Perhaps the Most Convincing Case in Favor of the Solar Empire

Chapters

I: Tipping Point
II: Falling
III: Eye
IV: Shattered
V: Plan B
VI: Love
VII: Home Ground

I: Tipping Point

It was at the reception where Twilight decided that something was wrong: the royal sisters were missing. Her worry was knotting into panic by the time dusk began to fall--that is, the time it should have. Through the pounding bass and all of the fawning over the celebrities, nopony else seemed to notice either the absences or the sun’s dogged persistence.

She’d been wondering about Celestia.

At the wedding, the princess’s smile had been forced, and her congratulations of the element Bearers almost...rotten. Twilight had shaken it off at the time, because, well, who was she to make anything of it?

But now something was definitely off. Celestia was not one to miss her own niece’s reception, much less up and forget her duties as day-ender! Twilight would have to go inside the castle to check on the princess. And she’d need her friends--after a day like today, it would just feel wrong not to let them know. They wouldn’t believe her, though, in her ramblings about “something off about the princess,” would they? How was she supposed to handle this one?

Twilight stared at her reflection in her beat-rippled cup of punch, and almost gagged. The curls were so feminine and her face wore such a melodramatic expression that it was hard to believe it was her.

It was almost as if another pony had taken on her features and was twisting them into a stranger’s--like earlier today.

The cup fell. A glaring pool of liquid oozed over the edge of the dance floor. Curious stares did not break Twilight from her freeze.

The last time she’d been met with an imitation...the last time she couldn’t convince her friends about a princess’s strange behavior…

Twilight thought she knew what was wrong with Celestia.

Panting and hollow hoofsteps echoed back to Twilight as she cantered up the narrow spiral staircase. It was dark and hot, and she was beginning to get jumpy when she finally broke out onto the open floor of the tower.

It had been hard leaving the party inconspicuously, but eventually everypony had forgotten about the punch (which she’d passed off, just barely, as a slip) and gone back to their talking and dancing.

Twilight had decided that she’d need to eavesdrop. Alone. After all, that had been how she’d first discovered the changeling queen’s secret. Maybe the swarm hadn’t been knocked as far away as one would have thought--another form of illusion, perhaps. Who knew what sort of dark magic these creatures possessed? And now they might...she might have...Twilight’s coat crawled. But she had to be sure first, whatever it took.

All too suddenly, the doors to Celestia’s private wing loomed over Twilight. The princess was normally far too trusting to lock it, especially with the guards who usually patrolled around here. And though most of the guards were preoccupied with the party now, Twilight could no longer convince herself that that was the reason the enormous padlock was in place.

She stepped back and aimed her horn directly at the keyhole, murmured a thanks to Starswirl before her unlocking spell, and...click. The lock swung limply off its chain.

Gingerly, she nudged one of the doors inward. The hall that extended before her was too central to the tower for windows, so was only dimly lit by torches even in the unnatural daylight that carried on outside.

She steadied herself. There was no backing down now. Closing the small sliver of light that was left behind her, Twilight clung to the shadows as she crept down the hall. She passed a few closed doors before she froze--a low, heated murmur was growing from a ways down, behind the door to Celestia’s chamber, and one of the voices distinctly belonged to her.

A deep breath. She had to get closer, had to hear what was being said. Another few ponylengths, and the door was so close that the conversation solidified itself.

Celestia’s voice, cool and contained: “I need to be alone.”

“And I need to raise the moon. So we are at odds.” The other speaker was Luna, then. She sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. There was a long silence after that. Then, too quickly, Twilight heard hoofsteps coming right for the chamber door.

Her blood froze. There was no time to run, so she simply shrunk into the pool of shadows between torches, shut her eyes tight, and waited. She heard the door creak open, and the hoofsteps...walked right past her and out of the hall without stopping. She let out her breath, long and slow. From the sound of the hoofsteps, and the distance between them, that had indeed been the sun princess, but Twilight waited for Luna to exit, just to be sure.

At first, it seemed as if Luna--a last hope, someone who might listen, who might understand!--would walk right past Twilight. Twilight was about to reach out to stop her, to warn her, when Luna calmly turned to face her and leaned in close.

“My sister saw you. Meddling here was a mistake, and it would do you well not to continue, Twilight Sparkle.” She turned away.

“But Princess Luna!” The words cracked in desperation. “Don’t you--”

Luna’s stone-cold, tearful stare silenced her. She watched as the princess walked away, listened as her hoofsteps faded, and even then waited a while before carefully removing herself from the castle to find that, an hour late, dusk had fallen.

The train ride rattled Twilight’s bones and churned her stomach. She snorted and turned over in her bunk. Who was she kidding? Her terrible suspicions (not to mention the half-removed manespray) weren’t much better for sleep.

Why was it always her burdened with this twisted, unsharable knowledge? Hay, she might take pride in her bookishness, but that was no reason for fate to play these cruel jokes. Too tired to keep her eyes open anymore, but too restless to stay still, she started crying and bit her dampening, thin pillow. Then--BUMP!--it was jerked out and her jaws slammed together. The tears ran faster.

Across the car, oblivious, Rarity wailed faintly in her sleep. Would that blissful ignorance, in the end, be her temporary blessing or permanent undoing? What if...what if they were everywhere this time? But there was nothing she could do. No one to turn to now, no one to tell, no one to back her up, not even a way to get back to Canterlot without somepony stopping her.

If this was another of Celestia’s notorious little pranks, then it was better than any friendship letter. Now Twilight knew what it was like to know you needed somepony and be...totally...alone...

Spike had been very sympathetic about the whole thing, actually, and Twilight had remembered he probably felt more alone sometimes than any other pony or dragon she knew. It was his age--if only he were older, he wouldn’t feel so left out.

