//------------------------------// // Day One // Story: Among the Shadows // by Flutterkiin //------------------------------// Sil was working on one of the Apple Family’s old carts that had lost a wheel when a grey Pegasus came up to his shop. Looking at her, he realized she must be the local mailmare and he got up to meet her at the door. “I’m looking for a Mr. Caramel?” “Yeah, that’d be me. What do you have?” Sil asked, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Just a letter from Canterlot Palace. Oh! And here’s a package that came with it! And if I’m not mistaken… yes! Here’s another package. You seem to be quite the popular pony.” The mailmare set all of the mail on the table that Sil had placed by the door. “Thank you kindly, ma’am,” Sil said as the mailmare nodded and turned to fly away. As Sil looked at the new packages he had received, he figured that the first two things she had given him were from the Princess, and the second package was the part for one of his numerous projects. As he began to read the letter, he heard a crash from outside followed by a voice saying their apologies. “Great,” Sil thought, “Another thing to work on. Ever since the Apples got the message that they would be in charge of food for the Summer Sun Celebration, I’ve had my hooves full with fixing all their carts. I never even knew that they had so many. But I shouldn’t complain, I’ve always loved working on things… maybe if my Illusion studies hadn’t worked out, that’s what I could have been. Now let’s see what the Princess has to say.” Dear Silent Trail, By now I realize that you must have found your disguise, and thanks to a little bit of research, I knew who you’d be. Seems you turned into Caramel a lot in the old days in the Academy… trying to get out of classes and such. But that’s not important now. What is important is that Twilight Sparkle is on her way to Ponyville. She will be arriving by Royal Escort and will have her assistant with her. You must know this. I will not be available for correspondence from a few hours before the Summer Sun Celebration to when Nightmare Moon is taken care of. I will want you to trail Twilight and make sure she doesn’t fail before she gets to the old Castle in the Everfree forest. Whatever you do, you mustn’t cross the bridge. Once they get past that, your services will not be required until later. Again, DO NOT cross the bridge. Best of luck, Princess Celestia “Well then. I suppose I’d better get these carts finished up,” Sil said to himself, shutting the shop doors and locking them. “It’s a shame, really, that I couldn’t spend more time on them in the old fashioned way.” Sil concentrated as he could feel his horn returning to visibility. Then, with a great burst of magic, the carts were all levitated and the new parts fastened onto the needed areas without a problem. After everything had been fixed, Sil set the carts down and his horn faded once more into invisibility. As soon as the horn was finished glowing, he heard a knock at the door. “Oh hey sis. How’s it going?” Sil asked as Colgate stepped through the door he had just opened. “Not too bad, however, I had a question I wanted to ask you. You see, the Summer Sun Celebration is tomorrow, and I was wondering if you were planning on attending? From what I’ve learned from Mom and Dad, it’s going to be a Summer Sun Celebration to remember. Whatever that means,” Colgate said as Sil smiled. “Yes, and although you were not chosen to carry on our family history, I can say that this will definitely be one to remember. But for now, how about we go get some lunch? I’m famished from all this work,” Sil said, starting to walk down the trail. “Lunch sounds good. And while we’re out away from town, I’ve been meaning to ask you. When I was in my classes for my minor, we were told that one of the most obvious signs of an illusionist, such as yourself, in disguise was that their cutie mark was the same no matter what. However, I’ve noticed that YOU can change your cutie mark to match your disguise. How is that possible?” “This I can tell you about. You see, unlike many illusionists, my special talent IS my ability to change my appearance. This meaning, my cutie mark reflects that. That’s why in my actual form, it looks like I have no cutie mark, both A) because I can disappear completely and B) if I were to have an obvious cutie mark, it wouldn’t be able to change. There are very few ponies that have this talent, even less so now that Princess Celestia has all but blocked the road to the place where I studied abroad. During my graduate studies in the Academy, I was sent by Celestia herself to Morphopolis, the capital of a society of pony-like creatures who specialize in changing their form. I learned from the best there. Doubtless you’ve learned from your own Counter Intelligence studies that the other thing that never changes is a Unicorn’s magic aura. That much is true for me, as well. That’s why I look like this, so I’m not tempted to use magic as much. An Earth Pony, honest and true. Does that answer your question?” Sil looked at Colgate, who was deep in thought processing his answer. “I believe so. Thank you for explaining that,” Colgate said finally as they turned onto the main street. Sil turned his gaze forward, where the café finally came into view. After they had finished eating, Sil heard whispers