Exiled From Equestria

Her eyes flutter open. She can see dim moonlight, even though she last saw darkness. She tosses onto her side. The ground is soft. Her vision tells her it’s grass, when she fainting on stone.

Twilight slowly regains full consciousness. She sits up on the soft green grass. She wonders how she could be sitting outside when she was just locked away.

She feels her neck. The collar is gone. Her instincts tell her to turn around, and there she finds the very entrance the underground cell she had been trapped in.

How is she free?

Dark magic is more powerful than you could ever imagine, Twilight. Even more powerful than good. Discord’s last words cling to her brain like a barnacle to coral. Her dark magic is what brought her to the cell. Is it what brought her out? Even with her magic-proof collar on, was her dark magic powerful enough to teleport her just outside of it?

Probably. So far, that’s the best answer the purple unicorn has.

For minutes, she just sits there, listening to owl hoots and the rustling of tree branches. She has a tent that she could set up, but one, she has to use magic to enlarge it, and that doesn’t seem like a very good option at the moment. Secondly, she feels as awake as the owls.

Twilight debates on what to do next. Whenever she comes across a pony, they usually end up stabbing her in the back. The store pony, Midnight Blaze and Shooting Star… But they didn’t do anything, right? She still wonders where her friends had gone to, but since the situation had made no sense, she can make a pretty obvious guess.

So what should she do? Even though she has the maps and compass to get back to Equestria, does she still have the time? By now, who knows what Nightmare Moon is doing?

What if, by all her rage, Nightmare killed her best friends? What if she went back to Equestria, and everypony she loved, was dead?

What if Nightmare Moon killed her next?

For just the slightest moment, Twilight doesn’t want to return to Equestria. But then she remembers the first day she met all her friends. How she always denied ponies’ friendship, but then she discovered it’s magic. She can’t abandon the ponies she loves most. Besides, what else could she do outside of Equestria?

Twilight snaps back to her attention. Each day, she finds herself zoning out more and more.

With no other option, Twilight decides to keep moving. The second her flanks leave the comfort of the tall, thick grass, she begins to shiver. The sound of chattering teeth join the noises of the forest.

A purple nose enters her left saddlebag, and leaves with a jacket. One by one, Twilight slips on her snow gear (even though it’s not snowy) without using her unicorn magic.

Another sound joins the forest. This time, it’s her grumbling tummy. Luckily, I have…Twilight reaches into her right saddlebags in what she hopes to find ripe yellow bananas and fresh red apples. But these are far from fresh, she realizes, when the very tip of her icy muzzle squishes into bugs. Her head jerks back as she screams and, very much panicky, slips of her saddlebags and slaps them onto the ground. Ants and worms and bugs she doesn’t even know slither out. Her face twists with disgust.

“So much for that meal,” she grumbles. Once the long trail of bugs fade away, she carefully peeks back inside her saddlebags. All that’s left are a tent, compass, maps, and apples pierced with worm holes and bananas scraped to the peel. She covers her nose with a foreleg and twists her head away as she dumps all the rotten food into the clearing.

It doesn’t take long for the worms and ants to come crawling back. But luckily for Twilight, she has already slipped on her saddlebags and turned-tail.

Rule 1, don’t use your magic. Especially in front of other ponies. Who knows what dark magic is capable of, other than scarring the fur off ponies. As Twilight streaks through the forest, trying her best to stay away from any bat pony civilization, she comes up with a mental rulebook to help her way back home.

Rule 2… Twilight is so caught up in her thinking that she doesn’t notice that she’s coming mere inches away from falling off a sudden cliff. She skids to a halt, right before the rock. Pebbles clack down the side. Heavy breaths are noticeable in the cool night air. Rule 2, stop zoning out.

Twilight carefully backs away from the death-like cliff. Once her breaths and heartbeat return to their usual pace, she creeps, inch by inch, toward the side of the cliff. Most ponies would expect a cliff to lead to a river or the ocean or some kind of gorge.

Not this one. The unicorn gazes in awe at the wondrous sight bestowed upon her. She has never seen anything more beautiful than what she sees now.

Two words: floating islands. From her view on the edge, she can see the cliff round underneath the large landmass. Everything underneath is silver clouds glowing periwinkle in the precious light glowing from Princess Luna’s moon. Beside the large landmass Twilight stands on are other floating islands. They come in wide ranges. Far off in the distance, she can see a land mass as large as the one she stands on now. But in between them two are a never-ending sky and small dirt islands that only reach about 8 tail-lengths at the most and are covered in grass and flowers. Some even have a few trees with birds nesting inside.

