When Sparrows Fly

Chapter 2

A/N: Come on, seriously, only two reviews? I know it isn't perfect, and I welcome, no, I crave some constructive criticism. Anyways, nothing really happens in this chapter. It's pretty much the same as the last one, only it's in Equestria as opposed to Earth. I promise you it'll get interesting in the next chapter.

Celestia's sun shone down brightly on Ponyville. The weather pegasi had done a magnificent job: just under eighty degrees, with a cool breeze every now and then. There were dozens of ponies out enjoying the day, of all ages and colors, unicorn, pegasus, and Earth pony alike, and Twilight Sparkle was no exception. For the first time in a year (sadly, this was literal), she had scheduled a day off for herself, as opposed to the random misadventures that very nearly destroyed Ponyville, Equestria, and Twilight's sanity on an almost daily basis.

She inhaled deeply and let out a contented sigh as the warm sun struck her deep purple coat. Rainbow Dash may do a little too much sleeping on the job, but she sure knows how to make a great day, she thought as she strolled through the town, not paying attention to where she was going. Finally, a chance to relax.

At which point the aforementioned random misadventures reasserted their control over reality in the form of a bright pink blur bowling over the hapless unicorn.

"'sgoingtohappensomethingweird..." the local party pony, Pinkie Pie, continued on in this manner for some time, running and bouncing around and, occasionally, hanging upside down in the air with nothing to hold onto.

As opposed to questioning Pinkie's blatant violation of the law of gravity, Twilight just sighed. So much for that relaxing afternoon. Despite the fact that the party pony was talking far too rapidly to be understood, Twilight just stood there and listened, occasionally hearing snatches such as, "Itchy ear," and, "Pinkie sense." As the minutes dragged on, the unicorn realized that the earth pony was not about to run out of breath, and she began attempting to interrupt. "Pinkie," she said to no avail. "Pinkie!" she repeated. Again, her friend continued talking. Finally, she was aggravated enough to raise her voice to a yell. "PINKIE!" she shouted.

At long last Pinkie stopped talking, and even stood still. "Twilight!" she scolded. "Didn't you know it's rude to interrupt while somepony's talking?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes, exasperated. Not even bothering with an explanation for her outburst, she said, "I'm sorry for interrupting you Pinkie. Could you say that again, but maybe a bit slower?"

"Sure!" Pinkie exclaimed, as effervescent as ever, and again began to speak rapidly-but not as quickly as before. "I was walking down the street just saying hi to everypony and suddenly my ear got all itchy and you know what that means!"

"Let me guess," the purple mare said in a low voice, her ears twitching. Just because she had come to accept the Pinkie sense didn't mean she had to like it. "Your Pinkie sense is telling you something." At the same time as she said this, the energetic pony said, "My Pinkie sense is telling me something weird is going to happen!"

Pinkie Pie ran up to Twilight and looked her straight in the eye with her head cocked. "Are you reading my mind?" she asked, slowly walking forward, which was pushing the unicorn up against a tree. "Because you said almost the same thing I said at the same time!"

The slightly terrified Twilight Sparkle was, well, slightly terrified, but mostly annoyed. Her one day off in the past year, and on that very day the Pinkie sense just had to make itself known again. Responding to the party pony's allegations that she had been invading her mind, Twilight said, in a tone of voice that quite clearly conveyed her exasperation, "No, Pinkie, I am not reading your mind. You said your ear was itchy, and since physical sensation is how the Pinkie sense manifests, it was kind of obvious."

The earth pony eyed the unicorn for a second or two more, before jumping back and exclaiming, "Okie dokie lokie!" and bounced off.

Twilight trotted to keep up with her. "Do you know what's going to happen?" she asked, to which the pink mare cheerily responded, "Nope!" Twilight, groaning in frustration, then asked, "Well, do you know where it's going to happen?" She finally got something she could work with when Pinkie replied, "Yeah! It's going to be at Sweet Apple Acres in just over an hour!"

