In a small town called Ponyville, inside a smaller tree-like building, a purple mare closed her book with satisfaction. Nothing was quite as invigorating to Twilight Sparkle as finishing a good book, no matter the subject. Even if she had just spent hours reading about aeronautics and couldn’t think of a single practical use for the knowledge.
The day was growing older, though, and she had not set hoof out of her library home since waking up that morning. Sure, it was the busiest time of the summer season, and most of her friends were preoccupied with their work, but there were still many other ponies in town she hadn’t met yet. Besides, she was hungry and her cupboards were growing empty.
Grabbing a bag of bits and opening the door, Twilight set forth with a smile, welcoming the bright sunshine. And she almost tripped over a package at her doorstep. Recovering before she fell, she looked down at the crinkled, moisture stained cardboard box that squatted before her.
‘No return address or writing,’ she noted, confused. Lighting her horn, Twilight lifted it off the ground with a spell, trying to find the usual markings of a delivery elsewhere; no such luck.
She leaned further out of the door, looking left and right, in case the delivery pony was still about. But beyond the normal road traffic of Ponyville, there was nopony the least bit suspicious. Quirking a brow, Twilight retreated back inside with the box, placing it on her desk. There wasn’t even any tape or staples or anything to keep the flaps still.
Opening it without further ceremony, the first thing to hit her was the smell. It burst out, as though the flimsy cardboard had kept it sealed within until it was ready to burst, and was laced with so many strange spices that she gagged on the odor. Dry, repulsive, it smelt like someone had upended her spice rack and left it out for years. What she saw inside was similarly distressing; a desiccated hoof, bones and dried tendons very visible, tightly bound in aged, yellow-brown bandages.
Twilight pulled back with a yelp of surprise, accidentally tipping the box and spilling its putrid contents onto the floor. The hoof lay there, unthreatening, until Twilight recovered from her shock and delicately floated it onto her desk. “You have a skeleton in your basement,” she reprimanded herself with a chuckle, “why are you getting worked up over a hoof?”
Covering the hoof with a glass jar, for safety if not to stem the smell that leaked from it, she picked the box up and examined it’s insides. She suspected there was some clue to be found, but there was not. The inside was as blank and worn as the outside. Frowning, Twilight deposited it by her desk. A mystery like this was begging for her to investigate. And she knew just where to start.
“Spike, I’m going ou-” she started to yell over her shoulder, already on her way to the door, before remembering that Spike was in Manhattan, helping Rarity create some dragon-style fashion line. “Nevermind,” she finished, and left to find some answers.
Ponyville was a small town, by comparison to her hometown of Canterlot, but still big enough to warrant two different delivery companies. Air Mail, the larger of the two and part of a bigger chain, was primarily worked by pegasus ponies. The other was the Pony Express, the owner of which Twilight had only met once during a ‘welcome home’ party for her friend Applejack. Finding Derpy, who was the most commonly seen deliverymare of Air Mail, was a bit tricky at the best of times, so Twilight decided to ask Pony Express first. Unless he was out delivering messages, he was usually at his self owned and self named store, which is where Twilight found him today.
Head slumped over his desk, snoring lightly, the lanky, brown earth pony was the very picture of a slow day. A short pile of envelopes, fluttering with his breathing, was the only clutter in the otherwise barren office. Twilight stood in front of him for a moment, wondering if he would awaken on his own, before knocking on the desk. Express jerked awake, blinking blearily, and gave her a tired smile and even more tired welcome. “Welcome to Pony Express! I’m Pony, and I’ll deliver any...” he trailed off, slowly gravitating back towards the sleepy comforts of his desk, before Twilight magically righted him. “Messages! Yeah. Do you want coffee?”
“No, thanks,” Twilight said. Express motioned for her to follow anyways as he walked into the back, setting a kettle to boil and some coffee grounds. “I was actually wondering if you could tell me who sent a package.”
“Oh? Well, that’s sorta confidential and all, miss Twi. Can’t just go blabbering about everypony’s business; what if it was a secret admirer, and I spoiled the surprise?” Express clucked his tongue and shook his head solemnly. “Be a darn shame.”
