A ruined Vacation

Chapters

[witty title here]
In the mind of a Mad Man
Wakey wakey
A Friendship Blooms
Gravity Hurts
Rampage
Aftershocks
Wilhelm's Second day
Wilhelm's day off
In the dark
The Promise of Freedom
Wilhelm's First day at work

[witty title here]

"Climb a mountain, They said," Sven growled through clenched teeth "It'll be fun, they said..." he grabbed another hand hold and pulled himself a little higher "I don't think a single one has ever climbed a FUCKING MOUNTAIN!" he shouted as his foot slipped for the umpteenth time. "I'm going to kill each and everyone of them if I make it back, I swear to god..." He continued to climb for a few dozen more feet before hammering a pinion in to the cliff face and sighed as he looked up "A few hundred feet to go... and it's only noon, Great. " and then he looked down to assess his handwork.

The landscape below him was beautiful; There was an abundant amount of plant life, which made climbing easier earlier on, with a nice stark beauty to how it clashed with the barren, grey, rocky wasteland that roughly circled the patch of paradise. "I will wonder till the day I die why this place is so..." Sven paused for a second to think of the word "...Alive. The rest of this place is a barren rock." he looked down at the roughly central point of the greenery, a sort of half-outcrop-half-plateau in the cliff face with a waterfall he could still faintly hear as it showered the plants... and noticed some thing strange. He squinted his eyes for a better look, "That's... unusual..." he craned his neck forward for a better look at the faint outline of a castle. "I don't think there has ever been a castle out here..."

The castle doesn't look like any he's seen before; It was see through and had a green-ish tinge to it, through the haze he guessed It was mostly white, or an off shade of grey, with gold and black roofing with spires that had suns, and moons, and flowers... it also had a drawbridge... not to any real point because it had no water beneath it, the waterfall was near the other side of the structure and flowed right underneath what he could only guess was the keep, the Castle also hung over the edge of the cliff like a shiny green see through abscess. "I must be going nuts..." he shook his head, turned, and started to climb once more.

|*|

As Queen Chrysalis sang to herself about how "A girl could have it all." Twilight Sparkle crawled over to Cadence and whispered "Quick, go to him while you still have the chance!" and her horn lit up as she blasted the hard green goo from Cadence's hooves. Cadence looked at Twilight and smiled a small, hopeful smile as her eyes shone a love for her little sister-in-law that words could not express and walked to her husband-to-be, and smiled sadly as her eyes shone a love that made her love for Twilight look like a pale imitation in comparison... and saw no reaction in Shining's glowing green eyes. Tears fell down her face as she moved her head forward, rubbed her love's face, then pulled him close to embrace him and broke down a little. As she cried her horn crackled with a strange magic and a heart made from love manifested and moved in front of Shining Armour's face and popped. Shining's eyes returned to their normal, not glowing, blue selves and he shook his head then he said:

"huh, wha- is... is the wedding over?"

Then the Queen landed in front of them and with a triumphant voice declared, whilst grinning evilly "It's ALL over!"

Twilight looked at her brother and said urgently "Your spell! Preform your spell!"

Shining looked a Cadence as Chrysalis flew up in the air laughing and declared "What good would that do? My Changelings already roam free!" as she pointed at them damningly.

Over the chaos from outside Shining shouted "No!" and tried to charge his Shield Spell... and almost passed out "My power's useless now... I don't have the strength to repel them..."

Cadence walked up to Shining, embraced him once more and said with determination "My love will give you strength!" Chrysalis, completely confident, walked over to a window and laughed.

"What a lovely, but absolutely ridiculous, sentiment." Chrysalis stated as she brought her front hooves on the window sill. Shining look a Cadence, determination clear in his eyes, and charged his spell once again. Cadence brought her horn close to his and a resonance took place as she charged her horn with magic as well, supplying him with what magic he needed; An Aura surrounded them as they lifted off the ground and a light began to shine from them, strong enough to cause everypony in the room to close their eyes, then Chrysalis turned to see what the light shining out through the window behind was coming from and gasped in surprise... then spell was released and a pink bubble expanded from the two lovers and as the Queen lifted a hoof to cover her face while screaming "NO!" and was sent flying through the window and out of the city, along with her once-invading army.

|*|

"That is really strange... Were those horses?" Sven shook his head as his vision cleared "I think that tall one might have been a bug... Wait... What's that noise?" hearing a strange hybrid between a band of off-tune bells and a thunder clap, Sven looked from the pinion he just put in the cliff to where the castle-mirage thing was and wished he hadn't. A Pink bubble was expanding quickly from where the castle was, it seemed like it was getting faster as it moved along. He looked at this for a moment before a thought registered "Oh... I'm about to die, aren't I?" he said to no one in particular as the bubble sped towards him. "Well can't say I lived a good life... or a long one... or a fulfilling one... actually my life had been pretty sh-" then the bubble hit him.

He covered his face and closed his eyes, that bubble was as bright as a laser machine at a rave party, and when he opened them he was so stunned at the the beauty of the terrain below him, he didn't even notice as his backpack fell off of his back and down the cliff; the greenery extended for miles, no longer rounded up like some herd animal by the bleak landscape that had surrounded it, but free to roam on it's own; then he looked at the castle again... it wasn't see through, or green... and it would have been beautiful too, except there were fires here and there, and a few buildings were damaged, though the draw bridge made sense now, being that the water actually went underneath it...he thought he saw movement down there but he wasn't sure, so he leaned forward to get a closer look, and flailed as his equilibrium was thrown off like a bouncy ball in a clothes drier. He went to grab the rope to steady himself, but when he pulled there was no tension... at all. His head twisted so fast he could hear the wind in his ears and saw that the pinion he just hammered in was gone and he thought with a self-deceptive calm "Well... here I thought I just might have survived." as he scrabbled at the cliff face looking for a hand hold, and finding none, then fell into the abyss behind him. He screamed like a little girl.

He fell a good 50 feet before hitting the mountain again and the force knocked all the air from his lungs, turning his little girly squeal of pure fear to a weak wheezing of stark terror. Thoughts rushed through his head as he flipped head over heels and bounced from rock to rock to his doom, thoughts like "I wonder if it's a hallucination, or if it's real..." and "I thought I was going to die from food poisoning." and the most foremost thought "Who will feed my cat?"

He bounced down the hill for a bit, continuing to think wildly scattered thoughts, before noticing he was closer to the city then he thought he should be and he went to say "I'm moving WAY too fast!", what actually came out was the little girl scream again as he bounced like a volley ball. He went to tuck his body into a ball and thought "If it helps, good... if it doesn't, at least I can look like a peach colored, spike-less, broken Sonic the hedgehog before I splatter oh-so elegantly on the rocks below." but when he went to tuck in half of his limbs didn't react... Then true and absolute terror set in, if he could even think he would have thought that the last level of terror was like a jump scare in comparison to this new level; it was like hopping from the beginner difficulty to the difficulty you have to beat the game on the previously hardest difficulty without dying even once to unlock. The screams Intensified and he rolled off of a rock that acted similar to a ramp, in that it sent him flying over the wall of the city... Right into the third story window of someone's house. Then there was nothing.

In the mind of a Mad Man

Sven reclined in his leather chair, ran his light skinned hand through his light brown unkempt hair, looked at the monitors with his mischievous green eyes, drummed the fingers of his other hand on his red clad chest, and sighed with minor irritation "where the buck futter is he?" He looked at the main hall, which was a shining medical white, he looked at the horizontal stairwell, also a medical white, and finally looked at the monitor with the Iron-Bound-Door on it. "Well... Fuck." Sven growled "I can't seem to find me anywhere!"

Just then there was a flash of dark blue light on the main hall monitor, and almost immediately the intruder alarm went off, along with a cage that sprang up around the flash, with another irritated sigh Sven gave the monitor a sidelong glance and stated "What now?" His interest perked up slightly when he noticed the intruder was a quadruped "Well that's interesting... and blue." The creature on his monitor, and in a cage; was a dark purple/blue, with hair that seemed to be made from the night itself and waving in the air like there was a slight breeze, had a horn and wings, and had a mark on it's flank that was similar to a crescent moon in the night sky. He reached over to the intercom button and asked "Well hello there, how are we today?"

The creature looked confused and scanned the room for the source of the sound, finding a computer screen she responded with "I am doing well, but your body isn't doing so well."

Sven was taken aback "I am just fine, as you can seem, Now you can jog on for I am a busy man..." and he went back to searching the screens for signs of his old friend.

The creature eyebrow started to twitch and it stated through a forced calm "I come in here to help you and this is the thanks I get?" Sven waved a dismissive hand at the creature and the self- deceptive calm broke and the creature shouted out "Why do you insult me, is it because you are afraid of me?"

Sven looked back the the monitor the creature was on and said "Yes I just quiver in my boots from my bladder draining fear of a horse thing in a ca- Wait..." The bars in front of the creature glowed a deep blue, similar to the blue that was now surrounding it's horn, and Sven sputtered "S-stop that, t-that's cheating!" as the creature bent the bars of her cage like they were made of over-cooked spaghetti and walked through with a irritated but pleased look on it's face. "I said STOP THAT!" Sven hit a button to slam another cage around it. The creature just proceeded to the exact same thing as before and walk on through to the other side, no cage closed on it this time as it walked up to the monitor and glared at the person inside it "You know," Sven said with a scowl "this isn't as climactic since your on the other side of some glass..." The creature just glared indignantly. "Well... If we're going to be such CLOSE friends I think we should know each others names," Sven said with a slightly amused look on his face "I," he paused for a second for effect "am Sven The Ever Wonderful and Prominently Awesome, and your name... Horsey?"

That last remark set her off on a tirade, much to Sven's amusement, "I am Princess Luna, sister to Princess Celestia, Co-Ruler of Equestria, you-you moronic fool!" she finished with stomp of her hoof and an indignant glare.

Sven couldn't help but smile "that was so," - He grinned from ear to ear - "poetic." Luna seemed even more put off, if that was even possible as she was stamping her feet and shouting threats and curses at the screen. Sven giggled a little bit and managed to stammer out "I-I think we've gotten off on the *giggle* wrong..." looks at her legs, "hoof." he smiled even more and said "Let us try this again. I am Sven Wilhelm, pleased to make your acquaintance." he said with a little bow.

Luna seemed a little confused by changed in behavior, but adopted a regal pose and said "I am Princess Luna, it's a... Pleasure to meet you." she finished with a small curtsy, then added "about your health..."

Sven looked at her like she had just proposed to have a paint tasting party "As you can see, I am completely fine, so no need to worry!" he said as he spun in his chair with his hands in the air. "... But, if you want to help me, I need to find someone who's gotten loose..."

Luna looked like she thought about it for a minute and said calmly "If that means you'll wake up, I will gladly help, do you have any leads as to his location?"

Sven looked slightly more irritated by that "If I knew I wouldn't be asking for your help." he said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. Then after a thoughtful pause Sven stated "I have an associate that will help you look for him, ta ta!" and the screen shut off as he waved.

Luna watched the dead screen as it went into the ceiling "Well he's... eccentric. Now, who am I look-" she was interrupted by an elderly man hitting her in the face with a cane.

Luna rubbed her face and gave the old man a contemptuous look, he was a squat fellow about three feet tall and a hunched back, clad in a drab brown cloak, sported a simple cane, and had a face hidden completely by gray hair that seemed to come from everywhere on his head "And what might your name be, Elder?"

The old man just stated simply through a raspy voice "Hemlock."

Luna sighed and asked "Where should we Mr. Hemlock?" to this the old man's only response was to grunt and walk down the hall, all Luna could do was follow.

Wilhelm laughed loudly in his security room. "This is priceless!" Then Wilhelm fell off of his chair laughing.

|*|

Luna grunted in frustration and asked the old man with as much calm as she could muster "How much longer is it going to find this "Someone", your body is wasting away as we speak!" The old man eyed he with irritation, grunted, and continued to walk. Luna was also irritated, it's hard to tell the passage of time in the mind of such an odd creature, but it's been ages since she entered his mind. She looked around and noticed they were indeed in another room; it was richly furnished, with red velvet exhibit fences, red velvet drapes hanging from the walls at even increments, and in between the drapes were paintings. The fences had gold and silver on them any where they could, to the point of being in bad taste. The drapes were hanging down the wall, from near the ceiling, pinned near the ends so the center could be let out at full length, with even rolls in the fabric from top to bottom. The paintings were beautifully brushed, with a wonderful color palate, and seemed to be chronicling a story.

From what Luna could tell the story seemed to tell of a group of about twenty of beings, all seeming to be the same species... but only just so, walking out of the darkness and then immediately start to battle each other. Luna noticed that in each picture there was one less being every time, until about the fourth to last one, this one showed a set of cold, dead eyes on the horizon looking at the group of battling beings. In the third to last one three beings were missing, and the remaining ten beings were looking at the eyes, their own eyes showing fear and anger. The second to last painting showed only four beings. The beings in the center that were dominating the painting were two looking similar young men; one of which had blue eyes and dark brown hair sporting a short and wavy blade in his left hand, with his body left side forward, and the other, who was on the first on's left hand side had green eyes and light brown hair with a spear in his right hand, pointing it towards the painting's viewer, with a mirth only the insane can comprehend; one being that was off to the right hand side, a little behind the group, was an elderly gentleman, the same one that accompanied her, who was leaning on his cane like all of his years were set loose upon him at once; and the last being, who was just behind the center being's left, was a strongly built, square jawed, middle aged man with purple eyes, who was sporting no weapon at all, but was in a fighting stance that was right side forward. In the last painting it had the two young men standing in front of a large decorative iron door, the green haired one with a dagger behind his back and the old gentle man off to the side looking sadly at the door. The door was huge and had Scroll work all along it, skulls on the top and flames along the bottom. There was space for one more painting, but it was blank.

|*|

They exited the room a short time later and were on a stairwell... that was anything but a normal stairwell. Luna just sighed to her self, this was the same in every mind; if there was a stair well it didn't go up and down like a normal stairwell, it had to be sideways, or upside down. the old man grunted at Luna and continued to walk on the stairs. Luna just continued to look around, and noticed herself on a different stairwell. The other Luna was walking on an upside down stair case, Luna waved at her other self who simply raised her head higher and huffed then carried on up the stairs like she was late for the "Prissy Princess Talent Show" or something to that effect. "Well, that was rude of me." Luna mumbled under her breath as she carried on to the next hallway.

|*|

This hallway had a door to the side, the first door Luna has seen in the whole place; It was large and made from iron, with scroll work that resembled flames long the bottom and Skulls with demons horns along the top and as she stared the scroll work seemed to move and the door exhumed an unbearable, ungodly cold that chilled more then your bones. "Mr. Hemlock, what is behind that door?" Luna asked the old man as they walked past, never talking her eyes off of the door.

"Death." Hemlock rasped and walked on

Luna stopped for a moment and stared at the door a little longer, trying to remember if she had seen anything else like this in all her years of dream diving. Hemlock coughed not-so politely further up the corridor, that snapped Luna out of her trance and she trotted back beside him

|*|

The next room was large... And empty; there were no doors, windows, or any other defining feature in this blank space. The Old Man just calmly walked to the center of the room and stood there, not bothering to even look at Luna. She walked up beside him and waited... and waited... and looked around the room again, and waited some more. Finally, after what seemed like years she got sick of waiting and finally said irritably "What are we supposed to be doing, what are we waiting for?" To this the Old Man just started to cough out a raspy laugh and as he laughed the years seemed to shed off of his frame; his back grew straighter, his voice shed it's raspy quality and took on the octaves of a much younger man.

By the time the transformation was done he was rolling around on his back, having a gay old time, and through sobs of laughter said "YO-You should have seen the look on your F-F-F-FACE!" he dropped back into cackles of mirth.

Luna jumped a step back from the derange man and said "What are you talking about?" the look of shock still fading from her face. "Wait... Your the man from the Box!" To this the man stood up, and while still shuttering from laughter, took a bow like he had just done a performance.

Sven laughed a little more before calming down enough to say "Ah..." he wiped a tear away from his eye "Priceless... your a jolly good old time, you know that?" She just looked at him irritably. "Well, I've had my fun, and you didn't find him so... you can leave now!" He slipped into the floor and a monitor comes out of where he was standing, his face taking up the whole screen. he leaned back in his chair, put his fingers together and said "Well, I said leave!" and hit a button. The floor slid out from underneath Luna, she just flapped her wings and stayed where she was. Sven's happy face fell like it had steel clogs and had decided to go base jumping. "That's," Sven slammed another button "Cheating!" and the pit grew teeth and tried to bite her. Luna just flew higher to avoid the gnashing maw with a faint smile on her lips, It seems like it's my turn to enjoy myself She thought happily.

"Is that all?" Luna said with more then a little amusement in her voice. Sven scowled and hit another button. A cage fell where Luna was and she just moved a few feet off to the side and smiled at Sven like he just made a funny, but not too funny, joke. Sven's face looked like it was going to tear from it's foundations by the look of that scowl

|*|

"STOP DOING THAT!!" Sven shouted as he went to hit the thirtieth button in a row which sent a glob of florescent pink goo to go flying out of the wall towards Luna, who just calmly accented higher in the air. Fuming Sven went to hit yet another button, but then there was a loud, meaty "TWACK" and he slumped over the console. Luna looked at the screen, a single eyebrow raised.

Another man; his skin an off shade of peach, with a dark brown, unruly mane, with a light grey shirt. He grunted as he threw Wilhelm out of the seat. "Hmm?" he said as he looked at the monitor with his piercing blue eyes "I see why he stopped looking for me , and who might you be?" he looked down at the console for something.

Luna just eyed him suspiciously "for the third time today, I am Princess Luna; Sister to Princess Celestia, and co-ruler of Equestria... you are Sven I presume?"

The Man just looks up at her "I am..." he pause for a moment, seeming to be looking for the right words, "The closest to the original Sven. I am Kitran, charmed to meet a non-me for the first time and who happens to also be a princess" Sven looks down at the console again.

Luna looked at him with an eyebrow raised "So that other one was..." she paused a moment to allow him to fill the gap, but when he didn't she finished her sentence "... a doppelganger?" Sven just continued his search. "The things that Mr. Hemlock said about that door... were they true?"

Kitran stopped and looked up from the console, stared her dead in the eyes with his piercing stare and said authority "That door houses a being of so much power that it took ten of us just to subdue it, that door must never be opened." and looked back down at the console again

Sven stopped at a big red button, and before Luna could say anything, mumbled under his breath "It's always the big red button isn't it," he looked up at the screen "Ms. Luna?" She just looked at him a little nervously. "I assume your not a denizen of my mind?" She just nodded, "Well if that is the case, I will either see you when I wake up or not wake up at all," he continued "Well, thank you for your help." Then he pushed the button.

Wakey wakey

Sven opened his right eye, and felt a crack as the sleep on his eye was broken, and surveyed the area around him with his piercing blue eye as he thought I have been asleep for far too long. He was located in a simple hospital room, on a bed with paper sheets and a paper thin blanket that managed to keep the elements at bay, to his left side was a wall that had a window in it and to his right was a plain, white curtain. Sven went to get up to get a better look of the room, but fell back on his bed exhausted before he could even get half way up, so he just layed back, looked at the ceiling (the completely bland, boring, and down right white ceiling), and started to solve advanced calculus formula in his head. After about a hour, from his estimate based on how the light coming from the window had changed, he heard echoing boot steps coming outside from of room. After a few seconds he realized the "boot steps" were a little too sharp, and sounded more like metal cleats then rubber soles. This does not bode well he thought to himself as he struggled to sit up once more and failed again.