Sure, Cloudsdale floats in mid-air without any support underneath it. But Twilight can understand that because, after all, Cloudsdale is made up of clouds. Clouds float. In fact, Twilight can go into extreme detail about how clouds work, but that’s not what’s on her mind.

It’s the fact that land is floating. Chunks of ice-cream cone shaped land scattered everywhere to form the way between the landmass Twilight stands on now, and the landmass Twilight needs to get to.

Just to be sure, she checks her map and compass to make sure she’s going the right way. And according to them both, she should have no doubt that this is the way she needs to cross.

There’s only one problem.

How do I get across without using my magic?

Twilight observes the large gap between the edge where she stands and the closest floating island. It appears to measure at least 12 tail-lengths. Definitely not enough to hop across. She can just teleport herself onto the other landmass, past the floating islands, but then she fears that her dark magic will overwhelm her. It’s a risk she’s not willing to take.

As Twilight grumbles and tries to think of other ways to get across, she stubs her left foreleg on a rock covered by bushes. “Stupid rock,” she grumbles, rubbing her injured foreleg with the other.

The longer Twilight continues to stare at the rock is the longer she starts to realize it isn’t one. Through the bush leaves surrounding it, she instead makes out wood with writing on it.

Twilight separates the bushes and flattens them down so she can get a better look at the ‘rock’. It appears to be a small wooden sign wrapped in ivy. She rips off the ivy with her teeth, then begins to read the neat words engraved on it.

“Solve this riddle for the way across: A natural state, I'm sought by all. Go without me, and you shall fall. I am needed for bad and good. I’ve helped you everywhere you stood.”

Once the last letter of the riddle slips off her tongue, the ground below her hooves starts to shake. She looks down from the sign, then forward at the floating islands.

How many times can she be awe-struck is just four days?

...now five days, considering it’s a little past midnight.

What Twilight didn’t notice before about the large gap in the landmasses was that in the middle, there are three rows of floating islands lined up neatly. The rows holds five separate islands, each about 13 tail-lengths apart. Before, she hadn’t noticed them because, like all the others, there is nothing connecting all the islands.

However, now all the five islands in the three rows are connected by a bridge, each one different than the rest. The first row has rope bridges. Just like the ones my friends and I traveled across when we first met, Twilight thinks. For some strange reason, she feels a sudden pang in her head. When she stops thinking about her friends, the pang goes away.

The second row has bridges made of spiderwebs. Which, if you think about it, must have to be pretty thick to be able to hold a mare’s weight.

Last is the third row. Its bridges are made up of many vines of ivy wrapped around each other. Ponies like Twilight don’t find that very promising.

Finally, in front of the three rows of floating islands and bridges, are three signs. Each sign says something different. The sign placed in front of the row holding rope bridges reads ‘peace’. The row littered with spiderwebs holds a wooden sign that reads ‘power’. Last but not least is the third row enveloped in ivy with a sign that reads ‘love’.

At first, Twilight only sees these three signs. But something nags at her, insisting that she look to the left and to the right. This comes to her advantage, because when she turns her attention to the left, she can see another wooden sign a little farther away. She trots up to it. “Balance,” she reads. When she looks forward, there is no row and no bridges in front of the sign, unlike the others.

It occurs to her that the words on the signs must be different answers to the riddle. Surely, no path isn’t going to lead her across the endless sky. So she turns away and trots back to the three paths.

Twilight flops onto her hindquarters. A natural state sought by all… she puts a hoof to her chin and stares into the endless starry sky. The first one reads peace. Discord pops into her mind. That isn’t it…another is power. An image of her five friends smiling and laughing pops into mind. Her heart twists. Not that, either.

Grass flattens underneath her purple hooves as the unicorn paces around. “Love and balance. I don’t think evil seeks love.” Queen Chrysalis appears to mind. “Other than changelings, of course.”

“Balance…yeah, I guess ponies seek balance in the world.” She thinks of Discord. A mental image of the answers on a notepad being checked off appears in her mind. Balance joins those. Since Twilight can’t decide on which answer seems most accurate, she moves onto the next part of the riddle.

“Go without me, and you shall fall…peace. Yeah, evil doesn’t have peace, and they always get defeated. Power. Not so much.” Twilight has to trot back and forth between the signs to remember all the answers. “Love.” The memory of Princess Cadence and Shining Armor’s wedding comes into perspective. “Well… I guess so. Balance?” She giggles. “That’s defiantly true.”

