shirt. Other students took notes, but Greg drew them. And they were really good drawings. Even Mr. Howard, their hard to please English teacher, was impressed by his comic rendition of the class reading of Beowulf.

Gavin thought the dude was gutsy. He wasn’t shy at all. It was like he had been through all of this before. Handshakes to the teachers, hellos and high fives to the students, and he seemed to especially like the “Fus Ro Yay” Fluttershy on Eric’s shirt.

“Fluttershy. Nice. She’s pretty cool.” Most of the students were stunned by such a display of confidence. But when nobody else was looking, it seemed like he was looking for something. Gavin wanted to know what was up with this guy. After all, who drew three pictures in consecutive order of volunteer models? He did ask fifty cents for each drawing, but they were worth it. He didn’t seem to do color though. He drew everything in black and white.

“Hey, draw me a picture of Spitfire!” Eric shouted.

“You got it. One Spitfire fresh out of Cloudsdale.” He worked as the bell rang and finished, handing over a dang impressive Spitfire and collecting his fee before shouldering his bag and running off to his next class.

* * *

“So what are your positive skills, Spencer?”

Shining armor straightened his tie. “Well, I know how to cook to some degree. I can focus easily on the task at hand, and I spent a lot of time in security.”

“Alright. Have you ever operated a cash register?”

“A what?” Shining asked, and felt very stupid afterwards. Duh, a cash register. He was really nervous. “I mean, no. I have not.”

“Oh. Well, this has been a nice interview. We’ll call you if we decide to hire you.”

Shining walked out feeling pretty dumb. That was the second place he had tried, and he still didn’t know whether or not he was looking in the right place. Anyways, he was hungry, and that reserve fund Graphite had given him was telling him to spend. Walking back in, he said “Also, what’s the best salad you have?”

* * *

At Gavin’s request, here was Greg.

“Do you guys always sit inside like this? It’s a nice day.”

“Well… Yeah, we’re always inside like this.”

“Shame. All that natural light. Normally I would enjoy it, but you wanted to talk?”

“I did.” Gavin said. “I want to know a bit about you. Where did you come from?”

“Philadelphia.” Greg said with ease.

“Alright… How old are you?”

“Sixteen. This feels like an interrogation, you know.”

Gavin was struck by this remark. It felt like an accusation. Greg didn’t look like he was messing around either. His gold eyes were piercing… wait, gold?

“Why are your eyes gold?”

“Contact lenses, thank you very much what is your name?”

Gavin was struck again by the suddenness of the question. It startled him to have the tables so quickly turned. “G- Gavin.”

“Hello, Gavin, and nice to meet you. If you must know, I am an aspiring artist who has just moved here with my big brother, Spencer. At the moment, we’re still settling in.”

Eric interjected to lighten the mood. “Why do you wear that hat, Greg?”

He laughed. “I had a friend before I moved who would probably attack me on sight with combs if she saw the mess under this hat.”

“Sounds a bit like Rarity.”

“You have no idea.”

Gavin decided he couldn’t hold the question in any more. “What are you looking for here at the school, Greg?”

Now Greg was shocked. His facial expression went from shocked to flustered to something like suppressed anger. “Gavin, meet me at five behind the school.” With that, he walked off. Gavin and Eric stared with shock at each other. Eric opened his mouth, and Gavin hoped he would give him some wise piece of brony philosophy to deal with the threat that had just presented itself.

“Crap!” he said instead.

Canterlot

Will O. Wisp stepped up to the podium to announce his candidacy to Equestria.

“Hello, everypony. I stand before you today in the shadow of one of the worst emergencies in Equestrian history. Our princess is missing. Her younger sister grows weary with the weight of the sun and the moon on her shoulders. And there is no sign of Celestia’s return.

“I stand before you in a hopeless situation. Your beloved ruler is missing. But all is not lost, Equestria. Before coming here, I was known very well in Manehattan. While Celestia is gone, I can rule. I am announcing my candidacy for Equestria’s… Prime minister, of a sort. I promise, if you vote for me, I will rule as justly and fairly as I can. Thank you.”

He stepped down to moderate applause and moved over. Top that, Twilight Sparkle.

She stepped up. “Equestria, you know me well as your newest princess. I’m still learning, and I have a way to go as a leader. I honestly don’t bring much to the table, besides my brains and my magic. But there is one really important factor I have. That’s my friendships.

"I am not only a princess, but the bearer of Harmony’s element of magic. If you vote me, as Will said, for prime minister, I would not rule alone. I have my friends, the elements of harmony, to help me. The elements would once again be able to keep peace in Equestria, and keep it safe. And you, the citizens of this land, could rest assured that you were not ruled by my decisions alone, but by the decisions of five other ponies of various backgrounds, personalities, and views. That is the main thing I bring to the party. Thank you.” She stepped down and received a huge amount of applause. Will was stunned. Even he thought it had been a good speech! Twilight had good ideas.