The boots entered the room, and after a moment of conversing quietly with a previously unknown inhabitant of said room, walked over to the Sven's side of the room. The being that rounded the corner was very peculiar indeed: it's fur was white, a white that Sven had never seen so perfectly achieved in the real world; it had a mane that shone with four different colors, each distinct and yet seemed to complement each other perfectly; on it's shoulders and neck was a sort of cross between a necklace and a set of decorative pauldrons, and in it's center sat a single Amethyst that was just big enough to draw the eye, but not too big as to be gaudy; and on the beings brow sat a Tiara made of the same gold that the necklace was made from, with an equally sized Amethyst adorning it's center... and the most peculiar thing about the being was the fact it was quadrupedal and looked akin to a horse but it had wings on it's sides and a horn on it's brow. The creature looked at him sadly for a moment before realizing he was awake then an expression of shock crossed her features for a split second before being replaced by a warm, but neutral, smile. "I see your awake," the being said softly "I do hope your sleep was a pleasant one."

Sven went to respond but only managed a croak before he was struck by a coughing fit. The Being's horn began to glow a soft yellow, like the sun through a light fog, and a glass of water surrounded by the same glow moved in front of Sven. he eyed it for a second, curious about it's mode of transportation, grabbed it and watched as the glow around it and the being's horn faded Curious Sven thought to himself as he drank from his glass agonizingly slowly knowing it would be better to slowly drink and wait for the life giving liquid, then to chug it and suffer the cramps later. After the glass was empty he looked at the Being at the base of his bed and said "You are Celestia I presume?"

The being, without even a slight pause, inclined her head and said "Yes; I am Princess Celestia, one of the Diarchy that rules Equestria. You are Sven, am i correct?"

Sven paused for a moment and considering what that meant and said "I am a... part of Sven, his mind fractured during his..." he paused and tried to find the word "escapade down the mountainside, but you may call me Sven if that makes you more comfortable.

Celestia just eyed him neutrally, but her eyes seemed to dance with what seemed to be amusement, and she turned towards the door and said "Ah, sister, so good of you to join us!" Luna walked into view and looked at Sven with a stare that seemed more cold then neutral, she seemed content to stand there and glare at him.

"Hello, Princess, a pleasure to see you again." Sven said to Luna with a voice that seemed to betray that statement, as it was devoid of emotion.

Luna continued to eye him, but less coldly and she broke her silence by saying "Hello Kitran, good to see your doing well." Celestia looked at her sister with her left eyebrow slightly raised.

Sven looked down at himself; his left leg was in a cast, his right arm was in a sling, he had bandages all over his body (some of which still sported blood spots), and his left eye was also covered in a bandage, and what little of his skin he could see was pale and drawn over his flesh like leather on a tanner's rack. Sven looked back up at Luna, His eyebrow also raised, and said "I am skin and bones, I don't even have the strength sit up," he proved his point by trying to sit up for the third time that day and failing for the third time that day "and I'm on the wrong side of the line between under-fed and malnourished. I do believe I am not doing very well at all, but thank you for the sentiment" his face completely neutral through out the entire presentation.

Celestia smiled a little at her sister's now irritated face, turned back to Sven, and before her sister could say something she would regret, asked "Is that a request for dinner?" Sven nodded his head calmly as his stomach growled loud enough to challenge the heavens themselves. Celestia's hoof covered her mouth before her smile could have betrayed her and she stated calmly "Then me and my sister shall take our leave so you may eat in peace." As if on cue a nurse walked in with a tray full of food and set it on the table by Sven's bed

Sven looked at the Nurse and noticed that she was maybe half the size of the Princesses, was white as well, but a little less... shiny, sported a little nurses hat with a Red Cross on it with hearts between the ends of each of the arms the cross, the cross design also adorned her flank, and didn't seem to have a horn or wings like the Princesses did. As the trolley was wheeled up to his bed and the food moved in front of his face he spared a moment to look at the princesses but found them already gone. He didn't even spare an errant thought for them as he looked at his plate... and noticed it was comprised of carrots, corn, and a white square of Tofu, and as dessert he got Gelatin with apple slices in it. He looked at the nurse, who was looking back at him curiously, and said without an ounce of emotion in his voice "thank you, I shall be good for now, you may leave when your duties are done." and proceeded to eat like the nurse wasn't even there. The meal was absolutely delicious, even when you looked at it from a completely logical perspective; the carrots were steamed to the perfect point of solidity, not so soft as to be mush but also not too hard as to crack then you chewed them, the basically melted in your mouth; the corn was in the form of nibblets and had butter on it, the skin on the corn was the only part you felt while chewing it; and the Tofu was... well Tofu, but it wasn't lumpy at least.

Sven looked around the room as he slurped up his "apple gel" and noticed that the room was darker then before, it's artificial lights were on, but the sun had gone down, and so he went to get up for the forth time that day... and succeeded, to his mild surprise. he hobbled over to the window and, after almost falling over a few times, looked out into the star lit night.

Sven seemed to be located on the third story of a hospital-like complex in the middle of a large city, there were some ponies wandering around in the streets below, not very many seeing as the moon was at it''s apex... wow... that is a big moon and it wasn't really, it just dominated the sky in a way that seemed like the stars were looking to it to protection from the infinite void that they floated about in, on the surface of the moon there were craters that resembled a large unicorn... that Sven suspected he had already met this really is a strange place.

Sven had his fill on sight seeing and hobbled back to his bed, and after his head hit the pillow he didn't even have time to think about his day before he started to snore like a lumberjack

|*|

As Luna put the moon to rest for the day she decided she was going to talk to her sister about their new "guest". She moved through the immense halls of the castle to the main hall where her sister was most likely to be, but found the room to be lacking her sister's presence. Luna was a little confused by this turn of events, so she asked the guards at the door if they had seen her sister but the guards just shook their head and resumed their duty to stand there and look interested by the wall opposite them. Luna let out a sigh and thought about how her sister was so unpredictable as she wandered pointlessly through out the castle, hoping to come across her sister by chance. Her wandering brought her to the Entrance Hall of the castle and she thought to herself Well... Maybe she visited the very person we were going to talk about. she shook her head My dear sister has done stranger things. and so she ventured out into the dawn.

She caught most of her subjects openly gawking at her as she walked down the street and some whispers about how they never see the princess out in the streets and blah blah blah. Luna rolled her eyes despite the small smile that crossed her face and she muttered under her breath "Even after a millennia ponies still haven't changed." Luna made her way to the Hospital rather easily and she walked through the lobby, up the stairs, and in to the hospital room that housed the "guest" she wanted to talk to her dear sister about. She had indeed found her sister, but not talking to Sven like she thought she would be, but she was standing at the end of the bed looking down at his sleeping form with a perplexed look on her face.

Celestia noticed her sister, smiled warmly at her, and walked over. "Luna, I thought you'd be in bed by now, does something bother you?"

"I wanted to talk to you about what we are going to be doing about Sven; are we going to send him on his way to make his own life, find him a way back to where he is from, or something else entirely?"

Celestia sighed and resumed looking a little perplexed "I've been thinking about that myself..." she trailed off and looked at the sleeping form on the bed "He was unconscious for over a month and a half, the only reason he's even alive is because of sheer luck, but you already know that don't you, Sister?"

Luna chuckled a little and responded with "I was also inside his mind, need I remind you, and I'm not quite sure if luck has anything to do with it... He is a strange one, but that's the only thing I am sure of."

"You never did tell me what happened in there, why you called him "Kitran", or why you were so hostile towards him till you did so." Celestia asked her sister as she raised a brow.

It was Luna's turn to look perplexed "I'm not quite sure myself, dear sister, it was a strange place full of stranger things... and there were several entities that seemed to inhabit his mind..." Luna gained a far away look in her eyes and trailed off for a moment before shaking her head, returning to reality. "Even after delving into his mind, I still do not know, trust, nor even like, this being."

Celestia was silent as she stared at the man laying on the bed, who was breathing evenly and deeply, and who at least seemed capable peaceful existence. After a moment had past she looked at her sister and said simply "That is why we get to know him."

A Friendship Blooms

Kitran awoke in the darkened room he called home and he rolled to turn on the lamp beside him, continued to roll and get out of bed after the lamp flickered to life and looked around his room as he stepped on the floor. The lamp had lit up most of his room but it was such a large room he would have had to use four or five lamps to light the whole thing, it's walls were a dark colour that Kitran couldn't quite tell if they were black, blue, or purple; it had windows on every wall of the room but the inner most wall, the windows were either two that were located right beside each other or were on either side of the outer door. The floor was checkered white and a light purple that he didn't like; and there was a dark wood wardrobe just beside the door that led further into the castle, it was simple and large, it was also the only thing Kitran liked in the whole room... Then there was the bed Kitran just slept on... He did not like the bed he had just slept on, for it was pink and frilly, with hearts on the footboard and headboard, and was so small he had to sleep cross legged.

In all Kitran didn't really care for his room one way or another, it was an abode that was given to him by The Princesses as an act of faith, or as they said "to promote friendship." Kitran went to wardrobe and opened it, and was met by another group of presents from the Princesses: clothes. There was a great multitude of different clothes in his wardrobe that varied from light silken affairs that looked like they would make the wearer blend in an "Arabian nights" novel to great burly cotton monstrosities that would most likely winter gear... or a portable tent you could wear, Kitran honestly wasn't sure which; Kitran picked a red, silken, long sleeved shirt and a set of black cloth pants that were fairly tight fitting. Kitran went to close the door to his wardrobe and noticed his refection on the door's inner mirror... he looked like a red coat from Star-Trek; he changed his shirt to a light grey, cotton, t-shirt instead and walked through the door that lead to Canterlot Castle's interior.

Kitran made his way to the dining hall to have lunch with Celestia, marking the locations of each pony and doorway mentally as he passed; some ponies waved at him, but he made no move that even suggested he had noticed them. After a few minutes of walking he was standing in front of the large door that led to the dining hall and, as he paid no heed the guards on either side of the door that payed equally as much heed to him, he pushed it open and walked in... Then a number of voices yelled "SURPRISE!" and then a few voiced different forms of being confusion as to why the guest of the hour just stumbled backwards through the door as it closed sharply in his face. Then Kitran opened the door again and looked at the dark coloured princess with his stone faced stare, as a purple pony he had never met before leaned over to Luna and said "The Canterlot Voice may had been over doing it a little, Princess." Luna blushed and made some sort of noise that may have been an apology.

Then his pink thing filled Kitran's vision and as he stumbled back he found out it was a very curly mane with confetti and candy in it, and a voice came from the very excited looking face just below said mane "Hiyah, what's your name, mine's Pinky Pie!"

Kitran re-composed himself and said "My name is Kitran, but you may call me Sven if you wish, and" - he stepped back calmly -"you are much too close to me for my tastes." Pinky Pie just smiled, and Kitran had to suppress a shutter as it seemed she was going to split her head in two if her grin spread anymore.

"That name is kind of hard to say, so I'ma call you Kit!" She started to bounce around the newly dubbed "Kit" as he went to walk over to the white princess but found himself standing in front of a blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane.

Kitran blinked and looked back at his intended destination, which was on the other side of the long dark brown table, then turned his attention back on the blue one standing in front of him with her eyebrow raised "If you'll exc-"

"This hear is Rainbow Dash!" Pinky piped up from beside him, "She is the fastest flier in all of Equestria, and is the only pony I know who can preform the Sonic Rainboom!" Kitran looked at the pink creature, he was having a hard time thinking of it as a pony... or sentient, and looked at the blue pegasus, who was posing with her left hoof pointing at her chest, her right one behind her head and standing vertically with her wings flapping lazily.

"Yup, I am the one and only Rainbow Dash!" she flipped around so she was laying down in mid-air, with her legs crossed, a cloud with a rainbow coloured lighting bolt that was on her flank aiming it's broad-spectrum fury at the heavens, and (most importantly) with her eyes closed and, when she was distracted by her arrogance, Kitran went to make his way over to Celestia and was half way there before he heard a confused "Huh?" pop up from behind him and a blue face that was looking down at him popped up in front of him, "Hey, that was rude!" the upside down head said as she glared at him, "All I was doing was introducing my self!" Kitran just gave her his neutral stare as she huffed and puffed.

A voice laced with a southern drawl came from Kitran's left "Uh, Rainbow, your "introduction" was going to be all about your "awesome" flyin' skills and how "cool" yah are, Ah think that yah should just let it be." Rainbow gave Kitran one last glare before flying off to the side to grumble in a corner. A orange pony with a blonde mane that was tied into a "pony tail" with a brown hat that sat on top of it walked over to him and said "Don't mind her none, she's just a little full of herself and likes to let everypony know it, I'm Apple Jack-" she raised a hoof as if to shake... appendages, so Kitran shook her hoof and she smiled before continuing "- and it's a pleasure to meet yah."

Kitran looked at the orange pony with the three apples on her flank and said "likewise," as he inclined his head, "now if you'll excuse me." then he turned away to go see the princess for a third time that morning... and came face to face with a different white pony, this one had a mane that was lovingly curled to show her horn and a tail that was curled just as lovingly to accentuate her "cutie mark" of three diamonds.

The white unicorn looked him up and down with a critical eye before saying in a regal tone "You show up to breakfast with the Princesses in that, late mind you, and you speak like a commoner-" she raised a hoof theatrically to her forehead "- you must not have been schooled in proper social etiquette!"

Kitran's response was "No, you are wrong there, I do know most of my proper social etiquette, but I simply do not care enough to use it." The white unicorn's jaw dropped, and he continued as neutrally as before "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to." and he made a bow just before he walked around the still shocked pony.

The pink demon was once again by his side, Kitran looked down at her, she looked up at him and said "I have somepony you should meet!" and she grabbed his hand, which he still had no idea how her species accomplished, and lead him to the orange pony again.

"I have already been acquainted with this particular Equine, Ms. Pie" Kitran said before he heard a sound of fear squeak from behind Apple Jack, who stepped to the side to show a yellow pegasus with an illustrious pink mane, and equally illustrious tail, that cowered like a scared animal and on her flank were three butterflies that seemed blissfully ignorant to their owner's distress.

The yellow pegasus looked out from behind her hoof and her mouth moved, but Kitran didn't hear anything. His eyebrow raised at her as she uncurled from the fetal position and stood on her four hooves as she said "Hello..." in a voice that was so quiet that it wouldn't wake a paranoid alley cat in a world that was other wise silent.

"I can't hear you, you need to speak up," Kitran said before adding in the exact same tone "Please." The other ponies looked at the yellow pegasus expectantly, who hid behind her mane shyly. "Fine, Ms. Un-named, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to be off."

Kitran turned to walk away and he heard "MynameisFlutterShyit'snicetomeetyou." erupt in a quiet stream from behind him. he stopped and turned around to look at the source of the sound. "I mean... My name is Flutter Shy, it's nice to meet you."

The yellow pony looked around the room shyly as Kitran looked at her and said "Hello Flutter Shy, I am Kitran and you may call me Sven or..." he felt his face twitch as he said ""Kit", if it pleases you." Flutter Shy smiled as she looked at him for the first time in the conversation, which ended abruptly as he turned to talk to the ever elusive Princess.

Kitran made it to the White Alicorn without further incident, to his mild surprise, and she smiled at him and said "Ah, the guest of honour, I was beginning to think you would never get here." she finished with a chuckle as she looked in the direction of the Pink One. Her gaze turned back to Kitran and she said cheerily "I have someone I would like you to meet as well, Sven, this is Twilight Sparkle; my ever faithful student."

Celestia's wing gestured to the significantly shorter unicorn standing next to her; her coat was a lighter purple and her mane was a deep dark purple that looked almost navy blue with a lighter, but still dark, purple streak that ran down just to the right side of the horn that poked out from center of her head and a pink streak that ran down beside that, her tail sported the same colour scheme as he mane with they highlights on the underside of the center. The unicorn threw on a smile that was about seventy five percent genuine and said "Hello, Mr. Kitran, it's nice to meet you."

Kitran inclined his head at Twilight and said calmly "I am Kitran, it is a pleasure to meet to person that Celestia is always so pleased to talk about," Twilight blushed at that, but there was a puzzled look on her face, ".. Sven, or "Kit", are my other monikers... the latter you can thank your pink friend for." the confused look on her face left and was replaced by a hundred percent genuine smile.

Kitran turned to the Princess, opened his mouth to speak... and was promptly cut off by the very person he was about to speak to as she said with grace "I believe you would like to know the special occasion for this impromptu party?" Kitran raised an eyebrow as a signal to go on. "In the month since you woke up, you have healed in our hospital, lived in our castle, studied in our library with a fervor that I have seen in vary few others-" she glanced at the blushing purple pony beside her, "- and I have not seen one bit of change in your demeanor... which makes me think you need a more personal group of friends to bring you out of your shell, so I as sending you to be under the charge and protection of my Faithful Student, Twilight."

Twilight looked about as confused as Kitran felt and started to sputter about about how this was so sudden and that the library was a mess and other things Kitran didn't bother listening to as he studied the Princess' face for clues to the real reason he was leaving. He didn't see anything other then the warm smile that she always had glued to her face like a mask. He didn't like this, he didn't like it at all, there was something else going on but he couldn't quite grasp it. "You have one week before you are scheduled to leave for Ponyville, which means you can grab what ever books you'd like from the library and say farewell to any friends you have made, though hopefully not for long because I would like to see you again some time soon." Celestia inclined her head to the rest of the silent room and said "I'm sorry girls, but I have to go tend to royal duties, I will see you all at dinner." and the trotted out main doors without so much as a backwards glance.

After a moment the group of mares all started to talk to one another, save for Twilight who never stopped sputtering, Kitran heard lamenting from a familiar tomboy-ish voice, a southern drawl talking quietly to a regal mumble. Kitran just stood there, running numbers and scenarios through his head as a set of hooves approached him quietly and said "Art thou saddened to leave?"

Kitran didn't even bother to turn his head and he said coolly "You know I don't get sad, Luna, but I can tell you are," he decided to turn to the Dark Princess and as he turned continued, "you only speak that way when your emotional." When he finished turning he saw the saddest looking Luna he had ever seen, he was rather surprised by this, "I see you are rather upset about me leaving," unlike her sister Kitran could read her like a book, not that it was hard right now, "Why is that?"

Luna managed to look even sadder "Thou art my only real companion during the night hours in which I dwell... I will miss thou terribly!" She wrapped her fore hooves around him but then they fell over and landed in a tangled heap. Luna stood up and looked around bashfully and Kitran brushed himself off and stood up as well and eyed her stone faced as he tried to understand why she was so sad.

Everyone else in the room was silent as they watched this display, the White Unicorn's jaw was hanging loosely once more, as Kitran walked over to the Princess and wrapped his arms around her neck awkwardly and patted her shoulder as she began to sob into his shoulder about how much she will miss him and how he was such a good friend. Kitran didn't like the sounds of sadness coming from the Night Princess, they were about as unnerving as the lament of the dead, so after a moment of her crying he broke contact and looked her in the face and said "Your crying is unnerving, stop." She stopped the verbal part of her crying, but the tears still streamed down her face "I will spend the rest of the nights I have here with you if you stop crying right now."

Luna's face brightened, she smiled brightly, she even hugged him brightly, Kitran wasn't sure how the last one worked though. She was crying again, but happily, as she said "Thou has made my day!" then she broke the hug and galloped out of the hall talking to herself happily about what they were going to do. Kitran was not pleased by the feeling of foreboding that passed through his body as he sat down to eat some of the party favours.

|*|

A few hours later, in the Royal library, where Kitran was reading books about the various properties of magic and it's applications, He was treated to the surprise company of Twilight Sparkle, who sat down across from him with her own stack of books and smiled weakly at him before opening her first tome. After about a half an hour of her fidgeting uncomfortably and the quiet murmurs of her friends behind the third bookshelf to his right he spoke up "What would you girls like to know?"

