//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Shadows Watching // by SaltyJustice //------------------------------// Wednesday came and went, my friends demanding two more study sessions before finally allowing me time to gather my thoughts. I hadn't been sleeping well lately, I felt tired all the time but dreaded falling asleep, lest these awful dreams overtake me. I couldn't remember any specifics, just endless desperation, fighting, pain, despair. These are not things teenagers are supposed to have to deal with. Thursday, exam day. Gabby had a placid look on her face, a look of total one-ness and surety as we waited for the doors to open. Minty looked worse than I did, missing sleep for reasons which I need not explain. If she couldn't pass it now, after all we had done to help her, she'd never pass it. Mr. Prescott wasn't a bad guy, he'd find marks to give her, she'd be fine. The exam wasn't too difficult, though I found myself writing a bit too much about a bit too little. I couldn't help being distracted, Gabby, sitting two rows ahead of me, had her pencil whirling like a hurricane. Something really clicked inside her head. I finished my exam seconds after she did, watching her stroll triumphantly to the front of the room and drop the scrolls on Mr. Prescott's desk. He gave me a wink as she walked out, head in the air, looking for all the world like the very portrait of confidence. Minty finished her exam along with a few other ponies as the three hours allocated ran out. We waited in the hall the whole time, Squeaky having come out a half hour before her sister. No helping some ponies, at least now she knew how I felt. We had the entire weekend to go so we decided not to have any study sessions until then, allowing me to enjoy what was effectively a day off. I got to bed early, and for once, I slept soundly. Clearly it was just stress that had been keeping me off balance, I reasoned, and with it gone all these crises would fade into the background. Friday morning, I had to go to orientation for my new job. It wasn't going to be held in that dreadful squat building downtown, no, it was being held in a rec-center a few blocks from the park. I arrived a bit early to see a bunch of gruff, no-nonsense stallions milling around a table that had been set up at the entrance. The table had a scattering of identification cards with convenient straps to wear around one's neck. I searched to find mine. My card had my name, a picture of me, and, in big black letters "Class Q". I studied it for a minute. How did they get my picture? It was a picture of me staring blankly at the camera, sure enough, but I didn't recall anypony actually flashing a camera in my face when I went for the interview. A file photo? It looked fairly recent, definitely not a class album photo. That robot lady, she must have had a camera in her eye! Devious, incredibly devious! I went into the auditorium to see an assortment of about three dozen big, burly construction-worker types. A few had hard-hats on. All their name tags had "Class A" written on them, I was the only mare in the room. I was also the only teenager. Somepony got up on the stage at the front of the room and cleared his throat. The room quieted down, but I couldn't see since everypony else was taller than I was. I made my way around the edge towards the front as the speaker began. "Welcome to your orientation meeting everypony. Those of you with classes M through Z will need to meet us in room 108 just down the hall when we're done here, the rest of you, be sure to get your urine samples in before you leave," the speaker said. Some of the ponies grumbled. As I got closer to the front, I noticed several pairs of eyes focusing on me. I tried to ignore them. I took a spot in the front row, dwarfed by the muscleheads as they towered over little old me. The speaker started into an explanation of safety procedures, fire safety, acid protection, hazardous materials handling, fire safety again, something about the proper use of magic. Fire safety came up two more times. What to do about housefires (water), greasefires (smothering), gas fires (turn off the gas), and self-fires (stop, drop, and roll). I had no way of knowing how much of it related to me, but it seemed to be pretty general safety information anyway. My saddlebags were getting itchy. I wiggled a bit in place, trying to adjust them so they stopped irritating me. Somepony behind me coughed as I did so. I took a look behind me to see four colts all glaring at me. Assholes. Don't react, don't give them the satisfaction. I cleared my throat, but they didn't stop staring. I moved off to the side of the front row and sat down, making sure nopony was looking at me. It felt weird, made me feel dirty. The speaker was now talking about the proper procedure for handling explosives, which seemed to have nothing to do with foalsitting, but then again, those foals can pee themselves at any time. They're like grenades. After some more lecturing which had nothing to do with anything, we broke up and I, being somewhere between class M and Z, moved over to room 108. The room was mostly empty, a few sitting pillows stacked up against a wall, the windows open and the wind flowing through the room. Nopony