//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: Shadows Watching 
// by SaltyJustice 
//------------------------------//

	I approached the squat, square center for the EDF-something with dread.  I had almost forgotten what had happened last time I was here, but seeing the entrance and plaque out front brought the memories rushing back.  The plaza in front of the building bustled with ponies going about their days, which provided me with some comfort.  Only if things got deathly silent need I fear anything.	
The receptionist grunted at me as I entered, pointing to the waiting room again.  There was nopony else inside, so I sat down and tried to remain awake as long as possible.  My eyes were stinging and I kept my train of thought focused with great effort.  Each time I closed my eyes, even to blink, I'd snap them back awake and look at the clock.  Only two minutes passed before the receptionist told me to go to Ms. Lemma's room, but time was behaving strangely.
When you haven't had any sleep, nothing seems real.  The hallway had gotten longer since last I was here, and the walls jutted out at irregular angles.  As I trudged onwards, the hallway stretched out ahead of me, taunting me to go faster.  I wouldn't let it win, and kept my pace until I crossed the distance and arrived at Ms. Lemma's office.
No amount of sleep deprivation could bring a smile to her face.  She watched wordlessly as I entered, showing as much emotion as a bag of turnips.  I stood in front of her at her desk.  She said nothing.  I said nothing.  She said nothing again.  I'm really tired.
"You wanted to see me?" I ventured out.  
"Yes, your assignments have been changed.  Here's the details," she said, pushing a scroll with a key tied to it.  This wasn't the same scroll they usually mailed me, this one had some other letterhead on it.  I unfurled it and quickly read it.
Dear Miamore
Due to a recent change of internal policies, you have been reassigned.  You will no longer be watching properties, and are to be charged with surveillance of one Twilight Sparkle.  You are considered to be an emergency caregiver and may be called on at any time, day or night, to provide assistance, should it be required.  
The letter outlined some more trivial stuff, like standard times (Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 8:30-5:00pm) as well as what to do in case of emergency (stop drop and roll), among other things.
What struck me was a footnote, written in somepony else's style.  Somepony else had added this addendum afterwards, in a different ink.
You're the only one that can do this, I'm counting on you.
I didn't have any idea who had written it, it was completely out of place.  My first thoughts had been that this was a result of the incidents a few weeks ago, even if that didn't make too much sense.  Have I mentioned how tired I am?
I tucked the scroll and key into my saddlebags and looked up.  The robot was still staring at me.
"Uh, anything else?" I asked.  She stared back at me.  I was overcome with the urge to leap onto the desk, grab her with my forehooves and scream "WHO BUILT YOU?", though I thought better of it.  She probably moved with hydraulics, meaning she was incredibly strong and could crush me like a fly.
"Yes, your reassignment begins immediately," she said.
"What, like, today?  Right now?"  I tried to protest.  I could hear a soft whispering in my ears.  It was saying Cadence, come to bed, I miss you so. My covers where talking to me, demanding I go to sleep.
"Yes, right now.  As in, right now."
Further argument was pointless.  Robots, not needing to sleep, would never be able to comprehend why a flesh-bag like myself would spend hours and hours unconscious, and I might as well be explaining how to make a good sandwich, or what it means to love.  Robots can never love.
Never.

I headed out from the building and double-checked the address on the scroll.  It seemed to change every time I looked at it, and my eyes were having trouble focusing.  Exercise would keep me sane.
I set off at a trot.  The Sparkle residence was in a different neighborhood than my own, very posh, lots of lovely statues sat at intersections.  Important looking ponies, always well dressed, littered the sidewalks, wallowing in their idle time, as I made my way towards the target.  My bedsheets had softened their calls, growing more distant and the sun stung my eyes.  Why was it so bright out?  Whose idea was that?
After getting the numbers mixed up and walking past the place a few times, I finally laid eyes on the house I was to be sitting at.  A magnificently appointed two-story house, clearly a custom work unlike the cookie-cutters in my neighborhood, it had a tidy garden and the walk had beautiful sandstone bricks lining the sides.  The doorway was beneath a set of three arches made of marble, even the mailbox looked like a rich pony's mailbox, with gold trim and the picture of a sun adorning it, carved from bronze.  Evidently I was moving up in the world, so to speak.
