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// Strange Acquaintances pt.2 
// Story: Deathrattle 
// by MaritoEconomico 
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“And why should I?” Aracne asked a bit bored to Shadow’s  request “If I really have to do such thing, you should at least give me a good reason to do so, you can’t come here uninvited and requiring!.” 

“ In short,” started Shadow deciding to spare Aracne all Rarity’s fuss “we can say that I’ve commissioned the evening clothes for six girls.” he said casually, satisfying Aracne even if he thought that it wasn’t necessary.

“Oh, even six?” asked Aracne naughty, both surprised and amused by such a revelation “Are you planning to create your own harem?” she pressured Shadow, while covering her mouth with a hand to hide a little laugh, excited to see his reaction.

“What?” asked Shadow initially confused, and then after he realized what Aracne had actually said he yelled “Noo! I mean… how can you think such a nonsense!!” obviously embarrassed by that insinuation which would never have slipped in his mind.

“Sure.” laughed Aracne;  then ,becoming serious “You know that it’s not free, right?” she asked serious , reminding Shadow of the reason of his visit.

“Of course, I’m not a fool after all.” said Shadow immediately regaining his coolness; “Here it is!” he proclaimed showing her the bottle of wine that he had brought with him for that moment.

Aracne studied the bottle; it had no label, since the glass was green she was unable to say for sure but it seemed to contain a red liquid “Red wine almost for sure.” she guessed, then slightly disgusted she complained “I hate wine.” a bit offended from Shadow’ forgetfulness and bad decision.

“I know.” was Shadow’s  simple answer, while handing the bottle to Aracne with a confident smile.

Aracne a little hesitant, but encouraged by Shadow’s behaviour, opened the bottle and sniffed the content “Blood!” she exclaimed surprised, “You surely know girls like!” she smiled happily closing the bottle for a later event.

“I don’t know if I can call you girl, but at least I know what you like.” thought Shadow smiling, careful not to say it out laud; then he started to explain “It’s a mixture of the blood of different species, recently I’ve found out that timberwolf’s blood can be used as a good sweetener,” he proclaimed proud “I’ve also added a little amount of caffeine, if I remember well it may replicate the effects of alcohol on arachnid’s creatures.” he said to show Aracne the attention and the specificity of that drink, “I also made sure that it will not coagulate for a long time, obviously.” he ended with a big smile.

“All great,” congratulated Aracne delighted  by that present and charmed by Shadow’ speech “but you should know that this is not sufficient for all the silk that you are asking me.” she smiled trying to raise the stakes.

“And that’s the reason why I’m here with a second offer:” grinded Shadow expecting that turn of events and already enjoying what was about to happen “I’m also going to offer you a dinner with Nekuro.” he proclaimed and then waited for her reaction.

Immediately Nekuro jumped out from Shadow’ shirt grabbing to his left shoulder with a shocked look shouting displeased “Meow!?!” evidently contrary to that idea.

Aracne was still surprised when that happened but, as she saw Nekuro, her face became joyful “Sweetheart!” she yelled energetic, happy to finally see the cat that she was looking for since she had met  Shadow, “So there  is where you were hiding!” she giggled picking up Nekuro with incredible speed and starting to hug him so fast that Nekuro was unable to do anything to avoid that; then looking to Shadow, Aracne said “You convinced me, I’m going to give you what you want tomorrow morning.”

Shadow nodded calm in response, everything had gone as expected.

Aracne turned around heading towards her home where she and Nekuro would have had dinner soon, Nekuro could have at least tried to escape but he knew that Shadow had used his coupon preventing Nekuro to refuse the dinner invitation “Meow!” he yelled in a desperate attempt to convince Shadow.

“Sorry.” whispered Shadow, his hands crossed, but Nekuro could tell for sure that Shadow wasn’t sorry at all, because the big smile on his face, barely able to withhold a laugh.

“Sweetheart, I knew that you were here around, you and Shadow are always together after all; but why didn’t you show up early? Is there anything that is worrying you?” asked Aracne with care, Nekuro decided that it was better not to answer, not that it really mattered, since even Aracne could not understand Nekuro’s speech.

