Adventures Are No Fun.

by AxalKay

Family.

Most ponies think heroes go on adventures to defeat evil. Screech Stormchaser's adventure had no evils nor any heroes.

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Cleave tore Screeche's curtains open flooding her room with early morining light.
Screech hissed.

"Don't take that tone with me young lady!" scolded Cleave. "Out of bed. Customers will not wait for you to feel like getting up."

Screech streached her wings. Her hoof fumbled around on her night stand. She refused to open her eyes without her glasses. She found her glasses and placed them on her muzzle. "I am awake."

Cleave levitated a coffee mug and a bowl of hot oats and fruit slices. She gave the latter to Screech. She took a big sip from her mug.

Screech loved her wings, but envied her mother's horn. She desperatly hoped bat ponies could become alicorns.

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Screech looked up at the ceiling. She was beneth her bed. A few feet from sleeping through the day.

"Yovidaphone?" asked Sharp Winds for the third time.

Screech nodded for the third time. "Do you want it or not?"

"Screech!" scloded Cleave. Her unicorn horn glowed pink. A harpsicord she was examinening dissasembled.

"What? I was just asking a question."

Cleave shook her head and took a big sip from her coffee mug.

"No. I think I will just get a harmonica," said Sharp.

Screech hissed. "Get the stupid yovidaphone. You know you want it."

"I do. But it is not practical."

Screech hissed. "You sound like my mama. When I am an adult I am never going to be practical."

"Yes you are," yelled Cleave.

"Yes Mama." Screech rolled her eyes. "Buy the Yovidaphone. Do what you want."

"I will only be purchasing the harmonica."
On the other side of the instrument shop a colt blew into a bugle. The horn squeeked and squeeled like a a pig on a water slide.

Screech shot across the store and confiscated the bugle. She pointed her black hoof at one of two dozen sighs which read 'do not play the instruments'. She pointed at her ears and explained, "Bat ponies have very good hearing. When you make a lot of noise it physically hurts me. When you hurt me." She bared her fangs. "I hurt you."

The colt laughed in Screeche's face.

"Mama, the customers are annoying me," Screech complained. "Can I go play with Carver?"

Cleave stared at the harpsicord. She rubbed her eyes and looked around like she was surprised to be exactly where she was a moment ago. "Yeah. The shop will do better without you. Don't fly before night fall. I don't want you crashing again."

Screech flew out the door before her mother could change her mind.

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Screech stiled her poofy black and purple main over her eyes. The sun shined bright over Canterlot. She could bear it to see Carver.

The sudden barking didn't startle Screech. Dozens of dogs barked at her every day. Something about her smell made dogs hate her. She bared her fangs and hissed. The dog continued to bark. Even dogs knew she was all tooth and no fang.

Half way through her twenty minute walk, Screeche's sunglasses flew off her face. They floated infront of two teenage unicorns named Drip and Agaricus.

Screech hissed at the older boys.

Drip smiled wryly."What is that? We don't speak bat."

"I think she wants to share her glasses with us," said Agaricus. "Divide them into thirds."

Drip gently placed the glasses on the ground. He held his hoof just above them.

Screech had to squint to keep the sun out of her eyes. She didn't notice Agaricuse's horn start to glow. She dove toward Drip and grabbed him with her hooves. A bucket of muddy water fell onto Screech (bucket and all).

Drip laughed and stomped his hoof down on Screeche's glasses. "Sorry about that. I hear they make stronger glasses in the dragon lands. Maybe you should go live there."

"First, bat ponies are from the dragon lands. I could go live there. Second, my specal talent is fixing things. I restore instruments for a living. You think I can't fix a pair of sunglasses?"

Drip's horn flashed a bright white light.
Screech hissed.

Drip taunted, "What is that? We don't speak bat."
Screech (who was still holding Drip) flew straight up. She did three loops and dove back down. She gently dropped Drip to the ground.

Drip vomited.

"Did you get that message?"

Agaricus fired stun botls from his horn. Screech flew up. Agaricuse's focused gaze followed her. Just as he was about to fire again his eyes burned as he looked directly into the sun. He rubbed his hooves against his eyes trying to force his vison back.

Screech landed at the end of the street. Last time she flew during the day she nearly knocked a pegasus out of the sky; she had her glasses then.

Canterlot was too noisy to rely on echo location so Screech had to resort to asking strangers for help. She had a new (used) pair of sunglasses in three minutes. living In a city with a lot of ponies meant there were always good ponies to offer a helping hoof. There were also dogs and bullies, but that was life in the city.

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Carver hugged Screech almost before the door was fully open. The dark green unicorn with a white mane had trouble getting her legs around Screech. She was half Screeche's size despite being the same age.

"Were Agaricus and Drip bothering you again?" asked Carver.

"Yeah. I need a bath."

Carver squeezed Screech and peted her mane. Screech gently sank her fangs into Carver's neck. They held each other for a minute.

After they got out of the bath, Carver spent hours brushing and styling Screeche's main. Screech didn't complain. She liked being treated like a doll.

