“It’s a colt!”

The nurses gathered around, taking no time to rest as they went to work, carrying out all the necessary procedures to disconnect the newborn colt from his mother. The mare in question panted heavily. She was on the verge of tears. She gripped her husband’s hoof as tightly as she could, much to the stallion’s chagrin. But finally, after what had seemed like days of excruciating pain, it was done.

“It’s ok, honey. It’s over now. Our baby is here.”

A sharp smack was heard, followed by the distinct whinny of a baby’s cry.

“Our son… oh, our beautiful darling colt. Oh, Bullseye, I’m so happy.”

“Congratulations,” one of the Doctors said as he approached the couple. “Do you have a name in mind? I can put it on the birth certificate as soon as you have one, and it will save me some time to know up-front.”

“A name,” the mare neighed. She turned her head to face her husband. “Bullseye, what should we name him?”

“Oh no, not this time. You let me name our daughter, remember? It’s only fair that you’d get to name our son, no interference from me.” The stallion smiled at his wife. “Go on. The choice is yours.”

The mare turned, pondering the baby for a moment. He was so beautiful, she thought. Her son. A perfect trifecta of color. And she was the one who would be giving him a name…

She could see it in his eyes. A faint, far-off glimmer of the stallion he would become.

“Ma’am?”

“…Canvas. His name is Canvas.”

It’s not every day that fully armored military personnel show up at your doorstep.

I’ll admit, when I first opened the door, I panicked for a brief second, and I almost slammed the door in the officer’s face. That probably would have been bad. But then I noticed the purple hair sticking out of the top of the pony’s helmet, and then the turquoise muzzle poking out the front. As I stood in slow recognition of the pony in front of me, the officer decided to stumble his way through the door.

“Hey, Canvas… dude, you… you mi- you missed out on… like… all the fun stuff…”

“W-windspeed? What are you doing here? I thought you said you had to go…” I paused for a moment as a strange odor wafted through the door. “…are you drunk?”

“Psh,” Windspeed dismissively waved a hoof in my direction, “No… no. I’m perfectly FINE.” He practically spat the last word at me, before stumbling his way to one of the chairs in my living room area. He stared at the chair for a moment, as though judging whether it were a simple chair or a dangerous beast. Then, with a heavy *THUD*, he plopped down into the seat, knocking over a painting I had resting against it. I looked down at the painting with slight dismay.

Dammit, now I’m gonna have to repaint that.

“Alright… I guess you’re okay then…” I didn’t believe it for a second, but there was no point in telling him that. “What… why exactly are you here? I thought you needed to be at the Everfree Outpost by morning?”

“I was tired.”

He must have expected that to explain everything, because he didn’t continue talking.

“…ok then, so you were tired.”

“Yup.”

Silence returned to the apartment. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. As much as I wanted to go to bed, I could tell there was more to this story.

A few more seconds ticked by.

After a long pause, I sighed, finally deciding to bring up the biggest elephant in the room.

“…why are you wearing your Wonderbolt armor?”

Windspeed sat up as straight as he could, which in his state meant that he was slowly swaying back and forth.

“Well, y’see, after you… left, ‘n’ stuff… I saw this mare… she was cute.” His swaying slowed as he turned to stare me right in the eyes. “She was cute.”

“Ok-“

“Really cute.” He repeated again, as though still trying to convince me.

“…alright, then…” I raised an eyebrow in confusion, “A really cute mare. But what does this-”

“SO,” he once again spat out his words, “I’m thinking to myself, ‘Hey. I should go try and impress that mare.’ So I said to this cute, cute mare, I said ‘Hey. I’m a Wonderbolt.’ An-And she’s like ‘I don’t believe you.’ And I said ‘But it’s true’ and she’s like ‘prove it.’ So I went back to the… the outpost to get-”

Wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute. What did he just say?

“You went to ‘the outpost’? As… as in the ‘Everfree Outpost’?”

“Yup.”

I stared at my friend as though he had just grown a fifth leg from the top of his head.

“Windspeed, the Everfree Outpost is fifteen miles from here.”

“Well, duh. Everypony knows… *hic* …knows that.”

“But… what… then… how did you get there?”

“I flew.”

I resisted my incredible urge to facehoof.

“You flew.”

“Uh huh.”