She sighed, sipping her I-just-got-up-at-six-so-I-deserve-juice juice and trying to remember what track of thought had led her to the false scare she’d given herself last month after the wedding. She couldn’t believe herself sometimes--she’d lost sleep for a week over that, asking anypony and everypony on trains back from Canterlot if they’d seen anything suspicious around the princess. Most of them had been mildly annoyed in their reply that, no, they didn’t personally know the ruler of the land and therefore had no chance to analyze her behavior, and those few that had interacted with her on one errand or another said they hadn’t noticed anything wrong, only that she seemed very tired or interested in returning to her chamber. Fluttershy and Pinkie had become concerned, and of course they’d asked Spike (peacefully asleep at the moment), without her knowing, to pry into the matter.

A smirk grew on Twilight’s face as she recalled it--at the same time as a knot weighted her gut. She realized she’d never quite let go of the paranoia surrounding Celestia’s absence that night and facehoofed. All those psychology books had made her self-aware enough to know that she was just being irrationally obsessive. When your sun and moon were controlled by sentient, mortal, even imperfect beings (however much she'd convince herself otherwise of her mentor), it was only logical that their cycles wouldn’t be down to the minute every day. Luna had probably only been miffed at Twilight’s shameless invasion of her and Celestia’s privacy, and Celestia’s fatigue was surely only a natural by-product of the emotional toll a planned invasion like that took on a leader.

Still...wasn’t that the exact same sort of thing Shining Armor had tried to convince her of--had believed--about Cadence? And come to think of it--Twilight stood and squinted through the treehouse windows--wasn’t it too late in the spring for at least a little pink not to be showing on the horizon at this hour?

There was a rap on the door. Twilight jumped.

“Twilight? It’s me, Cadence!” The sincerity, the exhaustion of the tone...her mind raced. She knew the queen. This was Cadence, really her.

“We need to go. Now. It’s...it’s Celestia.”

Author's Note

To be continued...
Yes, my headcanon is that all ponies, including the royal sisters, are mortal. Further fics will blatantly break canon to explain this.
Yes, I spell Cadance Cadence because it's how the word is spelled and I think it looks prettier that way.
I never thought I'd write Alternate Universe until I had this idea, which may get interesting. Comment with your thoughts and things!

II: Falling

Oh, Starswirl.

Twilight swallowed. Cadence opened the door herself and entered.

“Twilight, I’m sorry, but I’m serious. I can explain later. I have somepony contacted who will look after Aloysius and Peewee while you're away. Go get Spike and pack some food and let’s go.” Twilight nodded dimly. On numb hooves, feeling as if her insides had gone permanently cold and solid, she took the stairs two at a time.

Spike was on his side, the covers partially kicked off in sleep, a bent-paged comic book fanned out just below the bed. Twilight tried to take in the mundanity of the sight, as she had a sinking feeling that such would become rare quickly and soon, but it was too late. She was already suppressing the taut panic that had yet only to push the tears over the edge.

There had to be a logical explanation.

She roused him with a hoof.

“What? Twilight, isn’t it a little early for…” Then his drowsy green eyes caught the clock and widened. “Hey, shouldn’t it be light out by now? Is your clock off?”

“Spike, Princess Cadence is here. We have to go with her. I’m not a hundred percent sure what’s going on here, but it has to do with Celestia and something tells me that doing what Cadence says is the best option until we can figure out what the problem is.” Even in the dark, his pupils had narrowed to lines.

“It...it probably isn’t much, right? We’ll be home again soon?” he asked. An impatient shuffling noise came from downstairs. Twilight took a deep breath.

“I’m not sure.” He was too old to be lied to. Had been for far longer than she’d been willing to admit to herself.

Spike nodded and, stripped of all half-asleep peace, tossed off his cover and wrapped it up.

“Good idea--we’ll need blankets.” Twilight levitated her own and together with their burdens, the two descended again.

Cadence was pacing by now, worry having buried itself into her face. Twilight noticed for the first time that her eyes had a slight reddish tint, not to mention the sleepy dark circles she seemed to be fighting.

“There you are,” she said. “I’ve gathered what non-perishables I’ve been able to find” --she nodded towards a few cans and sacks of oats-- “and they should be enough to last the three of us a couple weeks or so. Now, I--I don’t know how long--”

“Hold on.” Twilight’s voice shook with disbelief. “What about my friends? What about Shining Armor? If…” She winced. “If the changelings...if Celestia has been replaced, aren’t they all in danger?” The look on Cadence’s face then was like the entrance to Tartarus: so deep and black and ancient that nopony could see the bottom or comprehend what might be lurking there.

“Twilight,” Cadence began. Then her mouth closed and she glanced down. Ruffled her feathers. A small smile, for which Twilight was grateful despite herself, shone out of the abyss.

“Get your saddlebags. We can talk later.”

It turned out they were going to hide in the Everfree.

Twilight did not like this idea at all. And she was still waiting for an explanation.

However, as the little timepiece in her saddlebag struck seven thirty, she couldn’t deny that something big was wrong, and Cadence most likely knew how to fix the problem better than she did. The strange parade westward into the eerie forest, smelling of earth and decay, with the ponies’ saddlebags shifting from side to side over their flanks and Spike’s claws trodding erratically between them, was like a flashback to Twilight’s foal days: Cadence knows best. Follow her and you’ll stay out of trouble.

Except that back then, Twilight had at least had her fillyhood to blame for her lack of wisdom. Now she felt only fuming resentment over being constantly stuck in Ponyville. She would never want to be separated from her friends all the time, of course, but if only she had been in Canterlot when whatever happened...did, she could have figured out how to be part of the solution rather than the ignorant burden she was now.

She shook her head. Here was where she found herself, and she had to make the most of the situation. However, one thing was for sure: Twilight Sparkle did not abandon her friends, and she was only going to last so long before demanding to know why she was being put into hiding and they, apparently, weren’t.

Wrapped up in thought, she hardly noticed when Cadence slowed to a stop in front of her. Twilight’s ears swiveled and her jaw clenched. Was there a threat, something she hadn’t seen?

