Dark Light

Years past. Dark Light grew accustom the outside world, slowly he began to feel as though the factory years were just a haunting nightmare, but every night he had dreamt of the last day of the factory. The painful years he had spent, hauling a load that would have broken any other ponies back at that age, and the guilt he felt at the death of Sweet Leaf, magnified by the deaths during the revolution. He couldn’t escape the dreams, the pain and anguish. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, but he tried anyway.

After he escaped from the factory with the other foals, he went to find out what other unicorns like him did. He learned about magic at an age considered late by most other unicorns, but he quickly got the hang of the natural power within him. During his teaching, he met the only other unicorn within two years of his age who was at the same magical capability level. Her name was Shimmer Heart. They quickly became well acquainted and enjoyed helping each other in the struggles they encountered during their teaching.

“How come you haven’t finished with the elementary level magic yet Shimmer?” Dark light asked tentatively.

“My parents are both earth ponies, they didn’t care much for magic. Thought that everypony who used it lacked the strength to do the task that they were using magic for, manually,” The mare replied.

“What changed?”

“They took me to canterlot to see the wonderbolts, but then just as we exited the show there was a massive rainbow explosion and all of a sudden a huge dragon burst through the ceiling of one of the castle spires. It was then that they realised that some things couldn’t be done without magic so they sent me here a few years later, I joined about three years ago, I think.” Shimmer explained. Dark Light seamed intrigued, and then a smile spread across his face.

“That was the same year I joined!” he said, surprised that another ‘Late bloomer’ joined the same year as him. He was about to continue talking about the topic until Shimmer asked something that he didn’t want to answer.

“What about you? Why didn’t you join earlier?” she asked innocently. It was a question that she had no reason not to ask, but even so Dark Light’s heart started pounding hard as he thought hard to himself. ‘What do I tell her? I have to answer, but I don’t want to lie to her!’ His train of thought drifted from one point to the next, until he made his decision. ‘I have to tell her, she’d probably find out from me later anyway’

“I was a factory worker, forced in to it due to the fact that I was living on the streets at a young age. My parents had died in a massive storm that hit a town called Ponyville, where we lived before I was orphaned. I don’t remember much of my father, only that he was a Pegasus who sorted out the weather there. My mother was a unicorn. She stayed at home to care for me. She was beautiful. Silver coat, Gold mane and brilliant blue eyes. When the storm came, nopony expected it. All able pegasi and unicorns had to help control it, in the end the storm died and a few ponies with it, both my mother and my father included. I was left on the streets, and then forced into labour until I managed to end it. I was able to cope for myself when I escaped but I didn’t know I had the power to use magic. So I just travelled but then a few years after my escape, I saw a unicorn use magic, I learned what it was and enlisted to join the school for basic magic,”

Shimmer was silent, and looked at the stallion as if she had just seen him die. Suddenly, she burst into tears and wrapped her front hooves around him. She looked at him and asked why he didn’t tell her earlier and how it was horrible how he had lost his family and been forced to work in a factory. Dark light sighed, smiled and put his hoof around her. “Don’t worry about it Shim, I know it’s sad but it’s all in the past. I never have to deal with it again.” She looked at him with eyes filled with tears. He lifted her chin so her eyes were looking into his. “You don’t know how much it means to me, seeing how much you care about me,” he pressed his nose against hers. “Thank you, so much, but if it made you sad to have to hear it, imagine what I feel. I know you mean the best, but I need to know that I have somepony who is strong to lean on if I need it. Which I most likely will,” He released her and backed his head away slowly. “I have nightmares about this every night. I won’t be able to cope if nopony is there to help me. Okay?” Shimmer sniffed and smiled.

“Okay,” The two of them walked home together, as they had done for the past few weeks, and just as they passed Dark Light’s house, and said there goodbyes Shimmer called out to Dark Light. “Wait!” the young stallion stopped and looked over his shoulder at Shimmer. “You know you said you had nightmare every night?” The beautiful young mare said, blushing cutely. Dark light nodded, as he turned to face her properly. “Do you want me to… maybe… stay over tonight, s-see if I can help you sleep?” Dark light was surprised by the proposition at first but then smiled.

“I suppose it’s worth a try,” The stallion said, signalling for her to come in. The mare took the offer to come in to the stallion’s house, after which he closed the door. She walked up to him, said thanks and then kissed him on the lips. Dark Light felt his heart beat start to speed up as the two unicorns wrapped their hooves around each other. The warmth of her embrace seemed to clear his mind of his troubles. When he told her he needed somepony to rely on when he was troubled, she was there right away. Shimmer was not only making him happy, but she was also clearing his mind. He knew he would have a peaceful night tonight.

