Grubber scampered around the small and rather spartan quarters of one Tempest Shadow, or Fizzlepop Berrytwist to those rare enough to gather some modicum of respect from her, he whisked aside a fine layer of dust off the bookshelves as he tried to look for his only living friend. "Tempest, mail's here."
A grumpy moan echoed from the back wall as Tempest opened her eyes, her nightly readings of Equestrian military tactics and history texts enlightening if a bit dry when compared to real life combat, the feel of a creature's bones break under her hooves, the hiss of air when one was stabbed in the back and the slight joy of completing a military campaign with acceptable losses. "Can't you see I'm trying to sleep here? Plus I told you to go away. I'm no longer the General of the Storm so I don't need a second in command."
Grubber nodded. "That's true but like Twilight has her friends and there's Spike so maybe I could be-"
Tempest rolled her eyes. Grubber was rather annoying and a bit too cheerful for her tastes but somehow she couldn't just outright force him to leave. Something stayed her hoof from pushing the issue too far. Maybe it was sentimentality or a dash of stupidity but whenever she stared at the hedgehog's pitiful eyes she couldn't bring herself to say no. "Okay, you can stay for a while. But what exactly did you wake me up for since you interrupted my dreams.
Grubber looked up at the dark purplish unicorn and pulled out a little letter that had come in the daily post, its colorful stamp and attempts at cursive showing him who sent it. He had become used to the odd idea of the Princess using Spike as as a secondary letter writer since one dragon couldn't keep up with important documentation in the palace, but every once in a while one of these small letters came for Tempest, the insides usually the same.
"Toss it, burn it, rip it in half. I don't want to talk to Twilight. At all."
Grubber looked down at the floor and sighed. "I did that. All of that and its still here."
Tempest's eye twitched. Twilight was a formidable opponent and less stupid than she seemed at the outset with her overbearing nice persona that she put on. Tempest levitated the paper over, feeling a twinge of a headache coming on as she did so, her horn sparking with mana as she read the infuriating paper. She breathed out and stared at Grubber who quickly ran into the other room.
"I am not avoiding her!"
A loud boom made Grubber duck and cover before creeping slowly into Tempest's room. The hedgehog grimaced as he saw the destruction, the room's decor shredded in anger and frustration, the desk split in half with a resounding punch by Tempest. And the pristine letter sitting right on top, shimmering with magic as it reformed itself.
Tempest got up and stomped off into the other room, sounds of the unicorn dumping all her provisions into a little sack and Grubber sighed as he prepared to clean up the mess. He was used to Tempest's slight tantrums, but Twilight seemed to bring out the worst in the mare. "Grubber! That can wait, I'm going to speak candidly to Twilight and tell her off. And I need a second in command to back me up."
Grubber's face brightened since that usually meant that the pair would stop at a sweet shop. He doubted that Tempest realized that he knew that she was intentionally being nicer, but sweets were a plus. Plus he could see what Spike was up to- the dragon had grown on him and the pair sometimes shared silly stories about their companions while relaxing. Grubber quickly saluted, a force of habit, and scampered off to gather his things as well. He was going to be the best winghog in Equestria.
***
Twilight carefully poured the tea into three porcelain cups, their bright and colorful suns reminding her of her mentor. Celestia was doing rather well being the immortal daredevil that she was in retirement. How odd that the one mare that Twilight saw as a second parent, and the complete image of a pony well put together decided that retirement path, but that was life. Maybe it was the burden of being immortal, the slight foibles of each pony bending into full breaks or- Twilight mused- it was Discord's free spirited influence. The alicorn shook her head. At least one alicorn mentor had a calm head on her shoulders. Luna, who sat on her right, smiled as coffee was poured into her cup. Twilight nodded, knowing in a glance and Luna's small hints of body language that the blue alicorn enjoyed their time together- and not just for the coffee.
