I could hear someone talking once I got to my room, It wasn't too hard to tell it must have been the pegasus, after all, who else could it be?
"Where am I? What is this place... It looks like someone's room... Am I home? No... I don't remember anything about this place, did someone help me get away?"
I opened the door and saw the pink pegasus looking around my room and constantly asking herself questions, clearly confused. Somehow she didn't notice me come in the room and just kept walking in circles.
"Hello!"
"..."
Her head slowly rose up to face mine, I noticed that her eyes were a beautiful shade of turquoise now, instead of the strong green they had been a few minutes ago.
"Hello! How nice it is to meet you, quick question, WHERE AM I?" She yelled in my face, I flinched back towards the doorway, in case she tried to knock me off my hooves again.
"Err... You're in my bedroom, which is in a cave system underneath the everfree forest..." I said.
"How did I get here?" She asked
"I found you passed out in a ravine yesterday, I carried you here through the caves... What's your name?" I asked, I hoped I didn't sound like a creep, this was the first pony I had seen in four years, I didn't want to scare them away.
"...I'm Shimmering Cloud, sorry for shouting. I just... thought you were someone else." She said, smiling sheepishly.
"I'm Fyre Web, nice to meet you too." I replied
"..."
"Does anyone else live here?" She asked
I cringed as I tried to keep my memories in my mind, trying not to make her feel as though she had hurt me in some way. I was confused why she asked that but mostly I was focusing on whether I should tell her the answer...
"Sorry, did I touch a nerve?" She asked, looking at my now sea blue fur.
"Yeah... sorry, I... I live on my own now."
"..."
"..."
"So..."
"Yeah?"
"Could you show me around? I don't really know this place very well, and since I'm probably not going to be going anywhere else soon I'd like to know how to get around."
"...Sure, but, what do you mean, don't you have somewhere else that you would have to go?"
"not really... I don't... wanna talk about it..."
"Okay then, uh... anyway, this is my bedroom..." I said as I pointed a hoof vaguely around the room. "There's not much in here, I have a couple drawers for keeping things in, over there's my desk," I said pointing over to a desk littered with drawings and books. Cloud walked over to the desk and opened a drawer, taking out a few of my better drawings.
"Wow, these are really good!" She said, putting them back.
"Heh, thanks. I like to draw when I'm bored."
"...Did your fur just change color?"
"Oh, right, my fur changes color depending on what I'm feeling like," I explained, noticing that my fur had changed to a dark red, Confidence or Pride.
"huh, cool!" She replied, putting the drawings back in the drawer.
"Heh... anyway, that's pretty much all I have in my room, the kitchen's just down here." I said coming out my room and leading Shimmering Cloud down the stone caves.
"How are we able to see in these caves? I don't see any lights," She asked.
"You see the ivy on the walls?" I asked, She nodded her head. "It grows in caves and dark areas, and glows whenever something moves near it."
"Okay... Hey is that the kitchen?" she asked, pointing to a room on the right side of us.
"No... that room caved in a while ago." I replied
"Oh, so you've been here while?"
"Yeah," I said, walking through another doorway on the right, into a small tiled room. The floor was covered in a strange pattern of purple and white curls. The ceiling and walls were just a plain white. There was a single fridge, an oak table in the center of the room, a couple worktables for preparing food, a large sink and two drawers beside the fridge.
"Anyway, this is the kitchen, I don't really use this room much, the cupboards have a few recipe books inside it, plus some pots and pans, the fridge over there is full of fruit, there isn't very much else I could find that I think I'd be able to eat," I told her.
"Through here is the dining room," I said, as I walked through the other doorway and into a massive room. There was a long table that stretched out, with tons of seats at it's side. The ceiling and floor were a very vibrant red, yet the walls were... A little rugged and falling away at they corners. At the far end of the room there was a large dark oak door leading back into the hallway, There were a few large portraits hung up on the walls of the room, one in particular being a painting of a peaceful river flowing through a valley, surrounded by animals of every kind.
"Woah! This place is huge!" She exclaimed, looking around in amazement. "And the paintings on the walls are amazing!"
"Yeah, they are amazing, I can't remember who it was that painted them," I replied. "I don't usually come in here to eat, since I usually eat in my room while I'm reading a book or drawing" I said. "There isn't much else at this side of the cave system, since all the rooms that used to be here are caved in." I walked over to the other side of the room in silence as she looked around at the paintings on the walls.
"You wanna go outside the cave system?" I asked her.
"Sure, that sounds nice!" She said.
"Woah! I always thought the everfree forest was completely dark and gloomy, this is beautiful!"
We were standing in a small lush clearing in the forest. The trees had lovely bright green shaded leaves with red berries blooming all over them. There were colorful flowers littered all over the field. Some of the trees in this part of the forest even had a clear white and blue trunk making the clearing look somewhat magical. The sky was a clear blue with no clouds in sight, with the sun being at it's peak. It was very unlikely to rain today.
"Yeah, the everfree has so many beautiful places like this, despite it being in the middle of nowhere with hardly any ponies ever visiting."
We sat down in the field talking like that for a while, with her turning her head left and right looking at things and asking me questions about them. Thinking about how many questions she had asked I began to wonder whether normal ponies had ever seen anything like this. It was obvious she hadn't, so what about everypony else?
"Hey, do normal ponies see much like this?"
"Huh... Well... I haven't really seen much... I was never allowed to go anywhere."
"What... Why?"
"I- I never knew..."
We sat there in silence for a second or two, before I suddenly felt two hooves wrapping around my neck.
"T- Thank you so much for allowing me to stay, and not kicking me out. For showing me all this... Thank you!" She said, with her voice muffled by my fur. I could feel her tears falling onto me, matting my fur. I had no Idea how to respond.
After a few seconds she pulled away from the hug. "S- Sorry, I... I just I've never had anyone be this nice to me..."
I sat there, staring at her, she was that grateful? All I had done was allow her to stay here, and show her around. "I- It's okay," I replied. "I haven't done that much."
"But you have! You didn't just leave me there when I was passed out, You found my necklace and gave it back to me. You showed me around your home, and even showed me a beautiful clearing that you cared about enough to show me! I've only been here for about two hours but you helped me so much..." she said, weeping.
I decided that I had had enough of tears, and gently walked over to her and gave her a hug. Her fur felt so soft and light against mine, It was like she was a living pillow.
I broke away from the hug, noticing that the sun had begun to set. Had we been out here that long?
"We should go back inside now, the manticores will be waking up in a few minutes."
"O- Okay," She said, wiping a few tears away from her turqoise eyes.
"The entrance to the tunnel is back this way," I said, guiding her back through the forest and back to the caves, pointing out a few of the beautiful assets of the scenery.
On the way back to the caves, I had noticed her gem had been glowing blue the entire time. I made a mental note to ask her about that when we got back to my room. Little did I know that there was a shadow behind me, with the exact same question...