//------------------------------//
// Chapter 11 
// Story: Shadows Watching 
// by SaltyJustice 
//------------------------------//

	The five of us lay in the grass, looking up at the sky.  My friends had come by while I was sitting for Twilight, so we decided to go hang out in the park, as usual.  Twilight sat reading that monster book of hers, halfway done now, a few yards away.  The four of us lay on our backs, the grass felt cool as summer was in full swing.
"Hey Gabby," I started to ask.  "How come you don't always come by on Wednesdays?"
"Didn't I tell you?  I have to stay if my guys practice late."  She answered.
"Aren't you like, a promoter?  Why do you have to listen to them practice?  I asked back.
"I make their album art, so I pick my favorite song as they make them, and then I draw something inspired by it," she said simply.
"Hey, you should come down to practice!  I bet Twilight would dig their stuff," she said, leading me on.
"Oh, I don't know.  She's not into death metal." I said.
"It's not death metal, it's power metal." she hissed.
I rolled my eyes.  "She's not into metal, period.  Right Twilight?"
The filly was busy with her head stuffed into her book, and did not respond.  Smarty-Pants served as a paperweight when the wind kicked up.
The book had not proved easy to take out here, but Twilight had insisted.  Minty, Squeaky and I worked together just to lift it onto Gabby's back, and she had shuddered under the pressure.
"Are you sure you got this?" I has asked, rubbing my legs.
"Oh yeah - oof - I got this, no problem," she had wheezed out.  Always helps to have strong friends.  "Say, maybe the filly can ride me on the way there too, yeah?"
I had had to stop Twilight from leaping on, since the last thing Gabby needed was a broken back.

"So like, what's the difference between power metal and death metal and regular metal," Squeaky asked idly.
"I think they're all the same, but this way you can tell yourself you're into the good stuff, and scoff at everypony else," Minty answered.  Squeaky let out a giggle.
"You guys can't tell the difference?"  Gabby shot back.  The three of us shrugged simultaneously.
"Bah!" Gabby said in a huff.
"So how come you don't sit for Twilight on Tuesdays, huh?" Minty asked me.
I shrugged again.  "I dunno, I never asked.  I just take orders." I said back.
That was a good question though, why did I only sit four days a week?  It's not like her parents didn't work full time.
"Hey Twilight," I said.  This time her ears perked up.  "What do you do on Tuesdays and Thursdays?"
She looked up at me and quickly pushed Smarty-Pants to act as a temporary bookmark.
"I play with my brother!" she said proudly.  She stood up and puffed out her chest, making herself look as big as possible.
"He's gonna be a royal guard," she said.  She then quickly snapped her hoof up in her best impression of a salute.
She deepened her voice as best as she could before continuing, holding the salute up.  "What seems to be the trouble miss?"
"Oh no trouble here," I said back playfully.  Minty was stifling a laugh.
"Very well, carry on then," Twilight said, dropping the salute.  She stood stock still and stared past us.  I rolled over and approached her, she seemed to be a statue, barely breathing.
I waved my hoof in front of her face after a few seconds, getting no response.  Her eyes didn't follow me as I moved.
"Uh, Twilight, are you okay?" I asked.
"Sorry ma'am, us guards are trained not to respond to tourists," she said, not breaking her hardened expression.  "If there are any issues, please take them up with Sgt. Smarty-Pants here."
"Oh well, don't let me interrupt your important duties," I said, levitating a quill out of my saddlebags as quietly as a I could.
My friends could tell what was coming next, standing up to get a better view.  Twilight remained rigid.  I hovered the quill in front of her face.
"Do you know what this is?" I asked.  She didn't respond.
"This is what we use to test your resolve.  Only the toughest guards have ever passed." I said, moving the quill back and forth.  Twilight's face didn't move, but I could see her start to shake slightly.  A single bead of sweat maneuvered down her face, passing between her eye.
I moved the quill closer.  "I'll give you a chance, Pvt. Sparkle.  Just give up now.  No shame in that, you need to know your limits."
She held firm.  Nothing would break her.
"Okay, you asked for it.  Engarde, soldier!" I said, moving the feathered edge of the quill gently under her nose.
She held out for a good ten seconds before she broke and started laughing.  Minty lost it first, then Squeaky and Gabby joined in.  "Pvt. Sparkle I am very impressed!  Your fortitude is admirable, and we reward our promising recruits," I said in my best, most authoritative tone.  "Would you like your reward now?"
Twilight kept giggling and struggled to say, "What, what do I get?"
"More tickles!"
Her defenses were weakest on her tummy, the quill doing its work back and forth across her coat.  She rolled over and I continued the assault, switching to her hooves and then back to her nose.  She was practically begging me to stop, so I did.  Nopony said being a soldier was easy.
