Come Dawn or Darkness

It was a wonderful feast, by all accounts. The food was terrific, the company outstanding, and the atmosphere one of unbridled enjoyment. With so many present, the tables quickly became too crowded to accommodate everyone, so as the went on and the moon rose its seat of honor in the tenebrous night sky, many of them chose to take the festivities to other portions of the town. As the crowd began to disperse into the streets and find places along the buildings to sit and eat, Rarity became more and more aware of the eyes on her and her friends. Though more likely than not their hoping to get a glimpse at that thing posing as a friend, more than anything else...

The unicorn had had a difficult time keeping her true feelings on the subject to herself over the last week... In fact, most would simply look on her attempt to keep her mistrust of the newcomer a secret a complete and utter failure. She had ultimately ended up telling everyone she could that she was certain he was some sort of monster, come to destroy the town when they were least prepared. It had only been through Spike and Applejack's interference that she had come just short of voicing such opinions to Twilight's face. Thankfully, the three of them were now all on the same page in the matter.

Still, three pairs of eyes were little comfort against the knowledge that such a creature had not only succeeded in invading their home, but had also managed to convince anyone who could have posed a threat to him that he, in fact, posed no threat to them. Of course the majority of the town was curious about the bizarre newcomer, but she doubted that they had read far enough into the situation to see just how terrifying the monster sitting in their presence really was. Ugh, they didn't have any trouble being horrified by Zecora, and compared to Torrent she looks like she could be related to anypony in town... Still, none of the citizens seemed to be quite as eager to walk right up to the cloaked man as the Cutie Mark Crusaders had been. Small miracles I suppose...

She had been so lost in thought that she nearly lost her composure entirely when she realized that the very monster she had just been thinking about was now nowhere to be seen. His place was still set, a cup of cider and a plate of untouched food right in between Pinkie and Rainbow Dash, but his spot on the bench was unmistakably empty. He... he was just here not ten seconds ago. How could I have missed him get up? I don't even see him in the crowd! How far could he have gotten!? She looked to Applejack, but the earthpony was too lost in conversation to have noticed anything. Spike, however, was staring at the empty air between RD and Pinkie Pie in confusion. He looked at Rarity and shrugged, clearly having missed the monster's departure just as she had.

"I-I'll be back in just a moment, girls. I, uh... I simply cannot sit like this any longer. I have a cushion that should do nicely back at the boutique." Her friends barely even acknowledged it, obviously already being used to hearing such things and dismissing them just as quickly. For once, it worked to her advantage. Her home was one of the closest buildings to festival, and it took her only a moment to run inside, don a black hooded cloak which Zecora had left with her to mend earlier that week, and dash out the back door before anyone even realized she was gone. It wasn't until she was almost back to the staging grounds that she finally spotted the dark wanderer, little more than a swirl of black and gray making its way away from the festival. She followed as quickly and quietly as she could, sticking to the shadows cast by the pale moon overhead.

Her pursuit went on longer than she had expected, and it was not until they came to the edge of the Everfree Forest that she truly began to question why she was doing this. What if she was wrong, what if all of this really was just in her head, just her imagination running wild. Twilight trusts him, and the Princesses didn't see any problem with him being here... What if he isn't evil? What if I really am just jumping to conclusions. She looked around at her surroundings and felt like slapping herself for even thinking such a thing. Riiight... If that were true, why would he be sneaking off to the Everfree Forest in the middle of the night like this? Come on Rarity, this is your chance to finally get some kind of proof against him.

She made her way into the forest as carefully as possible, her cloak snagging on a few low shrubs and thorns every now and then. Ohhh... I just finished sewing dreary old thing back up. thats going to be another hour's worth of work now once this is all over. The snapping of a twig under her hoof brought her attention violently back to the situation at hand. She stopped dead in her tracks, praying that the hooded figure before her didn't take notice of the sound. He did, in fact, stop moving for a moment. Her heart sank and she focused every last bit of willpower on not breathing. Thankfully, he returned to his walk after a few moments, giving her time to recollect her composure before continuing her chase.

