//------------------------------// // Kindness Amidst Turbulence // Story: Guardians of Light: A Shadow Forms // by Alphadude007 //------------------------------// Guardians of Light: A Shadow Forms Chapter 28-Kindness Amidst Turbulence -Concordia, Eastern Griffon Kingdom- Amidst the busy marketplace of the city, a black-furred griffon with a silver-feathered head strode past the shops and carts, her chocolate brown eyes scanning the miscellaneous items being sold. None of the goods she saw were of any use for the project. Random griffons were selling food, building supplies, and other various knickknacks. A rather burly brown-feathered griffon nudged her out of his way as he walked towards a stand that was selling locally grown greens. Gastra turned and huffed at the griffon as she made her way through the bustling streets of Concordia. The fear of war had gripped the capital city of the Eastern Griffon Kingdom. No one said anything or did anything to blatantly show the fear, however. It was in the subtleties of every day life that best displayed the sense of foreboding that the populace felt. Hatchlings never left the sides of their mothers when they were shopping in the markets, their eyes fearfully watching iron-clad soldiers march their way down the street. Sons and fathers would either work at home or go to whatever destination to avoid squads of recruiting Inspectors. The Inspectors. If there was one thing that personified the fear of war, it would be they. Groups of griffons in red uniforms and black berets would patrol the streets and the skies, catching random griffons and almost always forcibly thrusting them into recruitment camps for the Eastern Griffon Army. Anyone they caught was seldom heard from save for the occasional letter that the recruits were allowed to send back their families. Shaking these thoughts out of her mind, Gastra made her way towards the rectangular doorway of a two-story building, a chimney puffing smoke at the top. Did we leave the furnace on? Oh well. I really hope Heron's gotten the materials we need for this. She thought, her mind wandering to the project that she and her partner had been working on for the past few months. If this goes according to plan, we'll be swimming in coin by the end of the year. A smile tugged at Gastra's face at the thought as she raised a clawed hand and knocked twice on the door. "If you are the Royal Inspectors, I'm too sick to go to training!" A cry sounded from the other side of the door. "I don't want to risk anyone getting the feather flu!" Gastra sighed. "Heron, it's me. Open the door." She said calmly. The sound of a few locks being undone was heard as Gastra waited for her friend to answer. The wooden door slowly creaked open, Gastra could see a pair of blue eyes peek through the opening. The eyes widened in recognition as the door swung open. Before Gastra stood a griffon with brown fur and black speckles dotting his body, his head was adorned with black feathers. His blue eyes looked at the female griffon and motioned her inside the building. "Oh thank goodness. Come inside, Gastra, hurry!" Heron said, standing to one side of the door. Gastra walked inside the house, Heron quickly shutting the door behind her. The male griffon let out a sigh of relief. "Am I glad it's just you. I thought you were a group of Inspectors that were going door to door again." Gastra shook her head, a small smile flickering across her face. "Well luckily for you, I'm no Inspector. Did you get the parts we needed?" She asked. "I sure did. They're upstairs." He beamed, gesturing towards the staircase at the far end of the room. "You got the bow frame? The eight-by-two-by-five wooden blocks? The twine?" Gastra ran over her partner's checklist. "Yes, yes, and yes." Heron responded, a look of confidence on his visage. "What kind of twine did you get?" Gastra asked as she began to walk towards the staircase. "Who said I just got one kind of twine?" Heron asked, a smug look finding its way onto his face. Gastra's head turned around, giving her partner a confused look. "I got five kinds of twine, all having different tension levels. We can experiment with all of them and choose which one works best." Gastra gave Heron an appreciative look. "What would I do without you, Heron?" "Well you wouldn't have the roof over your head for you to work on this project." Heron said complacently. Gastra gave Heron a nod. "Again, you've been awesome, Heron. So