“Chosen One!” A voice shouted from where above Colgate’s head.

Colgate blinked as her exhausted body groaned in protest at being woken. Around her, a small crowd of anxious faces peered down at her frightened expression. As she stirred, the crowd gasped and pulled back as one.

“Chosen One you live!” Clover shouted and Colgate gasped as a purple blur shot from the crowd and hugged her tightly. “When you collapsed I had feared you may have died from exhaustion! I can hardly tell you how glad I am to see you still alive!”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Colgate wheezed as the other unicorn squeezed her. Hearing the tone of her voice, Clover quickly released her and took a step back, still looking ecstatically relieved. The other ponies, who had drawn back before, now also crowded in, adding their own well wishes and congratulations to Clover’s.

“I am also happy to see you are still with us, Chosen One,” a cold voice rang out, silencing the other ponies in an instant. From the direction of the keep Princess Platinum, flanked by her young squire, marched toward Colgate with a determined gait. The crowd parted as she drew closer, till she was close enough to whisper without Colgate missing a word. “For I would dearly love an explanation as to why your emergence from the forest, miraculous as that was in and of itself, seems to have coincided with… that.” The Princess pointed a hoof up toward the sky.

Colgate looked up toward the point indicated, but saw nothing particularly out of the ordinary. “What, the sky?” she asked tentatively, feeling like she was back in school, failing to answer a professors question when called on. “Is it not meant to be night right now?”

Princess Platinum snarled as she bent down over Colgate till their snouts were pressed up against one another. “Do not play games with me, Chosen One! I have little time and less patience for your yaps at this…” she trailed off as she seemed to notice something about the sky line. “Oh,” she muttered, face turning red.

“Um…” Colgate replied, feeling awkwardly torn between worry over the mental state of the Princess and consternation that her cheeks had started to glow red at her extreme proximity to the other mare face.

As the Princess lifted her head to get a better look at the skyline, Colgate’s thoughts involuntarily shifted toward an alternate scenario where the Princess’s attention had not been distracted and where she had gotten over whatever she was angry about and where-

Colgate’s train of thought was interrupted as the Princess and Clover suddenly lifted her up to a sitting position and pointed her toward the direction the Princess had been pointing before. Now, without the castle’s wall to block as much of her view, she could see the edges of a twisting mass of clouds, seeming to move alarmingly fast and in ways that no clouds should be able to without a team of specially trained pegasi coordinating them.

“What is that?” Colgate asked slowly as she felt her guts start to twist.

“That,” the Princess said, in a slightly calmer tone then before, “Is something I would very much hope you could tell us.”

“It did seem to start not long before you came running from the forest,” Clover added, starting to look a little nervous. “I will confess that I had questions of my own as to what had transpired when you were in there.”

“Oh,” Colgate said, biting her lower lip. “Well I just sort of went in there, got the book and came back out to you. No big deal or anything…”

Clover’s eyes widened as she stared at Colgate, then asked in a slightly trembling voice, “And the words? Did you say the words just as I told you?”

“Yes!” Colgate blurted, nodding emphatically. “I said the words, don’t worry about that!”

Clover relaxed slightly, but the Princess’s expression turned mistrustful. “And you are sure that you repeated the lines precisely as they were relayed to you?”

Colgate squirmed uneasily and scratched her belly with her good hoof. “Well, maybe not exactly, one-hundred-percent word for word, but the majority of them were definitely right…”

“What!?” Clover screeched, shoving the Princess aside as she grabbed Colgate and lifted her to eyelevel. Colgate flinched back from the wild-eyed mare as Clover peered into her eyes, as if looking for any sign that Colgate was lying. “Please tell me you did not retrieve the book from its accursed resting place without first reciting the proper incantation to render it inert!”

“Well, I mean, I did as long as that last word was not as important as the first two…” Colgate offered, trying and failing to smile reassuringly.

Clover screamed and shoved Colgate to the ground, shaking her violently as she began to rant. “You dung-headed, thick-skulled, perverse fool! You have doomed us all with your idiocy!”

