It was a serene day in Ponyville. Birds of many varieties were chirping uplifting tunes for all to hear, Celestia's glorious sun was shining brightly in the sky above, and it had been a whopping eight days since any buildings had been mercilessly leveled by some manner of inexplicable disaster; an impressive feat given the town's recent track record! However; the town’s inhabitants were wise enough to always expect the unexpected -- and today was no different. In the center of the town's market square, a gray pegasus was about to bite off a little more than he could chew.
“OUTSIDER!” shrieked the bizzare form as it approached a single pony: the pegasus known as Bright Spark, currently separated from the crowd.
“Excuse me?” Bright Spark asked as he took a few cautious steps back, rightfully confused.
“OUTSIDER!”
Bright Spark -- our hero, bless him -- flinched, ears pinning back. “Can you tone down the volume a smidge? You’re going to give me a headache at this rate.”
“WHAT?”
“Are you hard of hearing or something? I asked if you could quiet down a little,” Bright Spark said, frowning. “You’re shouting at me and I've gotta tell you; I don’t really appreciate that. 's a little rude.”
Ponies crowded around the two as they argued. The argument itself wasn’t something anyone would have taken notice of... had the booming, ominous voice not belonged to a shroud of black mist. No pony knew when they’d ever get to see an angry cloud yell at a smack-talking pegasus again.
The black mist "sputtered" as it processed the pegasus’ remark. “HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME IN SUCH A MATTER!” it roared indignantly.
Bright Spark took a step back and his ears made a valiant but futile attempt to move further away from the offending sound. “See -- that right there! That thing you just did with all the shouting? That is exactly what I just asked you not to do. Someone’s gonna file a noise complaint."
“NOISE COMPLAINT? YOU THINK I AM SO EASILY THREATENED, OUTSIDER?!”
“Whoa! No one’s threatening anyone! Just pointing out a possible outcome!” Bright Spark said, crossing his forelegs defensively. “And stop calling me ‘Outsider’. From where I’m standing you’re the outsider.”
“He’s got a point,” said a pony standing in the crowd. “I think I’d remember a cloud of evil fog moving in down the street.”
Several others murmured in agreement.
“YOU KNOW VERY WELL WHAT I MEAN WHEN I REFER TO YOU AS AN ‘OUTSIDER’, FOOL!” the mist snarled.
Bright Spark shrugged. “Can’t say that I do, Smokey. Are you sure you have the right guy?”
“I AM.”
“Pardon me. Excuse me. Sorry!” A cream-colored mare pushed her way through the crowd, grunting and apologizing repeatedly as she went along. “Bright Spark! What's going on here? You need me to take care of this for you?” she asked in a hushed tone once she had made her way to the front of the pack.
Bright Spark looked over at the newcomer and shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, Bon-Bon. If I need you to drop in for me I’ll let you know; but I think I’ve got this covered.”
Bon-Bon raised an eyebrow. “Most ponies would have said ‘step in,’ but I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear that. Good luck.”
Bright Spark casually waved goodbye to the retreating mare and turned his attention back to the shadowy apparition. “Look, maybe we could just go somewhere and discuss this over a cup of coffee or something?”
“I DO NOT DRINK COFFEE. EXCESSIVE INTAKE OF CAFFEINE IS UNHEALTHY. IT ALSO KEEPS ME AWAKE AT NIGHT.”
“Was that, uh --” Bright Spark started, staring right through the figure as it swirled about randomly, definitely not trying to see where it would actually keep a stomach. “-- supposed to be some kind of joke?”
“SELF-CARE IS NO JOKE, OUTSIDER.”
“Uh. Okay. Fair enough. Maybe we could just head out of town a bit to talk, then? I’d mind the shouting less if you weren’t bothering literally everyone in town in addition to the aforementioned headache.”
“THIS IS ASININE! I WILL NOTBE DRAGGED ABOUT BY SOME STUPID OUTSIDER!”
“That’s starting to not even sound like a real word anymore. Look; it’s either come with me to the entrance to the Everfree Forest or I’m just going to ignore you,” Bright Spark said, throwing his foreleg around the mist. “What’s it going to be?”
****
Bright Spark and the shroud of mist -- which had identified itself as Albein after Bright Spark had gotten tired of thinking up different nicknames and asked it for something a little easier to remember -- arrived at the entrance to the Everfree Forest without much grief. The trek had been made in silence and taken quite some time, but Bright Spark knew Albein was just itching to shout some more and exacerbate the pounding in the pony’s head. He grimaced as he sat down.
“I TAKE IT THAT MEANS YOU FIND THIS LOCATION TO BE A SUITABLE PLACE FOR OUR CONVERSATION?”
“I could do with a chair or a nice couch, but this is fine as-is.”
“WE PASSED BY THE SOFA STORE. YOU COULD HAVE BOUGHT A SOFA.”
“Why would I buy a sofa for this one conversation?”
“I DON’T KNOW. PERHAPS YOU ARE AS FOOLISH AS THOSE WHO DO NOT SEEM TO SEE YOU FOR WHO YOU TRULY ARE?”
