In the secret parts of Ponyville that were hidden away down passages rarely trespassed by the town’s common residents, the cloaked ponies gathered inside the darkness. Travelling alone, they slinked warily through the shadows, sliding a second layer of darkness across the thick, black shawls that covered them completely. From afar, it would almost appear as if a piece of night itself had detached from the main and started walking; as if Princess Luna’s chessboard was missing a few pawns.

They looked as all secret societies tend to: badly in need of several lessons on how best to blend in.

One of the hooded brethren crept near silently along an alley, their muffled footsteps and anxious glances back immediately rousing a suspicion that would have otherwise been masked by a simple smile and a whistle. Finally, after several tense moments of awkward shuffling, the figure stopped and looked quickly from side to side. Finally convinced that they were alone in the empty alleyway, the cloaked pony reached up and rat-a-tat-tated quietly on a dirty, sullen-looking door that was half-hidden inside the alley’s wall. The door swung open in a silent blaze of ominousness, and the figure passed inside.

The room it led to was badly lit by a series of melted-wax candles that was scattered around like an stranded constellation inside the much too small room. A large, round and overall wooden table took up much of the space within, so that anypony who wanted to sit at one of the chairs positioned around it would have to squeeze up against the wall in order to get to their seat. A loose collection of paper notes were splayed across the table’s surface, half-legible scribbles twisting like worms along the clean, white pages. A collection of five caped heads turned to look as the other one entered, the ponies inside them masked by a thick veil of shadows that the candles seemed unable to penetrate.

“You,” the one from directly opposite the door said calmly, with an added flavouring of annoyance “are late. I thought we all agreed to have the meeting at half-past nine. It’s just gone quarter to. Now the rest of today’s schedule’s going to be completely out of order. I’ll be going to bed with Luna again.” There was a momentary pause in which the figure appeared to reconsider those words whilst mild guffaws broke out across the table. “Err... I mean, I’ll be going to bed when the sun comes up. Not with Luna. Definitely not going to the same bed as the Princess.”

“I’m sorry, but the baby bunnies were being most uncooperative,” the standing one mumbled as the laughter died down, the cloak shifting as the pony within it nervously examined the room. “I hope I haven’t missed anything. You haven’t started have you? I... I promise not to be mad if you have or anything.”

“”No, we were waiting for you to get here,” the first one continued as the newly arrived pony began the series of delicate maneuvers required to reach the last remaining seat. “We did strike up a few other conversations which you’ve missed out on, though. There was this really fascinating story that Applej-” A hoof fastening itself onto the pony’s face cut the sentence short.

“I thought we said no names!” the pony directly opposite blustered indignantly as the first speaker guiltily brought their hoof down. “This here secret society’s meant to be mighty secretive, and yet here we all are blurting out each other’s names like we’re just sitting down at the dinner table!”

“Oh, loosen up a bit, won’t you?” said the pony on her right. “It’s not like you couldn’t tell who we all are by our voices or anything. And hay: you’re still wearing your hat, AJ. It’s like you’re not even trying to hide that it’s you.”

“Of course I’mma wearing my hat!” the pony responded, and twisted round resolutely in order to face their accuser. “Have you forgotten how damp it is in here? It’d be fine and all if you could just wash these cloaks like normal, but somepony had to go and make that mighty difficult. Didn’t they, Rarity?”

“Well,” another one responded. “Forgive me for trying to conceal our identities with some style, Applejack. Though I do have to agree with your point. This room’s atmosphere does simply terrible things for my mane.”

“Yeah, and I still don’t see why we couldn’t bring any snacks,” another one chipped in, leaning forwards eagerly over the table. “This sort of thing is perfect for snacks, I mean, just the other day after I’d just finished baking I thought ‘hey, wouldn’t it be great if me and all my friends could eat these whist we told each other stories like we do every saturday’, and you know what? I was right. We need to get some serious snacking done whilst we’re doing this.”

“We can’t bring any snacks in here,” the first one to speak spoke. “You know as well as I do what the landlord said about eating in here, though I don’t see why given all the rent I’m paying him.” The pony paused, and a moment’s silence passed in quiet thought. “Are we all thinking of leaving? Because I am.”

“Well, I’d be cool with it if we could go somewhere with less pointy seats,” one of the ponies said, bouncing up and down in their chair a fair few times. “Snacks would be awesome too, come to think of it. To be honest, I still don’t see why we ever needed to hide in the first place. It’s not like doing this stuff is uncool, right?” There was a pause which nopony wanted to fill. “Guys?”

“Yeah, I don’t see why we’re staying here either!” a further pony gushed, interrupting a silence which was clearly meant to hold a response. “Hey! I know! Why don’t we all go to the basement in Sugarcube Corner? There’s comfy chairs, lots and lots of snacks, it’s not under a lake and Mr and Mrs Cake would be totally fine with it!” The cloak rustled alarmingly as the pony within positively fizzed with excitement.