shall we get to work?" She asked, motioning up the staircase. Heron nodded. "After you." He said, watching her climb the stairs shortly before following her up. Gastra soon came to a door similar to one in the foyer of the building at the top of the stairs. A faint light shone under the door. "Were you working on the project while I was out?" Gastra asked, gripping the door handle. Heron looked up at her. "Yeah I was just organizing the place for when you got back." He replied. "Oh. Well thank you for that. I was meaning to fix this place up at some point." Gastra spoke as she opened the door. She stepped into the workshop. Before her was the beating heart of the pair's operation. A furnace blazed in the corner, its pipe feeding smoke out of the room through the roof of the building. A crafting bench stood opposite of the furnace, carved pieces of wood and some blocks that had yet to be shaped were scattered about the table top. Next to the workbench was a large chest containing materials and tools needed for the weapon's construction. To her right, Gastra noted a new addition to the workshop she hadn't seen before, a wooden circle that was painted with several different colored rings, a big red dot in the middle. "When did we get a target in here?" Gastra inquired as Heron entered the room behind her. "Oh I constructed that with some spare wood we had from some of the parts we'd made already. I figured that once the weapon was ready for testing, we could have something on hand to test it with." Heron said plainly. Gastra rubbed her the lower half of her beak. "And you didn't use any of the wood we were supposed to used for the stocks, did you?" Heron opened his beak to speak. "Ye-" He began to say, but then his memory kicked in. His beak closed as a dumb look found its way onto his features. Heron put a hand over his eyes. "Aw, crap." Gastra sighed and gave her counterpart a disappointed look. "Okay. Next time we need supplies, you go and get them." She said, seeing Heron's mouth open, she resumed. "And I don't want to hear anything about the Inspectors. You'll just have to be careful when you go out." Heron's beak shut as he accepted the consequences for his mistake. "Alright. Sorry about that." Heron apologized. Gastra gave her friend a forgiving look. "Just make sure it doesn't happen again, alright? I mean I understand your enthusiasm and everything for this project, but stay focused with the task at hand." She said in a motherly tone. Heron's head nodding in compliance. "Okay, so what are we going to work on today?" Gastra turned back to visage the components of the workshop. "We thread the twine onto the limbs of the frame and test their straining capacities." A smile lit up on Heron's face. "Sweet. I'll get the twine and you can get the bow off the worktable." He said as he turned towards the chest to get the twine he'd gotten. An eager smirk stretched across Gastra's face. Let's get to work. -Sky above Ponyville- Rainbow Dash lay on her bed and watched out the window of her cloud house as the day passed before her eyes. Thinking. That's all she could do for now. It was moments like this in her life that she hated. She had no idea what to do. She didn't know what to make of the visions she'd seen in the past couple days, she didn't know what they were pointing to, and worst of all, she didn't know how to help her friends in whatever was going on. It was a state of utter helplessness that the pegasus had found herself in and she hated it. The arresting words of the riddle rang in her mind over and over. From the mountains of the frozen north, An ancient shadow shall come forth. The sun will set on Canterlot, A sacrifice that won't be for naught. The six will become eight, And this world's path they will dictate. To herald a new dawn, Or revive an evil once foregone. She'd been trying to figure out what they meant for a good part of the afternoon, multiple theories and questions coming through and being tossed out of her mind as the day went on. What is this 'shadow' the riddle spoke of? If the Elements of Harmony are the 'six' then are there two unknown elements? 