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Shades of Night

by Sketchy Changeling

Chapter 16: Chapter Sixteen - Friends Make Amends

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8:54 AM

I had just gotten off the shuttle to the campus, and I was on my way to the student lounge to meet up with Maud, an idea that I still wasn’t one hundred percent on-board with. Despite my uncertainty, though, I figured that it’d be best to just hear what she had to say and get it overwith. I mean, I could always just leave if things went south.

I walked through the double-door entrance of the lounge, and by force of habit, I walked to our usual spot. Sure enough, Maud was waiting there for me. She regarded me with her usual stoic expression, and I wasn’t sure if she was looking at me with happiness or disdain.

I hoped that it wasn’t the latter. The last thing I needed was another argument.

I gulped nervously and sat across from her. “Hey, Maud…” I said to her.

“Hi, Noah,” she greeted with her trademark monotone. She seemed as calm as ever, same as always, and while I should’ve been used to it by now, it never failed to perplex me from time to time. Maud never showed discomfort in any situation, no matter how uncomfortable it-

Wait… Something was wrong.

I took a good look at Maud’s face and noticed that she was doing something that she had never done before. Something that, in my nearly two years of knowing her, I have never seen her do.

She wasn’t looking at me.

Maud always made a point of looking at whoever she was talking to. She’d always give the same blank stare to whoever she was addressing, almost to the point where her stare would uncomfortably pierce through their soul. I have seen the strongest of people and ponies crumble before her endless gaze…

but now that gaze was averted.

Her expression was still the same, but her eyes were cast off to the side rather than looking straight at me. However, as weird as it was, it ultimately made this meeting a lot easier for me.

“Thanks for coming. I was worried that you wouldn’t show. You know, considering-”

“I know,” I politely interrupted. “I don’t think either of us need to be reminded of that.”

“You’re right. Sorry,” she said, and then she fell silent for a moment. “…You want something to drink? It’s on me.”

“That was… kinda out of nowhere. Why?” I asked.

The earth mare shrugged. “I thought that it’d help ease the tension.”

I decided to take her up on her offer and accepted. “Sure.”

“You want anything specific?”

I shrugged. “Surprise me.”

“Okay, then. I’ll be back,” Maud nodded as she got up from her seat and walked up to the lady running the drink stand, leaving me to watch her in confusion as she went and got us something to drink. Maud was acting really strange today, and I haven’t even been around her for a good five minutes yet. She eventually returned with one coffee cup in each hand, and she set my cup down in front of me before getting back into her seat.

“I got you some Earl Grey tea,” she told me. “Be careful. It’s hot.”

“Thanks,” I nodded as I looked down at the cup. Heeding her warning, I slowly brought it up to my lips and tentatively tilted it so that my tongue would be hit with the least amount of hot tea as possible. As Maud had said, it was pretty hot, so I let it back down on the table. Meanwhile, she was sipping her tea like it was a cool swig of ice water. When she was finished sipping, her attention focused back onto me… at least I thought it did, considering that she still wasn’t looking at me.

After a brief moment of silence, Maud cleared her throat and began to speak. “So, I’ve been thinking about the other day, when we had that argument, particularly what I had said to you, and… in retrospect, I probably did come off as rather harsh.”

“Probably?” I thought with a raised eyebrow.

“To be honest, at first I thought that what I had said wasn’t that bad and that you’d eventually see my point,” she explained, “but when you didn’t come here yesterday morning to meet up with Klaus and me, I started to wonder if I was too hard on you. Looking back on it now, some of the things I said were out-of-line.”

“Well, I was offended by some of the stuff you said,” I told her. “You did come across as-”

“Bitchy, I know.” Maud finished for me.

“Actually, I was gonna say something like ‘unpleasant’ or ‘mean’.”

“I think ‘bitchy’ would be the better word, though,” she admitted. “All I did was poke and prod you, demanding answers about something that was none of my business. I talked to you like you were the bad guy when I didn’t even know the whole story, and I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Yeah, I wondered why you did that.”

“When I heard that you and Nightshade broke up, my mind went back to the day Klaus and I found out that you were dating, and I told you to be careful, so when I heard about the breakup, I immediately thought that it was because of something you did.”

I thought about that for a moment and sighed. “Well, you were at least half-right. You did warn me not to wait too long, and it could’ve helped if I told Nightshade that I was uncomfortable with her clinginess the moment I noticed it.”

“Even so, I shouldn’t have kept pushing you,” said Maud. “It wasn’t fair for me to make you feel like it was all your fault just because I was protective of Nightshade.”

I blinked and looked at her in surprise. “Protective?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, there was a hidden side of Nightshade that I saw even when we first met her almost four months ago.”

A sense of fear washed over me as I froze in my seat, and I was afraid to hear where Maud was going with this. Did she know who Nightshade really was all this time? If so, why didn’t she say anything? Despite my fear, I dared to ask her…

“What was it that you saw?” I asked.

The mare slouched back into her side of the booth, her eyes still cast off to the side. “I saw that she was lonely,” she told me.

I sighed inwardly with relief at first, but then I actually processed what Maud had said. “Lonely?” I asked.