But candleglow was already flickering in the shapes of windows before them. It opened itself against the silhouette of a zebra. Twilight didn’t think she’d been more relieved in all her life. She took a step toward the cottage, but Cadence shot her a look. Confused, chilly, and increasingly ticked that nopony was explaining anything, Twilight backed down.

Then, slowly, barely, Zecora’s head shook.

“Are you sure?” Cadence asked calmly.

“O princess mine

I built this home

To keep me safe

and dry and warm

No easy effort

I paid the price

and while it may

Be my last vice

Even if

The sky does crash

Even if

I fall in ash

I’ll keep this house

Defending them

Until I breathe my last.”

Cadence turned, nodded, and, head low, led them away. Spike followed closely, but Twilight lingered for a moment, eyes locked on the grave blue gaze she could not make out against the lit house. “War”-- a mythical, cosmic type of fight--brought out the best in some ponies and the worst in others, her father had always told her.

Zecora was talking like there was going to be a war.

Chilled now by more than just the unnatural night air, Twilight moved on.

Author's Note

Now with actual acknowledgement of Twilight's pets!

III: Eye

The night lifted slowly. Nopony who wasn’t paying attention would notice anything was off--after all, they hadn’t at the reception, when all this madness had started. Twilight couldn’t help but wonder if Cadence having payed attention would do any good, anyway.

Spike seemed relieved by the sunrise, but as the group stopped in a grassy clearing to make the first dents in the oats, Cadence was more fraught with anxiety than ever. Frustration built inside Twilight--was whatever Cadence had come here to protect her from really more important than her friends’ knowledge of where she was or what was happening? Nothing terrible had occurred yet, and if it was going to (and if she was honest with herself, Zecora’s determination had convinced her well enough of that), didn’t they deserve a rescue mission, too?

At Cadence’s insistence, the party packed their bags and again began the westward push through the trees. It was cool and humid, almost like nighttime all over again. In occasional tight squeezes, the brambles and stickers caught in Twilight’s coat.

The silence between the two ponies, the dragon, and the forest was agonizing. Twilight kept expecting to hear the roar of some untold horror--after all, this was Everfree--but aside from the occasional birdsong or faint rustling, all was quiet. She knew she would have to ask about her friends soon, to make sure they wouldn’t be left behind in Ponyville to face whatever was coming. But how to go about it…? After all, Cadence had avoided the subject before…

“Umm, Princess Cadence?” The question was Spike’s.

“Yes?”

“Are we ever gonna turn back? I mean, nothing’s happened yet--what are we running from? Shouldn’t the other ponies come, too, if it’s so dangerous? Are they being moved away somewhere else?”

“No.” The princess ducked gracefully under a low-hanging branch. “But trust me--they’re safe. Much safer than Twilight would be if she were to remain where she was.” What was that supposed to mean? “And we can’t bring everypony--unfortunately. The--well, that would be suspicious.” Spike took a different tack.

“What about Shining Armor? Where’s he?”

Cadence stopped. Her ears straightened. A shudder passed through her body, down to the ragged tip of her tail. Within a few seconds, she continued walking as if nothing had been asked. After a while, however, she was forced to turn her face to slip through a tight spot, and Twilight saw that it was drenched with tears. Apparently Spike had noticed too; his green eyes turned to look up at Twilight in horror. She inhaled.

“Cadence? Where is Shining Armor?”

“Trust me, Twilight. Spike.” Her voice broke. “He’s safe. Far safer than any of us. Far luckier. I’m crying for...for myself.”

This time, Twilight couldn’t forget how cold she was inside. Keeping close to Spike as a means of comfort for both of them, she stayed quiet, defeated, head down through the blur of the day, until Celestia slipped the sun below the horizon again and they found a place to settle down to sleep.

Author's Note

So, yes, this one was very short. I promise, the next one's nearly as long as the first.

IV: Shattered

Not a single refracted ray of sunlight had yet pierced the sky, though the moon had long ago fallen out of its place. Twilight’s timepiece read just past 9 a. m., far later than yesterday’s sunrise, but the small band was too deep into Everfree by today to hear the confusion of Ponyville’s waking.

The three were sitting huddled around a small fire, unnerved by the dark and rustling woods around them. Twilight’s ears were pricked for the sounds of timberwolves.

“Don’t worry about the darkness,” Cadence told Spike, who was shivering nervously, “The dawn will come, and I’m afraid that’s what you should be scared of.” This did not seem to help much.

Twilight decided that that was enough.

“Yesterday you said we could talk later, Princess, and it’s a lot later. I understand that you’re trying to keep us safe, but could you tell me why, exactly, my friends aren’t with us right now and how quickly we can get to them? And...what is this mysterious ‘problem with the princess,’ anyway? Surely it’s not as bad as Zecora made it sound…?” Twilight wondered fleetingly if all her half-baked theories had indeed been correct--if Celestia had been replaced by her.

Cadence simply stared at her wearily for a moment. Twilight was fast getting tired of weary stares. If somepony would just tell her what was going on, perhaps the Element of Magic could find a--

“You deserve to know. So do you, Spike. I really should have said it all last night. I just wish...I wish I didn’t have to tell you this.” Another pause. Another weak, firelit smile.

“Princess Luna has premonitory dreams every so often, as I’m sure you know. Two days ago was an example, but this time she couldn’t confide in her sister.” Cadence inhaled shudderingly. “She told me that ‘it’ was going to happen ‘at the second moonset’--that’s right now--that something awful was going to come over Celestia. She said that she’d try to fight her--she already knew it would come to that--and that I was to come protect you, and you alone, because her sister would have no care for the others.” Cadence’s gaze became abruptly accusatory. “Apparently the sun princess would have reason for a petty grudge against her former student--some purposeful violation of her privacy requiring advanced lockpicking magic.”

Spike was looking wide-eyed at Twilight, but she barely even noticed. She rolled her eyes and broke into giggles.

