A shadow in the light

The morning sun warmed his exposed body laying curled up on the bed. Shadow squinted through his eye lids to search his room once again for the source of light and once again limped over to close the blinds. Ignoring the receding pain from yesterdays encounter he made his way down the stairs into his living room.

Sunlight filtered into the living room from all angles causing him to close his eyes entirely, fumbling around with one hoof out in front of him to find each window and block it with the suspending cloth. The room was near pitch black, though he easily saw through the darkness with his night vision and began to head for his kitchen only to realize it contained no edibles.

"Shit," He muttered finally giving into his hunger collapsing on the couch. Besides a slice of enticing chocolate cake he hadn't anything to eat for at least two days. "Uurrgghh," Was the noise of all his effort to once again stand and walk out the front door towards the market.

Once again, his day began with nothing but trouble. He lay there for a minute, collecting his thoughts. His nearly empty pouch lay upstairs and the market all the way at the other end of town. The more he though about it the less he was compelled to feed himself, especially after yesterday's incident, going to meet new ponies was the last thing he wanted to do. However, in order to fill his pleading stomach, do it he must.

He was about to make one final effort to stand when a knock at the door rung through the silent house.

"Hello? Shadow, are you home? It's me, Twilight," The muffled voice called out from the other side of the door.

"Thy can let yourself in," He replied only realizing what he had just said. He had tried to keep his mentors habits from influencing him but once every blue moon he would let something slip if he wasn't attentive.

The door creaked open slowly opening a path for both the purple unicorn and the bright light surrounding her. She took a few steps into the house not stepping out of the light before she squinted into the darkness of the house.

"Shadow, are you there?"

"Right here, on the couch," He lifted a lazy hoof and waved to her from the couch with no success of grabbing her attention.

"Why is it so dark in here? You know you could just open the blinds, there is a thing called sunlight and it helps us see," She said with agitation.

"The switch is to your left,"

"Oh," She turned her head feeling for the light switch. "So it is," Were the last words before Shadow's world brightened into a yellow realm. Using the last of his energy he sat upright on the couch to look more inviting for his guest. "Still, I think opening the blinds would have been a little bit more effective. So how are you this morning?"

"I've had better mornings," Shadow cocked his head. "Really hungry though,"

"Umm, I could get you something to eat if you want?" She offered turning slowly towards the door, displaying her willingness to act through her words.

"I would be grateful if you would," He moaned slightly through his words, the hunger was taking its toll and his stomach was screaming for something, anything tasty. "My bits are in my saddlebag upstairs, please use what's left to buy me some apples from your orange friend's stand, sorry I forgot her name,"

Twilight cautiously moved through to the other end of the room, walking up the stairs into the bedroom. After a quick magical rummage through the saddlebags, she returned with a small black pouch containing what little money he had left. As she headed for the door, she stopped as she passed the short brown table looking with odd suspicion towards Shadow.

"Why do you want her apples? There are lots of other things I could get for you, other fruits, vegetables or eggs if you really wanted,"

Shadow wasn't picky with his food, but the earlier incident inclined him to seek compassion of some sort from the ponies he knew so far.

"I guess it's a way to say sorry," He shrugged, "and it feeds me as well as drums up business, right?"

"I guess so. Anyway, I'll be back in a few minutes, just sit tight, I want to ask you a few things when I come back," She trotted quickly out the door closing it in a purple glow leaving Shadow sitting in the dimly lit room by himself. Deciding it would comfort his guest... friend, he opened every curtain downstairs to allow the warm glow hit every surface before he turned off the cheap fluorescent light. Sitting back on the couch, he waited for only a few moments in his own company before Twilight flushed through the door once again without even an announcing knock.

"Seven granny smith Apples coming right up," she announced trotting up to the small table and dropping a straw bag of perfectly bright green apples on it. Without a moments hesitation Shadow almost leaped from his spot on the couch to grab an apple and take a quick yet wet, juicy, crunchy bite out of it, barely chewing before eating the rest if it in rushed haste. Not leaving even a single crumb go to waste, not even the core was left.

Twilight on the receiving end of such coarse behavior took a seat at the other end of the couch as no other furniture could be located in the room.

After the intense annihilation of six of the delectable apples, Shadow took his time with the seventh. His stomach was satisfied and began to churn with the new found treats.

"Hungry, huh?" She chuckled at his informal display of eating.

