Undecided

So after a few comments about story pacing I've decided to add to this story.

red is day one of the two days I skipped

and green is day two

These are what's geeting added in. If you have read this chapter for the first time woohoo, and if it's your second, sorry for mucking it up the first time.

He felt like an idiot for running off, but he was not about to explain what happened to him. It was his burden, nopony elses.

He'd kept running for a while until his cloak caught a branch and came off because in his haste he'd forgotten to fasten it.

'Damn, where'd it drift off to?' Almost right after finishing this thought there was a lavander glow.

"Looking for this Jecht?"

It was Twilight of course, holding his cloak.

"Please let me have that and I'll be on my way."

"No."

"Twilight... give me the cloak."

"How about a compromise?"

"Of what sorts?"

"I give you your cloak, but you stay as my guest at the library for a week."

"Ahh but that is a one sided trade. I get what belongs to me and you gain. In the end I gain nothing."

"Oh ok so I'm just non-existant and I mean nothing." Twilight giggled.

"You aren't going to accept no are you?"

"Ummmmmm....no."

"Fine."

Twilight woke the next morning, realizing she'd slept in slightly. Quickly she got up from her bed and checked the chest that she'd locked Jecht's cloak in.

'Good, that hasn't been tampered with, hey, what's that smell?'

It was a savoury scent, one that made Twilight's empty stomach grumble. Trotting out of her room and down the stairs she noticed that she hadn't slept in too much, that it was only 8:12. Still she couldn't figure out why Spike was up so early.

"Mmm Twilight! You gotta come in here and try this food. It's amazing!"

Twilight was amazed at the meal on her table, "Spike! Did you make all this!" Spike merely shook his head as Jecht came around the corner.

"Morning, I thought I'd make breakfast. It's been a while since I had a fully stocked kitchen at my disposal. You were still sleeping so I started breakfast. Spike here came down 10 minutes ago. Dig in. Oh and morning."

The rest of breakfast was relatively silent. Jecht nodded at any compliment that he recieved. He wasn't cold about it, but seemed nervous. As soon as Spike and Twilight were finished and left the kitchen, Jecht started to eat. He couldn't help but wince at the rude smacking noises he made when he ate, hoping that nopony heard him eating.

Twilgiht stood outside the door and hear the stallion's attempt to eat. The noises made her uneasy and she couldn't help but want to aid the scarred stallion in one way or another. She trotted off to her main room and started pulling out books to study.

Jecht cam out from the kitchen some time later, simply stating that he'd cleaned up everything before he sat down and started rummaging through books before picking one out and seating himself.

The two ponies spent the whole first half of their day sitting on opposite sides of the room reading through books at an alarming rate. After a time Twilight looked up to find two stacks of books about 10 deep on one side and 2 on the other with a final book in front of Jecht.

"Two down working on a third?"

"Mmm? Oh no, ten down working on the eleventh." Jecht replied cooly, immediatly going back to his book.

"Wow, that's some fast reading." Twilight said, sounding surprised.

"Well when you avoid most other ponies you find something to keep yourself busy."

"Well I guess that's something we have in common, we both turned to books when we had nopony to call a friend."

"You didn't have friends?" Jecht questioned unbelievingly.

"Well I didn't see the point in having friends until I came here."

"So those ponies your friends with..."

"Are all recent friends, had them for about 2 years now." Twilight beamed.

"That's always nice." Twilight heard slight resentment in Jecht's tone.

"Well Jecht, why did you never make any friends?" It earned a stare that practically screamed 'Are you blind?!'. Regardless of his opinion of the question Jecht replied anyway, "It's hard to make friends when ponies run far away anytime you lower your hood and look at them."

At this Twilight hopped down and moved next to Jecht, then trotted around him to his right side.

"Well I'm sitting here now and nothing is happening. I'm perfectly fine." Twilight assured.

"I also didn't have this bandanna up until recently." Jecht replied, gesturing to the fabric wrapped around his empty eye socket. Twilight tilted her head slightly, then reached forward and grabbed the bandanna before Jecht could stop her. Pulling it off Twilight found that it wasn't as gross or disturbing as she'd thought it would have been. It was scarred like the rest of Jecht, but other than that it was just a darkened hole.

"See, even without that I'm fine. You just need to lighten up a bit and understand that there are good ponies out there that don't judge on appearance." came Twilight's reassuring response.

Still straight faced Jecht reached to take his bandanna back when Twilight hopped back shaking her head.

"Nope, you're not gonna wear this while your here."

"Just give me the bandanna..."

Again Twilgiht shook her head, "Nuh uh. I'm not giving it back until the week is done."

Jecht suddenly got this look in his eye, and for a second Twilight thought he was going to attack her when he calmed suddenly. Grinning, Jecht turned his back on her, "Fine then, you can hold onto it." Twilight relaxed, letting out a small giggle of victory when Jecht spun and lept at her.