“For a total of thirty miles. Into an Enclave base. While drunk.”

“I needed to prove I was a Wonderbolt!”

“WHY?”

“She was cute.”

Nope, no holding it back that time. That hoof was going straight into my face.

“Ok… ok… so you went to the Everfree Outpost. How the heck did you get in?”

“Well, I am an officer.”

“No, no, I mean… how did you get in without them realizing you were…”

Windspeed let out a loud, sickening belch.

“…you know what? Never mind. Just… just finish your story.”

“Anyways….” He slurred on, “I went back ‘n’ I grabbed my Wonderbolt armor. Put it right on… it was hard, but I did it… an…” He took a moment to let out a loud yawn. “…So I grabbed my… like… my Wonderbolt proof-“

“You mean your armor?”

“Well, not just my armor,” Windspeed nickered, “I also grabbed some… like… Wonderbolty things…” As he spoke, Windspeed patted a saddlebag that I hadn’t noticed he was wearing. Well, at least I think that was what he was trying to do. He missed it the first couple of pats. I wondered just what in Tartarus could be in there that would be more Wonderbolt-y than damned Wonderbolt armor, but at that point I knew asking for any kind of clarification was a lost cause.

“Then I went back.”

“To the bar.”

“Yup.”

“And… no one questioned the armored Wonderbolt suddenly walking into the bar.”

“But,” he ignored me as he stammered on, “But the cute girl wasn… wasn’t there! I was… so sad…”

“I’m sure you were,” I deadpanned. I should have been more sympathetic, I really should have, but… no. He had already kept me up until the wee hours of the morning with his entertainment hunt, and now he had decided to invade my home, keeping me up for even longer?

I mean, granted I was the one who asked him to tell me what had happened during the night, but… look, that’s beside the point.

“Yeah… so I was, like… so sad… and then I was… like… really tired… I dunno why I was so tired…”

Oh gee, tired? After flying for thirty miles? Fifteen of which were flown wearing heavy armor? I’m shocked.

“BUT!” he shouted to no one in particular. “But, but but! Then I remembered that ‘hey, Canvas lives over here! I’ll jus… just go see him!!”

There was a long, pregnant pause.

“That’s it. My story‘s done.”

Windspeed continued to sit there, a silly grin plastered on his muzzle.

And then he fell face first out of his chair and onto my coffee table.

Normally, I like the sun. When the light comes in through the window of my apartment, the patterns that it can make with the light can be beautiful. I know most ponies wouldn’t notice something like that, but I can appreciate the beauty that even a simple ray of sunlight can make. So usually, I’m quite pleased when the sun shines through my bedroom window.

Of course, usually I’ve been asleep for longer than 4 hours.

I groaned as I rolled over in my bed. I tried to pull my covers up over my head, but it didn’t help much – the light just shined through anyways.

No, sure sun. You just… you just keep on shining. It’s not like I wanted a good night’s sleep or anything. Sleep? What’s that? I definitely don’t need it.

I could see that my battle for sleep was futile, so I begrudgingly pulled myself out of bed. As my hooves hit the floor, I thought back to the events that had happened the night before. After Windspeed had finally finished his story, he had collapsed onto my table, the armor he was wearing removing a sizable chunk from it, to my ever-growing dismay. I had tried to move him onto my couch, with questionable success. I had gotten his torso on the couch, at least. I think that counts.

A part of me had wanted to wake him up then and there, and berate him for being so irresponsible. But I knew better than that. Nothing would have woken him up anyways, and even if something had, he probably wouldn’t have listened to anything I had to say. He was still drunk, after all. What would I have even said to him?

I shook my head. None of that mattered. So he got drunk and crashed at my place. It happened, it was dumb, but now he was here. In my apartment. Sleeping on the couch.

As I walked into the kitchen, I heard some mumbling coming from the couch. Finally waking up, I see. I trotted over to the living room area to check on him.

“Windspeed? You alright there?”

Windspeed shifted in his place on the floor, clutching his head with one hoof as he moved.

“Ow, my head… Major? Is that you?”

“It’s Canvas.”

Windspeed’s ears slowly swiveled in my direction. Groggily, he began to sit up.

“Canvas? What are you doing at the Everfree Outpost?”

The Ever… oh, right. He was supposed to be there for guard duty.