“You must have your mother’s eyes, they’re beautiful” Shimmer said. They went to bed and slept in each other’s embrace and for the first time in eleven years, Dark Light Had a Good dream.

The two unicorns woke up, happy and well rested.

“Hey, Shim, do we have magic class today?” The grey one said with a smile on his face. The other unicorn with a bright blue coat and a smooth free flowing dark blue mane looked puzzled.

“No, Why?”

“I was hoping, if you wanted to, to ‘snuggle up’ a bit,” the stallion said with a handsome and slightly provocative smile. The mare giggled and blushed. She obviously knew what Dark Light meant.

“O-Okay,” The timid unicorn said smiling happily, she was really surprised by the offer but she was also happy that he did offer. They went on and enjoyed the moment for what it was, they were showing their love for each other. When they had finished, Dark Light went to the shower to wash up. The experience was like nothing he had felt before.  And he loved it.

“What do you want to do today Shim?” The happy energetic stallion asked from the shower. The vastness of canterlot only meant that everything was either hard to find or overrun due to there only being a few main events that everyone wanted to attend, any show with the wonderbolts was usually the first to sell out.

“We could wonder about canterlot, that’s usually interesting” The suggestion was better than the stallion expected but he still considered it dull.

“I’ve seen pretty much everything there is to see here. We should go somewhere different” He tried to sound enthusiastic but from what he could see of Shimmer she wasn’t fooled.

“How about Ponyville? I think they are preparing for the Eastern Embers ceremony, which could be fun!” The showering unicorn was confused and asked Shimmer what it was with a confused face and an odd tone. “You don’t know what Eastern Embers is? Oh dear. It commemorates the day in which a single pegasus forced a dragon to fly east to prevent the smoke from damaging the town. It’s apparently going to be celebrated for the rest of Ponyville history!”

“Wow, It’s that important huh?” the stallion said just out of the shower, smiling to at Shimmer to show his sarcasm. “Well We have a few more days away from magic training. Why not stay there for a while?” There was an unmistakeable squeal of happiness from Shimmer that got a chuckle from Dark Light “You have no idea how adorable you are. Do you?” Shimmer blushed. “Do you want to pack?” the stallion asked.

“Ok,” The mare started packing for the trip as Dark Light went to the kitchen and prepared breakfast for the two of them. They both finished at roughly the same time so Shimmer entered the kitchen to find a plate with some scrambled eggs, a slice of toast and a bit of butter on.

“I hope you like eggs,” the unicorn chef said. “I wanted to practice my magic and thought of no better way to do it than to cook breakfast,” There was a big smile across his face, as he turned to make his own breakfast, again using magic. Shimmer ate the magically prepared meal fairly quickly, having spent a lot of energy already that day. After Eating his food, Dark Light grabbed the surprisingly heavy saddle bag and him and Shimmer went on their way. They went by train to Ponyville and were told that the best place to sleep was the Quill and Sofa, which was a quill and sofa store but it went out of business and so it was converted into an inn.

They arrived at the inn and rented a room for the few days they were staying, but before they arrived at the inn, they saw all the festivities and decorations but there were none of the pegasus who got rid of the dragon, leaving many questions in the grey pony’s mind.

“Let’s see what there is to do,” Said Shimmer. Needless to say she was much more enthusiastic than Dark Light. He didn’t want to tell her how he was feeling. It was back here. This is where it all began. He hadn’t been her since he was a colt, he didn’t feel he would be able to cope with the memories. He didn’t want to have to deal with them again, but this was different. He had someone by his side. Someone he could rely on to be an anchor that kept his mind in the right place.

They walk about, stopping at an apple store run by an orange mare with a hat, which was very polite and spoke with a strong country accent.

“Howdy, y’all. I can’t recall seein’ you round here before. Ya must be new here, er are y’all just visitin’?” The orange pony smiled at them.

“Yeah, we were just seeing what there is to do here, it has changed so much since I was here last,” The grey stallion said looking at the differences in the town that hadn’t been there before.

“So y’all ‘ave been ‘ere before?” The orange mare asked politely

“I used to live here, about twelve years ago but…” this was what he was worried about. His head was flushed with questions and awful memories. “Circumstances changed and after a while I had to move to canterlot,” The pony looked a mixture between worried, suspicious and sympathetic.