She reads the riddle again. “I am needed for bad and good. Peace? Not for bad. Power? Not necessarily. Love? Same answer as peace. Balance?” She pauses. A second mental check mark appears next to the answer ‘balance’ on her mental checkbook. “Yup.”

“I’ve helped you everywhere you stood.”

This one gives Twilight an awful headache. “Peace, power, love, and balance have all helped me get to where I am now.” She holds her head between her hooves and tried to think more clearly. “But if I think of it another way…balance helps you stand in more of a weight concerning way than a mental timeline.”

Her mental checkbook shows that balance is the highest chance of being the right answer. But how can that be, when it’s the only row without bridges?

She glances from the empty row that appears to hold the correct answer, to the three other answers with actual rows. Why would they make a row without bridges? she wonders. Are they trying to… trick me?

Trick me how? Which row do I take?

From left to right, her view changes in the pale moonlight of the blissful night sky. Owl hoots and the sound of wind blowing against her ears and the long grass fade out as she ponders further on which path to take.

She never expected to come across a challenge like this. Compared to her journey so far, this one seems out of place.

Instead of inspecting the ‘balance’ row further, she roams over to the second most accurate answer: love.

Twilight sniffs the ivy vine bridge connecting the landmass to the floating island. She lifts a shaky foreleg and presses it down gently onto the flat surface. Then she places on her other foreleg. Immediately, the bridge snaps. Twilight screams as she feels the pressure from her hooves on the ivy fall slightly through the air. Without her front half balanced, she falls off the edge.

Horrified screams echo through her ears as she falls through the never ending sky. She reaches out for the ledge, but it’s too far away now. She has two seconds to look back at the broken ivy vines before they slip away from sight too quickly to wrap her legs around.

In a matter of seconds, fog covers her view of the islands and landmass. Why? is all Twilight can think in her moments of panic. With her back facing the ground, she cannot see exactly where she’s falling to. Now, with fog the only thing she sees, the purple unicorn sort of air-swims onto her belly. She receives the same view.

Tear droplets pour from her eyes from the pressure. Twilight has never felt so afraid in all her life; not even when Nightmare Moon exiled her. This was a different kind of fear.

As Twilight endlessly falls, her screams fade. Her body begins to ache. She realizes that laying on her belly incredibly hurts much more than sitting on her back and switches her position.

Does this sky never end?

The fear slowly fades as she continues to fall. Five minutes later, she doubts she’ll never land anywhere. The thought of eternity falling sounds worse than being exiled, now that she knows what both are like.

Through her tearful vision, Twilight turns her gaze to her horn. Even though dark magic is slowly corrupting her, she has no other choice.

Twilight concentrates with great content on her magic. She blocks out the sound of the rushing wind and the feeling of fear gripping her soul. She licks her lips with anticipation and closes her violet eyes. With as much energy she can muster, her horn begins to glow purple and green, this time a smidge more vivid. She can feel dark magic flow through her body. What’s weird is that it feels good. It feels comforting. No matter how much she tells herself that it’s bad, she tips to the edge of giving in to the dark magic.

And then she remembers friendship. Even though the darkness inside her screams in argument, she forces herself to think about friendship. A new kind of reasurement courses through her blood.

The sound stops. The falling stops. She hasn’t even performed a teleportation spell, yet she feels solid ground beneath her. All it took was a little effort to take her a long ways. Maybe Discord was right. Maybe Dark Magic is more powerful than I could ever imagine...

No! Twilight shouts in her head. Even though it was herself who had spoken the words, her eyes snapped open, startled. She takes in her surroundings.

Twilight appears to be in a swamp. It's cold and quiet, except for crickets chirping and the faint sound of music. In front of her appears to be a large wooden sign, reading: Stargaze Swamp. Curious, she grabs all of her maps from her bag (with her teeth) and lays them over the grass ground she lays on.

"This can't be right," Twilight murmurs. Just a few moments ago, she was in Trica. But now, she is located in Scamptra. the country directly beside it, and at the far northeast, too.

How powerful is dark magic if it can teleport a unicorn such a distance, requiring as much power as an alicorn's?

***

Bright morning sunshine seeps in through the hotel window. Rainbow Dash grumbles and stuffs her head underneath her cheap hotel pillow. Last night, Rarity had insisted that they leave the curtains open so that they can rise ‘bright and early’. Rainbow would have disagreed entirely, if Rarity hadn’t convinced her that they had no time to lose to bring Twilight back and find Pinkie Pie.