The other guest was a different matter entirely. She was tossed to her, in that ever so nice way that royalty had, in hopes that something ever so useful would come of her. Queen Novo said as much in her letter in not so sparkling terms. And Twilight had no clue what to do with Skystar besides attempt to show the world to her in the Canterlotian way, though that came with some caveats and abject failures. Twilight grimaced at the memory of finding her guest bathroom flooded just because Skystar wanted to thaw out some fish and 'the ocean doesn't have frozen fish'.
Twilight had given the yellow hipprogriff some thought. She had crunched the numbers and tried every singer permutation of a job or skill that the clueless, if well meaning, princess could handle. But she had came up empty. Until she was reminded, partially by Spike and his messages to Grubber, about another slight problem that needed to be pushed out of the nest. Less forcefully, but still Tempest had issues she needed to sort out on her own.
Or, more deviously, with friends. Twilight wondered if this was the feeling that Celestia had felt on the day she had sent her to Ponyville, the feeling of a plan coming together, the plan ever so nice and quiet that Tempest would leave of her own accord and that there was no way that a thing could go wrong. She had crunched the numbers.
"Twilight!"
On cue, the purplish unicorn burst into the room.
Twilight sat there in mock shock as Tempest stormed up to the table and sat down promptly, quickly walking over the chair and sitting down in a quick motion. She dared not to smile even when Grubber shuffled on up, the medium hedgehog carefully stepping over the splinters of the door. Twilight breathed out and put on her greatest impersonation of Celestia, trying to fake the eons of poise that the white alicorn had as she turned to the purple unicorn and put the faintest of smiles on. "Tempest, how nice of you to join us for tea. I was telling Luna and Skystar here that we might have an unexpected guest. Didn't I?"
Tempest grimaced, the scowl extending to her eyes. "Twilight, I-"
Skystar butt in, her voice cutting off Tempest's planned speech, hours of practice wasted, the sheer amount of skill that penning such a scathing review of the alicorn sitting right in front of her forgotten as the yellow hippogriff blustered her way through sentences and thoughts like a hurricane. "Oh, so you are Tempest. I was thinking, and boy do I like thinking. It's only the second best thing I can do besides swimming, and collecting shells, and meeting ponies, and eating food, and I know that's more than two things. That's true but like I think that having only two favorite things is kind of boring and then I thought of Pinkie. That's a good pony and you had to see us talking a mile a minute at each other, see that's cool. But okay, to the point. Pinkie was saying that there was a bad pony that was now a good pony and I said that's impossible, there's no bad ponies in Equestria. And she laughed and then she talked about Tempest and, well long story short. Hi. Fizzie."
Tempest tried to keep up the barrage of words, sorting each and every sentence into a file of 'useless, stupid, infuriating, or murder inducing. She stumbled as she replayed the gist of the word salad and stopped the thought at "Fizzie." Her eye twitched. She had let that name die in the fires of change, her body scarred by the years of being a pastel color pony in a land of snakes, the thought of even breathing her true name sheer anathema to her mind. She clawed through the ranks of a cutthroat army of recruits, slaughtered those that took the name of the Storm King in vain.
All just so this hippogriff could call her Fizzie.
"And who the. . .buck. . ." Tempest swallowed the swear and stared daggers at the hippogriff. "-are you?"
Skystar grinned. "Your new best friend."
"Nope, I'd rather drown. I came here to tell off that-" Tempest slammed a hoof on the table, scattering silverware and cups with the force of her resolve. "alicorn over there. Not deal with you. Twilight, I have to say that you are the absolute worst, most despicable, most conniving pony I have ever known. Doing all this just to get me out of my room. Cause its all about that, isn't it? I just am not connected to this little utopia here. And so I have to get friends."
Twilight smiled. "I mean how many ponies have you met in the last year? I mean sure you met me and my friends and the parade celebrating our win after that, but then you shut up in your room. I mean how can you call me the worst pony you've ever known with such a small sample size? I bet there has to be an even worse pony, or let's not stop there, a creature so despicable that you can't befriend them."
