Daring Do and the Order of the Eagle

by Arkansandragon

Chapter ?: Midnight Visit

A gentle knock on the front door roused Twilight from sleep. At first, she thought she’d only imagined it, but then it came again, louder this time. Still half asleep, the unicorn looked at her clock. It was almost midnight. Careful not to wake Spike, she trudged past his basket bed and down the stairs to the front door, trying to straighten her bedhead of dark blue mane as she did so. Opening the door, she jumped back, startled into wakefulness at seeing a black-cloaked figure looming before her.

“Who- who are you?” she asked, trying to see under the stranger’s hood.

“What? Don’t you recognize me, Twily?” asked the figure. He stepped further into the room and removed his hood. The older unicorn’s voice was more than enough to give himself away, but the white coat and blue mane made him unmistakable.

“Shining Armor!” cried Twilight, rushing forward to hug him. “What are you doing here, Big Brother? And why are you wearing this cloak? It’s not supposed to rain tonight.”

"It's good to see you again too, little sis," said Shining Armor happily, returning the hug. "But we have a lot to talk about -- and not here..."

His voice became subdued as he spoke those last words, causing Twilight to stare at him in confusion. He released her from the hug, silently pulled out a smaller cloak from a pocket inside his, and draped it over her. She opened her mouth to question him further, but he merely shook his head, replaced his hood, and started walking, signaling for her to follow. She kept silent as they left the library, watching her big brother closely. After a few minutes, she realized that he was leading her outside of Ponyville altogether, seemingly towards Sweet Apple Acres.

As they walked, she noticed that he seemed more alert than usual, despite trying to hide it from her. His eyes were constantly scanning the area around them, especially the sky, and he looked ready to charge at the slightest sign of trouble. It was making Twilight nervous, but she wasn't sure how to tell him. Finally, to get her mind off her growing apprehension, she asked the question that had been bugging her since his arrival moments before.

"Not that I'm unhappy to see you, BBBFF (Big Brother Best Friend Forever), but what are you doing here in Ponyville? Shouldn't you be helping Cadance lead the Crystal Empire?"

"Cadance can look after things just fine for awhile," Shining Armor said, smiling and breaking the tension as they reached the new railroad tracks into the farm’s western orchards. "She is Celestia's niece after all."

And she's my sister-in-law! thought Twilight with a happy spring in her step. Suddenly another thought struck her, and she quickly sat down, stunned. "Wait... If Cadance is Celestia's niece, you're my big brother and you married Cadance making her my sister-in-law, then that means... that means..."

Shining chuckled, playfully nudging her in the ribs, "That's right, Twily, Princesses Celestia and Luna are officially you aunts-in-law!"

"Wow..." was her only reply as she got back on her feet.

This time he actually laughed out loud. "Did you only just now figure that out?" he teased, taking the lead again.

"Heh, yeah..." Twilight said sheepishly, blushing, "I guess it just never crossed my mind before." Then she frowned in annoyance. "Ugh, does this mean we get that snobby Prince Blueblood as a brother-in-law too?"

The white unicorn grimaced, and nodded. "Yeah... Try not to think about it too much..."

As they continued along the tracks, Twilight noticed that they weren’t set in a line straight through the fields, as she’d expected, but curved in places, so that at times whole sections of track were hidden from view behind a thick curtain of apple trees. It reminded her more of a rollercoaster the a railroad, but she shrugged it off as being part of the “scenic view” route for city ponies.

The deeper they went into the orchards, the more Twilight felt a strange mix of wonder and nerves. Wonder, because the fruit bats and other night creatures were awake now, going about their normal lives in the treetops. Nervous, because she and Shining Armor were walking on train tracks, in the dark, which she knew wasn’t safe even in broad daylight. “Sh- shouldn’t we get off the tracks?” she asked fearfully, looking behind and ahead of them. “What if a late night train comes?”