“Unless my admirer has a penchant for the morbid, I don’t think that’s a problem,” Twilight muttered under her breath. “I got an unmarked package this morning, with a...” she paused, about to say ‘hoof’ while remembering the town having widespread panic over a stampede of bunnies. “... strange thing inside.”
Express poured out some coffee, slurping down half the mug, before he bemusedly repeated, “Strange thing?”
“Yes,” Twilight huffed, “and it definitely was not a secret admirer, so no worries about spoiling any surprises. I’d just like to know who sent it to me.”
“Package, as in a box, like not a letter sort of thing?” Twilight nodded, and Express shrugged. “Sorry miss, I only handle letters and the like. You’ll have to go see the folks at Air Mail for that.”
Twilight sighed and nodded, leaving Pony Express’s store while he called out good lucks over his coffee. Now she had to find Derpy, or give herself magical wings and fly up to Air Mail’s Ponyville shop. The second option was far more work, so after a quick stop at Sugarcube Corner, the unicorn settled on a park bench with a bag of fresh muffins, their aromas wafting into the air in thin tendrils of steam. These, being well known as Derpy’s favorite snack, would eventually lure her in. Then Twilight could question her while she was anchored by the baked goods.
‘It’s a shame Pinkie isn’t here,’ Twilight thought as the minutes slowly dragged past, fervently reminding her that there was a mystery ahoof and a house full of books waiting for her, just as she waited for an unpredictable pegasus. Pinkie Pie could have found Derpy in seconds, through inexplicable chance if not simply going outside and shouting for her, saving time in this investigation. But alas, she was visiting her parents at their farm, away for the week.
So Twilight sat, glowering at the sky as the sun slipped across it, her once fresh muffins growing colder and staler. She had been waiting so long she nearly drifted to sleep when, with a whistle like a falling anvil, Derpy landed next to her. Twilight lifted a boredom weighted lid, staring up at the grey pegasus with eyes that looked like they had a disagreement with each other. Those eyes both, more or less, pointed at the muffin bag by her side, which lazily floated over to Derpy’s eager hooves.
“I heard from Express that you might be looking for me?” Derpy asked cheerily, fishing through the bag. “Thanks for the muffins!” she added as she picked one out and set to work on it.
“Don’ mention it,” Twilight yawned, pulling herself upright. Her new company sat next to her as room was made. “I got a weird package today, no address or writing of any sort. Just thought, maybe you could help me trace it back to it’s sender?”
“Sure!” Derpy chirped, finishing muffin one and picking up it’s equally doomed heir. “We keep a list of the contents of every delivery, so just tell me what it was and I’ll find out for you.” Then she leaned in conspiratorially, eying a pony warily as he walked passed. “Only as a favor though. We aren’t supposed to talk about deliveries when it’s meant to be secret.”
Twilight leaned away, smiling uncomfortably. “Right. Even if it’s secret, I’d really like to know who sent it.” Derpy nodded, going back to her side of the bench and the muffins. “It’s a...” She paused, weighing the risk of admitting to the alarming package. ‘She needs that information to find the sender,’ Twilight reminded herself, settling the debate. “It’s a hoof, kind of. No, wait! It’s not like that!” she shouted as Derpy practically sprang off the bench, pulling her back down with a tug of magic.
“It’s not an actual hoof,” Twilight told her, trying to allay any more excitement before it became a panic. “Just really hoof like, and covered with bandages.”
Derpy stared at her benchmate, still concerned and frightened, before she nodded, showing she believed Twilight’s little lie. “Air Mail doesn’t send bits of ponies, even if they’re fake.” Seeing Twilight’s curious look, she explained “a few years ago, before you moved in, somepony thought it was romantic to send their special somepony a plastic ear. She... didn’t. Now anything that’s pony like is sent back, no exceptions.”
“So, that’s a dead end,” Twilight lamented. The sender of the package would have to remain a mystery for now. While she hadn’t expected it to be an easy investigation, she was still disappointed by the results. Twilight said goodbye to Derpy, leaving her the rest of the muffins, and went home to, hopefully, more fruitful research.
The sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon, and the streets were emptying as everypony went home for the night. Dinner and sleep awaited them, but not Twilight Sparkle. She had a mystery to solve, and she took up this task with zeal, plucking books as soon as she entered her home and library.
The floor was quickly awash with discarded texts, the remnants of a paper storm, the eye of which was a purple unicorn and a cloth wrapped hoof. Books on history, both familiar and foreign, medicine, anatomy, and biology, and even some on myths and more occult subjects were interrogated for information before being cast aside for the next. But as the stars rose and the town slumbered, not even her ravenous curiosity could defy the call of rest. Twilight denied it to the last, heavy eyes scrolling through the words even as her head nodded. ‘I’ll just rest my eyes a moment,’ she thought as sleep crept over her.
Then there was darkness, sludge like, weighing down everything with it’s veil. Twilight could feel herself frozen in this, helpless and immobile as a bug caught in amber. Yet, somehow through her petrified body, she could hear a ceaseless droning buzz, like flies swarming over a feast. And she could hear a thick, rhythmic crunching noise, louder than the first sound. And she could smell a sickly sweet perfume, cloying in her nostrils, gagging, even suffocating in its intensity. Beyond this there was nothing, no sensation or sight to distract herself with.
Confused and powerless, Twilight was made to endure lifetimes of this prison, until she wanted nothing more than to tear out her own ears, to vomit out the musk that coated her frozen throat. Only then did she awaken, lathered in cold sweat that felt colder still in the chilled dawn air, still sitting at the desk. She stretched her legs, cramped from their awkward position, and breathed in the familiar scents of old books. All was as it should be, quiet and normal.
Basking in the silence, she sat and watched the sun give birth to a new day. Despite the length of her dream, it had been a short rest, and exhaustion made her eyes ache. But the day had already begun, the sight of open books reminded her of her mystery, and the risk of repeating the nightmare dissuaded her from rest. With nothing more than a snack to keep her awake, she set once more to work, the hoof laying passively in its jar.
Hours later, after the day had reach it’s peak and now declined, her search was interrupted by knocking. She absently called over her shoulder “Come in,” not even looking up from her newest book. After a pause, the knocking sounded again, and an irritated Twilight turned to force the door open, breaking the lock she had forgotten to reset. “Oh, oops,” she said sheepishly. There was no one at the door though, and she stared in confusion before the knocking came once more. This time she was attentive enough to notice it came not from the door, but a window, and went to unlatch it.
“Took you long enough,” said the rainbow maned pegasus who climbed inside. “Getting down with all your books?”
Blushing, Twilight shifted a pile of texts so it was hidden behind her, doing little to the overall chaos. Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Anyways, you busy Twi? I’m bored out of my mind, Fluttershy’s stuck with her animals, and nopony else is home.”
“Even Applejack?” Twilight asked, wondering where the farmer would have gone in the middle of her farms busier season.
“Nah, she’s just getting worked up over her apple trees. Gotta ‘make sure they’s git water and vittles’,” she said, doing a horrible impression of their friend’s accent. “What does a tree even eat? No, I don’t want to know.”
Lowering her hoof, which had been preparing to lecture on the science of plant growing, Twilight leaned to peak out the window. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” she mentioned, seeing errant clouds drifting through the sky.
“It’s the middle of summer, ponies are happy to have a little mobile shade,” Rainbow defended. “Besides, I got rid of the bigger clouds. If they want their clear skies so bad they can send somepony else.”
“Right,” drawled Twilight, trotting back towards her work area. She didn’t see Rainbow start to meander through her cluttered home, trying to find the unicorns latest obsession. “Well, feel free to come in, since you already came all this way. And, please, try not to step on any books.”
“Whoa, cool! A hoof in a jar? Twi, you are going full on mad-scientist.” Rainbow praised, approving of the bizarre specimen she had found while Twilight was talking. ‘I left it on the desk in plain sight, of course she was going to find it’ Twilight berated herself. At least Rainbow didn’t freak out, though knowing the brash speedster, that would have been surprising.
