Shadows of the Night

(Author's Note: Prereader(s): Moon_Fire, Paw Print thank you)

           Night came again, leaving me well rested, which came as a bit of a jolt when coming out exhausted from some mindscape training. This early in the day I still expected the sun to at least show a sliver of itself over the horizon, but I guess Celestia likes her little ponies to get a good night’s sleep because it was nothing but a deep purple haze on the darkening horizon by the time I went to look out the nearest window.

       First things first, I needed some breakfast, and having spent the whole day doing nothing but work on my powers I decided it would be a nice change of pace to simply walk there. I pulled up my shadow like a pair of pants and set off to the kitchens. I must admit I was rather proud of myself that I didn’t need Caligo to direct me to it.

       I was just about to enter the kitchen when a voice, like silken rays of sunshine from the most beautiful spring day wrapped in the softest velvet, caressed my ear and made my heart jackhammer. What was Celestia doing in the kitchen? I slowly pulled off my hood, and while the increase in noise was a tad shocking, it wasn’t unbearable, so I cocked an ear and tried to listen.

       “… but before I head off, I just wanted to thank you all again for your hard work you all put in to make this castle as beautiful and as clean as you all do day after day. I truly appreciate all of your hard work to make this castle look as pristine as you make it.” This was followed by many an ‘aw shucks’ and related exclamations of modesty as well as they needed no thanks from one such as her. I knew I was certainly impressed that Celestia was so kind and caring as to come and personally thank her staff… though, on the other hand, I was rather jaded from reading all those fan works that make her out to be some malicious troll.

       “Now now, my little ponies, there are still a few matters that I need to take care of before the night begins to fully wane, and I need my sister’s help in order to fully accomplish them. So if you’ll excuse me,” the sound of all hooves in the room backing up filled the room for about two seconds, “heh, thank you, and have a good evening.”

       As Celestia, made her way out of the kitchen, made evident by how the shadows around be began to shrink from her encroaching presence, Caligo quickly pointed out that once she was out of there my disguise would be gone. He also pointed out there was a convenient servants entrance that led to a dining hall on the east wing of the castle not but a few scant yards behind me. I didn’t even bother with walking, I reached for the shadows still with me as I lickey-split myself there with scant few seconds to spare. I was just about to breathe out a sigh of relief when soft sound of hooves on carpet stopped in front of the door, and light diffracting under the frame. I was busy fighting a one man war over whether or not I should use my powers and run some more or stay there because she might sense the use of my power. The choice was swiftly made for me as a small sigh escaped from behind the door and the princess continued on her way.

       ‘That was a close one.’

       I closed my eyes and concentrated, making sure that she had definitely gone before I came out the door and back to the kitchen. By the time I arrived many of the ponies who were in there were leaving, definitely the day shift. I made my way to the servants’ dining room and began to fill a plate for myself. I was feeling a little creative so I decided to go for a bagel sandwich with berries, and of course some peanut butter. As I began to look for a place to sit down and quietly enjoy my meal a voice from across the room shouted, “Hey Rumor, come over here!”

       It was Twister. She was waving me over, to sit down with her, as well as some of her other compatriots.

       I’d gotten better with my shadow manipulation, and could more or less have my puppet mimic my expressions directly into a version of pony form, but I was at a loss as to how to react to this sudden change of development. I normally eat alone, being a tad introverted and all, but I decided that a small smile would be the most appropriate response as I let the false magic aura I had around my tray dissipate once I placed it down on the table and took a seat on the long bench with them.

       “So how’d you sleep last night, heard you turned in pretty early, and you still only just woke up” Twister said in a joking tone.

       “I must have been more worked up at trying to get a job here than I thought” was my reply as I took a bite out of my bagelwich, which was freekin’ delicious.

       “Weeeelllll, that’s nice to hear, but you’re definitely going to need to be sure to have some energy for tonight. We’re going to find out just where you fit in. But, hey, I wanted you to meet my friends here,” she swept her arm around to the three other ponies who each gave me a friendly smile in turn. “This is Weather Vein,” she said as she pointed to the bat-winged pegasus sitting across from her. He was sporting a deep plum coat and dark blue mane. He inclined his head with a smile. “And these two here are Clean Sisters, Oxy and Xtra.” They both Earth ponies, and had immaculate white coats. Though, Oxy had vibrant sky blue hair while Xtra’s was bright orange. Better still, they didn’t answer in unison (which is always creepy) but both of them were quite enthusiastic in their greeting.

       All the bright emotion was a bit unsettling, mostly due to how sincere it all was. Normally when someone’s this happy around me they’re trying to push some sort of product or message, but they all seemed quite happy to meet a new face. I was a little off kilter from the hellos and could only manage a quiet, “Pleased to meet y’all” before I took another bite of my breakfast.

       “Awww, you don’t need to get all shy on us,” Twister said while trying to stave off a chuckle. “We’re just trying to get to know you a little better before we set you off for work tonight. We’re going to be your assistants in finding out where you’ll work out best here in Canterlot Castle!” she finished with a wide grin as all eyes turned to me. I guess it was my turn to talk.

       “Well I do have a bit of a talent for transportation.” Whistles of astonishment quickly followed.

       “Wow,” said Vein, “teleportation’s a pretty high level spell, that’s pretty sweet.”

       “Yeah you should have seen him last night,” Twister chimed in, “he was able to keep up with me during one of my famous tours.”

