“Twilight, I do not think you should be here right now.” Fluttershy said it in all earnesty. Still rubbing sleep from her eyes, she’d just awoken in the mid of night to find the newly-alicorn princess sitting on the edge of her bed. It did not seem a normal thing for friends to do.
Twilight did not seem to care. She sat solemnly still facing the window. From the mattress the lines of her form rose taut, as if tensed in anticipation of some distasteful purpose, and her purple was uncomfortably muted in the moonlight. It made her look abnormally uninviting.
At Fluttershy’s words, Twilight’s head calmly swiveled to her.
“I would prefer if you did not tell me where I should be, or when.” The form of her smile was a bit too askew.
“Oh.”
Some moments passed in which Twilight offered no explanations. She watched Fluttershy coolly. Her eyes were fixed unwavering like a lense through which some greater presence peered in from above.
This was not what Fluttershy had expected. She drew her sheets closer to conceal more of her.
“Well... Could you please not look at me, um, in the way that you’re looking?”
Perhaps it was the lack of light but Twilight’s smile seemed to grow a fraction bigger. “No.”
“Oh,” Fluttershy repeated as she tried to think, of anything. Something to do or say. At first she’d been baffled and dazed by sleep, but now she had decided she did not like that Twilight was here.
She stared at her hooves. It was safe to say never before had she been in a situation like this. Twilight, who was her friend, coming to her house in the middle of the night acting completely unpony. Fluttershy felt a growing dread. She tried to smother it, to tell herself nothing bad had even happened, but a voice repeated in her, Things should not be the way they currently are.
“Just, if you would—”
“No.” It came soft and sharp, permitting no appeal.
Not even allowing her to finish her request. And that tone of voice was not friendly. The room grew colder. Fluttershy was slowly sinking, in what she did not know. She did not want to know. She did not want anything but to go back to sleep. Huddling more under the sheets, she reluctantly forced herself to glance again at Twilight.
Twilight noticed. She leaned toward her, posture just as rigid as before. There was no other movement on her, no moving of limbs, no sign of muscles shifting to accommodate the new pose.
“I will allow you no compulsion of any kind on my existence,” she said with wide eyes, mouth then resting to a blank line.
Fluttershy eeped. Now she looked displeased. The situation was declining. Fluttershy felt the urge to apologize, to express regret, to beg forgiveness. She wasn’t sure she should say anything. Her last attempts had been rebuked, what if she only made it worse?
None of this was right at all. This wasn’t like Twilight to—Fluttershy felt a cold shock. This was Twilight, right? What if it was not?
Fluttershy risked another look upward. Those eyes loomed down at her, stark in the darkness.
She didn’t want to think of the alternative, of what would happen if she asked and it wasn’t. She had to. She had to know.
“Um, I’m sorry to ask...You... are Twilight, right?” Her throat kept swallowing and her voice came out hoarse.
“You should not question that.” There was no expression now. No cheshire grin, no narrowing eyes or other signs of disapproval, just that pinpointed stare, compressing her into a speck.
Sinking into the bed she suppressed the urge to moan. That was not affirmative. Not a denial but not affirmative either.
What if it was a changeling snuck into her home to hurt her? Oh but it was not acting like a changeling, it wasn’t acting like any living creature. She couldn’t tell if it was even breathing. What if it was something worse? A vampony or spirit or a demon. And it was looking right at her.
Her head was dizzy, breath shallow, and she felt like melting into nothing. Fluttershy couldn’t see and didn’t want to. She was incapable of moving her eyes. Is this how it goes, she thought. All my life just be killed in the middle of the night by something that may or may not be Twilight?
“Now you should look at me.”
It had addressed her. Oh Celestia, now it was speaking to her. It wanted her to look at it. She couldn’t. She knew it was staring at her, and if she looked up she’d have to meet those eyes again. But, if she didn’t, what would it do? She'd already said the wrong thing, she couldn’t risk angering it again.
Fluttershy braced herself. Steadily, her eyes drew passed her hooves, passed her knees, up the bed, to Twilight’s waiting face. To her stony face with those leering eyes.
And slowly Twilight leaned in close over Fluttershy, body unmoving, her face inches from Fluttershy’s. Her violet irises carried infernal intensity.
“Happy birthday. You’re going to burn.”
Fluttershy slammed her eyes shut and ducked down, clutching the sheets over her head with shaking hooves. A thousand screams rang through her internally, only coming out as low sustained squeak. She curled in on herself, shivering, waiting for whatever was to come to come. Hoping it would be quick and painless, she hid and waited.
And waited.
Only when she felt the warmth of sunlight on her for several minutes did Fluttershy at last bring herself to open her eyes. Slowly, carefully, she peeked open one eye just a bit. No one was leaning down over her. No one was at the foot of her bed.
She was gone. But still Fluttershy could hear the echo of Twilight’s voice, remembering what it had said. ‘You’re going to burn.’ Fluttershy didn’t understand. She had thought that meant the thing that looked like Twilight was going to kill her. But here she was, safe and surviving to another morning.
But that hadn’t been all. Happy birthday, that was what it had preceded with. Fluttershy grabbed the calendar on her nightstand. Today was her birthday.
