Four Stars (Draft One)

by Arctic Soul

2: Seven Years Later

Inari

"Yay!" I said, while continued to bounce. For the last few minutes I had been bouncing in joy. For today was, technically, my 100th birthday, and I had gotten a second tail. Along with this tail, I had gained the ability to change form. I still didn't have great control over my basic magic, so I was very hesitant in using this ability. But that wouldn't keep my happiness down. For some reason even though I was over a millennium old, I still acted like I was 7.

On the other side of the room, two stallion farmers, who I had grown to be friends with over the past seven years, were having a conversation.

"I know that she always acts like a little kid, but really? She's been at it for minutes." One of them said. He was a large, dark green, earth pony, with a brown mane.

"Well, if you know her, you know that she'll stop soon." The other stallion said. This one was a red maned, brown, Pegasus. "Her little happy moments always last about five minutes." Neither of them noticed Silver hoof walking towards them.

"Carrot Joy, Plowed Fields, come with me." He said, then whispered quietly so only they could hear. "Code: apple, terra, 3." Immediately both stallions stood up and followed him out one of the back doors. When they got outside the they stood side by side with Silver in front of them. Then Silver Hoof asked. "Now, Hive Run, Carapace, what are your reports?"

Carrot Joy/ Hive Run stepped forward "There has been no change in the Northern provinces of Canterlot." He said in a emotionless voice, then stepped back. Plowed Fields/ Carapace then stepped up and said, using the same tone as HiveRun.

"Nothing has changed in the Southern provinces of Canterlot." He then also returned to his place in line.

"Good. I don't have anything else to do for Celestia yet." Silver Hoof said. "Now, go find Pewpa. I need to know about the Eastern provinces." Both stallions turned around, and before entering the party again, loosened their muscles to act like a normal pony again. What no one noticed however, was me, hidden in the shadows of the corner of the room. What are they doing? I thought. I had my false me bouncing in the other room, so nopony would know that I was spying on them.

"Inari I know your standing there." Silver said, turning to face me. "That's why I told them to give false reports." Well that failed I thought.

"Why won't you ever let me know what your doing? You know that I know your doing something, but you never tell me what." I said, while extracting myself from the shadows. "I know that you, Hive Run, Carapace, and pewpa are changelings, but still you won't tell me anything." Then I remembered something, from when I was with Luna.

*****

I stalked out of the small room I was in. Sure Luna had said to stay there until her meeting was finished, but that room was boring. Which led to me using my pearl to escape the room. I then used it to focus my magic to hide me in the shadows. This was one of the many spells that Luna had taught me during the past two years. She called it Shadow Walking. She even said that with enough practice I would be able to not only meld into shadows but into any substance.

Creeping through the shadows I walked past the meeting room and down the hall. I often did this so I knew all the places to avoid. Such as if I turned left here there was a spell in place to cancel all magic spells, but if I turned right I would be able to just walk past the spell because it was only a one way version of the spell. I turned right, and walked right into Luna.

Looking down at me she asked "Inari why are you out of your room?"

"Because it is boring." I replied taking a step back.

"I know it's boring, but it's supposed to be boring. That room is for meditating and practicing magic. It isn't supposed to have anything fragile or distracting in it." Luna said calmly. "You are supposed to be practicing your magic for the next hour. What were you doing instead?"

"Practicing magic." I said happily. "I was seeing how many guards I could sneak past using the Shadow Walking spell without being noticed."

"And, may I ask, how many did you get past."

"None." I said looking down, then I looked right at her slightly angry. "But that's only because you stopped me before I could reach any of the guards."

"And you know that the guards are trained to see through that spell, you wouldn't get past a single one of them." She replied, starting to walk past me back towards the meeting room.

"Hey Luna, why weren't you in the meeting room?" I said walking after her.

"Because I put a spell on the door of that room to know when you went through the doorway." She said looking back at me for a moment "Go back in there and continue practicing." She then walked back into the meeting chamber.

Slowly I walked back towards the practice room to follow what she said. On the way I saw Luna and Celestia talking to some small silvery blue stallion talking to them. Interested I cast a hearing spell.

"So what is your report for this month Silver Wing?" Celestia said, not looking bored like she usually is this late into her meetings. Instead she looked genuinely interested in what he was going to say.

"The disguised changelings are still working well on their farms." A voice that I guessed was Silver Wing said. "All of the Equestrian ones report nothing unusual about their areas. But some of the ones near the Crystal Empire have noticed someone there that they think looks suspicious."

"What do you mean by 'suspicious'" Luna asked.

"I don't know. That's all that they have sent me. They didn't even say who they thought it was." He replied. "Anyway that's all that I have to report. What did you learn abou."

I walked past the reach of the hearing spell and then cut the flow of magic. I started walking faster towards the room just in case Luna looked out and saw me listening.

*****

"I also know that about 950 years ago you lost your drone Night Stalker in the Crystal Empire." I said

Silver noticeably flinched when I said that. "How do you know about that? You only met me 7 years ago, and I haven't spoken of him in the last millennium." He said.

"Back when I was with Luna, I overheard some of your reports to Celestia. I heard you say that some of your drones from the around the Empire hadn't reported back in a few months. Then later I heard another report where you said that Night Stalker died." I said. "Now, will you at least tell me why you won't tell me what your doing?"

"Fine." He replied. "I wasn't going to tell you because, first it has nothing to do with you, and second, I wanted to see how long I could keep you from figuring it out. All that I am doing is helping Celestia. Since it is common knowledge that changelings are 'Evil', SolarWind, the ruler of Equestia at the time, had us prove we were loyal to Equestria by hiding and reporting anything wrong in the land. After we were aloud to live freely here, we decided that it wasn't too bad of a job to secretly help Equestria, so we did. As a disguise we were told to act like local farmers wherever we lived. Over the past 17,000 years me and my drones have protected Equestria, either by alerting the current ruler, or by handling the situation ourselves. To avoid suspicion, each drone has 73 Pony names. Every 73 we have them pretend to die, and then they pretend to be their past forms son, whose name was whatever the next name in the cycle was. All of my names have had the name Silver somewhere in them. Silver Hoof. Silver Wing, Quick Sliver, and Silvair, are some examples." He said.