Petrified

The remaining days flew by in a flurry of half hearted studying, eating, and sleeping. Letters were sent to loved ones in Ponyville, explaining—without too much detail—that the princesses had tasked them with another mission, and that they did not know when they would be back.

Applejack woke up on the third day, as usual, with a nervous since of dread. Every morning was met with a thought of Twilight’s frozen form, and the flashback of Celestia telling them of Spike’s disappearance.

Applejack rubbed her eyes, pressed down on them until she saw specks of color and until the picture was gone from behind her eyelids. The sun was not in the sky yet, and the morning was dull and grey. Perhaps a rain was scheduled today for Canterlot.

The farm pony walked out on the private balcony of her room and breathed in the air. It was cool, much cooler than she was used to it being.

Summer must be endin’, she thought.

“Hey, AJ.” Pinkie Pie sidled up next to her silently. Applejack nodded her consent, not taking her eyes off of the early morning sky.

A few stars still hung in the air, but their brightness was twinkling out, no doubt in preparation for the brighter star to take the stage.

A cool breeze rolled through the air, and Pinkie pressed closer to her almost on instinct.

It had been like this for the last couple of days. Applejack would be joined by her pink friend out on the balcony of her bedroom to welcome the sun into the sky. No words were spoken between them, and the few times Applejack had tried to bring up a conversation, she would be politely shot down with short, robotic answers.

“Guess today’s the day, huh?”

But she continued to try.

“Yup.” Pinkie replied, not taking her eyes off the sky.

“What do you think about that Escuro guy?”

“He’s creepy.” Pinkie shuddered as another wind blew by them, he coat brushing up against Applejack’s in a way that was strangely tantalizing.

“He is.” Applejack agreed, giving up her battle. She glanced at Pinkie, and then stared. For some reason, her eyes refused to budge.

Pinkie lasted nearly two minutes of the stare down before she sighed and met Applejack’s green eyes.

“You really worry me.” Applejack murmured. Pinkie glanced down.

“I know. Sorry.” There it was again—the bare minimum. Applejack gritted her teeth together in frustration.

The sun was in the air now, lighting up the horizon with its magnificence. Applejack swallowed thickly as the village below them lit up. This was the only glance of home she got any more. Three days had felt like a month.

Silently, she turned away once she had looked her fill. “C’mon, Pinkie. The Princesses wanted us in the throne room.”

The throne room was vastly lit by the morning sun when the two earth ponies stepped inside. Celestia was nowhere to be found, strangely, but another figure greeted them instead.

“Heelllloooo, Honesty, Laughter.” Escuro was lounging on the gigantic throne that belonged to Celestia, looking at ease and rather bored.

Applejack growled, still a bit irritated with the Pinkie dilemma of her balcony. “Why do ya call us by our elements?” she barked, folding her ears.

“Because you never told me your names.” Escuro countered wryly, raising a brow.

Applejack paused, feeling her face heat up. “Oh. Well, I’m Applejack, this here’s Pinkie Pie.” She motioned a hoof to her pink friend.

“Enchanted to meet you.” The maroon stallion nearly purred.

“Uh, you too. Where are the Princesses?”

Escuro shrugged. “Don’t know. Luna brought me up and then locked me in here for like an hour. Oh, hello, Generosity!”

Rarity closed the door behind her and trotted up to join her friends.

“Her name’s Rarity.” Applejack corrected dryly. “Good morning, sugar.” She greeted when the mare stopped beside her. Rarity smiled pleasantly back at her.

“Good morning, darlings. Good morning… Escuro.” She added in a decidedly less pleasant tone. She paused then, frowning. “What is the origin of that name, if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve never heard anything like it.”

Escuro smiled cryptically. “It’s an older name, from a language you would not be familiar with. It means ‘dark’. You can call me Shadowborn if that would be easier on the tongue.”

“So, you’re a foreigner?” Rarity inquired, tilting her head.

“You could say that.”

Rarity frowned, but any further inquiry was cut off when Luna and Celestia stepped through the throne room door, flanked by Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. In Celestia’s magic, the frozen form of Twilight Sparkle hung in the air, being carried in front of them. Applejack felt her breath catch.

