//------------------------------// // Entry Seven- A Blind Babysitting // Story: The Journals of Silas Sombra // by DreamWings //------------------------------// Entry Seven. I still hadn’t met Lilac. It had been two weeks since Rosen and I had become friends and there had been no sign of her royal cousin. I’d heard plenty of stories by this time though: their late-night picnics, their sneaky visits to the crystal berry bushes just outside of the Kingdom, their mimicking of officials during meetings. Rosen made Lilac sound fun and I couldn’t wait to meet this rebellious Princess. The truth is though, although Lilac did do all of this stuff occasionally, she didn’t do it very often and was usually too hard at work to play with Rosen. Rosen was okay with this. She enjoyed playing with me and didn’t feel the need to be with Lilac all the time anymore. Before I’d arrived Lilac was the only pony to treat Rosen like a normal pony, which was fitting since they were both in the same position. Both of them were treated like royals and both of them lived for the ponies that treated them normally. Lilac hadn’t found her pony yet and Rosen was worried that she might never find them. She felt sorry for her and I did too. I didn’t understand why being a royal should change anything. On the farm everyone and everything had been equal, and, don’t forget, some of my best friends had been the livestock (and flowers) that we had. There was no such thing as a royal in my old home on the mountains. The only information I had of them was from old pony tales. I finally got a chance to see the princess when my mother was going away to spend some time with her friends. She’d been extremely quiet since we’d moved to the Crystal Empire. I’d been the pony to go and get the shopping and chat to the neighbours and cook all of the dinners (Mr. Ember was teaching me how to be a great little chef). As I watched my mom leave to go to her friends I heaved a sigh of relief. I hoped upon hope that this visit would be the making of her—that she would turn back into the same old mother I’d loved so much. It hadn’t been the same since father’s death between us. She barely looked at me and never said thank you to any of the dinners she cooked. She’d tried to look positive but I knew she wasn’t. Unfortunately one thing my mom had forgotten about was me. She knew I was too young to look after myself, at least in the eyes of the other Crystal Ponies, and that if anypony found out about my alone time that we’d both be in big trouble. I tried my best to hide it. I had no idea how long she’d be gone (and I definitely wouldn’t have expected her to be away as long as she was). I could see ponies getting more and more suspicious the more days that went by. After five days I tried to get in touch with my mom. The food was running out and I didn’t have enough bits to buy any more. As nice as Mr. Ember was I didn’t think asking him for more sugar would be a good idea. I’d already asked to borrow so many things already. He’d definitely have figured out something was wrong if I went over again. He’d stared at me strangely that last time I went. But try as I might I was hungry—really hungry, and honestly, really lonely to. I went to the address in my mom’s diary. It was outside of the Empire, a day’s walk there and back. It was an old, abandoned barn covered in the snow and ice. But that was just it, it was old and abandoned. The only things living there were a family of cockroaches that had chewed through some of the wood and burrowed into the floorboards. My mother wasn’t there and I didn’t have a clue where else she would be. I could only go home and hope that she’d soon be back. When I got back to the house I saw Rosen standing on the doorstep. She looked worried. I ran up to her, a giant grin spread across my face. It felt good to get out of the cold and back to the warm mug of chocolate that was friendship. She saw me and pushed my chest. “So, there you are,” she said. “I’ve been worried about you. I haven’t seen you for days.” “You saw me at school a couple of days ago,” I pointed out. It’d been the weekend when I’d gone to the house. School didn’t start again until tomorrow. “That’s not the same. I wanted to tell you the news now.” She gestured her head, looking at the keys in my hoof. I knew she wanted to go inside but I didn’t want her to see my parent-less house just in case. I didn’t know whether I could trust her with that secret just yet. “What news?” I asked. “It’s about Lilac.” She frowned. “What about Lilac?” I said, trying to ignore her glare. “Erm...” She looked at the door. “Aren’t you going to go in?” “But we were talking about Lilac.” “So—it can wait until we get inside. I wanted to say hi to your mom.” Rosen had been waiting to meet my mom for weeks and I hadn’t let her. It’s not that I was embarrassed of my mom or Rosen; it’s just that I didn’t want either of them to feel jealous of the other. I was all my mom had left and I was Rosen’s first proper first. Okay, okay, they’re might’ve been just a bit of embarrassment too. I just wanted Rosen to meet the proper version of my mom, the one I’d told her about, and not this strange ghost-pony that’d haunted my house recently. “It can wait,” I said. “What’s up with Lilac?” Rosen looked disappointed. “Silas, what’s wrong? Why won’t you let me in?” Her eyes grew wider. “You’re embarrassed of me,” she said. “You don’t want your mom to see me because she won’t like me.” “No, no,” I said, waving my hoof around. “My mom would love you. She really would. It’s just...” My stomach decided this would be the best time to announce its hunger. I prayed that Rosen hadn’t