Twilight blushed as red at the dawn sky and said "Come on out girls, he found you." and the five other ponies walked out from behind the shelf, embarrassed by the fact they were caught. Kitran just leveled his eyes at Twilight and raised an eyebrow, inciting her to tell him her question, after the other mares got to the table she said "Are you and Luna... Umm... "Special friends"?"

Kitran left his eyebrow raised and said "She regards me as a friend, and I don't care one way or another for her company." The mares clustered around the table gasped as if he had just said he kills kittens and wears their furs, so he explained even further "I find her to be the most tolerable of the ponies I've met here, he sister being the exact opposite but a intriguing case subject, and if tolerable is the prerequisite for being a friend then I would say she is my "friend"."

Rainbow Dash spoke up loudly, eliciting many "shhh"s from the surrounding tables as she did, "Your just using her for information, Spy!" All the other mares face hoofed and sighed, which caused Rainbow to look around with a confused look on her face and said, in an equally as confused voice, "What? That's what he is!"

Kitran just looked at the Blue pegasus and said calmly "The type of information she gives me is useless for spying, she usually just tells me how her day was, or how a spider scared her that one time before tipping it's hat and being on it's way. I don't see why you people are so-"

"Ponies." Twilight corrected him, and when he looked at her she blushed but stood her ground.

"Yes, ponies, for give me." he said calmly and continued "Why you ponies are so confused and nosy, she is just my friend and the person who freed me from my mind, that is all there is to it." The ponies looked at him skeptically.

This time it was Apple Jack's turn to pipe up "Why would she tell yah all about her day, that seems like a awfully boringly thing to be doing when the pony your talking to doesn't even care whether your there or not."

Kitran's piercing blue eyes snapped to the orange pony's face, scaring everypony around the table and he said glacially "You try living on the moon for a thousand years; trapped in your own mind, listening to your insanity babble on about it's revenge and how it will destroy the world to re-make it in it's own image, when all you want to do is go home and see your loved ones and to beg their forgiveness;" His eyes focused less sharply then before and his tone returned to normal as he continued "I know a fraction of how she feels, for I was under similar circumstances when I came to this world, but even I cannot comprehend the despair that she feel those thousand long years." Everyone was silent for a moment as the message worked it's way into their apparently thick skulls. Kitran looked at the watch that Luna had gave him; it had silver hands with moonstones on the backs of them, there were silver ticks where the numbers would be and double ticks to mark the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth hours, and it's silver face glowed faintly in the dark as he read that dinner was fifteen minutes away. "I would suggest getting cleaned up for dinner, girls, you have fifteen minutes."

The white unicorn let out a noise that may have been distress and galloped away as the rest, save for Twilight, walked away with abashed looks on their faces. Twilight calmly got off of her seat, turned her head to Kitran and said "Your a great friend, don't let anyone tell you different." and she caught up with her friends, leaving Kitran to think about his strange day.

|*|

Kitran was sitting at the table that had the six "Elements of Harmony" sitting at it, along with the two Princesses and 4 or 5 higher ranking nobles, even then it was still much too large for the amount of people sitting at it: The closest pony, who was Rainbow Dash, was 5 feet way from him talking excitedly to a noble pony who seemed disgusted by the blue pegasus' eccentric behavior. Kitran looked down at his plate of vegetables and felt a pang of longing for some nice crunchy chicken wings, which was odd because he hated chicken wings, and started to eat his steamed broccoli with cheese sauce.

He looked around as he ate, seeing the Elements each doing their thing; Flutter Shy was hiding behind her hair as a noble pony across the table "Put the moves" on her, Rainbow Dash fell on her plate as she over-extended her self in one of her many over-exaggerated movements in one of her slightly less over-exaggerated stories, Twilight was taking with her mentor excitedly and though Kitran couldn't hear the details there were points where he heard words like "meta-physics" and "Cyclic ignition", the White Unicorn he had yet to learn the name of was batting her eyes at the stallion across the table from her who was blatantly ignoring her presence, the Pink Demon was everywhere which caused Kitran's skin to crawl because no being should be able to move the way she did, and seated across from him was Apple Jack and the look on her face told him she was about as at home as a mouse in a snake's den.

Kitran finished his broccoli and moved on to his peas, which he mixed with his mashed potatoes, and chew methodically as he thought about how he would be sent to live with the Elements in a town he had never been to; it didn't scare him, or fill him with joy, but he didn't feel at peace either... which was odd. There was something nagging at the back of his mind that he couldn't get rid of but couldn't figure out either, like a phantom. He sighed and finished off his potatoes and peas and moved to his Tofu, which was cooked in a special sauce that made it sweet tasting cardboard as opposed to normal, bland cardboard.

Kitran did not usually enjoy dinner with the Princesses when there were guests, there wasn't enough banter to keep his mind from wandering and usually not enough topics to keep it entertained when it did, so he looked around the room again and noticed Pinky Pie was standing right beside him, with her face less then an inch from his as she said "Hi!" in a chipper voice. Kitran look at the intruding muzzle, lifted his hand to her chest, and pushed her away as far as his arm would go.

"Minimum distance, Ms. Pie." was all he said as he returned to his meal, then he heard a whimper and looked back at Pinky Pie, who was several shades darker and her hair was flat. The change was enough to shock Kitran right out of his seat.

Kitran laid on the ground as he hear a sad whimpering "I... Just wanted... to make you happy..." He pulled himself up off the ground and sat back on his chair as he looked forward, those sad eyes bored right into his soul.

"I do not get happy or sad, Ms. Pie, but your concern is noted and your actions are appreciated," he didn't even bother her a glance as he added "Thank you though."

She looked at him sadly and said "You never feel happy? That's so sad..."

He looked at her and said "nor do I feel sad, didn't I just say that?" Her eyes continued to bore into him, it was starting to get rather unsettling, then he said "You shouldn't worry about me, Ms. Pie, so please stop being sad... it isn't who you are." She still looked at him sadly, but less so, so he added "remember how I'm going to be-" he brought his hands up and air quoted as he said, "-hanging out-" then he brought his hands back down, "-with my dear friend for a whole week?"

Pinky Pie's frame disappeared in a cloud confetti as she said "Oh yeah! That will defiantly make you happy!" then she bounded off to talk to Flutter Shy. Kitran shook his head and looked around the room and noticed everypony look away just in time to avoid being pegged as a watcher to the whole affair and his eyes settled on Luna, who was the only one who didn't and who was beaming with pride.

This is going to be a long night he thought as he finished his Tofu.

|*|

Kitran felt odd, he anticipated his night with Princess Luna, which in it's self was odd, he dreaded the time he was going to away from Luna, which was again odd, but the white Unicorn that he found out was named Rarity buzzing around him like an irritating bee was just insult to injury because it was the an all to familiar feeling. She picked and prodded and then told him to try on other clothes, and he did so, just to be told that they weren't right and to try on another set. His patience was worn to the breaking point when she finally decided something was worth keeping on his pale frame, It was a light tan silk vest, left unbuttoned, with a set of pine brown silken pants that ballooned at the bottom... He felt like an Aladdin re-colour, "This will not do, get out, I'll make the decision myself." he said calmly as he pushed the protesting Rarity out of his room and closed the door. He grabbed a set of tan dress pants, that were the same shade as the vest, and a White t-shirt, made from a special soft cotton weave, and put the set of clothes on as there was a knock on the door. He ignored the knock as he looked himself over in the mirror, though he didn't know why, a pale skinned man with near-platinum blonde hair that was almost ringlet curly looked back at him, his eyes a blue that cut through all illusions and a hairless face etched in stone.

"I know what your putting on, and it simply will not do!" came a regal, distressed tone from outside the door as a more pleading knock was forced upon the door, Kitran pushed the door open and bowled over Rarity. She looked at him from the floor and, after her jaw decided it was going to re-locate herself, said "I stand corrected, I thought you were going to put on the black dress clothes... this look suits you well, my friend." Kitran didn't make an attempt to confirm he heard her as he offered her his hand and, when she was standing, turned to rendezvous with his friend and nearly ran into a wall of five friends that smiled at him hopefully. Kitran stepped to the side, and the wall stepped to the side, and after a moment of looking at the group in front of him coolly, he said "What is it you would like?"

"To wish you luck!" Pinky Pie piped up happily, the others stared her down, "... I mean to say hi?" she added hopefully as she drew circles on the floor with a bashful smile on her face.

Kitran sighed and went to walk forward again, only to be blocked again, and he said to the offending group of flesh "Move now, I'm going to be late."

Twilight stepped forward and said happily "We came by to say that we hope you will have a nice night tonight." The others nodded in agreement.

Kitran breathed in and closed his eyes for a split second longer then a blink and said "Thank you, now. Move." with a force in his voice that he didn't know he possessed. The wall move reluctantly out of the way as he pushed through and walked to the Princess' chambers. He walked at a brisk pace, trying to make up for lost time and managed to get to the door to her room with a full minute to spare, the guards on either side ignoring his presence as he ignored their's. He gathered himself as he waited for the full minute, surprised at how much the "Elements of Harmony" managed to get under his skin, then when the minute had passed he knocked on the door and a surprised yelp was the response from the other side of the door.

"Hold on, I'm almost ready, just five more minutes!" came Luna's muffled voice from the room beyond the door as some shuffling was heard. Kitran sighed and walked across the hall to lean against it as he waited.

Two minutes and thirty five seconds into waiting, according to the watch his eyes were glued to, he realized how absurd everyone was treating this, he was visiting a friend he had visited dozens of times before so why was every one treating it like a date. After five minutes had passed the door still had not opened, so he waited another thirty seconds before pushing himself off of the wall and walked back over to the door to knock, the guards continuing to ignore his presence, as it opened to let Kitran in.

Luna was dress as she normally was with her silver tiara and silver pauldron necklace cross, both of which had a moon stone in the center of them, her silver leggings clink gently as she walked over to the bed and stood beside it, looking at Kitran shyly and said "What would you like to do tonight, I wracked my brain all day and couldn't think of a thing to do..." She trailed off uncertainly.

Kitran was silent for a moment as he surveyed the room; It was all dark blues and silver, which was a nice change from her sister's bright white and gold that filled the rest of the castle. The walls were a slightly light blue the her own coat, with gold trimming along the roof and floor. The floor was checkered like his own room but with a slightly darker blue then Luna's coat and a pale colour that reminded him of the moon. The desk in the corner was cluttered to the point of causing Kitran to guess if there even was a desk or if it was just a pile of junk, when Luna followed his gaze she blushed and mumbled apologies to him under her breath. There was a wardrobe of similar size to the one in his room, which he doubted was half as full as his, but painted to be very dark, so dark that you had to stare at it a moment before you realized it was blue and not black. The outside wall had two windows about 2 feet off of the floor and a central glass door that lead to a balcony that could house several alicorns on it with room to spare. The bed was a four poster affair similar to his own that was all silver and blues, but much larger then his and covered in a dark blue quilt that had a large pale crescent moon on it.

Kitran looked at the Princess when he was finished looking at her room and said "I would like you see your work." as he walked to the balcony and opened the doors, letting in the warm summer night air. Luna walked out to the balcony with him and looked at him with a questioning look on her face as he looked at the stars.

Luna's gaze followed his to the star filled sky, far away from the moon that had just risen as he sat down right in the middle of the balcony, then she looked at him and said "What is there to see? It's just the stars, they are just little balls of light, they do nothing at all."

Kitran looked back at her and beckoned for her to sit with him as he said "Do you control the stars, Luna?"

Luna looked at him with an eyebrow raised and said "No actually, I do not need to, they move about on their own... though I tried to do just that once, my magic ran dry before it even reached to it's destination." He nodded his head to this and resumed gazing at the stars. and after a moment she sat down beside him and followed his gaze.

Kitran continued to look into the sky before he said "Where Sven came from-" and was promptly cut off by an irritated Luna.

"Why does thou always refer to thyself like that when thou talks about the time before thou showed up in Equestria?" she asked with an irritated note in her voice and punctuated with a stomp of her hoof.

Kitran sighed and ran a hand through his hair, something he had never done before, and said "I didn't exist before he came here. I wasn't just hiding under the surface waiting to emerge at his first mental break down, his mind literally shattered when he was tumbling down the mountain..." He looked at his companion and said "I was born from his death, even though his body didn't die."

Luna was silent for a moment as his gaze returned to the heavens above, and then she said "Well... I think your just a continuation of his existence, the moth to his caterpillar if you will, he was you and you are him... So please stop referring to your past like someone else lived it..." Kitran was silent for a moment as he thought about it and then Luna implored with more then a little sadness in her voice "Please, Kitran?"

After a moment of silence "Just call me Kit, Luna, you of all people have earned that right... and I will heed your wishes, but only because it makes you more comfortable." He said as he looked back up into the skies. "As I was saying earlier, Where Sv-" he cut himself off, and tried again "-I come from, the stars are giant balls of burning gas, each at least several million times larger then my world, with quite a few that had planets that may have inhabited like, but as I had last knew we never found a single one... but most of humanity thought that there was life out there, and most of that feared it..." Kit ran his hand through his hair again and continued "my people are a paranoid and destructive race, that's why I said that I shouldn't go back and you shouldn't send an ambassador through because we would most likely die when people found out about us."

Luna looked up at the sky with renewed wonder as Kitran continued "The stars and where they dwell is a very dangerous place where the unwary and unprepared would die a horrible death, but the pay off would have been huge if we found anything that we hoped was out there, even dead worlds rich with resources would have been a great boon to all of humanity... Even some of our best Astronauts died horrible deaths because a single plate wasn't fastened on the ship properly, causing a massive explosion that kill all of them nearly instantly and the ensuing debris crosses hundreds of Kilometers and injured many more people." Luna looked at him in shock as he continued, "And they were willing to make that sacrifice and many tears were shed for them, but their loss would save many more lives in the years to come... All in the hope that some day we would meet another race of beings that we could befriend and call our brothers, or at the very least expand our own race from a dying world when we needed to." Luna looked back to the stars with a sad look on her face.

"What I'm saying is that the night sky held all out hopes and dreams, that is why it is so special to my species as a whole, and why I would like so share that feeling with my closest friend... my only friend..." Kitran looked back at at Luna, who had tears streaming down her face.

"I didn't know that the night sky meant so much, that it held so much... I always viewed it as my job, my burden... I never thought for once it could hold so much more..." she buried her face in her friend's shoulder, who just stroked his distressed friends mane and looked up at the stars.

Other then her sobbing, which abated after some time, they were quiet for a few hours before Luna said in a suddenly happy tone "How would you like a better view of the sky, Kit?" He looked at the now smiling princess and shrugged, she smiled even brighter. Luna dashed into her room, grabbed the quilt off of her bed with her magic, dashed back onto the balcony, and said excitedly "Hop on!"

Kitran looked at her with his eyebrow raised, she motioned for him to climb on to her back, and he shook his head and heeded her wishes for a second that night. She took off immediately, her wings flapping powerfully, the blanket fluttering behind them quietly, and her humming happily as they flew up to the the top of the mountain that he had fell down only two months previously. They settled down a fairly level spot about a hundred feet from the top of the mountain, she set down the quilt and laid on it as he sat beside her. They sat like that, The Princess smiling happily as she stared at the stars with a wonder she had never felt before with him staring at the same thing with his inscrutable, stone faced expression, for a few more hours. When the moon had reached the point in the sky where it blocked their view there a cold wind blew down from the peak of the mountain, which cause Kitran to shiver involuntarily before a wing draped around him. As he moved closer to the Princess he thought he hear a sound similar to a clap, or high five, from behind the mountain.

Luna held him close, her side was warm and soft, and after not-so-long Kitran realized her was leaning against her with his head on the back of her neck. Then he realized he was smiling a little, it was more a softening of his face then a smile, but it scared him more then death, which scared him further because the most fear her felt before that was a slight discomfort. After a few minutes of sweating coldly he finally managed to wrestle his emotions down to their previous, non-existent levels as Luna continued to stare at the stars in awe. "Luna," he began, she turned her head to face him with a curious expression as he realized his voice was quivering, so he coughed and continued with the quiver hidden once more, "I will miss your company when I leave for Ponyville."

Luna's eyes grew sad as she nodded and said "I will miss thou also,-" she nuzzled his face "- but thou will make sure to write me every day or I'll come down there and make thou." Kitran couldn't stop his face from softening as she butchered two languages, Luna didn't notice and for that he was thankful. Then stopped talking and watched at the stars faded and the moon descended until it was resting on the horizon, then they gathered their things and made their ways back to the castle.

"I enjoyed our night together, Luna." Kitran said as they landed, Luna smiled happily and smacked the dirt of of her blanket. "I am going to turn in for the day, have a good rest, my friend." then he hugged her awkwardly, and after an initial moment of confusion, Luna hugged him back. Kitran broke of the hug just as awkwardly and nodded to his friend before leaving.

The trip back to his room was uneventful, though as he closed the door he though he heard whispering down the hall. Kitran locked his door and changed into a set of pajamas that were blue and had clouds on them, when he slipped on the pants he though to himself I feel like a six year old in these. Then Kitran laid down on the bed and thought about his night till he fell asleep, and just before his mind passed into the world of dreams, face twitched into something resembling a smile.

Gravity Hurts

Kitran sailed through the air with his arms outstretched like a pair of pale, feather less wings and he couldn't help but appreciate the arc he now found himself sailing through the sky on. The weightlessness was a particularly peculiar feeling that he suspected Rainbow Dash either liked alot, or hated with a passion. He looked around; he could see the Library in the not-so-distance distance, A gingerbread house-esque building was a little further on, and house that was made of clouds and rainbows in the distant distance that was eye height, and that wasn't good. Kitran noted that the claws of gravity were once again sinking into his flesh, he missed the weightless feeling already, and he was pulled ever so slowly back towards the ground... then he sped up and collided with a tree. Spinning, twisting, turning, and hurting were all the things that made his world at this point; He would spin one way, only to be intercepted mid-flip by a branch and spin in the other direction, only to have the same thing happen again and be sent the first direction once more. Kitran could see the ground, the glorious ground, and tried to shift his body enough to speed his decent and maintain minimal injuries... it almost worked: but a branch caught his pant leg and spun him head first into a branch, the was a loud resounding "Crack" and all was darkness.

|*|

A few hours earlier

Kitran looked out the window of the train, but didn't notice the scenery as it passed because he was too wrapped up in his thoughts to see the trees, the birds, the bunnies, and the ponies as he rode on by. He was thinking about his last nights with Princess Luna and the stuff they did together. Most of the nights were calm and peaceful and included such activities as: looking at the stars while they had a little picnic together; reading to each other in her room, during one of those nights she said that he had the emotional range of "Royal Court Celestia" and then proceeded to laugh so hard she fell off of the bed; other nights just reading to themselves as they enjoyed each other's company... though the last night they spent together was less then peaceful. Luna had the "bright" idea that they were going to prank Celestia as a "farewell" gift.

|*|

"Luna, I don't think this is such a wise idea." Kitran whispered to the smiling princess, as she set a bucket of water on a magically created pedestal above her sister's door. Luna just suppressed a giggle and she attached the stick to the bucket's side, so when the door opened it would knock the bucket off of the pedestal and drench whoever was coming out of the room. I could think up a better prank in my sleep... and a more couth one at that... Kitran though to himself as he clung to The Night Princess' back when she flew away, the guards below them not even flinching the whole time as they stood there. Kitran shook his head as Luna giggled like a school girl when the guards were out of earshot.

"My sister is going to get soaked, It will be priceless!" Luna said as she laughed again, "It will be a prank for the ages!" she set herself up down the hall to watch when her sister would get up, with a huge grin on her face.