Celestia set the stone Twilight down near her friends as Rainbow and Fluttershy joined them.

“Well lookie what we have here.”

The five of them gasped as the form of Escuro materialized from the ground near the Twilight statue, thin, black tentacles of some material weaving together until they formed the silhouette of the stallion, who rapidly gained back his original coloring. The entire process took less than two seconds.

“Wha—how did you…?” Rainbow sputtered, but was casually ignored as Escuro examined Twilight’s frozen form.

“Oooo.” He shivered. “I can feel the power coming off of this one. She’s something else. Give you a run for your bits, Celestia.” He cackled at the Sun Goddess, who made no indication that she heard him.

Beside her, Applejack heard a tiny noise emanate from Pinkie’s chest. A sort of small, possessive growl. She glanced at Pinkie, but found no indication of her emitting such a sound.

She looked back in time to see Escuro’s horn bubble with a strange purple-hued magic. It surrounded Twilight’s statue, turning the grey coloring of the stone to the same shade and lifting it up off the ground. He held it suspended for several seconds, and then unceremoniously dropped it back to the ground.

“That’s the King, alright.” He huffed, seemingly out of breath. “Any normal cockatrice, I could break the spell. Not the King’s though. Whoo.” He exhaled and slumped back on his hunches. “Damn flankhole put a masking spell on it, too. I won’t be able to track him by magic signature. Gonna have to do it the old fashion way.”

“Thank you for trying, Escuro.” Celestia smiled graciously at him. He waved her off, still huffing.

“What…” Rainbow was the first to break from their collective stupor. “What are you?”

Escuro smiled fetchingly at her. “Just a simple foreigner.”

“Escuro is a shadow being. One thousand years ago his kind, the Dark Forces, aided my rise to power.” Luna explained. She wandered over to one of the windows and looked outside. “They whispered secrets to me, told me what to do, in return I promised them a kingdom of their own.”

“What happened to them?” Rarity asked.

“After my banishment, they disappeared.” Luna shrugged.

“I launched an investigation of over twenty years, but nothing came of it except Escuro.” Celestia added. The stallion in question scowled up at her.

“I was barely even a shade when you caught me. A meager child.”

“Eventually, I had to close the investigation.” Celestia continued, ignoring Escuro. “And then they were never heard from again.”

“Could they still be lurking out there?” Fluttershy peeped.

“Quite possibly, yes. Shadows have a life span of some four thousand years.”

“Great. Cockatrices, shadows. What else will we have to deal with on this trip?” Applejack muttered, flicking her tail.

“At the very least quarray eels, from the Galloping and Ghastly Gorges,” Escuro informed her brightly. “And all the stuff that lives inside the Everfree, since those are two places we’ll have to visit.”

“Where all are we going, anyway?” Rainbow asked.

“The King has several hiding spots. Like, more than a dozen.” Escuro informed them casually. He examined the statue of Twilight with no interest. “Since we’re in Canterlot, we’ll hit up the Everfree first, then the Bog, then make our way to the Gorge, which in turn will lead us into the San Plomino Desert.”

“We’re going to Las Pegasus?” Pinkie inquired, the first words she had spoken since leaving Applejack’s balcony.

“Sure, we can stop there overnight or something.” The shadow being waved his hoof in an almost dismissive manner. “It’ll put us off track, since we’ll go to Macintosh Hills next, but I’m sure I can just teleport us across like, half the desert.”

“That’s not that far from Appleoosa, AJ.” Pinkie nudged her in the side. “We’ll get to see Braeburn.”

“I’ve never heard of an Appleoosa.” Escuro tilted his head.

“It’s fairly new.” Applejack informed him.

“Riiight. Well, after the Hills we’ll go right into the Badlands, which won’t be fun. We’ll cross the mountains, end up right in the Hayseed Swamps, which won’t be fun either. And from then… we’ll kind of play it by ear.”

“What do you mean by that? Don’t you have the rest planned out?” Rarity spoke up, clearly worried. Escuro looked hesitant, rubbed his neck with his hoof.