else was in here. After a few minutes, the speaker from before came in and looked around. I looked back at him. An awkward silence filled the air. "Are you the only one?" he asked. "I guess so. Name's Cadence," I said, doing my damnedest to be friendly. "Well Ms. Cadence, I'll be brief. I really was expecting there to be more of you today," he started. "Like, foalsitters? What's with all the big guys?" I asked. "Our department handles industrial explosives transport and containment, as well as social services," he said, sighing. "We didn't do that until a month ago, it's been quite a hassle" "Oh, that makes sense," I said. No it doesn't. "So, that necklace you're wearing is also your government issued ID. Just show it to the parents or the owners of the house you're sitting for and they'll know. You paid attention to the safety lecture, yes?" he asked. Please don't quiz me. "Oh yeah, of course. Stop drop and roll, call for help if you need it, don't smoke near fuses," I said. Simple stuff. "Very good. You'll be working on and off based on availability, we'll send you a letter when we have an assignment for you. Do you have any other questions?" he asked. I didn't, other than why a social services bureau also moved bombs to and from work sites, but that didn't seem like the proper question to be asking. Now I was Cadence, Class Q House-sitter, government employee. I made my way back home after stuffing the neckband into my saddlebag. Mom and Dad had decided to take me out for dinner to celebrate Mom's big win at work, and my promising career making sure foals didn't choke on their own tongues. We went to Chez Pone, a fancy French place downtown that served bizarre food. I think I was eating celery stalks, but they had a fancy name and spices I couldn't pronounce, so I enjoyed it. Tangy, that's what they were - celery wasn't supposed to be tangy. That night I slept soundly, dreaming about something involving donuts and ponies getting set on fire. They tried to turn the gas valves off, but that was the wrong kind of fire. Stop drop and roll, but don't get sprinkles on you or you'll never get them off. I didn't say it made any sense, dreams don't have to. Saturday and Sunday were our days to study for Social Studies, which we wrote on Monday. There were no surprises on that test, all very bland civics lessons and discussions of other cultures. Wednesday was the phys-ed final, we had to answer multiple-choice questions about sports rules. It was a nice rest for my brain, because no matter how dumb it was to explain what the blue line in hoofball meant, every single one of us was going to get an A, guaranteed. The teacher had said as much, since he didn't care and neither did the principal. How could anypony care about off-sides, or how far away you could slide tackle from before it was a foul? I didn't have to write the Physics final like everypony else, since it'd be a wasted gesture at this point. I just came in and got my assignment scroll, then left, but I waited outside for my friends because, damn it, that's what friends do. Summer was now officially on, and that meant I could now forget all the junk I had learned in school, only to do it all again next year. Gabby had to go early since she had to go get some posters for her job, so I went to the park and watched the twins punt clouds at each other. I kept score, though neither of them ever asked who won, they just did it for the fun of whacking each other with clouds, the soft white moisture dissipating on impact. It was like a pillow fight except in three dimensions. A tuft of cloud missed Squeaky's head and sailed down close to me, and I tried to grab it with my magic, failing miserably. Pegasus ponies could do amazing things with clouds, they had a sixth sense for dealing with them that I didn't have. Every time I tried to get a grip, it was too strong and squeezed the cloud away. Oh well, they're just clouds. I poked at with my telekinesis again, it squeezed and then returned to its original shape. I tried again, and again. Minty noticed my clumsy attempts at cloud-control and swooped towards me, grabbing the cloud and bringing it down in front of me. "Here, want one to practice on?" she asked. A shadow loomed behind her, she spun around but was too late. Squeaky brought a cloud down on her head as hard as she could, scattering the water in every direction. Minty glared at her, rivulets running down her face. "Knock it off Squeaks, I'm trying to do something!" "You leave yourself open, you get squished. Live by the cloud, die by the cloud," Squeaky stated proudly, hovering above Minty. Minty ignored her. She pushed the cloud with her hoof. "Try it like this," she said. I poked the cloud with my hoof as she held it in front of me. My hoof went right through, it was cold and slimy. "No no, not like that. You gotta be, like, gentle," she said, pushing the cloud towards me and letting it float in the air. I pushed it again, gentler, but my hoof went clean through no matter how softly I tapped it. "Give it up, you know only Pegasus ponies can do that," Squeaky said, rolling her eyes. "That or magic, I heard there's a spell for it." Thanks for saying that to the world's worst magician. I shrugged. Minty looked a little dejected, then