A shadow in the light

Shadow reached home early evening after leaving Twilight to have her 'study' session. Her earlier explanation of her life long friend was brief, but gave him enough information to be able to calm himself and prevent a panic attack if he were to ever meet this dragon.

Shadow reached for his front door and welcomed the brass knob into his grip. The door swung open and he was about to leap towards his bed before he was stopped by something unusual in his home. He couldn't pin point it exactly, it wasn't the furniture, or the kitchen, or any of his belongings for that matter. Entering the living room he noticed a single long red streamer pinned just above the entrance behind him. Immediately he knew the implications of what that meant. Somepony had been in his house. Whether they had stolen something, or just wanted to find out who the new guy in town was, or perhaps it was something worse, something only he should deal with that the public eye shouldn't see, the fact was that they had intruded on his property.

He empowered his horn with magic and cast the spell he was most familiar with, a detection spell, or more specifically a sensory spell, that he used almost every night within Luna's tower back in Canterlot. He could sense that nopony was here at the moment, but they had been; moved around both his living room and kitchen leaving the upstairs bedroom untouched, waiting for some time that he couldn't predict before a second entity entered and then they both left together. Shadow's spell wasn't the most accurate but it gave him valuable information, enough to stop him from making any grand mistakes.

He relaxed himself shutting the door behind him before he climbed the stairs and fell onto his bed. He concluded that whoever had intruded probably had no intentions of violence (even though all his trained instincts told him so), instead of heading up to his room where all his belongings were to be found, they had stayed downstairs. 'At least they didn't go through my stuff' Shadow thanked. Not sure if it were normal in small towns to welcome themselves into random homes or not, Shadow let the past go as he had done many times before.

'What do I do now?' Was all he could think to himself. 'hmmm, maybe i'll write to Luna about my first day, Yeah, she'd like that,' grabbing a quill from him saddlebag and some paper stored in the drawer of the desk, Shadow began his report to Luna about his fortunate and unfortunate events throughout his short time in Ponyville.

Dear Princess Luna,.........

Shadow described his day in detail, including his first contact, what the towns atmosphere was like as well as his greetings with Applejack and Rarity. He only excluded his recent suspicions as it may have looked bad in Luna's eyes. He ended his report with a few questions that lay on his mind for quite some time.

And lastly, Princess, when may I return to Canterlot? I understand that you are funding my 'exchange' here and I won't lie saying that I completely love this trip but nor will i say that I despise it. If I am to stay here for a lengthy period of time without you, may I also have your permission as to practice magic?

Sincerely,

your subject,

Shadow Stalk

It was late by the time his report was finished and his letter would take at least a day to arrive in Luna's hooves, so Shadow decided to doze off early for the first time in many years.

Walking by his saddlebag without worrying about it's belongings, he slowly lifted the blanket and slid lazily onto the mattress.  The bed wasn't his royal double bed but it was sufficient for it's purpose and far exceeded last nights branch. Shadows world turned dark as it blurred to black. On most nights he would awake with the feeling that he had slept for only a moment in his bed, allowing time to drift by without disturbing his slumber. However, tonight was going to be different.

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Shadow awoke, not lying in his bed, or even in his house, he stood in an open field of grass, the night moon and stars alighting the forever growing grass that reached towards a vast nothingness . Looking around Shadow noticed strange things here and there, the grass reached the horizon in every direction, coming to meet the sky on every angle possible. No mountains, lakes, forests or clouds could be seen, the world would have seemed dead if not for the soft blowing breeze that upheld his main and tail to look like a dark stream of smoke riding the winds wherever they lead. All was quiet, not a chirp from a cricket could be heard. Shadow wasn't scared, he had lived in darkness his whole life, just confused thoughts sailed through his mind as to what events had lead him to being in such a desolate country.

Suddenly, a silhouette passed through the moon's light, blocking it from Shadow's world for only a moment before being followed by a familiar and calming voice. He immediately knew where he was.

"It is a pleasure to see you again Shadow!" The voice was soothing and direct. "How has my favorite student been thus far?"

Shadow swung around to rest his eyes on Luna as she gracefully landed, her hooves touching down without a sound. "I have been...." Shadow searched for the best word to describe his situation, only to fall short of impressive, using the next best word. "well. Under the circumstances that is,"

"Please, I would like to hear every detail possible for tonight is you're night and I am going to neglect my royal duties this one time," This brought a smile to Shadow's face. His mentor was overlooking her duties just for him, it reminded him of how much she had done for him, how grateful he was and what his purpose for being in Ponyville was.

"I guess I'll start with my first night in Ponyville," He introduced.

As in his letter, Shadow described his first incident with Twilight, his unfortunate use of dark magic, all the way up to meeting the boutique owner while leaving out the information concerning his letter to her. It would have taken a while to reach her and she had already heard the story from him so the letter was now redundant.

"Well, that does sound like an eventful day!" She chuckled thinking back to his encounter with Twilight, which also brought a concerned expression to her face. "So did you really use the distortion spell? You understand that I never want you to use dark magic when i'm not around?" Luna's voice was raised in irritation. "It could you could have hurt yourself! I have told you many times before that you could end up in a wall or even solidify yourself without a leg!

