Nocturnal

by Forestshadows

Rating: teen
Tags: Romance, Adventure
Length: 5810

Echo Shade, that name changed Shadow's life. Or rather the stallion that it belongs to.

One peaceful spring day Shadow was walking through the Ever Free Forest. Not an unlikely thing for her to be doing but the stallion she met there… That was the event that completely changed her life from the monotonous life she had, almost instantly she was plunged into a wild adventure that held the fate of Equestria in the balance. You may say that the simple meeting between these two ponies couldn't have been quite that remarkable, but if they hadn't met, I assure you the outcome would have been quite different.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-03-28 02:14:20 UTC

One - First meeting

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.

Two - An Old Enemy

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.