“The basement in Sugarcube Corner? No way!” the pony next to her blurted out, cringing backwards. “Err, I mean, um - no! We can’t go there! We should go to the library instead: that’s where all the books are! And nothing bad ever happens to me at-” the pony clamped a covered hoof over their mouth.

“What? I don’t get it, Dashie. Why don’t you want to go to the basement in Sugarcube... ohhh!” The pony giggled, and nudged wryly at the cringing pony next to them. “Still got some bad memories about being down there, huh?”

“Shut up, Pinkie! I do not!” the nudged pony huffed indignantly, a fold in the cloak indicating a pair of crossed front-legs. “I’m not afraid of anything like that, but, err, I’d still rather be in the library so I can... um... read a Daring Do book if I get bored. Yeah. That’s it. I’m not afraid of going in some stupid basement.”

“Alright, then: my library it is. Come on, girls. Lets go and” - a single eep as each pony slid their chairs out announced a hereto unnoticed predicament - “Fluttershy? What are you doing?”

The gathered ponies paused to stare at what was undoubtedly a pony in distress; trapped in an uncomfortable looking position between extended chair and wall. The pony stuck this way wobbled a bit on their hind-hooves as they noticed everypony else in the room staring.

“I’m... I’m trying to get to my chair,” she wheezed out, pointing a hoof at the single unoccupied chair directly opposite her. The group considered both it and the pony’s respective position from it. Clearly, she hadn’t taken the easiest route.

“Err, Fluttershy darling, what exactly possessed you to try and take the long way round?” the pony whose chair rested between the space and the door asked in concern.

“Well, your chair was a bit too far out for me to just squeeze past, and I thought I could get round the other way without disturbing anypony.”

“Well, why couldn’t you have just asked me to budge it in a little? I really wouldn’t have minded.”

“I didn’t want to bother you.” The group groaned.

“I think you’re getting worse, you know,” the pony next to her said, sliding in the offending chair before quickly catching its wilting victim. A few shifts of cloak followed until the single patch of darkness formed by this re-resolved itself into two hooded figures, one of which was noticeably panting more than the other. “I could swear you weren’t this bad a couple of months ago.”

“Am - huh - I - huh - really?” The pony panted a few more times before concluding with an, “I’m sorry...”

“You could always have just flown, you know,” the pony next to her continued. “You’ve got wings, Fluttershy. We all know you do. So why don’t you use them?”

“That... might have made a mess...”

“I’m afraid I’m still slightly distressed about the idea of you joining in with this, Fluttershy, even given last week’s... well, rather interesting interpretation. I just don’t think you’re entirely cut out for horror.” The recovering figure’s head shook from side to side anxiously.

“Oh my, no! It’s quite the opposite, really. Horror’s actually my favourite.” The group paused, rotated the round peg inside the square hole a few times, before giving up and moving on. Sometimes, you really just couldn’t square that circle, regardless of what Whinneystrass or Lindehorse said on the matter.

“Well, hopefully this’ll be the last time we ever have to go through this again,” the pony furthest from the door said, gathering up the loose notes from the table and arranging them into a tidy stack. “I’ll tell the landlord we don’t want to rent this place out any longer tomorrow. Are we going to be using my Library from now on out, or do you girls want to adopt a rotating schedule?”

“How’s about you just hold onta those thoughts until we get to the library, sugarcube,” the pony nearest the door chuckled. “We ain’t even out the door yet!”

“Yeah, Twilight. Stop being so over the top fussy and compartmentalising,” another one said whilst happily skipping towards the exit.

“‘Compartmentalising’? That your new word for the day or somethin’? Like ‘fracas’ was a while back?” The pony nodded. “You sure you using it right, hun?”

“Uh-huh,” the pony nodded, drapes and folds of cloaks piling into weird outlines along where their hair would be. “Hey, Twilight! Do you think I could maybe go get some snacks from Sugarcube Corner on the way? I promise I’ll be super-duper quick, like a speeding pegasus! VROOM!”

“Sure. Go right ahead... do you think you could maybe bring along some cupcakes? In honour of this week’s theme?” One of the group’s members drew to a halt, turned and appeared to glare at the speaking pony.

“Oh, hah-hah. You don’t think it’s getting mildly overdone now, guys? It’s been, what, a few months now and you still won’t shut up about it. It’s getting freaking annoying.” The group descended into muffled giggles.

“Erm... so... are we still using the secret knock, Twilight? Do I still need to use it to get into the library, or are we going for a new one for the new door? ”

“We’ve got a secret knock?”

“Uh-huh, it goes bang bang, rattle crash, a fair few clicks and then another bang; but you have to move your hoof like this... err, I’ll show you when we’re not covered in cloaks.” The two walked outside, the muffled sound of their continued conversation still audible as they strolled away.

“Well, shucks. Nopony ever told me we had a secret knock. I feel right silly for having used an ordinary knock this entire time. I must have seemed a complete feather-brain...”