“What, so Princess Celestia is supposed to turn evil and come after me simply because I went into her private wing? That’s impossible. It’s not like I failed a test or anything. I’ve been in there a hundred times. Honestly, I think Luna was more angry about that than her sister. Probably just having fantasy dreams where I get my comeuppance for--”

“I think you should take my mother seriously. She predicted her own revolt, after all, as well as Sombra’s before that. And are you telling me that you did break into Celestia’s tower?” Her already-withered face fell. “Oh, this will be much harder to handle than I thought…”

“Wait, your mother?” Even with all of the other outlandish things being said, Twilight wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Somehow, the question seemed to help Cadence back up out of whatever delusional pit she was digging herself into.

“Yes. Celestia adopted me as her niece while Nightmare Moon was trapped, remember? She doesn’t have any other siblings.” She peered absently into the sky. “Love, honorary daughter of the moon. Fitting, don’t you think?”

Twilight was silent for a while. She saw poor Spike, fidgeting with the cold, flickering ground across from her, and wished she could just assure Cadence and Zecora, and all the others Luna had gotten to somehow that the real Celestia would never do anything so rash or crazy, even if Twilight had made some poor decisions herself...right? And when she thought about it, the fact that it had been this long since Celestia’s apparent “troubles” started meant she couldn’t possibly have been switched out.

The forest creatures were probably far more dangerous than whatever it was that had caused these prolonged nights. Her friends were safer than she was, after all. Now her only problem was getting back home. She joined Spike in worrying and wringing and glancing around.

Then the second dawn began.

It started with a little sliver of light, at which Spike squinted, Cadence’s ears flattened, and Twilight sighed with relief. Almost immediately, though, the air thickened. It was getting hotter around them. Cadence rose and turned westward again.
“Come on--now that the night’s over, we should get moving. We can’t stay in the same place for too long.” More full of questions than ever, they followed her back into the trees.

The heat was becoming hard for Twilight to ignore. It was like swimming, and as the sun broke the line she couldn’t deny to Spike that it looked much larger and redder than usual.

Did she ever really believe Cadence was making this up, or that Luna was playing a trick? No, she admitted to herself. Not ever. How could the alternative even be processed by a mind that had done nothing but worship Celestia all its life? Her two halves debated in a fire that was almost as hot as the quavering heat around them was becoming.

“How dare you think like that? Most likely some new threat, extremely good at manipulating, has entered Canterlot and taken over, and everypony else has fallen for it!”

“Oh, yes, Twilight, because that’s so probable. Listen to your instincts--even though you had known your foalsitter for so long, you didn’t hesitate to declare her sinister because the signs pointed that way.”

“This is different!”
Her inner voices quieted as a chorus of squawks and howls went up somewhere behind them, in the east. Cadence set the pace a little faster. Spike tugged frantically at Twilight’s saddlebag.

“Twilight? What is that? Do you think it knows we’re in here?” Before she could speak, Cadence sped to a gallop in the roiling heat and, panting, answered.

“Timberwolves. Cockatrices. They’re--hah--screaming. Didn’t have enough time to get--huh--back to their burrows and--hah--nests. ” She glanced back at Twilight and Spike, wincing. “I’m afraid their scales and bark were--huh--meant for much cooler weather.” Twilight swallowed, her throat already dried. Spike was barely managing to keep up. Soon she’d have to carry him.

“Why are we going so fast? And you’re--ah--saying that the princess is doing this?”

A writhing, screeching line of feathers and scales streaked out of the leaves across their path. Cadence slowed, then stopped. She sighed.

“I thought maybe we could get out of their territory quickly enough to go unnoticed, but in these temperatures, they’ll be on the move too.” Cadence glanced up at the sky and her pupils shrank. Twilight followed suit and couldn’t make herself believe what she saw there. The sun she loved, the yellow, smiling thing that grew crops and shined on cities--the sun Celestia raised--was gone. In its place was a bloodred ball of flame that eclipsed half of the sky, the remainder of which had flushed with the colors of the dawn. Twilight began to breathe faster. This monster sun and its heat...they were all-enclosing. Inescapable. She had to do something...but what?

“Gotta wake up...gotta wake up…”

“I’m sorry, Spike,” Cadence whispered, “but I don’t think this is any dream.”

“Of course not--it’s a nightmare! The worst I’ve ever had…”
Trees shook somewhere alongside them, accompanied by low growls and pained yelps. Twilight blinked. She turned her eyes back toward the wavering ground, but the flaming disc was embedded in her vision, there wearing teal every time she moved her eyes. Shaking her head, she swung Spike up onto her back and followed the princess quietly away from the noise.

“Cadence--forget about what Luna--hah--told you! This is worse than I--hah--could have--dreamed!”

“Huh. Never thought I’d be more subconsciously creative than you, Twilight," Spike observed tightly. She heard him whimper as he pinched himself and pain stabbed her heart. Cadence just walked on. Twilight didn’t see how they could even keep talking, much less moving, any longer in this kind of heat. She screwed up her face, stopped in her tracks, and prepared for a fight.

“Cadence, listen!” Cadence turned and Spike stilled on her back. “I don’t have any idea what is going on here, but if I am to have any say in it whatsoever, my friends will be as safe as I am, no matter what Luna said!” And she collapsed.

V: Plan B

Twilight fought the wicked sorceress hard, with every spell in her arsenal, but it was no use--in the end she was dropped into the boiling cauldron just like every other pony the sorceress had cooked alive for her meals.

She flailed all four legs frantically, trying to keep her head above the searing bubbles, but as she watched, the cauldron’s lid slid slowly into place above her, blocking out the light. Then the cauldron began to shrink around her--iron contracting to scald every facet of her body--

Her eyes flew open. Twilight was confused in the semidarkness for a mere moment before laughing at herself and moving to kick the covers off.

Nothing happened. There were no covers, but the heat, the drenched-with-sweat-and-breathing-heavy heat, was wrapped around her as tightly as ever.

