Restless in Hoofington

Another night, another shadowy figure darts through the shadowy streets. Through alleys and cut throughs of all manners, it goes ever onward towards its destination. Finally, a small building comes into sight; nothing special compared to those near it, but the figure strides purposefully toward it. Looking around one last time, the form approaches the door…

...and knocks quietly.

A moment later, light spills from the home as the door opens, the figure nodding and slipping inside. The building, now easily identifiable as a home, is nothing too special. A simple house that is quite literally dull compared to its tenant, who closes the door behind the newcomer.

The sparkling amethyst coat of the crystal mare glitters as she turns to her guest. “I was wondering if you were going to make it. The others arrived a while ago.”

Pulling back her hood, the visitor reveals the tufted ears, slitted eyes, and protruding fangs of a thestral. She rubs her emerald mane as she grins, a little embarrassed. “Sorry, Ornate… I took some wrong turns…”

Chuckling, the jeweled earth pony motions forward. “Don’t worry, Nightshade. We’ll get you memorizing those streets in no time. Now come on, everyone else is waiting. Just hang your uniform in the hall closet with the rest of them.”

The young batpony nods, opening the door and stripping out of her dark blue outfit. She hangs the pants and hoodie up next to a number of identical ones, each adorned with only a single splash of color: a red crescent moon on a blue circle. Closing the closet, she manages to spot a small bit of Ornate’s blue sparkling tail, following into the room where she can now hear voices conversing.

Aside from the crystal mare, she sees several other familiar faces standing or sitting around. The first is a griffon with striking black and white coloring named Snowdrift. She lays curled up on a fluffy cushion, not speaking to anypony. Rather than this be some form of antisocial behavior, instead the rather simple explanation is that she is using both beak and claw to do a little sprucing of her wings at the moment.

Lying across the couch is Snap Gun, whom Nightshade recognizes from the previous night’s outing. He has also ditched his outfit, revealing a silver coat with a short brown mane and long tail. His cutie mark, a padlock, gets across his role in the team rather well. He is the only one not actively listening to any conversations, instead reading a small book.

Beside Snap and practically talking his ear off is Portal; a young dark orange colt with cyan hair, cut rather short for his mane and left to grow long for his tail. He lacks a cutie mark, and is clearly a good couple years younger than even Nightshade. As he speaks, he repeatedly taps his hooves on the ground, making a clacking noise that would likely irritate the others if it could be heard over the conversation.

Lastly, sitting on the floor beside the couch and resuming talking with Ornate when she returned, is a rather large zebra with a thin silver chain around his neck. Aside from that, Zesten, as he is named, wears very little; the only unique detail about him being the glyph on his rump of a crescent moon with two stars on the inner side.

Ornate looks over to the thestral, seeing her just standing in the doorway. “Well, come on and sit down. We’re all friends here, even if you’ve only been introduced to all of us but not actually spoken to us.”

Nightshade smiles, nods, and relaxes, walking over and sitting down next to the crystal mare. “Guess I’m still getting used to this.” She looks around, frowning for a moment. “Umm… where’s the boss?”

“Oh, he’s just out on one of his nights-on-the-town.” Ornate nods her head towards the window. “He likes to get his food on a weekly basis so he doesn’t have to worry much. He told me just to check up on everypony while they were here, since it’s my house this time. Now that you’re here, I guess we can do that before we start just chatting the night away.” She looks towards the hallway. “Well, as soon as our last filly is done in the bathroom.”

The young mare looks towards the hallway as well for a moment before her ears flick at the chatter that hadn’t stopped since before she entered the room. She looks over at the colt and the stallion calmly reading, tilting her head. “He must be very patient…”

Zesten chuckles before replying in a quiet tone. “He is quite patient, we have seen before. But that is not quite why the child is ignored. Confusing though it may first appear, it is simply because he cannot hear.”

Nightshade blinks. “Oh… does Portal know that?”

“I imagine he does. I will admit, it seems like he talks for the sake of it.” Zesten shrugs lightly.

Finally, a door can be heard opening and closing from the hall, and practically silent hoofsteps enter into the room. Along with them comes a certain young pegasus mare, with one wing and a prosthetic leg.

“Sorry for the wait,” Alloy says apologetically as she sits down on a cushion, smiling at the newcomer. “Hi there, Night.”