'This world's path they will dictate'. How can six ponies and two unknowns possibly change the world? They'd have to do something pretty big to be able to pull something off like that. Rainbow clutched her head. "Gah. What do all these things mean?" She asked. Ain't that the question of the day, Dash. She thought, laying back down on her bed and staring up at the Wonderbolts recruitment poster on her ceiling. Dash felt her eyelids get heavy. The lack of sleep she'd had the past day was beginning to catch up to her. Maybe some shuteye is just what I need. She figured, letting her eyelids close. "Hey Dash, you home?" A voice asked from outside. Dash's eyes shot open as she rose up from the bed. I know that voice. She thought as she walked towards her house's main door. But what's she doing here? I thought she left to go back home. Dash opened the door to see a pair of griffons at her doorstep. One had brown fur, a white-feathered head, and a pair of golden eyes. The second had similarly colored fur and eyes, but had black and grey speckled feathers on its head. The first one was the griffon that Dash recognized. "Sup, Dash? Long time, no see." Gilda said, giving her childhood friend a smile. Dash's eyebrow arched at the familiar griffon. "Um, hey Gilda. I thought you decided to go home back in Dayguard." Gilda's smile slightly faded. "Well I did. But now I'm back." She said, not feeling too confident with how her old friend receiving her comeback. "So why come back?" Dash asked. At this Gilda's smile crumbled. "I've been thinking for a while." She said, looking down at the cloud she was standing on. "I thought back to when you invited me to visit Ponyville a couple years back." Gilda let out a regretful sigh before continuing. "Let's face it. I was a complete jerk back then. I thought that if I acted the way I had around you during flight school that we'd be cool." Rainbow Dash's look turned from one of skepticism to one of empathy. Gilda continued. "I was too blind to see that you had moved on. You'd made new friends and a new living without me and I just didn't want to accept that. That's why I'm back, Dash. Think you can give your old bird-brained friend a second chance?" She asked, giving Dash a pleading look. The stern look on Rainbow's face was enough to convey the pegaus's thoughts. Oh no! Gilda thought, whatever confidence she had upon her arrival beginning to fall apart. Please, Dash. Gimme a chance here. Rainbow Dash's visage hardened. "Let me get this straight. So I invited you to Ponyville with the thought that you could make some new friends here." Dash said, Gilda holding her breath for her friend's verdict. "Instead you treat my Ponyville friends with disrespect and stormed out a party thrown for you in a huff. And now you expect me to offer you a second chance in Ponyville even after what you did?" She asked. Gilda braced for the tirade she was about to receive. Hawkeye cast a nervous glance at the griffon then gave the rainbow haired pegasus a beseeching look. To Gilda's surprise, Rainbow's expression softened and turned to one of happiness. "Of course I forgive you." She said with a smile. Gilda couldn't believe it. "What? You mean it?" She asked incredulously. Dash rolled her eyes. "Come on, G. You didn't think I'd turn my back on an old friend just because of a little spat did you?" She asked. A smile of her own grew on Gilda's beak as she sighed in relief. "You have no idea how happy I am to hear that, Dash." She said gratefully. Dash surprised the relieved griffon by pulling Gilda into a hug. "It's good to have you back, G." She said, tightening her cyan hooves around the griffon's neck. Her surprise subsided as Gilda returned the embrace, as it felt like a weight on her shoulders was being taken off. "Good to be friends again, Dash." She replied happily. A warm smile appeared on Hawkeye's face as he watched the pair of friends held each other. -Ponyville- I swear when I find Chassis I'm gonna… well… I'm gonna do something he isn't going to like. He just makes me so mad sometimes! Speedy Delivery thought as he and Palm Spring made their way down one of the market streets of Ponyville. They'd been hunting down their disguised changeling counterpart for a decent part of the afternoon and they had to get ready to go to the party that this "Pinkie Pie" was throwing for them. "Excuse me." Palm Spring asked a passing pony. "Have you seen a friend of ours? Kinda big, black coat, short silver mane?" "Nope. Can't say I have." The pony responded and then went back to attend to his own business. Speedy sighed in aggravation. "This is hopeless. The greedy sleaze could be anywhere in this town." He muttered. "Hey!" Palm hissed. "He may be a mercenary bug, but that doesn't mean we can abandon him. We