nearby about something coming close up in the sky. He looked up and sure enough, there was the Royal Chariot coming down from Canterlot. It didn’t surprise Sil that some of the locals would be confused, as Celestia wasn’t scheduled to come until later that night. Sil knew, however, that it wasn’t Celestia that was riding on that Chariot, but instead a young mare and her dragon assistant. “Sorry, Sis, but I’ve gotta get going. I hope you understand. I’ll meet you later in front of town hall for the main event, okay?” Colgate nodded and Sil walked out of the cafe. Sil tracked the chariot to where it landed, and there, sure enough, was Twilight Sparkle and her faithful companion, Spike. Sil knew that in order to follow her unnoticed, his disguise would not work, and he quickly trotted over to an alleyway where he knew he would be out of sight for his transformation. As soon as he got into the alleyway and made sure nopony was in sight, his horn reappeared and his body enveloped in his blue aura. A quick flash and he was back to his true form. Quickly hoping to avoid any attention from the flash, his horn began to glow once again as he disappeared completely. As Sil began to walk out of the alley, a pink blur zoomed past him, causing him to take a couple surprised steps back. By the time he gathered himself enough to look where it had gone, it had disappeared. He looked to where it had come from and he saw Twilight and Spike walking toward him. He waited for them to pass and then stepped out to begin trailing them, still trying to figure out what that pink blur was. He figured it must have been a Pegasus, since it never even touched the ground as it went by, and because it was going impossibly fast. He has heard of one Pegasus who could even go at Mach speed; however he thought that was just an exaggeration of skill. As he walked, he could hear Spike and Twilight holding a conversation. “Summer Sun Celebration, official overseer’s Checklist,” Spike said as he held a piece of parchment. “Number one, Banquet preparations, Sweet Apple Acres.” As soon as they walked through the gate, Sil heard Applejack cry out “YEE-HAW” and ran up to an apple tree as Twilight and Spike looked over in shock. Sil then saw for the first time in his stay the power Applejack had as she bucked the tree and all the apples fell out of the tree and into the buckets below. He then saw Twilight droop her head and mutter something as she began to walk over to Applejack. Sil walked up to the white fence that was about 10 meters behind them and leaned himself against it to watch Twilight’s first interaction in Ponyville. What happened next greatly amused Sil as he watched Twilight introduce herself to Applejack and get her hoof vigorously shaken by Applejack’s friendly greeting. Twilight’s hoof didn’t stop shaking when Applejack lowered her hooves and said something Sil couldn’t hear. He didn’t need to hear what was said anyway, he was just there to watch her reactions. Twilight said something to Applejack and soon after that, Applejack ran over to the triangle that the Apples kept out in the middle of nowhere for reasons that Sil couldn’t guess. Applejack cried out “Soup’s on, everypony” and Sil smiled as all of the members of the extended Apple family ran to Applejack’s location. The relatives had arrived within the past week and seemed to be, for the most part, females, much to the surprise of Sil. As soon as the stampede was over, Sil crept closer to hear what Applejack said and to monitor Twilight a bit better. As Sil got into earshot of Applejack, he could hear her start to introduce the family to Twilight. Each pony would put a different apple-style food on the table Twilight and Spike was at when Applejack said their name. Sil had to suppress a laugh when he saw the finished product of all the Apples introduced, as the table was now full of apple-style food stacked a couple meters high. Twilight, trying to avoid further interaction with this overwhelming family, said that she had to get going. That’s when Apple Bloom used her big eyes and cute demeanor to ask if Twilight was even going to stay for brunch. Twilight tried to get out of it yet again but finally caved in when the whole Apple family gave a sad sigh in unison. Sil sat back and waited for the brunch to be done, while his mind drifted back to what was going to take place tomorrow. As soon as the brunch was over and each Apple had said farewell to Twilight, the newcomers finally left Sweet Apple Acres to continue their duties. Sil followed them as they returned to Ponyville, and as they were walking he noticed a huge pile of mud in the middle of dry grass. He thought it strange that it would just be there, it hadn’t rained in over four days. However, he discarded the anomaly and continued to follow Twilight. Spike was talking about the next item on the checklist, which was weather. Sil looked into the sky and wondered why there were so many smaller clouds still when Twilight made a very sarcastic remark up ahead. Almost instantly after that happened, Twilight got hit with a blur and was taken directly into the mud puddle that Sil had noticed earlier. He looked over to Twilight and on top of her was a cyan Pegasus with a rainbow colored mane. He had never seen a Pegasus like that in all his travels, and was still in awe when the Pegasus flew away to bring