Seeing the only pony in the group close to her age, the batpony smiles toothily at her. “Hey Alloy. I miss anything?”

“Just making sure all of us got food from last night’s outing,” the pegasus confirms before smirking. “Judging by your own personal haul, I assume you got enough to last about a year.”

Nightshade sticks out her tongue. “Hey, I shared. I just like fruit.” As if to prove her point, she pulls out a pear she had stashed under her wing and bites into it, a dreamy look coming across her face.

“We noticed.” She giggles at her friend’s antics, looking over the others. “Portal, leave Snap in peace, okay?” The child instantly quiets down and turns around to play with a pillow on the couch.

Looking up from her now completed preening, Snowdrift clacks her beak once in amusement. “Always a bundle of energy, that one.” She looks over to Ornate, raising a feathery eyebrow. “So, what was it the boss wanted you to tell us?”

The crystal pony simple looks around at all of them. “He just wanted to make sure we were all enjoying the food, and ask if any of us needed anything else so he could go ahead and look into the next place we should hit.”

Nightshade tilts her head. “He’s planning another one already?”

“He’s seeing if he needs to,” Ornate corrects.

“Well, I’m doing fine,” Alloy begins, to which Zesten nods in agreement. “What about the rest of you?”

The thestral nods her head, as does Portal. When eyes turn to Snowdrift, though, the hybrid looks down and plucks a little at the pillow she’s on. “Well… I don’t know if it’s worth mentioning…”

Ornate pushes. “Everything is worth mentioning.”

“...Okay.” She takes a breath and her feathers bristle a moment as she thinks. “As you all know, fall is here, so the temperature is slowly getting colder. While they weren’t a problem before, a lot of the windows in my house actually don’t fit quite right, so they let in cold drafts, making it very hard to be comfortable or even sleep sometimes.” Her eyes sharpen. “I hired someone to take care of it, but I swear every time it gets close to the day he should come over, I always get a letter or a note about ‘some more important job came up’. I was fine with it the first few times, but after the third I’m certain something fishy is going on.” She clenches a talon. “I even went down there to talk to him, and he just repeated what he said before ignoring me to talk to the one other customer in his store that wasn’t even trying to talk to him yet!” Her whole body droops a little as her voice calms. “I just want my nest to be cozy and warm… I don’t think that’s much to ask.”

Alloy frowns, getting up and putting a hoof on her shoulder. “It’s not. And we won’t let him get away with this. If we can’t get him to do the job, we’ll at least get your money back so you can find someone who will.”

Nightshade stands up, leathery wings outspread aggressively as she echoes the sentiment: “Yeah!” She tilts her head a moment later. “How do we do that? Because you know starting tomorrow I’m going to be a little busy some nights, but I really still wanna help…”

“Don’t worry, Nightshade.” Alloy smiles. “I’ve been juggling the school and these guys for about a year now. I’ll help you through it.” Her smile fades. “As for how we’ll do it...I’m not too sure, myself.” She looks to Ornate and Zesten. “Any ideas, you two?”

Looking at her fellow senior member of the group, Ornate smiles slyly. “Oh, I’m sure we’ve already got some ideas. We’ll collaborate, run it by Mr. Big Bad Boss, and you’ll be in a comfy nest in no time, Snowy. You need to promise me something, though.” The griffon looks on attentively. “If it gets too bad, you come stay with one of us. I know home is home, especially for you, but running on no sleep isn’t good for anypony.”

The monochrome predator sighs and nods. “Okay, I promise… I’ll try not to be too stubborn.” She grins and laughs sheepishly, the laughter soon being echoed by the other occupants of the room.

“Good. We’ll get to work on that as soon as we’ve let Reflect know about it,” Alloy concludes. She looks to the only one of the group yet to weigh in, only to discover him still reading his book, completely oblivious to the conversation going on. She sighs. “Can someone get Snap’s attention?”

Portal quickly hops up and obediently nudges Snap in the side. The silver stallion jumps in surprise, looking at the colt in confusion and annoyance.

“Alloy wants to talk to you,” Portal says before going back to playing with his pillow. While deaf, Snap can still read the general statement on his lips, and turns to Alloy attentively.