Kitran leaned close to his friend and whispered calmly "You are aware that dawn isn't for four more hours." Luna's grin froze on her face, then it fell off of her face as she stood up.

"Well.. maybe we should retire to my room and wait till da-", Right then her sister's door opened and the bucket poured it's content's right on her head... Followed by the bucket itself; which ended up tilted to the left side comically, with her right eye left uncovered by the bucket's rim and her mouth in a surprised "O" shape. Luna let out an amused snort as Kitran's face collided with his right hand's palm. Celestia turned her head to look in the direction of the sounds, and focused her eye on the pair of them.

Kitran looked at his palm and though to himself Now why did I do that..., then he looked up at the drenched princess... and noticed the blank expression on the unexposed part of her face. Kitran had seen Celestia use that face plenty of times before, when she was dealing with an especially irritating noble, and it was usually followed by a veiled but calm, threat to the noble's fortune.

"Oh dear sister, would you come here?" Celestia asked in a voice that was cold and calm. Kitran booked it as fast as he could in the opposite direction and didn't look back. Luna flew past him and left him in the dust, causing him to spin comically and fall to the ground. He looked up from his face plant to watch the Dark Princess fly down the hall like her life depended on it. Celestia flew past him even faster as she shouted: "Oh dear sister ! Why won't you come and talk to me?!" in a quiet voice that carried far beyond where it should have and sent chills down Kitran's spine.

Kitran laid there with his face just above the ground, then he noticed the hall brighten up slowly. He looked down at his legs and noticed that they had a golden aura around them. "Oh F-" was all the exited his mouth before he was sent down the hall as the same speed as Celestia.

Kitran finished his sentence with an "-ACK!" as he sailed right into a wall, luckily for him Celestia's magic had completely surrounded him and he didn't feel a thing when he hit it, then he bounced along the floor in what her presumed was the Princess' direction. "This could have gone alot better." he said as he ran into another wall.

"Tell me about it!" was the response from behind him, and Kitran looked back to see the guards from Celestia's room were following behind him. Like him they were cover from head to hoof in Celestia's magic, but they sported much less amused expressions... and Kitran's face was the stone carving it always was. Then one of the guards turned to the other and said "Why does this always happen on our shift?"

The other replied with an irritated tone in his voice "Because we always work the night shift, Gray, because we always work the night shift."

Kitran just raised an eyebrow at the pair and looked down the hall that he was, for all intents and purposes, was falling down. His initial estimation of speed was wrong, because he could see the royal white backside in front of him now, the tail stretched out like a ten foot technicolor streamer. At least I'll die with a good view... Kitran hear a voice say dryly looked back at the Guards behind him, but they were bickering about why they took this shift.

Kitran forgot about the voice as he had noticed that the White Princess was catching up the the Dark Princess, much like the day catches up to the night... and that wasn't good, or maybe it was, he couldn't tell anymore. "OH MY SWEET LITTLE SISTER! COME HERE, I JUST WANT A HUG!" Celestia called to her sister in the Canterlot Voice, which rumbled down the halls and woke everyone in the sleeping castle. A head poked out of a door as Kitran sailed past and he just looked at it as he passed, the pony was rolling their eyes, then closed the door after Kitran passed.

"Apparently this is a common occurrence..." Kitran said, then he yelled back to the guards, "how often does this happen?"

"Once in a blue moon, I'd have to say..." the guard that didn't answer smacked the one that did.

"That was a terrible pun, Gray, that was a terrible pun..." was his only response to his co-workers stupidity.

Kitran rolled his eyes then pointed them forward and noticed that Celestia was right on her sister's tail, literally actually. Celestia wrapped her hooves around her sister's back legs and Luna whinnied in shock. Celestia pulled down but only succeeded in losing her grip on her sisters legs, then she tried to grab Luna once more but her sister was just out of reach. Celestia closed the gap once more and managed to grab her sister around the waist and pin Luna's wings underneath herself... then she stopped flapping her own wings and Kitran's last thoughts before the Princesses slammed into the floor ever so regally were This will end well...

After the dust settled Kitran notices a sound, it sounded like laughing, "Oh great, Celestia's finally snapped... and I find myself unable to move... Oh joy..." He saw movement in the dust, and when he squinted to see what it was his jaw dropped at the sight he saw... Celestia was giving Luna a noogie and laughing loudly with her sister.

"Every time! I should probably just stop getting up for a drink at night, you ALWAYS get it for me like a good little sister!" Celestia shouted as she pressed her hoof harder into her sister's scalp. Kitran looked back at the guards, his jaw still unhinged, but they were already walking back to their posts and muttering, then Kitran looked down and realized he wasn't magically bound anymore. Kitran got up slowly, closed his gaping maw, and walked away slowly... only to find himself being dragged back to the quarreling sisters by familiar golden glow. Kitran hovered above them, hanging up side down, and crossed his arms as he tapped his foot on the open air. "Done yet?"

|*|

Kitran rolled his shoulders and grimaced as his gaze focused back on the real world, he was still sore from the amount of books he had to carry to Luna's room. Then there was a knock on the door to his quarters, "You may enter." he said loudly as already had Twilight walked in the room. He looked at her with an eyebrow raised, "What would you have done if I said you couldn't come in?"

Twilight blushed and said "I didn't think about that..." as she rubbed the back of her head. Kitran turned his head to the window in response, then Twilight ask hurriedly "How have you liked your trip so far?"

"It's been really smooth as far as train rides go, so I can't complain"

"That's because of the method of construction they used to make it: they would lay the wooden slats down, then put the rails on top of them like normal, but then they melded the rails together, with magic, to make two continuous rails that stretch from Canterlot to Ponyville!" Twilight spewed out quickly. Kitran graced her with another eyebrow raise as the purple pony blushed brightly. "I'm sorry... I get excited about the things I read..." She then inspected the suddenly interesting seat beside her as she sat down.

"I understand your an accomplished Magician slash Mage yourself, correct?" She nodded her head excitedly, so Kitran continued "I've been curious about the whole "Magic" thing myself, and books don't make things quite understandable for me on this subject, so I was wondering if you could tell me about it's functions and properties." Twilight went from excited to still very quickly. Kitran blinked rapidly, confused by what just transpired. "Are you alright, Twilight?"

She opened her eyes as she said "Just gathering my thoughts; since your new to this I'll have to start with what I learned in all the way back in Magic Kindergarten..."

And start she did, she sounded exactly like a teacher as she listed of simple names for complex things and extremely simplified concepts of not-so-simple applications. She acted exactly like a teacher as well, Kitran even had to raise his hand when he had a question and at some points Twilight would even give him Quizzes. Kitran in turn absorbed the explanations, and even the illustrations that she would conjure into the air, with a sponges level of retention. The rest of the several hour trip was spent in this way, and when they train conductor's voice rang through the train to say they had ten more minutes Twilight said "Oh? It's already almost time to leave, I looks like we will have to continue this later... I'll give you homework." as she produced some paper and a quill and quickly threw together a few questions about the basic principles of magic, then gave it to Kitran before trotting off to her own quarters, humming a happy tune as she left.

Kitran looked at the paper, then shook his head as he read the title ""Test number one of four: quarterly grade test"... This is going to take longer then I expected..." a small smile graced his lips as he gathered his things together for transport, "I need some fun."

|*|

Kitran walk out to the train platform, and found it exceedingly crowded, so he worked his way to the door to wait for his companions. When he got to the door he set down his things and pulled out his "homework" to look at the questions; they were all things that were covered and he could answer them all right now if he had a pen on him, but he didn't. He looked back into the throng of ponies and, as expected, didn't recognize a single one; but he did notice that some were looking away very quickly when he looked in their general direction. He didn't blame them, it's an instinctual reaction to the unknown and no one was completely immune to their baser instincts. He looked around the train station again and this time found a short purple and green lizard standing not five feet from him, Kitran looked around and noticed that no one else seemed to notice the lizard.

The lizard seemed to be looking for someone, so Kitran decided he was going to help it. Kitran walked over, crouched down so he didn't look so tall, and said "Are you looking for someone?"

The lizard kept looking towards the crowd with it's claw above it's eyes and it's toes on their tips as it responded "Yeah... I can't seem to find her anywhere..." It sank down off of it's toes and dropped it claw with a sigh of defeat, "I wish I wasn't so short..." It kicked that the dirt sadly.

This is so cliche it hurts... A familiar, irritating voice said in Kitran's head as he said aloud to the sad lizard "I may be able help you look for your friend." The lizard looked at him for the first and it's eyes went wide.

"Whoa..." it said in a quiet voice, "Your not a pony at all..."

"No I am not, but I am tall." he said with his trade mark straight face, then proceeded to lift the lizard on to his shoulders. It was heavier then Kitran expected, but you learned to deal with heavy weight in his mode of employ.

"Whoa!" The lizard shouted as Kitran stood up, then he looked around "Wow, you are tall!" It put it's claw above it's eyes once more and scanned the crowd infront of him. After a few minutes of it scanning and Kitran looking at his homework the lizard leaped a little bit and said "Ah ha! There she is!" Then he waved and shouted "Hey! Twilight, Over here!"

Kitran looked up at the lizard and said "We seem to be looking for the same person apparently." The lizard looked down at Kitran's face, then his hand as Kitran had extended it. "Kitran."

The lizard took his hand and said "Name's Spike, thanks for your help." as he gave the hand one firm shake.

Kitran just set him down as he said "I had nothing better to do." as Twilight popped her head out of the crowd.

"I see you've been introduced, that will make things much simpler." She said with a grin, "Have you seen the others yet?" Kitran and Spike shook their head, then Rarity moved out of the throng with Apple Jack in tow

"You simply MUST let me make you a dress for your family reunion!" Rarity pleaded to her less-then-pleased looking friend.

"No." the less-then-pleased looking friend said with finality, Rarity pouted but said no more. Kitran noticed that his scaly purple companion's now heart shaped eyes were now jutting from his head in Rarity's direction.

Kitran was about to ask why his eyes were like that when Pinky pie popped up from behind Spike and said "Hiyah everypony, Kit and Spike included of course!" as she hopped from behind her scaly cover. Kitran wanted to say something about that as well but wasn't quite sure what it was he wanted to say.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew in over the crowd as Dash said loudly "You owe me twenty bits, told yah I'd find them." she said with a smug smirk.

"Umm... I don't remember ever agreeing to that bet at all, but I'll pay if you want..." Fluttershy said from behind her mane.

Dash just waved a hoof dismissively at Fluttershy as they landed in the middle of the group. "Everyone ready to go?" Twilight asked as she looked around the group.

Everyone said the affirmative, except for Rarity. "I just need some help with my bags, could a strong and handsome dragon help me with them?" She asked Spike as she batted her eyelashes. He blushed brightly as he nodded and then walked over to the heaping pile of bags that Kitran had managed not to notice till now, and lifted it up without so much as a grunt. Kitran had to convince his jaw with the promise of food to keep it closed as he watched.

"So we are off?" Twilight asked as she scanned the group once more, Kitran's response was to walk out of the door with his bags and wait for the rest to file out and took up a position behind Spike as the rest of the group moved along.

|*|

They walked through the town without incident and arrived at a tree/house thing. There was a sign in front of the tree house that had an open book on it, and there was a telescope on the second story balcony, other then that it looked like a tree with windows. "This is the Library, where I work and sleep." Twilight said to Kitran as she gestured towards the building.

"Reminds me of how Elves built their houses in the books I read as a child," He said to her as they walked closer, "That reminds me, where is a Hote-"

He noticed that he was walking in a shadow at that point, a shadow that wasn't a cloud's, so he looked up towards the sun and caught sight of a shape in the sun. It's feathery wings were beating the air powerfully, but it was moving to fast to make out the rest of it... it was moving towards them. "Incoming." he said loudly as he watched the shadow intently.

"Wait... is that G-" Rainbow started to say before the shadow landed in front of them more gracefully then Kitran would have expected.

"Hey Dweebs, what this thing?" The eagle headed creature said with as she inspected one of her fore-talons with feigned disinterest, "New pet?" she added as she set the talon down and looked at Kitran's face with mild disdain.

"Shut up, Gilda!" Rainbow said as she took up a boxing pose, which confused Kitran a little because he didn't know they had boxing here, "Leave us alone!" she said as she flicked a hoof across her own nose.

"It's a free country, Dweeb, I can do what I want." she said as her gaze turned to Dash

Dash was just about to lunge when Twilight quickly said "This is Kitran," she stared at Rainbow as she continued, "he is a new friend of ours, and he will be staying in Ponyville for a while if you need to know."

"Whatever, Dweeb, I don't really care..." Gilda looked back at Kitran with same look as before, "Looks like a Dweeb to me..."

Kitran was actually getting very irritated by the newcomer's lack of vocabulary in the insults department. It wouldn't hurt to throw in a "moron" or "idiot" every once and a while... He thought as he stared right back at Gilda.

"What brings you to Ponyvile, Gilda, I never thought I'd see you back here after what happened last time..." Rarity said with a flick of her mane.

Pinky giggled as she said "Yeah! You didn't seem to like my pranks very much!"

Gilda broke eye contact with Kitran, but he noticed just before her head turned away that one of her eyebrows twitched as she said "No... they were a riot, really..." She looked back at him and noticed he was still looking at her, "What's you problem, Dweeb?" she walked up to him and stuck her face right in front of his, "Do I got something on my face, or are you just retarded?"

Kitran raised an eyebrow as she breathed in his face, "I don't believe either are true, it's just polite to look at someone when your talking to them." He stated simply as she glared daggers into his eyes.

She broke of the engagement and said "Whatever, Dweeb, your still a retard."

Oh enough of this... He thought irritably as he said "Is your vernacular really that lacking or are you just a lazy fool?" as he continued to look at the side of her face. The tension in the area increased a hundred fold.

She turned her head towards him slowly as she glared into his eyes "What was that Dweeb?" the last word dripping with venom.

He continued unabated "I said: are you stupid fool, or a lazy fool?" He didn't even blink as she walked back over to him and pressed her beak into his nose.

"Did you just say what I think you said, Dweeb?" her eyes flicked between his as she breathed in his face.

"Depends... Did you think I called you an uneducated moron with no life or friends?" Despite the tension, despite the shocked look on his companions faces; Kitran was enjoying himself... He didn't like that, that meant something was amiss...

Gilda didn't even respond, she just took flight and flew off. "Whoa..." Dash said quietly, "I didn't know you could be so mean, dude." Kitran didn't respond as he looked at the ground with furrowed brows.

"Well... that was... unpleasant," Rarity said as she turned to Spike "Lets go to the Boutique, I need put away my thi-"

Suddenly Kitran was flying through they air, with his shoulder held in a vice like grip. "IF you like education so much, how about I give you some flying lessons?" Gilda said as they flew through the air. Kitran heard a collective gasp behind him as he flew higher.

The return quip was off of his tongue before he could stop himself, "Take you that whole time to come up with that, I'm sorry to say that in the battle of wits you have arrived unarmed..." She just growled and suddenly dived towards some trees.

She dunked him in the branches and said "Oops, sorry about that, I guess the "Uneducated moron" in me is starting to show." She barked out a single "Ha!" as she pulled him out of the canopy. After a time of flying around at breakneck speeds in sharp corners Gilda shouted "Time for the advanced stuff, Dweeb!" as she did a Loop-de-loop, Kitran f barely fought the wave of nausea, but caught sight of Dash in pursuit behind them. "Looks like someone has a stalker, Don't worry, I'll lose 'em!" Gilda yelled in his ear as she sped up once more.

"Get back here!" Dash shouted from behind them, Gilda's response was to drop Kitran, then dive to pick him up just before he hit the ground.

"Oops, lost my grip there, Dweeb!" she shouted as she corkscrewed back up into the sky, "I guess if I wasn't so Dumb I'd be able to hold onto things better!" She jetted back towards the library, "I think they need to see how good of a flyer you are!"

Rainbow was much closer now, about ten feet behind them from the sound of the voice that boomed behind them "PUT HIM DOWN!"

After a moment Gilda laughed and said "As you wish, Dweeb!" and she let go.

|*|

"PUT HIM DOWN!" Rainbow Dash yelled as she coaxed a little more speed out of her wings, Just a little further, Dash, everyone knows your the fastest flyer in Equestria... Her face flapped in the wind as she drew closer to Her Ex-Best friend's tail.

"As you wish, Dweeb!" was all she heard as she saw Kit sail through the air, but she zoomed right past him before she could change her course to catch him, so she continued to chase Gilda as she dived down and skimmed the ground.

She sped up even faster, gain she almost had Gilda in her grasp Almost... She reached her hoof out, ALMOST... Her hoof brushed Gilda's tail feathers. "Ah H-" Gilda flicked herself upwards and Dash just had enough time to say "WOAH!" before crashing straight into Twilight, a bolt of magic shooting up into the air.

"Ow..." Dash said as she rubbed her head, "You alright Twi?" Twilight just smiled sheepishly and nodded, then there was a series of crashes behind them, they turned to look and saw Kit lying on the second story balcony, with a telescope underneath him. Gilda landed beside Dash with a slight puff of dust.

"What a Dweeb, couldn't even take a simple crash!" Gilda said loudly as she smiled Triumphantly.

"What the big deal, Gilda, he could really be hurt!" Dash yelled as she stood up and stuck her face in Gilda's, "Where do you get off doing that?"

Gilda stuck her face right back in Dash's, "Well if he didn't call me stupid I wouldn't have had to show him his place, now would I, Dweeb!"

"Well maybe if you learned a new insult then he wouldn't have done that, Dweeb!" Rainbow yelled back in Gilda's face. They stared at each other for a few more moments before Gilda broke eye contact and mumbled a weak insult

Dash continued to glare as she flapped open her wings and flew up to the balcony, only to find a broken telescope and some branches. "Kit?" she said with more then a small note of confusion in her voice, "You up here?" She heard a door slam, so she looked over the edge of the balcony and saw Kit standing just outside the door. She flew straight down from the balcony and walked towards him.

Before she got there he walked over to Gilda and said "Oh Thank you! I needed a good drop on me noggin!" Dash stopped in her tracks and took a closer look at him, and noticed he was holding himself completely different from before; he was in a relaxed pose and rocking on his feet ever so slightly.

"Kit? are you-" she started to say before his hand flew up into the air and waved a finger as he made a "tut-tut" sound

"Don't you know it's rude to interrupt, Rainbow, now give me a moment with Gilda here..." he turned his attention back to Gilda, "Sorry about that... Now you helped me, so I have to give you something in return!" Gilda just looked at him funny as she leaned away from him, "Actually two things, it's your lucky day!" Then he did something REALLY unexpected, lightning quick his hand latched onto the sides of her face and he pulled his lips into hers. Gilda's eyes went to size of the moon and she flailed around, He let go after a moment and as she spit every where he said "One!"

Gilda gained enough composure to yell at him, "WHAT IS WRONG WIT-" Then he spun around full circle and hooked his fist right behind her beak, She spun around a few times in the air before landing into the ground with a dull "Thud".

"Two." He said as he knelt down and patted her unconscious face affectionately. He stood up and looked around with his hands on his hips, and a smile on his lips as he sighed happily.

It was about this time Dash reattached her jaw, but before she, or anyone else, could say anything thing Kit sprinted towards the center of town at a speed she had never seen him use before. The group watched him go, then looked at each other with confused expression on all of there faces as Twilight said "Did that just happen?"

Rampage

Wilhelm ran down the road as his arms pumped through the air like pistons and with a feeling of joy that infused his whole being "So this is what it's like to exist, can't say it's bad..." he brought a hand up and examined it with his sparkling green eyes for a moment as he ran, "No, not yet anyways." He grinned from ear to ear as he got closer to the center of town. "This is going to be great!" He shouted as he ran, "I can cause all the excitement and sow all the fun I want!" He hopped up and tapped his heels together.