"But only if you can keep me from getting it back!" he shouted playfully.

The two ponies ducked and dodged, vying for control of the bandanna. Laughing uproaresly Jecht couldn't help but think that this was the most fun he'd had in years. Jumping at Twilight, she reared back and suddenly slipped on a stray book. Seeing that she was about to fall, Jecht spun around and caught her, rolling their bodies so that he'd land on his back and she'd land safely on his chest.

"Ooof, Easy there, don't want to get hurt do you." Jecht joked.

Twilight took a second to orient herself before realizing that she was laying on Jecht. As she made to get up her eyes met with his eye and they stared at eachother for a second when Spike came in to investigate.

"Whoa! Sorry!" With that the poor baby dragon took off back out the door the way he'd come.

Both ponies realized what it must've have looked like, and quickly extricated themselves from eachother.

As Jecht stood he picked up his bandanna. "Oh, looks like you got it from me after all." Twilgiht said nervously.

"Ahem, uh yeah." then Jecht tossed it skill fully to hang on the coat rack by the door. Twilight raised her eys at this, but said nothing due to the embarrasing incident moments before.

The two ponies went back to their respective book piles, but they still cast glances at each other every now and again, quickly looking away in case the other saw.

The next day Twilight thought to get the jump on Jecht by waking at 7. Of course Jecht was already awake so it didn't quite work out.

"What time to you wake up? Seriously?" Twilgiht chuckled.

"6 and before you ask I go to sleep inbetwen 11 and 12." Jecht laughed back as Twilight's face gave a incredulous expression.

'And the girls think I don't sleep enough.' "Well anyway I have something I need to do today, but I need to measure you first." Jecht gave the mare a funny look, then shrugged.

"Okay then but what's it for?" "That would be telling." Twilgiht said, giggling again. With that she pulled out a small tape measure and moved close to Jecht's face.

First Twilight measured around his right eye socket, and he heard her mutter about how he did good keeping it clean. Then Twilight moved to measuring his righ cheek area(despite it being missing) and the also commented under her breath about his teeth being nice.

"Brush 'em three times a day."

At this Twilight flushed, "Sorry I didn't realize I was talking out loud." Jecht merely laughed and shook his head.

After taking his measurements Twilight disappeared into her basement, and Jecht started up on another set of books.

About an hour later there was a knock on the door. Realizing that Twilight wasn't going to come up and answer the door, Jecht grabbed his bandanne and fiddled with out until he had it covering most of the right side of his face.

"Hello, Twilgiht isn't in available at the moment, can I help you." Jecht said politely as he opened the door. The pony at the door was a mare.

"Yes, I'mMs. Cheerilee, I was coming by to pick up some school books Twilgiht said I could borrow for my class." the mare smiled warmly. Looking around Jecht quickly found a pile of books with a note on them saying they were for Ms. Cheerilee's class.

"Ah, here you are." Jecht said politley as he passed the books to the mare. With a quick thank you, Ms. Cheerilee turned and headed off.

Sighing in relief, Jecht pulled his bandanna off and started to trot back to his books when Twilight's voice caught him by surprise.

"You know, for a pony that claims he stayed away from society, you sure are well versed in how to communicate." the lavander mare laughed.

"Well, just because I stayed away from everypony doesn't mean I wanted to, you know, never mind. You wouldn't get it anyway." Jecht sighed sadly.

"Well then," Twilight started as she moved to sit by Jecht, "I'm a quick learner. Explain it to me."

Jecht eyed the mare next to him, then went into his explaination.

I tried for a couple of years to make friends, or at least fit in somewhere. It wasn't easy though. Ponies were always scared of me, even older ones that should have known better. Eventually I gave up on actually trying to make friends. I still wanted friends, but I didn't see it happening. In some lame subconcious attempt to think that I may still have a chance at friendship I taught and trained myself to be polite and respectful of most everypony. The problems that kept getting in the way were my instinctual responses when I get startled or feel threatened and then the whole... face.. thing, yeah. So I kept being a nice respectful stallion, and I really want to make friends, but I've just kind of given up.

Jecht's eye looked damp as he finished his explaination. Twilgiht carefully gave him an akward hug and laughed.

"Silly, you sure your good eye still works?" Twilgiht smiled.

Jecht wasn't sure what surprised him more, the hug, the laugh, or the response.

"Of course my eye still works. " Jecht laughed, despite himself.

"Really, because here I thought we were becoming friends. You don't give yourself enough credit, Jecht."

A single tear escaped his eye as he turned and looked at the mare next to him as she looked at him. Their eyes locking again, the two stared at eachother for a full minute before Jecht suddenly felt his cheek go a little red and warm.