“It won’t,” he said absently, his eyes scanning the treetops now for anything out of place. “No trains ever come down here, because these tracks aren’t meant for them.”

“What are you talking about?” Now she was even more confused. “why build a railway if nopony’s even going to use it?”

“This is why,” he said, stepping out of the treeline. “We’re here.”

They had reached a clearing near the farthest edge of the western fields. Though still surrounded by apple trees, Twilight could see that through them, off to their left, was the clearing that separated the orchards from the Everfree Forest, and then beyond the clearing she could see the edge of the forest itself.

Then she saw the reason for the railway, and did a double-take in surprise. Parked in the middle of the clearing was the shortest train the mare had ever seen. It was nothing more than an engine, its fuel car, and a single sleeper car. But this wasn’t the only strange thing. Its very appearance was unusual. While most trains were in pastel colors and pleasantly reminiscent of cakes and other sweets, this one was streamlined to favor speed over decor, and was painted the colors of a moonless night.

Such a thing would be all but impossible to see in pitch darkness, even if it were moving, Twilight reasoned. The only reason she could see it at all now, she supposed, was because tonight was a full moon, and because there was the faint pink bubble of her brother’s shield spell surrounding it. She looked to him for an explanation, but Shining was silent as he brought her to the sleeper car, leading her under the spell’s dome. He unlocked the door with his magic, then stood back to let her inside first.

Twilight couldn't help but stare as they entered the dimly-lit train car. It looked like something out of a detective story, or else a very messy journalist's office. There were papers scattered and stacked haphazardly on nearly every available surface, even covering the walls, and the window blinds were down, casting bars of shadow over everything.

Looking around, she noticed that the main focus of the room was a large wall map of Equestria with differently-colored pins stuck into it. Closer inspection revealed most of the papers to be old documents, scrolls, and newspaper clippings, but there were also a large number of sketches, paintings, blurry photographs in both color and black-and-white, and several small-scale models. Strangest of all, every piece seemed to depict a large white eagle.

"What is all this?" asked Twilight, eyeing one of the finer-detailed models.

"The reason I'm in Ponyville," Shining said quietly, removing his cloak and hanging it on the wall rack, which also had papers stuck to it. "These creatures have been spotted all over Equestria throughout the ages. Normally only one or two are ever seen at a time, and even those sightings are rare, but once in a blue moon they flock together. Bad things always happen when they do, and now they seem to be flocking again."

The purple mare turned to stare at him, her mind already buzzing with questions. "What do you mean 'bad things'?" she asked rapidly, "What do you know about these things? What are they? Why haven't I ever heard or read about them before? What -- ?"

He gently clamped a hoof over her mouth, silencing her for a moment. "I'll tell you everything I know, but you have to slow down a little with the questions, OK?" he said, trying not to laugh. She blushed, nodding slowly, and he let her go again before answering, "Nopony really knows what they are, but recorded sightings date as far back as the Pre-Classical Era. Rumor has it that Starswirl the Bearded himself made a study of them, but that his work was destroyed during the Three Tribes War. Most ponies who encounter them keep quiet because others would think they're crazy or drunk. That's why you've never heard of them. These things don't even have a scientific name. Those few who do hear the stories just pass them off as ghosts, phantoms, or hallucinations. Their most common name, though, are 'Night Eagles'."

"But that doesn't make any sense!" blurted Twilight, pausing from where she'd been taking notes with a spare piece of parchment and quill that had been lying on the cluttered desk. "Eagles are diurnal; they're daytime hunters! Are you sure it wasn't owls these ponies were seeing?"

"You'd think that would make more sense, given how silent these things are supposed to be, but no. All the reports say they're way too big to be owls. Besides," he pointed out, "isn't your pet owl active during the day sometimes?"

She considered that for a moment. "Good point," she said, starting to write again. "This is amazing! We could be dealing with an entirely new species here! What else can you tell me?"