“Actually, it’s the lower portion of a hind leg more than it is just a hoof,” the ‘mad-scientist’ corrected her nosy friend, trying to banish some of her literary mess back to it’s shelving. Rainbow blinked, raising a leg and measuring it against the thing inside the jar. Twilight continued, “I checked; it’s actually the hoof along with the leg up until the cannon. So it’s not technically a hoof, it’s a leg quarter.”
Unimpressed, the pegasus began trying to ease the glass off while her friend’s back was turned. “It’s a hoof, Twi. Whatever you just said sounds way less cool. Why’s it all wrapped up? Ugh, and why’s it smell so bad?” she asked, waving a hoof in front of her nose as the pent up fumes blossomed outwards.
“Be careful with that!” Twilight shouted, rushing over to seal the hoof once more. “It’s thousands of years old. It’s a miracle that it survived this long, and any mishandling could ruin it.”
“And it smells really bad,” Rainbow contributed.
“... Yes, yes it does. Anyways, as to why it’s wrapped up, those are strips of cloth meant to preserve it. The quarter- the hoof was mummified.”
“What, like the mummy in Daring Do?” Rainbow asked, suddenly interested as the topic turned towards her and Twilight’s shared reading interest. “Did you get this one from a mummy, too? Wait, when did you go fight a mummy? Why didn’t you tell me you were going to fight a mummy?! I read the book, I know just what to do with them.” She made a few shadow boxing motions to show her point, swinging at imagined monsters.
“No, Rainbow, I did not get it from a mummy, nor did I fight any such thing,” Twilight said, watching the performance with a smile. “And trust me, if, for whatever reason, I did have to go deal with one you would be the first to know.”
Rainbow nodded her agreement with this, and Twilight continued with her explanation, though she hadn’t been asked. “Mummification is a practice from some millennia ago, long before most recorded history. The ancient unicorns used it to keep their dead safe, usually their rulers, and prepare them for their voyage to the next world.”
Moving over to the remaining piles of books, the unicorn picked on up and showed it’s picture to her friend, who was having second thoughts about coming here. On the pages was a picture of ponies, rendered stiff and almost cartoonish by the style, leaning over a prone pony. They were wrapping it with white strips while one other was pushing a metal rod through its nose. All of the working ponies wore the heads of other animals, dogs, cats, birds and the like, while the prone one clutched a strange T shape and was surrounded by age-worn symbols.
“This is was taken at one of the old burial sites, showing the mummification of a very powerful ruler. That” she pointed at the T shape, “is an ankh, which is supposed to symbolize life and life after death. The masks on the other ponies symbolize the gods they believed in, and those symbols are all meant to be great gifts to the spirit of the deceased. I haven’t found much on what they mean; there aren’t many records of their culture left, it seems. Oh, that one?” Twilight asked, noticing her friend pointing to the rod wielding pony. “They’re removing the brain so it can be pickled. They do that to all the organs except the heart, something about ‘lifting earthly weights’.”
Rainbow pulled back, looking slightly discomfited, and Twilight ploughed on regardless. “They used a lot of different chemicals to preserve the body, thinking that it was the passage between the world and the afterlife. They even left food and treasure behind when they buried the mummy, usually inside complicated mazes to ward off raiders. The ancient unicorns were very intelligent for their time period, even though they wasted most of their time on these sorts of rituals.”
Twilight had been gaining speed as she spoke, her studious spirit enamored with the lore. With a laugh Rainbow stopped her, “Slow down there, egghead. That’s creepy and all, but where did you get this hoof from?”
“Somepony left it on my doorstep,” Twilight said offhandedly, switching out the first book for another on history and picking up where she had left off. Second on Twilight’s list of favorite activities was educating ponies, or lecturing as some would call it. “The unicorns revered their rulers, almost worshipped them like deities. But the only records I can find of the old unicorns show their rulers more like how they were in the Hearthswarming play; vain, egotistical, and not very well liked.
"So there must have been some change in their culture from the time of mummies to the kingdom most ponies know of.” She looked at the book in her hooves as if it had failed her, not heeding Rainbow’s frown. “I’m going to have to ask Princess Celestia if I can borrow some books from the royal library...”
