//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Shadows Watching // by SaltyJustice //------------------------------// There came a rapping at my door, three clean, crisp knocks. My mom peeked her head inside, I heard the hinge creak and it ripped me out of my slumber. The panic receded, I was in the real world. It was a dream, all of it, no matter how real it had seemed. "Cadence, are you all right?", Mom asked. Real concern in her tone. I groaned, rolling over and looking at the wall clock. 6:30am. "Yeah, yeah I'm okay," I lied. Absolutely not okay. My body ached, I was more tired than I had ever been. I felt like I hadn't gotten any sleep at all. "If you say so," Mom said. She didn't sound convinced. "You were asleep when we got home, did something happen?" "No, just, felt really tired is all," I said. I yawned. Math test today, time to go bomb it. "All right then, breakfast is ready," Mom said as she left. The door closed with a crisp click. I looked around, my room was a disaster, just as I had left it. I could tidy it later, right now I had to eat and do some last-minute test studying. Yesterday receded into the dream, it hadn't happened, I didn't need to think about it. The table was messy, and the living room was worse. My parents had been celebrating something I think, I noticed there was an uncorked wine bottle on the counter, half full. There was no question what had happened though, as the morning paper arrived and the banner headline proclaimed "Cadenza Collars Crook" in big, bold typeface. Guess that means she won. That was an understatement. The article was loaded down with puns and alliterations. "Purr-fect Prosecution Puts Burgler Behind Bars", "Cat-burgler Caterwauls like Canary on witness stand", and "The defense seemed unprepared for his client's cracking under pressure". That last one wasn't very catchy. Dad wasn't awake yet, but I didn't mind. I opened my math book as I munched on some buttered toast. Out of jam again. I needed to start buying it myself, I was the only one who ate it. Mom had some coffee and was reading the paper over and over again, sometimes mumbling out her favorite sentences. "So, you got him did you?" I asked. Might as well get it out of her. "How did you know?" she asked back, drily. A smile forced its way out, prying apart her lips and displaying for all the world the glow she had inside. "It felt good, really good. It's a rush. Wish you could have been there." "You know, jobs and stuff," I muttered, taking another bite of my toast. "Did you get it?" she asked. "Oh yeah, take a look," I said, pulling out the scroll that was still in my bag. Mom perused it, then gave me a kiss on the cheek. "That's wonderful news sweetie," she said, pulling back. "I'll let your father know whenever he wakes up." We both chuckled. Dad doesn't hold his liquor too well. I could probably out-drink him, and then promptly get grounded for drinking. Pros and cons, pros and cons... I decided to leave early and do my studying in the halls outside the classroom. I was in the 'A' class, with Minty and Squeaky. Gabby was in the 'B' class. We wrote at the same times, just in different rooms, since our class this year was too big for one teacher. Gabby was already there when I arrived, sitting across the hallway and looking at a bunch of old homework. She looked up as I approached. "Wow, what happened to you?" she asked as I put my bags down. "Get into a fight with a Rhino?" I had caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass window on the doors as I had entered the school. Deep bags under my eyes, my mane messy. Forgot to comb it. I quickly ran my hoof through, trying to straighten it out. It didn't work. "Oh just, up late last night," I lied again. I was doing that a lot lately. "Tell me about it. Wanna team up?" She asked, perking her ears up. She was probably better at Math than I was, but it's always nice to have a foil. We read over her old homework, quizzing each other as we went. Time flew by, other students arrived and waited in front of the room with us. The talking lifted to a dull roar as more and more students arrived. Minty and Squeaky arrived together a few minutes before we were due to write, and the teachers opened the doors to signal the start of the test. I think I did well, but that's usually a bad indication, since I'm always, always wrong about my own abilities when it comes to tests. Except Physics, you could set your watch to my bombing of those tests. When I left, Minty, Squeaky, and Gabby were waiting for me, all having finished before me. Damn. Bad sign, everypony else was faster. It was just before noon, so we decided to go get lunch before studying for History on Thursday. "How'd it go?" Squeaky asked, poking me in the ribs. "Did you get #21?" "Uh, refresh my memory," I said. "That was the one with the sphere and the pyramid, you know, volume?" she said. I thought back. "I probably got it wrong..." I muttered. "Me too," Gabby cut in. Probably trying to make me feel better. "I didn't remember that from the lessons." she gave me a little smirk. "Wish they wouldn't do that to us, it's not fair" Squeaky and Minty nodded in agreement. Phew, maybe it's not just me. "Hey, did you hear about the Princess yesterday?" Minty started. Oh no, not this again. "No, what happened?" I asked, leading her on. I needed to let Minty vent about the latest royal gossip or she'd never shut up. That, or she'd hold it in and explode. That could totally