Tempest grinned, the idea that Twilight would dare to challenge her to a contest, even one so patently simple as that, she'd never accept that kind of bait. She wasn't the reformed General of the Storm for nothing, it took wit and great skill to-
A giddy scream of excitement broke Tempest's soliloquy. She groaned in protest as she felt Grubber run up her back and onto her head, the weight of the chunky hedgehog breaking her concentration. She groaned as she looked up, the silly creature gripping tightly to her broken horn, his blue orbs full of what she might term as 'glee'- an emotional state that Tempest had only saw the hedgehog use in the greatest of pie emergencies and challenges. He mouthed the words "Do it" to her and she rolled her eyes. She wasn't beholden to any small forest creature that couldn't swing a sword. He was defenseless and stupid and dumb. And she had not a whit of emotional attachment to the fat swinelike being. It wasn't like he had been there or anything.
She would only run with the challenge on her own terms. The thought of a challenge. An insurmountable one at that since she hated most creatures big and small. "I will-" Tempest groaned in protest, stopping her thought as Grubber danced a jig on her skull, the humiliation of her second in command, not her friend, perish the thought, lowering himself to such a pitiable state that he thought this was a good idea- that was more painful than any challenge this smug purple alicorn could dish out. "accept on the condition that if I win, and that's a big if, since I am lowering myself to such a state- you have to teach me how you truly keep this country in check. Cause the Storm King used fear and that worked well. You use some cushy thing and ponies love you."
Twilight smiled. "That's called friendship."
Tempest groaned. "Whatever. Skystar, I guess we are going now cause I can't deal with her." The unicorn shook her head and stomped out.
Skystar looked at the two alicorns there and nodded, a big smile on her face as she zipped out.
Luna set down her teacup and stared at her marefriend. She rolled her eyes as she saw Twilight's silly expression. "You knew that would go terribly right? Cause that was rather tense."
Twilight sipped her tea and preened a wing of hers as she thought about Tempest. "Well it went better than I planned." She nodded at a nearby Royal Guard who was staring straight ahead. "You can stand down. I don't know why Captains Mjolna and Lemon Zap think Tempest of all ponies is a menace. Sure, she's prickly. And her magic is unstable, but I could see it in her eyes. She does want a friend. So I'll let her attempt this little contest."
Luna shook her head. "Celestia would be rather proud of you."
***
"Can you not make a scene? Both of you?" Tempest sighed as she quickly wondered what she had fell into. She pushed open the bakery's door and Grubber scampered in, quickly followed by Skystar who was looking around at every single thing. Tempest had, on the walk here, heard every single thing the hippogriff had said about Canterlot. And she understood why the princess had been in sort of house arrest. She was obnoxious and had no filter, her mouth letting out every single thought without fear of reprisal.
Grubber shrugged. "I'll try but they have a new pie I haven't tried before. I didn't even know that was possible."
Skystar looked at the line of pies, her eyes gleaming with joy as she smelled the aroma of the bakery. "I've never had a sweet pie. I mean pies are super important for hippogriff celebrations, but they are usually all savory pies. Meat, brains, chicken, sausage. The like."
Grubber didn't notice that second choice of Skystar's but Tempest sure did. She ordered a small drink for herself- she never liked eating more than her fair share, the spartan living of the Stormlands made her see Equestria as a decadent purgatory filled with ever worsening foods. Sweets, delicacies, cookies, and cakes stuffed full of sugars making the diet of normal Equestrians a dietary mess. She nodded and kept an eye on the hippogriff. She had expected something as nonthreatening as this ditzy bird to eat normal foods. Not brains. She was fine with meats, she had tried to live off meat once to bond with the Storm Beasts one unfortunate summer- but having a predator in her midst. Even a completely idiotic one. It was rather interesting.
The threesome sat down, carrying their pies and sweets to a table and Tempest saw the hedgehog take a huge bite of strawberry pie, the sweetness and flavor making his eyes water in joy. Tempest felt something, maybe indigestion at the sight. Maybe it was a sense of dulled happiness. She didn't know. She was so used to running her life like a machine, routine checks of emotion were normal. She had dulled every emotion that she could, leaving only a sheen of militarized calmness and a honed, sharp anger. Everything else was secondary in her mission. Or it was.
