It was a beautiful day. The sky was clear and blue, not a cloud in sight.
That was the day when Ponyville got a new visitor.
A young Pegasus flew through the air on her way to Ponyville. She had a black coat with a neon blue muzzle. She had a beautiful long grey and black mane and tail.
She gracefully flew through the air, with saddlebags hanging delicately on both of her sides. Eventually she saw the small buildings of Ponyville in the distance.
When she got to it, she landed and started looking around the town. It was quiet and quaint. Just what she was looking for. Ponies went from building to building, running their daily errands. Something that was familiar to her, since she was from Cloudsdale.
She suddenly realized she didn’t know where to go to get a house. She looked around for somepony to help her and saw an Earth Pony mare standing a few steps in front of her.
The mare looked friendly enough, even though her colors were dark. She had a black and red mane that covered one of her red blank eyes. She also had a dark grey coat with a cutie mark that resembled a heart split in two, one side red, one side blue.
The Pegasus mare started trotting up to the pony, but stopped when she heard a voice behind her, “Don’t even bother, trust me I’ve tried.”
The Pegasus turned to see a young dark purple Unicorn with pupiless red eyes. The Unicorn was very beautiful. She had a dark blue mane and tail, with light blue streaks. She also had red glasses and bracelets.
“Why not?” The Pegasus said, confused.
The Unicorn shrugged, “I don’t know. I tried to talk with her but she just ignored me.” She said, looking a bit angry, but she shook her head and looked at the Pegasus, “My name is Eclipse Ondas, but you can just call me Eclipse.”
“U-um, my name is Midnight Flyer, b-but you could just call me Midnight.” The Pegasus said timidly.
“Midnight, huh?” Eclipse smiled, “You have a very pretty name there.”
“Th-thanks.” Midnight responded, still a bit shy.
Eclipse giggled a little. “No problem. So what brings you here to Ponyville?”
Midnight looked up at her. “Oh, well, I’m actually moving here.”
Eclipse looked at her with surprise, “Really? Well, so am I, but I’m having trouble finding where to buy a house.”
Midnight gave her a slight smile. “Same here.”
“Hmmm.” Eclipse started to look around and saw a coffee shop across the street from where the two mares were. “Oh hey, maybe they can tell us where to buy one. Come on.”
Midnight nodded and they started trotting towards the coffee shop. Midnight decided to look back at the Earth Pony mare. However, when she looked back at her, the mare was staring right at her. Midnight quickly turned her head away from the strange Earth Pony mare and continued to follow Eclipse to the Coffee Shop.
When Midnight and Eclipse opened the door to the shop, a startling aroma hit their noses. Both of them soaked in the smell of coffee beans, and trotted inside.
Midnight took in her surroundings. It was a small shop with table booths lining each wall and a desk in the middle of it. On the desk was an assortment of sugars and creams. To her left was two stallions who both had records as cutie marks.
One was a dark grey Unicorn and had an orange and red mane and tail. He had headphones delicately hanging around his neck. The other was a black Pegasus with a bright neon green mane and tail. He wore sunglasses and mare’s clothing.
“Look, all I’m saying is that it is just not natural.” The dark grey one said.
“Solar Flare, you just don’t understand.” The black Pegasus responded.
Solar Flare rolled his eyes and said, “No offense, Nightmare Flame, but sometimes I wonder about you sometimes.”
Nightmare Flame laughed, “Good.” He looked back at Midnight and Eclipse, and whispered to Solar, “Whoah, two hottie mares at twelve o’clock. Act natural.”
Eclipse promptly glared at Nightmare and scoffed.
Solar looked at the two mares and said, “Don’t mind him, he’s an idiot.” He smiled.
Midnight nodded and she and Eclipse walked to the desk.
A cream colored stallion with a chocolate brown mane and tail walked up to the desk and introduced himself.
“Why, hello there, my name is Coffee Bean. How may I help you two lovely mares today?” He said with a huge grin on his face.
Eclipse nodded, “Yes, we are new here, and we were wondering where we might buy a house?”
Suddenly, a grey Earth Pony stallion with a brown mane popped up from behind the desk with a smile on his face.
“So, a new house for the happy couple?” He said.
Midnight and Eclipse blushed at that remark but glared at the stallion, “No, it’s nothing like that. I just met her.” Eclipse said with a huff.
Coffee Bean jumped a bit when the stallion appeared and said, “Hard Drive, don’t be rude.” He scowled at him.
