"So this may be a weird question but, do you happen to have a cloak or jacket I could wear inside your satchels?"

Even asking a question she went right along the path without even a second thought. "I don't have any clothing like that but I do have a picnic quilt." She stopped her merrily trot to unlock her right side's satchel, seeing her head move a bit before she had a quilt in the classic pattern of red and white in her teeth.

"Ish dish phine?" Tilting her head to the side.

"Uh, yeah" I focused on the quilt that began to engulf with a red aura. Yes! Finally using magic that doesn't kill me! Slowly the mare let go of the quilt and as I brought it closer to me the aura around the piece of cloth flickered.

I cursed under my breath. "Oh come on" the aura began to flicker more and more with each second letting the quilt fall for a second before the next tick comes.

I tried to maintain the connection but strain slowly came to me as the flickering became more fleeting and weak until it completely gave out. It fell to the floor with my exhausted pants.

"Are you okay?" The mare turned facing me, probably due to the panting I'm making-

"Yeah, I'm fine." I winced as the words came, moving one of my hooves to my aching horn I rubbed it in some slim chance it would calm the aching waves of pain. "Just over-exerted myself is all."

I lowered my head to grab the soon-to-be disguise of mine between my teeth.

"Not to pry but why do you need the quilt?"

I whipped my head to my right letting go of the quilt and focused my magic quickly to wrap it around me with a knot at my neck. Draining me even more I sat on my haunches. Through my sweating and panting, I looked up to find the sun still shining brightly even when it was lowering.

"Well, I wanted some shade from the sun?"

She just looked at me with puzzlement, "Well okay but I wouldn't recommend going back to the forest."

She trotted again and I kept pace with her but that last line burned curiosity.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh well, earlier when I was picking flowers and some fruit, I felt a weird aura, it was like a warped feeling of ripples with tidal waves pushing. Very violent, felt like waves thrashing and crashing into anywhere and everywhere." Her mood slowly shifted to a scowl. "I've never felt anything like it."

The way she cryptically spoke of it, was it Discord she felt? No, he wouldn't let someone like a random blind mare be able to see him. Especially if he was hiding away from the princesses. But what was it? Wait... Didn't he say that he thought something was in my soul? My breathing slowly quickened, What if-

"It was probably some animal or monster I haven't felt before. For all, I know it could be just a timber wolf."

"Oh, aha, yeahhh." I breathed a sigh of relief. Discord was probably just fucking with me...probably.

Walking closer and closer I can see the village and us losing distance.

"So um, this was probably very rude of me to only ask now but...what's your name?"

The sun was shifting ever so slowly, and the fields of grass that once moved to the wind's whim with light dancing into the day were now covered in shadows. Trees and buildings alike have an overhanging duplicate of themselves.

As patches of grass that were once lush and bright now sunken with shadows.

Two rulers trekked through the shadowed grass, as they trekked further deeper into the forest they had followed a path of steps that were given to them soon coming across broken, and smashed hedges.

Luna stepped forward with a hoof out, touching the outlines and etchings of stone. "Ponehedge, I wonder why of all places this would be where they had been brought back."

"It is where I and the pillars last fought."

Both rulers turned to see Starswirl with tired eyes.

Celestia gawked with her mouth open, "How are you still alive over a thousand years?"

"We were stuck in a limbo, but that doesn't matter right now, what does is that Equestria is in danger."

Luna stepped forward. "From what?"

"From the Pony Of Shadows."

Celestia only looked at him, slowly turning gears in her head before turning to a guard close by. Lighting up her horn, an aura popped to reveal a letter and a quill with fast writing she gave it to the guard. Quickly understanding the task He flew off with haste.

Celestia turned to Starswirl, "Tell me everything."

"I and the pillars were fighting a dark creature that took hold of your darkest desires, it had taken hold of Stygian, a unicorn that had told us of danger and to where we might be needed. He's currently being held in prison as the guards have told me, we fought off to delay the darkness that the creature was going to spread, but we couldn't find a way to take him down. So we had sacrificed ourselves by using our magic together to seal him away into limbo..."

Luna in awe spoke under her breath, "Limbo, perpetual freeze in a dimension of its own."

Celestia still looking to Starswirl, "So what changed? A timer onto the spell?"

Starswirl groaned while bringing a hoof to rub his horn.

"Something unworldly changed, limbo did not have a passage of time so I can't say if this had happened just now or a thousand years ago, I never studied the spell enough to know. But something with a blue aura had awoken us in a deep dark void, it was like a comet falling through space, sending shockwaves along the dimension we were stuck in. Causing time rifts or leaking time- I again, have yet to study the spell enough to know but what I do know is that it did not just wake us. The pony of shadows had awoken shortly after we did, but the comet that had passed by had created a rift, a hole so to speak that led to the escape of the shadows. We followed suit and wound up here, the Ponehedge."

"So if the Pony Of Shadows is not here..." Celestia looked off to the sky, "Where?'

Starswirl spoke up," If I may, princess, The Pony Of Shadows had seemed not only excited to escape but possibly to come after that comet we had seen. My best guess is that it looks for that comet as it has enough power to cause rifts in dimensions. If the Pony Of shadows were to have its hooves onto it-"

Luna spoke in a displeased and ominous tone, "Then it would be even a bigger threat than you had faced."

"Exactly why we must step into a search at once!" Star swirl began to move, "I will speak to the others, and then we can-" His legs failed on him mid-speech as he caught himself with the support of a hedge. "Excuse me, I think I will need to go recover a bit." He tried to pull himself up but slowly felt his eyes become heavy, muscles became sore, and soon he dropped to the floor.

Both princesses yelled in worry, "Starswirl!"

Author's Note

Next chapter will solely focus on Shadey and "???"

So a bit of slice of life coming up ahead and a bit of drama.