The next morning he met Nekuro just outside the forest where Aracne had  left the silk promised to Shadow, after a nice night spent with his “sweetheart”.

“That’s it.” said Shadow happy for the good result of his mission, and also for the funny prank against Nekuro “One day you will tell me what you did to her to make she behave like that.” He giggled to Nekuro.

“Meow.” grumped Nekuro offended and not in the right mood to have that kind of conversation, not even in the mood to listen to Shadow.

“And so? Don’t you tell me anything? What happened?” kept pressuring Shadow enjoying too much the possibility to annoy Nekuro with something that he was embarrassed about, and not the opposite for once, “Did you have… FUN, last night?” he asked suggestive.

Nekuro had enough of that behaviour and looking at Shadow furiously, he  raised his fur aggressive; and was in that moment that Shadow knew he fucked up “Maybe I’ve gone too far this time.” whispered to himself worried, starting to think a way to escape, knowing already that it was too late for anything.




It was already the beginning of the sixth day since the  Shadow’ departure and Rarity was walking evidently worried up and down  the dining room , while Twilight, who had come for a visit, was sitting calm at the table with a cup of coffee in her hand.

“Calm down” suggested Twilight sipping the coffee, first of all because she felt bad for Rarity, and second because Twilight knew that Rarity had the tendency to overreact for every problem and this was probably one of those times. 

“But he told me that he would be back yesterday at worst!” ruffled Rarity who couldn’t get out of her head Shadow’ warnings about the dangerousness of his trip even after all the reassurances he had given  her and the confidence he had showed before leaving.

“He has  probably just taken a break during the way back.” replied Twilight peacefully, unaware of Rarity’s  conversation with Shadow, and yet’ even if she had known,  she wouldn’t have been  worried about it since it would have probably been some kind of joke from Shadow’s  side.

“You don’t understand.” complained Rarity concerned “Shadow mentioned something about a kind of danger or something like that…” she continued sharing her worries with Twilight whose tranquillity was making Rarity even more anxious; “what if something bad happened to the fabric?!” exclaimed Rarity scared trying immediately to get rid of that horrible thought.

Not receiving any answer Rarity slowly looked at Twilight who was  staring at her disappointed, as she was silently judging her “Really? The fabric?” 

Immediately realizing her mistake, Rarity tried to correct herself “Shadow! … I meant Shadow, obviously.” then feeling even more embarrassed she explained “It must have been a slip of the tongue....; I’m so concerned about Shadow that I got confused and misspelled it.” showing her best smile.

“Obviously.” sentenced Twilight seen right through Rarity’s weak show; yet Twilight was a still disappointed seeing Rarity’s  sigh of relief as if everything had gone as planned. Right then they heard someone knocking at the door and Rarity went and opened  it with a serene smile as if  the recent  conversation had never happened.

“Here I am at last,” said the clear voice of Shadow “sorry for being late, but I slipped on my way home.” he giggled.

“what the fuck happened to you?!” yelled Rarity with a mixture of surprise and fear at Shadow’s appearance. Shadow had cuts  all over his face and hands, some still bleeding but his clothes looked still perfectly fine. 

“Do you mean these?” asked Shadow pointing at  the cuts “Nekuro did them, I made him angry and he decided that I would have been a perfect scratching post.” he joked looking behind him where an arrogant Nekuro were patiently waiting, then Shadow went on talking to Rarity, who was no more scared but still very confused,  “But you have no reason to be worried, I made sure that none of the fabrics were dirtied in this accident” proclaimed Shadow pleased, showing to Rarity three big bolts each with enough fabric to make two dresses, but nothing more, the fabric was still white but Shadow knew it was really easy to colour it with the dyes that Rarity already owned.