       This was immediately met with scoffs of disbelief from the Clean Sisters. Who both expressed their knowledge that it was simply impossible to continuously teleport over such short distances, for such an extended period of time, especially when one was following another because they were new to the area.

       This was met with a quick rebuttal by Twister as she flew over the table getting directly in their faces and nearly shouting, “Are you two calling me a liar?”

       Things were about to go down, as made evident by the entire room quieting, all the side conversations stopped and all the ponies in the room began to look at the growing feud.

       “Excuse me,” I said in as calming voice as I could, “I don’t have any particular knowledge in magic, but when it comes to what I did last night, it wasn't strictly ‘teleporting’ in the sense as I understand it.” This was met with many a raise eyebrow, which hadn’t been noticeable until then, I should probably pay more attention. “Well, as near as I can tell, it’s more along the lines that I shift objects through… dark.. ness.”

       More stares.

       “Okay, so darkness is the absence of light, which implies…”

       “Look, I’m just gonna stop ya’ right there bud,” Twister interrupted, “I don’t really care about the mechanics behind it, as long as it more or less just works the same way.” She said as she sat back down in her seat as the twins gave her a smug look.

       That last comment gave everypony, save Twister, around the table give a small chuckle as they went back to going on about some of the castle gossip and what-not that they’d been talking about before I arrived, but Twister still seemed a trifle upset that nopony believed her, and considering she was nice enough to invite me to sit and dine with her, it only seemed fair to reciprocate one good turn for another.

       The ruddy light of the room certainly helped, it was lit well enough by glowing rocks around the room, but there were still enough shadows around that I could pull off my trick. I waited for the Clean Sisters to finish their current mouthfuls, and before they could lean down to take another bite I swooped the shadows from beneath the table around them and send them to the other side of the room, much to their gasping chagrin. This was then followed by sending them around the room, and just a little bit out the door into the kitchen and back in about twenty separate shifts, of which I had to come with them by the third in order to keep the jumps going quick enough.

       By the time we were done my shadow and I were both sporting a sheepish grin from the, rather, vindictive display of my power, while the Clean Sisters wore the same slack-jawed doe-eyed expression since the sixth jump. Meanwhile the rest of the room went back to their conversations, which had just gone up a level of energy, as Twister was trying very hard to not laugh too hard at the two girls who had just, oh so recently, gave a negative response to her factual comment.

       “Heh heh, thanks Rumor,” she said wiping away a small tear, “I owe ya’ one for that. And it looks like we’re gonna start you off as a sanitary maintenance engineer, and see how you do from there.”

       I just gave a small smile as I went back to my breakfast and tried to ignore the justly deserved peeved looks from the two Earth ponies sitting across from me while trying to figure out why that job sounded so familiar. I’d probably get it once I got over the slight emotional high I was on from my little escapade.

***

       Garbage man, that’s what it was. I’d finally figure it out… once Twister had brought me to the back of the kitchens and showed me the waste bins full of refuse. I never would have figured there were so many parts to a plant that you didn’t want to use in cooking, even by pony standards. Though of course there was also the burned, poorly prepared, you know, the general trash that one might expect, and of course the odor, which was better than you might think due to the prevalent vegetarian diet around here, but it still had an aura of rot about it regardless. All in all, it wasn’t so bad, except for the fact that it was in its own room, and the room was full, very full.

Twister explained that my job tonight was to take all of the garbage from this room and bring it down to the dumpsters, which she then led me to out back behind the castle. It was quite a walk, especially since we had to take a circuitous route via the outside, since it would have been most ‘unsightly to be seen lugging rotting refuse through the beauteous castle halls’ as Twister said giving her best attempt at a Reginald impression, which was woefully short of the mark but funny nonetheless.

       While this sort of task would normally be considered a few hours work, due to the ruddy light given by the torches in the room I was actually able to finish the whole job in about seven minutes, with the last three having been used by going to the dumpsters and making sure none of the bags had missed the bin when I shadowported them over there.

       When I got back, and found Twister thanks to a kind string of servants who saw her fly by, she was greatly impressed by my speed, and was even more so when she went back to the room and saw it was all true. For this I was assigned another room where refuse was kept to bring out. And again I emptied it in a few minutes. By this point, seeing that I wasn't even winded, Twister became even more impressed, I guess true teleportation really did take quite a lot of energy for unicorns.

       Eventually I had actually taken out all the garbage for the entire castle, which many a pony was happy about, especially for me being able to so quickly and quietly move such loads from more towards the center of the castle where it had a greater chance of being spilt in some form as it had a longer way to go before it could be put into the trash receptacle outside.

       Turned out a lot of garbage was just stored up in rooms around the castle and a team of unicorns would come together about once a week and pool their magic to teleport the lot outside, leaving them pretty well exhausted, and here I was doing an entire castle and not even breaking a sweat, I quickly became a rather big deal as word spread through the castle much to my chagrin. I began to worry that I might be making too big a wave, but on the other hand, I was just doing a pretty good job as a janitor more or less.

       When I’d finished my work in about three hours, most of that time having been from being led to the next garbage site, my new-found fame had, apparently, reached the ears of Reginald himself. He’d been talking to Twister when I came back from the last load I’d sent, there’d been a surprising amount of metal work and shavings in it, as he turned to me and said, “Ah, if it isn't the wonderbolt I've heard so much about,” He said in a calm voice like steel wrapped in soft wool, “I’d like to have a word with you.”