Practice Shorts

The door rattled slightly on its hinges, the sound accompanied by another noise, by the bizarre, alien chittering that had awoken one Moonlight Dancer bolt upright from sleep. Dreams involving a certain well known pop star, a saucy collection of stockings, panties, and garter belts, and making music that had nothing to do with singing had been rudely shoved aside by the sudden realization that something was moving around in the basement. This would have been an unnerving enough realization without adding in the troubling aspect that it wasn't her home she was currently sleeping in, adding an unsettling element of unfamiliarity to her surroundings to go with the unknown source of the sound...a source that had since migrated upstairs, and was even now prowling around right outside the bedroom door.

The petite pegasus was house-sitting for a friend...of sorts. Her relationship with Treble Clef was a little tricky to nail down exactly. She was a friend of a friend for certain, as well as the marefriend of a another friend, and sister to the marefriend of Moonlight's brother, and certainly the two were good acquaintances that got along well enough due to sharing a sense of humor that frequented the gutter. Moonlight and Treble didn't really spend much time together though, not just the two of them. They mostly mingled during group events hosted by the various individuals they both knew. Still, they knew each other well enough for Treble to feel comfortable in Moonlight knowing that she was not, in fact, a chocolate brown pegasus with supermodel good looks. She was in actuality an escaped changeling from the hive, a freeling, who merely pretended to be a pony and tried to live out a mostly normal life in Ponyville. Or as normal as life could be in that particular town.

Treble also trusted her enough to gladly let Moonlight crash at her place, even though she was going to be out of town. Moonlight's dance troupe was putting on a show in Ponyville the following day...or at least, they would be, assuming their lead performer for the show didn't end up getting eaten by whatever was lurking in Treble's basement. For a brief moment after waking up, Moonlight had almost managed to convince herself she had imagined the noise, or that it had been something more mundane that her dreaming mind had warped into something unknown and frightening.

That notion had gone flying out the window as the noise had repeated itself for her wide awake self to properly enjoy. The sound put Moonlight in mind of some creature's hunting cry, a trilling chitter meant to alert others of its kind that food had been found. Indeed, even as the thought occurred to her, fully formed and not just as an instinctual notion as before, Moonlight heard another such cry come drifting up through the floorboards, and then another, and then another. She counted five distinct calls, each slightly different from the one just on the other side of the door.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Moonlight slipped out of the bed, trying as hard as she could to be quiet. This was hindered greatly by the fact that she was currently unable to recall the exact layout of Treble's bedroom. Had the bedside table been on the left or the right? The dresser was against the wall across from the foot of the bed...or had that been wardrobe?

Busy as she was racking her brain, Moonlight was barely able to restrain the scream of alarm that tried to bolt up out of her lungs and out her mouth as she saw something move in the darkness. Only a supreme effort of will kept her silent, and a second later she remembered the vanity, with it's large mirror, which was set against the wall she was currently facing. Choking down the shriek her own darkness shrouded form had nearly birthed, she turned slowly towards the door, even as a tentative, probing thump made it rattle again. Whatever was there, it knew she was close by, she just knew it. Somehow, it had heard her moving, or else sensed her by some other means. Smell perhaps? Or some more alien, predatory sense such as by her body heat or the electro-chemical discharge of her muscles?

Not that it mattered really, all that matter was that it knew where she was, and that it was standing outside the only doorway out of the room. Moonlight would have tried the windows, only the damned things had security bars in place. There was a sickening sort of irony somewhere there, but she didn't have the time or inclination to ponder it at the moment, especially when she heard a new sound, one even more terrifying than any of those that had preceded it. It was the sound of the doorknob rattling, and then turning. Slowly at first, a mere fraction of a turn before it was allowed to spring back. But the next attempt went further, the mechanism clicking and creaking as various components spun and springs were compressed.

There was no more time, not for trying to be quiet, or to try and consider plans, or even to be afraid. The bolt cleared the doorframe, and the door creaked open a few inches. Moonlight heard a soft thump on the other side of the door, and then the hinges sounded the final alarm as the door was shoved open, and the thing on the other side came into the room.

Moonlight gave a sudden bellowing shriek, something that was part battle-cry and part terrified scream, as she darted forward to meet her attacker. Whatever her fate might be, she wasn't about to just cower in a quivering lump and take it. It something wanted to eat her, she would see to it that the thing choked on her in the effort. In the darkness she almost missed the thing, before she saw the black shape crawling over the floor. It was smaller than she was expecting, but still bigger than anything unknown she wanted to deal with in the dark.

Whatever it was, her yell seemed to catch it off guard, as it came to an abrupt halt at the sudden noise. Moonlight pounced on the opportunity, jumping forward and bringing both forehooves down in a double legged stomp. The thing sensed the strike coming, and it fell back suddenly, Moonlight's attack striking the floor with a thunderous impact, a surge of vindictive triumphant rushing through her at making the unknown beast back-peddle from her ferocious onslaught.

Then the thing started crying. Not some odd, alien cry either, nor like the crying of a frightened animal. It cried like a little foal. Confusion and alarm instantly swept aside Moonlight's sense of victory as she listened to the thing wail like a terrified child. Slowly, cautiously, she crept around the thing, moving over next to the doorway and feeling around with a wing for the light switch. She blinked swiftly as the light's came on, willing her eyes to adjust faster, until she was able to squint down at the thing that had terrified her from sleep.

It was small, the size of a young foal, maybe two or three years of age. It was shaped much the same as a foal even, with four legs and a head and body of equine proportions. Unlike a pony though, it didn't have fur, or a mane. It had a chitinous exoskeleton of an ebony black hue, and some kind of semi-transparent membrane of a teal color ran from the top of it's head down the back of it's neck. It had fangs, albeit tiny, actually rather adorable in a way, really.

It was a changeling, a very young one, and it was curled up in a tiny ball and sobbing.

"...what the actual buck..." Moonlight asked of no one.