Bright Spark groaned. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re just a delight to be around?”
“NO.”
“Shocking.”
Albein growled. “ENOUGH OF THIS NONSENSE. IT IS TIME FOR ME TO FULFILL MY PURPOSE IN COMING HERE, OUTSIDER.”
“Let me guess, Albein: you’re some sort of dimensional corrective force and you’re here because you think I’m an intruder and you want to remove me from the equation before I screw everything up simply by existing?”
Albein remained silent. Bright Spark was sure it would look shocked if it had a face.
“YOU'RE HONESTLY NOT VERY FAR OFF AT ALL. THAT SAVES ME THE TIME IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN TO EXPLAIN THINGS, SO I SUPPOSE I MUST THANK YOU.”
“Don’t mention it. So what do you plan to do with me?”
“I THOUGHT YOU WERE ALREADY AWARE. I AM GOING TO GET RID OF YOU.”
“Uh-huh. I’m sure that’s going to go well.”
Albein could sense the sarcasm this time. “WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?”
“Your whole problem with me revolves around the fact that -- in your opinion, anyway, as far as I can tell -- I’m this 'strange anomaly' here, right?”
“YOU ARE CORRECT. I ASSUME YOU ARE GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS?”
“That I am, Albein. The thing is: I’m not really abnormal here anymore. I’m just a pegasus who moved from Cloudsdale to Ponyville for a change of scenery. I have friends here who have known me since the day I came to town. What would be really abnormal in this whole situation is me suddenly disappearing into thin air after I took a walk to the scary forest with a talking shadow.”
“BUT… YOU ARE NOT A PEGASUS. YOU ARE --”
“I am a pegasus. Just look at me! Got the wings, and the hooves, and the windswept mop of a mane,” Bright Spark explained, motioning to each part of his body as he listed them off. “Just a normal pegasus.”
“YOU ARE NOT NORMAL,” Albein replied bluntly.
“The point is that everyone in this town sees me as normal. I’m just another pony living my life. If anything, Albein, it’s like I said before: from where I’m sitting... you’re the only abnormality here.”
A piercing silence fell over the two. Bright Spark could only hope Albein was considering his words and not just glaring at him with his weird, eyeless mist body.
“I WILL ADMIT THAT I SEE YOUR POINT, OUTSIDER,” Albein finally said, breaking the silence. “BUT I STILL HAVE MY DOUBTS.”
Bright Spark nodded. “Tell you what, Al,” he said. “How about we make a deal?”
“A DEAL?”
“Still seems a little like you’re a bit hard of hearing.”
“I AM GOING TO PRETEND I DID NOT HEAR THAT. WHAT IS THIS DEAL YOU WISH TO MAKE?”
“It’s simple: the second anything strange happens here that you can directly pin on me -- and I mean strange like dangerous or unnatural -- you can come back to snatch me up without a word. At that point I’ll welcome you with open arms; won't fight you at all. How’s that for a deal?”
Albein went quiet again, but not for long. “THOSE TERMS ARE ACCEPTABLE.”
Bright Spark held out a hoof. “Bump on it?”
Albein did not reply, instead electing to float about twenty feet in the air before vanishing with a loud snap, causing Bright Spark to flinch for what felt like the fiftieth time that day, ears once again practically gluing themselves to his head.
Bright Spark frowned. “Dude; you can’t just leave a guy hanging like that!” he protested in vain to the open sky.
****
Bright Spark heaved a sigh of relief as he returned to his home. Guess my hunch from this morning was right, he thought. It really wasone of those days.
He stopped as he passed by the table near his front door and grabbed the letter he had neglected to read this morning; marked with an all-too familiar seal. He had the strangest feeling he knew exactly what it was about. He threw off the seal and unfolded the letter.
“Dear Bright Spark,
“We have not spoken in some time -- which is good, as it means you have been keeping up your end of the bargain! -- but I had a rather ‘interesting’ experience which made me feel as though I should give you a little “heads-up” as it were.
“Last night, shortly after I set the sun and headed to bed, a mysterious tear in the space-time continuum opened right there in my quarters! It would have been quite the startling experience had it not happened no less than four times in the past two months alone.
“Instead of the usual bewilderment and tentative excitement those particular portal-hoppers had shown me, this strange creature was definitely very angry. Said something about ‘NO GOOD OUTSIDERS’ and poofed its way right out the window.
“I would say something along the lines of ‘I’m sure it has nothing to do with you!’, but we both know I would be lying. Have fun dealing with this mess of yours, my little pony!
“Princess Celestia
“P.S. Stop using the dreamscape to gossip about me with Luna. I know it’s you and it’s very irritating.”
Bright Spark stared blankly at the letter for a few more seconds before rolling it up and tossing it back on the table. I’ll reply when I’m less worn out.
He plodded along slowly to his bed and flung himself ever so gracefully onto it; falling into the sweet embrace of sleep mere minutes later.
Somewhere in the distance, a stray blast of magic blew a chimney apart like it was a loose clump of dirt. All was normal in Ponyville once more.
