Shade frowned. Her eyes surveyed the orchard, the barn, and farmhouse before her. Certainly, under normal conditions and viewed with perfect eyes, the beauty of the trees and color of the buildings would be a sight to behold. Alas, Shade saw everything as unnormal conditions with imperfect eyes.

Applejack noticed Shade's gloomy disposition. Applejack nudged Shade's side playfully which made Shade swivel her head and look at Applejack with furrowed brows. With a reassuring smile and nod towards Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack spoke, "C'mon. Lemme show you 'round!"

Trees. Trees. Pigs. Trees. Cows. Trees. Poop. Cow poop. Trees. Dirt. Hay. Chickens. Outhouse. That sums up Shade's tour of the farm. With the day nearing the end, Shade's plans to quickly make her friend quota slipped away by the minute. As much as Death annoyed Shade, Death rarely did not mean what she said.

How was she supposed to make friends? Go up to ponies and say, "Hey! You want to be my friend?", pathetic; or better yet, keep getting bulldozed by objects?

Shade extended her greetings to Big Mac, Granny Smith, and Apple Bloom before quickly saying goodbye. They had wanted her to stay for dinner, but Shade declined. With the little time left she had to make nine more wait she just met three more ponies so now she needed six more to complete her task.

As Shade entered the market, she could see ponies closing their shops and stands. There was one stall that was still up and had three fillies around it. Three birds with one stone, she thought and trotted over to them. She heard one of them yell.

"Lillies are the best flowers!" the one with three flowers, lilies, as a cutie mark shouted.

"Roses are the best flowers, obviously!" she only had one flower as a cutie mark, a rose if Shade had to guess.

The third filly with a two flower cutie mark entered the argument, "No! Daisies are the best!"

"Nightshades are best."

The new voice startled the three fillies, and they turned to face the new voice. They saw an ivory unicorn filly with a long, flowing black and red mane and tail who wielded a toothy grin. Then they noticed her bare flank.

"What do you want, blank flank?" the one with the rose cutie mark scowled.

Shade glared back at the filly, but her look lost its intensity behind her glasses. "Nothing," Shade could take a hint. They were not worth wasting her breath. As she walked away, she heard the rose one talk to the others in a tone obviously meant to be overheard by Shade.

"Can you believe that blank flank had the audacity to talk to us?"

"Yeah. And you think she thinks she looks cool with sunglasses?" Lily remarked. "Puh-lease!"

"Those three horns make her look even more like a freak!" Daisy added.

Well, Shade certainly knew who would be the second, third, and fourth ponies to feel her magical wrath. Within minutes the twilight settled and night descended over the land. Shade watched in wonder as the moon floated in the sky. Lifting up her glasses, Shade awed at the dazzling bright orb in the heavens. Compared to back home, this satellite appeared twice as large. Shade would have to do some research later to find out that this moon was only closer and not bigger.

Shade entirely focused on the night sky, bumped into another pony. Shade rubbed her head and noticed the other pony doing the same. The pony had a coat slightly darker than Shade's with a spiky mane and tail; a musical note marked her flank. For a moment, the two fillies stared at each other. Shade could sense something different within the filly, and she saw the filly's eyes sparkle with the same curiosity. The pony stood to her hooves and, with a quick search of the ground, found her sunglasses. She abruptly turned around to walk the opposite direction.

"You," Shade scrambled to her hooves and called out to the filly, "what are you?"

The filly stopped in her tracks before running off and slipping down an alley. If Shade were not exhausted, she would have given chase after the filly to get answers. She picked up her glasses and continued to wander through the streets; once again, enjoying the solace and cool of the night.

She found herself at the park and decided to take a quick breather. With her heat vision, Shade could see white heat signatures in the tree branches above her. She made sure not to be directly under them; a mistake she quickly learned from when she was young. As she laid on the comforting green blanket of grass and watched the night sky, a sensation on one of her hooves brought her head up from the grass. Bringing her left hoof to her eyes, she saw the light gray silhouette of a spider pop from the white background of her heat. The spider crawled up and down Shade's foreleg until she held the creature in the magical field of her hoof.

