It was late at night that Rainius and Twilight had returned to her home in Ponyville; the large crystal castle that outstood every other building in Ponyville, even the town hall. Twilight flew up to the balcony with him following and she slowly lowered herself to the ground, landing softly just before Rainius did the same. “Well, I’ll be doing some reading before I go to bed. You can join me if you’d like?” She requested.
“No thanks, I think I’ll be heading off to my room now if you don’t mind?” He said, rejecting her offer. When he read her thoughts and stared at her, he could tell she was a bit hurt by his response. Then he thought that it wouldn’t hurt to join her in her reading. "Fine." Her expression changed from a frown to a smile.
Meanwhile, Starlight opened her door and peeked outside it, making sure the coast was clear before she made her way towards the library, her horn lit up to light the room. She examined the bookshelf, skimming around the book titles, looking for one that could explain more about Rainius's origins. But alas, she had no luck. "Ugh. There's gotta be one around here somewhere." She groaned.
She then looked up at the higher shelves. "Hmmm… maybe it would be up there." She said to herself. Being the quick-thinking unicorn she was, she used her magic to levitate herself up to get to the higher shelves in the castle library. She carefully read the titles of each of the books as she was skimming through to find an answer to all her questions. "C'mon! C'mon!!" She yelled in a whisper, agitated. As she trailed her hoof along the books, one titled 'Equestria's Creatures of the Night' caught her attention. She opened the book to the table of contents and skimmed through till she found one on bat ponies. "Page 373." She turned to that page and began to read.
Meanwhile, Rainius and Twilight were in Twilight's room reading, well, Rainius was mainly reading while Twilight just thought about him kissing her again. Rainius tried to focus as much as he could on the book just to ignore her thoughts, but with how loud they were it was very difficult to do that. "Um, Twilight? Could you maybe try to keep your thoughts to yourself?" He asked politely while trying not to hurt her feelings.
"Oh… sorry." She said. apologetically. “But… how do I do that exactly?"
"Try thinking about something else. Focus your mind on that." He told her.
"O… okay. I'll try…" She stuttered a bit as she spoke, but tried thinking about something else, like the book she was reading. That is until she yawned. "Maybe I should go to sleep."
"You do look awfully tired, so I think that would be best," Rainius replied. "And while you do that, I'll go and look at some of the books in the castle library." He smiled.
She closed her book, placing it on the table beside her bed where her lamp stood; she turned off her lamp and went to bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
Rainius chuckled as he watched her fall asleep before he went to head for the room that was the castle's library. Meanwhile, in that library a lilac unicorn sat down reading about bat ponies to seek answers about their new visitor. "Hmm… cold skinned. Check." Starlight said to herself. "Wait, what's this?" She carefully read about how bat ponies used to be demons of Tartarus and of how they could either be fruit eaters or blood drinkers. The thought disturbed her a bit, but she kept reading. "Hollow Shades? What's that?"
"The town where the bat ponies reside," Rainius said, startling Starlight.
Starlight hastily turned around to face the Alicorn that startled her. "Ahh!! Don't do that!!" She exclaimed. "And what do you mean the town where the bat ponies reside?"
"I'm sorry for startling you." He chuckled. "Hollow Shades is a place where most of the bar pony tribe migrated to after the Everfree forest became corrupted. It was no longer suitable to live there after that. So they had to find a new home. They relocated east of Canterlot in a dark forest that had a canopy thick enough to block out the Sun's light for most of the day. The bat ponies then constructed houses there for them to live in. And it is there they've stayed for centuries."
Starlight listened as he explained the history of the bat ponies to her, but another question came to her mind. "Wait, you had said most of the bat ponies migrated from the Everfree forest to Hollow Shades… so where did the others go?" She asked intrigued.
"It was believed that they went to the Badlands." He said. "And it was there that they could live inside of a vast cave network embedded into the Badlands crags where they built large, underground cities, dimly illuminated by magic or other means… at least that it is what is believed. Not even I know for sure though." He stared at her as she stared back at him. She was unable to stop staring.
Rainius tried to study her thoughts, but every time he tried all he could get was absolutely nothing. 'That's impossible,' He thought. He couldn't read her thoughts and she wouldn't have a mind block spell cast on her. This is something that made him more curious about her, as well as more interested. "You okay? You seem to be staring." He chuckled.
His remark made Starlight blush without any control. "Sorry," She said, grinning.
As Rainius stared into her indigo eyes he saw a glimpse of an amazing future. A future with her as his wife. And with their future children. He quickly inhaled and exhaled as he continued to stare at Starlight. Without thinking, he put a hoof to her cheek and slowly stroked her mane. She didn't mind at first, in fact, she quite enjoyed it. Part of her really did have feelings for him, whether or not she wanted to admit it to herself or anyone else.
Twilight stared at them from a little crack in between the doors of the library and she watched both of them and then realized that his and Starlight's friendship was much stronger than that of hers and his. Their friendship grew into a very unique relationship. This pained Twilight that all she wanted to do was go back to her room and cry her broken heart out, but as she ran back upstairs to her room, her thoughts were overheard by Rainius.