A sky blue hoof pushed the book down so it’s owner could look at Twilight’s face. The other mare was equal parts concerned and angered, her eyes narrowed but voice soft. “Somepony left you a severed hoof? Are they trying to threaten you?”
“Oh no, it’s not a threat!” Twilight explained quickly, before her friend could come into any rash, if well meant, ideas. “Just a box with the hoof inside. I don’t even know who sent it, Derpy and Express couldn’t help me find out.”
Rainbow wanted to see the box, no matter how Twilight reassured her there was nothing in it, or that it wasn’t dangerous to her. While she poked, flexed, and glared the box into spilling whatever secrets it may have, Twilight went back to her cleaning, which was strangely taxing. She had cleaned up larger messes from her study binges, or from the latest catastrophe, or from one of her friends, usually Rainbow Dash, crashing inside and sending every book to the floor. It had grown easier as her magical prowess increased, until she could rearrange the entire library in a single night.
Today, though, the books sagged in their flight, and more than once some of them fell out of their levitation bubble. When Twilight had to stop, yawning widely and blinking her eyes rapidly, she realized she was just tired from the late night and early morning, making her sigh with relief; the last thing she wanted to deal with was a horn malfunction. Rainbow, however, was more worried than she was after seeing the yawn.
Putting down the somewhat ravaged box, she said, “You look really tired, Twi. You haven’t been missing sleep over this, have you?” Twilight waved a dismissive hoof, rubbing at an eye with the other. “Uh uh, you aren’t getting off that easy. Go upstairs and grab a nap, egghead, your books can wait another day. This thing, too,” she added with a distasteful look at the hoof.
“Didn’t you want to hang out?” Twilight asked, remembering her friend’s reason for visiting. Rainbow shook her head, fluttering over and pushing the unicorn gently towards the stairs leading up to her room.
“I’d rather do something when you’re more awake, and less likely to go crazy again.” She smiled playfully, “Not sure the town can handle another Smarty Pants thing.” Twilight laughed despite the embarrassing memory, and relented. She paused only to thank Rainbow, who shrugged and flew off the moment she was sure Twilight was in bed.
She didn’t check to see if Twilight would actually sleep in that bed, though. They were close friends, sure, but watching her sleep was a bit weird. Rainbow decided, as she flew through the heated afternoon air, that she would pay another visit the next day, just to make sure. If Twilight hadn’t slept, which was likely, then all she had to do was tire her out, maybe a race or something, and she would be out like a light.
But Rainbow’s plans were unneeded.Despite the curiosity that still gnawed at every thought, Twilight quickly succumbed to her exhaustion. And as the darkness from her last dream returned, just as smothering, she realized that may have been a mistake.
It started off the same; completely immobile, the sounds of thick crunching and swarming insects, the nauseatingly sweet musk. Twilight strained against her frozen form, desperate to avoid a torturous repeat, achieving nothing. She withdrew as much as she could after that, trying to forget the nightmare, and was like this for a very long time before, with no will of her own, she felt her body begin to move.
She was still helpless, nothing else had changed, but this at least broke the horrible monotony. Twilight felt like a passenger as her legs moved, leading her somewhere unseeable through the darkness. Underneath the ever present sounds, barely audible, was an erratic snapping noise. ‘Twigs?’ she wondered, focussing on this new noise. ‘Have I dreamt myself into a forest?’
Then her hoof caught on something, which she felt as though there was a thick cloth between her and it, and the dream lurched and ended with her sudden awakening. Twilight fell out of its grasp with a brief shriek, caught unaware as her body returned to her control and collided with soft, dank dirt. Pulling herself up, sputtering out clods of earth, Twilight looked around, seeing unhealthy trees and flora instead of her comfortable room. Strange creatures howled and cried out, welcoming a morning sun which elongated the already exaggerated shadows. A stray and rotting log was just behind her, probably the thing that had tripped her.
“The Everfree forest?” Twilight asked aloud, though she hoped nothing would respond. The eerie forest was the only place these wild growths and wilder animals could belong. “How did I get here?”