"Hey Kit, wait up!" Wilhelm looked over his shoulder to see the group of ponies that were running to catch up to him, his grin widened as he ran even faster and turned down a side street. "Oh come on!" he hear the rainbow colored on yell in frustration, he giggled.

"This is going to be fun!" he said to himself quietly, "I wonder if they have hide and seek here?" as he disappeared into an alley way and watched the street he just left, after a minute his "entourage" ran past while they shouted for him. He giggled again as he mumbled "I told me it would be fun!" He poked his head out of the alley way and saw the pink pony's rear disappear around a corner, then he strutted out onto the street and whistled "Don't Worry, Be Happy" as he wandered back down the main road. After a few minutes he spotted a building that looked like it was made of ginger bread, "That looks delicious!" he said to himself as he changed course to "delicious".

He walked up the the building and, without stopping or slowing down, chomped on one of the pillars just outside the door. after a moment a look of confusion crossed his face "bif ifn't fandy..." he mumbled through the pillar, after a few more attempts at chewing he gave up and let go. "That sucks... but now I want sweet goods..." he said to himself sadly, then he walked up to the door.

When his hand reached the door handle he heard a faint voice say "Wait... isn't that him at your house, Pinky?" He walked inside like he hadn't heard anything, and was greeted by a bakery of lavish design.

"Huh, And here I was, about to ask them where the bakery was..." Wilhelm mumbled to himself as he made his way to the counter and greeted the stallion standing there. "Nice day for some baked goods, isn't it?" he said to the stallion as he leaned on the counter.

The stallion looked at him with an amused expression on his face as he said "Everyday is a nice day of Cake baked goods, what can I get yah?"

Wilhelm looked over the selection of fine baked goods for a moment before deciding on a delicious looking cake, "that one!" he said as he plastered his face to the glass like a three year old.

The stallion chuckled as he said "Okay, that will be fifty bits please." Wilhelm gave him a funny look, the rummaged through his pockets. After a moment he produced a fair sized bag that clinked and jingled loudly as he set it on the counter.

"That should cover the expenses, and keep the change." Wilhelm said with at nod as the stallion's jaw hit the floor, then he added "Oh yes, I was told by a miss "Pinky Pie" to meet her out behind the store, may I use the back door?"

"I... I can't accept this, It's way too much..." The stallion said quietly as he stared at the bag.

"Oh trust me, you'll probably need it..." Wilhelm said cryptically, "Or not," he added with a shrug "It's not like I'm psychic... Oh yes, The back door?" The stallion just pointed with his hoof as he stared at the bag longer and mumbled a thanks. Wilhelm whistled to himself again as he picked up his cake and made his way to the back of the store.

|*|

Mr. Cake didn't know what to do with the bag of Bits on his counter, I can't believe that he... i think it was a he... did that...Mr. Cake thought to himself as he said "I must thank him properly!" then he hopped out of his chair, then the front door opened and Pinky walked in. "Oh hello, Pinky, I was just going to thank your friend of his generosity!" Mr.Cake said as he gestured to the bag of bits on the counter, "He just up and gave them to us for no apparent reason!" He was grinning from ear to ear as he hopped a little in place, then he noticed that Pinky's friend were standing behind her.

"Oh really? That's great! Maybe you and Mrs. Cake can go to Manehatten like you always wanted?!" Pinky said as she jumped in the air happily; then she stopped mid-air, dropped to the the ground and said with a tilt of her head "Wait... which friend?"

"Tall, pale, brown mane, grinning like a mad pony." Mr. Cake made the appropriate gestures as he told her, Pinky giggling as he did.

"You should do that more, It's funny!" Pinky said when he finished.

"Mr. Cake, we really need to know where he is, he maybe hurt." Twilight said as she poked her head out from behind Pinky.

Mr. Cake thought back to his encounter and said "He didn't seem injured at all, but he said he'd be waiting for Pinky out back; He used the back door and everything." He pointed back to the kitchen. Twilight gave him her thanks as they all walked to the kitchen and out the back door.

Mr. Cake scratched his chin for a moment before turning to the bag on the counter and opening it, and then he smiled happily as he poured the bits, and nothing but bits, on the counter to count them. "I see your enjoying yourself." a voice behind him said. He turned his head and saw the generous customer from before.

"Are you really sure you don't need this, there must be a thousand bits here!" Mr. Cake said to his new found friend loudly, to which his friend put a finger to his lips and shushed Mr. Cake.

"Nope, don't need them at all..." The Tall one said quietly as he shrugged, "and you have a wife to show the world!" he added with a flourish, then said "Well, Time for me too be off." he finished with a wave as he walked out the front door.

Mr. Cake waved to him as he left, then he paused and said "Wait... Wasn't he supposed to be out in the back yard?" as an irritated yell erupted from the back. "Oh... I see..." Mr. Cake said as he returned to the bits and smiled as he thought of his new upcoming vacation with his wife.

|*|

Wilhelm smiled again as he walked out of the bakery and left the girls none the wiser as he walked down the road once more without a care in the world. He started to tap and act his way along the road in accordance to the tune he had started to hum to himself but was interrupted by certain rude techni-coloured pony, "HEY KIT!" she yelled from above the Bakery, Wilhelm looked up at her mid-rum-igniting-Harpoon toss, "GET BACK HERE!" She said as she flew straight at him with her right foreleg extended.

Wilhelm's eye went the size of dinner plates as the amused look on his face dropped like a brick, "Oh yes... Pegasi and the whole flying thing..." She was already halfway between them when he finished said that, but he stood his ground. When she was less then ten feet away from him he dashed forward and underneath her, and kept running. When he heard a loud yelp behind him he looked over his shoulder and laughed at the scene behind him, Rainbow had crashed into the ground a few behind where he was before and had managed to scare the life out of three fillies. "HA!" He yelled at her as he ran, she turned around and took flight once more.

Wilhelm did the math and noted that she would be on him in seconds; so he made a hard right in the street beside him, right along the wall, and dropped down to lay in a relaxed posture, with his cake resting on his chest. After about two seconds Dash raced by him and kept going down the street at full tilt. He giggled to himself as she shouted "Get back here!", then he stood up and walked down the closest alley so the others wouldn't find him when they walked down that road, he wandered through the alleys for a bit before popping out and seeing the library.

"I'll go pay my feathered friend a visit, see if she's in the mood to talk..." He said as he grinned once more and whistled the "Tales from the Crypt Keeper" theme. When he got to the library he saw that Gilda was still on the ground with a dumb look on her face and stars spinning above her head. He went over and poked her face with a stick, there no response, he shrugged and poked her again, no response again. He threw the stick over his shoulder and said "Not in a talkative mood are you?" as he crouched down by her head, she mumbled something that he didn't understand and shifted a little, one of the stars above her head winked out. "Hmm..." he mumbled as he stared at the stars, "do these actually exist?" he reached out and plucked one from it's orbit. It was shaped like a normal five-pointed star and it felt warm and hard, like a jawbreaker that's been in your back pocket too long... he tossed it in his mouth, then proceeded to wave the air in front of his mouth as he panted "Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot!" he sputter loudly as he hopped and spun around in a circle like he was dancing to appease an angry volcano god.

After a minute or so he finally got used to it enough to stop dancing, so he rolled it around in his mouth and noticed that it was still pretty pointy. Then he looked at Gilda once more as he sucked on his new favorite candy and noticed that only two stars remained. "I'd best get out of your hair..." a confused look crossed his face as he thought about that "Feathers... Mane... Plummage?" As he sat there and thought about it he got tackled by a familiar multi-colored streak.

"I've finally got you!" She shouted in triumph as she pinned him to the ground, "You though you could out do me?" then she stuck her nose right in his face, "Fat chance!" she added with a smug grin. Wilhelm just blinked at her lazily as he rolled the star in his smiling mouth.

My, aren't we a narcissistic one? Wilhelm thought to himself, I knew there was a reason I liked you. Then he spat the star at her head. Dash ducked, which was the worst possible way to go because the star took up orbit around the top of her head.

"What th..." she mumbled in confusion as she fell over, Wilhelm pushed her off of him and looked at the dumb expression on her face.

"Oh my, Identical twins!" he said to the two unconscious creatures that were laying beside each other, both sharing the same look on their faces, both having one star above their head. "Oops... been here too long, best be going then." He stated calmly as he plucked both of the stars from above their heads and ran like a bat out of hell down the road, panting past the stars in his mouth.

|*|

Rainbow Dash picked herself up and looked for her target, only to find that Gilda was doing the same thing right beside her. They locked eyes for a moment, before Gilda said "See you later, Dweeb." and took off into the air. Rainbow watched her Ex-friend fly off before she surveyed the area, then caught a glimpse of Twilight as she ran a side street and yelled at something, Dash was off like a bolt of lightning.

After she caught up to her friends, she found that they had surrounded Kit in front of a clothes store. "Well, Hi there!" he said as he extended he hands, palms up, in a show of compliance, "Looks like you caught me... just when I was starting to have fun too..." he added as he sighed mockingly. Rainbow's friends looked at each other with raised eyebrows and looks of confusion, but Rainbow watched him like a hawk, She noticed that his eyes kept flicking from the gap between Apple Jack and Fluttershy, to Dash herself. He grinned like shark and dashed at the gap, she flew to intercept him; but when she heard a loud "Thump" she turned her head, and saw Gilda had Kit pinned.

"Hi, Dweeb, How's it going?" Rainbow heard Gilda say icily as landed close by.

"Oh I can't complain, I love the candies you got me, they are delish!" Kit said before he stuck his tongue out at Gilda, the stars sitting on the end side by side and cover in saliva. He pulled is tongue back in with a ding before saying "Want to try one?"

"First, I have a score to settle with a dweeb that looks just like you." Gilda stated even colder as she brought her face closer to Kit's.

"Well... If you really liked me so much..." Kit said just before puckering his lips towards her, "You could have just said so!" Gilda recoiled like she had an angry snake just try to bite her face. Kit stood up as she flailed away and dusted himself off, "Really everyone in this place is so forward: First it's Dark one doing the whole mind fuck thing... which sadly isn't literal; then it's the Techni-coloured eyesore mounting me like a horny dog;" Rainbow coughed as she shocked on the spit she had accidently pulled into her lungs from the shocked breath she just took in, "and then it's you, Mouse Breath, doing the exact same thing... You might want to be more original, like... oh I don't know... getting me flowers?" He said with a smug smirk, Gilda had recovered and was looking at him angrily as he waved a hand dismissively in her direction and turned towards Dash as he said "What happened to the Old ways where the path to a man's heart was through his stomach?"

Gilda growled and leapt at him, only to be stopped mid-air by a purple aura as Twilight said "Enough." calmly but firmly to every one on the road. Gilda struggled for a moment before giving up, then Twilight let her down softly, Gilda gave Kit a dirty look but held her ground. Twilight turned to Kit and said "Why?"

Kit gave her a look like he thought she was stupid and said "Because it's fun?" in a confused manner that was also a statement of fact.

"It's fun tormenting those who are trying to befriend you?" Twilight asked she she took a step towards him, with a look of confused irritation on her face.

"Yup!" He stated as he nodded strongly enough to hop in place.

Rainbow couldn't help it anymore, she had to speak "Hey! What's the big idea, huh?" she said as she flew up to his face, "All we are trying to do is to be your friend, what's your problem?" She poked his chest, then poked it again, even harder as she said "Tell me Kit!"

Kit's smile didn't mover as he said "You aren't talking to Kit," and he added with a flourish "You are talking to Wilhelm, The Badass and unstoppable." He finished with a bow.

Everyone on the road exchanged glances of confusion before Fluttershy said quietly "What happened to Kit then?" He looked at he and she squeaked as she hid behind Twilight.

"Oh, him?" He asked carelessly, then with a wave of his hand he added "TKO'd on round one Vs. Mouse Breath."

"So it wasn't Kit who kissed then knocked out Gilda over there?" Rainbow pointed to the now blushing Griffin, "Wilhelm" shook his head, "Wasn't the one who lead us on a wild-goose chase across town?" again a shake, "And didn't knock me out using his spit?" "Wilhelm" laughed loudly as he shook his head.

"Nope, all me!" he said as he rocked on his heels just before dashing down the road once more, only to get hit by a bolt of lightning five steps in from a stray rain cloud, he flailed in the air for a moment before he landed on his back with enough force to launch the stars from his mouth into the air, and when they fell back down they joined the new batch of star spinning around his head.

A familiar yellow mane that framed a familiar gray face popped out from above the cloud and said "I just don't know what went wrong..."

Rainbow yelled up to her old co-worker "Nothing this time, Derpy!" Derpy Hooves turned her surprised face to Rainbow and smiled at her brightly before moving the cloud away. At least one of us is happy... Rainbow thought to herself begrudgingly as she watched Derpy fly away, then she walked over to the periodically twitching mass of confusion that was smoldering on the ground in front of her.

The rest of her friends joined her as Gilda said something slightly insulting and flew away. They looked at Kit/Wilhelm for a moment before Twilight said "This is going to be the weirdest letter I've ever sent to Celestia..."

Aftershocks

Wilhelm woke up and acted like he was still sleeping, after several minutes of listening he didn't hear anything, so he cracked open one of his eyes and was greeting by the vaguely familiar white ceiling that stared down at him. "Mumph mumph... mumph?" He moved his eye down and noticed a white demon was encasing his body! Oh wait... that's just a cast... He thought to himself sadly. I would have won if it was a demon... This shit I can't deal with. He looked at the rest of the room and noticed that it was a hospital room, That explains the scenery...He thought to himself idly, Now to break free!

Wilhelm flexed, twisted, pulled, pushed, tried to explode, tried to spontaneously combust, and may have inadvertently let of a little toot... but the cast didn't even wiggle. Well fuck, I'm out of ideas... Wait... doth my savior cometh?" He could hear faint footsteps down the hallway he assumed was outside of the room, they gradually grew in strength until they entered the room, then they rounded the curtain and... it was the purple dork, and she was wearing a surgical gown.

"I see you slept well!" She said in an overly chipper voice, "Now we can start with the operation!"

"Mmuuhhh?" Wilhelm said in a confused tone of voice as Twilight pulled out a chainsaw.

"Hold still, it will only hurt for a second!" She yelled as she swung the saw at his head.

|*|

"For the sweet love of Satan and all that is unholy!" Wilhelm yelled as he bolted up in his hospital bed, "That shit was fucked up!" He looked around the room and saw a familiar purple dork in a chair beside him, holding a book up with magic and giving him a very confused look.

"What's a "Satan"?" She asked with a tilt of her head.

"Fuck you and your chainsaw, that's what!" Wilhelm said loudly as he tried to move further away from her, then realized his hands and legs were bound to the bed.

"What's a "chainsaw"?"

"A mechanical instrument designed for cutting through trees that utilizes a bladed chain... a "Chain" used to "Saw"." He answered in a polite conversational tone.

"Oh... Why would I have one of those?" Twilight inquired with confused look spread across her features, "I'm a librarian, not a lumber jack"

Wilhelm shuttered as he said "Those are the ones you should always suspect to have a hidden-surprise-surgery chainsaw... Now get away from me." He tried to scoot even further away, but to no avail. Twilight raised an eyebrow at him as a smile spread across her face.

"Your a strange one, you know that?" Twilight chuckled as Wilhelm hissed at her like a cat, then the door closed and Twilight looked over towards the sound and said "Oh, Princess Luna," -Wilhelm's eyes grew to a size that would rival the mare in the moon's- "I'm glad to see you could make it on such short notice."

Luna rounded the corner as she said "Oh it was no problem, Twilight, I don't need to be in Canterlot to raise the moon and my sister deals with most of the court anyways." She turned her head to Wilhelm, "How is our-" She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him.

Wilhelm raised his right hand as high as he could as a scared smile crossed his face and said "Uhh... Hi?"

Luna's wings snapped open and her horn charged with power as Wilhelm slammed into the bed, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH KIT, YOU LOATHSOME COCKROACH?!" She bellowed at him as she stuck her face an inch from his.

Wilhelm's left eye barely twitched before Twilight got up from her chair and shouted "Princess! That is him... kindof..." She scratched the back of her head with a forehoof as the steam ran out in her train of thought, "I'm not quite sure how it works myself..."

Luna's voice dropped to normal volume, but the rest of her didn't change a bit, as she stated "I'm quite aware of that, Twilight, and I know that Kit is in his head somewhere..." She leaned even closer and her eyes gained vertical slits as she said in a whisper, "and I'm going to haunt each and every dream he has until he gives back my dear friend..." as her voice trailed of a predatory smile crept across her face.

Wilhelm shivered in his spot for a moment as he wondered if he wet the bed or not, after coming to the conclusion that he didn't he answered her threat: "Eep!" Then he fainted

|*|

Luna looked at the abomination that inhabited her friends body with cold reptilian eyes, then he squeaked and fainted. "Coward..." she whispered as she pulled her head away while her eyes shifted back to their normal, circular selves. "Twilight, why didn't you tell me it was Wilhelm?" she asked as she turned to the purple unicorn

Twilight looked at the unconscious man as she said, "I didn't know it was a different person, I thought he was just toying with us like he was before." She looked at Luna with a down trodden look on her face.

Luna walked over to Twilight and put a hoof on her shoulder as she sighed and said quietly "He is the same person... but not... it's hard to explain, but the easiest way would be to say he is split down the middle; one is order, the other chaos." she looked at the body of her sleeping friend, "I like the one who is law..." She blushed a little and turned away, "Not that you don't already know that."

The body on the bed opened it's eyes and looked at the two ponies, and Luna watched at his eyes shifted from a sparkling green to a familiar piercing blue as he said in a familiar monotonous voice that may have been laced with irritation, "What did he do?"

Luna smiled as Twilight said with a perplexed tone, "Umm... don't you know what he did, since he is... well, you?" her hoof hovered in the air infront of her as her ears were quirked at an odd angle.

"That may be true from me to him, but he is so scatter brained and prone to distraction that I cannot make out most of what he does... I am sorry if that is a problem for you."

Twilight didn't look convinced and she opened her mouth to ask another question when Luna piped up happily, "I'm just happy your okay, Kit, you were shocked pretty badly."

"Hmm?" Kit trained his eyes on her face as he raised an eyebrow, "How?"

Twilight rubbed the back of her head as Luna gestured at her to relay the story, "Well... We had you cornered by a clothes shop, then when you tried to run you got struck by lightning..."

"Oh, I see." Kit said with a slight nod of his head.

"Honestly, I'm surprised your still alive," Twilight continued, "from what I could tell it hit you right in the head..." she looked at the bandage on the left side of his cranium.

Kit went to reach up and touch the bandage, but was stopped by his restraints, and stated calmly "It seems to be a family trait to be resistant to electricity, that and being terribly unlucky."

Luna walked over as she undid the restraints and hugged him "I'm happy to see you, I was worried when Twilight sent my sister the letter." Kit looked at Twilight as Luna pushed his head into a quizzical position and blinked slowly.

Twilight giggled at Kit's expense, "It's good to know we won't be dealing with that joker anymore." she said with a relieved sigh.

Kit continued to look at Twilight as Luna's hug reached awkward length status, which didn't bother him in the slighest, as he said calmly, "No, actually, you will have to deal with him as often as he decides."

Luna let go of him and stared him in the eye as Twilight muttered under her breath irritably and they both said at they same time, in different tones, "What?"

"I never had him under control, he just didn't know how to "work the door", so to speak."

"So your saying he could just pop up at anytime?" Twilight asked irritably as her eye twitched with the same emotion.