"Well, your pink friend, umm," He lost his words.

"Pinkie?" She guessed.

"Yes, your friend, Pinkie ate the last of my sweets from the, umm,"

"Sugar Cube Corner?"

"Once again, yes. Sorry, I'm not too great with names," He gave her an awkward smile along with a laugh as he rubbed the back of his neck. "So did you want to ask me a few things?" He declared joining her on the red couch.

"Yes, I was wondering a few things about your study in magic,"

'Oh boy, here it comes, may the Q&A begin,' Shadow announced to himself. "Can you be a little more specific?"

"Well," She thought aloud looking at the ceiling while diving into the depths of questions she had previously prepared. "Why dark magic? I mean, what brought you to study something that's considered forbidden by everypony?"

"That's a very simple question with a very complex answer," He sighed, giving himself time to produce an answer. "I'll make this as simple as possible. For one, I just can't use normal magic-" He paused, trying to levitate his half eaten apple in a dark glow with no success. "-but as you can see, I really do suck at it. Anything and everything that was within the normal sections of the library and deemed safe to use, I just couldn't do. After a long struggle with patience I sneaked into the forbidden section of the library took a few books off the shelf and tried to cast a spell,"

Twilight looked at Shadow with concern. "Didn't you know how dangerous dark magic can be? Didn't your mentor or parents ever tell you these things?"

Shadow flinched at her last remark.

"Let's just say that I was a really stupid stallion and leave it at that, okay?" His answer was met along with another question from the data hungry unicorn before him.

"Wait, what? Did you just say stallion? How long ago was this?"

Shadow rubbed the length of his left fore-hoof with his right. His eyes wandered away from Twilight, engaging onto something very interesting on the floor. "It's probably been about a year and a bit, perhaps more, I can't really remember,"

"So you went through your entire foalhood without using magic? Didn't you ever get those magical outbursts?

In the most straight forward voice Shadow could muster, he replied with one informative sentence wondering what Twilight's reaction would be.

"Are you talking about when a pony builds up unused magic inside of them like a dam, only to be released through their horn in the most excruciating pain imaginable for a unicorn?" Ending his sentence with a smile, inducing a reaction from Twilight that's similar to shock. For her sake he kept a straight face.

She scrunched her face up as if under the influence of the pain herself.

"Didn't that, you know, kinda hurt? I mean only experienced them when I was a foal,"

Shadow chuckled at her sympathy.

"Well of course it hurt, but I wasn't the only one to have it. As you know only unicorns that can't cast spells have this build up, so all the little foals had headaches every now and again. I would see them on the streets suddenly crying in their mothers arms," Shadow looked lost in his own thoughts for a moment, staring into empty space until he snapped back into reality to continue. "Of course since I couldn't use magic until late in my life I had those for quite some time, but think nothing of it and let's move on,"

Twilight, shook her head rapidly, removing her previous depressive thoughts to ask another question she had speculated.

"If I remember correctly, yesterday you said something about sending Pinkie to another dimension, or something. What did you mean by that?"

Finishing his last apple, and swallowing the core he took the moment to remind himself exactly of what he spoke of.

"I call it another realm because it doesn't actually change any physical dimensions, just moves you to another body of space entirely,"

"What, in the name of Celestia are you talking about?"

Shadow snickered at her utter confusion.

"Don't worry too much about the details, essentially the spell I used transports an object into, umm, what you could call my personal magic room, I guess," Shadow's generalized explanation left Twilight with a frustrated look on her face. Shadow immediately noticed and offered his help to fill her knowledge. "I could show you if you want?"

Her hardened stare switched from puzzled to astonishment as the suggestion was left on the table.

"I-is it safe? I mean, are there life taking risks involved?"

Shadow expected such a response and did his best not to force her in any particular direction of choice.

"I won't lie to say it's completely safe-" Twilight shifted uncomfortably, "-but this spell is relatively safe in comparison. It's not so much how the spell is cast as how long you spend in this reality. Now, if you trust me enough we can make our way there,"

Twilight turned her head to the window contemplating pros and cons of the decision, before looking back to Shadow nodding her head in acceptance. Shadow asked her to close her eyes for her own sanity earning a stern look from the purple mare before she complied.