“Mm-hm. When I first saw her, I could tell that she was nervous to be around us, like she never had a group accept her as a friend so easily. Even while we were getting to know her, she always felt… scared, like she was afraid that we weren’t really friends with her.”

How come Klaus and I never noticed this?

“Then when you and Nightshade told Klaus and me that you were letting her move in with you, she seemed a lot happier, as if some of the fear that she had earlier disappeared,” Maud continued.

“I guess now you’re gonna tell me that she was her happiest when she was dating me?”

She stopped for a moment, staring blankly at the wall before speaking. “Well… yes and no. She was really happy, but some of the fear that she had before came back, and that’s why I pulled you aside and said what I said that day.”

“I didn’t realize that you cared so much for her,” I said.

“Well, since I realized that Nightshade was a fragile mare, I took it upon myself to quietly look out for her. That’s why I asked you to take care of her after that incident at Pete’s house party.”

“How is it that you were able to figure out all these things about her when I couldn’t?” I asked.

“When you have three younger sisters, you tend to pick up on subtle things,” Maud explained, but then she shook her head. “Regardless, how I felt about Nightshade doesn’t change the fact that what I said to you was wrong, and I had no right to blow up at you like that.”

“Well you didn’t really blow up,” I admitted. “If anything I-”

“You mean you didn’t notice how angry I was?” she interrupted.

“Um… no?”

“Anyway, I’m just rambling. Long story short, the point I’m trying to make is…”she stopped for a second, and for the first time that day, Maud turned and looked me in the eye. “I’m sorry, Noah,” she finished.

I couldn’t help but smile when she finally looked at me, and even with her usual stony expression, I could see a little bit of emotion. Before I could say that I accepted her apology, however, she got out of her seat and walked over to mine, looking down at me with that cold stare.

“Um…” I said as I looked up at her, unsure of what she’d do.

Without warning, Maud suddenly wrapped her arms around my torso, pulling me in for a gruesomely tight hug. What started out as a firm embrace became a deadly chokehold as my bones threatened to break from the crushing force of the mare’s arms.

“Maud…” I called, my voice muffled as my face was pressed against her surprisingly soft stomach. My cry went unheard as I continued to be crushed by her hug. “Maud…” I called again, but she still didn’t let go.

At this point my oxygen supply was running dangerously low.

“Maud Maud Maud Maud MAUD!!!”

Finally, the mare let me go as my limp form fell to the floor.

“There. I think that hug was long enough to show how sorry I am,” she deadpanned.

“Uuugh… A little too long if you ask me,” I groaned as I stood up. “I’m sorry, too Maud, I could’ve handled that situation better. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. So, are we cool now?”

Maud nodded her head and gave me one of her rare smiles. “Yeah, we’re cool. So, what are your plans for today?”

“I was going to head to the school library and check out a DVD, something to take advantage of my lack of classes. Maybe you and Klaus can come over to my place tonight and watch it with me. Maybe around seven?”

“That’d be nice. I’ll text Klaus after he gets out of class. See you later, Noah.”

“Later, Maud,” I said as I took my cup of tea and left the lounge. I sipped at my significantly cooler drink as I walked to the library, making sure to finish it before I got there.

The last thing I needed was to catch hell from the librarian.

Once inside the library, I perused the DVD section for something that Klaus, Maud, and I would enjoy, taking my time and whispering to myself as I considered all the options.

“Okay…. We already saw Shaun of the Dead recently… Klaus prefers the Scott Pilgrim comics over the movie… The Power Ponies movie was a poorly directed piece of shit… ”

I let out a sigh as I looked at the large shelf lined with movies, and I shook my head at my indecisiveness. Just then, I heard a panicky voice from the other aisle.

“Oh, man. Where is it, where is it, where is it?”

Curious as to whose voice it was, I walked over to the neighboring aisle and found someone that I recognized.

He was a short bespectacled unicorn stallion with a backpack more than half his size weighing down on him. He was one of the pre-med students at the school. “I can’t find it anywhere,” he whimpered to himself as he scanned the bookshelves.

“You alright there, Shortstuff?” I asked.

“I could be better,” he sighed depressively. “There’s this book on advanced medical spells I’m trying to find. The library has only one copy of it, and I need it to write my master thesis! I’ve been looking high and low hoping that someone put it on the wrong shelf by mistake!”

“Alright, alright, just relax,” I said calmly, trying to keep him from having a fit. “I’m sure one of the bookstores nearby has a copy in stock.”

“I doubt it,” the unicorn scoffed. “The edition I’m looking for is really hard to come by, and when I looked it up online, the price was outrageous!”

“Well, just ask the library to put the book on hold for you so no one else will check it out once whoever has the book returns it.”

Shortstuff let out a defeated sigh as he adjusted his backpack. “I suppose that’s my only option, then.” He then looked up at me. “So what brings you here?”

“Just looking for a good flick to rent out.”

“Have you seen The World’s End?”

I shook my head. “Never got around to it.”

“Try that one. It’s pretty funny. I’ll see you around, Noah.”

