Nocturnal

After she had met Echo Shade in the forest, Shadow proceeded straight to her house and unpacked her saddlebags. The mare tried to read one of the books she had borrowed from the library, but her thoughts kept straying to Echo Shade's eyes, there was something about them that was so very strange but she couldn't pinpoint it. Shadow lay on her head, focusing on her memory of the stallion's eyes, to no avail. She had almost started to fall asleep when she felt Ebony jump onto her bed next to her.

"Well, hello there Ebony, what do you..." She trails off, looking straight into the panther's eyes, the pupils weren't round like a ponies, but rather slitted. Shadow's mind rushed back to contemplating Echo's eyes, they weren't normal, and now she knew how.

Echo Shade's eyes weren't formed like a normal pony's, instead they were almost unintelligibly slitted like a cat's, dragon's, or bat pony's eyes...

"A thestral?" Shadow asks her pet, "But his wings are normal, and his eyes only slightly off..." the pegasus looks at her panther, who looks back, "Well he's a guard, so I should be able to find him at the castle..." Shadow comes to a sudden decision, "Well it's not like I have anything to do today, I'll take a trip to Canterlot!" With that the mare jumps off her bed and trots to the other room to add a few things to her saddlebags.

Before she sets off Shadow refills both of Ebony's bowls, takes a sip of water herself and then fills a canteen to put in her saddlebags. She didn't intend to take the train, instead preferring to fly the whole way. Shadow put on her cloak then tossed on her saddlebags as she flew out the door, giving a glance back at her panther as she shut the door

As she soars over the tops of the dark trees of the Everfree, Shadow feels like she's being watched, it was like an itch on the back of her neck. Eventually, she lands and tries to shake the feeling, but if it changed all, it only got stronger. A slight rustle in the background caused Shadow to spin around to confront whatever it was, however, there was nothing to confront, so Shadow relaxed, minimally. A moment later, before she takes to the sky again, a gray earthpony steps out from the undergrowth ahead of her.

“Who are you and why are you watching me?” Shadow challenges immediately, the mysterious stallion doesn't say a word, he doesn't do anything, Shadow steps closer and repeats her question, still the pony simply stands there, without expression. Just as pegasus was about to take off and leave the strange stallion alone, when he stopped being expressionless, nodded in the direction behind her. Shadow was no fool, as soon as she saw the earthpony move, and the almost inaudible twang behind her, she dived at the other pony tackling him to the ground, and so she got the rock weighing down the edge of the net to her head, instead of being caught in the net itself, she was knocked out almost instantly.

A creamy white and light brown gryphon flies out from the undergrowth on the edge of the clearing, he was obviously angry, “What on earth were you waiting for you idiot? Standing there like that? You were supposed to go out and engage in conversation so that she would stop moving! And we were supposed to deliver her back to Ageus unharmed! Now she probably has a concussion from that rock to her head.” He growls, inspecting the mare's head.

The earthpony looks as if he doesn't know exactly what to say, “I'm... Sorry... Ok Raydn? I've never been good with this sort of thing! Why couldn't you have engaged her in conversation instead?”

“So you could have gotten yourself stuck in the net? Dull Black, It couldn't be more obvious as to why you absolutely couldn't have been the one to operate the machine.” Raydn responds to the clumsy earthpony as he wets a piece of cloth from his bag and wipes off some of the excess blood from Shadow's head, “See if you have anything that could be used as a bandage in your bags, then dismantle and hide the machine, we'll take it back later.”

Black mumbles and roots around in his bag, eventually he comes up with a strip of cloth that would suffice; the gryphon swipes it from his hoof angrily, then he hefts the unconscious mare onto his back and takes off, leaving the earthpony to mumble and grumble some more...