Seeing the blush, Twilight  looked away because she felt that her cheeks were flushed as well. The two ponies laughed together for a bit, then sat and went over their favourite books for the most of the rest of the day.

At about 9:00 Twilight found herself yawning, "Anyway that's how I always remembered to find Princess Celestia quarters. The castle's not hard to traverse you just have to know what to look for. I'm tired though, so I'm headed to bed. Night Jecht"

"Night Twi."

"You've been here for two days now and yet to go outside Jecht." Twilight jokingly whined.

"I know, but I don't like scaring people, and you still won't give me my cloak back."

"That's cause you'd run off the second you got it. Any way, I made these for you. Try them on."

Twilgiht was presenting two metal pieces. The first was made to fit over his right eye socket, while the second was made to fit over his missing cheek.

"Try them on and tell me what you think."

Jecht found the metal to be extremely light, and the two pieces fit together perfectly.

"Wow Twilight. I bet I could even eat with this on without problems! Is this why you took your measurements?" Jecht exclaimed.

"Yep! And I know you could, I sound proofed it. Now get ready, we're going to lunch."

Jecht paled visibly at the thought of actually going out into the town so bare.

"You'll be fine Jecht, Ponyville's suffered dragons, an ursa, Discord,and Nightmare Moon. I'm sure you'll be a walk in the park." the lavander mare chuckled.

"I guess, but, what if somepony recognize me from the incident in Sugarcube Corner?" Jecht fretted.

"You had your cloak on, now are you ready to go?"

"I guess..." the scarred stallion sighed in response.

Jecht nervously trotted next to Twilight on the way to Sugarcube Corner. While not disgustingly noticeable with his cheek and eye covered, his cloakless form made his limp obvious, and ponies stopped and stared at his marred body.

"I don't like the attention, by the way." Jecht mumbled nervously. Twilight whispered right back, "You'll be fine, if you really want we can go back to the library, but we're closer to the Corner." "Fine." 'I really should trust her more.'

As they continued two fillies came running up to Twilight.

"Twilgiht! You gotta help us! Scootaloo is tryin' ta jump off a roof. She says that she's tired of not being able to fly and that it's either gonna work or it's not!" a yellow coated, red maned filly shouted.

Jecht watched Twilgiht's eyes dilate in horror. "Where is she girls!"

"She on top of my sister's boutique!" the second filly wailed.

Twilight made to take off running when she heard Jecht next to her. "Is it that really big building close to the Mayor's office?"

"Yes Jecht, why?" Twilgiht sputtered, cuuting off her question as Jecht took off running. Twilight made to follow but had trouble catching up to the stallion.

Jecht was off. He was tearing through the town on his way to the boutique, ignoring the throbbing in his right legs.

'Well those two are gonna smart in the morning!'

As he came closer to the building he saw none other than the filly he'd accidently assaulted. She was standing nervously at the edge of the second story roof.

The filly looked around, seemed to gather herself a bit, and then jumped.

Jecht's mind flipped into overdrive. In a matter of nano seconds his mind plotted a course that would allow him to safely(relatively) catch the filly who's small wings disallowed for flight.

'Cart, lantern sconce, gutter, catch, tuck'n'roll.'

Folowing his mental path, Jecht launched himself onto a cart, using it as a platform to reach a wall sconce. Using extreme precision the stallion followed his momentum through to vault onto the edge of a gutter and then vault out a ways and catch the falling filly.

'And heres the fun part.'

Bracing for pain, Jecht wrapped himself protectively around the burnt orange filly and waited for the impact, And waited. And waited.

"You can let Scootaloo go now silly."

It was Twilight, wearing an admiring look, who'd caught him on his way down with her magic.

The filly growled as he let her go.

"Scootaloo, what were you thinking! You could have been seriously hurt!" Twilight shouted.

Scootaloo in turn shouted right back, "You don't know what its like! You aren't a pegasus! You aren't supposed to fly!" Tears poured from the Scootaloo's eyes as she screamed. Twilight didn't know what to say, and was about to offer to take her to Rainbow when Jecht spoke up.

"It's hard huh? Wanting nothing more than to fly, but knowing you can't." Jecht said softly.

"Whadda you know! You're just a dumb earth pony!"

Jecht's eye flashed angrily for a brief second before going back to soothing. "Let me tell you a story. It's not a long one but still. Once there was a small colt. He wanted nothing more than freedom, and one day he found his wings could lift him up. He used his wings to try to esca.. fly, but there was an....accident. The colt lost both of his wings and could never fly again. Now you want to know something lass? You still have wings, they just aren't ready yet. Infact I was older than you before I got off the ground." Realizing what he'd just let slip he shut up real fast as Scootaloo stared up at him.

"You mean, you used to be a pegasus?!" the filly said in awe.

"Of course. You saw what I did to catch you right. Theres no way an earth pony could do that, right?" Jecht joked.