Rather than speaking, the pegasus sits on her haunches and begins to gesture rapidly with her hooves, going through a flurry of seemingly random motions. When she finishes, Snap begins to motion back at her. Slowly, the young mare starts to look confused, then worried, then grim. “...oh...um...” She looks to the others. “He says that he…is having a problem...but we should focus on Snowdrift’s issue first.”

Ornate blinks. “Is he sure? Does he at least want to tell us what it is?”

“He told me, but he doesn’t want anyone else to know for now...and I really think we should just leave it at that for now.” She shuffles her hooves a little awkwardly.

“Hmm… okay…” The crystal mare hesitantly accepts this.

After a short silence, Zesten finally speaks up, having remained quiet for a good while. “So...Nightshade is your name, is that true? Why don't you tell us a bit about you?”

She turns to him, confused. “Umm… what do you want to know?”

“For one, where do you come from, I implore? I have never seen a pony like yourself before.”

"Well... I haven't really seen too many other thestrals outside of my birth town..." She examines one of her bluish-grey hooves. "We were pretty much the majority there. Only a hooffull of ponies from other tribes lived there."

Alloy tilts her head. “Where was your birth town, anyway?”

"It was a place called Veil, a town half built into the base of a mountain." She smiles, remembering. "Half of the ponies there actually didn't bother building houses. They just hollowed out caves and made them into homes. You should have seen some of the families that had stonecutter cutie marks. They would go all out with designs on walls; heck, they would even have furniture connected to walls and ceilings because they carved it out of them. It was always easy to find a dark quiet place when you wanted to... but anyway, yeah, it was mostly ponies like me. It was a town like any other as far as I know, except that half the town was nocturnal while the other half chose not to be."

“That sounds cool!” Portal chimes in, having apparently begun listening not too long ago. Alloy nods in agreement.

Nightshade's emerald leathery wings shuffle as she smiles. "Thank you. I didn't think it was too special, but it's still the place I was born, so I'll always remember it." She waits a moment before continuing. “Okay, I get to ask a question now: what was Alloy doing to talk to Snap, and how come none of you did it?”

“Oh, like this?” Alloy moves her hooves in a few gestures similar to the ones she made towards Snap. “It’s sign language. Since he can’t hear or speak, and his lip reading is very basic, it’s how we communicate with him. As for why the others weren’t doing it, that’s because not many of us actually understand it.” She giggles sheepishly. “I only know it because my cousin is deaf as well, so I had to learn at an early age to talk with him.”

“Cool…” She blinks. “Wait, so… what if we need to ask him something then? I just kinda… flailed my hooves in enough directions the other night until my point got across… I’d rather avoid that in the future.”

“Well, if you don’t have anything to write with, just ask me or Zesten to do it for you. Or Reflect, if he’s ever around.” Alloy suddenly smiles a bit. “Or I could teach you some, just in case.”

“Sure!” Nightshade holds her hooves up eagerly before narrowing her eyes. “Don’t make me say anything embarrassing.”

Rolling her eyes, the pegasus smirks a bit as she moves over, helping reposition the batpony’s hooves as she explains. “Okay, let’s start with just individual letters. This is ‘A’...”

“...minus, at least. We studied all night, so we should be golden!” Autumn grins hopefully at her friend, who returns the smile, albeit a little tiredly. “What’s wrong?”

Alloy yawns. “Just...stayed up later than I should’ve.” She shakes her head, trying to wake herself up. “Spent a couple hours teach...um, I mean studying.”

The unicorn tilts her head in confusion, but doesn’t press the topic, needing to focus more on not bumping into any other students as they make their way to their classroom. Once they arrive, they settle into their seats, Autumn looking a little nervous at the usual odd looks her friend is getting from their fellow students.

Luckily, the form of their spring green teacher walks through the door before too long. Setting her saddlebags down next to her desk, she picks up a ruler in her magical aura, tapping it sharply on her desk three times. “Alright class, settle down now.” Her tone is not unkind, but still carries the expectation of obedience within.

Within a few seconds, the entire class settles down, voices going quiet as they look to their teacher. A few still cast looks at one another, attempting to whisper and finish their prior conversations, but most students remain focused on the front of the room.