Feeling a weight on her back and sides, Twilight turned her head to unclasp the saddlebags she did not remember putting on. Only one of the pouches held something; the mummified hoof, still reeking even through the scents of the wood. The unicorn scrambled away, horn readying to blast the thing. ‘The hoof!’ she accused, making a connection between it and her nightmares. But after a moment, the glow dimmed and she replaced the saddlebags with their morbid contents. She could test it for enchantments back at home, but it was too rare a relic to be ruined on paranoid assumptions.
“Now,” Twilight whispered, looking around the cramped forest floor, “which way to Ponyville?”
She finally made it back after hours of wandering, which unfortunately was just in time for the town to be up and about. Twilight made quite a sight for the ponies going about their daily business; dirtied and disheveled, with leaves in her mane and a tattered saddlebag on. A gardener watering his plants had seen her path from the infamous forest, and spread the word to his neighbor, which then spread to everypony. By the time she could see her home, the word had even outpaced her, and ponies muttered to each other as she sloughed passed, wondering why the Princess's prized student was in such a foul place so early in the day.
Twilight slammed the door on the curious looks, too tired and too concerned over her own problems to care. Last night had been an even worse rest than the previous, and the walk to town was just icing on a very unpleasant cake. Discarding her saddlebags, she floated the hoof very far away from her and, after checking it for any sort of magic, confined it in her basement . Nothing, of course.
Then she settled down at her desk, the piles of books being added to with those on dreams, symbolism, and magic of all kinds. She was solving this mystery today.
Much later in the day, Rainbow glided through town on a beeline for the library. Her nap had been rudely interrupted by Applejack, nevermind that she had been sleeping in one of the farmer’s trees, who had then sent her out to talk to Twilight. Rumor had been going around like wildfire, ranging from her gathering ingredients in the Everfree to her fighting several hydras. Rainbow was going to visit her today, anyways, so she volunteered to go on Applejack’s behalf as well.
The first thing she saw of Twilight’s home was the crowd that had gathered around it, trying to peek through shaded windows. Rainbow landed with a pronounced stomp, drawing everypony’s attention. “Don’t you all have something better to do?” she snarled, annoyed by their invasion of her friend’s privacy. The crowd dispersed quickly, and Rainbow flew over to knock at the usual window. After a pause, it unlocked and she jumped inside.
“Hey, Twi. There are some really crazy rumors goin’ round and- Whoa. What happened to you?”
Twilight was slumped on her desk, still a mess from her late night trip, every limb drooping with exhaustion. For a second, Rainbow thought the idea of her fighting a few hydras might have some merit. “Late night,” she explained blearily, slowly pushing herself upright. “Why’re you here?”
“Cause I’m worried about you. Applejack, too. The ponies are talking about you going into the Everfree by yourself, and you look like... Well, Rarity would go nuts!” Rainbow moved next to her friend, brushing twigs and dirt out of her coat.
“Applejack?”
“Yeah, Applejack. I told her I’d give you a message for her, so she wouldn’t go running off while her families working Sweet Apple Acres. She said that if you go into that forest again without telling any of us, she’s going after you with a lasso.”
Twilight’s ears lowered, and she buried her muzzle into an open book, ashamed she had worried her friends so much. “I didn’t mean to! I swear, I would’ve told you or one of the girls if I wanted to go into the Everfree! I just... this time, I couldn’t...” She had to stop as the tears started. The sleep deprivation was playing Discord with her emotions.
“I believe you,” Rainbow said softly, embracing Twilight as she sobbed, worried that she might have upset her. “I believe you, Applejack would believe you too. We’re cool, no hard feelings.”
“That’s not the problem,” Twilight moaned, pushing her friend away and stomping a circle through, sometimes on, the books. Rainbow watched, amazed at what her literature loving friend was doing. “I didn’t even know that’s where I was going! I was, I was sleepwalking, but I could tell I was moving. But I couldn’t stop myself! I - I...”
She collapsed, her energy spent, and Rainbow eased over to her. This time it was Twilight who hugged her, latching on like the pegasus was the only thing keeping her safe. With broken words, she told her about the nightmares, her unwitting journey, and how they might be related to the hoof. Rainbow tensed at that part, and asked if she had gotten rid of it; she had not, it was still in the basement.