“The Swamps are very secluded. It would be a three day journey before we got anywhere near civilization—which would be Balimare.” He informed them. He stroked his chest. “I suppose we could skip from Baltimare to Fillydelphia and then go to Foal Mountains and Hollow Shades, but I don’t even know if he has a place in the Shades any more since ponies moved in. He tries to keep to landmarks.”

“Sounds fine to me, I have family down there.” Applejack stated.

“You have family in every corner of Equestria, AJ.” Rainbow snickered.

“Yeah, which means we’ll probably not have to go to inns and hotels for the night.”

Rainbow nodded her consent, as if to say ‘good point’. “So after that, where?”

“Neighagra Falls.”

Rarity squealed. “Oh, how romantic! I’ve always wanted to go!”

“Yeah, well, this time we’ll be hunting a Cockatrice King.” Escuro said wryly, with a raised brow. “Although I’m sure you can snag a random stallion to make out with, or whatever.”

Rarity huffed, but said nothing more when she saw Escuro’s wide, joking smile.

“After that we’ll have to take a train back the Canterlot, unless you all want to trek for nearly four weeks to get to Galloping Gorge, which is our next destination. Then we can hit up Tall Tale, the Smokey, and finally White Tail Woods.”

“The Running of the Leaves.” Rainbow cheered, giving Applejack a wide smile which she returned. Then, seeing Escuro’s confused look, she explained.

“Ah. Interesting. It will be well into fall by the time we get there, maybe we’ll get to see.”

“I wonder if they’ll let me announce again.” Pinkie voiced to nopony particular.

“I want you to take this,” Celestia broke into the conversation, giving a scroll to Applejack. “It’s a sort of free pass to get you out of paying for any establishment you might stop to rest at. All expenses are on the Crown.”

Applejack unrolled the scroll, and frowned at the overly specialized font everything was written in. “How’s anypony supposed to read this?”

“Why do you even need something like that?” Escuro snorted, then, seeing the blank looks he was given he pointed to them incredulously. “You’re the Elements of Harmony. Everypony should treat you like royalty anyway.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t.” Applejack murmured, and then she bowed to Celestia and Luna. “Thank you, Princesses.”

“May your journey make for fruitful results.” Celestia replied as the others, even Escuro, dropped down into bows before her.

“We’ll have to take a train down to Ponyville.” Escuro explained to them as they made their way out of the castle.

The air was only a bit warmer than it was before, but instead of finding it to be daunting, Applejack found her mind refreshed by the slight nip the breeze carried. She shifted a bit and righted her saddle bags.

“Couldn’t y’all just teleport us there? You said you could teleport us across half the Pomino Desert. Ponyville’s just over there.” Applejack pointed at the small town in the distance. “Heck, I can see the clock tower from here.”

“Teleportation needs a visual medium to be able to work. I need to have been able to see the place I’m teleporting to beforehand.” Escuro explained, sounding a bit like Twilight Sparkle.

“Couldn’t you just imagine it?” Pinkie asked.

“In theory, of course.” Escuro smiled thinly, but it was not lacking in warmth. “But I would rather not test that theory when I’ve been tasked to keep you all safe. Magic experimentation is dangerous.”

“Never stopped Twi.” Rainbow Dash muttered from just above their heads, and the rest of them shared a private smile.

The streets of Canterlot were deserted this time of day. As the six of them made their way silently through the city, lights began to appear in several of the windows of the tall apartment buildings, and the streetlamps slowly began to blink out, one by one. By the time they made it to the train station, a couple of ponies were beginning to mill around on the streets.

Early risers, Applejack thought in surprise. Ponyville won’t be up for another hour or so.

The train station was strangely bustling at this time of day, although nothing like it would be later on. It took only a few minutes for them to make it onto a train.

“Trains are a wonderful invention.” Escuro said fondly when they were seated. “Used to be you couldn’t get anywhere without walking, flying, or teleporting, which left the earth ponies at a clear disadvantage. Wanted to go to Manehattan to see your family? Well, it’s a two week journey on hoof, so you best start walking three weeks in advance, and you better be carrying a weapon—lots of bandits on that road.”

