//------------------------------//
// The Leliels, Lielle and Leilel 
// Story: Into the shadow of the beast 
// by TwiwnB 
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“Give it back!” shouted Applebloom with anger.

She was referring to a piece of paper Sweetie Belle had written on and that both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were playing with, holding it away from the three cutie mark crusaders and making fun of them.

“If you want it, just come and get it!” provoked Diamond Tiara with a grin.

Applebloom would have loved to, Scootaloo too. But not only was there Sweetie Belle’s look to make them remember that violence was not an answer: both Applejack and Rainbow Dash had made it clear that there should be no resorting to fighting unless they were attacked first. So the three fillies were pretty much stuck with only observing and, but they wouldn’t do that, begging.
Diamond Tiara knew that fact very well and was taking every advantage of it. She was having a great pleasure in taunting the three friends. And in some way, she couldn’t believe that they were really not reacting to her taunting and wanted to see how far she could go with it. Just like a child. That she actually was.

“Give it back…” Applebloom repeated, knowing it was useless, but to have the feeling she wasn’t completely powerless.

Her request got completely ignored with a laugh for all reply, and, after a few more taunts, Diamond Tiara ripped the piece of paper apart and threw it into a garbage can. Then, hiding how incredible she was finding that nothing had happened to her, she just walked away with Silver Spoon, adding some more insults and even throwing a bit of mud at the three fillies who just stood there, completely stuck between their peaceful minds, their loyalty to their big sisters and that strong and deep envy to just go and beat the hell out of those they were considering their enemies.

“Let’s go home…” just said Sweetie Belle, while trying to hide that she was crying. “They aren’t worth it anyway.”

It was another way of saying that she wanted to go find her family and the comfort that was going with it. So they all parted ways and Applebloom saw her two friends going away, as she herself began her journey back to the farm.

“Give it back!” shouted a tiny shrieking voice around the filly.

“No way, it’s mine, take your paws out of it!” shouted a second tiny shrieking voice.

Applebloom looked around, but saw nopony. She was about to ask herself if she was hearing voices before she suddenly felt something running along her body, quickly followed by something else.
The filly immediately screamed out of panic and began rolling on the floor to get rid of whatever had been climbing her.

After a few rolls, she felt nothing anymore and simmered down. She took back the control of her breath and sighed out of relief.

“You see what you did?” said one of the little voices, startling the filly once again. “It’s all your fault.”

“Hey!” said the other voice. “I’m not the one to blame here. You are the one trying to steal from me!”

This time, Applebloom saw, just aside from her, two squirrels that weren’t giving her much attention anymore as they were quarreling once more. The filly also saw a sort of white sphere that both squirrels were holding and that was clearly the core of their dispute.

“Hum… excuse me.” asked the filly, not sure how to handle the situation, but very curious about what was going on and even more, why she could suddenly speak squirrel.

The two pets stopped fighting and turned to the filly, not without still assuring a firm grasp onto the white sphere.

“Who are you?” asked Applebloom, who thought at first that it was the best question to ask. But then she decided there was more important information to get and she began asking other questions before the first one could be answered: “And why are you fighting over that thing? Why did you jump on me like that? What are you doing in Ponyville? How come we can speak together? Do you understand me like I understand you?”

“Yes!” replied one of the squirrels to make the flow of questions stop. “Yes we can understand you, why wouldn’t we?”

“Well…” began Applebloom, who was asking herself if it wasn’t supposed to be common sense and if she wasn’t missing something there. “It’s kind of not normal for squirrels to talk like ponies. You usually just make some squeaking noises.”

Both pets looked at each other and then looked back at Applebloom with a sorry smile.

“That’s because we are not squirrels.” one of them said.

“We happen to be Leliels.” the other explained.

“What is a Leliel?” naturally asked Applebloom, more confused than before.

The two squirrel looking creatures showed the white sphere between their paws and that they were fighting for.

“That’s a Leliel.” they both said in unison.

