//------------------------------// // Meet Night Shade // Story: The Tale of Saving Grace // by Cold Spike //------------------------------// "Night Shade, I'm back!" Saving Grace yelled out, knowing full well where exactly he was 'hiding' in their campsite. Grace always cracked into an even bigger smile whenever she laid eyes on the site. It was their labor of love, something they built from the ground up when they both found each other one night. Two very large and very permanent out door tents would be the closest thing to their homes. Next to a quiet stream was a system of machines that would gather up just enough water to be used for a couple days in a large tank; the tank would then be super-heated or distilled. In the center of the camp was one of her first real inventions, the outdoor heater. The machine was not a pretty sight, but when she was building it the notion of beauty was the last thing on her mind. It was tall and cylinder shaped, but inside it had all sorts of complex machinery that would be activated by a simple crank, no magic required. As long as you had some fire wood you could simply toss it inside, crank the machine and wait. In no time you could heat the entire campsite for hours on end, quite useful for when you have no magic to do the job for you. "Hey, Grace. What's up?" said a rather scrawny sounding voice. "Oh not much. How did the practice go?" Out of all the living beings in all of Equestria, it was Night Shade that could make her emotions change. She almost always had a smile on her face around Ponyville, but for Night Shade anything was possible. She would frown, get angry, crack smiles and tell jokes. Night Shade was far more than just a friend, but oddly enough she considers him to be her only friend, one with whom she could take a break from being so calm. In Ponyville she had patience, around Night Shade she had fun. "It went, I-" "Oh c'mon, I told you to try and practice every day!" "And I told you that this is impossible. A changeling cannot make his own form, it has to be a copy!" The changeling stomped the ground in frustration. All it did was make her giggle, as he was slightly smaller than her, a youngling changeling. "I know that is not true, I may not be a changeling, but I know that giving up on an idea is just dumb!" Grace blew him a raspberry and went down into a big giggle fit. "Laugh it up, can we please just think of another plan to show my self of? Maybe I can just go to another town, make a copy of some random colt and then-" "It's too risky, what if that colt comes to visit? Or what if someone in Ponyville knows that colt, then what?" "Grrr, then how am I supposed to meet anyone? This bites!" "You just need to be patient, Shade. I know you can do it, because I've seen you change shape and color before and it certainly wasn't my color," she said while gesturing to her green colored nature, even her mane was green. "Fine! I'm gonna go...practice. But what are you doing?" "Oh, I met one of the Elements of Harmony today, Fluttershy. I'm going to be making her an automatic bird feeder. Which reminds me, she is going to stop by tomorrow morning so..." "Ya, ya , ya I'll hide tomorrow morning." "I'm very sorry Night Shade. But I don't want to see you get hurt and you know how rash ponies can act?" "Yes, I know that very well," he said while shuddering. "But why are you always helping them? I know you’re a pony, but you never ask for anything in return, not even love!" "I told you ponies don't feed on love silly." "Whatever, but why help them if you get nothing back?" "I get smiles back," she said while smiling, but it wasn't an innocent smile it was a very smug looking one. "I can smile see." He broke out in a big grin that looked a bit silly on a changeling body. "I can smile for you, so why do you need them?" He was pouting which again looking quite odd for his race. "I don't need them, I just like helping others. And you should too Mister!" "Maybe I would try if I could meet them! I still don't see why we can't just introduce me to a few? I mean you trust me and you don't freak out from me!" More pouting, but he did have a good point so she put aside her laughter. "That's because when we first met I had no clue what a Changeling was. I found out later, but by then we were good friends. All ponies know what they are and they assume they are evil." "Well that...that's rude of them!" "I can't disagree there. We will figure something out okay?" She walked up and gave him a reassuring hug, he simply rolled his eyes. "I still don't get what a hug is or why you do it to me so often?" "You’re impossible," she paused and gave out a long sigh, “just keep practicing please, for me?" She gave him pleading eyes, the kind you would find on a begging puppy. "Those things are weapons, you know that right?" She stopped and stared at him, but then they both let out a long laugh. After seeing her dark colored friend reenter his tent, she waited. After a moment she saw and heard the telltale sign of his green flame and magic working in tandem. He was practicing, trying to make his own form, become his own pony. The problem is changeling magic works by sapping out energy form others. A few inventions took care of that, but they were by no means perfect, still it was better than Night Shade sapping her dry every time he wanted to practice magic, he did it once by accident and to her it was the single most painful experience in her young life. To be fair, he did cry after this event, it was traumatic but it did teach them a good lesson: changelings need love, period. Love was easy to come by, as a changeling he still did feed on emotions. Just her being his friend was enough to keep him going, but not enough to substitute for any magic. Meaning if she was not around, he would surely die. It also means through the use of her various machines (what she calls in the prototyping stage ) , he was limited by how much magic he could use in one day. The biggest problem though was their grand master scheme to finally introduce him to other ponies and let him see Ponyville. This required his own form, his own changeling pony form and she knew it was possible. Still, changelings were a race of mostly thieves, it