Nocturnal

The sun rose over a large tree in a mellower section of the Everfree forest, upon closer inspection, one would notice a small balcony about halfway up the enormous trunk, and a door leading into the tree. The doorway used to be a large crack that served as entryway into a small hollow in the tree, that was several years ago. Now the crack has been shaped to a doorway, and a simple door fitted into it. Through the door are three rooms painstakingly crafted into the living trunk, the first room holds a table adorned with several books along the right-hoof wall, two chairs are neatly, two tall bookshelves carved into the wall opposite the table, both of them full of books, most are printed, but one shelf holds the dog eared books filled with inkblots and a certain pegasus's writing. Along the back of the room there is a comfy looking bean-bag, and a smaller cat bed.

The room to the right is the kitchen. A fireplace is directly ahead underneath a window, the floor there has been paved with large flat stones with cement filling in any cracks, and the wall has been paved the same way, so even though the house was a tree, a fire was not that great a danger. A large pot hung over the dead coals, once full of dandelion soup, and a small oven made of rock-slabs sat in the corner of the fireplace. A table carved out of the wall is to the right is bare, having been cleared and wiping the night before. To the left were cupboards, with a polished wood counter on top of them, the counter held a knife rack, and a basket of fruit. Various cooking utensils hung on pegs in the wall. An empty wooden bucket and a couple bowls sit on the floor by the door, the bucket for water, and the bowls for the cat that wasn't sleeping in it's bed.

Now on the to the final room, the bedroom. A desk, yet again carved from the tree around it, stands to the left of the door, an open journal sits on the desk, next to an inkwell, quill, and unlit candle. Going around the room to the right the next thing seems to be a door sticking a couple inches out from the wall, but if you open said door you will see that it is the door to a closet, and the rest of the closet is simply carved out farther into the trunk of the tree. Two evening dresses and a similarly formal cloak are the only things hanging in the closet, a set of shoes lay on the floor. A drawer is carved into the right-hoof side of the closet, containing little but warm socks and scarves for the winter. On the top of the closet is a shelf with things you would expect to be on the shelf in the top of a closet, a couple blankets, a dusty old box, regular things. A window is stationed almost opposite the door, it's shutters open and a light breath coming in with the sunbeams. A chest sits to the right of the window, not dusty, but it seems old and not often opened. The bed of the room is carved out of the tree, as the rest of the furniture (excluding the chairs and chest) is, not quite what you would see anywhere else, as it was simply a sort of tub filled with straw and cushions, covered with a sheet. A feather pillow and green plaid quilt lay on top of this makeshift mattress, and a pony lay under the quilt, trying to ignore the sun coming in her window.

The pony is a black pegasus mare, her rumpled black mane has a silver-gray streak down the center of it, and her eyes reluctantly opening, a deep shade of green. A panther cub that had previously been curled up on the mare's pillow stretched, purring, then proceeded to knead her messy mane.

The pegasus, Shadow, sighed and sat up, dislodging her pet from her tangled mane, “Stop it Ebony, you know better than that.” she mumbles, not fully awake.

Ebony jumped off her mistress's bed to the floor with a soft thump, then proceeded to gnaw on the single hoof hanging off the bed.

“Ouch! Hey, stop that.” Shadow, now fully awake, sends the panther cub across the room with a slight kick, “What do I have to do to get you to stop that, Ebony?”

The panther just jumps onto the chest and stares at the pony. Shadow rolls her eyes and stands up, her tail, messy like her mane, has three black sections, punctuated by two silver-gray stripes like her mane, and her cutiemark is three hoofprints, signifying her love and skill for tracking and stealth.

Shadow stretches, her wings popping out from her sides and spreading their whole length, her front legs stretching out before her, and her back arching, in fact, she looked rather like a cat as she stretched. Having loosened her body, the pegasus trotted over to her desk and took a worn brush out of one of the drawers, she ran the fine bristles through her messy mane, smoothing the different colors back to each other, she did the same for her tail, her brushing only took about a minute to return to mane and tail to the slightly messy carefree style she always wears. Ebony jumps of the chest, bounds across the room and jumps onto Shadows back as she observes her mistress finishing with her hair.

As soon as the pegasus entered her kitchen, her panther jumps onto the table in the kitchen, looking expectantly at her empty food and water bowls. Shadow chuckles and grabs the bag of cat food from a cupboard, she pours a small amount into her pet's bowl and looks to see how much is left, still several days worth, but she needed to go into town anyways.

“I'm not gonna feed you cat food forever y'know, eventually you're gonna have to hunt the various creatures out in the forest.”

Shadow ignores the fact that she was ignored by the panther and simply takes the smooth handle of the bucket in her mouth, she had to get water every day from the stream that fed a pond a hop, skip, and a jump away from her house, although the fact she had wings just meant a couple minute flight.