Rainbow Dash moans as she lays on her back, tossing her pillow onto the floor beside her. There is no point in trying to sleep now; after many years of early mornings back at Flight Camp, whenever sunlight finds her face in the mornings, she awakens.
The cyan pegasus stretches her right foreleg and her almost-entirely-healed left foreleg, then her left wing and her nearly-okay right wing, then slides her back legs over the side of the bed and stretches those. She yawns as she groggily gazes across the room.

Beside her is Applejack, slowly awakening from her (miraculously deep) slumber on the carpet floor. Behind her is the only other bed where Rarity had slept. Now she’s out and about, racing to the mirror and cringing at her bed hair. She doesn’t see Fluttershy in the room, so she assumes she’s sound asleep in the bathroom tub.

“My mane is such a tragedy. Just look at this split ends! If that dragon hadn’t burnt our saddlebags, I’d be brushing away,” Rarity whines.

Rainbow Dash stretches her healed wings out wide, tosses off her covers, then flutters out of bed. She lands next to Rarity and folds her wings. “I’m not paying another bit to sleep in these beds. That was my worst sleep in years!”

“Talk about needing beauty sleep,” Rarity adds.

Applejack plods over to her two complaining friends. “Well a’ course ya ain’t gonna pay another bit, ‘cause we ain’t got any. We got no money and no supplies. We’re lucky we got ta spend a night here, other than out in tha cold.”

“Easy for you to say, Applejack,” Rainbow retorts. “You slept like a log!”

“Only ‘cause Ah can ignore these harsh conditions and except them, other than tossin’ and turnin’ pointlessly while grumblin’ and complain’ to yerself.”

“Will you two please stop bickering?” Rarity interrupts. “We came here to Canterlot to help Twilight, and all we did was lose Pinkie Pie. Rainbow, by no doubt, this is the worst hotel in Canterlot.” Rainbow sneers at Applejack. “And Applejack, you are correct that this is the best we could get.” Applejack sneers back. “But right now, we should be focusing on finding Pinkie Pie instead of arguing. Now are we going to breakfast or not?”

Rainbow sticks a tongue out at Applejack.

“Why, you–”

“Everypony, please! I’m sure that once you get some divine food in your stomachs, you’ll feel much better.” Before the two ponies can oppose, Rarity opens the creaky hotel door with her aqua magic and nudges her two friends out the door. She feels like she’s forgetting something. “Fluttershy, Darling, are you awake?”

“Oh, I just finished getting ready,” a voice cooes from the bathroom door. They turn to see the yellow pegasus humming while gliding over to Rarity. “Sorry I took so long.”

“Nonsense, Dear. Was sleeping in that icky tub even comfortable?”

“Well…not exactly.” Fluttershy spreads out her left wings and stretches it wide. “I woke up with cramped feathers.”

“I did insist you sleep of my bed. I wouldn’t have minded.”

“That’s okay, Rarity.” Fluttershy closes her wing and grins sheepishly. “It really wasn’t all that bad.”

“If you insist. Now come, we’re heading off to breakfast.” She nudges Fluttershy out the aqua-enveloped door, then joins her in the hallway with a casual stroll.

By the time they catch up with their other two friends on the last flight of stairs and open the door, ponies are already buzzing around the cafeteria. The four friends uneasily saunter to the back of the long line.

Rainbow Dash places her hooves on her face and groans while dragging them off. “I thought the waiter said this dump is never packed. Does this look idle to anypony?”

Rarity rolls her eyes. She doesn’t feel like responding, especially since the complain was a little rude. Instead, she thinks about last night, how her friends and her were so tired that they fell asleep at a quaint restaurant, even though they had no bits to buy any of their food. Once all the customers had left, an earth pony waiter with a slicked-back indigo mane shook them awake. He notified them that it was closing time. She was more asleep than awake at the time, so Rarity can’t remember exactly how they got into a conversation, but they did. Then he started telling them about a worn-down hotel down the street that’s never packed, so it’s always open for last-minute reservation. He offered to buy them a night there in return for a last minute favor, which turned out to be some last-minute shopping.

“This food looks better than the beds.”

“Hm?” Rarity snaps out of her daze. She hadn’t realized how quick the line was moving. She also doesn’t remember when she arrived at the counter with trays stacked in a pile in one corner. She discerns that the words came from Rainbow Dash, who stands just behind her with a tray somehow held upright in a wing.

Rarity levitates a tray from the pile in her magic and stares at the wide variety of food placed in baskets on the counter. She turns down the pancakes, for syrup is too sticky, and picks out a small, lady-like sized slice of apple cake.

The four friends quickly seat themselves at a table next to a large glass window. Outside is the bustling city that is the capital of Equestria. High-society ponies wander about past the tall skyscrapers (which are really only skyscrapers because Canterlot it is on the cliff side of a tall mountain.

