The cool nights, Night Rush had expected.

Fending off various animals at nights or whenever he stopped to rest, Night Rush had expected.

What he didn’t expect was the rain.

He didn’t know if it was a regular thing or if there was simply weather front so massive that it was indistinguishable from the rest of the air currents, but he was certainly impressed by the sheer size of it. He doubted that even Canterlot’s elite weather team that the princesses kept on call in case a hurricane or tornado happened to blow in from the untamed lands beyond Equestria could disperse it.

During the day, the rain didn’t bother him at all. He simply flew above the bloated rain clouds, dodging the towering thunderheads that dotted the blanket of clouds like gargantuan chess pieces.

As soon as he dipped below the clouds to find a place to rest for the night, though, he immediately became drenched to the bone and partly blinded by the stinging rain. However, despite the cold, hard rain, he thanked Celestia that it wasn’t windy or turbulent. Even this, though, was a mixed blessing; it meant that flight was made much easier, but it also meant that the storm front wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Night Rush sighed, staring out at the rain collecting in a pool outside of his cave. His first night, he had quickly found out that fires in caves were a very bad idea; the smoke accumulated inside the cave, and since there is hardly ever a breeze, it hung out in the cave until Night Rush was forced to leave and find another cave.

With most caves, however, the least of his problems was smoke. Bears—from your average, garden variety grizzly bear all the way up to Ursa Majors and Minors (Luckily, Night Rush hadn’t come across one of the great Star Bears while they were awake)—inhabited a vast majority of the caves big and small. He hadn’t seen any dragons yet, but even so, he was wary—he had heard that dragons could sense intruders in their caves even when they are asleep.

Night Rush stretched out his wings, fruitlessly trying to flap the soreness out of them. He was never the strongest flier back in Ponyville—never mind the fact that nopony looked like a very strong flier next to the town’s rainbow-maned celebrity—but he thought that he could hold his own on an extended trip like this one.

He was wrong.

Although he would never admit it, Night Rush had become exhausted on the first few hours of flight and had stayed that way the entire trip. His mind was never visited by dreams—he assumed that his mind was too busy trying to squeeze every last ounce of energy out of the measly meals that he managed to scrounge up. He had been tempted to use Zecora’s food potion more than a few times, but he ultimately decided that he should only use it if he really needed it.

He yawned and shifted slightly, brushing away a rock that had been poking into his back with a wingtip. He rolled over onto his back, hooves in the air, contemplating the roof of the cave.

Six days. It’s been six days since I’ve talked to anypony. Six and a half, if you don’t count Zecora, he thought to himself. Then, a pang of realization hit him: Six days since I’ve heard myself talk. Six days since I’ve smiled. Six days since I’ve been anything besides tired.

Night Rush sighed again. “These stupid plains are a lot further than I thought,” he said to thin air. “I sure hope Zecora’s right about the Princesses being in the plains. Although, I’ve no idea why they’d choose the plains as their hiding spot; there’s nowhere to hide there! Maybe they found a cliff or a mountain or something, and they’re hiding in the side of it. Or maybe a cave. Although I don’t really see why they’d want to live in a cave for a few years—I’ve been doing it for less than a week and I'm already sick of it. Not to mention, I—“

He cut himself off. Talking to myself. Not a good sign.

Night Rush smelled the small prairie town of Haysburg before he saw it. At first, he thought that he was imagining the smell of hay fries; then, the further he traveled, the stronger the smell became. Out of curiosity, he ducked below the cloud layer and, lo and behold, the tiny, sprawling town of Haysburg poked out of the flat, (formerly) dry land.

He had to squint to see individual buildings, but he assured himself that it was definitely there and not an illusion of some sort. He angled himself into a dive straight at the small town, whooping and hollering as he sped his way towards the patch of log buildings, not even caring that the drizzling rain felt like hundreds of tiny needles pricking the skin on his face.
He slowed slightly and started to glide over the rooftops, looking for something that looked like an inn—finally, a real bed! He thought—and finally decided to land in the center of the town to see if he could ask if there was a place that he could stay. He touched down (skidding slightly on the muddy ground) right in front of what he assumed was the town hall. He looked around to see if he could see anypony; finding nopony walking around outside, he decided to walk up to the front door of the town hall and knock. He raised his hoof, and…

… Stars flashed before his eyes and a blinding pain shot through his head, and then everything faded away to darkness.

Princess Celestia was a mare of few hates. She tolerated many obnoxious things, such as open court in the castle, unending ‘help’ from her castle staff, and cloud cake. However, if there was one thing that she hated, it was being asked incessant questions about herself by a throng of between twenty and forty kindergarten fillies and colts. Today, Celestia felt like it was more than fifty. The students were lined up in rows and columns arranged into a rough rectangle—a testament to the teacher’s skill with her students. Celestia absentmindedly guessed the rectangle was about twenty by thirty paces, but she wasn’t very sure—her estimating skills had diminished slightly in the intervening millennia. A small, painful buzzing made itself known in the back of Celestia’s skull; the questions from the fillies and colts were starting to get to her.

“How’d you get your cutie mark?”

“Can you turn my pencil into a snake?”

“Can you turn me into a snake?”

“Does anypony have a crush on you?”

“I'm hungry!”

A vein in Celestia’s forehead pulsed as she stifled a scream. Luckily, it was covered up by her flowing mane, so neither the students nor their poor teacher could see it. She had been answering questions without incident until now, when all of the students suddenly decide to start asking their questions all at the same time. A sideways glance at the teacher told Celestia that the students were going to be in rather deep trouble whenever Celestia left.