Tempest turned to watch the bird. Or she should term her 'her first actual friend'. She watched Skystar critically, hearing the bird share nice pleasantries about the world and outside. She tried to think of ways to start what ponies called 'conversation' since she knew that on the list of things that Twilight had shown her once, an 'icebreaker' was an easy way to actual friendship. She breathed out and tried her best nonthreatening smile and spoke "So you have any other friends. Any things you like to do?"
Skystar swallowed a big chunk of pie and grinned. "Well I mean my mom says I have like zero friends because shells don't count. But like Shelly and Sheldon listen to all of my problems. Sure they don't talk much but I mean you know what its like being a princess in a land besieged by pure evil. I mean good thing the Storm King died or else I would have grown old talking to shells. But that's not a problem now."
The two former associates of that 'pure evil' shared a look. Well, Tempest looked at Grubber and closed her eyes. Twilight was testing her fortitude and forgiveness or something equally banal. "How great. I mean me too. You could almost say that I was kind of focused on that too."
Skystar nodded. "I mean you were the General of his forces right?"
Grubber almost choked on his pie. "Who told you that?"
Skystar rubbed a claw through her wavy blue mane. "I mean come on. You think a land stuck near Mount Aris hadn't heard of the one who led those brutish creatures. I may look silly but you can't fool me. Well mostly. I still haven't figured out how some doors work or sinks or toilets. But ponies? I mean I get them somewhat. It's different than talking to shells but I know the Broken General when I see them. Though I always thought you were a stallion. The mane cut does you no favors." Skystar breathed and grinned. "Idea! We could go get some manecuts. I mean I think that's what friends do. At least Pinkie Pie told me that Twilight sometimes did that with Rarity. Though it was off the hoof or claw or whatever."
Tempest groaned. She had put any memory of that particular pink pony in the deepest section of her brain. She should have expected this mess of a hippogriff was friends with Pinkie. It should have been a dead giveaway when Skystar mentioned her actual name since the party pony had cajoled and pressed her until she had spilled the beans about her name. She still had nightmares about her first Equestrian party because of that. The streamers, the noise, the ponies. It had been about six months and she still woke up sometimes in the middle of the night in a pool of sweat. "Are you going to let me say no?"
Skystar grinned. "I mean you could, but I wanted to have a manecut cause I always wondered what it would do to my fin. Like if I get a manecut would my fin change or stay the same? Would it be a gory mess? I just haven't really tried it. And I still say that you could look totally cute in a short cut. Cause I doubt you'd get extractions. Or was it extensions. Hair adds." Skystar lightly preened herself as she thought of the complications of hair.
Tempest lightly cursed. She just had to agree to a contest. With Twilight. With friendship on the line with this insane bird fish thing. Tempest breathed in and shunted her anger away. "Fine. We can get mane cuts."
She grimaced as she felt the bird hug her. She felt the plush feathers brush up against her and she shivered in fear for a moment, her body trained in ways to kill and maim met a thing it could not truly describe. A hug. A thing that she had been deprived of for years. It felt odd to her, like she was slowly getting crushed to death and yet she stood there taking the violent act and doing nothing in retaliation. She was getting soft. The pair of acquaintances let go of one another and Tempest looked away, her face feeling hot with an emotion that she couldn't fully name. "Right. To the worst thing ever."
***
"Mon Dieu, this hair has been horribly mistreated. Have you ever heard of a magical shampoo? I can see my maman's disappointment in these locks." Tempest rolled her eyes at the Prench stallion's hyperbole. She took care of her hair, maybe not to the extent of what Skystar regaled her about Rarity. That was the name of the white one. She just thought 'High Pitched Whine' fit her better in her memory of the unicorn. At least it was more memorable to her.
"I mean I've heard of it, but whenever I tell Tempest about it, she just glares at me." Grubber swung his small feet on the nearby chair. He gladly took a bribe in candy to be his most insufferable self and Tempest could only glare dangers as he betrayed the small modicum of trust she gave him.