“So you’ve really been alive for a thousand years, huh?”  Pinkie asked. Escuro nodded.

“Bit more than that. I was like two hundred when Celestia captured me.”

“How old is that is pony years?”

“Well, five hundred is ten years. So I was like, three or four.” He jolted a bit when the train started moving, but righted himself back up and leaned back against his seating.

“How are you so normal?”Applejack asked. “When Luna came back, she was a bit behind on the times.”

“Luna was trapped inside the moon.” Escuro answered wryly, quirking a brow. “I was trapped inside a library. Books are a great reflection of the speech patterns of the time they are written in. Plus, ponies write books about everything under the sun and the moon. If a politician sneezed at some point in the last hundred years, somepony’s bound to have written a book about it. And I probably read it.” He made a face.

“Wow. You and Twi are a match made in heaven.” Rainbow said dryly.

“Said the pony that broke into a hospital because she wanted to know the end of a Daring Doo novel.” Rarity countered, earning a laugh out of all of them.

As the train moved on, there was an extended, albeit comfortable lull in conversation. The train ride between Canterlot and Ponyville lasted less than an hour, no time to do anything like sleep—which is something Applejack sincerely wanted to do, thanks to her earlier than usual waking this morning.

On the thought of this morning, she glanced at Pinkie, finding her in a strangely animated conversation with Escuro. She tried to catch a bit of what they were talking about, but gave up after a while since following Pinkie’s conversation was nearly hopeless, even when she was talking to you.

The corners of Applejack’s mouth tugged themselves into a frown. She did not know if she trusted Escuro yet. A part of her rationally said that he was a decent pony, maybe a bit shifty, what with the whole shadow being and dark magic thing, but overall nothing that sent warning bells in her head. But another part of her strongly felt uneasy about the whole situation. He was a basic stranger, and he would be leading them through extremely dangerous areas of Equestria.

How did they know that he would not just strand them or worse yet, abandon them when they were in the middle of some sort of fight with a magical creature?

Applejack shook off the thought. If the Princesses trusted him, then she should too. Instead, she found herself thinking of home. It would be strange, when the train stopped and they got out, to be only passing through their hometown. Not even visiting, just simply walking through as if this was just another landmark next to their real destination.

The train chugged on, pulling her into a dazed, half awake state for the rest of the ride.

“So, this is where you all live?”

Applejack watched in wry amazement as Escuro darted around the streets of Ponyville, disappearing and materializing once again by the aid of his shadows, at a neck breaking pace that strangely reminded her of Pinkie Pie.

“Yes. This is our home.” Fluttershy answered.

They were walking down Main Street of the town at a leisurely pace, as if afraid to wake up its residents. The sun was still not very high up in the air, and the town was completely deserted so early in the morning. It was strange how it resembled a ghost town at this time of the day, since every one of them were used to seeing it bustling and active.

"So where are your houses?" Escuro materialized in the middle of their group and fell into step with them, finally calming down. Applejack wondered if he would be this way about every city they passed through along the way. She guessed she couldn't blame him, what with being cooped up in that tiny room for more than a thousand years.

"I guess a little detour wouldn't hurt." Rarity muttered. "I'm always up for showing off my boutique. And of course, Sweet Apple Acres are the pride and joy of this town."

Applejack felt herself blush at the compliment and tipped her hat silently at Rarity. "I guess it wouldn't hurt." She admitted. "But y'all got to cut down on the whole shadow traveling thing ya do. Ponies see you doing that here, and they'll shun you from the town."

"No problem. And, it's called shadow stepping." Escuro smiled at her. "Just for future references."

The tour took an extended amount of time, only because Escuro asked several questions during the entire thing. By the end, Applejack was sure he could write all five of their biographies.

Finally, they came upon Sweet Apple Acres.

Escuro whistled. "You're an apple farmer, huh? I think a few of my books mentioned the Apple family. Been around for a while, haven't you guys?"

"As long as there's been land to farm, the Apples have been around to farm it." Applejack replied, reciting an old saying her pa used to always tell her. She shook the thought away.

"It's my brother, sister, granny and I on the farm." She went on, anticipating his next question from having heard it repeated all morning.

