The (un)Life and Times Of Specter Shift

"So that will be fourteen bits."

"Fourteen bits? Just to make two liters of ice cream? It would be cheaper to just buy it pre-made!"

"Well, you're the one insinuating my ice cream isn't good enough for you!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Mint, but you don't happen to stock," Twilight glanced down at the list, whose composition continued to make her swoon from sheer organizational overload, "blueberry-lavender flavour."

"What? So now it's my varieties that aren't good enough for you!" The mint-coloured pony, named accordingly, behind the counter snapped, "Maybe I didn't want to be an ice cream maker! Maybe I wanted to be a poet, or an artist, but maybe those don't pay the bills so I'm stuck with the one thing I'm good at doing."

Twilight flinched, stepping back from the counter. The cold, frigid air chilling her that she was distantly aware of was uncomfortable, anyway. Leaving suddenly seemed like a very welcome prospect.

"I hate ice-cream..." Melancholy Mint muttered.

Twilight reached for her jingling bit-purse, which seemed to lighten Mint's disposition considerably.

"Fourteen bits it is, thank you, have a... nice day?" Twilight resorted to safe and placating. Safe and placating was good, she thought.

"Oh, I won't," the unicorn sighed as she swept the bits off the countertop, "but you try to enjoy yours, Twilight Sparkle."

"I... thank you?"

"Don't mention it." Mint growled, turning back to clean her scoops.

Twilight left, levitating her newly-acquired bag of ingredients behind her, ignoring the worrying tingles her horn was shooting through her. It's not like they were bad, after all, just... weird.

Much like Ms Mint, Twilight mused.

The door bell chimed as the unicorn left, much to Mint's satisfaction. When it rang again, seconds later, she couldn't suppress a low growl, spinning around to tell Twilight Sparkle of a few places where she could shove her 'raw ingredients' if she wasn't happy with them.

She was rather satisfied with having a different option for every flavour she offered.

Instead of smug, holier-than-thou, better-than-you-at-ice-cream-making, Twilight Sparkle she was greeted by... what words could be used?

It seemed to be a rather silly, bumbling grey earth pony with a mop of black hair, like hers, standing in the entrance with a rather amusingly blank look on his face.

"How can I help you today, sir?" She called out cheerfully, silently amending to herself, 'Not that I want to, you see, you ridiculous pony.' It was mean, yes, but she felt the need to compensate for how saccharine the out-loud part was.

"Yes." The slender pony agreed, bobbing his head enthusiastically.

"I... what?"

"Ice cream. I would like some." The stallion stood firm, unblinking eyes boring into Mint's skull.

"Okay, ice cream. Is there any particular flavour you would like?" She prompted. Now, this may seem uncharacteristically helpful, which it was. Helpful just so happened to get ponies out of the store faster, which seemed exactly like the sort of thing Mint found herself praying for.

"Yes." The slender grey pony agreed again, bobbing his head even more enthusiastically.

Mint waited. The grey pony smiled at her slowly, a rictus grin that was decidedly unnerving, dead eyes never leaving her, always watching.

"How about chocolate chip?"

The grey pony took a few steps closer to the counter in her little ice cream parlour, seeming to consider this. At least, it looked like he was considering it, to Mint, it was rather hard to tell.

"Yes."

"One scoop or two?"

"Just one, pweeze." The grey earth pony's eyes widened in shock, as he coughed to clear his throat. "Please. Just one, please." The stallion's brows furrowed in intense concentration. "I say please, because I am Specter."

"Oh... kay?"  Melancholy Mint carefully scooped a generous dollop of chocolate chip ice cream and dumping it into a waffle cone. The whole time she felt those strange, lifeless eyes on her, which made her undeniably itchy. "I hope you enjoy. That'll be three bits."

The pony stared at the ice cream levitating in front of him for a long second, gripping it from the air between two hooves, and took a long, slow, lick.

His eyes widened in horror and he threw it at the ground, hitting it with a loud, sticky 'squelch'. The pony scooted backwards from it, staring at it like another pony might at a ticking bomb. Or how Mint herself looked at the prospect of dealing with this pony again.

"Evil!" The pony hissed. "It tastes like sadness and bitter and poison!"

And with that he ran out of the store, slamming the door behind him, leaving a very shocked and confused mare in his wake. Finally, staring at the smooshed ice cream on her floor, Melancholy huffed and stormed to the door, throwing it open.

"Hey!" She bellowed at the stallion running away as fast as his legs could carry him, "You owe me three bits! Specter! Specter when I get my hooves on you, so help me Princesses-"

[br]

A brilliant green flame engulfed a grey pony as it ran through the Everfree. Like some rather morbid pheonix, from the flames erupted a chitinous black bug, insectoid wings buzzing furiously to give him speed, to get further and faster away from that dreaded abomination.

Wilhelm ran through the dense forest, following way to a certain little cottage in the woods.

Now, he hadn't exactly known about it for long, but Wilhelm's head was remarkably empty of useless and trivial information. This left remarkable room for him to remember such important things as direction and advanced calculus.

Well, that and he could just head in the same direction he saw a chariot flying overhead. That was a good sign, he mused contentedly to himself.

He couldn't keep up with it, of course, but that was okay, Wilhelm also thought, because the important thing was that he was still outrunning the ice-cream.

