Wednsday, February 20th (Twilight's third day)

I woke up on a stunningly soft bed, with not just my back, but my whole side covered in the warmth that I now recognized as another body against mine. I opened my eyes expecting to see the library, but instead I saw only the void of space. I turned my head downward and saw the moon; I turned further and saw Luna's bed under me. If I was on the moon in Luna's bed... then the warmth behind me was...

I turned in the bed to see Luna cuddled up against my back. Her eyes were closed, but I got the feeling she was awake. Mostly because she told me she never really had to sleep.

"Luna. What's going on?" I asked drowsily. Luna's eyes didn't open. "Luna? Lunaaaaa..." I drifted off slowly and nearly fell back asleep. Luna's eyes snapped open and she darted her head forward so that she was right in my face.

"Boo!" Luna shouted with a giggle in her voice. I rolled over quickly and fell out of her bed.

"Waaagh!" I hit the ground roughly, but it didn't hurt much. Except for the splitting pain that flashed through my stomach and lower back. I rolled onto my back and rocked forward into a sitting position. "Ow..."

"Hee hee! Good morning sleep-stricken hero!" Luna actually giggled. I rubbed my stomach, but didn't openly complain.

"Morning? Why am I here?"

"You fell asleep after I left to aid my sister. I didn't want to just send you back and let you lie wherever you ended up, so I placed you in my bed."

"Ok... I guess that makes sense..." I mumbled as I tried to get to my feet. I was still hurt and sleepy, so I was only barely able to stand. In only a moment, Luna was by my side, supporting me so that I didn't fall over.

"Be careful Sharky. You aren't healed in the slightest." Luna chided me gently. "You need to be careful for a change."

"Got it. So, I understand why you put me in your bed last night, but why were you with me?" I leaned into Luna a bit and draped an arm over her back.

"I wanted to keep an eye on you. Don't worry, I left every once in awhile and didn't use magic to keep from hurting you."

I lifted my free hand to my head and noticed that no horn had forced itself out of my head. Luna had in fact been careful. "Alright, but you could've kept an eye on me from next to the bed just as easily. Why were you in the bed with me?"

Luna giggled again. "Why would I not be?"

"Because..." I actually couldn't think of a solid reason she wouldn't have been there, so I decided to just drop it. "Right. Well, you can go ahead and send me home now. I'm awake and ready to go."

"I think not! You can hardly stand on your own! Do you expect me to just let you leave like this?"

"Yes."

"... No, I will not." Luna said sternly. I took my arm off of her back and stood as steadily as I could on my own.

"Look, I'm fine! Besides, I need to get back! I have promises to keep and a son to look after!"

Luna sighed heavily. "Fine, but I insist you stay here for breakfast. Then, I shall send you home. Deal?"

"Alright, deal." I agreed. Luna smiled at me and trotted off to her door.

"Splendid. I'll go have something made for the two of us. You stay here, we wouldn't want somepony finding out you stayed in my quarters for the whole night, now would we? They might get the wrong message."

"Right, I see your point."

"Not that I have anything wrong with that idea... We just don't want everypony to know if we did something like that." Luna sent me a coy smile and vanished through the doorway. I was left next to her bed with a confused frown.

"Now what the heck was that supposed to mean?" I questioned the moon, which of course, didn't respond.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

An hour or two later, I had taken another little nap and Luna and I were now done with some meal I couldn't even pronounce. It was delicious though, and oat-based I believe.

"Alright Luna, you can send me home now." I declared right as I swallowed my last bite of food.

"Sharky, what are those things?" she motioned towards my broken gauntlets.

"Oh, these were shark-based bladed gauntlets my friend Rarity made for me, but I broke them on a skeletal dragon... or was it the cliff before the dragons?"

"Here, leave them with me. I'll have something better made off of this design." she ordered. I hesitated for a moment.

"No thanks Luna. The point isn't in the effectiveness or quality of the gauntlets, but in the fact that they were a gift from a good friend of mine."

Luna gave me an amused smile. "Very well, then leave them here and I'll have them repaired. I'll just have or armor smiths see if they can make anything else for you with a similar design. Perhaps new hindleg armor. Your current set is rather... beaten. Also, do you think we should change your bandages?" she pointed to my now blood soaked bandage.

For a moment, I almost corrected her about my legs being legs, not hindlegs, but I decided it didn't matter. Instead I simply pulled off my gauntlets and placed them in front of her.

"No, I'll be fine, thanks Luna. Send me back now, please."

"Very well, but we must do this again soon, don't you agree?" Luna gave me a small smile.

"Actually yes, I do. this was pretty nice. Calm, relaxing. I didn't feel like I had a million things to do for once. However, I need to get back now or my friends might start losing their minds."

"Fair enough. Goodbye, Sharky. Get well soon!"