“Okay… so you are two squirrels holding a white sphere called a Leliel...?” Applebloom asked, in the hope she might understand.

The two creatures laughed.

“No. We are two Leliels holding one of us.” one of them said.

But it was clear the filly had no idea what they were talking about. So they decided to explain more clearly, at least as clearly as they could, as Leliels happened to be very good, polite and gentle creatures as long as treated nicely and politely too.

“I’m Lielle.” said one of the creatures.

“And I’m Leilel.” said the other one.

“We are Leliels. What you call a white sphere is actually us. It’s a Leliel.” began Lielle “You see us as squirrels, but those are merely…” the creature tried to think of the best way to explain how they were emotional reflects of the internal subconscious of alterdimentional beings in the simplest manner without being too complicated for the filly to understand: “…our shadows.” she said as an analogy, “Each Leliel has a shadow that reflects the Leliel.”

Applebloom was nodding with her muzzle, but had actually not understood one bit of what had been said. Nonetheless, the word shadow made her realize that none of the two squirrel actually had any shadow whatsoever, which was incredibly creepy, but was also comforting in that the two creatures were definitely no normal squirrels. So there was something the filly could tell herself she had understood after all.

“So… why are you fighting? For your shadow?” the filly asked, still very curious.

“Sort of.” replied Leilel. “You see…”

The creature thought about how to make it easy to understand, but Lielle took upon herself to say:

“It’s very simple actually. You have a shadow, haven’t you?” she asked Applebloom.

“Yes, of course I do.” the filly replied.

“Now what would happen to your shadow if you were to disappear?” Lielle asked.

“I’m not going to disappear.” responded Applebloom, who was trying to figure out if she was being threatened or what could possibly make her suddenly disappear.

“What Lielle is trying to tell you…” Leilel said, coming to the rescue, “…is that without you, there would be no shadow, the same way that without our Leliel, we wouldn’t exist.”

One day, long, very long ago, Celestia tried to explain the theory of general relativity to a pony that was, like every other pony back in the time, living in a cave and afraid of fire. But even that particular pony was less confused by Celestia’s explanations than Applebloom was by what the two creatures were saying. Mostly because the filly was feeling she could understand it and therefore, contrarily to her ancient ancestor, was genuinely trying to figure out what was said to her.

“Without the white sphere, we cease to exist.” said Lielle, out of despair, going for the biggest simplification of the situation she was able to make.

Now that was something the filly could understand. And it was also was easier to see why those two had been fighting for the white sphere. Survival is kind of a good reason if there had to be one.
Seeing that the filly’s curiosity was sort of satisfied, at least enough so that it wouldn’t be impolite anymore to let her wonder about the rest, Leilel said:

“Now, if you would please excuse us, I have to teach that thief not to steal what doesn’t belong to him.”

“You’re a thief, you big apophtegme !” replied Lielle, using an insult from the Leliels’ culture which meaning I prefer not to unveil here, as it was very rude.

They immediately began to fight each other like before, completely ignoring Applebloom and trying by any mean possible to take the white sphere out of the other’s paws.

“Hey, wait!” shouted Applebloom, worried about the two Leliels.

Being the very kind and polite beings that they were, they stopped fighting once again and listened to what the filly had to say.

“You shouldn’t be fighting like that. It’s not good. My sister always says that there is no conflict that can’t be solved by talking around an apple pie. Why don’t you come to the farm with me and maybe you’ll be able to solve your problem without hurting each other.”

The Leliels looked at each other and agreed that they should try to resolve their problem peacefully if there was a chance to do it so, even if they doubted there was any peaceful solution at all. It was in their nature to at least give a chance to a good proposition.

“I just don’t know how much more time we can hold it.” commented Lielle.

Applebloom assured them it would be all okay, figuring out the squirrel was probably referencing to their precious sphere.

So both Lielle and Leilel followed Applebloom on her way back to the farm, as quietly as they could but making sure that they wouldn’t let loose of the white sphere.