~'~'~

The first thing Shadow knows when she regains consciousness is that her head is filled with a pounding pain, the next thing she knows is that when she tries to move a hoof to her head is that her hooves are tied. After a brief moment of 'Oh Faust, what in your name is going on?' she remembers the strange pony in the forest, him nodding, a twang, a sudden burst of pain, then nothing. She stifles a groan and opens her eyes a crack, then barely suppresses the next groan to a low moan as the light makes her head throb even more. After a moment the pain in her head dies down a little, she manages to open her eyes again, and she takes in her situation. All four of her hooves were tied together, she was laying on some sort of pallet, in a tiny room and sitting at the door, was a cream and brown colored gryphon, staring at her intently, yet he didn't know she was awake.

With half-lidded eyes, Shadow stared back at the gryphon, he was intriguing , most guards wouldn't pay an awful lot of attention to a sleeping, bound, prisoner, yet this one was staring at her with a much different expression... Was that pity? Why would he pity her?

After a few moments, the gryphon got up and padded towards her, unconsciously, Shadow held her breath, then once she realized what she was doing, forced herself to breath deeply again, like she was asleep, but to no avail.

“It's no use trying to hide, I know you've woken up. And before the others come to check to see if you've woken, I must tell you... I'm sorry..”

As soon as the gryphon started to speak, Shadow abandoned all pretenses of being asleep. The gryphons words surprised her, why would he be sorry?

“And why would you be sorry? You accomplished your mission, luring me down to that clearing... I don't even know why I came down there, I shouldn't have... Then your earthpony...”

The gryphon swiftly explained to the confused pegasus, “A spell was cast on you, to cloud your judgment, disorient you... And it worked... But I'm sorry because my partner, as dull as his name, was an idiot and gave me the signal at the wrong time, I don't know what he was trying to do.... But we what we supposed to be doing is trapping you in a net, not shooting the weights at your head... So for that, I apologize.”

Shadow scoffed, “Why should you even care? You accomplished your bloody mission, and now you have me for whatever the bloody reason you want me for!” The pegasus was raging, lifting her head up as far as she could, the following pain just serving to fuel her anger even more, she thrashed her legs, trying to get the infuriating binding off of them. The gryphon threw a hasty look over his shoulder at the door and tried to calm the pegasus.

“Stop that, calm down, you are still under the effect of the aforementioned spell, and will be until the enchanted wing restraints are taken off, you aren't thinking right. Calm down.” The gryphon spoke with a low soothing tone.

Shadow eventually, against her better judgment (or was it?) calmed down, but still fixed the gryphon with a cold glare.

“That's better. Now let me introduce myself, my name is Raydn, I'll try to make your stay here as comfortable as possible under the circumstances, but you'll have to work with me. Now, if I release you from your bindings, at least the ones on your hooves, you must not attack me, for several reasons. One, you're chained to the wall, two, the door is locked and I have the key, three, the reason your mind is so fogged and why you're being so stupid at the moment is courtesy of the enchantment on the wing restraints, and four, you'd never make it out of this labyrinth alone.”

“Well, gryphon, you certainly have a number of rules and regulations for pretending to be my friend.”

Raydn sighs, “I'm the only one in this castle that will bother telling you about the things I have, for instance, the enchanted wing restraints, that are making you so disoriented. Heck, left to the others your head wouldn't be bandaged... At least left to the care of the dull idiot...”

Shadow was beginning to see at least that she couldn't see, her mind was foggy, but at least she realized that it was, instead of lashing out, her throbbing head wasn't helping anything either, but she realized enough that the gryphon wasn't trying to hurt her, and the fact that she was bound in an uncomfortable position was hurting her, and that the gryphon had offered to remove the binding on her hooves, she relaxes slightly,

“Sorry... Radnyn... I can't... think... something...” She says eventually, much calmer than before.

“At least she tried to say my name...” He thinks as he unties her hooves, then steps slightly out of reach of the now-free hooves, just in case.

The gryphon needn't have worried, for Shadow's mind was to clouded to do much besides stretch her stiff legs and shift into a sitting position.

“Now... Answer my questions please. Who are you, Randyn? … Why am... I here? Who... wants me?” She asks haltingly.

The gryphon looks at the door again, fully expecting his idiot partner to come barging through at any moment, “First off, it's Raydn, not Radnyn, or Randyn, get it right. And as for the other questions, you'll find out soon enough.”