Confused, she looked around. Leaves and brambles surrounded her, directly above and within a few leg-lengths on every side, as far as she could see with this little light. From the loamy smell and the hanging dampness, she was in the Everfree. But why in the hay would it be this hot?

A rustling noise to her left made her jump, and something poked her in the back.

“Ow!” She rolled over. Underneath her was her blanket, from her own bed, but--she lifted a corner--it was spread over a mixture of dry leaves and pine needles.

All at once she remembered everything, all the horror of the past two days, and was still. From the thickness of the air, it hadn’t passed yet. She was still in the cauldron, and she wasn’t getting out anytime soon.

But where were Cadence and Spike?

Twilight fumbled around in the moist earth and fallen plant scraps for her saddlebags. They were nowhere to be found, so she began to dig a path through the thorns until she was suddenly assaulted by the glaring, red-tinted light. At first all she saw were tightly packed spruce trees, and she panicked, fearing that maybe the noise had only been an animal and something awful had happened--

“Oh, thank goodness!” called Spike as he walked around into view, followed closely by the princess, who wore Twilight’s bags as well as her own. “We thought you might have gotten heat stroke!” Cadence raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay. I. I did.” He grinned sheepishly.

Twilight sighed and enveloped him in a hug as she pulled herself free from the tunnel of thorns. She felt that horrible, swollen sun burn down on her, and resolved not to look up at it anymore. Focus on getting to your friends, Twilight. Nothing else matters right now.

Instead, she glanced back at the tunnel--it appeared to be a natural occurrence (a community of root-sharing thorny shrubs, perhaps?), except for a small hole marking her unrecalled entrance into the other side.

“Wow, Cadence, that was really clever.” She had to take a stop to breathe. This is gonna get old quickly. “You might actually have saved me!” Cadence smiled.

“Actually, it was Spike’s idea to get you out of the--hah--sun like that.” Twilight turned to Spike, who was looking embarrassed and leaning awkwardly against one of the gnarled, looming trees.

“How long was I out?” And what the heck is happening to the sky?!

“About four hours,” Cadence answered. A glinting bead of sweat fell from her lowered head. Somewhere, birdsong rose from the baking ground. “I’ve...been thinking about what you--whoo--said, Twilight, and…” She looked her square in the eye.

“You’re right. I can’t ask you to--hah--abandon your friends, especially at a time like this.” Her eyes flickered upwards. “And...well…” She dropped her gaze again. “They might actually be safer with us.”

“Huh?” Could she really have changed her mind just like that? “But what about Luna’s orders?”

“Mother didn’t specifically tell me to leave the others behind. I just thought...well, maybe if I could get you and Spike through the--huh--forest unnoticed, then--”

“Wait. Through the forest?” Twilight didn’t understand. Cadence straightened herself. Spike was listening raptly.

“Yes. Through the forest. To the west. Eventually we’d--hah--get far enough that we could take to the air and ultimately reach--huh--Saddle Arabia. You could get to the other side of the world--to safety.”

“Saddle Arabia? But on hoof, or even wing, it takes months just to arrive at the border! We’d need supplies--food, water…” She abruptly realized that she was desperately thirsty. “Actually, would you--hah--happen to have any of that on you right now?” Apologizing, Cadence rummaged through her saddlebag and removed a canteen. Twilight took it gratefully and drank. In the few moments’ silence as her magic screwed the cap back on, the vastness of the forest came crashing down on her. Coupled with her exhaustion, this unbroken flat of ancient plants and lurking creatures, all red-washed in the light of the...abomination she was forcing herself not to see, made it seem as if she would never again get out.

As he would, Spike broke her trance.

“Princess Cadence? What do you mean by ‘the other side of the world?' Why would Twilight be safe there?”

Something white rushed past overhead.

Without missing a beat, Cadence shoved Spike and Twilight toward the bramble-tunnel. One by one, all three dove inside, leaving a Cadence-sized hole that the princess narrowed frantically until only a gap just large enough for her to see out of was left. She kept her eye pressed to it.

Several minutes passed in the duskiness. Twilight felt moisture ooze from the places the thorns had cut when they’d entered so hastily, and the coalescence of her own feverish breath in front of her. It came to her attention that Spike was shuddering violently, so she wrapped her hooves around him. She couldn’t tell if she was any better, though the heat of the draconic flame within his body did not help with the waves of exhaustion rolling over hers. At least she didn’t have to worry about seeing the sun anymore.

That noise again--the rush of wings. Lower now. An adrenaline jolt seared Twilight’s sleepiness away. Her heart sped--Spike’s to the speed of a hummingbird’s buzz--and her ears turned, alert. What was that? In all her studies she’d never learned of a white-feathered creature living in the Everfree frightful enough to make even a powerful alicorn run for cover and silence…

The rushing sounded again. After only a few seconds, Twilight heard the animal come to a flapping stop, and a thud touched down right where Cadence, Spike and she had just been. Then another--there were two! No--three! Twilight felt as if she were going to burst. She heard the crackling of so many leaves. A hollow tap. Then, extremely close, the gushing of water out onto the forest floor.

Her stomach dropped. Cadence pulled back from the gap and stared at her. The canteen. How could she have just dropped it like that? Beginning to hyperventilate in the musty air, she imagined keen nostrils sniffing the thing out, finding the scents that would lead the monsters straight--

A low, gravelly voice from where the creature should be.

“General, sir? I think I’ve found something.”

VI: Love

Twilight set hoof outside the Pit, as she’d taken to calling it in her boredom-battling conversations with herself inside, for the first time in hours. Naturally, the ground was so hot that she had to pull the hoof right back and dart under the nearest tree. She turned to face Cadence.

“What was that all about? I’m guessing we--hah--have something to fear from the castle guards now?”

“Actually, Twilight, we do. Why--huh--did you think I didn’t just see you off on the--hah--train to Saddle Arabia?” Cadence’s eyes again found the red ceiling of their new hothouse world. Her voice hushed.