took off upwards. Squeaky apologized with her eyes to me, then took off after Minty, grabbing a cloud as she passed and tossing it in Minty's direction. My cloud hovered next to me, taunting me. I looked at it closely, it was solid and yet not solid, partially transparent when you looked closely. Sometimes I could see little water droplets. The cloud did something inside my head, one of the memories I had been holding back shook itself loose and fell down into my consciousness. It was only one memory this time, it took up my full attention as I re-experienced it. I didn't wonder where it had come from, that seemed silly, it was clearly in my head just like everything else I had ever experienced. I was standing up on top of a stratus, looking down at the landscape below me, trees, grass, a river ran over a drop and became a waterfall down below me. The cloud was soft, softer than anything else, even my bed. Who needed beds when you could just laze around on a cloud? Earth ponies didn't know what they were missing. I laid down, letting my body deform the plush cloud and resting my head on one of the thicker parts. The sun was warm, I didn't need covers. I almost drifted off to sleep, but I was supposed to be watching something. I opened my eyes again, and saw the cloud's particles in front of me, dangling in the air. I saw water droplets connected at a microscopic level as clearly and obviously as one can see puzzle pieces when putting one together. It clicked, it all made sense, the cloud wasn't an object, it was a matrix of objects, interconnected. You didn't touch the cloud so much as deform it, and let it reform around you. I snapped out of my daydreaming. The cloud was still hovering patiently in front of me, Minty and Squeaky still flying around trying to catch one another. I came up with a plan. I whacked the cloud on one side, vertically, and this time the smart hit didn't travel clean through it, no, it struck and started the cloud spinning. Of course, that made sense, once you learn how to manipulate clouds, you never forget, it becomes second nature. I gauged Squeaky's path, watching her bank and starting zooming towards a cloud she intended to use as ammo against Minty. I waited, aimed, and spun around, bucking the cloud gently and forcefully as only a Pegasus knows how. The spinning cloud shot towards my feathered friend, it's gyroscopic forces causing it to corkscrew through the air on a straight line towards its target. Squeaky took the cloud in the side, the sudden, unexpected blast of cool water causing her to stop dead in midair, forcing Minty to break off. She turned to see the source of the attack, only to see me standing a hundred yards away, looking up at her. Her jaw dropped. The twins descended down to me. Minty arrived first. "Nice shot!" she said, giving me a celebratory hoof-bump. "Oh, I make it look easy," I said back, trying my best to stay modest. "But, how did you do that? That's not supposed to be possible, did you use magic?" Squeaky asked, befuddled. It was true, physics class explained this quite clearly in terms of magical connection matrices and a bunch of other hoopla I could never explain. I understood it intuitively, it just made sense when I did it, even if I couldn't write it down to save my life. "No, just a well placed kick. You have to do it gently," I said, grinning at Minty. She grinned back. Squeaky made me repeat the feat with another cloud she brought down, and then again, and again until she was satisfied there was no trickery afoot. My horn was clearly not glowing, and I would probably have flubbed the spell and set myself on fire if I had tried (stop drop and roll), but this was nothing amazing. All Pegasus ponies knew how to... No, I'm a Unicorn. I seemed to have confused myself again, but that was an odd thing to forget. Where did I get it in my head that I was anything but what I've always been? Just little old Cadence, D student. Daydreams can be useful I suppose, they somehow taught me how to kick clouds at ponies. Fat lot of good that'd come to unless I decided to join the circus. See the Unicorn who can kick clouds! Marvel as she, - uh, - that was all I could do, really. I'd be a one-trick pony, literally. We played cloud frisbee for a little while, Minty and Squeaky tossing them to one another and then periodically, to me. It was actually a lot of fun, even if I couldn't be up in the air I still had to run around to catch the wide shots. I wondered why I hadn't been doing this sooner, it seemed so obvious and natural that I scarcely considered just how unnatural it really was. Nopony else was in the park as the sun started to set, and we split up before long to go home. I considered taking a cloud with me to show my parents, but I suspect that'd just have confused them, and they'd make me leave it outside or I'd get the floor all wet. Somepony could slip you know. I slept soundly, but I did not dream, I remembered. One by one, the memories I had locked away in the crevices of my mind were tearing themselves loose and reattaching themselves to me. I wasn't even aware of it, not consciously, but something was changing inside my head for reasons I was not yet ready to remember. That would come in time. I had lots of time.