The hall was longer than he remembered.

Golden sunlight from the unreachable outside world was awash in patches of brilliance here and there, sparkling in through the stained glass depictions of an entire history of monsters. It was a long and storied hall, and so still and silent that the dust particles in the air seemed afraid to touch for fear of breaking the unearthly silence. Nothing breathed, nothing moved.

But sometimes, it changed.

Sans had seen it.

Not just on the stained glass windows depicting the history of underground monsters, but with his own eye sockets. Sometimes, history just... changed. That's simply how it was.

Sans, a skeleton in a blue jumper, stood in shorts and his house slippers against one of the many shadowed columns, as still as the grave itself. He moved not a single inch, head straight toward the end of the hall where one might appear.

And for the longest time, nobody came.

Twilight hummed a cheery tune, carefully making herself a lettuce and cheese sandwich. A couple of sizzling eggs floated in her magical grip as she layered each piece of toast lovingly with mayonnaise, hay, and a little sprig of wild onion. With one hoof she carefully flipped the finished eggs onto the plate, so that her breakfast was almost perfect, identical to Spike's; the only difference being that his looked almost like a smiling face, and was a little bit cooler and had no Spike near it whatsoever. The unicorn finally poured herself a cup of hot coffee, taking in a long, deep breath through her nostrils and letting the scent fill her as her smile grew.

The ground beneath her hooves began to rumble.

Then her kitchen exploded.

Splinters of glass and wood clouded the air as something large and blue blasted through her kitchen window, smashing directly into the table and continuing through it to the floor. Twilight barely had time to register the thing forcibly entering her home, let alone stop it, but she did manage to thankfully bring up a deflective violet shield bare milliseconds before the flying shrapnel made changing her facial expressions very, very unpleasant. She dropped the shield after ensuring that nothing else was about to fly through any more windows. The 'thing' in question was reasonably silent after having utterly demolished both her kitchen and breakfast, and it was then that Twilight finally realized that, after standing there staring with her mouth hanging open like a dolt, she was still hanging on to her somehow untouched cup of still steaming coffee.

Twilight cleared her mind and the air around her with a brush of magic, the dust thicker than she expected. The creature had left impact indents on the floor where it landed, though it was clearly long since dead, as the skeletal remains were still clinging to its odd blue garment. Twilight examined it with a single scan, then the window again.

How in Equestria...?

At the angle it landed, the creature could only have landed; or, rather, been ejected from, the morning sky at an incredible velocity. How exactly it managed to maintain the entirety of its skeleton without falling apart was beyond belief, almost as much as that it hadn't simply vaporized upon impact. Twilight mulled over such thoughts deeply as she paced around the remains of her potentially extraterrestrial 'visitor', slowly magically repairing the damage that it had done in the meantime. After most of the window had been replaced, she turned again to the unfortunate soul that had been, from the looks of it, blasted clean out of the sky. She wondered momentarily if the rest of it had burned away, but shook the ugly thought from her head. The ground rumbled once again, this one stronger than the last earthquake. It even rattled the bones of the thing (perhaps she should begin referring to it as a specimen and stop thinking about how painfully it must have died) enough to make it look as if it were stirring from beyond the grave.

Twilight shuddered a little, magically picking up the remains of the table and clearing away the debris around the 'specimen' and frowned, keeping one eye on it after the rattling died down. It was unnerving in every sense, having a corpse fall into her home, but it could have at least waited until after breakfast. Almost all of the pieces of the table had joined their brothers in Twilight's magical grip, only a few strays littering the floor now.

“Spike,” Twilight called up the stairs. “Never mind about breakfast, it's been... canceled.”

“What?” she heard the drake faintly from their shared bedroom. “Why? What did you break this time?”

“Spike,” she responded with exasperation. “I didn't break anything, something just sort of... came up. Or, came down, rather.”

“Just let me know when breakfast is ready, okay?”