“She sees everything within her systems, and she--hah--can’t be trusted anymore.”

Spike and Twilight started talking over each other at the princess. He was terrified. As for Twilight...well, even her mask of loyal fury was beginning to crack into bewilderment and defeat.

“Calm down!” Cadence looked around, folding her wings back up. “I can--hah--explain, but not right now. Haah...” She straightened and a glow of peace washed over all of them. Twilight rolled her eyes inwardly at the same time as the happiness forced itself up into an outward smile. She knew that if she could have, she would have been ticked that she no longer held the will to continue her interrogation. It was just like the Crystal Princess to reserve her emotional power for times like these.

Cadence smiled. “Come on. Let’s head home.”

One alicorn can only soothe the moods of three beings for so long, however, and before another half hour had passed, Twilight’s was beginning to wear again. The heat had slowed them to a panting stop twice already--Twilight had shaken herself as if soaked and drained another of the twenty canteens in futile efforts to dispel its hold. She cursed herself for not having mastered a single close-range temperature spell, but Equestrian weather was almost never too cold or too hot anyways!

Spike didn’t say anything, but Twilight gradually noticed that he didn’t seem to be affected at all--probably due to those fireproof dragon scales. She was glad that if one of the three was going to have protection, it was him, because she found that she would hardly have been able to worry about him in this state: between keeping pace with Cadence’s lead and trying not to think about the distant cries and whimpers of beasts, her concentration and energy were already fully occupied. That the horror-sun now had an entire stretch of brushy, open flat across which to pour itself over them wasn’t helping.

And that wasn’t even all--as much as she’d pushed it down, that pesky voice of reason was seething back up to buzz at the back of Twilight’s mind.

“You know, Twilight, you’re going to have to face facts sooner or later.”

“What facts? No, wait, don’t--”

“You can’t ignore that big ball of flame above you forever, and you also can’t ignore the fact that it’s Celestia’s.”

“It most certainly is not, not right now. ” Twilight gave an agitated tail-flick. “Can’t you see that some new threat is manipulating her--or maybe it’s taken control of the sun entirely! You can’t possibly be aware of the--”

“You know her too well; you feel it. She’s behind this. You hate the thought so much that you can’t accept it. Your beautiful, kind, brilliant, perfect princess has finally fallen.

“Shut up!”

“She doesn’t care about the kingdom anymore. She doesn’t care about friendship.”

“SHUT UP!”

“But what you really dread--what you’re afraid of the most--”

“I DON’T FEAR HER!”

“--is that she no longer loves you.”

“BE QUIET!”

Cadence and Spike stopped ahead and turned to stare at her. If her face could have turned any hotter, it would have. She hung her head, feeling the prick of wetness in her own eyes. Twilight would not let that voice get under her coat anymore.

“It’s--hah--fine. I’m--hah--fine.”

“Twilight, you just yelled at the air to ‘be quiet.’ Are you sure?” Spike asked. Cadence’s brow furrowed.

“You’re panting harder than ever. We can take--huh--another break--”

“No! I mean...no, no reallyI’mfine.” She gasped. Had she made it subtle enough?

To her relief, the others merely exchanged glances and continued east. What was more, the exposed rocks and weeds were coming to an end, and the familiar, shady treeline opening up before them. As they crossed it, Cadence’s shoulders relaxed just a little. But the change--if admittedly miniscule--in temperature seemed to make no difference to Spike, supplying even more evidence for Twilight’s dragons-are-immune theory.

She focused her mind on such things, locking the voice out of it with an iron wall and her eyes straight ahead, for three more rest stops. By the fourth, they’d hit a dry track between trees and everypony’s eyes, nostrils and throat had been invaded by the dust. Coughing replaced conversation. A vague scent of smoke and ash drifted in the air, as if the trees themselves were starting to singe. Twilight didn’t remember this at all from the way in--perhaps Cadence was leading them down a different route?

She checked her timepiece out of need for something to do, and found that it read...5:30? But the light and heat still glared down from a position appropriate for high noon...She swallowed. Don’t look up, don’t look up, get home to your friends…

“Um, Cadence? Do you--hah--think it might be time for a--hah--food-and-drink break?” Cadence looked startled.

“Oh, yes, um, of course! Oh, that’s right, you were--huh--out during lunch, so you haven’t eaten at all today! Let’s see here…” Her cyan magic fumbled through her sacks for canteens as Twilight pulled a few cans from hers.

“Can I help?” Spike’s feet halted their idle dust-kicking in his eagerness.

Twilight smiled and pointed out where he could assist. She supposed that no matter how terrifying this situation was slowly becoming, some things would never change.

When the three packed up after eating and dizzily resumed their trek, Cadence’s supply of water had dwindled to just a dozen canteens’ full...and Twilight was still uncomfortable with thirst. She stored away how the princess had ever planned to make it across the whole of the Everfree with a supply like that in the ever-growing pile of questions that had been left unanswered since the beginning of this mess. She wondered if even she would eventually run out of room in her head for them all.

Twilight was yanked out of her thoughts by an increase in the strength of the ashy smell. Cadence was carrying on as if she didn’t notice, but Spike was already holding his nose and wincing.

“Ugh, what is that?” he asked nopony in particular. “Smells like it’s coming from…” He gestured broadly up ahead and to the right. “...somewhere over there.”

As they drew closer, Twilight realized he was correct--how many advantages did dragons have in the hothouse?

“Hey...Cadence, do you mind if we--hah--veer off for a minute and go check out the source of this--huh--smell?” Maybe she was just starved for answers lately, but Twilight’s curiosity was getting the better of her on this one.

Cadence only gave her and Spike a sad, silent nod, making it clear that she would be waiting where she was. Luna’s warning and Zecora’s haunting speech ran all at once through Twilight’s mind. Even in the apocalyptic heat, she shuddered. But she was through with giving up in her pursuit of knowledge; now, no matter how harsh, she wanted the truth.”