"Will you be my friend?" she whispered. When she released her hold on the spider, the spider remained in the frog of Shade's hoof. A small smile crept up to Shade's lips. "We are a lot alike, huh? Well, I suppose you wouldn't know."

Shade slumped her head back to the cool grass and placed her leg in front of her muzzle where the spider crawled to her fetlock. "You wanna know?" The spider crawled forward and appeared to sit. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to tell you. Who would you and that rock tell?"

The rock in question she found earlier when she first laid down her head and met it unceremoniously, was inches away from her other hoof extended beside her. "Let's see: you are nocturnal and were wondering around in the grass which makes you a hunter; three things right there that we share similarities, independent, nomadic, remorseless killers. Perhaps with the right training, I can make you the leader of all insect kind and have an army of insects at my command." Shade snickered into her other hoof. She gazed at the small creature in her hoof then placed her hoof on the ground, "You were in the middle of finding dinner, right?"

The spider crawled down Shade's ivory appendage and onto a blade of grass. With one glance back at the ivory unicorn, the spider leapt into the forest of grass to continue following the trail of the cricket it had been stalking.

With her new friend off hunting, Shade focused her attention on the rock. It did not smell like a normal rock and had a faint heat signature that should have long dissipated after she moved it.

"Are you hiding secrets, too, little rock?"

Silence.

Shade brought up the rock to her dimly glowing eyes and smirked. "I'll take your silence as a 'yes' and I'll just take you." She placed the rock between her three forehead protrusions and found that the stone set in perfectly. "Is this what they call 'fate' or 'destiny'?"

Death had said Shade needed to make "ten individual pony" friends. If Shade counted all the ponies she talked to as friends she would still be two friends short of her quota. Unless. . .

A familiar sensation crawled up Shade's leg which interrupted her thoughts. She craned her head down to see the spider facing her.

"Back from a successful hunt, new friend?"

The spider nodded. A quick clip played in Shade's mind of the spider rubbing its abdomen and smacking its lips.

Shade tapped her chin in thought. "Can I call you Charlotte? You look like a Charlotte."

The spider bobbed up and down which Shade interpreted as a second 'yes'.

"Shade!"

Shade's tiny smile dissolved and she heaved a groan. Cranking her head around, she saw Death briskly climbing the hill towards her.

"Why are you out here so late at night?"

Shade raised a brow and ignored the concern carrying on Death's words. "You said I couldn't come home unless I made ten friends. Besides, I'm nocturnal."

Death dared to hug Shade warmly. "I thought you ran off," she whispered.

Shade shoved the intruder of her personal space away. "And go where? I don't know this place and you took away my powers."

"I didn't take them away; I locked them."

"Well, then, unlock them," demanded Shade.

"Only you can unlock them by making true friends and doing selfless acts." Death nodded firmly.

"I made ten friends so unlock my powers!"

"Oh really. Name them."

Shade ignored the words dripping with doubt and accepted the challenge. "Applejack. Big Mac, Granny Smith, Applebloom, Rose, Daisy, Lily, uh. . . Eighth Note, Charlotte, and um. . . Sandy."

Shade stood victoriously under the pale moonlight with her snout in the air.

Death eyed Shade suspiciously. "You met the flower trio and did not maim them?"

"Yup."

"'Eighth Note'?"

"She is pale like me, has a spiked mane and tail, wears sunglasses like me, has a barred eighth note butt tattoo of destiny. . ."

Realization struck Death. "Oh! That 'Eighth Note'! The one who wears purple sunglasses. The same purple sunglasses you are wearing?"

"We hit it off instantly and decided to switch glasses as a sign of friendship." Shade lied through her teeth.

Death grinned knowingly and switched subjects. "Why do you have a rock on your forehead?"

"Sandy likes the view from up there since she has spent her entire life on the ground." Shade answered nonchalantly. "Let's go."

Death giggled and followed after Shade. "Who is 'Charlotte', Shade?"