Focusing magic into his now black glowing horn, he slowly and carefully cast the spell as to not mess it up and make a fool of himself. As the darkness grew below their hooves, Twilight yelped as the black tentacles slowly latched onto her, dragging her into the floor. Not a moment later Shadow followed into the purple mist below to appear in a perfectly black world.

He looked around and found the unicorn a few lengths below him with her eyes glued shut. He floated down calling her name to make sure she hadn't passed out. When he was assured she was okay he requested her to open her eyes.

"Oh, wow. This is amazing!" She exclaimed, looking about in awe similar to how a country pony would act seeing tall buildings in a big city for the first time. "Wait-" She flailed about in the empty space foolishly, "How can I breath? Are we falling or flying or something?" She yelled, her heart racing and her hooves struggling  to find anything solid.

"Hey!" Shadow yelled grabbing her attention. Even though he felt uncomfortable having the teacher and comforter role, he knew it was his duty to help her understand both him and his magic better, as to not spread any more atrocious rumors about him. "It's okay, just take deep breaths, that's right slow breaths, please don't hyperventilate on me. Good, that's better,"

Twilight stopped struggling and seemingly stood still on air, calming herself and her nerves before Shadow began his lecture.

"As you can see, or can't in this case, this world is pitch black. Don't ask me why we can see each other, I don't know either, okay?" He quickly added seeing Twilight's mouth open then close. "The easiest way to describe what this place is would be to say it's my personal magical room that is stored inside me and only I can access. I can use a certain spell to add whatever I want to this vast space, think of it as a storage space. Any questions?"

Twilight obviously had a few as her mouth shot out words quicker than one could think of a question.

"How much stuff can you store in here? Could you store an entire house?"

"That would depend on how powerful the unicorn. As far as my abilities go, I could probably get a fairly large bed in here, maybe more. The only problem is once something is stored in here it takes more constant flowing magic to keep it suspended in here, not too much magic but enough to cause discomfort if ignored for too long. Oh-" Shadow looked to his left as a small rubber band floated slowly towards him from apparently nowhere, "-so that's where that went," Twilight just stared at him in amazement. "I can sense everything in here, technically it goes on forever but I can move anything at any speed with just a thought, even you," Shadow resisted the urge to show her but her mental stability was, well, unstable at the moment and panicking further could set something off.

"This is so cool and it's so convenient, why aren't I allowed to learn this kind of spell? It can't be considered dark magic, right?" She squealed with the new text book information she had received from Shadow.

"Let's get out of here and I'll explain why that is," His horn consumed an ounce of magic as a bright light above them broke through the dreary black sucking them both through slowly.

As their world was blinded white, they shut tight their eyes to save themselves from seeing the eye doctor. Then once again, they were standing next to the red couch in Shadow's living room.

"Got it right that time," He whispered with delight.

Lying on the couch, face to face once more they continued where they left off.

"Okay," Twilight began with an up toned voice. "So you were going to tell me why it's classified as dark magic, right?"

"Honestly, I thought it would be obvious to you, but I'll tell you anyway," Shadow was feeling quite good about himself, being able to talk without too much concern on how he presented him self or what he said felt good. Relaxing was the last thing he thought he would be doing in Ponyville. "I am able to take any inanimate object in and out as I please, even with organic substances there's no problem-" Twilight shuffled closer to be sure not to miss a word, "-The only problem is that if some kind of organic thing is kept in there for too long then it starts to disintegrate into the realm and eventually disappear all together."

"Wha?.. So if we stayed in there too long then we could....."

"Don't worry," smirked at her concern. "It would take a couple of hours before anything like that would even start, but it is a deadly weapon if used by the wrong pony. Only a responsible and dependable pony should be taught this kind of spell.

"And you're responsible?"

"I guess so, I haven't hurt anypony or been abandon by my mentor, so I guess I am," Shadow lengthened his neck in pride as he thought harder about what he had said. 'Yeah, I am responsible aren't I. Luna sent me here without any guards, she must trust me to do that. Hmm, never thought of that 'till now,' He gleefully thought.

"Talking about your mentor, what's he... or she like?"

Shadow immediately snapped his neck backwards, his pose looking similar to a swan on water.

"Errr... Ummm..." Lost for words with the uncomfortable subject, Shadow decided to turn the questioning round. "Since I've answered your questions so far why don't you let me ask some now?" He said obviously trying to avoid the subject of Luna being his mentor. Shadow never liked the idea of riding on his or someponyelses prestige. He'd witnessed first hoof what it could do and knew how cracked that pillar stood.