With a few pointed stares, the instructor soon has the silence she desires. She nods once. “Good. Now then, I have a little announcement for you today. No, for those of you who just got wide eyes, it’s not a pop quiz.” She pauses to allow a few sighs of relief. “I am pleased to announce we have a new student in our class who just finished transferring. Everypony, please give a warm welcome to Miss Nightshade.”

As the teacher looks toward the door, it opens, allowing the bluish-grey thestral in the hall to enter. Her walk is calm, but her smile betrays both nervousness and excitement as she enters. Stopping next to the teacher, she quietly looks out at the faces looking back at her. “Umm… hi!” She waves a hoof, hoping to break the ice a bit.

Autumn and Alloy both wave back at her, but the rest of the class is completely silent, aside from hushed mumbles to one another. Almost none of them look her in the eye, and those that do don’t seem to be very happy. It isn’t more than a second before the awkward silence begins to set in, and even Autumn and Alloy start feeling it.

Breaking the silence, the teacher turns to the batpony. “Alright, well...why don’t you take one of the spare seats, and we’ll get started with today’s test? Just read the text or something else and you’ll be fine while the others are working.” Without further ceremony, she withdraws a stick of chalk and begins to write a few more things on the board, including time left.

Nightshade nods, keeping her eyes forward as she heads down the row and to an empty seat next to Alloy and Autumn. She gives them each a grateful smile and wave as she sits down. Autumn begins to greet her, but goes quiet when the teacher places her test on her desk, signalling it’s time for all to stop talking and start writing.

Later that day, class gives way to something much more agreeable to all students: lunch. With tables both inside and outside and a fair variety of food to choose from in line, most everypony can find what they want at this time. Almost all of them are sticking with friends, chatting away with one another about the day’s events thus far or preparing for (or griping about) future classes.

Autumn and Alloy are no different. Once they have their selection of food, they pick an unoccupied table just outside, sitting down and beginning to eat. Conversation is minimal, which worried Autumn, as Alloy is usually just as talkative as her at lunchtime. Yet today, she seems intent on one-word answers and mumbled grunts as her main method of communication.

“Alright Alloy, what’s the matter?” she finally demands. “You’ve been quiet all day. I know you’re tired, but that can’t be it. You seem more distracted than anything.”

The pegasus sighs. “Don’t worry about it, Autumn. I’m just thinking about stuff.” Noticing her friend about to ask the obvious question, she quickly glances around for a way out. Her salvation comes in the form of a familiar thestral stepping out the door, and she leaps at the opportunity to evade further questioning. “Hey, Nightshade! Over here!”

The familiar voice gains a flick of tufted ears and a smile of pointed teeth as the young mare quickly trots over. Sliding onto the bench, she sets her tray down in front of her. “Hey, thanks for the invite. You saved me about five minutes of wandering around.”

“No problem!” Alloy says with a grin. Autumn, while a little irked that she can’t continue her questioning, smiles at the newcomer nonetheless. “Trust me, I know all about having to wander around all lunch period for a table.”

“At least the food looks good once you get to actually eat it.” Opening her mouth, the thestral is just about to chow down before she stops, looking up at the unicorn and smiling sheepishly. She sits back up, offering her hoof. “Sorry, I didn’t really get your name, but you got mine in class.”

She smiles and shakes her hoof. “Autumn Equinox. It’s great to meet you, Nightshade.”

“Wow, mouthful of a name you have. I like it.” Nightshade smiles back, giggling a little.

Autumn giggles as well. “Thanks. I like it too. Just call me Autumn, though.” She retracts her hoof once the shake is over and sits back down, returning to her food.

Alloy, who has remained oddly quiet this whole time, finally speaks up. “So, um...Nightshade, you’re new here, right? Where did you go before?”

Looking at the pegasus, she answers. “Well, before now I really just went to the one school in my home town. My dad homeschooled me a little while we were moving and getting settled in here in Hoofington.”

“Ooh, where was your old home town?” Autumn asks, looking rather intrigued.

“A little out of the way town called Veil,” she answers, getting a bit of deja vu. “We had a nice house right in the shade of the mountain.”

“You lived near a mountain?” The unicorn has practically abandoned her food by this point.

Seeing the girl’s enthusiasm, Nightshade giggles. “Yeah, half the town lived in it. Caves are more cosy than you think.” She quickly takes a bite of a pear before the next question can come, eyes closing for a moment as she happily chews.