Shadow forgot all about his previous panicked attempt to escape for a moment, he stared at the ground in shame. His only thoughts dragged along the lines of 'I'm such a stupid stallion, i can't even follow one simple rule!'

Shadow initiated his own mental punishment and with each following word, a hammer swung down upon him breaking every ounce of self confidence and prided he owned.

"Umm, yes," he admitted blatantly. "I'm really sorry, I-I was scared about meeting other ponies and falling into one of their houses wasn't the way I had seen myself greeting them. I just wanted to leave and start over, if there was any chance that she didn't recognized me....." Shadow began to choke with tears building up around the sides of his eyes. "I don't know if i can keep doing this Luna, it's so hard, I've seen so many of them look at me in 'that' way! I don't want to go back it keeps reminding my of the past!" his pride had been hurt and telling Luna about his shameful retreat from a problem had somewhat made him feel guilty and ashamed of himself. Shadow had rarely cried before, his upbringing taught him never to feel regret or to be self conscious, but things were different back then than they were now. He had a name, a home and the closest thing he understood to be a mother.

Luna saw his distress, not wishing the salty sadness leak out of him, she held him in an affectionate embrace. He sobbed, allowing his tears to be removed by Luna's fur. "It's okay, everything's fine," she soothed him with a soft calming voice. "I just want you to understand that I worry about you, the last thing I want is for you to hurt yourself or any new friend that you could make,"

The two sat there, under the moonlight comforting one another. The wind had died down leaving only Shadow's weeping to erase the silence.

What seemed like hours passed before Shadow pulled away from Luna. He raised his head to look at her with sore red eyes,  to be met with a tender look. "I-I'm sorry. I just needed to calm down a bit, th-thank you, I'm sure I can stay in Ponyville for a few more weeks,"

They left the comfort of the embrace allowing Luna to instruct him.

"Shadow I want you to promise me something," Luna began sternly. "I want you to promise me that you will be responsible, trustworthy, bold and cautious when ever you practice dark magic!"

Shadow watched her for any signs of laughter or sarcasm. None were present. He wiped away the pride from his eyes noticing that, for some reason Luna's fur wasn't in the least bit soaked, before confirming his thoughts. "Are you saying that I can practice my magic in Ponyville, even when you're not around?" He asked still shaky from his emotional outburst, though a smile had began to creep onto his face without his knowledge.

She returned with one of her own. "As long as you abide by my rules and you keep your promise then I will allow you to train alone. You're not the little filli guard I picked up as my student long ago. You are now old enough to take consequences for your own actions. My only request is that you only practice dark magic and not study it. I do not want you learning knew magic that is unfamiliar and perhaps even more corrupt than spells you already know,"

With each word Shadow's smile grew until it threatened to rip off his face entirely. "oh thank you so much Luna! I won't let you down this time, only the spells I already know will be used and by the time i return back to Canterlot I will have perfected them!"

A cheerful expression and a sense of calm waved over Luna's face."We will see, nevertheless I'm glad to hear that, now I suppose it is time to wake up, My sister will rise the sun soon and you have many Ponies to meet. I will check on you're progress in a month,"

"A whole month?" Surprise took hold of Shadow for a moment. Without contacting Luna for a whole month seemed daunting to him. He thought about it for a moment before he continued. "I understand, you don't have a lot of time with your royal duties calling, I can be patient,"

"Thank you Shadow, I bid you a farewell and good morning"

The world Shadow stood in started to distort itself, each blade of grass merging into a single blur, the moon and stars faded away as if a thousand candles were being blown out one by one. Luna slowly backed away into the distance, not leaving Shadow without a sincere smile to say good bye. Everything around him slowly faded to black leaving him in his own dark dream world. Luna had disappeared along with the world and all was lonely and silent.

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Shadow opened his eyes to reveal a varnished wooden ceiling. The fur on his face slightly damp. It seemed that his trip wasn't completely disconnected from the real world. Sitting up out of his bed he looked to the nearest light source, which had in fact been the sun outside his window. The contrast between his normal awakening time Canterlot and his new daytime mornings was substantial. The brightness between Celestia's sun to Luna's delicate moon was immense, so the curtains drew to a close the moment Shadow could reach them.

The room was now almost completely black besides the small amount of light that seeped through the fabric of the curtain. Of course this didn't faze him, in fact it came to Shadow's delight, it comforted him. It reminded him of the darkness that he had lived in for so long and was familiar with wasn't all that far away.

"I'm feeling so good right now!" He announced to nopony in particular after shaking the groggy feeling off. "Let's start training right away, a healthy body brings a healthy mind!" He was about to advance over to his saddle bag when his stomach growled with displeasure of being ignored for so long. "Right after I grab breakfast,"

Shadow clopped down stairs to the kitchen for something to eat, unfortunately for him Luna had rented the cottage and the cottage alone meaning food was nowhere to be found. "Looks like another day in the town then" He sighed discontented.