Every few months, Celestia would get ‘invited’ to give the students at Canterlot Elementary a ‘pep-talk’. In other words, Celestia would be forced to fend off prying questions by the youngsters until they got bored or got tired of asking questions. Unfortunately for the goddess of the sun, it was nearly always the latter, and the fillies and colts had an incredible tendency to be able to talk for hours on end.

Flower Blossom, the yellow-coated, white-maned teacher of the class that Celestia was currently visiting, finally managed to get her students (temporarily) under control. A purple filly’s hoof shot up, and Celestia nodded for her to speak.

“Why did you become the ruler of the sun?” She asked in a high, squeaky voice.

Celestia feigned thought for a moment—she didn’t have to think up a politically correct answer on the spot, seeing as she had been asked this question more than a few times—and then answered: “Well, my little pony, a long time ago, there was nopony to control the sun; instead, it simply made its way across the sky on its own whim. One day, I noticed that all the little colts and fillies were scared of the dark, and, being as loyal to my subjects as they are to me, I decided to take control over the sun, so nopony would ever have to be afraid of the dark again.” She finished with a warm smile.

“But why don’t you make it sunny all the time?” The same filly asked, cocking her head.

“Because everything needs time to rest, my dear. If it was always bright out, nopony would be able to sleep!” Celestia said, easily faking a look of horror at the thought of a kingdom of sleepless ponies. The purple filly sated of knowledge, Celestia said, “Who’s next?”

A few more hooves went up this time. Celestia winced inwardly; she had been answering questions for nearly a half hour, and she had barely made a dent in the young fillies and colts’ questions. She pointed with a hoof at a colt in the back that had a jet-black coat and a silver mane.

“Okay, so like, have you ever gotten married or anything like that? ‘Cause, y’know, all the other adults I know are all married and stuff, and… yeah,” he said, each word sounding like it was an incredible effort.

Celestia was prepared for this question, too; though, it was normally a filly who asked it. “Well, I’ve never really needed a husband or coltfriend—I’ve got my wonderful subjects, what more would I need?” As expected, a collective “Aww” rushed through the small crowd of fillies and colts. “Next?” Prompted Celestia with fake enthusiasm. A blue pegasus filly’s hoof went up next.

“Can you tell me where my big brother went?” She asked without waiting for permission.

Celestia fought the urge to raise an eyebrow. She wasn’t sure if this filly was being bold or disrespectful… “Well, what happened to him?” She prompted, actually somewhat interested in where this was going for once. It was rare that there was a question that piqued her interest, but when it did, she made sure to give it her full attention.

“Well, I don’t know! He just didn’t come home from school one day, and nopony has seen him since…” The blue filly’s eyes started to well up with tears.

“There, there, my little pony. What is his name?” Celestia asked.

The pegasus filly sniffled. “N-Night Rush.”

Celestia nearly choked on her own spit.

Night Rush’s world was nothing but a haze of pain and dark, blurry shapes. He blinked once, twice, three times, and the shapes cleared into the silhouettes of ponies—rather large ponies, for that matter. They had to be nearly as big as (or possibly even bigger than) Ponyville’s own Big Macintosh.

He parted his dry, cracked lips to speak and, as he inhaled, a sickening throb of pain shot through his head. Grunting with pain, he squeezed his eyes shut again and waited impatiently for the pain to fade.

“I think you hit him a little too hard, Bigot.” A filly’s voice. Young, from the sound of it. He must not have seen her during his quick look around.

“Well, I don’t think you hit him hard enough,” another voice said. This one was male and creaked and shook with age. There was a muffled thump; Night Rush blearily assumed that the older voice had patted somepony on the shoulder—Bigot, I'm assuming. Not exactly a polite name, to be honest…

Steeling his nerves, he opened his eyes again. Not daring to move any part of his body—particularly his head—he looked around using his eyes alone.

At first he thought that he was lying flat on his back, with all four of his legs spread out. Now, he realized that, instead, he was chained to a wall by his legs with his wings pinned behind him. He was still wearing his two earrings and his leg ring, but his fedora and the old, tarnished ring were missing.

He appeared to be in a cell—a dirt floor, with three cinderblock walls and ceiling. The fourth wall was nothing but a grid of thick iron bars. He judged the cell to be about five paces by five paces; hardly big enough to fit two fully-grown stallions nose to tail. Nothing else was in his cell, but through the iron bars of his cell door, he could see a group of ponies, most of them much larger than most, standing outside of his cell. He blinked a few more times, and he could start to see the coloration of some of them: most of them were fairly blandly colored, consisting mostly of muted earth tones instead of the pastels typical of Ponyville.

Inhaling as slowly as possible, he said, “Wh-where am I?”

“You’re in a heap o’trouble,” the older voice said. Night Rush could see now that he was a grey Earth pony with a dark brown mane and tail, thought he couldn’t see what his cutie mark was.

Night Rush narrowed his eyes and raised an eyebrow. “For what?” He rasped; his throat was drier than he originally thought. “I’ve only just came into town. I haven’t even done anything yet!”

A dull blue Pegasus pony with a black mane stepped forward. Night Rush squinted through the gloom at him, and could make out that he had a police badge as his cutie mark. He assumed that he was the sheriff of Haysburg or something.

The blue sheriff-pony cleared his throat. “Tricoseri, the shape-shifting draconequus—“

“What.”

“—you are guilty of theft, destruction of private and public property, assault, and murder—”

“What?”

“—and your sentence is death by hanging at high noon tomorrow morning.”

“WHAT?!”

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