“Does anypony know where Rainbow Dash is?” Asked twilight. There had been a lot going on in Ponyville lately, so her friends had agreed to meet for a picnic. Unfortunately, rainbow dash was now considerably late, even for her.
“She’s probably just taking a nap someplace.” Replied applejack, clearly annoyed at their friend’s absence.
“It’s still unlike her to miss our meetings. Has anypony seen her these last few days?” The group thought about that, and realized that rarity made a good point.
“You’re right. She hasn’t been around hardly at all lately; I hope she is OK.” Twilight drifted off then, thinking about bad things that could have happened, but her thoughts were interrupted by Fluttershy's soft voice.
“I saw her a few days ago. She was with a stallion I didn’t recognize.”
The idea of rainbow with a stallion caused rarity to snap to attention, suddenly extremely interested. “Ooh, what happened dear?”
Fluttershy was about to respond, but twilight interrupted, “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
“Sorry I’m late guys, I lost track of time,” Dash said, flying down to join the group.
Rarity took the opportunity immediately, “It’s quite alright dear. Your absence wouldn’t have anything to do with the stallion Fluttershy saw you with, would it?”
Rainbow sighed in annoyance, “Really rarity, do you always have to assume that something is going on? He is just a friend that I haven’t seen in a while. We spent some time catching up.”
Pinkie, who had been focused on eating cupcakes all this time, gasped and finally spoke. “There is a new pony in Ponyville?! Why didn’t you bring him? If there is a new pony in Ponyville we should all meet him, especially if he is your friend. Does he know many other ponies? I’ll throw him a party, that way he can meet all of Ponyville at once. Then he-“
Rainbow cut her off before she got to much into her ramble. “Sorry pinkie, he doesn’t really want to meet anypony right now. He has a few things he needs to figure out first. That’s why he came to me.”
Pinkie let out a small ‘aww’, but didn’t press it further. Rainbow’s tone was serious, which was unlike her, and there was a small frown on her face. Whatever her friend’s problem was, it was affecting her too, even if only emotionally. Twilight noticed this as well. “Maybe you could introduce him to the five of us. We could try to help him with whatever it is together.”
Rainbow thought about it for a minute. “Maybe we can all meet later today at the library and I will ask him to come. I can’t promise he will though, he doesn’t trust new ponies easily. But I will try.”
The group nodded. Whatever was affecting her friend was affecting her to. Maybe not directly, but with her loyalty she would have personally tried to solve the problem, and by her attitude, it was evident that she couldn’t. The rest of the picnic went on normally enough, but the mood was down. Everypony was concerned for Rainbow Dash. Even pinkie was less talkative than normal. But rainbow was the worst. She only spoke when somepony asked her something, and was barely focused on what she was doing. Instead, she was thinking about her friend, ‘you can do this dash. What is going on isn’t right, you can figure this out. And you have your friends here to help you.’ But even so, she kept looking over her shoulder, and the more she sat there, the more anxious she became…
-Later that day-
The five friends were again together waiting for rainbow dash. This time however, they were sitting around a table in Twilight's library. After the picnic they had all gone their separate ways, to finish work that needed to be done. But each one of them had been thinking about this meeting. Unlike the picnic, there was no hiding the air of concern in the room as they talked with each other. They were all worried about what this was doing to rainbow. But they were also anxious to hear what this problem was. For many different reasons. That air of anxiousness and concern seemed to stretch on forever behind their small talk, until rainbow finally arrived and all the attention quickly turned to the stallion walking in behind her.
He was a unicorn, with midnight blue coat and a dark blue mane. He walked in slowly, looking at the group as if they would attack him. There was fear in his eyes that could have matched Fluttershy. As he stepped fully into the room, he turned in a slow circle, looking over every corner of the room. This motion revealed his cutie mark, which showed shadowy clock hands on a blank white face. Finally, he came to stand beside rainbow dash at the front of the table. She was the first to speak, “This is my friend Dark Night. We met when we were fillies. His family is all pegasai, so he was born in Clousdale. But we lost touch after his family moved to Las Pegasus. He came to see me a few days ago, asking for help.”
Twilight had hoped to focus on his problem, but she couldn’t help asking the question that popped into her head. “It’s almost unheard of for a unicorn to be born to a Pegasus family. Especially in Cloudsdale, wouldn’t he have fallen through?”
She got a few bad looks from her friends, silently scolding her for not being focused, but Dark Night answered her anyway. “Nopony really knows why, but I am able to walk on clouds like a Pegasus can. We think it is because I was born to pegasai.”
Twilight resisted the urge to comment further, no matter how much she wanted to. Hearing his voice reminded her of the seriousness of the problem. His words were fragile, as if he was afraid that they would fall apart if he put too much force into them. Thankfully for Twilight, rarity spoke next, drawing the focus away from her. “I’m sure twilight will have many questions for you some other time, darling. But that isn’t what we are concerned about now. If you feel don’t mind, could you explain to us what it is you need help with?”
