TANTIBUS

CHAPTER SEVEN

The nurse stood there and waited for Twilight with a curious look on her face. As Twilight came out, she couldn’t help but to ask:

“How did it go? Did he talk more?”

Twilight, feeling a bit ashamed for stirring him up, just responded: “I think he needs assistance. It looks like he is having an attack or something.” Twilight smirked nervously. What if the nurse thought Twilight had done something to him? What if she was thrown in jail? “I must’ve accidentally triggered something in his memories.”

The nurse looked a bit confused and opened the door to Aeon’s room. Her eyes met the sight of a mentally stirred and physically exhausted colt. “Oh dear Celestia!” she yelled. “Uhm… Ms. Sparkle. You can go on without me. You remember the exit, right?”

Twilight nodded in return and turned around to walk away. But before she did, she glanced back and asked: “Is he going to be alright?”

The nurse caught her eye contact for a moment, remaining silent. Then, she went inside Aeon’s room without speaking a word more.

A very scared Twilight Sparkle initiated her walk of shame as she walked the corridors of the mental institution. Her hoof-steps echoed in the boring and stale, white walls sealing off a selected few from civilization, limiting their access to the outside world. The doors she passed in her steady walk were marked with a number and the name of the resident. A simple label for some residents, tombstones for others…

Twilight momentarily forgot Aeon and his condition as she read the fancy name she was supposed to remember. Here it was, the “home” of Luthus Regenard. She had just passed the door to her left when her brain realized what she had seen from the corner of her eye. “Oh yeah! I’m supposed to say Hi for Avany! How could I forget?”

She gave a simple knock on the door, awaiting a response. A very husky and grave voice commanded “Who is it?”.

Twilight didn’t want to use the A Friend kind of lie again so she just stated the truth and hoped for the best. “Twilight Sparkle.”

“I don’t know any Twilight Sparkle…”, was the response she didn’t want to hear, but ended up ringing in her ears anyway.

“Uhm… I am here on the behalf of Avany… Avany Lace.” Twilight said.

She heard Luthus say “Oh.” before unlocking the door. As he opened the door Twilight could see the shape of Avany’s uncle. His fur was light-grey and his mane was shortly cut and white as snow. He had goat-like facial hair that expressed wisdom. Both his tail and facial hair matched the color of his mane, usually the case with 95% of the ponies in Equestria.

He instructed her to take a seat on a chair as he did the same on the opposite side of a rounded, wooden table. He looked very serious, almost worried. Twilight didn’t know what to make of it, so it was Luthus who broke the silence.

“What has happened to my daughter?” He cleared his throat and corrected his mistake, “…I mean niece. Is she okay? My little Avany?”

Twilight was very confused of his worried tone and questions. Was she missing something here? Then she realized what it really sounded like to tell someone I’m here on the behalf of someone you love. Followed by that sentence the person would usually receive a yellow note reading Missing In Action.

“Oh no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that, excuse me. Avany is fine.” Twilight got back on track and Luthus let out a sigh of relief. He seemed like a really nice stallion. “In fact, I was told by her to stop by with a simple message.”

“Oh, alright. What is that then?”

“She loves you, Luthus. She wanted me to ensure you knew that, as I was on my way here to visit a friend of mine anyway.”

“How sweet of her, sending over a friend like that! Why couldn’t she come?”

“She had work to do, she was alone on her shift.”

“Typical Avany, always doing her best. That’s why I like her.” The old colt had a really charming attitude and a warm, husky voice that you could listen to for ages. Being read a bedtime story from him must be heaven. No wonder Avany likes him ha-ha, Twilight thought.

“Why don’t you make an old timer happy, eh?” He continued. “You can tell her that I love her with all of my heart, and nothing will change that. Heck! You can even mention that I mistook her as my own daughter. That’s how much I love her.”

Twilight was unsure whether she had time for another stop before the next train would leave, but she was afraid that she would break the old stallion’s heart by saying no, or mentioning that she barely knew Avany in the first place. So she said that she would do anything to make him happy.

Shortly after, she was on her way again. And as she passed the main lobby again she glanced at the clock. The next train was about to leave shortly. It was the train she was planned to take home and it looked like she had barely time to make it there.

“I suppose I could take the next train, so that I can go to the Tourist Agency and deliver Luthus’ response.” But then she remembered her promise to Spike; expect me to be home by dinner time. “Oh no, that would make me an hour late. Spike would be so worried.”

As Twilight walked out on the streets she decided to go with her promise to Spike. Avany already knew that Luthus loved her, so it wasn’t really that important for her to be reminded. “Who knows what Spike would do without me?”

---

Meanwhile, in the library, Spike had just closed for the day. A little bit early, but Spike thought he deserved it for working so hard.

He really did utilize Twilights absence. He took all of the pillows, bed sheets and mattresses in the tree-house and stacked them in a pile on the floor. Then he went up on the elevated second floor’s platform and dived off, yelling “Woohooo!!”, straight into the cuddly pit. So that would be a ‘no’ for Twilight, he was not that worried… yet.

---

Quite shockingly, as Twilight walked onto the train-station’s platform, there were barely any ponies there. Just a little newspaper boy and some other couples minding their own business. That’s strange. Where is everypony? Did I miss the train?