Nopony was outside, so I opened the door with my key and went in.  The house was still.  I poked around, checking the kitchen and then the living room.  This house had its own dining room, unlike mine, and a note sat waiting for me on the table in it.
Dear Foalsitter
Sorry for the short notice.  Twilight should be awake by the time you get this.  Help yourself to anything in the fridge and be sure she gets some exercise.  I will be home at 6.
-SS
Guess that was her mom, or maybe her dad, that left the note for me.  I checked some of the other rooms in the house, locating the bathroom, basement, and what must have been the parent's room, but couldn't find the filly.
Finally I checked a little room at the end of the hall on the second floor.  It was a study, with books all over the shelves and a balcony overlooking the backyard and the park that lay beyond it.  In one corner, at a desk, was a purple filly poring over a book.  She didn't look up as I entered.
I walked over and sat next to her.  She didn't look up, focused instead on the book in front of her.  May as well get this started.
"Hi, I'm Cadence," I said.  She didn't look up.
"I'm your foalsitter." Nothing.
"What's your name?"  Nada.
"Hello?"  Zip.
She continued to read her book, stopping after a few seconds to turn a page.  All the symbols on the pages were blurry, how was she reading this?  Maybe it was just my eyes.  My head seemed to be floating a few feet above my neck.  There was no way I was going to last the rest of the day in this condition.  She flipped another page.
I sat down my bags and pulled out the history book I had packed to read in the waiting room at the EDH-forget it.  I hadn't had a chance to actually use it, but I may as well right now.
I tried to read it, but the words were all out of order.  I needed to research a particular pirate by the name of Neckbeard the Courageous, gentlecolt thief and pony of adventure.  He had come up with a scheme to measure the curvature of the earth using the flatness of the sea and the heights of several beacons, I think.  I read and reread the paragraphs but they didn't make a lot of sense.
Neckbeard had measured the height his ship sat in the water up to the crow's nest, where he had one of his crew with a beacon.  At night, when the sea was calm and flat, he sailed out of port to the horizon.  An accomplice on the shore was to light his own beacon as soon as he lost sight of the ship's beacon, then a Pegasus flying over the ship would signal the ship to stop.  From there, Neckbeard could use trigonometry to determine how far he was from port, and how far down he had traveled, and deduce the curve of the earth.
What didn't make sense was, why was he doing this?  He's a pirate, isn't he supposed to be plundering towns and getting drunk?  Suddenly I could only think of swashbuckling pirate talk.  Arrr, walk the plank matey, or I'll - 
I woke up a few seconds later.  My head was on the book, staring at the wall.  Twilight had yet to react to my presence at all.
Sitting still wasn't going to work, I had to keep myself active or I'd fall asleep.
"Hey how about some food?" I asked Twilight.
Of course she didn't respond.  I was starting to sense a pattern.
I left my things next to her and went off to the kitchen to fix a snack for us.  It took me a few minutes to locate some bread, mostly because I was staring into the cutlery rack while wondering why the bread was so hard – and made of metal – before I realized what I was doing.
Having found the most difficult part of any sandwich, I checked the fridge for something to put on it.  Lettuce was obvious, tomato a good compliment, and there were some white petals of a flower I couldn't identify that seemed a good candidate.  The only condiments available were mustard and relish, and I hated relish, so I smothered the bread with mustard.  I then put the sandwich in the fridge and closed it before I realized I was supposed to put the mustard back, and extracted the sandwich again.
I cut the sandwich in half and put each half on a different plate.  Now we had a real puzzle.  How to get both sandwich plates to the study without hurting myself?
It took a minute for me to remember I had magic and could just levitate the snack.  As long as I focused and took a little extra time for even simple tasks, I could make my sleep-deprived brain do its job.
Getting back to the study was a challenge in itself, since I had forgotten where it was.  As I hovered the plate back towards the little filly, still reading her book, I wondered if she'd even eat mustard.  Some ponies can be so fickle.
"Here you go!" I said cheerfully.  I hovered the sandwich practically on top of the book before setting it off to one side.
For the first time, she took her eyes off the text and stared at the sandwich hovering in front of her, following it as I set it down.  She then turned to me and stared, at me, or more accurately, at my horn.  
"You're a Unicorn?" she asked.
"Very observant!" I said back sarcastically.  She smiled, meaning she was probably too young to understand what sarcasm was, and I had dodged that bullet.  My lack of sleeping was making me crabby.