Screech hated the smell of rotting food. She hated roaches. She hated boxes of dead light bulbs. She hated stolen trash cans full of empty photo albums and cracked rusting shoes. She hated stray cats clambering through broken windows. She loved Carver's house. She loved eating freshly baked cookies at a table coverd in bird feeders. She loved listening to recordings of old races after Carver's father found the one functioning record player in the pile of broken electronics. She loved watching Carver's parents dance on the rugs they placed over a pile of shatterd porcelain dolls.

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Screech flew home a few hours after the moon rose. She was going to fly around the house a few times and look for dragons, but she was too excited. She could hear her parrents arguing from outside.

Screech flew through the door and hugged her father with all of her strenth. Hugging the giant bat pony was like hugging a warm fluffy boulder.

"You got new sunglasses again? You should stop picking fights with those boys." Dual Stormchaser smiled at his little girl.

Screech bit her father. He laughed and petted her.

"Screech, it is getting late. You should go to bed," Carver insisted.

"I came all this way to see her and you send her off to bed the moment she gets back."

"You came all this way to see her? You live here! If you weren't off doing Luna knows what with I don't want to know who, you could see her every day!"

"I have to travle. You know I can't stay one place for long. I always bring back instruments for you. You love the yovidaphone."

"I hate the yovidaphone. I have been trying to sell it for three years! No pony in their right mind would by that thing! I suppose that is why you spent so much on it!"

"I am sorry for trying to do something nice for my family!"

"You want to do something nice for us? Get a job in Canterlot!"

"I can't! My job is impo- My job has a large impact on the lives of a lot of other ponies. I can't put myself first."

"You are a secrity coordinator not a diplomat! There are hundreds of ponies who can do your job! They can not raise your daughter!"

Screech interjected, "Papa, I need to seach for dragons before bed. Do you want to help me?"

Cleave groaned. "Ten minutes."

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Screech looked up at the moon. She wondered if Princess Luna's parrents fought. Carver's didn't.

"There are no dragons in Canterlot," assured Dual. "You don't have to search for them."

Screech didn't tell her father if she didn't look for dragons he would never come home again. "I know. How long are you staying?"

"A week. Six days. I will leave in the morning so five and a half."

Screech noted Papa was staying either three or four days. "How was Dodge Junction?"

"Fine place. There were..." Dual scratched his chin. "Minotaur run up and down every street. You have to dodge them to get where you are going."

"Where are the Minotaur going in such a rush?"

"To the... I don't know. How is your mother doing?"

"Fine. She barely drank all week. Except today." Of the two Screech was the better lier. "Can we search for dragons now?"

"In a minute. How is she shop doing?"

Screech shrugged. "We have food to eat."
Dual smiled. "That's good."

"You should be nicer to Mama." Screech didn't know where the words came from. She said them before she thought them.

Dual frowned.

Screech could feel panic building inside her. It strangled her heart pounded brain.

"I will be right back," Dual assured in a low gruff voice. He flew off into the night.

Screech waited. She waited for what felt like hours.

Screech woke in her bed. She heard her mother shouting in her office.

Screech ignored her stiff muscles. She shook the dizzyness out of her head and hobbled to her mother's office. "What are you doing up?"

"He left." Cleave chugged the contents of her coffee mug. "After everthing I said, I found you alone sleeping on the roof!"

Screech was not surprised. She was not hurt or angry. She was actually relived to know why she was in so much pain. She asked, "What are you doing up?"

"Working," Cleave snapped. "Something your father could learn a thing or two about."

"Papa does work hard. Why else would he be gone so long?"

"I don't know. I have a few theories." Cleave tipped a wine bottle over a coffee mug. Both were empty.

Screech gently placed her hooves on her mothers leg. "Mama, I think we should both go to bed."

"He is going to The Crystal Empire. Why would he refuse to take you? What is he hiding?"

"Nothing. I am sure he knows I would never leave you. He doesn't want to ask me because he knows I will stay."

Cleave hugged Screech for balance and support. After she was tucked into bed Screech went to bed as well.

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Screech woke screaming. It felt like her right wing was being torn off her body. She assured herself it was just another fever dream. She had been too sick to move since the night she fell asleep on the roof.

Cleave chugged from a wine bottle. She had given up on the formality of the coffee mug three days prior. She slamed Screeche's bloody wing onto the floor. "Cloudsdale! Your father had a secret family in Cloudsdale. I knew he resented me for only being able to have one child! I am glad the snake is dead!" She chugged more from her bottle.

Screech wanted to ask two dozen questions, but she was in too much pain to speak. She would have cried if she didn't black out.

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Screech woke wrapped in blood covered sheets. What remained of her wing was compleatly numb. She burst into tears. She sobbed uncontrollably for an hour. She knew her father's death was her own fault. She hadn't been searching for dragons.

Cleave stumbled into her daughter's room. "Why are you crying?" An open wine bottle floated behind her.

"Is Papa dead?"

Cleave pressed a hoof against her head. "Yeah. He died last night. Fell from Clouds Dale to Fillydelphia. He had a heart attack while flying. His wife and two sons saw the whole thing."

"My wing?"

"Mama can't have you flying away too. I am going to keep you here forever." She lovingly nuzzled Screech. Screech nuzzled her back.