This morning.

Oops.

“Um, you’re not at the outpost. You’re at my apartment.”

Windspeed stopped moving. He stopped talking. And while I’m not certain on this, I think he might have stopped breathing too. When he finally did resume speaking, he spoke very slowly.

“…I’m where?”

I started to back away from my friend. I could tell he wasn’t going to take this well.

“You, er… you showed up at my place late last night. I think you were drunk. You said something about a cute mare, and then you collapsed onto my table-“

“What time is it?”

“L-Look, maybe I should go get you something to eat. Do you-“

“What. Time. Is it?”

The room became deathly silent. Slowly, I glanced over to the clock in my kitchen.

“It’s, um… It’s about seven thirty in the-“

“SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT-” Windspeed bolted upright and sprinted for the door as fast as he could. Suddenly, he stopped, patting at his sides with his wings.

“My saddlebags! MY SADDLEBAGS! WHERE ARE MY SADDLEBAGS?” He suddenly turned to face me, launching himself at me so fiercely I jumped back in fear that he would tackle me to the ground. I knew he wouldn’t really, but I still put my hoof in front of my face in defense. “WHERE ARE THEY?”

“T-they’re on the couch! They fell off when-” Windspeed didn’t bother listening to the rest. He flew over to the couch, grabbed the saddlebags, and raced out the door. By the time I had managed to finish my sentence, he was gone.

I didn’t move for a good while. My mind was still trying to regain its composure after what I had just witnessed. A few seconds passed. Then, a few minutes. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d taken in. I turned my head, facing the disrupted living room area once again.

And I thought it looked disorganized before.

Windspeed’s frantic flying had knocked many of my paintings over, including one that I had hung up on the wall. The table, already in a miserable state from Windspeed’s fall last night, had what little was sitting atop it flung across the room, with one particularly unlucky paintbrush embedding itself into the wall. And, of course, my couch had suffered a casualty of one cushion when Windspeed yanked his saddlebags off of it.

That cushion was sitting pretty on the kitchen counter.

I looked over the carnage for a moment, mentally cursing Windspeed for upsetting my home. I continued to stare at the room, as if looking at it long enough would magically bring the room back into order. Obviously that would never be the case, I admitted to myself.

…I guess I should start to clean this place up.

I started getting the room back in order as best as I could. I grabbed all of the objects that had been thrown off the coffee table and put them back, retrieving the unfortunate paintbrush after a brief tug-o-war with the wall. Then I set all the paintings back to where they had been originally. A few had, to my frustration, gotten fudged from contact with various surfaces, but I could fix those later. I had to grab a towel from the kitchen to clean up some wet paint that had gotten onto the floor, so I picked up the holodisk lying on the floor and set it on the counter, before grabbing both the cushion and the…

Wait a minute.

Holodisk?

I turned my attention back towards the kitchen counter.

I don’t own a holodisk.

Setting down the towel and the cushion, I approached the mysterious object. It was a strange sight, honestly. While not the rarest objects in existence, holodisks weren’t exactly all that common either. You had to have a terminal to even use one, and terminals weren’t something a lot of pegasai could say they owned. I could see the film inside of it, all the weird technology parts that I didn’t understand. I’d heard someone say they used holograms to store a lot of information, but I doubted it. How does a hologram store information, anyways? There was a label on the front of it, with just two letters written on. I picked up the tape to get a better look.

“O.D.?”

It wasn’t mine, that much was certain. I didn’t even have a terminal, what use would I have for a holodisk? But then who-

I froze.

“Well, not JUST my armor. I also grabbed some… like… Wonderbolty things…”

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no.

This was Windspeed’s.

This was Enclave data.

I was holding in my hooves what was most likely classified military information.

Time stood still as the significance of the disk slowly dawned on me. I could be holding top secret plans. Or missile detonation codes. Or… I don’t know, whatever it is Enclave ponies put on Enclave storage disks. So many different thoughts flooded through my mind that, for a brief moment, my brain just shut down.

And then I started panicking.

“Ok… ok… you can do this… it’s only a few more miles to the Everfree Outpost. Dammit, Windspeed, why did you have to stop at my place?”