Rainbow put a hoof to her face, looking frustrated. “Twilight! That thing is trying to hurt you, and you just keep it around?”
“It’s a priceless artifact,” Twilight defended, but Rainbow would hear none of it, marching to the basement door. “Wait! We don’t know for sure that it’s the hoof causing my nightmares! It’s just a hunch.” Rainbow kept marching. “There’s no telling what harming it might do! If it is some kind of spell, then that could just make things worse.”
This made Rainbow stop, lowering her head in defeat. “Alright, Twi. The hoof stays until we can figure out what’s going on.” Twilight raised a hoof at ‘we’. “Yes, I know what we means; it means that I am staying with you until you’re safe. Even if that means we gotta read a bunch of books all day.”
Twilight nodded, smiling slightly, happy that her friend was staying with her. “I’ve read through every book I could find on the subject, so don’t worry. Until Spike gets back and I can send for more, we’ll just have to wait.”
“So, what’ve you got?” Seeing Twilight’s confused look, Rainbow pointed at the basement door. “On the stupid hoof. I want to know what we’re dealing with. Is it a curse, like in the Daring Do book?”
“Curses aren’t real,” Twilight reminded her. Rainbow smirked, picking up a thick tome with the title ‘Basic Curses and Hexes,’ which was looking conspicuously used. “Curse like spells, however, exist,” Twilight amended with a flush. “Anyways, I checked it for any sort of spell or magic and it had nothing. It might be the smell, some kind of herb that causes hallucinations and somnambulism- er, sleepwalking. I still don’t know what exactly the ancient unicorns used on their mummies. And that’s still assuming the hoof is actually the problem.”
Rainbow trotted to a cushion, sprawling out over it and gesturing for Twilight to take the other. “Yeah, well, I think that’s a good assumption. So, you’ve read up some more on those unicorns? Tell me about that, then. Maybe there’s a clue.”
“Not much that’s going to be helpful.” Twilight sat down, relaxing her bone weary limbs. “I figured out some more of their symbols, but the hoof doesn’t have any of them at all. Come to think of it, it’s unusual in a number of ways besides that. The normal ritual was meant to preserve the body, and prepare it for the next world. The bodies were very important to their beliefs. Cutting off even a part of it would be almost like treason. Or... the severest form of punishment.”
“So, you got the hoof of some big bad guy in your basement?”
“Possibly. Just as possible is that it’s simply a part of a typical mummy, separated by mistake. That doesn’t tell me who sent it, though, or why, or where they got it from.”
“Wouldn’t they get it from a museum or something?” Rainbow asked, sticking out her tongue at the thought of a museum.
“Yes, except that there are no real mummies in any museums. The ancient unicorns seem to have vanished some centuries before the more commonly known unicorns, and they never even acknowledged the practice. All we know of the ancients are from paintings in their ruins.” Twilight sighed, then turned an inquisitive eye to Rainbow. “And this is the longest I’ve talked about anything without you getting bored. You must be really curious about this stuff, too.”
“Nah,” Rainbow said, grinning. “Just thought a good way to get your mind off things was to get you talking.”
Rainbow was right; Twilight had slowly calmed down during her lecture. And, holding to this idea, Rainbow kept her talking throughout the day, about her foalhood in Canterlot, her mentor Princess Celestia, their friends, anything that would keep her occupied. When night had settled over the land, Twilight stood up with a stretch and yawn, starting to say goodbye as she turned towards her room. Rainbow trotted up next to her anyways.
“You didn’t think I was seriously going to leave, did you?” she asked, determination in her voice. “I said I wasn’t leaving until you were safe, and I meant it. Besides, you need somepony around in case you go sleepwalking again.”
Seeing there was no room for argument, not that she wanted to, Twilight lead her friend upstairs, setting up the guest bed for her before turning to her own. ‘Of course she was going to stay,’ she thought, feeling safe for the first time that whole day. With the very ponification of loyalty keeping watch, she knew nothing would even get a chance to hurt her.
Except dreams. Dreams were well beyond Rainbow’s reach.