I vanished in a flash of black light.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I reappeared in the first floor of the library, right before dawn judging by the light outside. I hadn't been able to tell what time it was when I had been on the moon, but apparently I had woken up really early. Twilight wasn't anywhere to be seen, nor were Spike or Unity for that matter. I went upstairs to check on them. Sure enough, they were still asleep in their beds. Except for Twilight, who was asleep in my bed. Instead of waking them all up, I just crawled into bed next to Twilight. I gently hugged her smaller body to mine and closed my eyes.

"Sharky?" Twilight muttered sleepily.

"Oops..." I guessed I wasn't gentle enough.

"Where were you? You never got into bed last night..." she mumbled, sounding more awake by the second.

"I was busy. No need to worry, I'm here now."

"Ok... I'm still sleepy... would you mind staying here until I fall back asleep?"

"Of course not." I replied happily. Twilight wiggled herself further into my arms and settled against my stomach comfortably. Then she wiggled back out and turned to look at me.

"Why is your stomach wet?" she asked simply.

"Twilight, be calm, it's not--"

"Oh my Celestia..." her eyes widened as she looked at my blood-soaked bandage. "W-what happened?"

"You know, you think you'd be used to me coming home with random injuries..."

"What happened?" Twilight's tone was demanding.

"Nothing, it was just a little hunt. I'll be fine. Honest."

"You need to go get a healing potion from Shadow."

"I would, but I don't like the idea of only visiting him for a potion... Makes me feel like I'm using him."

Twilight sighed heavily. She looked nearly fully awake now. "Look, I'm ok with you hanging out with Shadow for a bit. Just make sure you get that potion. That way you can hang out with him as friends, and not bleed out to avoid feeling like you're just using him."

"Really? Even though I'm supposed to spend this week with you?"

"Of course! I know you want to be able to spend more time with your friends, and I'd much prefer you did that than bleed all over me while trying to spend time with me."

I laughed as quietly as I could. Unity and Spike were still asleep, after all.

"Alright, thanks Twi. I'm glad you didn't panic or yell at me this time."

"Don't worry, I'm doing that on the inside. I just didn't want to wake up the little ones. Now, off you go. We don't need you staining the bed now, do we?"

"Oops... I hadn't even thought of that..." I slipped out of bed with an embarrassed blush and stood awkwardly.

"Also... and I mean this in the best way... It wouldn't hurt for you to take a shower and brush your teeth... I know you're really busy, but you're starting to smell."

My small embarrassed blush was now a deep red blush that felt like it covered my neck.

"O-ok." I muttered nearly inaudibly. Twilight gave me a soft smile.

"Thanks. Love you." Twilight murmured as she rolled over and resumed trying to sleep. I left the room quickly and closed the door behind me. When I got back downstairs, I noticed Fang asleep in the old corner I used to sleep in. My Robin was perched peacefully on his back, sleeping soundly right along with Fang. I sighed a little bit and sat down next to them. Fang lifted his head to look at me the moment I did.

"Awwww, did I wake you up too?" I asked nervously. Fang shook his head and gave me his old wolfish grin. He motioned his head back to Robin a few times. "Staying still so he can sleep then? How nice of you. Anyway, I'm going to visit Shadow later today. You wanna come with me and visit Winona?" Fang nodded slowly, likely trying to not move to much and disturb Robin. "Cool, let's just wait for now then."

We sat and I just scratched Fang for a while as we waited for the sun to rise. I would have showered, but I didn't want to take off my bandage until I was sure I wouldn't bleed too much. As soon as I determined it was bright enough outside, I decided it was time to get going. I leaned over Fang and got my face right next to Robin. Time for a little revenge.

"CHEEP!" I shouted into his ear. Robin leapt about four feet off of Fang and let out a series of panicked chirps. Eventually, he settled down and settled back down on Fang. Fang had stood up when Robin moved. "Alright, that felt great. Payback rocks. Hey! That's my thing! Anyway, let's get out of here and hope we didn't just wake anypony up."

I left the house quickly with Fang, and a reluctant Robin, in tow. We walked rather quickly, despite my injuries, and made it to Sweet Apple Acres in only a few minutes. The first pony I saw was Applejack, but something was wrong with her. She wasn't striding through the orchards confidently as I would have imagined, rather she appeared to be trying to sneak from tree to tree.

"Huh... what could she be hiding?" I wondered to myself. Applejack certainly didn't strike me as the kind to keep secrets or sneak around to do anything. Something was up. She hadn't noticed me yet, but I knew there was no way in hell I could follow her and not be seen. Instead, I got to the nearest cover I could find, which happened to be her barn. "Fang!" I hissed lowly. Fang bumped against my leg to confirm his presence. He seemed to gather that I didn't want to be detected. "Follow Applejack. I can't do it myself, and I get this odd feeling that something's wrong. See what's up and try to bring me something that would tell me what's going on, ok?"

Fang nodded obediently and vanished from my side like a shadow.

"Hmmm, the Element of Honesty is hiding something, eh? This should be good..."