BEEP BEEP BEEP...
I heard my alarm clock going off and my eyes fluttered open.
"Alright, my first decision of the day... is to go back to sleep," I mumbled, unplugging the clock.
~30 minutes later~
"Vortex, you have to wake up," Roam said, shaking me.
"Never. Let me sleep forever," I grunted, rolling over in the bed.
"GET UP!" He yelled, yanking the covers off of me.
"HISS!!" I said, casting a knockback spell on him and grabbing the blanket again.
"Alright," He said, getting up. "You have left me no choice but to use my secret weapon,"
"Oh? And what's that?" I said, already drifting off to sleep again.
"I'll tell Artemis to attack you," He said smugly.
"Quit twisting my arm," I grumbled, already plotting a way to get revenge on him. "Why are hovering over me so much? I have no work today,"
"It's Winter Wrap Up," He said.
"Of course. Winter Wrap Up. Why do I have to participate in that?"
"It's what ponies here do,"
"Well, I'm not a pony. Remember our original goal? Get accepted as more than evil personified?"
"We've been accepted. If we show them what we are, we'll be run out of town. So, what's your point?"
"They don't know what we are. I wanted us to be the one's to prove that not every Shade is a crazed sociopath. How do you expect us to do that if we keep pretending to be something we aren't? Take Spike for example. He acts like he doesn't care, but I bet he still got odd stares whenever he traveled to a new place. The difference between him and us is that he can't change to the form of a pony."
"Again, what's your point?"
"He did get accepted after a while. Why don't we try the same thing?"
"He got accepted because he saved the Crystal Empire. So unless we do something like that, or have connections to royalty, we can't get accepted."
"Umm...."
"What?" Roam asked, looking over at me. "Oh, sweet Faust, did you meet Luna in a dream? You idiot, I told you that was going to happen!"
"Yeah..., but she and I became friends,"
"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS EARLIER?!"
"IT HAPPENED JUST BEFORE YOU WOKE ME UP!" I yelled back, very angry that he'd gotten so worked up.
"...So...did you ask her about telling Equestria who we really are?"
"No, I wanted her to get to know you two first," I said. "Also... sorry about yelling,"
"It's alright, I'm sorry too," he said with a sigh. "So, when is she coming?"
"Noon,"
"Hmm... we won't be here when she comes, we'll be doing Winter Wrap Up..." Roam mused.
"Correction: YOU'LL be doing that. I'll be here to greet her, we don't want to keep her waiting,"
"And by that you mean you just don't want to work?"
"Exactly," I said with a grin.
"Well, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't be greeting her in the first place, so I'll cut you a break,"
"Really? Thanks, I owe you one!"
"Remember that," He said with a grin.
"I'm rubbing off on you aren't I?"
"Yep. See you later! I'll tell Artemis about this!"
"Where is she, anyway?"
"She went off to help with Winter Wrap Up while I struggled to get you out of bed. Are you sorry about all the trouble you caused me?"
"Not in slightest," I smirked, but he knew I was just kidding.
"See you," He grinned back.
I can safely say that I had never been happier in my life. However, if there's one thing I hate more that anything else, it's me being able to do nothing. At first I thought I could just play a video game to pass the time, but I just wasn't in the mood.
Then I remembered that mysterious cloaked pony I had been seeing in my dreams. I figured I might as well try to find out some answers as to who he was, so I thought about heading for Twilight's new castle. And before you say that was stupid, I knew she was out doing Winter Wrap Up with everyone else, and it was standard for royalty to have records of every pony in Equestria. But before that would do me any good, I needed to know what this pony looked like without the cloak.
I crawled back into bed after wrapping my arm up for the cut I got in the dream, and cast a sleep spell on myself so I could find the pony and rip off the cloak. And I did just that. You know the drill, ponies dying, land burning, sky black and orange, but this time I found the jerk who had been putting me thought this, and.... Well, he was unpleasant to look at. He was a unicorn with an orange mane, a blue coat, a painfully malnourished body with scars covering him, and eyes that seemed to shine with a murderous glint. But worst of all was his horn. Almost all of it had been snapped off, to the point where it was barely bigger than my little finger, not to mention the fact that it was bleeding profusely, so that blood stained his entire body, to the point where his blue coat was barely visible.
"Not what you expected, huh?" He said, giggling manically in between words. That was what caused me to wake with a start; if the guy had scared me before, it was nothing like what I felt now. The joy from earlier was completely gone, now replaced with an all-consuming fear. I just sat upright in the bed for a while, looking at every corner as if he might pop out from around it at any time.