Reveling in the warmest weather since Winter Wrap Up, the pegasus dropped the bucket on the bank of the pond then soars above the tops of the dark trees in the Everfree. Once she judges she's high enough, Shadow stopped flapping a started falling back towards the ground, slowly at first, but then faster and faster, a mere three feet before she hit surface of the water she spreads her wings again and skimmed across the surface of the pond, adrenaline pumping. The pegasus laughs, flies straight up again, tucks her wings to her sides, and plunges straight into the cool water. A moment later she bobs to the surface, shakes her head and blowing water out of her nose.

"Ah, that never gets old." Shadow chuckles as she sets out for the shore, swimming powerfully. A couple minutes later the black mare grabs the bucket from the hoof-deep water where it landed, then trots along the shoreline as she drips, Shadow places the bucket under the mini-waterfall that feeds the pond as she shakes the worst of the water from mane and coat, then she flaps her wings experimentally a few times before grabbing the bucket and heading back to her house. Shadow is far drier by the time she lands on the small balcony again, she kicks her door closed behind her just as she does every morning.

"And I should really do something more exciting with my morning, not that falling a hundred feet and straightening out at the last moment isn't exciting, but I need something more... Like a colt..." The mare mutters to herself, a memory springs unbidden to her mind, and is quickly suppressed, "Shadow, just because it was Hearts and Hooves day a few days ago and you spent it alone... Again... Doesn't mean you need to go find a stallion right now, just wait for the right one... You don't want a repeat..." Again the mare suppresses that old memory, it didn't matter.

Shadow huffs, her mood somewhat dampened as she grabs an apple for her breakfast, and then realizes with something just short of despair that she had finished her book last night and didn't own the next one. "I'm so getting that entire series as soon as I see it anywhere but Golden Oaks." She says and adds another item to the top of her list.

The mare scans the various titles in her bookshelf as she eats her apple, but she isn't willing to take any off the shelf and start reading them, she hated it when she was reading two different books at once, especially when the stories were similar it just confused her. In the end she just read book titles as she ate breakfast.

Shadow grabs her cloak from the hook next to her bed, she had had it specially made by that white unicorn with the styled purple mane that kept wanting to experiment with various colors, apparently she rarely got to work with black fur. After repeatedly telling her no she didn't want a purple cloak, yes, she wanted the green in such strange patterns and such varying shades of green, and yes, she really did want it to make her look so shapeless. The unicorn had insisted that if she had to make such a cloak, then she must be aloud to make her a fashionable evening gown and cloak, Shadow had finally relented and let the unicorn, that is, once she had persuaded her to use silver and white material instead of purple of any shade.

The pegasus grabs her saddlebags and gives a sympathetic look to the panther looking so forlornly at her, "You know I can't bring you with me all the time. I may pick up a treat for you though." With that last remark she opens the door and takes off, her wings beating freely through the holes specially designed for them.

~'~'~

Hazel, a young earthpony mare whose coat is the same color as her name, and whose mane is a few shades darker with deep green highlights the same color as her eyes, was organizing the books in the fiction center of the Golden Oaks Library when she heard the doorbell jingle, signaling a customer had entered the library. The young mare casts a look towards the desk where her old mother sits, the old mare gestures for her daughter to go ahead, Hazel sighs, she wasn't that social of a pony, she was just working in the library at the moment because her mother needed the help, she honestly preferred either reading books herself under some tree in the park, or writing her own.

She plasters a smile to her face and trots to the front of the library, a black pegasus wearing a strange green cloak was examining a book about the medieval times, Hazel recognizes the mare almost immediately, she had come to the library about a week ago and checked out a couple books.

"Miss Shade was it? How can I help you." The earthpony asks.Shadow replaces the book back on the shelf and looks up at the librarian, "It's Shadow actually, and there's no need to call me 'miss'. I just came to return these books and get the next couple in the series." She replies, taking the books out of her saddlebags and holding them out to the other mare.Hazel sighs inwardly as she takes the books, most ponies would bristle if somepony got their name wrong like that, she places the books on her back and directs the pegasus to the fantasy section of the library, "The rest of the series is back over there, if there's anything else you need just ask."Shadow nods and browses the shelves as she walks over to the fantasy section, Hazel adds the newly returned books to the box that she would be re-shelving later that day. A few minutes later Shadow comes to the desk with her selections and checks them out.

~'~'~

Shadow stops in the marketplace for fruit and a few loaves of fresh bread, having completed her errands the mare decides to take a quick around the edge of Ponyville before heading home again. She soars above the clouds then dives towards the ground leveling out at the last moment, the adrenaline rush she got each time was totally worth it.

