Shadow of my Own

by LightCode

Second chapter: Where two and two won't add up

“Close the door, Twi, quick. No one can see us, not even by accident.”

The wooden door creaked as it firmly shut.

“Great, now let me help. Careful, Twi…”

Torrent gently lifted the pony with his front hooves off TwiBot’s back and put him on the cushions. On quiet wheels, Twi followed him and peered at the orange stallion as he was safely placed to rest.
Not letting their eyes off of him for a break of a second, Torrent and TwiBot simultaneously sat in front of the sofa and gazed at the miracle they’ve found.

And what a miracle it was! Torrent, a dreamer with a broad horizon and a curious nature, believed in all kinds of wonders, but even this seemed beyond any kind of fiction he’s ever read or heard about. Yet it was true, and no matter how often he whispered to TwiBot to pinch him, he’d still be seeing the very same picture: an orange Pegasus, a star fallen from the skies. Minutes passed as he kept staring at the phenomenon lying right before his hooves, able to neither look away nor handle. There was this wicked, hypnotising thing going on, which puzzled him most: now the Pegasus was orange; a second later he would turn yellowish, amber, then orange again. This glowing cycle mildly reflected on his black mane and tail, which were occasionally fluttering in the sudden gusts of an evening breeze blowing in from the open window. The latter showed a yellow stripe across its middle, which seemed to be unaffected by the mysterious glow. The Pegasus’ wings were partly unfolded and revealed a white stripe along their margin, which oddly enough seemed most unnatural to Torrent.

“Who can this be, Twi?”

TwiBot replied with a look signifying that her guess was as good as his.

“A Pegasus, true, but he fell from such an altitude and didn’t break a bone. And this explosion…” –Torrent studied the pony as he spoke- “…couldn’t have been caused by him. Otherwise, how is he alive? And this weird glowing of his coat and the white tips of his wings and… hold on, what’s this?”

Carefully shoving the hoof aside, Torrent revealed the pony’s cutie mark. He wasn’t much surprised to add another mystery to the bag: a lightning with two tips, a white and a black one, as simple and senseless as that. What could the talent even be? Electrocuting ponies till their colours dropped out?

Torrent innerly raised an eyebrow at the ridicule in his own thoughts. He was tired, and his mind wasn’t in its best shape to think adequately, not after what it had experienced that night. He scanned the mildly glowing enigma one last time and sighed. Just what did he get himself into?

“Twi, let’s leave him now and see what the morning brings. You must be tired, too, aren’t you?”

The robot nodded, interpreting ‘tired’ as ‘in serious need of power regeneration’, which indeed was the case.

“So it’s set then.”

Torrent stood back up on his hooves and yawned. He then halted, let out a silent “Oh, right”, grabbed an empty can and briefly went out to fill it with some water from the nearby river. Not five minutes later he was trotting back to place it on the drawer beside the sofa.

“That’ll do, just in case”, he murmured as he dragged out a spare mattress, thinking it’d be safer to spend the night next to the unconscious Pegasus. Who knows what could happen? Torrent softened the mattress with his hoof a few times and finally lay down. Nopony would ever feel the same wave of relaxation that flowed through his body right now; neither would they know of all the things storming through his sleepy mind, now as vivid as a lucid dream. Pictures of the forest, the field, the stars, the pony who fell from the sky. The walk back. Oh boy, the walk back; creepy as ever. That’d be a story to tell.

As he dozed off to the sound of his streaming thoughts, he felt TwiBot lying down next to him, as silently as she could. After a few creeks and squeaks he finally heard a

***Goodnight, Daddy***

as she proceeded to hibernate. He smiled, letting the hurricane in his head calm down by the feeling of being home again, in his own little harmony.

And just like that, he slipped into the deep realms of the nocturnal princess; where light and dark served the sole peaceful purpose of providing all ponies with colourful dreams.