Scootaloo giggled at the joke and smiled, "I'm sorry I scared everypony. I promise I won't do it again until my wings are ready."

"Attagirl, now go see your friends, they're kinda worried about you."

"Thanks mister!" Scootaloo shouted as she ran off.

Jecht and Twilight left to head to Sugarcube Corner agian when Twilgiht finally spoke up.

"That was really awesome, Jecht. I mean I was scared out of my mind though. If you hadn't been there, I... I don't even want to think what would have happened."

"It was nothing. Just wanted to help."

"It was also really sweet how you talked to Scootaloo after wards." This drew a blush from Jecht. "And she wasn't scared of you either, despite the metal patches and the scars. You're a good stallion." A second blush came forth, stronger and more pronounced than the first. "Aww you're kinda cute when you blush." joked Twilgiht 'Where the heck did that come from, I never talk like that?!' the mare immediatly thought.

Making it to Sugarcube Corner the two ponies found themselves a seat and were munching on their food when both of them reached for the seasoning at the same time. Their hooves met and they both froze for a minute, only to quickly draw their hooves back.

"Uhm, uh, there you go. You can use it first." Jecht muttered, his cheek flushing.

"Yes thanks." came the equally akward reply from Twilight.

The two continued their meal when they both turned to ask the other a question at the same time. This of cousre caused their muzzles to brush against each other's. Both ponies flushing again Twilgiht muttered for Jecht to go first. Unsure of what he was feeling Jecht suddenly got up, "I'm, uh, headed back to the library. See you later." he said before shooting out the door.

Jecht began to wander around. Night had fallen, but he couldn't return to the library. His mind was swimming with thoughts of his past, and his present. It led to him wondering about his future. What was he, and does he really want to wander for the rest of his life?

"No!" Jecht shouted to himself. "I can't keep doing this. I end this tommorrow!"

With that he looked down at the bone knife in his hoof. Time to leave Twilight a message.

Twilight was pacing her library, struggling with her newfound feelings. 'Logically it makes no sense, I've known him for 3 days. I can't like him?! It makes no sense!' The mare turned and looked at the message she'd recieved from Princess Celestia as well. 'And then Celestia wants me to carry that necklace around, what were her words again? Oh yeah "Twilight, I am interested in how a normal pony lives. This necklace will allow me to watch you and see how your average day goes by. It only works when you have it on, so remove it anytime you want privacy. You also don't have to wear it at all." It sounded like a sound idea though.

Tired, Twilight crawled into bed and fell asleep to dreams of the scarred stallion that was Jecht.

"Twilight wake up!" "Mhmmm." "Twilight you've got a letter!" shouted Spike.

At this the mare shot straight up, "Oh lemme see!".

It was from Jecht.

Twilight, I need your help doing something. Can you meet me on the hill just off the main path out of Ponyville. You know, the hill with the two trees on it? Thanks.

"Hey Spike, Jecht needs me for something Spike I'll be back later!" As Twilight slipped out she grabbed Celestia's necklace and slipped it on.

Jecht watched as Twilight went up the hill and waited for him. He pulled his bone knife out and moved silently up the hill behind her.

Celestia watched through her mirror as Twilgiht set out the door.

'Hmmm, this is different, she told me she always eats breakfast.'

Celestia continued to watch as Twilight made her way up a hill and seated herself at the top, as if waiting for something. It was then that a breeze shifted the necklace and Celestia saw, to her horror, a stallion sneaking up behind her holding a knife.

Immediatly dipping into her magic, Tia cast a powerful spell that teleported both the stallion and Twilgiht into the throne room.

Jecht blinked away nausia just in time to see Celestia reaching for him forcefully. Dropping into his instincts, Jecht slashed the knife he held at Celestia's extended forehoof, creasing it just above the hoof.

"Stay back!" Jecht shouted, as much in surprise as he did anger.

Celestia growled in pain and anger as she charged her horn to blast this stallion. Just as she made to release the blast of magic she found her aim altered by magic and blew a hole in the wall.

"Celestia NO!" The shout came from Twilight, who stared in horror at the two ponies that were about to attack each other.

Twilight's voice also brought Jecht back to reality. Staring in horror at the pony he'd just attacked, Jecht made to drop the knife when the doors blasted open.

Just coming out of his instinctual state, Jecht immediatly jumped back into it at the noise and hurled his knife.

Luna burst the doors open, meaning to startle Tia for being so uptight all the time when she found a knife hurled at her instead. Immediatly a lavander shield sprung up infront of her.

All eyes turned to look at Jecht, who was quickly realizing what had just transpired. His mind was racing, and when his eye came to rest on Twilight, whose face was filled with fear, he felt as though his heart had been ripped out.

With tears threatening to spill from his eye, Jecht took off out of the main castle and disappeared into the garden maze.