Forgetting everything else Rarity ran to check the delivery with joy, to Shadow she seemed almost hugging the fabrics such was her great enthusiasm , that he felt a bit uncomfortable; after that, turned to Shadow saying “here is the money; just as we agreed.” handing the coins to Shadow with a friendly smile, she was so anxious for this delivery that in the last days she had prepared the exact value just to be sure to pay as quick as possible.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot accept money;” Stated Shadow refusing to take the coins, as he required pre-payment from his customers, he also required the complete fulfilment  of the commission by himself,  otherwise he would feel  like he had failed both with the customers and himself; “ We agreed that I should have been back yesterday, I’m late with the delivery.” he explained seeing the confused look of Rarity.

“Oh, who cares?!” exclaimed Rarity at the top of her lungs, too excited to accept a refusal “Take it, consider this a presents from me.” she decided grabbing Shadow’s hand and forcing him to take the money.

“Thanks.” said Shadow accepting the coins showing his best smile, at this point he had no other reason to refuse and he wasn’t the kind of  person who would refuse “easy” money anyway; “And someone call me crazy.! ” he thought putting the money in his pockets while watching Rarity cuddling the fabrics. 

“So the great danger you told Rarity was just your cat getting a little mad for..... whatever reason?” asked sarcastically Twilight leaving the house; Twilight was not the kind of person who liked annoying people with sarcastic comments, but there’s something unknown about Shadow that drove her to have a passive-aggressive attitude towards him.

In response Shadow shrugged silently, showing a thin guilty smile, after all that was partially the truth but, in Shadow opinion Twilight wouldn’t need to know about the real kind of danger it was. 

Twilight, satisfied with that apparent silent confession, left Rarity’s house, she had work to do at the library and since Shadow had come back from his trip, calming down Rarity, she had no reason to stay there anymore.

Then Shadow helped Rarity to carry the fabrics inside, Rarity used a levitation spell so it was easier , and he was just about to leave  when Rarity all excited proposed, or more correctly forced, Shadow to go  upstairs to see the prototypes of the dresses  she was going to make with the fabrics.

Rarity showed Shadow six mannequins wearing fascinating dresses each designed and created personally to match and show off each owner’s personality. She had started to work on them the exact moment she knew that the six girls would have gone to the  Grand Galloping Gala but the idea to use an unknown type of fabric had trilled her so much that she had  worked on the dresses with a speed that had surprised even herself; “So? What do you think?” asked Rarity excited “Obviously there is still a lot to improve, but I’m pretty satisfied.” 

“Pretty.” was the concise reply of Shadow not exactly impressed by the dresses, they were pleasant to the eye but, even so, they were unable to sparkle any real feeling in Shadow.

“Pretty?!” shouted Rarity as if Shadow had insulted her personally “But they are supposed to be beautiful.” she mumbled suddenly depressed, she had worked so hard and yet the reaction of Shadow was everything but what she would had desired or even expected.

Surprised by that reaction, and unable to really understand the reason behind it, Shadow clumsy tried to save the situation “Sorry! Let’s see, how can I say it? It’s just that I never use the expression ‘beautiful’ to describe something, so we can say that ‘pretty’ is my best compliment.” but just as he pronounced those word they sound incredibly stupid to Shadow himself “Besides, I’m total ignorant about fashion, I'm sure that everyone else will find your dresses simply gorgeous!” he tried to recover hoping that that was enough.

“Do you  really think so?” whimpered Rarity.

“Sure!.” said Shadow hoping to end the conversation as soon as possible “Why it has to be so difficult to deal with people?” he thought nervously.

“Good!” exclaimed Rarity after hearing exactly what she wanted “Now sorry, but I have to work on my gorgeous dresses!.” giggled while leading Shadow to the door leaving him  so stunned that he was unable to do or say anything about that sudden humour change.

“What the fuck has just happened?” wondered Shadow a little after Rarity closed the door.

“Meow.” said Nekuro aloof.

“It is easier for you, you don’t have to deal with crazies.” puffed Shadow still a bit confused.

“Meow.” giggled Nekuro as they started their way  home.

“But I feel that you enjoy my craziness ,don’t you?.” pointed out Shadow.