"Do that again, do that again!" she said, hopping up and down.
I puzzled about what she could mean as I watched her hopping before I connected "Unicorn" and "That" and "Again" together and realized she was talking about magic.  I picked up the sandwich and hovered it in front of me, taking a bite before setting it back down.  It was a tad bit dry, not enough mustard.
Her eyes opened wider and wider as I did this, then she focused on the sandwich herself as it sat on the desk next to her book.  She started struggling, like she was trying to push her lungs out her mouth, contorting and straining.  Finally, a spark popped out of her horn, but the sandwich stayed put.
Either I was higher than a kite, or that was really impressive for a filly of her age, because I was wowed.  I was leaning towards the second option.  She was unhappy with it though.
"Same as last time," she sighed, then looked back to me.  "Will you teach me some magic?"
"Well uh, what about your mom?  Did she -" I started.
"Mom says I'm too young to do magic," she said with a big frown.  I hate to see little fillies cry, but I don't think she realized what she was asking.  It'd be easier to get flying lessons from a rock than magic lessons from me.  I don't know if it was the unsettled feeling in my stomach, or the fact that my decision-making centers in my brain were asleep, but I was now determined to teach this filly magic.
I woke up a few seconds later.  I had collapsed where I was standing and Twilight had been nudging me.
"Hey, are you okay?  Wake up!"  she said, as I groaned.  Gotta stay active.
"I'm fine, just fine, everything's fine, we're all fine."  I said.  Fine is a funny word.  Fine fine fine fine.
No Cadence, stay focused!  I shook my head quickly, and my tongue wagged out, making a "blblblblb" sound.  Twilight started laughing and tried to poke my tongue with her hoof.  Reality came roaring back and I felt awake again, for a short time.
"Okay, okay.  I'll show you some magic, and after that, let's go out and do something fun.  Does that sound fair?"  I said.  Twilight nodded in agreement.
"Now, don't try so hard to give yourself a hernia, you just need to imagine the sandwich moving and it'll move," I said.
"What's a hernia?" she asked back.
"Not important, move the sandwich," I said.  She looked at the sandwich for a few seconds before looking back to me.
"It's not working!" she protested.
"Imagine it floating straight up in the air, just above the plate.  Just imagine it,"  I said.  In truth, this was just what I did, it sort of became second nature after a while.  I had no idea if this was an approved teaching technique, but I had to start small.
The sandwich did not move.
"Erm, maybe you should try something smaller," I said, pointing to a quill that was sitting on the desk.  "Try moving that quill."
Twilight focused her glare on the quill.  Her horn started to glow softly, and the quill nudged a centimeter or two, before the glow disappeared and the quill sat still again.
"Wow, didyouseethatohmygoshImoveditthatwassoawesomeyesyesyesyes!" Twilight started bouncing around.  I swear I saw her turning 150 degrees in midair as she did so, but I chalked it up to sleep deprivation.  I stopped her as she passed by grabbing her out of the air with my own magic and hovering her still in front of me.
"Okay, time for outside stuff.  We do things,"  I could no longer form proper sentences.
"Mmhhmm," she nodded as I set her down.
We set off after locking the house up, and traveled down the street before the realization hit me that I didn't know where we were going.  I hadn't planned that far ahead, if anything, my plans were just now catching up to a few minutes ago, so I was completely winging it.  I was good at faking like I knew what I was doing, so I walked with purpose and Twilight followed along behind me.
She was quite well behaved, if a bit shy, so she didn't give me any trouble or go wandering off.  All I needed now was something to do to keep me awake long enough for the day to end.  Badminton?  Tennis?  Ping-Pong?  Volleyball?  Why was I thinking of variations on the same sport with a net in the middle?  My head was spinning.
"Oh can we go to the pool?" Twilight said as we passed a sign.  I stopped and went back to read the sign.
Salad Steve's All-U-Can-Eat Buffet, 11:00-2:00 every day!
That sign had nothing at all to do with swimming or pools.  I felt like chiding Twilight for being silly, but I was suddenly caught by the most mesmerizing sign directly below the other one.
Glimmering Gardens public pool hours:  9:00am to 5:00pm daily.
Maybe the fact that we were standing in front of the pool's entrance is what made me want to go inside, or perhaps it was Twilight insisting, but something was telling me I needed to go into that pool.
