The Chronicle: Arrival

Chapter 4

One Week After Arrival

“Twilight! Wake up!”

                The Unicorn mare sat straight up in her bed, knocking a scaly animal to the floor. She looked around wildly, breaking out into a cold sweat. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot, and shaking with her body. Twilight looked down at her pet dragon and took him in her arms sacredly.

                “Oh Spike!” She squeezed the baby dragon helplessly.

                “Twilight…” he gasped, pushing himself away to no avail. “Can’t breathe…”

                But she didn’t hear him. Terror still coursed through her veins. “I had another nightmare…”

                “I can tell…” he replied still gasping for air. She finally let him go. “That’s three in one week. I think you need help.”

                Twilight nodded. “But who do I talk to?”

                “Celestia, maybe?”

                She shook her head. “I don’t know if I should tell her about my dreams.”

                “What about Rarity or Applejack? What about our friends?”

                Twilight merely shrugged. “I don’t think I should tell them either.”

                Spike edged closer to the purple mare and nuzzled her shoulder affectionately worried. “You can tell me.”

                She pushed Spike away slightly and placed her head on her pillow again, leaving the blanket down at her waist. She didn’t know how to talk to anyone anymore. Her dreams were her escape, but now they seemed so plagued by metal monsters, blood, and war, not to mention the inevitable mantra at the end of each of her dreams:

Find him.

                But find who? Her brother? Father? Some unidentified stallion that may have crossed paths with her? But the dreams hadn’t began until after the meteor incident; she could only theorize that whatever was making her act so differently near the crash site was also making her dreams so strange.

                “Spike, can you promise me something?”

                Spike leaned in close and nodded.

                “Please don’t tell anyone about my nightmares. I need to figure a few things out first.”

                Spike raised a scaly eyebrow to his owner and sighed compliantly. “But only if you don’t get hurt. The moment you get hurt because of this, I’m going straight to Princess Celestia.”

                “Agreed.”

+++

The doorbell rang at the library front door and Twilight stumbled out of bed lazily. She rubbed her crusty eyes open and looked around her bedroom for Spike. He was nowhere to be found. She stumbled out of her room and walked down the stairs wrapping around the inner edge of the tree she lived in.

                The doorbell rang, sending an annoying screech through her ears that made her wince. The Unicorn looked around the main level of the library and saw Spike lying in front of the unlit fireplace, sleeping soundly.

                “Spike!” she snapped angrily. The purple baby dragon shot awake and looked around intensely.

                “What?!” he called to attention.

                Twilight waited for the bell to ring one last time, but even then Spike hadn’t noticed the source of her frustration. She scoffed angrily and opened the door with a sneer.

                “What?”

                “Twilight, dear,” the white mare in front of her started. “I have the greatest thing to share with you…”

                “I don’t care.” Twilight shut the door on Rarity and started for the stairs once again. The doorbell rang once again, echoing painfully through Twilight’s ears. She looked to the door and saw Spike ready to open the door for his beloved. “Open that door and I’ll starve you.”

                Spike felt a sudden stabbing at his heart. “What?”

                How could Twilight threaten him in such a way?

                Why would Twilight even threaten him in the first place?!

                The doorbell rang one final time and the purple mare immediately contemplated making the door disappear along with the doorbell, but she remembered her horn and how much it still pained her to even lift simple things.

                She went to the door, grabbed Spike by his tail, and opened it, slamming it against the wall adjacent to it. She tossed Spike out to Rarity, who screamed in horror.

                “I’m on my period,” she lied. “Leave me alone.” She shut the door one last time and headed back up to her room. She felt nothing when she curled up in her bed.

+++

“Has anypony else noticed how Twilight ain’t acting right since she got out of the hospital?”

                Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity looked at Applejack, not wanting to admit something was wrong. Applejack needn’t any words.

                “Plus, she’s hiding something.”

                Pinkie Pie gasped from behind Applejack. She quickly bounced over to her empty seat at a round poker table that belonged to Applejack’s older brother, Big Macintosh. They were in the basement of the Apple Family Home and the smell of fresh apple pie always seemed to linger, though no pastries had been made.

                “Twilight wouldn’t hide secrets from us!” the bubblegum mare exclaimed in disbelief. Her playful nature had seemingly escaped her completely with Applejack’s statement. “We’re her friends!”

                The group all nodded as Spike came in with a pair of mugs full of apple cider. He set one next to Rarity and the other to Rainbow Dash, who gulped hers down quickly and lavishly spilling some on her muzzle. Nopony seemed to notice or care at the given moment; there had been other pressing matters.

                “I know, Pinkie,” Applejack started doubtfully, “but I know when a pony is uh lyin’, and Twili’ isn’t a good liar.”

                “But why would she want to hide things from us?” Rainbow Dash added.

                “I don’t know. Spike, do you know anything?”

                Spike turned away, passing a façade of heading back to the upstairs kitchen for more cider. He knew if he looked Applejack in the face and told her he didn’t, she would see through his lie. He would inadvertently be breaking his promise to Twilight.

