The night grew near and with it would come her prey. She could only wait with bated breath as her eyes flickered between the peach pink glow of the horizon and the stony cold greyness of the castle halls. Tonight was the night, tonight nothing would stop her.
The pink glow deepened to an orange hue, the last final flares of sunlight beaming down now. Her flank shook with anticipation and now her eyes glued themselves to the only entrance to the hall. She was above, sitting comfortably on a rafter and invisible to anypony that might enter this way. Just the way she wanted it. If her plan worked as, well, planned, the pony she wanted would casually walk under this beam of wood at precisely one minute after the sun finished setting. Yes…It was all coming together.
The pony started to tumble as her balance was lost. Those were the woes between imitating the classic villains. In real life when someone rubbed their hooves together with glee it tended to end poorly. Properly adjusted and well hidden in the depths of the shadows once more, amber eyes narrowed and darted to the horizon for one final time. The light was gone, completely faded, and the pony in the rafters had no way to tell for how long this had been.
“Hey kid, get down from the rafters. It’s not safe up there for somepony like you.”
That voice…once more the pony almost fell from the rafters.
“See, that’s exactly what I mean,” There was a slight sense of mirth in the mare’s voice this time, “Want some help getting down from there before you break your neck?”
The sound of popping joints punctuated the mare’s thought process as she cracked her own neck from side to side in a rolling motion.
“Hey, I can get down on my own…I...know how to fly just fine!”
This got a bout of laughter out of the older pony and left her wiping the tears from her eyes.
“Kid, I’ve seen you fly. I know you can do it, wasn't implying otherwise. Just get down here before I get my fat old flank up there. I doubt that perch of yours could hold the both of us.”
Hooves shuffled nervously on wood as the filly looked down at her role model.
“I was going to come down,” She lied, “You were just early…I wasn’t ready!”
“Yeah, yeah. I got your little note.” Stammering interrupted her, “And I’d say I arrive exactly when you wanted me to.”
“It wasn’t my note! I wanted to surprise you!”
Orange feathers spread themselves, the tips brushing against the cold stone walls and hooves matching in hue pushed off the ground. Barely a flap later and the mare drew up even with the muzzle of the small filly.
“Surprise.”
The nose crinkled on the small foal, grey fur made darker by the steadily growing shadows.
"You know that's not what I meant..." Whining left a slight sharpened edge to the filly's voice.
Eyes rolled to to Celestai's heavens and back before hooves spoke for themselves as Scootaloo grasped the small filly's midsection.
"Whatever, kid. Anyways I was going to come find you. Your mom caught me in the hall and told me you've been out all day. I'm supposed to get your flank back to her if I find you," Scootaloo poked the filly's nose, " And guess what? I found you."
Pinkie Pie tapped her chin in what she thought was the best example of a contemplative manner. It didn’t work. So her eyes narrowed and she tried squinting at the issue at hand.
Still, nothing continued to happened.
A lesser mare, Pinkie Pie reasoned, would have run out of ideas by now. But not her, oh no, not the great and powerful Pinkie. She had one more trick up her sleeve.
Squinting and tapping her chin! It simply could not fail!
It did. It did and the problem at hoof remain at hoof, to remain at hoof until another problem set this problem into motion.
There was no other way around it. Pinkie Pie had a new extremity that had never been there before.
Pinkie pie was now just that, the Great and Powerful. A phrase she had only ever heard from a unicorn. Which she was. A unicorn that is. She thought.
Yup.
Oh, the fun she could have. She could have it in a box- wait, she shook her head. That was silly! What kind of box could a full grown mare have in a dinky little box. But she could have it with a fox, that made her brighten up. And with a mouse! In a house!
And with that the problem of the horn was pushed out of hoof to be replaced with the problem of finding a mouse to throw a housewarming party for.
Luna snorted in a fashion, as most would put it, was quite unprincess like, as those words once more floated through her head. Such the thought, the thought of somepony other than she, being "the night" it caused her...
Luna paused for a second, one hoof raised in midstep. Was it laughter? A guardspony gave her a sideways look, wondering perhaps at the curious notions running through his Princess's head. And then, with nothing but a twitch of her lips and a twinkle of her eyes, Luna returned from her realm of thought. She acknowledged the guard with a smile, yet leaving his confusion to go unchecked.
His responsibility both started at and ended at the foot of her bedroom's regal door. Thus, despite this curiosity, if she walked off he would not find any answers, if there were any at all, for another six hours, forty-three minutes and twenty-six seconds. Wait a second, make that twenty-three.
Was that perhaps...more than a second?
Luna knew none of these thought. Unable to read ponies with the same ease, brought about from practice that she did not know about, that her sister found, Luna had no way of knowing after all. There were, of course, things on her mind that had a special way of distracting her that left her even more oblivious to the thoughts of others than she would usually be.
“You, where is my sister?”
The guard could only blink in surprise as Princess Luna whirled around quite suddenly and confronted him with a look of vengeance in her eyes.
“My sister! About yeh big, white as snow, the bringer of snow and the sole Equestrian ruler of the last thousand years?”
The blink was slower this time.
'You're useless! Useless! Batmane would be more helpful!
The trees were speaking, all around me, leaves shuffling together, their leaves whispering secrets to each other, secrets a pony was never meant to know. I wasn't supposed to know.
I wasn't supposed to be here.
I was...
Scared.
"Just the wind, " The confidence in my voice slips, "The wind..." Is not something that reassures me but rather my fears, "The wind can't hurt you..."
As if feeding off of the fear oozing from my own weak words, the wind strengthens, attacking me. Its claws dig into my flesh, raking across my cutie mark before it rips away my cloak. I'm left bare to its advances and can naught but cry out. The cloak's dance in the wind may be elegant but without its protection I could take no comfort.
And then the whispering, the secrets, the screaming!
They were back.
Sinister laughter seemed to laugh at my newfound bareness, that's what broke me free. I may have been bound by the shackles of fear but now that it what drove me forward. My hooves broke the tough ground beneath me, dirt and leaves spraying out behind me.
Don't you cry.
I'm going to sing you a lullabye.
"Why!" I cry out in aungish.
This journey was supposed to be simple. The closest town wasn't far, why didn't I leave sooner.
I hadn't known, that's why.
I couldn't have known.
Cold kicks and stabs my belly before tearing my tail to the side. I almost collapse right then and there. The journey had never been like this. I had gone to market week after week, why...
What's the point in asking that to yourself?
What should have been five, no, ten minutes at most had turned into a joke. Thirty minutes at least had passed since I realized how close I was...my swollen belly churned at the thought and something else kicked me. This was no wind, but something precious. The kick came from inside, and that's the whole reason-
I couldn't give up.
My eyes faded. The sounds slowed. A whisper turned to a murmur turned to a unheard thought...
Everything went quiet.
Then wailing. A foal crying in pain. In need of someone to take care of it.
My eyes open again, struggling against weakness, against nights of no sleep. There is an orange foal, a filly, not many hoof steps away. I see her there clear as day but for all appearances I cannot tell if she sees me. She's so young, a mere child, with no cutie mark to brand her destiny. Nothing to mark where she belongs or who she belongs with.
A thought takes flight, she could be mine. She may be a pegasus, and I an earth pony, but her coat. It's not so different. Rose red to sunset orange? She's turning, a sound catching her attention. Could it be...my filly? My little girl?
"Scootaloo!"
Mine!
She was mine! My filly. Who were these...interlopers.. to steal her from me. My little girl was looking right through me, as if I wasn't even there, nonexistent to the world of equines. A yellow filly and a white one have stolen her. Stolen! From me, her own mother!