"Well, like I said, there's not much to go on. Nopony knows where they come from. They appear suddenly and vanish just as quickly. As far as I can tell there are at least four color variations. Gray eagles, or shades of grey ranging to white with a grey head are the most common sighting. Others are pure white, and the rarest are white with thick red stripes."

"Hmm... Now that's interesting..." mused Twilight as she wrote, talking more to herself then her brother, "the change in color could be a difference between juveniles and adults, like with some other birds... starting grey, then molting to white and getting the red markings as they mature... Maybe the flocking is a migration pattern? Like with dragons! I'd love to see that!"

"No!" snapped Shining Armor suddenly, stomping his hoof and breaking her train of thought.

"Huh? What do you mean 'no'?" she asked, startled.

"I don't want you anywhere near those things." he said sternly.

"But why?" she asked, confused, "it's not like eagles eat ponies -- " The look on his face stopped her mid-sentence. She gulped, eyes widening in fear, "Wait... are you saying these -- these things actually do eat ponies?!"

"Worse..." he answered grimly, looking away from her. Much as he wanted to spare her this, she needed to know...

"These things... actually scare you, don't they?..." she asked, eyes widening in shocked realization as she set down her writing materials and moved closer to him. When he didn't answer, she gently lifted his chin with her hoof, and saw the genuine fear and worry in his eyes. Her big brother, captain of the Royal Guard and now Prince of the Crystal Empire, was truly afraid, and that thought alone was enough to terrify her beyond everything she had ever faced before.

"Shining, I -- I don't understand," she began again hesitantly. "There are lots of other creatures that can eat ponies if they're not careful. What's so different about Night Eagles?"

"Because they don't eat the ponies they kill," the white stallion said, his voice deadly serious as he looked down at her. "Because they seem to kill without reason. They strike like lightning, without warning, and vanish like shadows. The kills are quick and clean, but their prey is chosen at random. Survivors of the attacks are rare, and those that do survive are traumatized for life. I don't want that to happen to you!"

By now he was breathing hard with rising emotion, the need to protect his little sister, yet trying to calm himself at the same time. Slowly bringing himself back under control, he gestured to the pins stuck in the wall map, which Twilight now noticed came in three colors: white, red, and black. There were white pins scattered all over the map, but most seemed to clump in big cities and around high landmarks. There were even some in the seldom-traveled and dangerous Everfree Forest, not that she was surprised by this given everything they'd just discussed. The red pins were far fewer, and placed in populated areas and along travel routes. The black pins were in the same areas as the red, but there were more of them, though fewer than the white.

"I've been trying to find a pattern to their behaviors but I've got nothing so far," he continued. "The white pins are sightings only. The red pins are survived attacks, and the black pins..." he let the sentence hang.

The younger unicorn nodded slowly in understanding, then asked. "Why are you so worried about them flocking? And why tell me all this?"

"I'm telling you because I know you can keep a secret," he say, giving her a tiny smile, which quickly faded. "I haven't told anypony else about this because I don't want to cause a panic." He held up a hoof to forestall her question, and finished, "And I'm worried, because death always follows where these eagles flock, and now they seem to be focusing on Ponyville."

Author's Note:

OK, the bad news is that I have writer's block for this story. :( I'm also working on other projects at the moment, so it might take longer than I thought to get back to it.

The good news is that I found this chapter in my documents, which I'd written for later on in the story. :) I'm still not sure when exactly this will take place, but I thought you all might like to see it anyway rather than have it just sit on my computer gathering dust.

Also, if you like this story, please feel free to check out my new one: Return to Gravity Falls: The Equestia Chronicles

Comments

[Wolf Blood]

Seems things are about to get good.

[chrisharte97]

Great chapter.

[Arkansandragon]

6422006

Thanks for the hugs. Also, new a chapter is up!

[Arkansandragon]

8135854

Sadly my computer is still broken. I can write from my phone but it takes longer. And I'm also currently busy with other things right now.