“Later, Shortstuff. Hope you get ahold of that book soon.”

The unicorn shot me a quick “Thanks” as he briskly walked to the circulation desk to place the hold, and I picked up his recommended movie from the DVD shelf and checked it out.


I had just gotten off the shuttle to my apartment building and I read the back of the DVD case as I walked inside.

“This does seem like a funny movie,” I thought as I absentmindedly took the mail out of my mailbox. “Then again, you can’t go wrong with Simon Pegg.”

I tucked the DVD under my arm as I unlocked my door and walked in, tossing the items I had onto the couch. After changing into some more comfortable clothes, I plopped myself on the couch and looked through the mail I had gotten, which was mostly ads, until I got to the letter at the bottom, a letter that looked all too familiar.

The lack of addresses on the envelope, the elegant writing of my name, the blue ink that it was written in…

“Another one?” I asked myself as I picked up the envelope and debated over whether or not I should read it. If it was gonna be anything like the one I had gotten yesterday, then it would be a waste of my time to even read it. The last thing I needed was another letter from Nightmare pleading and begging for me to take her back.

But there’s always that curious side in people that always asks “what if?” In this case, what if this letter was different from the last one?

Why should I care, though? I definitely wasn’t going to take Nightmare back anytime soon. There was no way I’d forgive her for doing something so terrible, something that she didn’t even apologize for.

Still, that curiosity was still poking at me.

I stared at the letter for what felt like an eternity, wondering whether or not I should open it.



I went into the kitchen and grabbed a letter opener from one of the drawers. “Let’s just get this overwith,” I sighed to myself as I slowly sliced through the adhesive on the envelope and looked at the letter inside. Just like last time, the letter was dated and was written in the same blue ink that was used to write my name on the envelope it came in, and I started to read what Nightmare had written.

Noah,

I know it’s only been a day since last I’ve written to you, but I feel the need to make up for the last letter I sent you. I shouldn’t have been so aggressive in my writing, and I probably made you even angrier with me, and I didn’t mean to do that. It was just that I missed you so much and I just felt so desperate to have you back. I still miss you, a lot, actually, but I’m doing a little better now, in case you’re wondering. I’m still getting used to not having you with me at night, which is when I miss you the most, but I’m hanging in there.

Also, I owe you an apology. A real one. I was wrong to think that I should have attacked Jade that night, and I really wish I could take it back. I know that doesn’t mean much, but I just wanted you to know that I do regret the pain that I caused her. I really hope that you forgive me one day, maybe someday soon.

Love always,
Moon

I let out an exasperated sigh as I finished the letter. It was relieving to see that it wasn’t another “please take me back” letter, but what she wrote still didn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t know why, but something about her apology felt… inauthentic, like she only said it in hope that I’d forgive her. She said it herself, though: she knew it didn’t mean much, and she was right. It didn’t mean much at all. Besides, how could she go from irrational to calm in one day?

The one thing that I could’ve been happy about was the fact that she wasn’t obsessing over my distance from her… at least not as much as last time. All in all, this letter was more bearable than her last… whatever the hell that was, but I was nowhere close to forgiving her.

One thing struck me, though. In both letters, she mentioned how much she missed having me around, which made me think about her clinginess while we were dating, and then I remembered what Maud said to me earlier today.

“She was lonely.”

Lonely… In retrospect, that notion made a lot of sense. Nightmare hated it when she was separated from me, and tried her hardest to have some kind of contact with me while I was gone, even now.

Even with that in mind, however, while her loneliness did explain her actions, they certainly didn’t justify them, and that’s what bothered me the most about her. Call me skeptical, but when all I have to go on is her word, I can’t really be sure that she truly is sorry.

The loud ringing of my phone abruptly snapped me out of my thoughts, and I picked it up to see who was calling.

“Klaus,” I muttered to myself as I answered the phone. “What’s up?” I said into the speaker.

“Not much. I just got out of class a few minutes ago. Maud texted me saying there’s gonna be a movie night at your place tonight.”

“Sorta,” I shrugged. “Kind of a last-minute thing, really.”

“What movie are we gonna be watchin’?”

“The World’s End.”

“Hmm… I wanted to see that movie. Should be awesome. I’ll be there tonight, and I’ll bring some snacks.”

I glanced over at my snack cabinet and cringed at its barren state. “That’s not a bad idea. See ya tonight okay?”

“Sure,” the griffon said as the phone clicked. I continued to look at the snack cabinet, silently scolding myself for forgetting to get snacks when I went shopping.

“Well, at least Klaus is bringing snacks,” I thought. “I hope he brings the extra buttery popcorn.”

Author's Notes:

So we have another letter from Moon, and it's a lot calmer, but Noah still isn't having it.

Well, at lest he and Maud made up...

So what now? What will Moon's next letter say? Is Moon even gonna send Noah another letter? Will Shortstuff ever get his book? Why do we care? He's just some random-ass character with no importance!

Let me know what you guys thought of this chapter int he comments, and I'll catch you guys later.

I'm gone!

Next Chapter: Chapter Seventeen - A Forgotten Voice Estimated time remaining: 59 Minutes
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