After I had managed to regain my composure, I realized that the only smart thing to do was return the holodisk to Windspeed. It obviously belonged to him, and since it more than likely had important military information on it, I had no right having it in the first place. Even if it DIDN’T have military info on it, it was still Windspeed’s... probably… so I had no right having it anyways. And so, with millions of worries rushing through my mind, I threw on my saddlebags, tucked the disk inside, put on my scarf, steeled my courage… well, what little courage I had… and began the long walk to Windspeed.

While I was in route, my thoughts started to drift to the place I was approaching. The Everfree Outpost. I shuddered at the thought of it.

Have you heard of the Everfree? I mean, I’d be surprised if you haven’t. The place was so enigmatic, like New Cloudsdayle’s own personal myth. Nopony knew just what it was, except for the Enclave ponies stationed there. The Enclave didn’t talk about it, of course, so that just left ponies to speculate as to what lied beyond the massive cloud walls they had surrounding the place. Some ponies thought there was an undetonated megaspell there, just lying in silence, waiting for the perfect moment to activate. Some ponies thought it was a massive prison, meant to hold all the traitors who’d tried to abandon the pegasai for the world below.

Personally, I believed in something even stranger.

I’d heard tales that the cloud cover just… doesn’t exist there. Any time the clouds move into range, the Everfree just grabs ahold of them, sends them wherever it pleases. One minute you’d be standing on perfectly solid cloud, but the next? POOF, it’s gone. Like trying to stand on a hurricane. And buildings? Hah, those would disintegrate before you could even get a foundation put together.

Even with all the mysteries around the Everfree, one thing was known for certain – the Everfree was dangerous. Probably the most dangerous place in the Equestrian Skies, if you asked most ponies. And here I was, headed straight there. My pace slowed as I realized just how insane I must have looked. Just some painter, casually walking into the Everfree.

…but surely all those stories I’ve heard are just stories, right? There ARE ponies staying at Everfree, after all. Sure, they’re part of the Enclave, and they’re not really IN the Everfree so much as NEAR it, but that still has to count for something, right? Th-there’s probably nothing to worry about… nothing whatsoev-

…rrrRRRROOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRrrr…

I froze at the muffled sound I heard in the distance. You know on second thought, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all, I could just send Windspeed a letter and…

I felt the holodisk shift around in my saddlebags.

I shook my head. No. I’m giving the disk to Windspeed right now. I don’t want this… this whatever it is near me any longer than it has to be.

I broke into a sprint. The sooner I get there, the sooner I can get the disk off my hooves.

Ok, note to self: don’t sprint unless you can actually see your target destination.

I had only managed to make it another half a mile before my body told me “hey, you should probably stop running.” I was panting and out of breath, but finally it was in view; the Everfree Outpost.

I had heard about the walls surrounding the Everfree, but… damn. I was shocked I couldn’t see this place from farther away, the walls looked like they went up hundreds of feet into the air. I could just barely make out some Pegasus ponies flying around near the top of it – Enclave, I presumed. If they were civilians, they’d have been shot long before getting to the wall. Just on the outside of those walls was where the Enclave had positioned their outpost. In all honesty, it wasn’t that big of an outpost… at least, compared to one of the more well-known military bases, like Neighvarro. Even so, this was still a place full of Enclave personnel…

It’s alright… I’m just here to give them back their… thing. No need to be nervous. All I need to do is… is…

I paused for a moment as I realized I had no idea how exactly I was going to do this. I’m not part of the Enclave, even if I do know one of its highest ranking members. Surely they wouldn’t just let a civilian walk in? And even if they did, what was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? “Oh hey, don’t mind me, I’ve just got something of yours that accidentally ended up in my house!” Even if that IS what happened, they’d never believe me. They’d think I stole it, or that I was a spy, or… I don’t know, something really bad.

Maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all...

…rrrrRRRRROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRRrrrrrr…

NOPE, nopenopenope this was DEFINITELY not a good idea.

In the midst of my panic, I managed to calm myself down. It’s… it’s fine. I’m sure that was nothing… I continued forwards, approaching the Outpost at a slow trot, gradually picking up my pace as I grew ever closer.

I got about halfway to the Outpost when I felt something strange. I started to shake. At first I thought I was shivering, but then I realized that the shaking wasn’t coming from me, it was coming from below me. The clouds… the ground was rumbling.