                “Nope,” he said, half pretending to be worrisome and the other half acting nonchalant. When he had left, the girls all looked at the sections of the table.

                “I think it might be something about that meteor that came down. Maybe we should ask Celestia about it.”

                “How are we supposed to get a message to Celestia, Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash scoffed.

                “Well, we do have a dragon that regularly sends messages to Celestia.” Applejack pointed towards the steep steps leading to the ground floor of the Apple Family Home. “He’s bringing us cider.”

                The cyan-eyed Pegasus nodded. “But what do we tell her?”

                “We tell her the truth, or what we know of it.” Applejack nodded unwaveringly. “If I know anything, it’s that the truth is the best course of action.”

                It wasn’t long until Spike came down with yet another pair of apple cider filled mugs and was immediately probed with demands.

                “We need ya to send a letter to Celestia, Spike,” Applejack said.

                He dropped one of the mugs and slipped in the mess, landing on his back with a loud bang. The first one to him was Fluttershy, who greeted him with a soft and kind smile.

“You okay?” she asked compassionately.

                He nodded. “Why do you need me to send a letter?”

                “Twilight needs help,” Rarity started. “Please Spikey-Wikey?”

                The baby dragon felt sudden conflict in himself. If he agreed, he would informing the princess that something was wrong and Twilight would blame Spike, but if he didn’t then it would look like he was hiding something and therefore showing that he knew something. It would only take a little of Rarity’s sweet talk to get the truth out of him and he knew it.

                But after a single second of thinking over the pros and cons of each, he threw it all away and realized that it was Twilight he was thinking about. She needed their help.

                “I’ll get the paper,” he said quickly.

+++

Princess Luna looked down from her ledge at Canterlot Tower, feeling the sun lower and her sister’s moon rise. It was a splendid sight to watch the sun set to the west and moon enter its cycle to the east. She saw at the bottom of her vision her capital city bustling and growing microscopically below her. It was an even more prideful and magnificent sight. Lights and colors of all hues radiated below.

                There was a soft knock at her chamber door. “Come in,” she said quickly.

                “Um, we have something we’d like to show you down in the lab.”

                The grand Alicorn princess turned from her balcony and trotted to the door where her citizen-worker stood. She looked at him curiously. “Truly?” He nodded to her. “Then let us go.”

                She followed the properly dressed stallion down her spiraling staircase and out of her tower. They walked along a path lined in ostentatious tapestries dedicated to the Three Royals, but as she passed the final one and through a small door to a compact, stone corridor, the alabaster Alicorn felt the scratching at the back of her throat yet again as well as the swelling in her mind.

                She couldn’t help but cough tremendously.

                “Princess!” the scientist exclaimed worriedly. He went to her side but she shook her head.

                “I’m fine, really. I just don’t like small spaces.”

                The scientist nodded and led the way through the small corridor as fleetingly as he could and held open the metal door at the end of the hall. The room inside was a pasty white color with bright lights hanging above by small, but strong, strands of wire. All around the room was equipment ranging from doctoral to experimental and even to destructive.

                The three other workers didn’t look up from their posts until the princess patted the ground with her hooves. They all looked up and stood at attention like militants.

                “It’s okay. Please show me what you have discovered.”

                “Okay.” The scientist walked over to the nearest display was. A large rock of crystalized flame was placed on a burning pad connect to a nozzle in the wall. “We have no idea what this is, so we’ve decided to just call it fire rock, but it’s not a rock.”

                “Then what is it?”

                “We don’t know, but all rocks have a degree of melting down or amount of pressure it can withstand without crushing. We had Luna’s dragon, Lilith, burn at this for hours and it hadn’t even bent. We also had three Unicorns as well as Percy over there to use their magic to crush it. Nothing.”

                The princess raised an eyebrow at the strange and unsettling discoveries.

                “Moving on”—he took several steps farther and stood next to a small cage—“and you’ll see this cage.”

                “What’s so special about it?” Celestia felt something tickling her horn; it felt unpleasant. She looked at the bottom of the cage and saw a small pile of dirt.

                “There used to be a squirrel in here.”

                “What happened to it?”

                “It died when we left it near the fire rock for too long.”

                “It died? How?”

                “We don’t know, but it decayed incredibly fast. Far too fast for even magic.”

                Celestia looked at the fire rock and her citizens. “Is it safe for you to be working near it? I do not want anyone dying because of my own curiosity.”

                “It is fine, princess. None of us have felt any different since it came here. Well except for one thing…”

                “What?”

                The scientist looked at his feet and at his colleagues. “When we went to study the crash site, we…uh…we didn’t act like we should have.”

                “What do you mean?”

                “We felt dirty,” one voice said behind Celestia. “And we’re scientists so that shouldn’t bother us…but it did.”

                The princess nodded and said, “Do you care to elaborate?”