"I see. Well I could procure a volumizer and hide this rather unique feature of hers." The manestylist prodded her horn gently which made her shiver in worry. That was a new feeling and she didn't want to just kick his jaw off because he touched her. That would go back to Twilight, and then she'd be arrested, and a whole other headache would start all because a small part of her hated anything mentioning her horn. It was her more noticeable and least liked feature of hers and she could feel a small spark of blue magic leak out a bit in a bad display of control. "Yes. I have heard of horn breaks before, but I have never seen a unicorn that rejects a prosthetic. Interesting."
Tempest groaned. "May we just move on from the talk about my horn. Let me just say that I'd rather not be here so be quick and give me a style that doesn't make me want to vomit."
"Extensions. Do extensions, Fizzie! They are like super quick looking and you'd look great with a longer mane!" Skystar was oddly encouraging for somebird in Tempest's attack range but she was as giddy as a foal on the first day of school at that idea.
Tempest grimaced, wondering if that talk about 'get manecuts, no biggie' was a way to lull her into a flase sense of security just so she would agree to this. "The shortest one possible then." Tempest saw Grubber's tiny little face light up in shock as she did something so against her moral code, so unlike the hard murderous pony that he knew in the borders of the world, but Tempest was here now. In soft, plush pony land. And she wasn't going to deal with any backlash for rejecting Skystar's offer. That would be a larger headache to her- her mind imagined scenarios from A to Z with the hippogriff in proud display of every obnoxious trait Tempest hated: crying, screaming, whining, pouting. On and on of annoying blubber like sounds that the unicorn would have to hear for probably forever. She was technically this bird's 'friend' now in the sense that she could use the bird and one up Twilight. Not for any other reason. So maybe she had to wear a hair extension. How bad could it be?
***
"It's so cute!" Grubber stared at Tempest's long dark pink mane, his eyes big with sheer surprise that she could look so normal.
Tempest stared at her assistant, thinking quickly and then discarding an idea about punting him across the room. She was not cute, could not be cute, not her. It was an impossibility. She turned to the hairdresser, ready to tear off his head for even causing a creature to call her cute. . .and then she looked in a nearby mirror.
She couldn't see her horn. It was still there of course- nothing could actually hide that she was certifiably broken when compared to these other ponies, but she hadn't had the image of her horn in her head whenever she looked in a mirror. She never really mentioned it, but she disliked looking in mirrors for that reason. But somehow this Prench idiot had fluffed her mane and let magic in her mane, extending her hair just enough so it looked natural, only adding a few inches to the red hair, letting it fall gently to her shoulders and wrap her horn carefully so it looked like an oddly shaped horn. Not a broken one. She breathed out and let her emotions go down deep into her chest- she was a pony molded into a hard exterior. She couldn't show off how well it went cause the stupid bird was still stupid and anyway, it was her own idea to allow the haircut. Not hers. She wouldn't give Twilight- cause with how rambunctious and mouthy the bird was, she didn't doubt that Twilight would hear about this- the satisfaction of knowing that she was sort of happy. She blinked, careful not to cry as she turned to her two annoying companions. "It is fine."
Grubber breathed out a sigh of relief. "That's good, cause for a moment I thought I was dead. I mean not that I'm probably out of the woods yet." He laughed, used to Tempest's rages- he had plans for every single permutation of anger, though it usually involved grabbing the nearest soft thing and either covering himself in a cushion or if he was feeling particularly brave, lightly whacking her on the head 'accidentally' so she couldn't use magic. "But seriously, I definitely saw a bit of the old Tempest in your look. Definitely planned to run when I saw that kind of rage." He laughed nervously, silently thanking that she had calmed down.
"I mean you look, what is the word Twilight used for her marefriend, hot." Skystar nodded as she quickly showed off her shorter mane, the messy short hair fitting so much better in Tempest's opinion to the manic mess of a bird.
"What?" Tempest's eye twitched as she head the word that she had been called. That was impossible. Not to mention the idea that somepony like Twilight could be in a relationship. It was unthinkable to her.
Skystar facepalmed as she remembered something. "Oh, right. I was all 'wonder what I look like as a seapony'" The yellow hippogriff smiled as she brushed a claw through her new locks. "This will just take a moment." The bird took a few steps towards a nearby sink and turned the knob as far as it could go, the rushing water filling the sink quickly.