She walked up to an orange stallion, which was in the middle of a chat with his wife, and asked. “Excuse me, sir.”

“Yes?” he responded.

“The train to Ponyville, has it gone early?”

“No. I think the trains have all been cancelled.”

“Why?” Twilight was a bit confused.

The stallion shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t know. I am just here to see the beautiful rainbow with my wife and kids.”

Usually, after a very stressful and tightly scheduled pass, the weather ponies would create a big rainbow over the skies as an apology and a sign to that it’s over. Apparently, over Canterlot, it was best seen from the train-station.

Twilight left the couple to stare at the rainbow. She would too, if she weren’t so stressed and nervous. “That is so strange. Why would they be cancelled on such short notice?”

A little squeaky voice, that of a really young colt, came from her behind; “I know why the trains are cancelled, ma’am.”

As she turned around, she saw that it was the newspaper boy. “Oh thank you. Can you tell me what that reason may be?”

“5 bits, ma’am.” The boy stretched out his bunch of newspapers. It was a cheap trick to get her attention, but the newspapers might actually contain some information on the case.

“Fine.” Twilight reached for her bag and pulled out her money that was supposed to go to breakfast. “I ate my breakfast at home anyways…”

The paper-boy, satisfied with the purchase, walked away with Twilight’s money, leaving her to the most recent copy of the newspaper. In there, she found the reason of the trains being cancelled.

So apparently, the weather ponies were REALLY behind schedule. No real reason was given as to why. During the moisturizing of some fields near the train-rails, a stressed out pegasus accidentally caused a small fire among the trees. Not only is the smoke bad for ponies, but a few of the trees fell on the rails. This caused all of the trains to be cancelled for the day. “The problem will allegedly be fixed and all trains active again by the morning” The article read.

“I suppose I have no choice but to stay over for the night in some Inn. Poor Spike, though, hopefully he can read about the delay in the newspaper.” Twilight thought for a second, “Maybe this is a sign that I should pay Avany another visit.” She said followed by a chuckle.

Silly Twilight Sparkle, if she really wanted to say a final goodbye to Spike before the challenge, she could’ve just asked Princess Celestia to send a carriage for her. But Twilight didn’t wanna bother the Princess with this, in her mind, ‘small’ issue.

She actually remembered the path to the tourist agency, both because she went there before, but also because she somewhat remembered the map she looked at with Avany.

The streets around her became noticeably empty and scary as night closed in. It would’ve been kind of creepy if it weren’t for the street-lights giving her visibility through the city. What made it a little bit worse was the small sign she saw when she arrived to the Tourist Agency. “CLOSED”

“Of course. Just my luck.” Twilight sighed, “There is no point in trying to send a letter either, as they’re probably closed as well.”

She decided to do the only thing she could do, find a place to stay over the night and wait it all out for the morning.

---

Princess Celestia took a little blame on herself that she ‘trapped’ Twilight here in Canterlot over the night. What if she didn’t have enough bits to stay two days?

She decided to pay her student a visit, not only to apologize for the inconvenience, but also to greet her because it’s been a while and she could spare a few minutes from her work. But there would not be any point in trying to track her down and visit her this late on the evening. Instead, she would do it by tomorrow morning.

The next day the princess had easily discovered at what Inn she was staying, with a little help from magic and a few pedestrians. As Celestia entered the little, charming Inn; all the workers, and literally everypony in the lobby, threw themselves on the ground in her presence as in “We’re not worthy!”.

She allowed herself to smile a bit before commanding them to stand up and go back to doing whatever they did before.

“I am actually here looking for someone.”, the princess said, “Does Twilight Sparkle happen to be staying here?”

The receptionist looked through the guest-book and yes, she could read the name the princess asked for. “Oh yes, she came and signed herself in on the late evening of yesterday. Strangely, she hasn’t come down for breakfast yet.”

She can hardly still be asleep, right? What did she do yesterday? Celestia thought, “Can you take me to her room?”

“Yes of course, my majesty.”

The receptionist brought the right key with her and then proceeded with leading the royal visitor through the halls. It wasn’t long before they reached their destination and the door came up right in front of them.

The receptionist gave a slight knocking on the door. There were no response, so she knocked again, followed by a simple “Ms. Sparkle? You have a visitor. Can we come in?”

There were still no response and even Celestia herself was getting a bit worried. After yelling ‘Hello?’ about 5 times, they decided to go in anyway.

“Ms. Sparkle, we’re coming in, okay?”

The receptionist used her key in order to unlock the room and reveal what was inside. In this case, nothing. The bed sheets where undone and Twilight’s packing were just left by the side of the bed, as if just thrown there in haste last night. She had simply vanished during the night.

The princess was shocked indeed, but she decided to wait a few days before jumping to any conclusions.

---

Two days went by and the Princess was seriously worried. Not only was Twilight her favorite student, but she was essential to the Elements of Harmony and therefore somewhat of a “National Treasure” for the well-being of Equestria.

Three weeks went by and you could find this all over Canterlot and in some of the other villages:

Four months went by and a funeral was held...

---

But there was one more pony that went missing that exact same evening, very close nearby. Some suspect that their dissapearences where linked, but without evidence, nothing could be proven.

Along with Twilight’s MISSING posters, you could on some places see:

So what exactly happened?