But Twilight wasn’t going to win. There was a whole world of hurt waiting for her if she did.

Earth

Gavin Wasn’t about to just back down. It wasn’t his style to run away from a challenge. One of his friends from the football team had heard the threat and offered to help, but Gavin had said no. That wouldn’t be fair to Greg. He realized he had made a grave mistake when he found Greg standing next to a much taller guy, with black hair. He looked like he had spent time as a bouncer.

“At least you were gutsy enough to come alone.” Greg said. “I had worried it sounded too much like I wanted to fight. This is my big brother, Spencer.”

“Gavin.” Gavin said as he held out his hand. Spencer shook it.

“Nice to meet you. You want answers, I’m guessing?”

“Why are you here?”

“Gavin…” Spencer got a thoughtful look as he worked through something in his head. “Ok. Look. We’re here because of something of big importance to us. Something that went missing.” Greg facepalmed behind him like he was saying too much. “We need to learn what happened to it before we leave.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’ll tell me? What is this something? I could help you look.”

“It’s more like a someone. Someone very important and powerful. We can’t tell you who, it would blow our cover.” Gavin put on a disappointed face, but gears were turning in his head. An alicorn that young would presumably grow up to be a very powerful pony. An important one. Eric had said. Were these two looking for the pony he had found? And if so, why? Gavin had an idea.

“I hope you find her.” He said.

“I hope we find her too.” Spencer replied, not picking up on this treachery. Greg looked at Gavin for a moment, like he was figuring something out, but suddenly a yell caught his attention.

“You’re not hurting Gavin if I can help it!” It was Luke, one of Gavin’s friends, the one he had told to stay behind. He charged Greg, who steeled himself, ready for the attack. Luke tried to punch him, but Greg grabbed his fist and pulled him around, using leverage to send Luke flying straight into a wall. The reaction was split second. Greg was fast. He pinned Luke to the wall.

“Stop, man! We weren’t fighting! We were talking!” Luke seemed to calm down considerably after realizing he had been beat. Gavin left as they straightened things out. It was official. This filly wasn’t just a random one. She was important, and two really shifty guys were looking for her. Two guys he didn’t trust.

He had to keep her safe.

* * *

Gavin was late again. The filly knew he would be this time, but he was even later than before. She didn’t like being alone in this too big, creaky house. She didn’t want to be, but she was frustrated.

Then the door opened.

“You need a name.” Gavin said when he entered. “We need to give you a name, at least until you remember your real one.”

The filly was stunned by the abruptness of the statement. She had planned to confront him, ask why he was gone so long. He was right though, so she let go of her question to focus on this new task.

“I don’t know where to start.” She said. She started thinking through her qualities, seeing if she could come up with something based on what she was like… What was she like? She had been too busy surviving and learning about this new world to really realize. “Hmm…”

Gavin was more concerned with her looks, because he didn’t know what she was like either.

“Let’s see… Your eyes are bright… But I think I remember Bright Eyes. I don’t know. Your mane is pink, but we definitely can’t call you Pinkie… Let’s just drop it for now and see if something comes to mind later, alright?”

“Okay.” So they sat, enjoying the day in silence, until dinner time. The filly was brought a bowl full of salad, and Gavin sat down with a pink thing nestled in a bun. The smell made the filly freeze.

“Is that meat?” she said, an edge of panic creeping into her voice.

“Yeah.” Gavin realized too late where her thought process was taking the conversation, and knew he needed to save himself. “I mean, I’m a human. I eat meat because I have to. Humans are technically supposed to eat both meats and veggies to stay healthy.” He opted to leave out vegans, at least for now. She was already visibly calming. He chuckled, thinking of something. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t eat you. You don’t look like you would taste very good.” He poked her, and she chuckled. It was the closest thing to a laugh he had heard from her. He wanted to hear more.

The filly had to beg for him to stop between laughs after he spent a good ten minutes finding all her ticklish spots. By the end of her ordeal, she was lightheaded and had hiccups, but at least she was happy.

“You’re a ray of sunshine, you know that?” Gavin asked. Then he realized what he had just said, and decided to go off of it. “What do you think of that?”

“What?”

“Sunshine. That could be your name.”

The filly thought about it. Something about the name Sunshine seemed oddly fitting. She liked it, and she desperately wanted a name.

“I like it.” She decided.

That night was especially cold, and her covers did nothing to keep her warm, so she moved over to Gavin’s bed. She huddled against him, almost desperate for warmth, and Gavin wrapped his arms around her in his sleep.

Sunshine was warm, full, and happy. And more importantly, she had a name. With that thought in mind, she smiled and drifted off to sleep.