“No matter how harsh, huh?”

“You have no truth to tell me. And I thought I told you to SHUT UP.”

“Alright, Spike. Do you--hah--want to come with...?” He was already gone. Twilight followed in his wake.

It was a dead timberwolf. She should have known.

Spike’s tears over the blackened creature could do nothing to extinguish the flames that had seared their way through its wood hours ago.

The scorch mark Twilight had found on a nearby tree suggested that the poor wolf, in its dash for shade, had scratched bark against bark too quickly and ignited the fire through the friction compounded by the already-precarious heat.

After he calmed down, Spike found flowers.

Twilight just sat there in the browning ferns, staring at the body that was in the limbo of life’s spark lost but worm’s riddling kept, so far, at bay. She was unable to cry, even to think anymore. Contact with the ethereal, black finality of death, even in such creatures as birds and mice, was rare and hard to come by over the decades. One of the fillies in her class had a cousin die so many years ago. She’d once been to the funeral of an old raccoon of Fluttershy’s. She knew that Applejack’s parents had met their time...and had suspicions about Scootaloo’s.

But this...was a fresh body. Its spirit was gone, and wherever, if anywhere, it was now, it wasn’t coming back, banished from its home in its prime for a reason as frivolous as chance contact with a spark. And because of this ceaseless sun, she feared it wouldn’t even receive a proper grieving night or thunderstorm.

Now Twilight didn’t want to think about why she wasn’t hearing quite so many of those distant cries.

She stood. The first flickers of anger at whatever had ended this existence, like a split tail hair, before its age, made themselves known.

Twilight hoped that whoever--

“Celestia.”

--had done this would come to know exactly the tragedy they’d wreaked.

And she hoped that, however the timberwolf had lived its snipped-off life, it had someone who loved it.

Author's Note

So, first off, no hint at anything more than a deep mentor-mentee bond was intended--no offense at all to Twilestia or those who ship it, though.

And as for all the sadness over the timberwolf--well, I think that based off the lighthearted tone and lack of mention of death in the canon, it must be, erm, rare, and heavily grieved over whenever it does happen. I don’t believe that Twilight Sparkle, at any point, would be one to shrug off the death of a fellow creature no matter where it had come from--life and death mean something, are precious, in Equestria, no matter what kind of spirit or body they belong to.

So...yeah.

It’s kind of shameful that 1,700 words is long to me.

VII: Home Ground

This will all be over soon.

Twilight had perched at the very edge of the forest, waiting to throw herself over it at the flick of Cadence's wing. The time had been 9:03 p. m. when she'd last checked, but there was no night anymore.

Twilight had never realized how much she'd needed the darkness.

For the past two days (if one could separate this senseless, cruel boil into days) her being had been pierced ceaselessly by the blood-light and swelter, withering it like the shrubs and the beetles, leaving room for only a few hours of sleep at a time, and only when her body had become wrecked and her mind delirious with exhaustion. She was relieved that Spike's resistance kept him from the same Tartarian state, but she couldn't say the same for her old foalsitter. Actually, she hadn't seen Cadence sleep at all since that final dawn.

But none of it mattered now.

The clarity of her intention forced silence from her body. She was poised on the border of an end to this waking nightmare: seeing her friends. It would mean knowing that everything was real, but also that the six could make it through together, just as they always had.

This will all be over soon.

Her focus began to flicker. Cadence's voice swam inside her mind, trying desperately to keep it strong, repeating the plan.

"Remember, Twilight, when we split up you'll head in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. Ask any passerby if they've seen any of the Element Bearers or their families. Spike and I will split up and do the same for other areas."

This will all be over soon.

"If you ever catch sight of a member of the Guard, even...even him, or if anypony seems to be acting strange or hostile towards you, run and hide, no matter what. Got it?"

This will all be over soon.

"It's you she wants more than any of them."

That other voice cropped up again.

"It's you she wants, it's you she wants, she doesn't love you any more..."

Slowly, Cadence's wing rose.

The three parted ways.

Twilight illicitly skirted the outline of Ponyville. She couldn’t help it--after nearly five days’ absence, the strangest and most frightening days she’d ever experienced, no less, the grounding draw of her home was irresistible.

But even though she came within a leg-length of a few of the houses, she met no passerby. That’s not at all unusual in this heat, though, she reasoned, both for their absence and all of the darkened, shuttered windows.

Until she saw the poster.

It was clean-cut, framed in white, and plastered smoothly across one entire side of a house-front across the street. At its foot was Celestia’s mark, bathed in red like the sky.

The ground shifted.

Twilightno

youhavetogettoApplejack

don’tstopjustkeepgoingyou’resocloseyouwerealmostthere

keepgoingplease

Twilight

TwilightRUN!

The sounds of armored hooves and shouting.

Pure, undiluted panic.

A tingling, an all-consuming flash of pink--

"Aaaaaaaaa--hmph!"

Twilight’s scream was knocked from her the impact of something...soft yet prickly. Dazed, she oriented herself in accordance with her remaining sense of gravity. She found herself on top of a tree, somewhere in the middle of the hothouse version of Sweet Apple Acres.

She realized that her fear must have caused her, in a wild burst of power, to teleport directly there--by far her longest distance yet--but with a crude height miscalculation. Judging by how long she’d fallen for, she’d been at least twenty feet above this tree. It was lucky that the branches had been thick enough to catch her--hay, it was lucky that she didn’t teleport above a treeless path or, worse yet, too low rather than too high, fusing her body with the ground. She shuddered. For a few more seconds, her heart held out its crazy thudding, and the remaining errant bolts of magic sparked uselessly from her horn. Her body lay there, briefly spent, in the treetop.

But even then, the horror-sun dripped itself down the back of her neck, mocking her, shaming her. It threatened, upon her slightest questioning of it, or of its pawns, the gray armored shapes, her destruction. She scrabbled to thrust the memories away then and gratefully gave herself back over to the primal urge to run.