heard but I knew that anypony within a five mile radius would’ve heard it. She pushed my chest again. “Why are you so hungry? Actually,” she thought for a second, “you didn’t have much for lunch the other day either. Oh, Silas,” she leaned closer in and whispered into my ear, “is your mom, you know, having a long sleep?” She leaned forward and wrapped her front hooves around me. “I’m so sorry. It must be horrible.” “What? No!” I pushed her off me. I didn’t do it fiercely. I could never be fierce with Rosen. “My mom’s alive—at least, I think she is.” I sighed deeply and listened to the rumbling of my tummy. “She went away last week and I don’t know where she is, but---“ I lifted by head determinedly, “I know she’s coming back. My mom would never leave me forever. She loves me too much to do that.” “Oh, Silas, why didn’t you say something?” She looked so considerate that I almost burst into tears. My mom used to look like that. “I didn’t want any fussing,” I said with a shrug. “My mom’s a good mom, and I didn’t want anypony to believe any different.” A spark came into Rosen’s eye and she jumped in the air in excitement. “Lilac!” “What?” I stared at her, puzzled. She wasn’t fazed by it and grabbed my hoof, pulling me along the sidewalk so fast that I thought I was going to fall flat on my face more than once. She headed straight for the palace. Inside I was pulled into a room on the second floor where a pink and purple crystal pony sat on her bed, skimming through a scroll. Lilac looked up as we entered, startled by her little cousin’s happy face. “Rosen? What’s up?” she asked. This didn’t seem like the way the princesses in my stories spoke. “Silas,” Rosen shouted. “Silas needs a babysitter.” “What!” I pulled my hoof out of her grasp. “No, I don’t. Rosen, I just told you—“ “You just told me you didn’t want anypony to think your mom was a bad mom, and she’s not, but you didn’t say a foalsitter was out of the question.” I stared at her, confused. As confused as I was I think Lilac was even more so. Rosen hadn’t stopped smiling. “Think about it, Silas, if you have a foalsitter then nopony can question your mom being away,” she said. My stomach grumbled again. “And you’ll be able to eat properly,” she added. “You can stay in the palace with me. It’ll be great.” I thought about it, getting more excited at the idea. It would be great to stay with Rosen. We could play even more games than we already did. We could race around the palace and I could try to find her in a game of hide and seek. I figured there must be hundreds of hiding places in a castle as large as this. “That sounds great,” I said. Rosen squeaked with glee. “Hold on, wait a minute,” Lilac said, coming forward. “I think you’re forgetting something.” She was grinning from ear to ear. She looked just as nice as Rosen had made her out to be. “What?” Rosen asked. “You’ll do it won’t you?” “Of course I will, but that’s not the point. You’ve forgotten about the Alicorns. They’re staying from today until next week, remember.” Rosen peered round at me. “That was the news I was going to tell you.” I nodded my head. I was disappointed that Rosen’s plan couldn’t be done. I didn’t even know who these Alicorns were. Rosen looked back to her cousin and put on her largest, cutest expression. “You can still do it though, right? Miamore and Gallophad seemed like nice ponies. You said so. They wouldn’t mind Silas being with us as well.” Just at that moment two older colts appeared behind me. The eldest, Miamore, was about the same age as Lilac. His younger half-brother, Gallophad, wasn’t that much younger. He was older than Rosen and me, anyhow (although, I found out later, that it wasn't by much). They weren’t crystal ponies though. Miamore was like nothing I’d ever seen before. He wasn’t Pegasus or unicorn, he was both. He was a half-breed, which meant—he was an Alicorn. He was a Prince Alicorn (Gallophad was just a plain looking Pegasus, though he had a bit of changeling in his blood as well). I’d heard about King Alicorn and his family. They were famous all over Equestria. “What wouldn’t we mind?” Miamore said, wandering up to Lilac. Lilac’s cheeks had turned bright red and she was struggling to look at the young colt. “We were hoping,” Rosen had gone unexpectedly shy, “if you’d be okay with it, that is—that is, we were hoping, would you mind if my friend Silas stayed with us for a while? He’s really nice. He really is.” I felt the eyes of the Prince fixed on me. I felt plain and boring in front of him. I’d never felt so out of place in my life. Miamore looked me up and down, Gallophad joining him by Lilac’s side. Lilac had calmed down now and looked up at the Alicorn with admiration. I could tell there and then that she’d managed to find the friend she’d been looking for. “How’s your imagination?” Miamore asked. I shrugged and gulped. “It’s—It’s okay,” I stammered. “Good, because, you know, all of my favourite ponies have the best imaginations I’ve ever seen—myself included.” He grinned at me and I smiled back. He wasn’t just an Alicorn, he was a pony too. I felt stupid for thinking otherwise. “We’d love to spend time with you,” he said and Gallophad nodded his head in agreement. Lilac walked up to me and patted me on the back. “Well, looks like you’ve got a foalsitter after all then. Shall we go and ask my folks?” I followed her out of the room, Rosen cheerily trotting right behind, happier than I’d ever been. Staying at the palace with Lilac and Rosen would be great—but now I got to stay with Miamore and Gallophad—two ponies I’d become really great friends with. In fact, Miamore was my idol. And Sombra hated him for it.