When he finally arrived back at the cottage he saw that the carriage itself had landed, with its two guards cowering behind it for cover.

“Oh, Celestia!” he heard them cry, “Now it can fly, too?!”

Oh no! The bug thought, to paraphrase his thoughts, as he raced closer to the house, The ice-cream can fly?

He didn't know what those silly guard ponies in their silly armour were doing. It looked like they were hiding from Specter when obviously the safest place had to be Specter.

Specter was a very nice pony who would not let the ice-cream near him.

[br]

The door of the cottage burst open and Specter found himself being bowled over by a large bowler hat travelling at high speeds. It came to a rest on top of his head, even as he regained his balance, twitching nervously occasionally.

"What in the wide, wide world of Equestria?" Luna aimed her horn, flashing with deadly light, primed at Specter's head.

"That would be Wilhelm." Twilight sighed, matter-of-factly. "He's a changeling."

"Why doth such a foul being still draw breath in present company?" the princess asked, bewildered voice hitching slightly.

"I-" Specter began.

"I do not like bugs." Luna added desperately.

"-Like him." Specter finished lamely, putting down the mixing bowl he was holding to pat the bug-cum-bowler (as opposed to a bowler made of a bug's- ecchem),

"He does seem to have a really bizarre sort of charm to him, doesn't he?" Twilight muttered. "Even if he is still a soul-sucking emotional tick, he's still a rather affectionate soul-sucking emotional tick."

The hat chirped happily at the acknowledgement, settling its shudders.

"Yes, well, we shall see." Luna arched an eyebrow.

"Sommes-nous prêts pour cela, ou quoi?" A rather impatient voice from the oven called, causing the hat to start shaking again.

"Sorry, Wilhelm, I forgot to introduce you. Haunting the oven is Crème Douce, Ramsey's old master's master's master's, ad nauseum, master. Taking the blender is-"

"Je ne comprends pas un mot qu'il dit?" The blender whined.

"Radotage inepte. Pouvons-nous commencer, s'il vous plaît?" The oven replied imperiously.

"-Pâte Feuilletée, his associate." Specter growled. Turning back to the oven and blender he growled something back to them in the strange, fancy language that made the scary alicorn giggle, much to the hat's relief. In his experience things didn't giggle when they were about to do horrible things to you, they cackled.

Giggling was a safe thing to hear.

"Ramsey is outside for misbehaving. Not that these two are any better," Specter shot a warning look, "But at least they aren't saying it in a language Twilight or Luna understand."

"Et ce qui vous rend supposer que, mon petit poney?" Luna said in fluent Fancy, causing Specter to wince.

"I'm sorry, but I still can't." Twilight interjected. "And I hate being a third wheel but not as much as I hate not knowing things."

"She asked why I assumed she couldn't speak Fancy. I'm now asking myself the same question." Specter moaned.

"Alors pourquoi vous nous ignorez?" The oven fumed, a notoriously easy accomplishment for an oven. The blender whirred its agreement in the universal tongue of displeasure: Spinning blades.

"Parce que cela nous amuse." Luna declared, wracking Specter with laughter.

"Sorry, again, but-"

"The oven, Crème Douce, asked why I was ignoring him, if I could understand him this whole time.." Luna nodded primly. "I informed him it amused me to do so."

"Oh."

"They do seem to be rather insufferable. It must be a prerequisite in food preparation." Luna sighed. "I know it is in poor taste to speak ill of my ponies, but..." the princess trailed off hopelessly.

"What, no jokes about respecting the dead?" Twilight grinned.

"Why, that doesn't come so readily to mind when the dead in question appear to be rather active kitchen appliances."

Specter shook his head with a wry grin. "Shoo, everypony, as of now this is my kitchen, and I do not wish to be interrupted until I am done." He said with as much pomp and circumstance as possible.

"Specter, we were joking about ill manners being a prerequisite."

"Hrrm? Oh, no, I mean it," Specter deflated, pouting, "This is hard enough as it is without other ponies getting in the way. I don't exactly have a big enough kitchen."

"Well, then, what are we supposed to do in the interim, gracious host?" Luna raised an accusatory eyebrow. "Or had you planned on leaving us to our own devices."

"Well, you're both fully grown mares." Specter pointed out, going back to stirring his bowl of vanilla-smelling something, "Twilight, I've noticed you haven't talked to Pluto yet, and Luna, I think Wilhelm would like it very much if you read him his favourite story. I forgot to put it away, so it should be easy enough to find. I suspect you'll enjoy it."

As Twilight turned to leave Luna's eyes widened in shock when the bowler hat on Specter's head leapt, buzzing into life, and unceremoniously plopped down on hers, still buzzing excitedly. She raised her hooves to fling the thing off when the hat did the most bizarre thing.

Luna's eyes relaxed, rolling back in her head a little, as the hat vibrated, massaging just about all the right places.

Specter chuckled, pouring his batter - custard? - into a pan filled with sponge. "That's very nice Wilhelm. If you're good, I might just give you some ice-cream when I'm finished."

"Ow!" Luna yelped, "We think it just bit us!"

"Fine then. No ice-cream for Wilhelm." Specter scolded.

And with that the hat cheerfully went back to massage.