back a raincloud. She rinsed the very muddy Twilight off and apologized for her actions. She then laughed and soon Twilight was wrapped up in a rainbow tornado. As soon as the cyan Pegasus stopped, Sil had to let out a laugh, and thanked Celestia that nopony was around to hear him. Even if there was, they would be too busy looking at Twilight and the Pegasus that was now on the ground laughing. Twilight was sporting a very poofy manestyle and said something to the cyan Pegasus. Sil could make out the name “Rainbow Dash”. Twilight and Rainbow Dash shared a bit of a conversation before the Pegasus jumped up from her cloud and began to clear the sky with speeds Sil had only seen come from the Wonderbolts. No more than Ten seconds had passed before the Pegasus returned down to the ground and spoke some words with pride. Twilight look bewildered at the Pegasus as she flew away. Twilight and Spike then went to the Town Hall to check on the decorations. Sil walked with them until he saw a patrol of Royal Guards walking in the distance. Sil figured that Twilight and Spike would spend quite some time in Town Hall before departing again, so he quickly magicked himself so that only the Guards could see him. He trotted over to them, and they greeted him as he slowed to a walk. “Greetings. I’m Silent Trail, here on official R.C.E.D. business, and I was wondering if either of you have any news of the Princess? I have heard reports and I wanted to know if they were true. Is she still safe?” Sil asked as he revealed his identity. Only the guards could hear him, so he had no worries of blowing his cover to anypony who would happen to walk by. Not only that, but he had also thrown up a perception shield around them, so nopony even gave the guards a second thought as they walked by. “The Princess is still in Canterlot, sir. She is preparing to leave this very night. Before she arrives, however, we were sent here to scout out the safety of this town, and so far we have had nothing to report. Should you see anything, though, tell us first and we shall deal with it. For now, we must continue our patrol,” the older of the two guards responded as the other gazed forward, scanning for any mischief. Sil thanked them and turned to go back to Town Hall, vanishing from the guards once they had turned their backs. When he got within a few strides of the porch of Town Hall, he saw Twilight exit, escorted by a white unicorn with a purple mane. He then saw Spike exit the hall, almost in a daze. He followed the trio until they got to a building, Carousel Boutique. He then had to sit outside, due to the code he was sworn to follow. He couldn’t enter any building that was privately owned without the consent of the owners, so he decided to sit down at a nearby tree and wait for Twilight to exit again. Five minutes later, Sil saw Twilight rush out of the building while she threw a gem-filled article of clothing back through the doors. Sil jumped to his feet to follow Twilight and Spike. He followed them to the park, a place Sil had not yet visited since his return two weeks prior. Very faintly, he could hear birds chirping in harmony, almost like they were being conducted. He saw Twilight jump into a bush and poke her head out to find the source of the sound. Sil could see that there was a yellow Pegasus with a pink mane indeed conducting the birds in a beautiful melody. It would have been music to Sil’s ears had he not noticed the Blue Jay singing completely off rhythm. He saw the Pegasus then go up to the Blue Jay to supposedly correct him, and right before she could get them started again, Twilight rushed out of the bush and scared all the birds, and the Pegasus. The birds flew away while the Pegasus landed on the pathway. As Twilight walked up to the Pegasus, Sil could see that the Pegasus was very shy and uneasy when talking with other ponies. As Twilight began to walk away, the yellow Pegasus suddenly stood straight up and rushed over, knocking Twilight back. Sil smiled as the once shy Pegasus suddenly became a chatterbox with Spike, who apparently had stepped out from the bush moments ago. Sil followed Twilight as she made her way back into Ponyville, followed closely behind the Pegasus. As soon as Twilight got to a giant tree that Sil had learned was the library, she turned around and quickly said something to the yellow Pegasus. The Pegasus then picked up Spike to carry him inside, only to be immediately forced back out by Twilight, who then slammed the door in the yellow Pegasus’ face. Sil felt slightly bad for her as he turned to walk back to his shop. “I better get some sleep. It’ll be a long night,” Sil thought as he walked, “Celestia, I really hope you know what you’re doing… so far Twilight hasn’t shown any sign of making friends. If she has any hope of unlocking the Elements of Harmony, she’s got to make friends. The ancient magic of Friendship doesn’t work if you don’t have friends.” Sil looked up to the moon, and the shadows cast on the surface that looked like a unicorn seemed to shift, almost as if it were preparing for what was going to happen. He noticed then four bright stars that had approached the moon. “Well, Luna, I guess I won’t have to wait for very much longer before I finally get to meet the one that taught my ancestors the art of illusion,” Sil said to himself as he arrived at his shop.