                “We don’t know how really. Equestria has never experienced anything like this before. There hasn’t been anything recorded like this in all the years you have ruled and even prior to your rule. No myths, no legends. Nothing. Nothing has ever come to the planet that would cause things like this. Plus…” He hesitated.

                “What?” Celestia suddenly felt an abnormal amount of worry.

                “We were only there for ten minutes. Who knows what it could do to somepony if they stayed any longer.”

+++

Princess Celestia stood at her balcony once again, this time basking in her sister’s moonlight. The grand Alicorn closed her eyes slightly, feeling the nearby fireplace grace her flank and backs of her open wings with warmth.

                Then she sensed something. Something that made her smile, washing away the itching sensation in her throat. Celestia turned towards the open fireplace and watched the orange flames transmute into flickering green and blue. The fire burst outward suddenly, charring the silk sheets slightly, but it did not bother the princess as the sheets and covers had always been charred from the first letter Twilight had sent.

                Out of the sputtering flames, a rolled up piece of paper shot across the room, tearing hanging drapes and tapestry. It startled the princess, but she kept her composure. Instead, she went to the scroll and found it strangely out of Twilight’s style. The letter was highly out of order: it was folded and not rolled; there wasn’t a stamp indicating it was from Twilight, though the flames bore the same fire her dragon assistant had; and it wasn’t with Twilight’s Slimtree Gilded Paper, but with a common piece of lined parchment.

                Why had Twilight chosen not to follow any of the guidelines set by Celestia? Had she simply been pressed on time and needed to send a letter quickly? It worried the princess, but she simply waved it off. Twilight was obviously just trying to adapt to her new life in Ponyville; being a little messy was going to be a norm.

                The letter was embraced by a majestic white glow and unraveled it before her eyes. The first thing she noticed was that it was in fact written in Spike’s perfect cursive, one of his proud accomplishments, but it looked slightly rushed. Plus, the briefness of it was alarming.

Dear Princess Celestia,

This is Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and the whole group. We believe that there is something wrong with Twilight. She isn’t acting the same. She’s acting very differently and it worries us. Come as soon as possible.

Your Worried Subjects,

Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Spike

Princess Celestia looked over the letter numerous times, hoping that it was simply a cruel trick, but when nothing changed about the words and letter itself, the Princess of the Sun felt the itch at the back of her throat come back.

                Celestia shook her head in disbelief. Was Twilight really acting differently? How different? Did she become a sex crazed mare or did she have murderous tendencies? Celestia had known ponies to have sudden shifts in behavior, but never expect her prized student to have such a thing happen.

                What if she was simply growing up, and the traumatic experience with the meteor was simply hastening such an event? Celestia didn’t want to lose her innocent little filly. She wanted Twilight to stay adorable and pure forever, though knowing such a thing was impossible. Instead, she would settle for “as long as possible”.

                The princess sat on her haunches and coughed for a moment, setting the paper on her night stand. Thoughts began racing through her head that worried her tremendously. The princess looked to her nightstand and used her magic to slide open the small drawer. She lifted the contents out and smiled at the large leather and yarn bound book.

                She set it front of herself and looked at the hoof etched words on the front: Memories. Celestia always found it rather cliché to have a photo album, but for some reason, Twilight made her feel like she needed to have something to record their memories, even if they were only in single frames.

                The princess flipped the photo album open to the first page, making an immediate mental note to take a carriage to Ponyville at dawn.

+++

Twilight Sparkle felt herself rise out of bed instinctively. The sun was barely over the horizon and the closer she looked out her bedroom window, the clearer she could make out a spot against the sun. It was growing large and large until she realized that it was heading straight for the library.

                With a gasp, the Unicorn leapt out of bed and cried, “Spike! Meteor!”

                But Spike was nowhere to be found. It took her mere moments to remember she had thrown him out to Rarity and locked the door. The Unicorn shook her head in self-disappointment. She had sent her friends away yet again.

                The Unicorn went to her window slowly and peered out. The object flying towards her was not a meteor at all, but Princess Celestia riding on a carriage being pulled by two strong looking Pegasi.

                There was small moment of dread that washed over her after seeing herself in the window’s transparent reflection. Her mane was out of control and unkempt; her eyes looked dark underneath and bloodshot. It had been a long night of dreams. Then she saw how the rest of her looked…

                She looked miserably gray and pale, like all of the color and life had been flushed out of her.

                Twilight returned her attention to the coming princess and noticed there were passengers with her…six randomly colored passengers. She recognized her friends sitting behind her mentor and became even more worried.

                Fear struck Twilight in an imposing way, sending jolts of terror up and down her spine that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. The purple unicorn looked around her room wildly and unsure what she should do. She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone; she wasn’t even sure what was wrong with her.

                What if Celestia was coming to chastise her?! The Unicorn shook her head furiously at the thought and flattened her ears to the back of her head. She couldn’t go through it again. Twilight wasn’t strong enough and knew that she would break down if Celestia brought her dreadful wrath upon her.

                The Unicorn decided in a single flash of the instance her only choice…

                She ran away from the library.