Applejack pokes at her lifeless pancakes with a cheap plastic fork while staring off into space. Fluttershy only stares at her red velvet cupcake like nothing is even on her metal tray. Rainbow Dash swirls the oats inside of a clear plastic bowl with a spoon. Rarity would be eating, too, if she wasn’t so worried about her friends. Although, her friends seem to be what’s worrying her all the time lately.

“Is anypony going to even touch their food?” Rarity interrupts the silence. No pony responds. For some odd reason, the white unicorn feels anger at her friends’ woes. She pushes her chair back, stands on her hind legs, and glares while smacking her front hooves on the table. This catches their attention. “What help are we sitting here, pitying our own sorrow? We should be out there, searching for Pinkie Pie and coming up with ways to find Twilight! This is the time for action, girls.”

“Ah just don’t know, Rares.” Applejack looks up from her pancakes. “By now, Pinkie could be back in Ponyville. Twilight could be… ya know…” she gulps and stares back down at her food. “Dead.”

Everypony cringers at the word. Everypony but Rarity. “I can assure you that she is very much alive.”

“How, Rarity?” Fluttershy whispers. Tears well up in her eyes. Rarity gets the oddest thought that the pegasus is being pathetic. She scolds herself for thinking such a rude thought.

“All I know is that she will die if we don’t help her. So if any of you actually care about Twilight, then we should be out there,” Rarity says, pointing her hoof out the window, “convincing Nightmare Moon to bring her back.”

“We already tried that,” Rainbow snaps. She glares at Rarity with cold eyes; eyes that send chills down her spine. “Look how well that turned out. Pinkie Pie is gone and we don’t even know where she went or what she’s doing! If anything, running after her would be the best option, but we don’t know where the hay she is!”

For the first time since the conversation started, everything is silent. Rarity looks up from the table. All eyes are on her. She blushes and sits back down in her seat. When she pushes herself back in, the chair squeaks. It echoes through the silent hotel.

“Then what do we do?” Rarity asks hushly. The sound of other ponies’ chatter begin to rise once more. “If we can’t chase after her, if we can’t convince Nightmare Moon, then what do we do?”

Applejack squeezes her eyes shut. A single tear burns like acid down her cheek. She pulls her hat over half of her face so her friends won’t see. “We wait.”

Silence.

Rainbow Dash laughs hysterically. “Wait? Wait for what? Wait for Discord to take over Equestria?”

“No.” Applejack lifts up her hat. Her gaze is one of the stern. “We wait for Twilight to come back.”

“Twilight’s not ‘coming back’, AJ. Wherever Nightmare Moon banished her, it’s probably too far away. Who knows? She could have banished Twilight to the moon.”

“Um… no offense, Rainbow Dash, but I saw the moon last night, and Twilight wasn’t inside…” Fluttershy whispers.

Rainbow grunts.

Applejack pushes her tray away, then lifts her hat off her head and sets it down on the table. “Ah know it seems like it’s a horrible plan, but what are we supposed ta do? Maybe if y’all just wait, Twilight will come back.”

Rarity taps her chin with a hoof. Suddenly, an idea springs into her head and her face brightens up. “Idea!”

“What is it, Rarity?” Fluttershy asks softly.

She smiles. “We take the Friendship Express to the Crystal Empire. Maybe Nightmare Moon won’t help us, but what about–”

“Princess Cadence,” Rainbow Dash finishes. “That’s a perfect idea!”

“Y’all forgot a few things,” Applejack interrupts. Her friends gaze into her ice cold eyes. They look like thin emerald sheets of ice, on the verge of cracking and releasing a large wave of tears. But they don’t crack. They stay stern and strong. “One, where are we gonna get the money to get a ride? Ah highly doubt anypony else would want to spend their bits for some travelers.”

“We could ask that waiter again,” Rainbow adds.

Fluttershy shakes her head. “He’s already done so much for us already.”

“Yeah, like throw us in a garbage can of a ‘hotel’.” Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes. When her three friends gaze into her own eyes, they don’t see ice protecting tears. They see two cerise boulders, too thick to see what’s behind. “I’m sick of this. We have to bring Twilight back, but everything is a large pile of disaster.” She throws her forelegs up in the air for exaggeration. “We don’t even know what we’re doing half the time.”

“I’m sure we’ll figure out the money problem, Applejack,” Rarity remarks. “What’s the other problem?”

Applejack scowls. “How are we supposed ta find Pinkie Pie?”