Twilight threw up one hoof with an unsatisfied grunt, certain that the little purple dragon had no problems going back to lying in bed and reading his comics all day. She frowned as she attempted to move the specimen for study, already trying to think of some way to describe in detail to the princess how she wasn't utterly mad.

Then she realized that the specimen was gone.

Twilight blinked once, twice, then again and opened her mouth, but no words came out.

“*Pony.”

Twilight froze stock still in shock, her whole mane bristling along the back of her neck.

“*Don't you know how to greet a new 'friend'? Turn around and shake my hand.”

She swerved, ever so slowly, heart pounding so loudly that she could hear it in her ears. The skeletal figure was standing straight up with its head hanging down, one appendage outstretched in her direction in what have might seemed a greeting gesture were it literally anypony else. The thing wasn't moving though and she didn't trust herself to speak just yet, only slowly, carefully, cautiously prodding one hoof into his outstretched hand.

*Pfffffft.*

“Uh...”

“*Hehehe... the ol' whoopie cushion in the hand trick. That's always funny.”

The thing's head bobbed up right away, revealing odd little eye-like lights in his sockets and a grin that was far too wide to be natural; in fact, he seemed to smile in spite of his visage being too large for his face, like he was trying to show off all of his teeth at once and somehow his bony cheeks were getting in the way.

“*Anyways, you're a pony, right? That's hilarious. I'm Sans. Sans the skeleton.”

“You-you can talk,” Twilight felt the ground beneath her shift as she struggled to accept the impossible situation. “You're speaking plain Equestrian. You can talk. You can talk.”

“*Yeesh, you seem really hung up on the whole talking skeleton thing,” the self proclaimed 'Sans' stuck his hands back into his still slightly crispy blue jacket pockets. Every jerky movement made her want to twitch. Watching the walking dead wasn't something that her brain seemed to want to comprehend, understandably. “*I can just stop talking and start staring awkwardly at you like you are at me, if you want. Is that a custom here or something? If so, it's cool. I'm great at staring contests.”

“I-I don't even-” Twilight started, one hoof running down her face and stretching before she shook herself and forced her racing thoughts down so that she could focus. “You're dead. Whatever you are, you- I mean, you can't possibly- you aren't some... some... my breakfast,” she breathed in half panicked confusion and half exasperation.

“*Oh. Yeah. About that,” Sans shrugged bits of shrapnel off his shoulders and brushed away some dust from his jacket. “*Sorry about the whole 'crashing into your house' thing. I'll try not to do it again, promise.”

Twilight once again found herself speechless, which was not something that she was accustomed to. She had an extensive vernacular for nearly every situation, prepared in at least some measures for any new tests life might have in store.

Alien skeletons, however, she was not prepared for.

She finally managed to clear her throat uneasily as they continued to simply stand there, and Twilight realized that she had been holding the remains of the table directly over the grinning (of course he was, it's what every skeleton does what are you thinking Twi) figure, and magically attempted to stick it back together safely on the ground.

“... I'm going to need something stronger than coffee for this, if you'll excuse me for just a moment,” Twilight's voice came out quieter and shakier than she intended, but at least her vocal chords were responding to the situation at last. The skeleton only shrugged again and made himself comfortable in the chair opposite her as she, without taking her eyes off of him for an instant should he vanish, reached far back into her kitchen supplies and retrieved the gifted bottle of Granny Smith's best cider.

“... You're a skeleton.”

“*Yikes,” his odd sounding chuckle ringing in her ears as he helped himself to the still steaming remains of one of her sandwiches. “*You really are still hung up on that. Are ya' feeling alright, kid? Did you hit your head or something?”

“Did I hit my head?” the unicorn asked in disbelief betwixt strong swigs of the throat burning cider. “How are you even in one piece after that kind of impact?” she asked, noting the cracks in the floor that he had left. “How... what are- how do you even function?”

“*I have a job, if that's what you mean,” he shrugged carelessly as he crossed his feet over and onto the table, one slipper missing and exposing his bony foot. “*Don't get worked up about that too though, it's only part time. Gotta have some time to chill, y'know?”