We tried to play a bit of Hoofball afterwards, but the twins kept cheating by flying over Gabby and I.  That's totally offsides, I think, or maybe it was legal since none of us had paid attention in Phys. Ed.  Either way, I was a lousy forward and Twilight had to 'adjust' the score afterwards.  It was a tie, solved by a shootout, with Gabby scoring a goal off the post as Minty dove to catch it.  11-10 is an unusual score for a Hoofball game, which is why our league will never go pro.
As the sun made its way down, we set back to relaxing and talking.
"Ugh, we have to go early today," Minty said, looking at the orange sun.  Squeaky let out an mm-hmm.
"Why?" I asked, not like it was all that early.  Barely half an hour.
"Dad wants to take us to Cloudsdale to watch the big tryouts," Squeaky said.
"Tryouts?  For what?"  Gabby asked.  Neither of us really followed the news.
"Didn't you hear?  Cloudcracker is retiring!  I heard he broke his wing in -" Minty said.  Squeaky poked her.
"Cloudcracker is retiring," she said simply.
"Am I supposed to know that name?" Gabby asked.
"He's like, the Captain of the Wonderbolts!", Minty gushed.  Her eyes seemed far away, maybe this Cloudcracker was cute?  I had thought the name sounded familiar, I don't really follow sports or athletics though.  Not really my thing.  Athletes were usually pretty well built though, comes with the job.
"More birdbrain stuff.  They have tryouts?  So you can what, fly really fast?" Gabby asked, mockingly.  I think it went over Minty's head.
"Oh they fly around, they have style competitions, races, dances," Minty answered, trailing off.
"Minty thinks Cloudcracker is hot," Squeaky said.
"I do not!" Minty shouted, whacking Squeaky with her wing.  Gabby and I laughed.
"You have a poster of him in your room!  It's right over your bed," Squeaky said.
"He's way too old for you, anyway," I said playfully.  Minty just fumed.
"Yeah, yep, I should get going too," Gabby said, stretching a bit.  "I'll see you guys later, gotta go pick up the records for tomorrow's sale."
They left, the twins flying over Gabby as she walked away until all three disappeared behind a tree.  It was just Twilight and I now, might as well head back.
Oh crap.
Oh no, the book!
Twilight had gone back to reading that huge thing, and now I had no way of carrying it.  Last time we had used a wheeled cart to get it to her house, but I had left it there when Gabby carried the book to the park.  I couldn't just leave the book here and go get it, could I?  What if somepony stole it?
Okay, that was impossible, but what if something else happened, like it got defaced, by some pony with a spray paint can and an axe to grind?  Twilight would never forgive me.
Just as I was about to panic, a certain blue maned colt came trotting up.
"Twiley!" he said, seeing his little sister.  "I thought you might be here."
"Shiney!"  she shouted, forgetting about her book entirely to go running to meet him.  Smarty-Pants, ever the dutiful one, kept her page while she was away.
'Shiney' was wearing a gold royal soldier's chest plate, though it was obviously too big for him.  He seemed too young to be a guard, but what would I know?  Maybe they took recruits and just trained them until they were old enough before setting them loose.  
Despite the two being related, I had only actually seen him once before now.  He was also evidently capable of speech, which is always a plus.
"Did you get out of training early today?" Twilight asked up at him.  As she did, his gaze shifted and panned across me.  I was approaching him as delicately as possible, hoping to avoid startling him.  Colts can be a timid bunch and will bolt at the first sign of trouble.
"Guhhh, huh," he said, his mouth hanging open again.  Well there goes that.  Perhaps he was socially awkward and couldn't talk in front of other ponies, it wouldn't surprise me given his sister.  How is he going to be a guard with a social phobia?  Would he guard the vaults or something?  Did Canterlot even have vaults?  I figured the royals did everything off of credit.
"Hey, uh, I'm Cadence," I said, smiling.  I extended my hoof in the hopes he would shake it.  He extended his timidly, and retreated before it could touch.  His jaw remained slack and he stared at me the whole time.
"Well, ooookay." I said, still trying my best to make this as normal as possible.
"See, there's this big book over there, and we just can't lift it right, and -" I said.
Without another word, he charged over to the book and tried to lift it.  Twilight bounced along behind him and tried to use her magic to lift the book up.  It was cute, but about as likely as her raising the moon at this point.
'Shiney' strained and grunted, doing everything he could to lift the beast onto his back, but could only succeed in lifting it halfway off the ground.  Admirable, but not enough.
"Okay, let me try lifting it onto your back instead." I said.