“Frelling hate answers like that...” Shadow mutters.

“Frelling?” Raydn asks, hoping for an explanation behind the strange word.

“Aye.” Was all he got back.

The gryphon ignores the lack of response, and takes a keyring and a pair of hoofcuffs from a desk Shadow hadn't quite noticed. Then he proceeds to cuff their hoof and talon, respectively, together, then he unchains her from the wall and holds the chain in the cuffed talon.

“This may seem a bit extreme, but Ageus doesn't like to take any chances. Now come with me, it's time you learned why you're here.”

Shadow follows the gryphon automatically, her clouded mind searching for something, that name... Ageus... It seemed familiar, in a bad way, it gave her tingles up her spine and she couldn't figure out why. As the walked through the halls the memory still eluded her, where had she heard that name?

Like a lightning bolt, as her mind temporarily threw off the enchantment affecting her mind, she remembered.

/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\

Five years ago, when she was seventeen, she had finally tired of putting herself through school. Her friend Dawn, on the other hoof, strove for perfection in every subject. Communication lapsed between the two friends as they pursued different paths. As Shadow searched for a more meaningful job, where she would actually be able to use her talents. Some form of the guard or police seemed most fitting, yet before she actually made an effort to join either one, she noticed a string of seemingly unrelated robberies, a bank, and several museums. They seemed unrelated, in fact, Shadow thought so herself for a while, but something bugged her about them, then eventually it struck her, they were all connected.

Then, rash thing that she was, decided to try and apprehend the criminal herself, and apprehend she endeavored to do. She did well and fine at first, tracked the criminals to their den, a cliche old abandoned house.... With a surprising amount of security... During her first venture into the house she narrowly evaded being caught.

After her close encounter with the guard, Shadow opted to peeking in cracks an between boards to get a feel for the place when she snuck in. She was looking through a boarded window that gave her a decent view of what seemed to be a makeshift office, but she couldn't see the pony inside, that is, not until a hefty, dumb looking earthpony clumped to the doorway and knocked tentatively. A moment later a certain dark blue unicorn with an air of authority answered him impatiently in the doorway.

"What is it? I'm busy." The unicorn stated irritably.

"Aegeus, sir, it's just..." The tough looking stallion was just about quaking in terror.

"Just spit it out already!" The short-tempered Aegeus roared.

"We... That is me and the other guards... Just thought that you should know... That we should pack up and leave because this place won't be safe much longer." The terrified stallion blurted out.

"And, just why won't this place be safe much longer? We're in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere for Celestia's sake!"

"There was a pony here! A black pegasus mare, she looked young.. She was snooping about, but she got away!"

"And you are the pony responsible and thus why you are the one telling me this.."

Nah, I'd recognize his ugly face anywhere, it was a smaller guy, an orangish pegasus. Spindly guy, no wonder I got away from him.

The earth stallion, nervously spoke again, "Aegeus, sir, some of the other guys, not me, but some of them, said that we should get all the loot out of the cellar and split...” The stallion's intention here was either to rat out his co-workers, or to see if his boss agreed with him and that they should leave.

Aegeus was not amused, he smiled, which was a bad omen all in itself. Unfortunately for the earth stallion, he thought the smile meant something good, like the boss was about to reward him for telling him of the plot.

“Tell me, what do you think of such a plan?” He simply asked.

“Well, sir... If the pony that got away knows who we are... Then it probably would be good if we left....”

The unicorn swiftly turned and dealt the unlucky henchpony a blow to his side, unprepared the stallion was knocked to the ground.

“We leave when I say so and only then. That pegasus will be found and brought to me alive so I can question her. Is that understood you sniveling idiot?”

The winded earth stallion nodded and crawled away as fast as he could from the irate unicorn.

Shadow pulled away from the window as the stallion slunk by and felt a sense of dread. Things had progressed farther than she could deal with on her own, but if she didn't deal with them on her own then the villains in the dilapidated old house would get away with the treasures they already stole and they would steal some more.

The young mare heard several ponies calling to each other from the ground level, the hunt had begun - and she was the prey.