Twilight finished off the bottle before he had even finished speaking, and reached for the next with wide eyes.

“I-I'm not sure how to even process all this,” she admitted finally after reaching her halfway mark into the amber liquid. “You're dead. You should be dead, are dead, and are still- how are you even eating?” Twilight blurted, staring as he paused mid-bite into her sandwich.

He looked down at his somehow rotund stomach and patted it twice before unzipping his jacket, revealing nothing but ribs before zipping it back up.

“*Beats me. Everybody gets hungry sometimes, I guess.”

Twilight clapped her hooves to her eyes, heavily setting down the bottle on the counter and taking a long, deep breath.

Okay. Okay. Easy, girl. Deep breaths. Don't think about it too hard. Like dealing with Pinkie Pie.

Thinking of the unconcerned skeleton in that manner didn't help much, but it was something. There were some things that Pinkie Pie did on occasion that were simply out of her capacity to scientifically or rationally explain, which half the time she simply chalked up to earth pony magic, which her friend must have had by the barrel-full.

Sans heard the unicorn mutter something dark about wasted potential before taking another long breath.

“Okay,” she shook her head, mane cleared from her eyes and newfound determination sparkling in them. “I'm sorry. I-I really should probably apologize as well. Whatever you are, you're alive... somehow. Are you alright?”

“*... Could have been anything else.”

“Come again?”

“*Maybe another time. But you could have said literally anything else,” Sans had finished up with the sandwich and was looking much better for having eaten. “*What are you doing here comes to mind. Why did you destroy my house. Where did you come from. Why are you here. I'm not all that happy to be here, myself, but at least it's something new.”

“Uh...”

“*But, no,” he beamed up at her with surprising cheerfulness on his face. “*You had to know if I'm alright. And y'know what, kid? I think I am. I'm pretty okay, and I think you are, too.”

“I- well, er, what I mean to say is – I don't really know what I mean to say,” Twilight threw up one hoof eventually. “Thank you...? But I have...”

She blew out her cheeks, running one hoof through her messy mane.

“I have so many questions right now.”

“*Well, I should think so,” he chuckled again. “*I'm nice and comfy in my 'smoking' jacket,” he dusted off a bit of char from his burned blue coat, his grin somehow growing wider. “*Tell you what, kid. I've got... one or two questions as well, so how about we take turns asking? You can even go first. Aren't I a generous guy?”

Twilight swallowed, nodded and shakily took her own seat opposite the skeleton. She'd barely had time to open her mouth before she heard Spike calling down the stairs.

“Hey, Twilight, is breakfast finally ready?”

Sans fought back a chortle watching the unicorn facepalm (facehoof?) and sigh.

“That would be Spike,” she said almost apologetically. “I can't say I'm surprised he's more interested in food than asking about a couple of earthquakes or kitchen-demolishing skeletons.”

“*Aw, it's not that bad,” he gestured around the clearly destroyed (and in some places, still charred) places around the kitchen. Bits of wood and glass stuck out of the wall, one fork with a bit of hay bacon jammed nearly halfway through. “*Definitely could have been worse – hold on, did you say two earthquakes?”

“Er... yes?” Twilight struggled to pour herself a cup of coffee her hooves were still shaking so hard. “I assumed that they had something to do with you, considering... well, everything. But I have to know-”

“*Unless you wanna have a bad time...you need to run.”

Twilight balked at him and shook herself. She could have sworn that for just a moment his eye sockets had gone completely empty, and it was... disturbing, to say the least.

“What?” she managed to spit out. “What do you mean?”

“*I mean that now isn't the time to chat over tea- err, coffee,” Sans stood promptly, the scraping of bone on chair a highly unpleasant noise. “*I've been followed, and if you want to so much as stay alive, if you even value your continued existence, you need to take everyone that you care about, right now, and do the smart thing. Run.”

Author's Notes:

Beware of the man who speaks in hands.