happen. "Celestia flipped out when some reporter wrote a story about her yelling at a dish-maid, so she went tearing out of the castle and didn't get back till it was time to lower the Sun!" Minty said, repeating almost word for word what I had seen in the first paragraph of the paper that morning. Right under my Mom's big article. "Yes Minty, we can read the gossip column too," Gabby said. It didn't matter how much she voiced her dissatisfaction with this sort of topic, Minty never got the point. "I don't see why it's such a big deal." Minty shot a look at me. I did my best to have no expression whatsoever. Minty then looked at Squeaky, who was doing the same. We both failed. "Don't you guys know what this means!?" she said, frustrated. "No," all three of us answered at once. "Like, where did she go, right? What happened? Did she go beat up the reporter," she let out a gasp, "or what if she killed him?" I rolled my eyes. "Who cares?" Gabby said, increasing her pace. We all sped up to match. It took exactly enough effort that we wouldn't be able to maintain the conversation. Minty was not to be deterred, lifting into the air and flying alongside us. "You know what that is, it's intimidation of the press! If she can just go around smiting anypony then we could be next, don't you guys get it?" she asked, her voice rising into panic. Time to defuse this bomb before she gave herself a heart attack. "Minty, the Princess did not brazenly murder a reporter in broad daylight," I said, as calmly as possible. There was nothing to argue with in that statement, case clos- "No, she must have found out where he lived, then came back at night to finish the deed. Or she had some of her soldiers mess his house up, you know, as a warning. They'd kill one of his pets and leave its body in his bed for him to find!" Minty seemed to be reliving a really old, black-and-white horror movie now. Gabby stopped. I bumped into her, and Squeaky bumped into me. Minty sailed past us and looped around, landing in front of us. Gabby walked up to Minty, so close they were practically touching chests, and stared down at the shorter mare in front of her. The look on her face could cut glass. "No, that's not what happened," Gabby stated, calmly. She let the words hang in the air for a moment. Minty didn't say anything. Abruptly, Gabby stepped back and walked around Minty. The rest of us followed. "Oh, maybe you're right," Minty said. It was like a switch had been flipped, she calmed down in a snap. Squeaky let out a relieved sigh. We got lunch, buying some fruit off of a vendor and taking it to the park to munch on. My apple was a bit mushy, but otherwise it was a good meal. Stress melted away, Thursday seemed ages off, and I wasn't particularly worried about it to begin with. Gabby broke out her textbook first while Squeaky and Minty rifled through their old assignments. I just tried to relax. Mr. Prescott had given everypony an outline of the exam, and there were a few of last year's exams posted anonymously on the announcements board in the cafeteria. I had copied down some of the more prominent questions, in case I needed to go over them again later. I closed my eyes and just existed, laying on the grass as my friends mumbled to one another and finished their lunches. I would have fallen asleep, but the sun was particularly warm on my eyelids, distracting me enough that I wouldn't go under. That, and Minty was being really loud for some reason. "Hey," she said, extremely loudly, almost right in my ear. I opened my eyes, she was right in front of me. "Are you ignoring me?" "Yes," I said. Too honest. She poked me. "Come on, I helped you with Physics, you have to help me with History." A fair enough deal, I suppose. "Fine," I said at last. "What should we go over?" "This question on the Cloudsdale Riots," she said, showing me a copy of an older exam. "Hey, did you pull this off the announcements board?" I asked. It was a full copy, she hadn't copied it off like I had. "Yeah, was I not supposed to?" she asked back. I put my hoof on my face and tried to forget that she just said that. If everypony took a copy, there'd be none left. Clearly, not an ounce of thought had gone into her preparations, as usual. "Nevermind," I muttered. I looked at the question she pointed at with her hoof. Gabby and Squeaky looked at it too, straining to read it upside down, and casting a shadow over the scroll. I pushed them away and started reading it aloud, now that nopony was blocking my light. "Using what you know about Cloudsdale's legal system, explain why the federal government could not simply override the racist Griffon's Rights laws that sparked the Cloudsdale riots. Why does Cloudsdale have this unique legal system? Justify your answers," I read off the scroll. My friends looked at me expectantly. "Okay, who wants to take a crack at it first?" I said. I already knew the answer, but that's because I paid attention in class. Silence. After a few moments, I decided I'd need to prompt them a bit. "Answer the second question first, maybe that will help," I offered. Gabby spoke up first. "Cloudsdale used to be a city-state before joining up with Equestria," she said, correctly. I nodded in approval. Minty wrote something down. Silence. Damn it. Was it going to be like this the whole day? "Therefore, the feds couldn't force Cloudsdale to change its laws since they can threaten to secede, it has to be done internally. But they didn't until the Griffons