"Um, Starlight? Could you give me a moment?" Rainius asked before quickly giving her a little peck on the cheek.
"Um… sure." She said, without having any context to what was going on.
As he ran off to chase after the heartbroken Twilight Sparkle, a mare was staring through one of the library's windows and she had an evil smile come stretching across her face.
Meanwhile, Fury and Latenighter were discussing plans for how Fury could take his revenge out on Rainius, but came to no success… that is until Silvertail arrived. Once she arrived, Her and Fury started smooching up a storm as Latenighter just turned to the side. "Lovebirds." He commented.
Fury stopped. "What?" He replied to Late's remark with a tone that held a sense of annoyance. "Well?" He egged on.
"We need to focus on the task at hoof here. Which is finding and destroying Rainius Songbird." Latenighter reminded them.
"Oh, speaking of Rainius. I found him!" Silvertail blurted out.
"Where?" Fury and Latenighter asked in unison. "Where is he?" Fury then asked.
"In the crystal castle in Ponyville. And he was with some mare." Silvertail told them.
"Maybe a marefriend?" Latenighter inquired.
Fury turned to him. "Hmmm… maybe. But if she is his marefriend then maybe I can take my revenge on him without having to lay a single hoof on… him." He said viscously as he began to devise an evil plan to take out his revenge for all those years of humiliation.
"It'll be perfect," Silvertail said with a menacing smile. "They wouldn't know what hit them."
Meanwhile, back at the castle, Rainius galloped up to the room of Princess Twilight Sparkle in what could be mistaken for a flash. "Twilight?" He asked as he opened her door just a crack. "You okay?" He could hear her crying and decided to walk over to her bed.
"Go away!" She said sobbing. Rainius felt guilty seeing her like this, but it wasn't his fault. Starlight was the one he was meant to be with, not Twilight.
"Are you sure that's what you really want?" Rainius asked her.
Twilight pondered for a moment. 'What did she want?' As she continued to think the answer came to her. "What I really want is you." She said, letting it out. "There, I said it! Happy?"
Rainius sat back. He knew she liked him and he liked her, but he didn't know that he was gonna fall for Starlight. "No. I can't help it though. It wasn't my fault! I wish there was a way that I could make you both happy." He said, looking at her full of sorrow.
"I'm an Alicorn, meaning I could live forever. I could be there with you for all eternity. Starlight will eventually grow old and die; leaving you." Twilight said, making him think of the cold hard truth that was his future. A future without her.
"You never know. She could eventually become an Alicorn. Like you, she could complete a princess-worthy deed and become an Alicorn like you, or she could become one as I did…" Rainius paused.
Twilight now seemed very intrigued by this statement. "Wait… what do you mean by as you did? How did you become an Alicorn?" She asked perplexed and curious.
"Well…" Rainius began, unbeknownst that Starlight was standing right outside with one ear on the door, eavesdropping on their conversation, albeit Rainius couldn't find out since unlike Twilight, he couldn't read her thoughts. "It was a long time ago and I was just a unicorn at the time. During the war with King Sombra and the Crystal Empire. I was just 17 when I fought with my mother and my aunt Celestia against my father, who I didn't know was my father at the time…"
"So, what happened?" Twilight injected. "I want to know." She seemed very interested in what he had to tell her about his past.
"Well, I was severely wounded in the battle by my father, and while the battle raged on, I was hospitalized with no hope of survival." Rainius continued to tell the story.
"But, you did end up surviving as you are here now to tell me this story. So, how was it you survived?" Twilight begged for him to tell.
His expression changed. "When I was on the verge of death my mother came to my side after the battle was over and she used her magic to change me into an Alicorn… but I'm guessing with me being a pony born into the night and shadow, my transformation was different from most others. Instead of normal pegasus wings, I got bat wings." He said.
"So, are you nocturnal? But I've seen you awake in the day, so that can't be…" Twilight said, wondering how he is awake during both the day and the night.
"Actually, I don't sleep at all," Rainius said. "I never get tired, I don't catch my breath, I don't have to eat. It's quite different from normal Alicorn's. There's supernatural hearing, supernatural sight." He smiled.
"That's amazing, even without your gifts." Twilight said quite astonished.
"Yeah. On the topic of my gifts… I can't read Starlight's mind and I highly doubt she has a mind block spell cast upon her. And I can't see just her future alone. The only time I can see her in my visions is if it's with me. Which has only happened once." He explained.
Twilight looked at him. "So, is it true?" Twilight asked. "Is she really the only one for you?"
"I do believe so…" He said with a grin. "I do believe you will find the one for you soon enough Twilight."
"You really think so?" She asked in high hopes. Because she wants to be happy as well.
"Yes." He said nodding. "I do think so. And whoever they are, they will be a very lucky stallion for having a mare such as you."
Twilight blushed bright red from his compliment. She giggled a bit. But as they were sharing a "moment", the doors to Twilight's room soon fell open with Starlight falling to the floor. The sight had left both Twilight and Rainius bewildered. Both of them speechless by her little eavesdropping stunt.