“Daash! Dash!” Fluttershy called as she pulled Einuli up a staircase and back towards the room her friend was staying in.

“Whaaat?” Dash groaned as she rolled over and looked at her friend. “I’m tryin to sleep…”

“Look what Twilight found! Isn’t he adorable??” Fluttershy questioned giddily as she pointed to the black and red plumed raptor standing beside her.

“What… is he?” Dash asked uncertainly as Einuli waved at her.

“I’m Einuli.” He waved.

“That’s an adorable name!” Fluttershy giggled as she hugged him.

“What is he…” Dash inquired slowly getting up from the bed. She poked the fluffy creature known as Einuli.

“I’m from a species called Avali.” He said. “Or… as one human put me before… a fluffy space raptor of deadly cuteness.”

“I like that second one.” Fluttershy smiled widely, squeezing him even closer and burying her face in his feathery head.

“Why… have I never heard of… either ‘Avali’ or ‘Humans’ before?” Rainbow Dash questioned, staring uncertainly at him.

“Oh, that’s an easy answer. You’re species hasn’t achieved a FTL drive yet.”

“A what?”

“A faster than light drive. It allows for travel at speeds excess of light speed. Meaning I could technically, if the one on my ship wasn’t damaged, travel around this planet with it, several times in the span of an hour.” Einuli said. “But… that requires so much energy, that to expended it on doing something so trivial would be pointless and more likely than not, strand me here permanently.” He continued with, “The drive mainly works using jumps and wormholes that it creates… so in all reality why it’s called an FTL drive instead of a wormhole generator is beyond me. I mean… I’ve never seen the ship achieve light speed, that’s impossible in of itself as that’d require near infinite energy as the waste would be so high it’d never function beyond a micro-centimeter.” He concluded, seeming to correct himself in his explanation. Dash remained absolutely silent as she tried to process what he said.

“Wow, I think he could give Twilight a run for her money with that.” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Alright then… how did your ‘FTL Drive’ get damaged?” Dash inquired. “And… please explain it to me like I’m five.”

“I dunno.” Einuli shrugged. “It was working find before something inside it just burst. The engine’s old and is in need of an upgrade any way… so it didn’t bother me much. And hey! I luckily ended up near an inhabited planet! And better yet it’s not hostile! So I’m happy about that too!” He said giddily, losing that air of intelligence he had gathered.

“Strange… maybe you should take him to meet Pinkie.” Rainbow Dash offered.

“Oooh! He should meet everyone at once!” Fluttershy said, nearly beginning to bounce.

“Right uuh…” Dash mumbled. “I’ll go do th-”

Fluttershy let go of Einuli, rushing out of the room and out of sight.

“So… um… when did you get here?” Dash asked, trying not to be awkward.

“Just today.” Einuli responded.

“So it’d be a little early… well you did say you liked it here already.”

“Yep. I love it here. Mainly because… um it’s really lonely in space.” He sighed, seeming to go slightly lax as he stared at the ground. “‘Specially when… um… never mind…” He mumbled shaking his head and looking back up at her again.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s not important.” He shook his head, smiling slightly, though it seemed less genuine than before. Dash bit down on her lip, unsure of how to proceed.

Twilight barged into the room. “There you are!” She stammered out quickly.

“Is something wrong?” Einuli questioned.

“I… uh… messed up… with the manipulator… I sorta… um destroyed a door with it.”

“Destroy is an improper term… more of deconstructed.” Einuli pointed out. “I’ll show you how to work it… I shoulda showed you in the first place.”

“That’d be great!” Twilight nodded, handing off the device to the red and black feathered alien. He took it and followed her, with Rainbow Dash close behind, to the doorway to the room Twilight had been staying in.

“Hm… gimmie just a second…” Einuli said, fiddling with one of the buttons on the manipulator. After a moment a HUD popped up and the image of the door was the first thing she saw.

“What… how can it do that…”

Einuli shrugged. “An Apex scientist upgraded it for me after I did a few things for him.”

“Alrighty then, um. How do you place it back?” Twilight inquired, watching what he did carefully.

“Oh, that’s easy! There’s a little trigger here. It’s a two prong system. One aims the system, mainly by creating a beam so you know where it’s going.” Einuli explained, hitting the trigger once, a beam shot out and he aimed it at the empty doorway. “The second prong actually places the object, or liquid back.” He demonstrated this, and the door reappeared after a small light show, back in the doorway. He walked forward and opened the door up, showing it was working just as it should be. “There you go!” He smiled widely.

“What just happened.” Dash deadpanned.

“He fully reconstructed the door.” Twilight started. “After I had destroyed it.”

“Oooh, okay.” Dash nodded.

“That’s… not what I did…” Einuli started to speak.

“She… probably wouldn’t understand the technical description of what just happened.” Twilight turned back to Einuli, “So, I’ve wanted to ask, would it be possible for me to take a look around your ship?”

“Sure! I’d love to show you around!” Einuli nearly began to bounce giddily. “First, maybe I should meet the friends Fluttershy wanted me to meet.”

“Right… Pinkie. We really shouldn’t um… lead her on to someone new just to pull them away.” Twilight said slowly.

“Who’s Pinkie?” Einuli asked curiously.

“Give it a few more minutes and you’ll find out.” Dash laughed.

“It won’t happen that fast…” Twilight rolled her eyes, before pausing and looking around.

Einuli’s ears twitched, it was then that both girls noticed not just two twitches, but… four. “Someone’s moving, and fast.” He said, turning and glancing around, his feathers seeming to stand slightly on edge as he got down lower, bracing himself.

“How can he even hear her…” Dash mumbled to herself.

“Avali can hear a lot more than other species can… um, sort of an evolutionary trait. Our home planet is distant from the weak star we orbit… so since we got little light, we developed stronger auditory nerves that can detect weaker noises.”

“One Twilight is enough…” Dash let out an exasperated groan before speaking. “And now there’s one that can hear it when I mumble… greaaaaaaaaaaaat.”

“I could hear you. I just chose to ignore your grumbling.” Twilight stated.

“Oh no…” Einuli mumbled.

“What?” Both Twilight and Dash said at the same time.

“The footsteps just went silent.” Einuli mumbled.

“Wait… wait, wha-”

Einuli was tackled by a pink blur and he was slammed onto the ground. He gave out a loud partially pained grunt.

“OHMYGOSHIT’SSOCUTE!WHEREDIDYOUFINDIT,ANDCANIHAVEONETOO?!?” The pink mare on top of Einuli said in one sentence, or at least that’s what Dash and Twilight could make of what she said.

“Well he’s a-” Twilight started.

Einuli had already taken in a deep breath. “Myname’sEinuliandI’manAvali.Icamehereonmyshipand…” And so began his long answer to her even longer question.

Author's Note

It's finished! Now I'm on my way to the next few chapters!