"Not quite, he has to take control when I go to regain consciousness..." Luna looked at him with a confused look on her face as she set her fore hooves back on the ground, "He has to beat me to the controls would be the best way to describe it."

Twilight face hoofed as she muttered to herself, "So I could wake up on any morning to find my house trashed by him... great..."

Kit looked at her with his own perplexed look, "What do you mean, I was going to stay in a hotel."

Twilight looked back up at him with a completely unchanged expression, "You have to have bits for that... And Wilhelm spent them all on a cross between a cake and as a gift."

Kit blinked a few times in what seemed to be a calculation, then he stated as simply as can be "Fuck."

Luna looked at him with wide eyes, "Kit! I've never heard you use that language before!" she said with shocked indignation.

"Just never had a chance to finish saying it before..." He replied as he stuck his face in his palm, "Know of anyone who needs work in town, Twilight?"

Twilight tapped her forehead as she stared at the ground for a moment, before she slowly raised her head and said quietly "I know the Apples are planting their Zap Apples soon... And they always need to do that quickly, So they might let you help."

Kit tilted his head like a bird at Twilight and said "What is a "Zap Apple"?"

|*|

Kit raised an eyebrow at the dead looking trees that stood in front of him as he asked "Is this the right field?" Then he added "Ow." Then Granny Smith smacked him across the head with her cane.

"Don't you hear the Timber Wolves howling, Whippersnapper?" Granny asked irritably. Kit listened to the wind for a moment before shaking his head, which earned him another smack. "Young'uns these days, can't listen with the ears they were born with." Granny shook her head as dark clouds rolled in out of nowhere. Then dark clouds rolled in over the orchard and the trees sparked lightly before the leaves grew exponentially almost instantly.

"That is fascinating..." Kit trailed off as he stared as the nimbus of light that surround the trees dimmed and died, "I... wait..." he stared a little harder at the trees, "are they absorbing the lightning?"

"Darn tootin', why else would they be called "Zap apples"?" Granny replied with indignation, "Where did you get this Whippersnapper?"

Applejack coughed nervously as she watched Kit walk towards the trees slowly, "Uh, Twilight!" She looked at her friend nervously, "Why is he going to work for us agai-" A loud crack cut her off and they watched Kit sail through the air, when he landed Twilight and Applejack ran over to him as Granny huffed in indignation.

"Serves him right, should have listened to his elders..." Then Granny left to get her Bunny suit.

Kit looked up at the sky as it cleared to blue with his lips trembling lightly, Twilight tensed up in anticipation of another "Fun" time with Wilhelm. Kit just continued to lay there and move his lips, Twilight's ear twitched and when she leaned in closer she realized that he was saying something. Kit shot up as a smile spread across his face, it was a smile that made Twilight's skin crawl, and he ran back up to the tree and started circling it, all the while mumbling to himself through that Creepy smile.

Applejack shuttered beside Twilight, then leaned over and whispered in her friends ear, "That smile reminds me of your's during the "Want it, need it" Fiasco..." All Twilight could do was nod as Kit shook his hand in reaction to shocking himself again.

|*|

Kit's mind was racing from the implications of harnessing the tree's power, It could power a technological revolution, it could start them on a path to- His train of thought was forcefully derailed by Granny Smith's cane, "Ow." he said quietly as he turned his head and had a bunny suit stuffed in his face.

"Git yer suit on, Whippersnapper, It's time to do the bunny hop." Granny said in a no-nonsense tone. Kit blinked at her a few times before putting the suit on over his clothes. Then he looked at the water pails that Granny had started to jump over and raised both his eyebrows before joining her.

Kit hopped around in a circle, over top of water pails, as an ancient mare chanted something that sounded like the alphabet, and didn't see this as strange in the slightest. Meanwhile Wilhelm was killing himself laughing in Kit's head, Kit could hear him pounding the "floor" as he howled to the point of almost passing out... despite the fact he doesn't need air in his current state. Kit just kept hopping as he started to sing along with Granny, who shot him one of her increasingly common No-nonsense stares after two letters and he stopped singing.

After a few minutes of hopping in silence they stopped and Granny wandered of as she mumbled something to herself. Twilight walked over and stood by Bunny-Kit and giggled, "You look very nice in that."

Kit looked back at the puff of cotton that graced his ass, "As long as I get my rent, I can deal with anything." He replied calmly. Twilight's face went red for a moment before she shook her head and coughed fakely, Kit raised an eyebrow and asked "Are you feeling alright?"

"Y-yes, just fine, Kit, but you have to deal with-" A sudden and heavy blackness cut her off, then after a second or two a ringing filled Kit's ears and he stumbled backwards for a few feet before he fell down hard.

After the wobbling stopped he sat there and fought off the nausea as the cauldron was pulled off of his head. When Kit could see again he caught sight of Applejack and Twilight rolling on the ground, lost in the mirth of laughter, and Granny holding the cauldron on her back as she walked back to the house. Kit almost said something, but had to keep himself from painting the grass a new shade of green.

Wilhelm just laughed harder.

|*|

Kit was pulling a cart along behind Big Mac and Applejack, it was their third haul and they weren't pleased with his progress. "Hurry up yah slow poke, we've lapped yah twice already!" Applejack yelled at him as she trotted along. Kit just grunted in response and kept pulling his cart along behind him.

I just love watching you do things! The familiar, insane voice in his head nattered happily, It's like watching a sick puppy get kicked into traffic!

Kit just grunted again and pulled harder, after a few more minutes he managed to get to the grove of trees that had sprouted an actual canopy the previous day and started to place the buckets underneath the trees that needed them... not that there was many left because his was the last set they needed. After the last bucket was down Kit sat down loudly in a clearing and looked at the trees, Applejack walked over and asked "Are yah okay, yah seem a little tired." Kit's reaction was just to tilt his head back and gulp air. "Uh... maybe yah shouldn't do the heavy liftin' then..." She trailed off uncertainly as dark clouds once more passed over head, and suddenly crows burst out of the foliage and flew around in a pattern.

"Is... That... An... Apple?" Kit gasped out slowly, Applejack just smiled as the trees sprouted vibrant blue flowers amidst the sparks that danced in the branches. "How... poetic..." Kit mumbled under his lack-of-breath, then he stood up and got the cane meant for his head in his shin, "Ow."

Granny Smith glared at him, "Hop to Whippersnapper!" Granny tilted the army helmet on her head as Kit found himself standing at attention, "No more shenanigans, if I catch you lazing about on the job again:-" She hopped up on her back hooves"-I'll tan your hide, then fire yah!" Granny dropped down on her forehooves again and inspected the trees like a general inspects her troops.

Seems like your having a bit of trouble there, Wilhelm stated slyly as he swirled around In Kit's mind, Maybe I can help with that... all i ask in return is the rest of this week, what do yah say?

Kit sighed to himself as he watched Granny shift all of the buckets he had set down ever so slightly, "Yes..." He whispered.

I think your forgetting something...

"... Please, will you help me; and in return I will let you have control of our body for the rest of the week."

All Kit heard was :Goody! along with a clapping noise. Then Kit felt his weakness fade slowly as he stood taller, then he looked at Applejack, who was in turn looking at him with a single eyebrow raised in a quizzical manner.

"Just talking to myself." He told her simply, all she did was shake her head and turn to watch her granny glare at one of the flowers on one of the trees, then with a huff granny turned away as walked back to the farm.

"Looks like we're done for the day, Kit, Ah'll take that back for yah" Applejack told Kit happily.

"No, I've got it... It looks like I need the exercise anyways," He responded casually as he hooked himself back into the jury-rigged rigging, "You have your own to worry about anyways." Then he pulled the cart with renewed vigor, causing the cart to shutter then slowly pull forward.

"Suit yourself..." Applejack mumbled to herself as she watched Kit walk painfully slowly towards the farm.

Kit waited till he was out of earshot before he said to himself "Maybe I should have asked for help earlier, when it actually would have been worth the headache..."

Wilhelm's Second day

Wilhelm stared up and the rainbow colored apple in the tree above his head and drooled, "That looks glorious..." he mumbled to himself as he swayed. Then Granny Smith tapped the back of his head with her cane, being much more gentle then before, and pointed at the Zap Apple Bucking gear that Applejack and Big mac were putting on; it was basically several rods that spanned the length of the users body and were attached to each other with lightly wrapped wire, all of this was over a pad of rubber that separated it from the wearer's body, and at the ends were metal shoes.

"It lets us kick the trees without getting zapped." Applejack told Wilhelm helpfully as she cinched up the last leg.

"Looks like BDSM gear to me!" Wilhelm chirped happily, then he added in a much more seductive voice as he wiggled his eyebrows, "It suites you well..." and Applejack stood there with her mouth hanging open as Big Mac glared a beam of intense hate straight into the side of Wilhelm's head, who turned and winked at Big mac and said "You look even better, Big Guy." Then he walked out to "buck" the trees, as he left he heard Granny fall over laughing.

Wilhelm walked up to a sturdy looking tree, tapped it a few times, and scoffed as nothing happened. He punched the tree with a "Hata!" and jumped back as lightning traveled down his rig and into the ground, "Cool!" and he watched a single zap apple drop into the basket beside him. "Muahahahaha..." he mumbled evilly as he practiced his sorely lacking martial arts on the trunk, and dropping an apple per punch as he shouted "Hata" with every punch. After about two or three minutes he was done with the tree and walked to the next one with a frown on his face.

"Not fast enough..." He mumbled to himself as he looked the next tree with a critical eye, then he shrugged as he kicked it like an Apple... a single apple dropped from the tree as it sparked lazily. "Fuck you tree, I hit alot harder then that!" he said as he kicked the tree again, this time dropping two apples and causing a stronger blast that traveled down his rig. "I see..." he said as he tapped his chin and zapped himself, "Ow!" he yowled as he hopped back and shook his head. "Note to self: don't do that."

He walked up to the tree again and kicked it for a third time, and then noticed his other foot was cold, and as the spark traveled back down the tree he looked down and noticed he was standing in a puddle that he had narrowly avoided before. "FU-" was all he got out before he flew back an into another tree, that zapped him and sent him to the first tree, which sent him back again. Luckily that tree was out of energy and he just bounced off of the trunk and twitched on the ground, "O-o-ow-w-w." he stuttered as he curled up in the fetal position as he heard a drumming come from either side of him. After he gained enough control of his body to stand up he walked over to the baskets and smiled at the fact they were filled to bursting, "New tactic!" he shouted as he jump kicked another tree, only to have the lightning spark from his other foot and into the ground. He landed at the same time as the single apple he dropped from the tree, "Newer tactic..." he mumbled to himself as he took off the rig and launched himself at the tree once more, which caused a chain reaction of short distance flights to other trees.

|*|

Twilight hummed happily as she walked up the road to the Apple farm as Spike slept on her back, she giggled to herself as he rolled over and mumbled something about "Mecha-whales". Twilight smiled to herself as she thought about the lunch she was going to surprise them with, and of course the little present she was going to give Wilhelm as an apology. She walked up the driveway and knocked on the door, expecting Granny to answer the door, but there was no answer. "Huh... that's weird..." she muttered to herself as she heard a strange noise quickly rise in volume behind her.

Then Wilhelm slammed into the walk less then two feet beside her and the noise cut off instantly, "AH!" he shouted as he jerkily pulled himself from the him-shaped dent he put in the wall, "Hi! Gotta go!" he said as he sent up a dust cloud and disappeared.

Spike pushed himself up on Twilight's back as he said slowly "Whoa..." then he dropped to the ground and looked at Twilight as she watch Wilhelm spasm and fall to the ground, only to pick himself and dart back into the trees.

"We need to investigate..." Twilight told Spike as she walked cautiously towards the Zap Apple trees, then she caught a glimpse of Applejack running around like a mad pony as she shouted. Twilight noticed the smile that was on her friends face, that disappeared for a second as Wilhelm sailed past her head.

Twilight waved at Applejack when she reached the trees, then Applejack cut off anything Twilight was going to say as she sprinted past by saying "No time, talk in ten minutes!" Twilight and Spike looked at each other, then the trees and noticed that they were almost all bare of apples, which wasn't usually done this early. So Twilight did the best thing she could do and went back to the house to set up lunch.

Twilight winced every time Wilhelm slammed into the house which, thankfully, was only two more times, but she heard him sail past the house more then a few times. Every time he ran back past he was cackling like Discord loud enough to wake the dead, after about ten minutes had passed Applejack opened front door and collapsed on the ground as she said "We're done..." as she panted loudly.

"Already?" Twilight said calmly as she gave Applejack an apple, which was eaten greedily as Twilight continued, "You aren't usually done for several more hours."

"Ah know, and we usually miss a few trees... But this time we had a helper that is insane"

Twilight chuckled as she said "No, he's not, he's just..."

"Crazy?" Applejack said as she lifted herself off of the floor and walked to the table as her brother walked in.

"Bonkers?" Spike offered helpfully as he set the table, only to earn a scathing glare from Twilight.

"He's Loopy." Big Mac stated as he sat heavily on the closest chair.

"Eccentric..." Twilight said forcefully, cutting off anymore "Helpful" phrases, then she looked around and asked, "Where is he?" Then he coughed loudly behind her and waved as she turned, jumped away and yelped loudly in surprise.

"Hi, I'm really energetic... so I'ma go burn some of that before I eat, okidoki?" He stated simply as he grinned widely and his eye twitched

"Okay?" Twilight said as she leaned away from him, then he sprinted out of the door... and on to the puddle that was at the base of the step. Twilight had never heard then noise that he made before... nor did she ever want to hear it again, but on the might-be-plus side she now knew what his skeletal structure looked like. Wilhelm landed face first on the ground, then he begin to pick himself up almost immediately, though it took some time before he actually accomplished the task.

"S-s-short c-circuits hur-r-rt..." He said when he stood up and swayed before shaking his head and turning around, "Now I feel better!" Then he sat down in a free chair and grabbed a plate. Twilight just shook her head as she served up lunch.

After lunch the Apple family, plus three, turned the Zap Apples into jam and it was well after dusk when they finished. Wilhelm yawned loudly as he finished putting the last one on the counter, "Welp, I'm going to go visit Rarity." he stated loudly as turned to walk out the door, only to have Twilight stop him with a word.

"Why?"

Wilhelm placed his foot on the ground, turned to Twilight, and said as he plucked at his shirt, "I need new threads." then he swiped a jar of jam and bolted out the door as he yelled and waved "Take it out of my pay!" Wilhelm ran down the road for a few minutes and, when he noticed that no one was following him, he slowed down to a brisk walk and sighed sadly "Aw... they trust me now... Wait, that's a good thing!" and he smiled again as he walked to the Carousel Boutique.

|*|

Rarity was working on Fluttershy's dress for this years Gala as she heard a knock on the door, "Just a moment!" She called out delicately as she set down the dress and walked over to the door, when she opened it she found the one person that she wasn't expecting, the only "Person" she knew actually. "Oh... It's you, what would you like?" she stated in a deadpan voice.

Wilhelm held up the Jam and stated in a rather business like tone, "I want to make you a deal." Rarity looked at him, then the jam, then him again with her eyebrow raised in a rather displeased manner.

"And that would be?"

"I want to secure your cooperation with me..." Then Wilhelm added in a slightly less formal tone, "Lets face it, you don't like me, and I don't like you."

Rarity gave him an amazingly level stare as she said, "You just hammered the last nail of that coffin, to use a rather barbaric terminology."

Wilhelm shrugged as he walked past her into the Boutique and said, "It's suites me well enough" and puts the jar on her work desk, eyed the half finished dress for a moment, then he turned around and looked her in the face, "Fun fact: you remind me of my sister."

Rarity shook her head in confusion as she asked, "Where did that come from?"

"I could tell you wanted to know why I don't like you, and yet want your help."

Rarity nodded her head slowly as she said, "The thought did cross my mind..."

"Well, that's why... My sister is a cantankerous, selfish bitch and you seem just like her... except less drunk."

Rarity's response was to fluster with rage and shout, "Why I never!" then she pointed a hoof at the door and said with a rather sharp tone as she regained her composure, "Leave... Please."

Wilhelm just leaned on a manikin and inspected it's neck as he said, "Not just yet, toots, I said you remind me of my sister, not that you are my sister." He wiped his finger along the side of the neck on the manikin quickly, inspected his finger and said "I've come to understand that your the Element of Generosity, which means your nothing like her deep, DEEP, down... But I honestly don't have the patience to find that out, thus the deal." He looked at her as she finally lowered her hoof, but she kept the withering glare.

"And that is?" she asked in a plainly displeased voice.

Wilhelm pushed off the manikin lightly and said "It's rather simple really, I'll dig for gems for free, and I get one favor from you."

"No deal." She said almost immediately.

"It's nothing bad-"

"No." she stomped her hoof in punctuation and pointed at the door, "Leave."

Wilhelm looked away for a full minute before he looked at her with a completely dead pan expression, his demeanor completely changed from before, Rarity blink in confusion just before he said quietly "I need your help," he sighed sadly before continuing just as quietly as before, "I want... I want to be whole."

Rarity shook her head in confusion for the second time that night, then asked "What?"

He looked down to the side as he said "I... Just need your help... Okay." He looked her straight in the eyes as he kept the deadpan look and asked quietly "Yes or no?"

Rarity looked around the room nervously, then Wilhelm walked past her as he said "I need to know, but there is no rush, take your time." then he walked out the door, turned to look at Rarity one more time and said as he closed the door, "I'm sorry about the insults... I-I don't really mean them."

Rarity stood in place for a moment, rooted by shock, as she thought about the whole encounter and realized that by the end the barbaric, insufferable, classless ignoramus was... crying. Rarity walked over to her work table, sat down and looked at the dress that sat there, then at the jar and decided she needed a light snack.

Wilhelm's day off

Wilhelm attacked the dirt with a flurry of irritated movement, "Oh yeah, I'll help you get your gems, if you help me." he mumbled in a mocking tone as he paused for a moment before attacking the ground with renewed gusto, "Here we are!" he shouted as he bent over and grabbed some rubies, "I always thought you had to dig alot deeper for these..." he said to himself as he inspected the fist sized gem that was buried beneath the rest, then it was surrounded by a pale blue nimbus and hovered out of his hand.

"These are absolutely wonderful, Thank you, Wilhelm!" Rarity declared with enthusiasm, "If we keep finding deposits like these, my dresses won't go wanting for a long, long time." With a flourish, all of the rubies spun into the back pack on Wilhelm's back.

Make me do all the work... Wilhelm thought to himself sourly as he climbed out of the pit he had just created, Your lucky I'm so nice! He grabbed the parasol that had been stuck in the dirt and followed Rarity as she hummed to herself happily, with her horn glowing faintly.

After a few minutes Rarity broke the silence, "So... How have you been?" She asked awkwardly, Wilhelm just raised an eyebrow at her and shrugged. Rarity opened he mouth to continue, but the familiar sensation that traveled down her horn cut distracted her, "Oh!" she exclaimed, "Right here, if you don't mind." She points at a non-descript patch of dirt.

Wilhelm stabs the parasol into the ground as he thinks to himself, Like the rest of this flat, desolate, rocky, hot, dirty... He continued to follow that train of thought as he pulled the shovel from over his shoulder and stuck it in the dirt. Wilhelm focused almost completely on his description of the area for the next half hour, pausing only to shift tools from shovel to pickax, and as he stopped to switch he noticed a buzzing, and as he looked around he noticed that it was coming from Rarity's open muzzle.

"... And her dress was absolutely gorgeous, it took me weeks to get the colors to blend in just the right..." she trailed off as she noticed that Wilhelm was staring at her with his head tilled quizzically, "Are you alright, Dear, is the heat getting to you?" she asked as she stood up from her highly decorative lawn chair.