That didn't work either.  I couldn't get under the book well enough to lift it, and wouldn't have been strong enough to lift it even if I could.  I thought better of it, and turned around.
This time I tried lifting it with my stronger back legs, pushing it up and rotating it over until it sat sideways leaning on his side.  Halfway there.
He stayed silent as I struggled to get the book onto his back, eventually getting it to sit unnaturally on him.  I pulled the belt buckle off my saddlebag and used it to tie the book to his back so it wouldn't fall off and crack the pavement as we walked.
He said not a word as we made our way back to Twilight's house.  I could hear him wheeze and grunt, clearly he could handle the weight, barely.  Even Gabby hadn't done this well, he was indeed a strong pony.  Strong, handsome, two out of three ain't bad.
As we approached the front step, the buckle gave out and the book slid off his side, slamming into the walk and creating a shockwave which nearly knocked Twilight over.  Shiney (Shiney Sparkle?  What were his parents thinking?) tried desperately to pick it back up.
"Hey it's okay, we can use the pushcart from here, I'll go get it," I said.
"Nonsense milady!" Shiney said, dashing off and returning with the push cart and the jack in under a second.  "You need not strain yourself any more."
He took a bow before me, then jacked the book up and onto the cart, then pushed it inside the house.  Twilight rode along atop the cart, with me trailing behind.  Perhaps he had gotten over his fear?  Or maybe his training had kicked in.  Either way I was glad I didn't have to push that thing, my legs were tired just looking at it.
"Well I guess I'll be going Twilight," I said to her as her brother emerged from the study.
"Oh, uh, going so soon?" he asked, visibly nervous.  I think he was shaking, his words stuttered as he tripped over his own tongue.  "Don't you want to, uh, stay for uh, tea?"
Tea?  Really?
"No, that's okay, gotta go, lots of, stuff, to do, back home," I said, backing up.  "I should go, do it.  The stuff, I mean.  At home."  This guy put me on edge for some reason.  My stomach turned itself over a few times, before eventually stopping on its 'unpleasant' setting.
I actually did want to stay, I think.  A feeling had come over me when he had asked me to, washing away the awkwardness earlier.  I needed time to digest it, to figure out what it meant.
Twilight waved as I left and said, "See you later Cadence!".  She was still waving as I turned and passed out of the garden, towards my home.  The corner of my eye caught her brother looking at me over her head as she did so.
Dinner was ready when I got home, in a manner of speaking.  Mom had been working late on another case this week, so Dad had volunteered to make dinner.  Every day.
Today it was sliced tomatoes and fresh hay.  Joy.
I decided to take my 'dinner' into my room, claiming I had to catch up on my last essay.  Dad nodded and munched on his hay before pulling up the morning's paper and looking at the sports section.  I didn't think I could talk to him about stuff like this, it's too complicated for him, he thought about sports and business, not love, right?
As I sat at my desk trying to choke down the raw tomatoes, which would have worked just fine in a soup or perhaps a stir-fry, the logic of it hit me.  Of course my parents had thoughts about love, they must have done this before, I was its logical outcome.  Ugh.
UGH!
Okay, forgetting that ugly scene for a moment, my thoughts returned to Shiney.  He had been staring at me, yeah, but it wasn't creepy.  I had thought he didn't like me at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized he must be going through what I was going through now.  He was cute, strong, maybe smart too, but that wasn't enough.  There were lots of colts like that at school - okay, no there weren't, they were a pretty dense bunch and seemed to have been struck down mightily with the ugly stick, but my standards could just have been too high.
On the other hoof, this was also something you're not supposed to do.  I wasn't too familiar with the regulations governing employee relations towards clients, so I would need to double check this, but I didn't want to lose my job.  Plus, how would Twilight take it, if she was even capable of comprehending it?  She's a smart pony, yeah, but sometimes you just don't get it until you're a certain age.  She didn't even have her cutie mark yet.  Could I betray her like that?  How would she feel if me, her best friend and foalsitter, liked her brother more than her?
He did have his upsides.  I could tell he liked me, or at least thought I was pretty.  That made me blush, just thinking about it.  Colts had noticed me before but they were always such jerks about it.  Shiney was prepared to haul a book that could crush a watermelon for me without me even finishing asking him to.  Or he was trying to impress me.
But what if he's not always like that?  Or worse, what if he's a shut-in and I'm the first mare he's seen who isn't related to him?  What if his parents sent him to guardspony's training because he's not mentally fit for anything else?  I hadn't seen him do complex arithmetic yet, he had barely managed to form a whole sentence so far.
I needed more information!
That night, as I lay in bed, my thoughts kept running over all the facts over and over again, yay and neigh, positive and negative, good and bad.  I couldn't choose and I couldn't stop thinking about it.