abandon him, we abandon the objective." "I still don't like it." Speedy breathed, a look of irritation etched on his features. "You don't have to like it. You just have to deal with it for another day and then you won't have to talk to him again." Palm reassured. Frankly Cipha didn't want to continue working with Chassis either. His mercenary attitude and kiss-up attitude around authority had begun to irk her in the past couple of days they'd been on the mission. "Well then, the sooner we find him, the sooner we can get this overwith." Speedy said begrudgingly. His eyes began scanning for any pony to ask for Chassis's whereabouts. His eyes locked onto an orange earth pony mare with a hay yellow mane and tail and some sort of hat on her head. Next to her was a cart full of apples of multiple hues of red and green and yellow. By the look of irritation on her face, it looks like she'd just encountered a rather unruly customer. Or a certain changeling we all know and love. Fang thought. "Maybe that one has seen him." Speedy said, pointing a light blue hoof at the apple salespony. Palm's eyebrow rose. "Why her?" She asked. "Call it a hunch, but I think she's seen Chassis recently. I've seen that look on too many that have encountered him." Speedy whispered. "How do you know it wasn't a bad customer or something?" Palm asked, giving Speedy an incredulous look. "Well what's the harm in asking, right? Now come on." He said, trotting over to the orange apple pony's cart. The orange apple pony greeted them before they reached the cart, her expression lightening up. "Howdy there. Care to buy some apples?" She asked, gesturing to her array of fruit. Palm smiled and shook her head. "No thank you. We are actually looking for a friend of ours. Have you seen a black stallion with a short silver mane and tail recently?" She asked. The apple pony's cheerful expression slightly faded into a look of irritation. "Yeah. Ah've seen him." Both Speedy and Palm perked up. "Really? Where'd you see him?" Fang asked, faking enthusiasm as best as he could. "Right in front of me no more than half an hour ago." The orange pony said. "Fool almost got ran over by mah sister and her friends." As much as Fang liked the thought of Chassis getting ran over, he had to hide the smile he would've had on his face. "He's okay, though. Right?" Palm asked. The pony nodded. "Yep. Ah offered him some apples for his trouble but he wouldn't take them. Could've been a bit nicer about it, though." She said, a look of bitterness crossing her visage. "I'm sorry if he caused you any trouble. Did you see where he went after that?" Palm asked. The pony gestured down a small market street to her left. "Saw him walk down that road afterwards. Other than that, Ah don't know." Palm put on a grateful smile. "Thank you so much. You have no idea how helpful you've been." She complimented. The orange pony slightly smiled. "Well it's no problem, miss…?" She asked, begging the cinnamon brown pegasus mare's name. "Palm Spring." She said, extending her hoof for a shake. The orange pony extended hers as the two shook hooves. "Speedy Delivery. And yours?" The sky blue earth pony stallion asked, extending his own hoof for the orange pony to shake. "Applejack." The orange pony responded as she shook Speedy's hoof. "Thanks, Applejack." Palm said, looking to Speedy. "Come on, Speedy. Let's go get him." She said, as she began to trot down the street Applejack had pointed them towards. "Hang on, Palm. I'd like to buy a few apples from Miss Applejack. These apples she's selling do look delicious." Speedy said in a flattering manner. Applejack beamed. "Why thank you, Speedy. Pick yer favorites. They're five for the price of three." She offered. "Well can't let an offer like that slip through our hooves, can we, Palm?" Speedy asked. What is he doing? Palm wondered as she gave a smile in response. Speedy 'hmm'd as he browsed his options. "I think I'll take two of the granny smiths, one braeburn, and two golden delicious." He said. "Alrighty then." Applejack said as she took the desired apples out of their respective wooden buckets and put them in a cloth-knitted saddlebag. She handed over the saddlebag and Speedy took the bag onto his back. Digging three bits out of his bag, he gave them to Applejack. "Thanks a bunch, Applejack." Speedy said with a smile. "And you don't have to give me this saddlebag. I've got my own." Applejack smiled and shook her head. "It's