"I didn't think you acted THAT similar..." Was all he said before he went back to work.

Rarity took exception to that, "What do you mean by that?!" She harrumphed.

Wilhelm stopped swinging, put the pick ax on the ground and leaned on it as he looked at her rather blankly, "I mean that you two could switch bodies and no one would be able to tell the difference... except maybe the fact that people might notice that fact you -being her- don't drink the equivalent of a kiddie pool in whiskey every night."

The two creatures locked eyes for a moment before Rarity asked, "What was your old life like?" Wilhelm shook his head, mumbled something, and went to resume swinging, only to have the pick ax taken from his hands. "You can tell me, I won't tell anypony." She added rather softly as she made a crossing motion over her heart with a hoof.

Wilhelm snorted in amusement and jumped at the pick ax, only to have it pull just out of his reach, so he cursed under his breath and looked at the less-the-amused looking Rarity, "Please?" was all she said.

Wilhelm sighed, looked at her and said, "Give me back my mining implement, or I'm done." as he held out his hand towards said implement. With a sigh Rarity complied and Wilhelm resumed swinging at the dirt.

After a minute or so of deafening silence, Wilhelm started to sing quietly.

"You load sixteen tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt,

Saint Peter don't call me, 'cause I can't go,

I owe my soul to the company store!

After a little bit Rarity realized that he was just repeating the same line over and over, "Umm... Wilhelm?" He locked onto her with an irritated gaze, "Is that all there is to the song?"

"Oh dear god, no, I've just got a terrible memory... Though I do remember that it was my uncle's favorite song..."

Rarity pounced on that like a cat pounces on a particularly fat mouse, "Oh, what is your favorite song?"

"All of them." Wilhelm answered offhandedly as he raised his pickax once more.

"And your sister's?" Wilhelm sighed and stopped.

"Which one?" Wilhelm looked at the increasingly irritating creature that sat so calmly in the parasol's shade

"You have more then one?" Rarity asked with a jerk of her head.

"Two." was all Wilhelm said. Rarity was losing him fast, she had to think of something.

"What were they like?"

Wilhelm was silent for a moment as he stared into the cloudless sky above his head, "They were good people I guess... Nina especially."

"Who's Nina?"

"She's the one who raised me, my parents sent me to the capitalist west with hopes that my uncle wou-" Wilhelm stopped abruptly as he noticed the accent creeping into his voice. Wilhelm looked back down from the sky and glared daggers at Rarity. "Thanks for dredging THAT up." He growled before he assaulted the hole once more, Rarity shied away.

Rarity bit her lip as she looked at the dirt by her chair and thought about how she could fix this, she cast a sidelong glance at the now raging Wilhelm as he hacked at the dirt. Oops... she studied him for a little longer before she decide to say something, "I'm sorry, Wilhelm, I didn't mean-"

Wilhelm stopped swinging and stood stock still with his eyes wide open, then he slowly turned his head towards her with a look of pure shock on his face and said "This isn't how I expected to die." in a deceptively calm tone before Rarity felt the ground shake and he disappeared in a plume of dust.

"WILHELM!" Rarity shouted as she jumped from her chair and was almost hit by the pickax that had been spinning in the cloud as it plunged full length in the ground on the edge of the hole in front of her face.

|*|

Kit awoke with his face in the dirt and a mild pressure on his back, after a moment to blink away the stars he tried to push himself up, only to aggravate his apparently ANGRY shoulder. With a pained grunt he turned his head and immediately noticed his left shoulder was dislocated and that he was buried up to his shoulder blades in dirt and loose soil. "What did he do?" He asked the air as he stretched his right arm in front of himself... and grasped a cold metal.

He looked forward but was met with complete darkness as he pulled with all of the strength he could muster, which didn't move him an inch, so he moved his hand to his dislocated shoulder and moved it to the front of the socket... which he then slammed into the ground. "GAH!" tore it's way out of his mouth as the shoulder relocated it's self and his head fell back to the ground in agony, "What DID he do?" he said between pained breaths as he extended both of his arms forward and grasped the metal again and, after resting a moment, pulled with all of his strength once more and managed to pull himself out of the dirt, leaving a large portion resting on his back.

Kit rolled to his right and found the "patch of dirt" was attached to him by straps that went over his shoulders, he looked back at the dirt pile he had pulled himself out of and realized it was originally only up to his waist and blocked of that end of the tunnel. He pulled himself to the side and, when he ran into the wall, a clang issued from a few inches above his head, so he reached for it and found the shovel that was attached to the "Dirt pack" which jingled ever so slightly. Kit pulled himself up the wall and took a step forward, only to collapse as his left foot hit the floor. "That one is broken." hissed between his lips as he grabbed the shovel on his back and lifted himself up.

Kit surveyed the tunnel in front of him and was again met with absolute darkness, "That's not helpful at all." he looked once again over his shoulder and noticed the faintly glowing motes of dust in the air, "Must have been in the dirt..." Then he walked along the wall, one hand on the wall and on grasped firmly on the shovel, after what was probably minutes, but seemed like hours, Kit found himself standing in a cross path in the tunnels and immediately pulled himself back to the wall he was on before. "Keep your hand on the right wall to escape a maze..." He muttered to himself as he went to round the corner, only to hear something ruble towards him. He plastered himself against the wall on the original tunnel as the sound rumbled in front of him... then beside him as it made it's way towards his point of entry. Kit was frozen in place, No lights, no sounds other then that constant rumbling and it DIDN'T follow the track. The sound had moved too fluidly. Kit made a sudden realization, I'm going to die in here. and that paralyzed him more then anything even as the grinding slowly faded. He could feel the tears forming in his eyes, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't wan-

An elderly male voice pierced his growing fear like a dart, Calm down, think... It's what your good at.

Think? With death looming just in front of my face? YOU CAN'T ESCAPE DEATH! Kit slowly rocked against the wall.

Fine, die, if you think that's the best course of action... Though I doubt your friends would like that very much.

That grounded Kit, I... thank you. There was no response as Kit reached up and wiped the tears from his eyes, then he noticed the scratched on the back of his hand... then he noticed he could SEE his hand, "What?" he whispered as he followed the light and promptly hid around the corner he was previously scared of as he stared at the... THING that was lowly making it's way back up the tunnel.

The most defining trait was the glyphs that ran along it's whole length, they spiraled from top to bottom, front to back and looked like a series of circles and lines with letters all long both sides of every line. Then there was the fact it was as long as three or four carts and had a vaguely humanoid torso that was topped with a vaguely serpentine head minus eyes, nose, mouth, or anything else that could be considered a real feature. As it moved Kit realized that the creature was grinding the track up and leaving no trace behind it and... and it's tail... body thing was made of boulders that rolled like wheels, or bearings, and Kit couldn't actually see any connecting points that tied the boulders together.

The creature rumbled calmly along it's path, destroying track and illuminating the entire tunnel for about ten feet past itself in either direction and turned down the other length of path that was across from Kit, so he chased after it, Something that big has VERY few predators...

Hopefully.

In the dark

Kit hopped slowly behind the creature as it rumbled along the tunnels, turning here and there at seemingly random intervals, and was awed by the creature's aspects. Despite the Glyphs being a bright white, they shed a red light that preserved what little vision that Kit had in the dark as long as he didn't look directly at the creature... the "Golem", as he preferred to call it. The boulders that comprised it's tail were completely smooth and free of blemishes, and every once and a while, and at most one at a time, they would hover slightly above the ground and, after rotating in a completely different manner then the others, place itself back along the ground and roll normally.

As Kit was inspecting one of the boulders, a clear pure tone that wasn't too unlike an empty glass being tapped, resonated behind him and the Golem's torso immediately shifted from the farthest end to the end that was right beside Kit, causing him to jump and fall over. The stone construct stood stock still as it surveyed the darkness for a few minutes before it's torso transposed once more and it rumbled long it's way, Kit hurried to follow it as he fought to urge to look over his shoulder.

|*|

For hours the two being continued to wander the tunnels, with the only changes being the fact Kit moved to walk alongside the Golem... and the Glass like sound that resonated in the darkness behind them in a periodic, almost mechanical fashion. Kit was getting tired, the pace wasn't fast but it was all he could do to keep up with his injured foot and the pain in his shoulder was worsening. "Maybe I shouldn't have followed this thing... it's probably leading me deeper and deeper." He mumbled to himself. They came across a junction and turned left, like they had done several dozen times that day... though this time they almost immediately came upon a wall of wood.

The wall wasn't much to look at, sure it's size dwarfed even to Golem, but it was rotten, and holes showed in more then a few places, one of which was the door that once stopped unwanted traffic but now served as food for a disgusting mural of fuzzy, multi-colored mold like the rest of the wall. As Kit studied the door on the ground the Golem moved up to the wall and reached to the wood with it's arms, and when Kit looked up at the arms above his head as they were brushing the wall lightly, knocking off a small amount of fluff and rot. Then, without so much as a grunt, the Golem's torso did it's magic act and it moved back down the tunnel.

Should I follow it? Kit asked himself as he looked at the rapidly darkening wall in front of him, If there was an installation, it's only natural to assume that it has an exit to the surface. and with one last look at his guide, he realized it had passed the tunnel that they had come from. The tone that had been chasing him for so long resounded once more, his eyes went wide when he saw the tunnel seethe and roil and he ran.

Kit found himself in complete darkness, save for what looked like a doorway to his left, "Light means people!" He grunted to himself as he ran full tilt, only to drop on his face after two steps. The rock he landed on knocked the wind out of his lungs, but he dragged himself slowly to the door as he wheezed. The sound rang through the door behind him as managed to lift himself up and through the doorway, only to find it's accompanying door was no where to be seen and the light wasn't being produced by lanterns or candles, but mushrooms that clung to the ceiling at irregular intervals.

Kit ran forward and didn't fall flat on his face till after the shovel was ripped from his hands, and he could only watch in horror as it ascended slowly toward one of the mushrooms, dancing like a puppet on a string, and just when Kit thought the shovel would hit the mushroom, the mushroom bloomed like a flower and revealed what looked like a rock crusher and reduced one of the two things that had let him come this far to dust. Kit snapped out of his stupor when a chunk of iron the sized of a dime smacked him between the eyes. He scrambled towards the far door, being careful to avoid walking beneath the glowing death. Kit managed to make it to the door, he also managed to break his personal record for how far he had ever hopped on one foot, and when he looked back he saw the mushroom that had eaten his shovel was glowing brighter then the rest... and the snouts that were crowding the door by it weren't moving any further.

"They don't like the light apparently..." Kit said to himself as he turned and hopped down the hall, "I hope that luck holds up."

|*|

Kit wandered blindly, with no light to guide him except for the occasional "Crushroom" that always seemed to light up cross paths, every once in a while he would hear the crystal sound of his pursuers at varying distances and he smiled a little at the thought of them being lost as well. Kit wandered and wandered till he caught sight of a light that wasn't on the roof, but in the wall at the far end of the hall. "What's that?" he moved towards it, it was glowing a faint red and as he got closer it seemed to take the shape of a rock, "hmm?" he stood in front of it for a moment and looked down the halls to his left and right, then he stuck out his hand to cross to the other wall and his hand wrapped around something long, hard and pockmarked, not too unlike rusty prison bars. "Maybe it was a vault of somekind?" Kit wondered out loud, "So maybe it's worth something." he grabbed the glowing rock... or at least he meant to before the "Iron" in his shifted. "Oh shit." was all that escaped his lips before he threw himself to the left, narrowly avoiding the creature that erupted from the wall.

Kit ran as fast as he could down the hall, forgetting the pain in his foot, and almost knocked himself out on a wall that had sprouted out of the darkness, and when Kit hit the ground he threw himself to the side, but ran right into a wall... and that's when he realized the creature hadn't chased him, but had proceeded down the hall he had come from. "I hate this place." he said to himself as he laid on his back and stared into the darkness above him, then the pain returned with a vengeance. He seized up, suppressed a scream, and smashed the ground with his good arm.

As he blinked the tears out of his eyes he heard "That" sound again, though it was far away. "Absolutely hate this place." He stated simply as he picked himself up slowly and painfully. His hand touched he wall he had met face-to-face and he pulled his hand away when he got a splinter, "Strange," he said to himself, "I don't think any other walls were wood..." he ran his hands all over the wall, looking for a handle or latch, but instead his hands went around it where the walls should have met with it. "Strange."

He made his way around the wall and was met with more darkness, "Should have expected as much." He told himself as he step forward carefully, his right hand testing the air in front of him. "It was probably just a-" his head ran into something. He wheeled in place, until his hand hit what his head hit and he clamped onto it. He heard that sound again, and it was alot closer. "Great." he said as he checked around the beam and found that the wooden ceiling went down on a slant, "And now I'm stuck in a dead end." he said to himself calmly, then he realized exactly what that meant.

OH GOD, NO! He screamed in his head as he plastered himself against the wall, I can't die here, too many things left undiscovered, too many things left unsaid or undone! He saw nightmarish things coil around in the darkness, and when he closed his eyes they persisted. He started hyperventilating as he just repeated the word "No." to himself in a whisper.

Your pathetic, The older voice rang in his head, Nothing till now has even made you twitch: joy, rage, sadness, pride.

I have reason to be afraid, dammit!

If your pathetic ass tried to check the ceiling again, and you know walk along with it, maybe you'll find a crawl space, or an emergency exit?

It's no use, those- "That" sound shattered the darkness once more, and it was almost on top of him, OH GOD, NO!

Buck up, find away out, and get back home.

Kit huffed and he puffed but he still pulled himself away from the wall and checked the ceiling once more, frantically but thoroughly. And when he cut his hand on something metal, he let out a yelp of pained relief, "Yes!" he barked as he fumbled with it, found out it was a latch. "YES!" he shouted as he lifted it, pulled his hands back, and pushed up. After a full minute of pushing, he realized the roof wasn't going to budge. "NO!" he screamed, he knew that it would bring those things on his head, but he didn't care.

"Screw you!" He shouted at the roof, "Screw you!" he shouted at the dark, "FUCK YOU!" he shouted at the creatures behind him, "AND FUCK YOU!" he shouted at the latch as he swung at it blindly, and after a few misses he managed to hit something, though it wasn't the latch, and his hand shot through the roof as he was blinded by a bright light.

"AHH!" he heard through the hole as he sucked air like a root beer float, "What's that?!" he heard a young, rather feminine, voice say.

"SNAKE!" another, slightly less feminine, voice shouted and pain exploded through his arm as it cracked out a loud report.

"GAH!" He screamed as he pulled it back through.

"Snakes don't scream like that!" a third voice berated the perpetrator loudly, "Yah alright down there?"

"I've been better." He hissed through his teeth as he cradled his arm, "Could you help me out of this hole?"

A pause, followed by a shuffling of feet, Then, "Unless your almost as thin as your... squiggly appendage thing, Ah think we're gonna need some help..."

Kit looked back up at the hole and let his eyes adjust to the light, and his hopes fell. His "Salvation" was lit by an orange sky, and even as he watched the sun sank lower in the sky... and "Salvation" was through a thin slit in the wall, probably an observation slit if he had to hazard a guess.

"Oh no..." He said to himself as the crystal glass was tapped once more on the other side of the only other way out

The Promise of Freedom

Kit pawed at the dirt outside the hole that was only alot too small for him to escape, "Umm... That's not going to work..." came the voice with the southern drawl.

"I am aware of that, but it seems to be the only course of action I can think of right how." Kit replied as he looked over his shoulder and spotted a dark snout sneak around the corner, he pulled his arm back in and the creature tinged loudly as it disappeared. "What about you, girls?"

A few moments passed as they mutter and converse, then the slightly more butch voice spoke up "We can't think of anything... of only Rainbow was here..."

"You could go get her and solve both our problems." Kit offered in a deadpan voice.

"Yeah!" There was a quiet slapping sound, "She'll figure out how we can help!" Then there was the sound of galloping hooves

Kit thumped against the wall and sank down till he was sitting with his leg splayed out, "I just realized I hate kids."

|*|

Rainbow lounged on the wall of the town fountain as Twilight yammered on about some book she read one time and she thought about how that cloud looked like a train.

"Are you even listening, Rainbow Dash?"

"Nope."

There was a light smack, "At least your honest..." Twilight's crestfallen voice muttered to Rainbow's side.

"Yup, that's me: Rainbow Dash, Element of Honesty."

There was a pause, "Did you hit your head?" Rainbow laughed hard enough to fall off of her perch... and right into the fountain which cut her off mid-fit. She stuck her head up over the wall, gave Twilight a sour look and blew water in her face. "AH!"

"Hee hee hee." Rainbow chuckled evilly. Twilight looked at her irritably through her sodden mane.

"I'll get you for that..."

"Bring it."

"GIRLS!" Rarity's voice cut through the... Rainbow wasn't sure what to call what had just happened, but she was glad somepony stopped it. "Oh, Girls!" Rarity panted out as she came to a stop and Rainbow Dash noticed taht her mane was frazzled and her coat was streaked with sweat and dirt, "It's Wilhelm... He might be..." She took a big breath as Rainbow looked at Twilight and looked back to her panicking friend, "Hurt."

"Okay, what happened?" Twilight asked as she put a hoof on her friend shoulder.

"Well, he came over last night and gave me some Zap apple jam and asked if I could do him an unspecified favour at a later date-"

"That Pig, I'll kill him!" Rainbow huffed indignantly as she flew up and out of the water, spraying both of her friends and several bystanders. "Where is he!?"

"That felt good, thank you, Rainbow... Oh, and he didn't mean it like that, he was rather clear on that subject..." Rarity paused for a moment before she added, "He said I remind him of his sister..."

Rainbow gave her a look and opened her muzzle to speak, but Twilight cut her off in a shocked and excited tone, "You got him to talk about his past?"

"Yes, I was actually getting him to talk to me just before..." Rarity trailed off.

"Okay, he's in danger." Twilight said as she sighed and collected herself, "Save him first, Gossip later?"

"I'll never miss a chance to do that, my dear." Rarity said with a small smile on her face.

"At least she's okay now." Rainbow thought as Twilight got up, "But I kindof feel like I didn't help too much..."

"Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo's voice cut through the air like a knife, Rainbow looked around for her number one fan. "Down here!"

"Hey, Scoots, What's up?" She inquired as she landed with her elbow on the fountain wall and her hind legs crossed nonchalantly. Scootaloo ran over with Applebloom and Sweetie Belle in tow.

"That guy that stands all funny is stuck in a hole!" Rainbow blinked a few times in confusion at Scotaloo's declaration.

"What she meant to say-" Applebloom said as she glared at Scottaloo, "- is that Mr..." She tapped her hoof against her head for a moment, "Kit, Ah think it was, is in trouble 'cause we found him screaming in a hole."

"Then that's where we're going." Rainbow said with finality.

|*|

Kit yawned again, "I really am curious about what you look like." He told the creatures on the other side of the wall, "All I know is that you have a limb that looks like a snout, it might even just be a scent dedicated limb or your leg." The creatures tinged to each other in the dark, "Another thing is that you really are patent as well."

"Hello... Wilhelm?" Rarity's voice drifted down on a whisper.

"It's Kit, but he's here somewhere." Kit replied

Rarity's voice came out in a flurry, "Oh Celestia, I'm so sorry for getting you stuck down there, I shouldn't have asked to to help me today of all days."

Kit blinked as he metabolized the information, "Help you with what?"

"Digging for gems, like we agreed upon?" Rarity's voice conveyed on a confused tone this time.

"Hmm..." Kit mumbled to himself, "That explains the gems in my back pack."

"You still have those?"

"Yes, I saw no point to get rid of them as they at least make this hellish adventure worth while." There was silence, so Kit changed tracks "You don't have to worry about Wilhelm, he seems to attract bad luck like a magnet." Rarity stayed silent and Kit followed suite.