"That seems fair enough-" She glared at Shadow with a different suspicious look now, knowing full well what he had just done, "-Shoot away dark knight,"

"Shoot who, where, what?"

Twilight face hoofed

"Never mind, just ask me something, anything, I'll answer whatever you want,"

Shadow had built up his own bank of questions since their last meeting, but a knew interest arose and his desire to know more about his friends was temporarily blockaded.

"Why are you so intrigued by dark magic? Can you use it too?"

"Well, no I can't. I tried once but things didn't exactly turn out the way I planned it," Twilight's gaze slid from Shadow to the cold hard floor, she obviously regretted her previous decision, whatever it may have been. Her head resting on her hooves and her eyes half closed in dismay. Shadow saw this and decided to move to another topic. She had made mistakes just as everyone else had.

"So you're an element of harmony, huh?"

Twilight's dismal stare was brought back into Shadow's eyes with the simple question. Her head rose up high as her brighter past was brought into the limelight.

"Yep," The now gleeful unicorn replied.

"So how'd that happen, were you born as the element or were you granted the power?"

"It's a long story, my life story really. If you want to go into the details I could tell you,"

"I've got no plans today, and besides I feel really comfortable around you, so go on, I wouldn't mind hearing someponies adventures," Twilight's smile cracked a little at his unusual statement.

"You feel comfortable around me? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, isn't that normal to say, how you feel around other ponies? Oh, is it just assumed or something?"

"Uuum, yeah. You really haven't spent a lot of time socializing have you?"

"Not really, no," His smile had disappeared long ago leaving a discomforted frown on his face. Saying moronic things seemed to be his special talent at the moment.

Once again he was having second thoughts about his trip. When ever he said stuff like 'You make me feel warm' or if he used dark magic in their presence, Luna was the only one to understand and comfort him. So far he mostly seen those same judgmental eyes looking at him with spite, it had taken a full on incident for Twilight to view him differently, but some things just never seemed to change.

"You know, we might have more in common than we thought," Shadow's ears perked up as he grasped the letters right out of the air and held them tight, savoring every definition and meaning to each word. "I used to be just like that....

Twilight explained her story of how she became Celestia's student, her visit to Ponyville and how she acted at first. She went on to explain her dealings with Nightmare Moon and how she came to realize that it was her friends that saved her, she wasn't able to beat the princess alone and her friendship saved both the whole of Equestria, as well as clear Luna of what evil lay in her heart.

Shadow, lay dumbfounded, confused, amazed, overwhelmed, and in complete disbelief of what he was hearing. Not only was the purple Unicorn powerful, smart and famous but she was totally modest about her adventures. However much these facts and stories may have dropped Shadow's jaw, nothing stunned him more than to realize who the mare in front of him actually was. She was the mare that had brought Princess Luna back to Canterlot, which in turn had given Shadow a new life, a new home and new hope. Without Twilight Sparkle, Shadow Stalk may not have come to pass.

Twilight ended her story, finishing where her 'boring' daily life began. She had gotten off the couch to reenact scenes from her past, which she felt was somewhat embarrassing but was fun to do anyway. She took a quick glance back at Shadow, noticing his jaw almost falling off, she fell to the floor laughing.

Shadow realized she had noticed but remained silent only to sit upright onto the couch. Just staring blankly at the hysterical pony on the floor he thought of what he should do. 'Do I tell her about Luna? I don't think she'll treat me better, but what if she thinks I'm like a Canterlot bully? Maybe I'll tell her later, but there might not be a better time. Do I tell her about my life?'

"Why is this so hard?" He muttered aloud, louder than he intended.

Twilight stopped flailing about on the floor long enough to wipe the tears from her eyes. Standing and composing her self she sat facing Shadow.

"Hehe, W-what was that?" She asked still with a giggle in her voice.

Shadow took in a slow deep breath attempting to calm his nerves. Even before he spoke he could feel damp fur under his legs and the dry air passing through his throat. Exhaling, he felt the vast heat as it left cooling his jittery body.

He opened his mouth, about to burden every ounce of his past, his status, his responsibility, how she had effected him and his relation with Luna; he was about to shove all of that onto a single pony. One he had met just a few days ago. She was about to gain a whole new perspective of the Navy blue unicorn in front of her.

"Twilight........