"And, how many acres?"

"Seven hundred an' twenty eight."

"Who gets the farm after your granny passes on?'

"Me, I recon." Applejack paused, not entirely comfortable with the question. She thought about it for a while. "Yeah. Most likely me. The other two, my brother an' sister, their hearts aren't into it. They jus' do it cause that's what we were raised to do."

"I see." Escuro looked at her for a long while, almost scrutinizing her. She shied away from the gaze, not liking the way it seemed to pierce her soul. A cold shiver ran down her spine.

"Well, we best get going." the shadow being chirped after he was done staring at her. He turned away from her, and Applejack swore she could breathe better as soon as his eyes left her.

"Everfree's this way." she said, falling into step with him and guiding him and the rest to the edge of town and beyond.

Ponies were out in the streets by now, greeting each other with a casual familiarity that came from living in a town were everypony truly knew everypony. More than once their voices were called out in greeting, accompanied by a 'good morning' or a 'hey'. Escuro was given curious looks as they passed through, and he introduced himself as Shadowborn to anypony who inquired about him.

"Friendly bunch." He commented when they came to the outskirts of the town."If I ever get to rejoin society, I'd like to settle down in a place like this."

Applejack highly doubted that would work out in the long run. Escuro's quirkiness would catch on quickly in a place like Ponyville. They walked in silence for the short remaining distance from the edge of town to the entrance of the forest.

"Well, here we are." Applejack announced once the darkly colored trees of the Everfree loomed over the path in front of them.

Escuro shivered. "Wow. Lot of dark power coming from this area. I can practically see it. I've read about this place, you know. Lots of books say it's been the source of dark magic since the dawn of time. Others say Discord created it during his reign." as he talked, Escuro stepped closer to the trees and breathed in deeply. His eyes flashed green. "Then, once he was defeated, the sisters took over his castle, but his followers destroyed it one night, and put a curse on the area, willing all of Discord's monstrous chaotic creations into it."

"Yeah, we've met something different every time we've gone in there." Rainbow Dash informed him from her place above their heads, scowling at the forest.

"Like what?" Escuro began walking inside, moving his head from side to side as he looked at everything the forest had to offer.

The rest of them followed inside the dark area as Rainbow listed off all the beasts they'd come across. "Lets see. We met a sea serpent, a manticore, several timber wolves..."

"The parasprites came from here." Pinkie pipped up.

"Pinkie made hundreds of copies of herself and unleashed them on Ponyville." Rainbow continued casually, smirking at her best friend. Pinkie stuck her tongue out at the pegasus teasingly.

"I've always questioned the wisdom of making a town near such a place." Rarity murmured.

"It does seem kind of idiotic," Escuro agreed. "If anything should live near a place like this, it should be ponies practicing dark magic. This forest has enough dark power to feed an army of black mages."

They continued to walk on, making casual small talk peppered with Rainbow's and Pinkie's antics, and Escuro's almost encyclopedic knowledge of everything. He was truly like another Twilight, a fountain of information with pinches of dry humor and witty banter. Applejack listened and found herself learning a lot, as opposed to tuning him out like she did Twilight. The thought worried her a bit, but she found herself relaxing and asking questions.

"So where's the actual hiding place in here?" Applejack asked after a while of walking.

"The ruins." Escuro said simply, and seeing their hesitation, he added, "Hey, be glad it's in an actual place. All the others, we'll have to find a specific tree in a forest of trees, and then carve a strange symbol into it or something."

"Well, if we're going to the ruins again, we'll get to see that one sea serpent, Rarity." Rainbow exclaimed, smirking teasingly at the white unicorn.

"Yeah. I wonder if he still wears your tail as a mustache." Pinkie giggled.

Rarity sniffed, but a small smile appeared on her lips even as she turned her nose up. "That was years ago darlings, I highly doubt that—"

The rest of her sentence was cut off in a gasp, because at that moment they came upon the same lake where they met the sea serpent all those years ago. Only this time, the water was not water at all. Applejack could smell the metallic undertones in the air, and could see the rock-like parts where the river of blood had already clotted.