Shadow's flight took her to the edge of the Everfree Forest, not far from somepony's cottage, she had landed briefly and was about to take off again when a set of tracks caught her eye, her special talent being for following tracks she stopped flitting about like some bird and starts to follow them."Hmm, a stallion, not an earthpony... Probably a pegasus..." She muses to herself as she follows the tracks, "Now why would he be going into the Everfree? Most ponies are terrified of going in there." Her interest now completely captured the mare continues following the tracks straight into the Forest.The mare follows the tracks into a clearing, where they suddenly stop, she looks around at the clearing but sees nothing than a regular clearing. Suddenly the mare felt like she was being watched, she touches the knife held in her cloak out of habit, and she listens, her ears pointing in all directions, trying to capture a sound that wasn't there. A few moments later she had almost convinced herself nothing besides the usual Everfree creatures when she heard something behind her and twirled around just in time to be knocked to the ground by a black pony."Why are you following me?" A deep voice angrily asks, the voice belongs to a muscular black pegasus stallion, his angry purple eyes mere inches from the mare's.Even being pinned down as she was, Shadow couldn't help but notice something decidedly strange about the stallion's eyes. However, more pressure being applied to her throat spurred the mare into action, her back hoof connected solidly with the stallion's balls, she took advantage of the sudden decrease in pressure to slip out of from the stallion's grip and get into a fight ready stance her eyes studying every inch of the stallion. He was quite muscular, his sleek black fur fairly well groomed, his black mane had dark purple highlights and stood on end. Yet it was his eyes that still drew Shadow's gaze, such strange eyes, she couldn't quite tell why they were so strange. The mare could only ponder the stallions eyes for a moment, for the strange black stallion recovers after a moment then lunges at the mare. Shadow rolls to the side and tries to kick the stallion as he flies by, she misses, completes her roll and jumps back onto her hooves, coming face to face with the stallion."I track ponies, I saw a set of tracks leading into the Everfree, a place where most ponies are afraid to go, so I followed them. What I'd like to know is why you came in here." Shadow says in a casual tone as the two ponies begin the circle each other.The stallion seems quite confused to how lightly Shadow is taking the situation, nevertheless, he decides to play along, "So you stick your nose into other ponies business do you?" He asks in an equally casual tone, searching his opponent for an opening, other than her quick glances at his eyes, there were no openings."Hardly. I tend to keep to myself, but your set of tracks caught my eye, only ponies with a really good reason ever come here, and they rarely ever do. Except for this zebra who lives in the forest like me." Shadow answers, searching the stallion for any opening punctuated by quick glances at his peculiar eyes."So, strange pony that denies being nosy, what made my tracks so very interesting you had to follow them?""Is that the best you can come up with, mysterious pony that would attack first and ask questions later? If you must know my name is Shadow, and I believe I've already answered your question." The ponies stop circling each other, neither of them finding an opening, nor any reason to keep this up."Then to spare me the horrendously long title you came up with, I shall tell you my name. My name is Echo Shade, at your service." Echo Shade bows dramatically, causing Shadow to snicker."Either you're from Canterlot, and have picked up some of the nobles manners as a royal guard; or you're from Canterlot, and a noble of that sort. Now seeing as you don't particularly look like a snooty noble, I'm quite sure you're a royal guard, and no, I thought that far before your little bow."Echo Shade lifts one eyebrow in moderate confusion, this mare was one of the strangest he had ever met, "I am a guard... But how in Equestria's name did you figure that out?"Shadow chuckles, the lighthearted sounds striking chords in Echo's heart, "You act like a guard, even without your enchanted armor that likely makes your fur either white or gray, you still act like a guard.""Uh-huh." Is all the stallion replies, still trying to understand this strange mare that kept staring at his eyes, and had the lightest laughter he had ever heard.He doesn't have long to ponder, for a moment they fell into silence a howl rang out from the trees around the clearing, then several Timberwolves burst into to the clearing. Echo Shade got into a fight ready stance, but Shadow just took to the air then swooped down and took hold of the stallion, lifting him up with her.Echo Shade snorted incredulously and broke away from the mare. "So you prefer to flight instead of fight do you?""Y'know, as a guard you're kinda stupid, don't you know that after you 'kill' a Timberwolf, then the pieces just reassemble to make an even bigger and more dangerous one?"Echo Shade blinks a couple times, vaguely remembering something of the sort, then he realizes something the mare had said earlier, "You actually live in here? With the Timberwolves and all?"Shadow chuckles again, the almost bell-like sound sending tremors through the stallion's body, "And the cockatrices, hydras, random weather patterns that most ponies think are strange, poison joke, rock-o-diles, and all the other various creatures that live here. But my home is in a slightly mellower section of the forest, up in a tree, so it's nice."Echo Shade simply nods, then a moment later they reach the edge of the forest, "So... Goodbye I guess, I should get going... To do... Things..." The stallion says, awkwardly, then takes off again towards Ponyville, muttering something Shadow couldn't understand.Shadow watches the stallion fly off, then she looks in her saddlebags for a carrot, and sighs as she sees the squashed loaves of bread.