Hard Drive laughed, “I’m just teasing Coffee. Celestia, learn how to take a joke.” He looked at Eclipse, “Don’t worry, if you like her,” He pointed at Midnight, “we don’t judge.”
Eclipse blushed a bit more but still gave Hard Drive a nasty look.
Coffee cut in, “Hard Drive, are you finished with the broken coffee maker, or not?”
Hard Drive looked back at Coffee and nodded, “Yeah, Pixel is finishing it up right now.”
At that moment a blue Unicorn stallion with a green mane trotted in from the back room.
“All done,” He said in a Canterlot accent.
Hard Drive nodded, “Good work, Pixel.”
Pixel looked proud of himself, then looked at the two mares, “Who are they?”
Hard Drive smiled a teasing smile and said, “Just two love-birds.”
“We have names you know.” Eclipse snapped, startling Midnight a bit. “I’m Eclipse Ondas.”
Midnight nodded, “My name is Midnight Flyer.” She said quietly.
Hard Drive smiled, “I’m Hard Drive, and that is Pixel.”
Pixel smiled as well. “Nice to meet the two of you.”
Eclipse smiled at Pixel, but gave Hard Drive the cold shoulder, “Likewise.” She turned back to Coffee Bean, “so, where can we buy a house?”
Coffee Bean nodded, “Well, to do that, you need to go to the town hall.”
Midnight looked confused, “Town hall? Where is that?”
Coffee Bean looked at Midnight, “It’s in the middle of town, and you’ll know it when you see it.”
Eclipse nodded, “Got it, come on Midnight.” She started to walk out of the shop.
Midnight looked at Coffee and said, “Thank you.” She started following Eclipse when she suddenly bumped into two stallions in her way, making her fall down.
Midnight looked up at the two stallions.
The first one was a Pegasus like her. He was dark grey and had a spiky gold mane. His cutie mark was that of a lightning bolt.
The second one was an Earth Pony who was wearing a brown cape. He was navy blue and had a black mane that got in his face a little bit.
“Oh, I am terribly sorry.” The blue stallion said, helping Midnight up.
“I-it’s okay.” Midnight said as she got up.
“Allow me to introduce myself, I am Detective Vid. This here is my companion Lightning Blast.” He said.
“Midnight.” She said shyly.
“Well, that is a pretty name you there, Midnight.” Vid said and Lightning nodded. “Tell you what, here’s my card if you need help.” He smiled and gave her a card.
“Thanks.” Midnight said.
“Vid, we should get going…” Lightning said in a deep and gruff voice.
Vid nodded, “Yes, yes, I know.” He looked at Midnight and said, “See you around.” And with that they trotted off into the coffee shop.
Midnight watched them go and set off again to find Eclipse. She saw her waiting for her down the road.
“Hey, thanks for waiting.” Midnight said as she trotted to her. She finally was comfortable with this Unicorn that she had met only today.
Eclipse smiled and shrugged, “No problem. Ready to go to the town hall?”
Midnight nodded and the two mares set off for the town hall.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The day had turned to night and Midnight and Eclipse bought houses that were next door to each other. The two mares got ready for bed and turned out the lights.
Midnight looked up at the ceiling.
“Sleeping in a new place will take some getting used to.” She said to herself. “Especially since this house isn’t made of clouds…”
Midnight turned on her side and slowly closed her eyes.
For what felt like an hour, everything was silent. Then suddenly Midnight was awoken by a loud scream from outside. The scream lasted for a while but it got abruptly cut off.
Midnight jumped out of her bed and ran next door to Eclipse’s house and on the door.
Eclipse opened the door with her glasses already on.
She nodded, “I know, I heard it too. Come on.”
Eclipse and Midnight galloped to where the sound came from. Eventually they got to a large clearing.
Midnight could see that there was eight other ponies at the clearing. They were the ponies that she had met earlier that day.
She could see Vid and Lightning investigating what they were all looking at. Solar Flare, Hard Drive, Coffee Bean and Pixel were looking at the clearing with horror in their eyes, while Nightmare Flame stood a little bit away, vomiting. There was even the dark grey blank-eyed Earth Pony mare standing next to them, with no expression on her face.
Eclipse and Midnight pushed everypony out their way to see what had happened. What they saw was absolutely horrifying.
It was a mare, about Midnight’s age, lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Her throat was slit.