The pool had free admission, so we headed right in.  The public pools in Canterlot are a lot like the baths, except they're not heated and there's far fewer old ponies hanging around leering at you.  Most of the other ponies here were young families, fillies and colts running around on the grass and swimming about in the kiddie pool.  There were a few teenagers in the deep end, but not many.  Moms and Dads lounged on the grass at the edge and kept an eyes on their kids.
I made sure we stayed in the shallow end of the pool.  The cool water would refresh me and keep my sense sharp – every time I blacked out I'd wake up immediately.  I could see absolutely nothing wrong with frequently falling unconscious around a body of water, and Twilight was too busy splashing to notice.  Maybe she thought I was just enjoying myself.  I was, sort of, insofar as I could remember what we were doing.  The sun was really bright on my eyes, even when I had them closed.  What time was it?  I couldn't remember what day it was.  Why don't they make vinegar flavored tofu?  I like vinegar and I like tofu, they're the perfect match.
My brain kept on running in circles as the sun arced its way across the sky.  Twilight was teaching herself to swim, badly, but she wasn't drowning so I was doing my job.  I didn't know how to swim anyway, but my hooves could touch bottom in the shallow end of the pool so it was like sitting in a bath tub.  With a lot of other ponies, some of whom were very young.  It'd save everypony a lot of trouble if foals were just born at the age of majority, then we wouldn't have to look after them so much.  Why hadn't anypony suggested that before?  Somepony needed to take the initiative.
I snapped awake again as my head hit the water, gurgling a bit before bringing it back up and gasping for air.  Twilight was a short distance away, laughing, before dunking her head in and bringing it back up.  I was setting a terrible example.  It was also getting late, judging by the fading light and the fact that the pool closed at 5:00 and the pool was about to close.  My logic skills are impeccable.
"Twilight, time to go home," I said.  She looked up at me.
"Awww, do we have to?"  she said back.  I took this as a good sign, she enjoyed getting some fresh air.
"Yes, we literally have to.  They're closing, see?"  I said, pointing to a big wall clock that read 4:50pm.
"How do you know?" she asked.  Had nopony taught her how to read a clock?
I tried to explain the minutes hand and the hours hand, and I think I only botched it mildly.  She was sharp as a tack though, and deduced the missing parts herself.
"Oh, well if that one is the... it's 4:55!" she said, quite proud of herself.  Had it taken me five whole minutes to explain that?
We stood outside the pool's gate to let the sun dry us off.  Each gust of wind brought a chill as the water whisked off.  Twilight's mane dried out faster than mine for some reason, and we set off back to her house.  I let her lead the way since I wasn't sure where we were or where her house was, and we got back safe enough.  I didn't even pass out on the way back!
I woke up a few seconds later, Twilight was half a block ahead of me and hadn't noticed I had stopped, literally falling asleep standing up.  I trotted to catch up before she turned around.
By the time we made it back to her house, her Mom was waiting for us by the door.
"Oh there you are Twilight, I was getting worried.  Who is this?" she asked her filly.
"This is Cadence, my best friend!  She took me to the pool and we swam and I could hold my breath for a whole minute!" Twilight said proudly.
I had no recollection of that happening at all.  We went to the pool?  That'd explain why my tail was wet.
"Ah the foalsitter!" her Mom came up to me and shook my hoof.  I was unprepared entirely, my whole body shook as she shook my leg.  "Thank you so much for coming on such short notice.  I really appreciate it," she said with a big, sincere smile.
"Oh no trouble at all," I said weakly.  Please don't tell me your life's story.
"Well we normally have her brother look after her, but -", she started.  This time, it was my turn to cut her off.
"Oh it's all right, I really must be going though.  See you soon Twilight!"  I said, giving a little wave and dashing off before her Mom could force me to be awake a second longer than absolutely necessary.
I got lost on the way home and had to wander for a while before I realized I had been going in circles around my block.  I skipped dinner and went straight to bed, the sheets softly whispering Welcome back, Cadence.  We're so soft and warm, stay with us tonight.
"Of course I'll stay with you," I said back to my bedsheets.  I tried to be discreet, since I didn't want my desk or homework to get jealous, but I had a special relationship with my sheets, letting them wrap around me, cuddling in their embrace.
Now that I sat here, waiting for sleep, it wouldn't come.  Isn't that funny, I spent the whole day wanting to fall as-