"An hour, huh? That gives us just enough time to find the rest of the girls..." she muttered as she and Pinkie continued walking. "Alright, Pinkie, let's go find Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash, then get over to Applejack's before whatever the weird thing is happens."

It only took about twenty minutes to find the rest of their friends. Rarity had been making sure the Cutie Mark Crusaders didn't seriously injure themselves (again) and had run into Fluttershy; they had started gossiping, leaving the CMC free to try something called "extreme dumpster diving". Dash had been very easy to find. Whenever she wasn't working, she was either napping on a cloud or practicing some extreme stunt (and, quite often, spectacularly crashing several times), and since there had been no reports of major property damage all day, that ruled out training. After that, it was just a matter of finding the cloud she was sleeping on-easy enough, it was the only one in the sky-and Pinkie firing off a party cannon, waking her up rather violently as a solid mass of confetti knocked her off of the cloud. She was rather displeased with this, and kept muttering about it on the way to Sweet Apple Acres.

Whem they finally arrived at the farm, the orange earth pony was doing exactly what they had been doing-relaxing. She had finished the day's work, and was now just sitting under a tree with her Stetson pulled down over her eyes. She heard her friends approaching, and went up to greet them.

"Hey girls. What're ya'll doin' here?" she asked.

"Hey, AJ. Pinkie thinks that something very, very weird is going to happen somewhere around here pretty soon." As if on cue, the pink mare started scratching at her ear.

"Hm... alright, if it's gonna show up here anyways we may as well be there to see what it is."

"Thanks, AJ," she said. "Maybe Pinkie should lead the way, since she's the one who can, you know, tell the future to a certain extent."

"Right this way!" she said loudly as the bounced off into the orchard. After a few minutes of walking/bouncing, Pinkie Pie stopped, as did the rest of the Mane 6. "Here we are!" she said, as she pulled out a lawn chair and a box of popcorn from thin air. She jumped onto the chair and brandished the popcorn, saying, "Anypony want some?" The other ponies just looked at Pinkie, and Applejack said, "Uhh... no thanks, Pinkie," looking bewildered.

"Suit yourself!" she replied happily, sticking her muzzle into the box and chowing down.

Rarity was just about to say something to Pinkie about how she went about eating the treat, but was struck silent when some... thing appeared in front of the group. Well, more like two things. One was a smallish black box thingy. The other was some kind of creature. It looked to be about six feet tall, with a very short black mane and a flat face. Besides the mane, it didn't seem to have any kind of fur or hair. It was standing upright on two legs-only for a second, as it promptly fell flat on its face, making some weird motions with its legs, almost as if it had been trying to run. It stood up, at which point it began to make weird noises with its mouth, almost as if it was trying to say something.

The reactions of the Mane 6 were much more varied. Fluttershy, true to her name, squeaked and cowered behind Twilight, who's jaw had dropped as she tried to comprehend what she had just seen, her mind racing. Rarity passed out as soon as she saw the creatures shirt (tie-dye), although she had gotten back on her hooves within twenty seconds. Rainbow Dash had been so stunned that she had forgotten to flap her wings and fallen onto the ground. Applejack's jaw had also dropped, but she had closed her mouth and was now looking at the thing suspiciously, and Pinkie Pie had dropped her popcorn and just sat there with wide eyes, staring at the creature. She was still doing this when it finally managed to get out something coherent.

"Wha-what the hell just happened?"

A/N 2: There you go, chapter two. I feel I should warn you, though, that I recently learned about this pesky thing called "character development", and so will have to delegate a few chapters to that. I'm basically making this up as I go along, and some parts are not going to be pretty.

Anyways, time to talk to the reviewers.

Crimson Banner: Thank you first reviewer!

LeSpy: Again, thank you. Nice to see someone likes my jokes, although I'm not sure if that was beginners luck or an actual sense of humor. As for your comment about this chapter making or breaking the story, that scared the shit out of me. But it's OK.

Oh, also, it was my birthday on Thursday, so please give me a review as a late present!

Alright, I have to go. Pinkie Pie managed to break through the Fourth Wall, and I have to find a way to write her back behind it... so long!