For a second, she thought she had pushed too far. Tears filled his eyes and he hid himself behind his mane. But slowly he regained some measure of composure, swallowing hard before speaking. “It all started a few weeks ago. I started noticing ponies following me. This continued for a few days, so I finally decided to corner one of the ponies. I was going to ask him why he was following me, but he attacked me. He punched me and put a sword against my neck. He told me to forget about seeing him, then cut my foreleg.” He showed off a long scar on his foreleg as proof, getting a few gasps from the group, before he continued.
They continued following me, and I ignored them like he said, I thought they would just go away. But then a few days ago they attacked me, 4 of them. They beat me up as started saying these twisted things. They told me that I was the one they were looking for, that they were going to make me give them some kind of clock, that they were going to make me suffer. They… They said that they were going to kill me…” He was crying now, and so was Fluttershy. The memories of the moment becoming to much for him. The rest of the group had been shocked into silence.
“After that they left. I passed out from the pain, but when I woke up I ran home. When I got there… they… they…” He trailed off, crying too hard to continue. But everypony wanted, needed to hear the rest of his tragic story. Rainbow hugged him softly, and he managed to calm down a little, able to finish. “My family was gone… The house was completely destroyed… I was so scared I ran away from Las Pegasus. I remembered hearing about rainbow and all of you protecting Equestria, so I came here. I thought you could help me figure out what is going on, but I just don’t trust anypony anymore… I still feel like they are following me, that I am going to get attacked again.”
Anything that the group had been expecting to hear was nothing compared to what he said. None of them had any words. Finally, it was Fluttershy who moved. She went over to Dark and hugged him along with rainbow dash. The other ponies soon joined them till it was just the seven of them in a large group hug. Eventually, both Dark and Fluttershy stopped crying and everypony went back to their seats. Twilight was the first to speak. “I will send a letter to the princesses and tell them what happened. They will find the ponies that did this.” Her voice was firm, barely hiding her anger. She couldn't believe this had happened, and wanted to make sure nothing like it would ever happen again.
This seemed to snap everypony out of their sadness, prompting rarity to speak next. “I will speak to my high class friends in Canterlot. One of them may know something about the situation.”
“Ah’ don’t have anypony I can talk with. But mah brother and I can protect you if ponies start followin’ you again. An’ you can stay in the barn if you want, unless you would prefer it with rainbow.”
“I think I want to stay with rainbow. If that’s ok?” He looked at rainbow, wanting to make sure it was ok to stay with her before turning down applejack’s offer.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it.”
AJ nodded and pinkie was the next to recover. “I’ll give you all the cupcakes you need, and lots of hugs.” True to her element, this got Dark to smile, if only slightly.
“I can ask discord if he knows anything about an ancient clock. If you think that would help...”
Dark gave Fluttershy a confused look, having never heard of discord. He was about to voice this when the draconequus appeared, as if on que. He was holding an upside down umbrella and wearing a pink bathing suit. “Fluttershy? You called?”
The umbrella and the bathing suit disappeared as he looked around the shocked faces of the ponies in the room. “Umm… I guess…” Fluttershy replied.
“Oh good, all my friends are here.” Discord smiled, then turned and saw Dark in the corner, “Oh, hello Luna. Anyway, Fluttershy, what did you need me for?”
She just gave him a weird look. “Did you just call him Luna?”
Discord looked confused, but then saw Dark again. “Oh, sorry. I got you confused. Like mother like son, right.” He joked, further confusing the ponies in the room.
“What does that mean?” Challenged applejack.
Discord still looked confused. “Well you know, a mother and her child will have common characteristics. Like how he looks like… I wasn’t supposed to say that, was I…” He trailed off, perking up quickly. “You know, I just remembered that I have somewhere to be. I will see you ponies around. Bye.” And with that he vanished.
“What did he mean by that?” Dark asked, concerned.
“Don’t concern yourself with him. He was probably just trying to get inside your head.” Replied rarity. But Fluttershy spoke up in discords defense.
“He has never been wrong before. Besides, you have to admit they do look similar.”
Rarity went to respond, but stopped. Fluttershy had made a good point, and it was twilights voice of logic that finally settled the debate. Even with how unsure she sounded. “Maybe we should go visit the princesses, instead of just sending a letter.”
With that decision made, the group parted, all hugging Dark once more. He didn’t speak much, but didn’t seem as sad. He was happy to have friends to help him. And he was glad rainbow had let him keep staying with her, she was still the only one he was comfortable around. But his mind was mostly somewhere else, considering what discord had said. It did explain a lot of things about him, but one thought kept going through his mind. ‘I can’t actually be related to Princess Luna, can I…?’