“Clover, release her!” Princess Platinum bellowed, pulling the two mares apart and allowing Colgate to curl back into her accustomed fetal position. Clover spun to face her liege, tears running down her face and eyes still wide and panicked.

“Princess, you have no idea what she has done!” Clover made as if to lunge back at the shuttering blue mass of their chosen hero, but was held up by the Princess, who forced her back to face her.

“Well then darling,” Platinum’s voice dropped into a softer tone as she held her advisor at hoof’s length, “Why don’t you explain it to us?” she finished, making a small motion with her hoof to remind Clover of the dozens of ponies watching the scene from all around the courtyard.

Clover took a calming breath and nodded. “Yes Princess. I am sorry for that outburst.”

“That is quite alright my dear,” Platinum soothed, casting a calculating eye around the silent crowd. “Now, how much trouble are we in?” she prompted, adding in a much quieter voice, “And do feel free to spare on the details that might cause too much of a panic.”

Clover nodded firmly. “As you say, milady. The disturbance of the book without the proper protective measures put in place to prevent its power from spreading has allowed it’s power to speared at a horrific rate. I fear our previous study of the book may have created a small crack in its containment, which had allowed the current troubles.”

“Ah,” Platinum muttered. “That might make things rather awkward at the next meeting of the tribes.”

“Quite,” Clover agreed. “But that is nothing compared to what will happen now that it has been freed!”

“Wonderful,” Platinum sighed. “So how much worse will it get?”

Clover looked from the Princess to the book, still stuffed into Colgate’s traveling bag. “Given that that storm seems only to form above the forest, I suspect that its power will only have a limited reach. But even so, it could raise an army of monsters more than capable of breaching any stronghold we could keep the book in.”

“And what if it retrieves its… self?” Platinum asked, giving the ominous clouds an uneasy look.

“I dare not imagine,” Clover admitted. “I had hoped to have time to study the book and reverse the damage that had been done, but now…” She followed the Princess’s gaze out to the cloud, which had subtly grown even in the time they had been talking. “I fear we would need far more time then then we have with even the most generous of estimations.”

“I see.” Princess Platinum sighed and looked down at the book. “And if you left the protection of the castle with that book in order to flee, they would hunt you down without hope of protection. The roads have grown more and more dangerous as of late and I fear how much worse they will be when traveling with that beacon of evil in your possession.” She shook her head, “I suppose there is nothing left to do now but prepare for ourselves and hope to weather this storm as best we can.”

“Hold up!” Both unicorns turned to look at Colgate, who had partially pulled herself out of her fetal ball to look them in the eyes. “There is still something we can do!”

Clover’s lip curled up into a sneer as she spat on the ground next to Colgate. “I think you have done more than enough already, chosen one.”

The Princess nodded and waved to her guards. “Take this one to the dungeons where she can do no more harm.”

“What?” Colgate panicked, trying to scramble to her hooves as the guards rushed forward and grabbed her. “You’re making a mistake! I can still help!”

“Everypony else, prepare yourselves!” The Princess’s voice rose to a commanding shout as she began to direct her subjects. “There is a terrible evil coming! If we are to withstand it, we shall need every able-bodied pony to work toward the defense of this castle! Any who wish to join the guard should come forward as soon as possible for whatever training they can manage. Everypony else will need to gather what supplies can be brought into the castle in case of a long siege!” Platinum was distracted as a small hoof began to tug on her royal cape. Looking down she saw her young squire staring up at her with large, watery eyes. “What is it now?” she asked distractedly as she tried to ignore the filly to watch as her orders were carried out.

“Why don’t you let the Lady Chosen One help?” The filly asked, voice slightly trembling in the way that always seemed to herald trouble for the Princess.

“Because her incompetence may well have consigned us all to horrible deaths,” Clover snapped at the filly, who ignored her and continued to stare at the Princess.

“But if she can help, why not let her? She was nice to me and mommy and I don’t think she meant to con-something us to death!” The filly pouted as she gave the Princess a pleading look.