"What is she doing?" Grubber stared at Skystar, unused to hippogriffs, especially since he had never seen one before the climactic battle against the Storm King- while he would have loved to see the sights of Mount Aris and the fun times of Seaquestria since Spike had mentioned that particular part of the adventure once or twice, he was rather worried about that look in the bird princess' eye.
Skystar dunked her head into the freezing water and held it there, letting the cold water cover her beak and eyes as she waited for something to happen. Soon the water covered her head and Tempest shook her head as she saw the air bubbles come- that was always a sign that a creature was almost too dumb or too unlucky to live. Drowning was a very special way to go. Especially since the idiot bird was a seapony half the time. She wondered if that was irony or just bad luck.
"She's drowning."
***
"I wouldn't have drowned. I think. It's just that my body is used to warmer water so it was a shock to the system." The yellow hippogriff rolled her eyes as she walked in the Canterlot sun, the busy afternoon sounds seeming far more interesting to her than the almost near death experience. "Anyway, are you up for a sleepover? Cause Twilight kind of kicked me out of the castle."
Tempest and Grubber shared a look at the hapless hippogriff. Tempest rubbed her mane, unused to the new length and unable to fully show every single emotion that involved disappointment, she just stared at the bird and asked "Why?"
Skystar shrugged. "A lot of things. Not so many. Anyway where's your place? Love to see what kind of decor the pony that Pinkie described as "goth murder horse" would have in her place. Plus there's something about houses that are better than caves underwater. I mean sure we build some places but I heard some of the more mean advisors that I was a hobo and then I looked up what it was and I agree. Seaponies are technically hobos." Skystar smiled as she sat down and stared at the cobblestones, blissfully unaware how nonsensical her ramblings could be to those that weren't brain damaged.
Tempest groaned. "I can't- fine." She quickly wrote down in her mental checklist that there would be no way ever that she would be a friend to Pinkie. There was absolutely no way that she could ever be friendly towards her. The sheer slights and absolute nonsense of the day hinged on the fact that the pink pony had spilled her deepest darkest secret- her real name- to a creature that was so very like Pinkie but also annoying in her own special way. She groaned and shook her head. "My place is in the Clover District. I'd leave you here but I'd rather not have an imbecile starve or freeze to death on my conscience. I already have way too high of a body count to really need another death on my hooves."
Skystar's face brightened. "That's both the nicest and darkest thing a friend has ever said to me. I mean its not like my other friends talk much but I swear I'll be on my best behavior- and I at least understand how bathrooms should work. Though I haven't figured out the things called ovens."
Tempest shivered at the thought of the bird setting fire to her house by sheer incompetence. She tried to get away from this thing called a hug, but the princess was just too slippery and strong so she just sat there uncomfortably taking this horrible abuse from her 'friend'. "First of all, there's going to be some ground rules. . ." Tempest ran through the first five no problem, until she got to cleaning. Then she remembered how she had started the day and she felt a new headache coming on- she had inadvertently destroyed her furniture and she was moving in a quasi-roommate. She turned to her second in command and sighed. "Grubber, don't forget that we have to clean up the mess tonight."
Grubber nodded glumly as he grabbed a handful of the remaining candy that he had saved from the salon and nodded. Things were rather nice and slightly more fun, but Tempest was still Tempest and she ran a tight, if sometimes unfocused ship. "You got it, boss."
As the sun set, the three creatures all wondered what the next few days would hold. And Tempest silently cursed her luck that she had bet Twilight that she would somehow get more friends. The day's efforts were exhausting for a pony like her and she doubted getting friends would be easy. She silently prayed that there'd be a lot less odd characters to 'befriend' or more aptly conquer by sheer force of personality. She glanced over at Skystar, who was singing some dumb seapony shanty and smiled, ever so briefly. It was obnoxious, terrible, and the worst thing she had done in months. But also she hadn't had been doublecrossed yet so she would hold out some kind of hope that it didn't completely suck.