As her nerves reawakened, she stood and worked to balance herself. She'd have to get down from the tree first, and the drop appeared to be about eighteen feet. Deeply, she breathed in the thick air. She had to get to the Apples, and there was no time to waste. They, of course, couldn’t follow her directly, but she had to assume they’d had the orchard pegged as a likely stop.

Her thoughts began to spook, like birds that whipped themselves into a greater frenzy when she tried to calm them down. This wasn’t working.
“This is what happens when you give in to adrenaline rather than facing the truth, filly genius.”

“That is it! I will not stand for any more of your games, you cynical smart-flank!"

Twilight screwed up her face and leapt down to the lowest branch. After the freefall, she felt...another soft impact. The tree had rustled, but its limb, miraculously, didn’t give enough to drop her. After giving a smirking mental gloat to the voice, she peered awkwardly down to inspect the remaining jump height she had to negotiate.

In the distance, something else rustled.

An already-jumpy Twilight squealed and fell from the branch, thudding painfully on her back. She rose and pricked her ears in the direction from which the sound had come, every hair on the back of her coat straightening both from fear and from the magical energy readying in her horn. She knew there was no way her subconscious power could give her an out this time, not when she was prepared. She’d have to stand her ground and fight.

Then she saw it: a flash of red between the apple trees accompanying the next noise. This was no Guard member. Relief was poured out over her flaming nerves, and for a moment she was exhausted again, only desiring to yawn and maybe lay down rather than wade through this heat again. But if that had really been an ordinary pony...a fellow runner...she might be able to learn something! Twilight cantered hesitantly in the direction of the noises.

Another rustling, much more hurried and farther away--she’d scared it off! Silently, she cursed herself before breaking into a run through the trees.

“Wait!” She was starting to pant as heavily as she had over the days of walking. This wouldn’t last lo--

Something bowled her over.

“Twilight, it’s you!” The mare lay gasping and sputtering, her remaining wind supply having been removed by Apple Bloom’s tackle.

“Uh--sorry about that.” The filly jumped off and gave her a sheepish smile. “Uhm--Twi, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Twilight smiled. Tears were spilling down her face. She abruptly rose and squeezed Apple Bloom with the force of her own takedown. “It’s just--” She sniffed. “--that these past few days have--ah--been so scary, and, well…” Twilight pulled away to look a blurry Apple Bloom in the eye. “It’s just so good to know that somepony else is okay.”

For a second, AB didn’t seem to know what to do. Then, with a slow, foalish grin that shone with more joy than Twilight could ever hope for out of this sun, she hugged back.

They stayed like that for awhile, rocks to each other in the boiling storm.

Eventually, mutually, they separated.

It was Apple Bloom who broke the silence.

“Let’s get you back to Applejack. She can--hah--explain everything better than I can.” Twilight nodded. She supposed that she could explain to Applejack the plan to reunite with Cadence once they were all out of the sun. She grinned and closed her eyes for a moment, just imagining how they would fell.
The filly began to walk back towards the part in the trees she’d burst from and beckoned to be followed. “But first, d’ya think you could help me haul back these here apples?”

There was a surprising number of them, four large baskets’ full, freshly bucked. Apple Bloom expertly paired them and stuck branches between their handles to allow them to be carried like saddlebags. She offered Twilight the basket-pair that was just slightly less full.

“Here, you take that one--it’s lighter.” Twilight was about to object before she felt the weight on her back and realized, with embarrassment, that there was no way she could carry anything heavier for this distance, not even with her magic, in its current state of depletion. She apologized (only to be met with laughter and reassurance) and watched in awe as the little farm pony seemed to handle her own, fuller load with ease. Maybe the old sayings that earth ponies were stronger than the others were true after all.

She turned her focus back to the horizon, squinted to make out the farmhouse, and groaned.

Yet even with the...external conditions being the same as they’d been, with another pony around, one who’d, miraculously, survived separately from Twilight despite everything, her internal atmosphere had begun to relax. Twilight could feel it--a curious thing. Before she’d been sent to Ponyville she’d have scoffed at the idea of such a tangible emotional bond, but now it was holding her up, as impossible to explain as the Pinkie Sense but equally present.

She heard a sound in the branches overhead and jumped. Apple Bloom and she looked up at...a squirrel, holding a few apple remains in its paw. Twilight realized just how little she’d been hearing the ordinary animal sounds of the orchard and her heart suddenly became as heavy as her load. But that lone squirrel also meant that things just might return to normal once all the Elements were together again.

After a few more minutes of thoughtful silence, a second animal moved the branches somewhere in the distance, as if to bolster Twilight’s hopes.

Except that Apple Bloom was looking back now. And she was looking scared.

Twilight turned.

Between distant trees, the sun glinted off curves of golden armor and viciously sharpened spears, rushing closer by the second.

Twilight screamed something. An anonymous voice bellowed an order. They threw off the apples and ran.

Soon, with ravaged lungs and stinging eyes, the two could hear the clanking getting louder behind them, creeping in. The fear on Apple Bloom’s face was too much. Twilight struggled through her pain and the descending haze to keep up with her, but in the end it was left to defense. Her horn sparked. She swept her head back with all her might to bring a limb crashing down in the guards’ path. The pegasi sailed over it, but from what she could tell it slowed a few of the unicorns.

Then, ever so slowly, Twilight watched one of their gray horns glow with a golden light.

Sssnchkshk!

Her ear was in the dust.

It was all out of focus. It was all wrong.

She struggled to her hooves. She made her legs keep moving. She dared not look back now. It all hurt. Too much. It was too hot. She couldn’t breathe. Something was chasing her. It didn’t matter what. She didn’t know. She didn’t know.

This will all be over soon.

Author's Note

So, yes, I use "feet" for measurement here. I don't really have an excuse except that Seekers-style body-length thinking was getting a little too archaic for Twilight.
Um, that's pretty much all.
Unfortunately for this site, this fix will decidedly not all be over soon.