The darkness, the crunching and buzzing, and the musk all descended as they had twice before, driving her mad for a very long time until it changed again. Her body began to move of its own accord once more, but the sensation was so muffled that she couldn’t tell what was happening. Panicking, she tried to wrest control back, meanwhile praying for Rainbow to stop whatever was happening.
The crunching noise grew louder and thicker now, like entire, living trees were being snapped in half every second. The buzzing was overpowered by it. And the sickly sweet musk was laced with something damp and sharp, though it mingled so much with the original smell that Twilight couldn’t place it. All the while, her body repeated a constant movement, over and over, its owner incapable of stopping it.
Then everything ended, and she was left in the void without any sense at all, drifting formless for eternity.
Twilight awoke with a gasp, flailing her legs as she felt her consciousness slide into its familiar place. This room was not hers, and for a second she feared she had wandered off again until she noticed the white, sterile surroundings. She was in a hospital bed, complete with the bleeping heart monitor and IV bags that dripped enchanted painkillers.
Rainbow walked in while she was trying to recall anything beyond the nightmare, staring blankly at the ceiling. She did turn when she heard the door open, and seeing a sleep deprived Rainbow with reddened eyes, felt a pit begin to form in her stomach. Rainbow, who often boasted of being the toughest pony around, nearly broke down at the door. She managed to trot shakily to the bed before she buried her head into its side.
“I’m so sorry, Twi. I... I tried but I couldn’t help...” she cried, muffled by the sheets.
“Sorry for what?” Twilight asked, unsure if she truly wanted to know. “What happened, Rainbow?”
“I woke up, and you were gone,” she began, once she had collected herself enough to talk. “And I got really worried, cause what if you had gone out into the Everfree again? So I ran downstairs, and I... I heard it first, this awful crunching noise, then I saw you...”
Rainbow was silent for a moment, shuddering. Reaching out to put a comforting hoof on her friend, Twilight stopped when she saw her left leg tightly bound with bandages. Only, it seemed shorter than it should be. “Rainbow” she demanded, breathing quick and shallow, “what happened?”
“You had a saw, I don’t even know where you found it, and you were... using it on your leg. And I tried to stop you! I tried to tackle you, get you to stop, but you caught me with some magic and I started floating. I tried shouting at you, and all you did was look at me, and your eyes were... they looked blind, and empty, and I was useless!”
As Rainbow muttered apologies into the bed, Twilight held her two legs together and saw that her left hoof was missing. ‘From the cannon down,’ she observed, stunned and horrified.
“My hoof?” she questioned softly, making Rainbow finally look up while she continued to stare at her mismatched legs.
“It’s gone. After you were... done, you collapsed, so I flew you to the hospital. I went back afterwards to get it, cause maybe they could fix it or something, but it was gone. So was the mummy hoof.” She spat out the words, “Good riddance.”
Twilight slumped back into the bed, staring at her stump in silence for some time. “What if this happens again, to somepony else?” she mused quietly, toneless. “Could I have stopped it? Or, is it going to come back for me?”
Rainbow snarled, forcing Twilight’s leg down and turning her head so they were face to face. The unicorn could feel the guilt in her friend’s magenta eyes, but the fury that covered it was fiercer. She shrunk back, thinking she had offended Rainbow. “If that thing comes back for you, or any of our friends, or anypony, I’m going to kill it.” She passed back into an uneasy silence after that, energy spent but never leaving Twilight’s side.
That day passed in a surreal daze, Twilight still in disbelief of what had happened, but the growing pulse of pain was a cruel reminder that the nightmare had already ended. One by one, her friends filtered in from wherever they had been, concerned and worried and frightened for the wounded mare. She had been out cold for two days, enough time for all of them to rush back home when the news reached them. They were told the full story, told to be on the watch for the hoof, just in case.
And when dusk rolled around, they offered to spend the night, but Rainbow Dash insisted that she would stand guard. She was still hurting from her last failure no matter how often Twilight forgave her. Even with her comforting presence, Twilight fought sleep with all her will that first night.
But when it inevitably overtook her, there was no haunting dream. Her torment had passed.