Why was the ground rumbling? I was in the clouds, clouds don’t rumble… unless, of course, it’s a thunderstorm, but there wasn’t a black cloud in sight.

What… what’s going on?

What happened next can only be described as pure chaos. Over the next few minutes of my life, there came into being a series of unbelievable events, a wild barrage of things I had never seen before.

As I stood in fear, I suddenly saw a whole host of ponies fly from the Outpost. Enclave soldiers, all flying in some kind of formation. Were I farther away, I’d have mistaken the group for a flock of birds. For a brief moment, I wondered if this was some kind of training exercise, like the ones you hear about on the news… but this didn’t feel like training. The way they moved, such precision, such coordination… such ferocity…

The clouds shook again, more violently than before. I began to back away from the Outpost, when I saw the second thing I’d never seen, or even HEARD of somepony seeing in my entire life.

The clouds started to bulge upwards.

At first, it was very subtle, but the mound quickly grew to the height of a small building. I could feel the clouds beneath me begin to push up, and I started to back away faster. This was no weather pattern. No gust of wind could make the clouds do this, I’d listened to the science channel before. Something was pushing the clouds up. Something big. And then, as the clouds beneath me decided they had reached their limit, it happened.

The cloud layer tore open.

Right at the center of the mountain of clouds, the cloud cover split open. To watch the clouds act as they did was breathtaking, in spite of how frightening it was. It was like watching a giant balloon pop in slow motion. Any resistance the cover had to being pushed up was released in an instant, and I felt the clouds drop out from under me. The giant mound of fluff dissolved into nothingness, revealing at last what had pushed them up in the first place.

It was as majestic as it was completely horrifying. A beast of scales and teeth and claws. A monster larger than any building I had ever heard of. A legendary creature that I had honestly hoped I would never have the misfortune of seeing.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT IS THAT A MOTHERFUCKING DRAGON?!?

The speed and strength with which the dragon tore up through the clouds was nothing short of majestic. I was at once terrified by its sheer size and power, but mesmerized at its magnificence and beauty.

But mostly terrified. I can only ignore the “this thing will kill you” factor for so long.

RRRRRRROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR

Before I got the chance to properly have a panic attack, I felt wind starting to rush up past me. I was still falling. It took a bit longer than I’d have liked, but I quickly managed to right myself in the air. As I treaded the air, I looked down through the massive hole that the dragon had left. In that moment, I caught a glimpse of something truly unbelievable. The final thing that day I had never seen before. And this last one… this last one topped them all.

Ground. Mountains. Plants. From my vantage in the sky I saw a great many things that simply weren’t available to the Pegasai above the clouds. I saw lakes, trees, ruined cities, destroyed remnants of civilization. I saw miles upon miles of browns, grays, dull blues, and sickening greens. At once hideous, but still inspiring in its own strange, twisted way.

The Wasteland.

I was only allowed a few seconds of awe before a number of sounds snapped my attention back to the catastrophe in front of me. Oh, shit, yeah, there’s still a dragon right there. Why the fuck is there a dragon right there? In my peripheral vision, I could just barely witness the Enclave moving in to fight the dragon, before I turned tail and started racing straight for home. No way in Tartarus I’m staying to watch this unfold. The edge of the hole was only a few more feet away… I could almost feel the clouds beneath my hooves. But just as I was about to be flying over solid clouds once more, I felt a looming darkness. The light seemed to vanish all around, as I saw a massive shadow eclipse me.

I turned around.

The dragon, in backing away from the Enclave assault, had gotten itself positioned directly above me.

I stared in horror as I saw one of its gargantuan feet moving towards me. I tried to turn and fling myself out of the way, but it was no use. The beast was faster. In one blow, the monster’s foot slammed against my back, knocking the wind out of me and scoring a direct hit against one of my wings.

My vision started to blur, and I felt my flight pattern falter. The pain searing through my wing was unbearable. I managed to keep myself conscious just long enough to feel air rushing up past me, and to see the dragon, the Enclave, and the clouds drift farther and farther away…

Before the world disappeared, plunging me into blackness.

Author's Notes:

Level Up

New Perk: Friend of the Night -- You are a true friend of the night. Your eyes adapt quickly to low-light conditions indoors and when darkness falls across the post-nuclear wasteland.