“Ah know it ain’t my place to ask but, what do yah mean?” The pony asked being slightly quizzical.

“I don’t feel like talking about it to somepony who doesn’t even know my name,” The stallion said, with an accidental tone of aggresion.

“Ah understand, I shouldn’t really have asked. Anyway, now is as good a time as ever to introduce myself. Ah’m Applejack. Ah run the farm here with my family,” the mare said quickly changing the subject.

“I’m Dark Light and this is my marefriend, Shimmer Heart,” She smiled and said hi. “We had a few days off and we wanted to do something fun. Shim said we should go here for your eastern embers celebration,” The stallion looked at Shimmer with a smile, which she returned. “But anyway, we would like to buy some apples. These look delicious!”

“Why thank yah kindly. All hoof grown and hoof picked. What kind would yah like, Ah’ve got honey crisp, red delicious, golden delicious, gala, granny smith, big macintosh and best of all ah have some left over zap jam,” The names and the aroma of the apples were making his mouth water.

“We’ll take a few of each and a jar of that jam. I’ve never seen anything like it before!” The stallion said gazing at the jar. He got out his pouch of bits.

“Ok so that’s three fer the bag and two fer the jam. That’ll be five bits, please,” the orange pony said politely, as the stallion got the money out of his bag and passed it to the mare. “Thank you kindly. Hey would y’all fancy stoppin’ by the farm, y’all could see the apple harvest and ah could introduce y’all to some of mah friends,”

“Sure. We’d love to,” Shimmer answered before Dark light could even open his mouth. He looked at her and smiled.

“Great, see y’all in a few hours. Oh, and if you see a pink pony with a messy mane, be careful. She’s got a habit of jumping out at new ponies,” Applejack said smiling but serious. The couple said goodbye and continued looking around the town, eating the apples they had bought until, two hours later they agreed to go to the farm. When they got there they saw a sign saying “Go to the barn” so they obliged and went to the barn, and as they opened the doors they heard an eruption of streamers and ponies shouting “SURPRISE”. The couple looked puzzled until a pink pony came up to them and started speaking really fast.

“Hey, You guys are new here and everypony whose new gets special pinkie pie welcome, which I thought would help you have fun because I know your only staying for a few days but applejack told me you were looking to have fun so I thought to myself ‘you know what’s really fun? PARTIES’ so I thought you should have a party so you enjoy yourself so you can come back later and we can have another party. I love parties. They are like my favourite thing in the world because they always have cake. CAKE?” The pony went away quicker than she appeared leaving the couple wide eyed and completely confused. They glanced at each other and then started laughing. The orange pony, who was at the store greeted them and introduced them to all the ponies at the party.

Learning the names was easy enough and as the night went along the couple started making a lot of new friends, and being asked by some fillies how they got their cutie marks. Dark Light got his through what he said was a Tough time through which he lead a lot of young ponies to happiness, his cutie mark being a triforce that in ancient pony days signified strength, mercy and kindness, all tying in with the necessary traits for leadership and a lightning bolt  (A blue pegasus, that they had learned was called rainbow dash, said to the stallion that he was the only pony she had met who wasn’t a pegasus but who had a lightning bolt on their cutie mark) that signified power and stability, also necessary for leadership, Shimmer had three snowflakes with smiling faces that showed gentleness, kindness and happiness, which she earned by helping all her class mates through their struggle to learn as the teacher made the lessons a bit too difficult. They weren’t the best cutie mark stories but that was mainly because Dark Light’s actual story wasn’t really suited for young foals.

As the night went on and it started to get late, most of the guests left and the three fillies who asked the couple about their cutie marks were asleep in the corner of the barn as their siblings or guardians were still at the party, which went on for another hour then everyone decided to all go home, considering it was almost midnight.

Dark Light and Shimmer found themselves walking to the inn with a purple unicorn and a white unicorn, with one of the three fillies sleeping on her back. The couple had learned that they were Twilight Sparkle and Rarity and the sleeping filly was Sweetie Bell.

“So you two met at magic elementary?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, we were the only two ponies there who were considered ‘late bloomers’ as we didn’t know much magic. I didn’t know about magic for most of my life, my mom did everything by hoof,” The stallion said, they continued talking until they had reached the inn where they said goodbye to the two mares and the sleeping filly and they went to their room and slept in each other’s embrace.