“In the…?” Autumn shakes her head for a moment. “How...how did you manage that? Aren’t caves just...you know, all rock and stuff?”

“Well, aren’t houses just wood and stuff?” the thestral counters. “You put in a door, add furniture, some pictures, carve out the rooms, and you’ve got a shady house with no windows.”

“But don’t they get cold? Or damp? And...how do you carve out rooms big enough to live in?”

Smiling again at her eagerness, Nightshade eats the rest of the pear in one bite, licking up the few drops of juice that get on her chin. “You learn how to pick ones that don’t get damp; those are usually better for growing mushrooms or something. You keep warm by having a fire, same as normal homes; you just makes sure to have a high ceiling, then carve some channels for the smoke to flow out. As for rooms, well, usually you pick a cave with one really big room, then if you get a few ponies working at it in shifts, you can have a new room in a few days. It’s actually really easy to make them bigger afterwards too if you just do it a bit at a time.” She takes a drink to wet her throat.

Autumn listens to this all with rapt attention as though she’s in class. “It’s...that easy? I always thought carving rock would take weeks or months to get anything really big...”

Nightshade waves a hoof. “Nah; we had good rock, good proven tools, and ponies who had done it before so they could tell us how to do it best. Everything’s easier when you have all that.”

“Maybe we should change the subject?” Alloy interjects. “You know, before you end up blowing her mind again. We might not be able to put her back together.”

The tufted ears fold a little. “Aww… come on, Alloy, look at her! She’s so attentive and nice!”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to be the one left trying to turn her brain back on.” Alloy chuckles, not noticing Autumn give the thestral a confused look for a moment.

“Has that happened before? What’s she like then?” Nightshade asks with genuine curiosity.

The pegasus shrugs, smirking. “Mostly she just kind of sits there quietly like she’s trying to figure out what everything you said means. Kind of like a trance or something. If you get her attention, or she snaps out of it herself, chances are she’ll have just blanked out and missed the last few minutes of conversation.”

The thestral giggles. “Have you tried poking her during it? It’s always the first thing to try.”

“Yep, and trust me, it works. But she gets angry if you interrupt her ‘train of thought’ too early, so I usually just let her come out of it herself.” She turns to the unicorn they’ve been discussing, noticing that she’s actually paying attention again. “Like so.”

Nightshade narrows her eyes. “I dunno… might still be a trance.” She slowly moves her hoof forward until it touches Autumn’s shoulder. “Poke.”

The unicorn looks at the batpony with a bemused expression, but can’t hold it, and soon she starts giggling. “Yes, Nightshade, I’m awake. Don’t worry.”

The new student giggles along with her. “I like you, you’re fun! I think we’ll be great friends!”

Autumn smiles. “I think so too! Say, want to meet up after school? We can go for a walk around town, or just head back home to one of our places for a while.”

Blinking at the sudden invitation, Nightshade answers after a moment. “Oh, um, sure! Sounds great!” She turns to Alloy. “You’re coming too, right?”

“Well...” The pegasus cuts herself off as she yawns. “...normally I would, but I think today I just need to rest...I was up really late.” She smiles at the two of them tiredly. “You two can have fun without me though, right?”

Autumn sighs. “Aw...oh well. Hope you feel better tomorrow, Alloy.” She turns to Nightshade again, smiling. “Besides, she’s right. We can have fun together.”

Nodding, Nightshade agrees. “Sure we can! No idea what we’re gonna do, but that just means it’s a surprise.”

Just as Autumn nods in agreement, the bell rings to signal the students to come back inside. The unicorn stands up, sighing when she notices her mostly-untouched meal. “Great...now I’m gonna be hungry all day.”

Looking down at her own meal, the batpony picks up an apple, ignoring her urge to lick her lips, and offers it to the young mare. “Here. You can eat this on the way, it’s something, right?”

Surprised, the unicorn looks at the fruit for a moment before smiling and accepting it gratefully. “Thank you...are you sure you don’t want it?”

“I’ve got an orange slice left to suck on. Plus, I don’t want a new friend going hungry.” She smiles brightly, fangs completely showing.

Despite the toothiness of the grin, Autumn is able to resist the urge to flinch, and instead grins back - albeit not as big. “Alright...again, thank you.” She takes a bite of the apple as the three start heading back inside.