The True Shadow

by Blackdrag-rose

Reality Check

Luna bolted awake, her mind racing as she tried in vain to remember what she had just been dreaming about for the last few hours. Looking outside she found that the day was still before noon, so she climbed out of bed and went to the balcony that overlooked the whole of Canterlot.

The city was in perfect order, ponies were walking around, buying all sorts of goods and selling things they didn't really need, while some were content to sitting in the park. The air smelled fresh, giving her the feeling of sweet apple fritters that had just finished being made not too long ago. Ponies even entered the courthouse, where they would be meeting with her sister to discuss any possible changes to whatever they were pleading for or new grants or something like that.

To their north was the Crystal Empire some hours away, a thriving new kingdom that her niece Cadence had saved with the help of the Bearers of Harmony not so long ago. To the west laid the Badlands, the home of Queen Chrysalis and her nation of Changelings, who were likely trying to get love somewhere else at the moment. To the south was Ponyville, the domain of one newly recognized Princess Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the Bearers of Harmony. Each area was doing fine and that was the way Luna enjoyed having things these days.

She checked her nightstand for any letters she might have missed and was surprised to find that there weren't any letters on the desk at all. She could have sworn that she had been exchanging letters with somepony who had been seemingly like her, almost like an identical twin of some sort. There were also no reports of a school being built in some other dimension that was also similar to their own world. Luna was beginning to feel like she had been asleep for far too long already, because she was beginning to believe the dream was still happening.

So she opened her door and asked one of the Solar guards if they knew two stallions, one by the name of Reginald and the other by Atar. To her continued surprise neither of them knew a stallion by those names, which was really starting to bug her mind. So she returned to the library, intending to search every book until she found a mention of the one demon that she remembered from the dream. To make matters even easier she found a clerk and asked if there were any records of a demon by the name of Thrack and, to add to her continued surprise, there was no such demon in existence.

To increase her confusion she found the book that told of the defeat of Discord and flipped through it to find a mention of Reginald, but still found nothing. The demon Thrack, the gentlepony Reginald, and the fearsome, yet protective, Captain of the Guard Atar were nothing more than fragments of her dream. Luna sighed and returned to her room, laying on her bed and hoping that she could dream about the three ponies again.

~Canterlot Courthouse~

Princess Celestia was having the same thoughts of two stallions, one loyal guard by the name of Atar and the other being a steward called Reginald, and a demon by the name of Thrack. During her first break she had sent an inquiry to the library to search for the same ponies that Luna would be asking about in the next hour or two. She had also asked the pony to look for any permits that would allow somepony to build a school somewhere where most didn't know existed. It was a gamble, but Celestia wanted the thing cleared before the day was out.

During her lunch break she received news that the stallions, the demon, and the school in question did not exist in any of the records that they held. The pony was very excellent in his research, looking through dozens of tomes that could have contained the information that his princess had inquired about. Not only did the pony spend an hour and a half searching for the records he even went as far as to ask the clerk if they had any known records. The three ponies, Celestia discovered, were a figment of her own active imagination and she had let it get the better of her.

She sighed and let the days court sessions continue, allowing her ponies to say what they needed so she could make decisions that would better the society as a whole. Her mind would wander to the ponies she had thought about, wondering if they had ever existed at some point in the history of Equestria. If they did then they did a dang good job of making sure that they erased their pasts and their whole existence so nopony discovered they existed. She went about her court session and quickly forgot all about the three ponies who had plagued her mind for the whole morning.

~Ponyville~

Sweetie looked up at the sky absently, not really paying much attention to her friends latest scheme that would net them their cutie marks. She had the feeling that she had forgotten something big, something that would have changed the lives of everypony in all of Equestria. She tried to remember what that something could have been, but she got nothing in return, almost as if her mind was playing tricks on her.

"You okay Sweetie?" Scootaloo asked, raising an eyebrow as her friend remembered where she was, "You seemed to be lost in space for a moment there."

"Yeah, just thought that I had forgotten something," Sweetie explained, shaking her head as she faced her friend, "So what were you saying again?"

"Our next idea to get our cutie marks is this," Scootaloo said, flipping something over on the chalkboard, "We get our cutie marks in writing fanfiction for whoever will accept our stories. We could become famous authors that could attract the attention of some of the more famous ponies, like the Wonderbolts or even the Princesses themselves. We could come up with some of the most outrageous stories and see if any of those helped us get our special talents running at last."

Sweetie Belle chucked with Applebloom and took a look at the song she had been writing the night before, wondering if it was worth it to try writing a story. Maybe a made up story about her, her friends, the princesses, and some ponies that the world would never see in their entire lives. She pulled out some paper and a pencil while she went to work on the details, writing out a stallion whose heart was strong and kind, another stallion who was a fierce warrior and protector of his boss, and a demon that would change the known world.

The story, she eventually decided, was going to be called The Dark Crusader and it was going to take place in Ponyville of all places. Sweetie smiled, she was already liking the story and hoped others would as well.