The Princess sighed and waved for the guards who had been dragging the kicking and screaming Colgate to stop. Seeing this, Clover’s mouth fell open and she pointed an accusatory hoof at the filly. “Don’t you dare!” she hissed. “You are not going to convince the Princess to forgo punishment by pouting at her!”

Platinum slowly rubbed her temples as she held up a hoof for silence. She looked down at Colgate and with a feeling of inevitable doom asked, “What, exactly do you think you can do to help?”

Colgate made a spirited attempt to dramatically pull herself away from her captors, failed, and instead settled for holding her head in as heroic a pose as she could manage. “I am going to ask for help.”

Princess Platinum blinked. “What?”

“I am going to go and ask for help,” Colgate repeated.

“From whom?” the Princess asked, feeling her headache growing more and more painful by the second.

“From the other ponies,” Colgate stated firmly, kicking a free hoof into the ground for emphasis.

“That would not be possible,” Platinum groaned. “Setting aside that Hurricane and Puddinghead have hardly ever been quick to jump to our aid at even the best of times, once they hear about the recent troubles being at least partially our fault, they will be more than happy to watch us burn.”

“Also not to mention that you ordered Commander Hurricane executed less than two days ago,” Clover muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

The Princess shot her advisor a dirty glare before concluding, “No, we shall reserve expect little help from the other tribes. The unicorns will stand alone as we have done throughout our history. It is only fitting that we should end that same illustrious history by doing what we have done for generations; all of the actual work with no thanks, while the other tribes sit around and complain!” The Princess’s voice rose to a proud cry as she raised a hoof to her chest and held her head high as if posing for a statue.

Colgate rolled her eyes as one of her captors wiped a tear from his face. “OK, fair,” Colgate conceded. “You made a few very good arguments and at least one super racist one, but I see your point. But do you want to hear my counter?”

The Princess raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Alright.” Colgate took a few seconds to think, then offered, “Well if I don’t try then we are all going to die, so why not at least give it a shot?”

The Princess looked from Colgate to her guards and finally to Clover, who shrugged.

“You make a fair point,” Platinum conceded. “I suppose at the very least this way you will not be eating rations in the dungeon that could instead be used to feed my people.”

“See! It’s a win-win all around!” Colgate shouted excitedly, trying to clap her hooves together, only to be thwarted by the unrelenting guards. “So maybe you could tell them to let me go?” Colgate asked sheepishly.

“Fine, let her go!” The Princess commanded. The guards dutifully dropped Colgate as they snapped to attention, saluting as Colgate landed spread-eagle on the ground.

“Ow,” Colgate groaned.

“Oh shush you,” Clover admonished as she stepped forward to help Colgate back to her hooves. “You’re going to need to hurry if your terrible plan is to have any chance of succeeding.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Colgate groaned. “I just woke up after running all day, so why don’t you cut me just a little slack?”

Clover frowned darkly as she began to repack Colgate’s dropped bags, making sure to remove the Necronomicon as she did so. “I shall cut you nothing till you have fixed the damage you have rendered by ignoring my repeated warnings!” she hissed, throwing the bags back over Colgate’s back and shoving her toward the gate.

“Wait, hold up!” Colgate protested, trying to slow the irate unicorn who was now pushing her through the yard. “I was going to talk to that nice blacksmith! Can’t I at least talk to the nice blacksmith and get that thing from her before I go?”

“No,” Clover snapped, and tossed Colgate through the portcullis. “Now if you hurry, you might just get back before the dead kill her and every other living pony I know!” Clover screamed as Colgate started to hurry down the road that led in the direction the pegasi had flown off before. “There’s a map in your pack, see if you can recall things that are actually written down!” Clover shouted before turning and stomping back into the castle.

“Well,” Colgate muttered as she galloped down the road, uncomfortably aware of the every looming cloud that seemed to now be moving steadily toward the castle. “At least it’s not raining.”

For the rest of the trip Colgate would periodically look up into the sky, mentally kicking herself for that jinx. Which was a shame; since apart from the vile cloud of darkness, it was an extremely pleasant and clear night.

Author's Note

Sorta a shorter chapter, but its setting up for some (hopefully) pretty grate stuff as we move toward the exciting climax!