"Hey down there!"

"Yes?" Kit looked up and caught sight of a blue muzzle poking through the hole.

"Just wanted to make sure your still there." Rainbow stated simply.

"Could we please change that... I assume you brought tools?"

There was a long pause, "Uh..."

"A light at least?" There was another pause, "These things really do seem to hate light and I'm rapidly running out of that." He looked passed her head and at the more the half hidden sun.

"What things?" Twilight's voice asked.

"I'm not too sure, I haven't gotten a good look at them to be honest."

"Twilight's just nerding again, ignore her." Rainbow said with an annoyed sigh.

"Ms. Dash?"

"That's my mom."

"Light now, please."

"Oh yeah!" A puff of dirt made it's way through the hole as Kit calmly watched the slit of light on the wall slowly rise to the ceiling.

"You okay in there?" came the voice of a young filly with a southern accent.

"I'd like out of here, but other then that I have pain as a constant companion and the ground is uneven."

"So... That's a no?"

"I'm not dead, so it's a yes, it's just not great."

"I'm sorry about your arm." Came the small voice of her normally loud friend.

Kit subconciously rubbed his injured arm, "You were trying to defend yourself and your friends, your quick thinking was admirable... It just hurt." A small smile tugged at Kit's lips.

Silence was his companion once again.

|*|

"Hey, wake up, my legs getting tired." Kit shook his head and sat up, then he looked up at the candle that was being held out by a blue leg, he pulled himself up and grabbed it.

"You know you could have gotten Twilight to just pass it to me."

"Oh yeah..." Kit opened his mouth to ask her of she brought the tools, "Oh, and I brought some shovels and stuff!" Kit closed his mouth as the sounds of work crashed through the hole. Kit sat down again and waited in the flickering candle light and his friends dug above him and the creatures tinged beside him. Dust started to filter through the hole and Kit coughed lightly and the candle danced a little, Kit covered his face with his shirt, but the candle continued to flicker and dance.

"Oh no..." Kit said as a trickle of dread slid down his spine, the candle died and flared to life. "Hurry it up, please!" he shouted at the working ponies.

"It's not easy to hold a pick with hooves, you know!" Rainbow's ragged and irritated voice replied.

"If you don't hurry it up, there won't be a reason to shovel at all!" The digging intensified as the candle continued to pull it's Phoenix act. "No, no, nonononononono." Kit mumbled to himself progressively louder as the candle died for longer and longer periods, "Why didn't they just get me a torch?" Kit thought just before the flame died the final time. He heard something punch through the wood that blocked his way out, and moonlight trickled through the hole. "Right now would be a good time to QUADRUPLE TIME IT!" Kit shouted as he watched one of the snouts peek around the corner, "I'm going to die just before I'm out." He thought calmly as his body shook and his eyes widened, "Get a hold of yourself." he continued as he pushed himself into the corner and curled up in a ball.

"Damn it, boy, get your act together!" Shouted the voice of the Old man, "You think I want to die too?"

"I don't want to die at all!" He shouted as the snout slid out from behind cover and Kit could feel that it was looking at him.

"We almost got you, calm down!"

"I can't calm down when the Reaper's blade is coming down!" He curled up tighter and peeked through his arms to find the creature gained several friends. A hoof wrapped around his bad arm, "Ow!" He grabbed the hoof with his good arm and was pulled into the hole that they had just finished making.

"We got you!" Rainbow grunted in his face, Kit had never been so happy to see a sweaty horse in his life.

Then his pack caught.

"NO!" He shouted at the top of his lungs as he thrashed his legs and almost passed out from the pain.

"Don't yell in my face!" Rainbow muffled voice shouted back. Suddenly Kit was pulled back violently and Twilight almost let go of Rainbow.

"Careful!" Rarity grunted behind Twilight.

"Heave!" Scootaloo shouted as she tugged at Rarity's hind leg with her friends.

"Where is... Applejack... When you need... HER!" Rainbow complained loudly. Kit's hand slipped and Rainbow pulled on his bad arm. Kit didn't scream, grunted and ground his teeth as he grabbed the edge of the tunnel and pulled. "You'll... Be... Just... Fine..." Rainbow panted in his face.

The image of Rainbow panting underneath him for a different reason flashed in his mind for a moment just before Wilhelm said, "How you enjoy th- OW!"

"DAMMIT WILHELM!" Kit shouted as his nose bled a little.

"What did you DO?" Wilhelm asked in pained confusion, Decide to fist fight Big Mac or head butt a freight train?"

"Stop yelling!" Rainbow screamed in his face as his pack ripped and they -and the gems- went flying.

|*|

Kit and Rainbow rolled across the ground for a few feet before coming to a stop in front of everypony else with Kit on top, something smacked her forehead. "Ow..." she wheezed, He is really heavy, I can barely brea..." She looked down at the thing that had it's face buried in her chest and sobbing softly. Rainbow's eyes flew open and she looked around as she patted his back akwardly, "There there?" She wasn't sure what to do, he never really showed emotion and now he's bawling like a filly and latched on like a leech. It was kind of weird having someone she didn't care about just letting it all out on her metaphorical shoulder. She felt happy to help, though, she wasn't sure how she was. "Can I get some help here?" Rainbow gasped out.

"Are you okay you two?" Twilight asked as she tilled her head and lifted her eyebrow.

"Get him off." Rainbow croaked. Twilight put a hoof on Kit's shoulder and he just tightened his grip. Rainbow gasped in pain.

"Wha-" He looked up at Rainbow's gasping face, "Oh." He let go and Rainbow sucked down that air like it was candy. Kit pushed himself off of her.

"Good... Grip..." Rainbow groaned as she rolled over on her side something jabbed her side, she reached down and pulled up a fist sized ruby, "Stupid... rock..." She threw it lazily.

"Sorry, I just don't know what came over me."

"The thought of dying can be paralyzing," Twilight said as she pulled a stick off of a nearby tree with her magic, "Believe me when I say I know." She handed the stick to Kit.

"Oh, it's good to see your alright!" Rarity said as she walked up along the other side of Kit. "Sorry about this whole mess..." She hung her head

Kit put a hand on Rarity's back, "It's not your fault, but please no more." Rarity gave him a small smile.

"Okay... Though that means I'm going to have to re-negotiate with Wilhelm."

Twilight smiled at Kit, "Now, lets get you fixed up and give you a good book to help forget about today."

Kit grabbed the stick and hobbled forward as he said, "That would be nice."

Rainbow watched them go as she regained her breath in the dirt. "Need some help up?" Scootaloo asked quietly.

Rainbow looked up at her number one fan as a pang of anger worked it's way into her heart, "That would be nice." She grunted angerly.

Rainbow looked at the five digit-ed thing that appeared in front of her face, "Sorry about crushing your lungs and leaving you in the dirt." Rainbow looked up at Kit and the feeling of anger was crushed by a feeling of embarrassment as she took his hand.

"No problem, I'll just have to get you back." Rainbow told him as he helped her up, Kit's lip tugged to the side in what could be considered dangerously close to a smile.

"I would like to see that."

Wilhelm's First day at work

Wilhelm chewed on his cereal with a gusto that only he could grasp, spilling most of it in his elaborate hand movements as he explained one of his dreams to a groggy Twilight and and enraptured Spike, "I was flying through space on the back of a mecha-whale as I fist fought a oriental dragon made of LIGHTNING, when Poof!"-He shot his hands out at Spike, who flailed back in shock-"I woke up, It was pretty bad ass..." Then he looked at Twilight, who was inspecting her fore hoof very closely, and asked nonchalantly "So what do I need to do today?"

"Why are you even here?" she responded irritably, "Why did he wake up, instead of-" She points a hoof at Wilhelm angrily-"You." the last part dripped with venom, which Wilhelm didn't seem to even notice.

"Because we made a deal!" He piped up happily, then added "I made it so he could finish the day, and in exchange he let me have the week... He is kindof a dumbass when it comes to deals." He ended leaning on Spike, who didn't even realize Wilhelm was there until he lifted himself off of the purple dragon.

Twilight just grunted in frustration as she stood up and said with an air of defeat, "You're going to help the Apples water the Zap trees."

Wilhelm's eyes sparked with mischievous glee as he exclaimed in a overly chipper voice, "Sounds like fun!"

|*|

Wilhelm looked at the Zap apples with a sad look on his face as he said "The're so... Gray..." he batted at one despite the fact it was about six feet above his head, then Granny Smith smacked the back of his hand with her increasingly present cane.

"No touching, not that yah could do much right now anyways: those little apples are unpickable before the fifth sign." She told him sternly, "Now you'd better do your job today, because my threat still stands." She pointed her cane at him threateningly and he just moved it to the side with a single finger as he said:

"Have a little faith in me, I'm not as useless as I was yesterday,-" He winked at Granny -"Okay?" She harrumphed and walked back to the Farm house.

"Uhh, Kit?" Applejack started to say before Wilhelm slid a finger in front of her lips.

"Not that pansy today, now give me my job..." He rubbed his hands together giddily and giggled evilly, Applejack leaned away from him and walked to the barn.

She opened the doors and walked in as she said, "Your job today is to water the trees, Me and Mac can do the the rest." Wilhelm adopted a displeased look as she pointed to the mountains of water pails.

"Really, that's it?" He said as he gestured at the mountain, "If Kit was almost TKO'd by that, then he's more of a bitch then I though." Applejack winced when he said "bitch" but otherwise was silent, Wilhelm looked at her with his displeased face and added, "Well, lets get a workin'!" in a bad southern drawl.

|*|

"Yah know this would be easier if you WEREN'T on the cart." Applejack snapped at her uninvited passenger.

"Easier, but less of a work out, and If you want a nice stallion to have little foals with then you'd better work those birthin' hips!" He retorted as he hopped off of the cart and grabbed a few pails, then dodged drunkily as another flew past his head and smashed into one of the Zap Apple trees, he didn't dodge when it flew into the back of his head and sent him sprawling. "The fuck was that?" He asked with his head in the dirt.

"What was that?" Applejack asked him smugly, "You seem to have your mouth full."

His response was to flip her the bird and pick up the three, now empty, water pails and throw them in the cart as he gathered replacement ones and went to water the trees. After a few dozen trees he asked her a question, "What do you think of Kit?"

Applejack missed a step and almost fell over as she said "Wh-where did that come from?" Then her eyes narrowed and she added with venom "Your not trying to set us up, are you?"

Wilhelm gave her a look that relayed exactly how stupid he thought she was, and it was alot. "No, neither of us even LIKE you quadrupeds!" He told her with disgust, "I like my women to be shapely... your FAR too flat for my tastes." He poked her chest for emphasis and walked around to grab another pail.

"Then why do you deal with us?" Applejack asked in genuine confusion.

"Your the only sentient species we have so far come across... beside Mouse Breath," He told her flatly before he poured another pail on a near by tree, "Sven never really liked his own people either," Wilhelm chucked a few times before he continued "And look where that got him; Split into more parts then Star Wars and stuck in another dimension... or something..." He trailed off uncertainly as he tapped his chin, then he shook his head as he said "My point is: do you people find Kit to be... Well to be frank, the easier to deal with."

Not even a second passed before he had his answer, "Yes!" Applejack told him almost hysterically, "Sweet Celestia, Yes!"

Wilhelm recoiled like he had seen snakes in her eyes, then as he put his foot back on the ground and brushed imagined dust off of his shirt he said "Fine then... I didn't want to be your friend anyways." he finished with a toss of his head and grabbed a few more pails before stomping off into the trees.

"Oops..." Applejack whispered to herself as her ears flattened against her head, Then Wilhelm shot out of the forest backwards and skidded across the ground until his head in was between her legs and he was looking up at her.

"Don't punch the trees." He stated simply before he stood up and brushed off the real dirt, Then he went and gathered the pails that were tossed around the trail.

"Look Ah-" Wilhelm cut Applejack off with a finger and put the pails back on the wagon, before walking back to the front and lowered his finger.

"You've had bad dealing with me in the past..." He said lazily as he leaned on her shoulder, "I understand your... Unwillingness to deal with me further... But I was just giddy with life, the breath in my lungs, the wind on my face, and blah blah blah" He ended with his other hand moving like a mouth, then added, "Give me another chance and you won't regret it... look around you now and you'll notice we've finished this load."

Applejack looked back and saw a neatly piled stack of empty water pails, then watched as Wilhelm hopped back up onto the cart and made mock whipping motion, "Yeah I know, I know, "Birthin' Hips"..." she said with a roll of her eyes as she turned around and made her way back to the barn as Wilhelm kept making whipping motions and saying:

"Ha!"

|*|

Wilhelm looked at the cart he was on as he jumped off of it and unloaded the empty pails for one last time, "Sweet!" he said happily, "Done for the day!" after the last pail was stacked with the others he walked out of the barn and ran into Granny Smith. He tipped his invisible hat to her and said "Good day, ma-"

She cut him off with a stern stare, then her features lightened up as she said "My Granddaughter said you did a fine job today, I just wanted to let you know I appreciate it... maybe I had you pegged wrong."

"No problem, ma'am, happens all the time; Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get home and rest for the long day tomorrow." He tipped his invisible hat again and walked down the driveway towards town as he hummed to himself.

He walked down the road down to town as he mulled over what had happened that day and smiled to himself as he said "One down, Four to go... I'm going to enjoy this!" he hopped up in the air and clapped his feet together, and came down on something. He looked down and was almost halfway there before he found a familiar pink face staring at him in a unnatural posture, "Hiyah, Pinky!"

"Hiyah, Will!" She replied with gusto as she pulled her head into a more natural position and Wilhelm got off of her back, "How was work?"

"It was just fine really, I got to straighten things out with Applejack, and now I just have to work things out with the rest of you fine young ladies." He responded in a suave tone as he leaned on her back and stared into her eyes, she giggled and hopped into the air, which sent Wilhelm flying.

"He he, don't try to flirt with a mare you can't handle!" She told him excitedly as she hopped around him, "And I-" she stopped for a moment and pointed at her chest before continuing-"Am too much to handle!" She started to hop around him again as he stood up and walked towards town.

"I have a question for you, Pinky, What do you think of Kit?" Wilhelm asked her seriously, she stopped mid hop and dropped to the ground, then she turned her head towards him slowly.

Then she said "Meh, he's kinda boring." before she started to hop around again.

Wilhelm grinned from ear to ear as he said "Finally, someone who agrees with me... I hate how he's always like "Wilhelm, don't do that, you might get us hurt." or "Don't do that, you'll kill us" or even "No, your not allowed to end the universe" and then wrestles away the controls..." then he tapped his chin again and added quietly, "That one might have been a dream..."

Pinky giggled as she added "Yeah, and that face he always has!" she made a face that would have made the Easter Island heads look emotive. Wilhelm almost dropped to the ground laughing as he pointed and made affirmative gestures.

After a minute or two, Wilhelm finally gained enough control of his body to stand up and ask "So you'd prefer to deal with me more?" as he still chuckled a little.

"Well... as long as you don't run us around town again, then... Yeah, sure!" She hopped a little higher then normal as she added, "And I really appreciate what you did for Mr. and Mrs. Cake, they are going to be so happy when they go to Canterlot!"

He smiled as he said "I just felt like that he needed it more, that's all..." then he rubbed the back of his head and said "It's been nice talking with you, but I'd best get back to Twilight's abode, Catch yah later!" he said as he waved goodbye and jogged down the road.

|*|

Wilhelm walked into the Library and found Twilight reading a book, he didn't expect anything different. "Hi Twilight!" He said as he closed the door, she looked up at him for a whole of one second and returned her eyes to her book as she made a rather nondescript sound, "Well that was a warm welcome..." Wilhelm said under his breath as he made his way across the room to the kitchen, "I'm going to make myself some food, want anything?" She made the same sound as before and a vein popped up on Wilhelm's head as he said "I'm offering to make dinner, the least you can do is answer me." He told her loudly as his body moved into the kitchen and he left his head sticking out and stared at her.

She placed the book down and leveled her own stare at him, and they sat there from a few minutes, neither of them blinking until she said slowly "I don't trust that what you make will be edible."

He scoffed and responded with: "You don't trust me, you mean."

Her retort was rather lack luster in it's delivery, because she yelled it "Of course I don't trust you, you ran us around town, you knocked out my friend, and then you... you..." she lost her steam as she tried to think of what he did next.

"I got caught, then I helped a friend through some tough times... Yeah, I can see why you don't trust me... so just a dandelion sandwich then, can't fuck that up too much." Then he ducked his head into the doorway and went to the fridge, he reached out to open the door and stopped, then he looked behind the fridge and didn't find a power cord.

"How the hell does this thing work?" He opened the door and pulled out some nice, crisp lettuce, a perfectly ripe tomato and a bundle of dandelions that seemed in good condition, he didn't know. He turned around and went to the bread cupboard and pulled out the loaf and yelled to Twilight, "Is Spike here?" After a minute of not getting a response he added, "Because if he is I'll make him something too." Still no response, then he sighed and set down the bread and walked back int the main room, catching Twilight by surprise.

"Get out!" she yelled at him, the tears plain in her voice, after he walked over to the table and sat down in the chair opposite her she shouted again, with more anger then sadness, "I said get out!"

"No."

She looked straight at him as he looked at her cooly and her own features hardened as she said icily, "Out."

"And I said No." They had another staring match that lasted almost a half hour before he added, "You invited me to live with you."

"I invited Kit to live here, Not you." She retorted coldly.

He placed his hands on the table and pulled his face close to hers "You can't have one without the other, Princess, so I suggest you live with it... Why did you invite us to live with you, and I do mean US." he tacked on the last word with almost venomous insistence.

She broke eye contact as she responded "It was the right thing to do..."

"For a ticking time bomb?" He asked, this time it was his turn to be cold, "Last ticking time bomb I heard that you dealt with is sitting cozy in Celestia's garden right now..." He glared at her with an intensity that fire couldn't reproduce.

"We-well, Celestia had insisted that you stayed here, and my place is the biggest, and-"

Wilhelm just her off "Cut the bullshit, You lie like a cheap Chinese rug... and before you ask it was a country where I come from."

Twilight looked at him for a moment, the fear and confusion plain in her eyes, then she said "Why are you angry with me?" she cringed a little as she added "What did I do to you?"

For a genius she sure is a fuckin' idiot... Wilhelm thought to himself calmly as he slammed his hand on the table and cause the books on it to hop while he yelled inches from her face "Why are you so hostile to ME?" He raised his hand into the air and looked around the room as he added, "All I did was play a joke, I didn't even touch your friend!" Then he stood up and pointed at her with an anger he didn't really feel and shouted "Then, after you strapped me to a bed and got your princess to get rid of me, you go and invite my counterpart to LIVE with you, knowing full well that I would pop up again any time!" his hands dropped to his sides as he added sadly "Then when I try to make it up to you, you turn around and tell me to, and I quote, "Get Out"."

Twilight was crying again and it tore up Wilhelm on the inside, but he pressed on, "Just..." he lifted a hand like he was getting angry again and then let it drop to his side as he finished, "Why?" and he stood there till she gave him an answer, which was far too long for his tastes.

She was still crying when she finally answered him, "I... I just wanted to make a new friend, one who was like me... Okay?!" she shouted the last word at him, then she dropped her head again and continued to cry, and jumped when Wilhelm placed his hand on her shoulder and pulled her into a hug.

She tried to struggle for a moment before Wilhelm said, "You can't take one half of a coin, and you can't have him without me." She stopped fighting and cried into his shoulder as she sobbed out apologies and promises to make it up to him, he just patted her back as he thought about his future career as an actor and how much snot he was going to hand wash out of his shirt.