Not a mere half an hour later Torrent was woken up by a ferocious scream of shrilling pain.

~~~

“You… I never thought you’d betray me like that…”
“I didn’t, I swear! Please listen-“
“I am NOT willing to listen! You’ve been hiding this from me all this time?!”
“Please, please give me a chance to explain..!”
“I’m sorry, but I have no choice. I’ll do what I have to.”

“Oh no… Please DON’T-“

He tore his eyes wide open and shot up, leaning his back on his hooves as he breathed heavily, his face wet and his entire body shaking like a leaf on an autumn tree. Bewildered, he looked around and tried to get a grasp on reality. First things first: he was on a sofa. Okay. Next to him was a little, neat drawer with a can of… water? How caring, he thought and reached a hoof for a drink. He was thirsty beyond imagination, and the little refreshment was consumed in one gulp. That did well, definitely.

With a steadier breath, the Pegasus let his eyes wander across the strange room he was in: a moderately sized living room with all kinds of paintings and little drawings on the walls, few pieces of furniture here and there, a staircase leading upstairs, to the bedroom maybe. The pony failed to create a decent description for himself, as panicking as his mind was; but if he was to judge his first impression, then it was sure a nice and comfortable one. But where was he? And moreover: how did he even land here? He tried to recall the most recent events, yet the concussion of last night wouldn’t really let him. What did happen anyway?

Confused and driven by curiosity, he took a deep breath, waved his front hooves for some side momentum and jumped up from the sofa on his hind ones – and immediately tripped on the carpet below. Alright, so his body wasn’t ready for stunts yet, lesson learned. Rolling to his sides from the unfortunate body part he landed on, which could just be referred to as his face, he took a new, slower approach and got up on his four. Carefully stretching one wing after another, he dropped an accidental look at a nearby mirror and eyed himself up. Tired amber eyes, ruffled mane and messed up wings which could definitely need some preening – that’s a sight he was used to lately and was most glad to see. He raised an eyebrow, smiled and took an important poise. My, oh my! What a stallion! He then started pulling different faces and generally enjoyed himself to the point when he eventually lost it and broke out into a hearty laugh. Yup, as far as he knew, he was still his old self, and this gave him comfort and confidence.

The Pegasus giggled for another few seconds and stretched, finally pulling himself together and taking another deep breath. The process of self-reconnaissance went well and he indeed felt better. Now it was time to find out more about this place and ultimately see who the actual owner was. With a braver heart, the pony looked up and set his first hoof towards the exit - just to have his heart crash down into his coronets the very same instant.

And that’s exactly when Torrent got pretty much busted.

Petrified, Torrent stared at the shocked Pegasus, who stared right back at him. It was a long silence with a slight tinge of awkward in it, since both well knew who was secretly watching the other one in the past few moments. Seconds stretched themselves to minutes, gladly supporting the tension in the room, and eventually Torrent had no choice but to take leadership in the situation and claim the initiative to break the silence. Preparing himself for an explanatory speech, he opened his mouth – and dropped the bucket of water, splashing all over the place.

That was enough of a trigger to make both ponies break out in hysterical laughter that well lasted a few minutes, since it was the least expected cherry on top of such a tense situation – but sure the sweetest one. Wiping the tears off his eyes, Torrent finally pulled himself together and approached the Pegasus who was still having slight trouble with that. The pony was sure easy to amuse, Torrent thought and stretched out a hoof.

“Name’s Torrent. Sorry for the rather unusual way to meet, hehe.”

The Pegasus snickered and replied to the hoofshake.

“Hehe, and I’m sorry for the unusual bucket loss. Nice to meet you, too, Torrent! My name would be Blaze.”

And that’s how the acquaintanceship was made.

~~~

“Sho you really remember noshing of what happened yeshterday?”

Torrent suggested taking a walk to the river for another bit of water. He sure was curious to ask some questions, but the bucket in his mouth wasn’t quite helping.

“Yeah, I don’t. I rather wanted to ask you how and where you found me… you know.”

Blaze gave Torrent a helpless look, then turned away and kept walking, consumed by his thoughts. They were near the river now, so Torrent filled the bucket and offered to sit down and have a chat. He began telling about his adventures of last night, and Blaze listened with peaked interest.