started protesting and eventually kicked out the senators who were stopping the suffrage process," I explained. Squeaky wrote something down, Minty was scribbling like crazy. Gabby took on a quizzical expression. "Hey, how did you know that last part?" she asked. "What? What part?" I asked. I had no idea what she was talking about, this whole thing was in the text book. Or maybe it wasn't. Gabby had opened her book to the Riots chapter and showed me the passage. It detailed most of what I had said, but didn't explain exactly how the riots changed the laws, it just said "due to this pressure, the Cloudsdale senate eventually adopted full citizenship rights for Griffons and non-Pegasus residents". I knew for certain it was because the rioters had kicked out the corrupt senators. A few even got murdered, I knew that for dead certain, but it was nowhere in the book. I scanned over the passage, then checked some of the other pages. Nothing. How did I know that? I shook it off. "Oh, well I must have read that somewhere else," I offered, trying to explain it. "You don't have to mention that, see? The question just asks about the laws." They were happy with that explanation. I wasn't. The textbook was the only time I had ever read about these events. The Cloudsdale Riots happened over 200 years ago, but were a huge, pivotal event in Equestrian history and were still relevant today in many ways. I would have remembered anything I read about them, but before this year, the subject hadn't come up in any class, or discussion, or article. We split up after running over some more material and promised to meet up again after dinner. The Riots kept gnawing at me as I walked home, I needed to know where I had found out about the senators and those murders. It was very vivid knowledge to me, but before I had said it out loud, I may as well have not have known it. The more I thought about it, the more the details began to become clear. The Cloudsdale senate had 35 senators, 7 from each of the city's 5 boroughs. The more metropolitan boroughs had voted in favor of the expanded citizenship laws, the more conservative, old-family areas, against. The vote had split down the middle, not enough for a majority to override and nullify the existing laws. Over the course of two weeks, six senators were murdered, always at night. Two by stabbing, four by poison. I had been outraged over the whole thing, nopony deserves death no matter what they believed, but it was up to the residents to learn that for themselves. That was not a lesson I could teach them, no matter how much I wanted to. What was I saying? Outraged? That happened over two centuries ago. I wasn't even born yet. I laughed out loud as I walked, suddenly and from nowhere. Two ponies walking the other way turned and looked at me, bewildered by the outburst. I blushed and lowered my head, keeping my pace. Guess I overdid it. This was just stress, I've had a lot on my mind what with failing at school and getting a new job. I was obviously just making stuff up, confusing myself and then getting worked up over it. We met up again after dinner, but we didn't get much studying done. We just lazed around and talked until it became too dark in the park to stay out. The lamplighters put fireflies in the lamps and we went for a walk, the four of us, carefree. Minty tried to bring up some more royal gossip, Gabby shut her down, Squeaky and I laughed about it. I had not shut out these strange thoughts completely, I had merely moved them into the back of my mind where they kept running. Odd memories continued to emerge that I had not had, could not possibly have had. That night, I lay in bed waiting for sleep to come and wash all this away. Names and faces drifted by in my mind as I lay with my eyes closed, words spoken by them dredged up from the recesses of my subconscious. Events I had not been present for, great calamities that had occurred before I was even a wild idea in my father's head. I tossed and turned. They began to come on stronger. Dates and places flew by, I could see the sky and the stars whirling as the world itself changed below me. I felt myself drifting away, the ideas forming a river, the river becoming rapids. It had started as a trickle earlier that day, but it became steadily stronger and stronger. It had been a river, now it was a tidal wave, a sea of memories collapsing on my mind. I was going to go under and lose myself entirely if I didn't do something. Don't worry, you'll be fine. Just concentrate, focus on what really matters. That wasn't my thoughts this time. That was somepony else whispering in my head, a voice I didn't recognize, and yet, different from the other ones I was now forcibly remembering. It was a lady's voice, gentle and understanding, while still authoritative. I did as it asked, concentrating, focusing on my family, my friends. My mind eased the flow of memories down to a trickle, the faces and names drying up and vanishing back into whatever corners they had come from. The memories were gone now, entirely, and I was myself again. I went to sleep secure, confident. That voice was familiar, and it comforted me on a level I hadn't felt before. I didn't worry about hearing voices in my head or seeing impossible things on a routine basis, that seemed unimportant when that voice told me not to worry. I believed it, that was all that mattered. My dreams that night, I'd rather not recount. They took no note of the voice I had heard.