Ten minutes passed, during which time Rarity completely lost sight of her quarry. She wandered blindly until finally stumbling upon a small clearing, where she nearly gave away her position. For one frantic second she was certain that he had spotted her; how could he not have, considering their proximity. She had somehow managed to emerge less than two feet away from the hooded creature who had seated himself on a large rock and was staring at the ground before him. Two nervous to back away, Rarity remained perfectly still, trying to see what it was that the her target was observing. Slowly, as if some invisible veil were being pulled off of it, the large emerald sword that Torrent had used held before him while addressing the Princesses began to come into view.

The hilt materialized in his hands, the blade reaching all the way down to the ground more than four feet away from where he sat. He began to draw it up to where he sat, carefully grasping the dark green blade so as not to brush his palms against the razor sharp edges. Each time his hand connected with the blade a pulse of bright green light would ripple through metal, as if it were made of water. Finally, when he found the portion of the sword which he had been looking for, he placed his hand upon the flat of the blade and pushed downward. His arm disappeared from view as it plunged into the vastness of the metal's emerald depths. She was unable to look away, petrified by beauty of the sword and mesmerized by the bizarreness of the ritual she was baring witness to.

Finally, Torrent began to draw his arm back out of the sword, pulling at something below its surface slowly and carefully. As his hand came back into view, something else caught Rarity's eye, something both terrible and beautiful all at the same time. A pale orange glow lit up the clearing, permeating from a small crimson sphere resting in Torrent's hand. It seemed to squirm and shift in his grasp, changing from a ball to box to an indescribable shape consisting of loops and ridges before returning to a spherical orb. Torrent was whispering something to it, yet even from her spot only a few feet away, Rarity could make out no familiar words within it.

After several minutes of quiet debate with the tiny light, the cloaked figure moved it to the furthest extent of his reach, muttered a brief prayer, and the orb into the air. It ascended quickly, reached the top of the tree-line, and dispersed into the night sky. A high-pitched screech filled the air for a brief moment before the entire clearing fell silent once more.

She had no idea how long they had remained in that clearing, but Rarity remained long enough to see at least twenty more lights of varying colors be pulled from the depths of the blade and released into the air. It was not until she had finally made up her mind to attempt to sneak away that something finally broke the cycle. Torrent plunged his arm into the sword once more, but this time, as he attempted to draw it back out, something below its surface pulled back. Nearly being thrown from his perch on the rock, the hooded man was forced into a standing position, his arm still buried deep in the metallic pool of his sword. He battled with the thing inside the sword for several minutes before finally gaining the upper hand. He pulled hard upon whatever was struggling under the metal shell of the blade until it was suddenly ripped free, the sword falling into the short grass with a quiet thump.

Another ball of light writhed in the creature's hand, this one smaller but far brighter than any of the others had been. As Torrent began to speak with it, as he had all the others, it began to shy away from his voice, responding in a quiet hissing tongue. The went back and forth for more than ten minutes, the light only beginning to calm within the final minute of their debate. Finally, as the soul seemed to begin to understand what had happened, Torrent brought it close to his own face. The light was bright enough for Rarity to finally get a good look at his expression: a wide and manic looking grin emerging from beneath the all-concealing hood. He gazed down at the little light with eyes that had been dyed black, the pupils red and slitted like those of a snake.

He muttered one last question to the tiny, hissing soul. When it responded in its own miniature voice, he brought it level with his own vision, whispered the same foreign prayer of "Mesqa Lam Ench Aeh," to it, and brought it swiftly to his mouth. Rarity had to focus every last fiber of her being on the task of not screaming at what she had just witnessed. The monster's jaws closed around defenseless sphere of light, a double row of ivory teeth grinding it into nothingness as dropped down to the place where his sword had fallen.

He grabbed the weapon, stabbed it into the ground, and muttered something under his breath to it. The sword began to fade from existence before suddenly disappearing all at once. In its place, a strange distortion took hold, sucking in the air around where the sword had been. The ground which had held the blade still only a moment before was sucked into the void that had been left behind, a small crater acting as the only proof that any dirt had ever been there to begin with. Rarity's eye was drawn away from the sword's exit from this world just long enough to see Torrent walking further into the woods, his cloak now divided into seven shredded ribbons that seemed to reach out at the small plants around he as he passed from sight. She suddenly became very aware of the face that she had no idea where she was or what else might be hiding in the underbrush with her...

...Needless to say, her frenzied dash back into town was one of the most terrifying experiences of life...