//------------------------------// // Chap 4 // Story: Shivering entrance // by Hkh4 //------------------------------// Some hours later Brent awoke to a worried voice outside his door. "Sir please respond." It took Brents brain a minute to process who the voice was. Only pony around that called him sir was Lacey. Brent sat up. "I’m awake, no need to worry!" He shouted. "Good I was about to start bucking the door." Lacey jitterly replied. Brent had a habit of locking the doors to the room he was in when he slept an extreme paranoia he had developed over the years especially when in new environments. "Guessing it's about time for dinner. If it is, I will be out soon just let me get dressed." He pulled one of the new pants on as well as a t-shirt that was a tealish blue. Then throwing his satchel on hung his arm up but left everything else on his bed and looked for a key to the room. When he found one he turned the internal side of the lock open stepped out then locked the door again before turning to face Lacey. She noticed the lack of his things hanging on the bag's strap "You do realize your things are unique enough that even if they were stolen, we could easily find them?" Lacey asked/told Brent. "Yes I do but it's just peace of mind for me knowing no one's touching my things." He quickly replied and began heading to the dinning hall. "And why do they keep sending you to get me why not maids, butlers or some other non security servant?" Brent asked Lacey as he walked. "Well I'm not sure but my guess is it's that im now familiar to you." Lacey replied after a moment of thought. "Makes sense in a way." Brent finished. After that the walk was silent till they arrived Lacey pushed the left door open and Brent followed in behind her. There were the princesses and Shining sitting in wait Shining and Cadence were at the head of the table with Flurry two seats down. They all seemed to be having a diplomatic discussion. Apparently Shining was making sure things went well as Flurry went on her first meeting with a lesser known species when they had gotten the message of Brent's arrival. They abruptly stopped when they noticed Brent who sat three seats away from the head of the table on the opposite side of Flurry. After a minute a few butlers came in with the beginning parts of their meals for each person at the table. After everyone started eating Brent decided to ask Shining a question. "What exactly is your position?" "Well you see I'm the head of the royal guard." Shining confidently replied. "Of the whole country? That seems impractical considering Equestria’s size." Brent replied not seeming impressed at all. "Even more so considering that you live in the northern corner of the country." He continued. Shining lost his confidence slightly. "That is a very analytic synopsis there, Brent may bring it up to Celestia, but this has mostly worked." He said keeping a level tone With that it went quiet as everyone ate. The rest of the meal had little worth noting afterwards Brent apologized to Shining before heading off for his room. Much later Cadence found herself writing a letter to Luna wanting to see if she could figure anything out about Brent from his sleeping mind. She felt a twinge of guilt when sending it off. Later into the night Luna prepared herself to enter Brent’s mind. Upon doing so she could see a story of sort was happening, but it was bouncing around at random points of the story she couldn't interact with him. A moment later she felt herself being pushed out of his mind with the chaotic energy it was generating. Luna found herself violently expunged from his mind and was rather shocked never before had she been forced out of someone's dream by the dream itself. Brent hadn't even been aware of her so he had no part in it. Perhaps it was an automatic defense of a human mind. She felt she would have to experiment further but not tonight she had other duties to attend too. When Brent woke up the following morning he had a slight headache. But got dressed put his gear in his bag then went to the library he had an hour before breakfast. Should try to learn more while he had spare time. Putting his music on but keeping it to the calmer tracks as to not alert the princesses that he was here. He searched for another history book but this one was on magic. He read a few chapters before realizing the time marking his spot. Then headed for the dinning hall. When he encountered Shining in the hall, it was a bit awkward after the prior nights interaction. But after a few moments of quiet walking Shining broke the silence. "So you seem to be a strategic mind. Were you military in your world?" Brent shook his head. "With these disabilities no branch would take me." He tried raising his right arm for emphasis and pointed at his leg. "Plus I tire easily seem to be able to handle more since I arrived here though." Shining nodded understanding what Brent meant. "Still you could have been in the back lines planning future actions." He then said. Once again Brent shook his head. "I can't handle stress very well I'm prone to blowing up or just shutting down when highly stressed. Made my last few years of highschool hell because I actually had to try to do well for the first time." Shining remained quiet after that till they arrived at the dining room Brent had found himself leading the way and he pushed the door open for shining. There was a worried looking Lacey in there. "Thank Celestia I was shocked to find you weren't in your room this morning." Lacey quickly said on spotting Brent. Brent nealt down to be on her level. "You don't need to wake me up every morning anymore. My internal alarm clock is catching onto this place." Lacey looked to Shining. "It's fine he seems to be rather good at getting around." Shining said. "You are dismissed from your duty of waking and guiding Brent." He continued. Lacey nodded to her superiors orders and left. As the two princesses came into the room Cadence having rather bad bed head. Her dreams having been rather interrupted by Luna's report on Brent and the disappointing lack of intel gathered. She made no mention of it though. This morning Brent sat the same number of seats away from the head of the table as Flurry still on the opposite side doing his best to evade eye contact as he knew that would spark conversation between them and he still had the prior conversation and what he had read whirling about in his mind. Magic was certainly an interesting thing more so here than the believed version of it in his own world. Every creature had some degree of magic including the ones that didn't actively channel it the larger winged beings including pegasie needed it to fly. Earth ponies gained increased strength. And Alicorns the rarest of all had the attributes of the three other species yet there were two sitting in front of him. And one was right in his face waving her hoof. "Brent you still with us?" Flurry asked. Brent blinked. "Yeah just lost in thought." "Well find yourself breakfast is here." Flurry sat back into her chair satisfied she had returned Brent.