was as if they were designed to copy another pony’s form which means he had no other way to make his own. He could copy her and become a near perfect imitation, all be it one that is smaller. He could copy townsfolk or popular ponies like Rainbow Dash or the princess. Making his own pony form however was proving to become quite challenging, but just like Grace he never once gave up. He however has to deal with this failure on a daily basis, when Grace faced a problem she would usually be able to overcome it by now, but they had been trying to fix this little problem for well over a year. It was frustrating and if she could just talk to some ponies that were skilled in magic about this little problem they could probably fix it. But there is this one problem and that is that all ponies hate changelings and thus they were both left to fend on their own, with the colt of the group constantly having to experiment going blind. She often told herself that in the end it would all be worth it and her young friend would learn friendship. But until that day she vowed to keep friends to a minimum, in that she technically had none other than him. Night Shade was her first and only friend, her best friend. Sure she had introduced herself to countless citizens who reside in Ponville, but to her they were only allies if you will, but not friends...yet. She swore to herself that until Night Shade can talk to ponies like he does to her, she would not make any other friends because it was unfair to him. In a funny sense, friendship could wait for their friendship. She began to work on her new bird feeder machine, but thoughts kept drifting back to Night Shade and then to her surprise Fluttershy. It wasn't the Element of Kindness that bothered her, it was all of them. The changeling attack on Canterlot was no secret to anypony, the Elements were there of course. If it is anypony in all of Equestria that would judge Night Shade on the spot it would be Fluttershy and her best friends. It was the whole reason why she avoided them in the first place and it wasn't fair to ask her friend to simply hide, but they had no choice. She mentally kicked herself for even talking to Fluttershy, but there wasn't much she could do, her friend would endure and everything would be just fine in the end. With another green flash she was awoken from her heavy day dreaming. This burst of magic was much louder so she decided to check up on her charge. At least that's what she always told herself, he was only slightly younger, but he was so ignorant of pony ways that she couldn't help but see a foal. She opened his concealed tent and her jaw dropped. He was smoking and had his exterior not be naturally colored black you would be able to see black marks all over. "I had it that time!" She immediately ran up to his side and started inspecting him. "What did you try this time?!" "Calm down I'm fine! And I just tried to imagine a new pony like you said... only-" "Only what?!" "Well first I imagined a blue earth pony body." "Right, good. Then what?" "Then I imagined a horn cause I still wanted to use magic." "Seems logical, go on," she said in an encouraging tone. "Then I imagined wings cause I thought, why not?" "Shade, how many times-" "Then I thought wouldn't it be neat if I had my own cutie mark? So I tried to imagine one that had to do with fire and-" "STOP! How many times have I told you? Nothing that complex!" "Was that a real question?" He was grinning sheepishly at this point, she noted the two fangs on his face actually moved out letting her believe that he was enjoying this more than he should. "Now I need to patch you up and finish that feeder. And stop smiling this isn't funny!" She shook her head and began to gather up their storage of medical supplies. It didn't take long to bandage him, but then she noticed he was giggling more. "You did that on purpose so you could taste some anger huh?" Her face was less than amused. "Don't blame me, it tastes great! And I hardly ever get it, so," he finished speaking and stuck out his tongue in a very immature manner. "I'm not an angry pony and if you wanted some so badly you could’ve asked." "Pretend anger tastes terrible, bleh!" "Stop showing me your tongue it's gross and were you even trying to practice?" "Yes," to his credit he was talking very sincerely at this point, it never ceased to amaze her how easily he could switch from being a spoiled foal to a mature stallion," I was trying a few new tricks, only one seemed promising. It did give me a great idea though, but..." She looked over at a strange device that lay in his tent, she recognized it as the magic tuner she invented. Its job was to absorb all magic in the air like a unicorn might and store it, simple for his use only. It was tapped dry and needed time to recharge. "I guess no more practicing tonight. But I'm glad you have a new idea, you just need to keep trying!" "Right!" They gave a hoof bump and smiled. They spent the rest of the day fixing up the bird feeding machine. Night Shade had learned a lot from her about her inventions, but really he had his own special talent. However that talent had yet to be discovered, he could not technically earn a cutie mark, but to Grace the mark had nothing to do with a special talent. She was good with machines, but that doesn't mean she couldn't research and become good at taking care of animals or trying something new. Night Shade needed time and to interact with other ponies if he was to discover his way in life, time was on their side, but luck was not. They worked late into the night and had finally finished her new invention. Changelings needed just as much sleep as the next pony so without warning he slumped down and started to sleep, she sighed hoping that one of these nights he would get the concept of wishing another a good night's sleep. When she tried to explain this strange concept to him he took it as a joke. He claims that wanting another pony or changeling to sleep well and have good dreams made no sense, because changelings cannot dream, at least not in their sleep. She turned off the outdoor heater and climbed into her bag, making a mental note to wake up Night Shade early for Fluttershy's visit.