“So we had no choice but to pick you up and drag you all the way back here. I really thought we wouldn’t make it, since the forest…” Torrent exhaled briefly. “The forest was out of its mind. We were followed by weird noises and flashes of light here and there, shadows crossing right in front of our hooves. It was creepy, if I may say so. But it all stopped once we went past the forest line. It got to be the most wicked thing I’ve been through… well, before we brought you inside, of course.”

Blaze’s ear twitched as he tried to graphically reproduce Torrent’s tale in his head.

“What happened then? And who is the companion you keep mentioning?” he eventually asked.

Torrent took a sip from the bucket. He’d rather show him TwiBot than shock him even more with the fact that she’s a pony robot.

“I’ll introduce you to her as soon as we get back. Now, back to the story. So we put you on the sofa and… watched you for a while.”

Blaze raised an eyebrow as Torrent hastily proceeded.

“Well, you were glowing! I mean, literally glowing. Your whole body was shining a bit, you know. By the current looks on your face you have no idea either, right?”

The Pegasus nodded. Falling down from the sky, exploding and now glowing in the night – quite a bunch of undiscovered attributes to learn about one’s self in one single chat, wasn’t it?

“But that’s not all of it. There comes the weirdest part: as we went to sleep, you suddenly started to yell and twitch all over your body, and -”

Torrent paused, intimidated by the frozen stare in his interlocutor’s eyes.

“Go on.”

“Yeah, well. Your whole body was covered in black spots all over it, along with the glowing ones. They sort of flowed into one another and… It was quite spectacular, but looked pretty painful as well. Speaking of which, you do feel fine now, don’t you?”

Blaze raised a hoof and stared at it in silence. What in tarnation was happening to him? And how did it come to that? He sure wasn’t taking a night flight and fell on his head, did he?

“Hey, Blaze.” The pony looked up at Torrent’s call. “Listen, mate, don’t you worry. We’ll figure something out, you just get back in shape and then we’ll both see what we can do about you. You can stay at my place so far.”

The orange pony smiled. Torrent’s concern and kindness gave him hope to shed some light on the mystery surrounding him, and that’s all he needed right now.

“Thank you, I appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it, mate! Now, let’s get back to the house, shall we?”

“Sure, but this time I’m carrying the bucket. Who knows what else will startle you today, Torrent!”

Giggling, Blaze grabbed the bucket in his mouth and both ponies gladly trotted back.

~~~

The stroll wasn’t a long one, but it sure distracted him from the enormous load he just received. Blaze closed the eyes and let the morning sun shine warmth on his eyelids. He was inhaling generously, treating himself with the fresh smell of the nearby meadows. The place was simply magical, and innerly he was more than glad having landed here and not somewhere in a snowy desert.

Torrent’s voice was another melody among the pleasant sounds of the morning, as he was singing to him about this companion of his.

“She’s extremely nice! You may find her a bit unusual at the beginning –all ponies do have their crazy side, can’t argue with that- but once you get to know her, you’ll realise that she’s an absolute wonder! Helpful, kind and a total cutie, hehe. Here’s the house, by the way. Let me call her to take the bucket from you.”

Blaze gave an approving “Mhhm” and halted. Torrent must really appreciate that pony, he thought and snickered on the inside.

“Twi, come meet our guest!”

*clonk*

The sound of falling metal, accompanied by a silent splash, made Torrent’s excitement go slightly dimmer. He looked at Blaze and scowled.

The Pegasus was stunned, mouth wide open, as he slowly turned towards Torrent and asked him in a terrified, shaky voice.

“H-how did you just… c-call her?”

There was no room for question and answer, since right in the instance, TwiBot literally flew out of the house, joyful pink lights in her eyes, and stormed towards Blaze.

Torrent cackled.

“Ah, she’s happy to see you. Don’t worry, she’s not dangerou- Mate?!”

By the side of the bucket, Blaze was lying without consciousness.