alright, sugarcube. Granny Smith knits them on the farm in her spare time. Call it a complementary item." Speedy looked at the saddlebag in amazement. Her granny's put her heart's work into this saddlebag and she just gave it away. Why can't everypony be this generous? He thought, giving a grateful smile to the cowpony. "Well thanks a lot, Applejack. See ya around." Palm said, motioning for Speedy to come down the market street to find their missing partner. "Come again soon!" Applejack exclaimed with a wave at the pair as they left. Palm waited until they were out of earshot and then turned to Speedy. "What was that all about?" Speedy gave Palm a confused look. "I was hungry. Besides I get two, you get two, and Chassis can have the last one." He said, turning the pocket of the saddlebag to face Palm an apple from the saddlebag. Palm looked at the saddlebag. "And she gave you that for free?" She asked, reaching into the saddlebag. Speedy's eyes turned to the kitted bag on his back. "Yeah." He said, his visage showing the feeling of disbelief he felt. Palm looked at the ground in thought. Speedy could tell she was thinking the same thing. Such kindness. They would pour their heart and soul into their work just to put a smile on somepony's face. Fang thought, a pained look finding its way onto his face. How can we just destroy something so kind for the sake of power? The disguised changeling grit his teeth. You know what? When the conquest begins, I'll just sit on the sidelines. I won't even take a portion of their love when it's up for grabs. They deserve to keep it, not have it be taken away. "Ooh Gummy I'm so excited!" Pinkie exclaimed as she bounced around the atrium of Sugarcube alligator in question just blinked ahead in response. "I know! I can't wait either! I'm gonna get to know three new residents of Ponyville while seeing a lot of other friends again and throwing a super terrific ballontastic party at the same time!" She shouted, letting go of the balloons and watching them float towards the ceiling, their ascent stopped by the wooden beams. Pinkie pulled out a list of names, the list of party guests. Her eyes scanned the page,"Okay. So we have the three newcomers arriving and one, two, three, four, five other guests that have confirmed their attendance." She said, a smile appearing on the party pony's face. She looked around the room to give it one last approval. Okay. So to start, giant welcoming banner. She thought, looking up at the large white banner that hung above the atrium reading 'Welcome to Ponyville' written in red paint. Check. Balloons floating around the room. Pinkie's eyes shot up at the various balloons on the ceiling and the groups attached to several pieces of furniture. Check. Streamers hanging from the ceiling. Her gaze then turned to the multicolored streamers that hung from the rafters. Check. Gummy's favorite punch and assorted desserts at the table. Finally, Pinkie's head turned for her to see the dessert table. Gummy's eyes were sticking above the surface of the purple punch, bubbles forming where the alligator took sips. And check. "This is gonna be great!" She shouted with glee. Suddenly, a pair of knocks sounded at the bakery's door. Pinkie's head snapped in the direction of the sound. Ooh! That must be the first of the guests! She thought, cheerily bouncing towards the door. As Pinkie reached the door, she extended a hoof and opened the top half of the door to see who it was. Before Pinkie stood an azure unicorn mare with a silvery mane and tail, a cornflower blue stripe running through them. "Is this the location for the 'Welcome to Ponyville' party?" The mare asked. Pinkie nodded enthusiastically. "Yepperdoodle. Come on in!" She welcomed, opening the bottom half of the door and allowing her guest inside. The mare gave a smile. "Good. It was a long trip for the Great and Powerful Trixie and she could use something to drink." The cerulean party guest said, looking for the dessert table. "Right this way, Trixie. Have some punch!" Pinkie said cheerfully, guiding her guest to the table where the beverage was. "Thank you, pink one." Trixie responded in a grateful manner. "I cannot tell you how hard it was for me to get back he-" She stopped at the sight of a green tail sticking out of the punch bowl and some bubbles forming at the surface. Trixie quickly turned to Pinkie and gave a smile. "Is there anything else to drink? I'm not in the mood for punch anymore."