Prologue: Lies, Deceit, Betrayal
Heavy breathing and the clopping of hooves impacting against the hard dirt ground echoed throughout the entire town. Clop after clop after clop resonated into the night, the sound being the only thing for miles around that stood out against the shadows of the dark but moonlit night-time. A hooded figure runs through the alleyways, turning left and right to never make the same pattern twice. Innumerable things were running through her head as she ran, thoughts of capture and a vision of execution.
The confined spaces around her only seemed to be getting narrower and narrower the further she went, and the light became to dim to define details. All she cared about was getting away alive as she ran away from the scene of death she had painted, the marks of death still present on her fur. Crimson red stained the familiar colours with a new signature that would hang there until removed from her body, even though her mind would never be rid of it.
Coming to a long straight-away, she set her course and looked down to her side as sheathed there was the tool in question. An instrument of a discordant melody that orchestrated a deathly tune that had caused her to perform such a terrible deed. It hummed lightly with power as a red energy swirled around the hilt, consuming it with a bloody glow that faintly lit up the space around her. 48 inches of razor sharp ebony blended in with the jet black cloak and cowl that coated her body in espionage and masked the true pony underneath.
She looked up to find a fast approaching wall with an available turn in both directions. From there she decided to turn right as it was the quickest way to her home at the north side of the town. She turned hastily, too hastily, and caught her hoof on the corner of the inside wall. One side of her body moved faster than the other, causing her to topple and fall forwards.
Her chin scraped along the ground, drawing blood from the split skin and leaving a small red mark in the dirt. The adrenaline running like slush through her blood covered up the cut under a mask of panic as she quickly pulled herself to her hooves and pushed away with her hind legs to start up her sprint.
Moon-light illuminated the un-sheltered ground past the exit of her final alleyway and highlighted the final destination of her course. After what seemed like hours of running she broke out into the street and out of the shadows. Straight ahead of her lay her home, a tall hollowed out tree that stood at a large height and dominated it's area surrounded by bushes and a few patches of dull autumn flowers.
Even though she was so close to safety her expressions did not yet brighten as she started on one final sprint towards her door. The dark wooden door adorned with two lanterns grew ever closer with her running and her horn lit up with a cold glow when her magic connected with the door. She threw it open at the last moment and skidded her way inside, stopping on the door-mat with a small cloud of dust trailing in her wake.
She began to close the door too fast in her panicked state, but her sense for caution kicked in and just before it slammed she slowed the movement down. The door closed with an eerie creek and made a heavy clunk that sounded much louder there in the night than it would normally in the day. Her eyes closed hard and her face scrunched up as her breathing stopped.
...
The deafening silence filled the living room with a calm but tense atmosphere that prodded at her brain with the urge to move and cleanse herself of her stains as quickly as possible. She pulled down her cowl and crept lightly across the living room to the kitchen, spotting the sink and heading straight for it. When she reached the appliance she turned on the cold tap and cringed at the squealing made by the grinding metal and froze in place to stand utterly still and wait for him to wake up and come to see what was happening.
...
Only the sound of water from the tap reached her ears and told her that he was not awoken by the taps. So she lifted her hooves to the sink and realised just how much they were shaking. Her hooves shook, twitched and jolted along with the fear, regret and conflict that raged war in her mind. She moved them carefully forward into the running flow of liquid and rinsed them thoroughly with soap.
She continued the action for several minutes, cleaning over and over again, constantly staring at her vibrating hooves in fear that the blood would not come off. It stuck stubbornly into her coat and refused to move, no matter how much she rinsed them. This caused her to become more frantic with the motions and tears started to well up in her eyes along with more ragged breaths.
"-Come off!-" She screamed in her mind. "-Please! Please just come off!-"
Eventually she came to the conclusion that maybe the stains would come off if she used a towel to dry her fur. So she picked up a nearby towel and started drying her hooves with it. She rubbed and rubbed until all of the moisture had gone from the fur before tossing the towel onto the kitchen worktop. She looked at her hooves in horror as she saw that the were still coated in a layer of dried blood that dulled her coat to a sickly orange where the red liquid had stuck.
"-Ok... calm down, Twilight. Everything will work out...-"
Suddenly the soft red glow that was being emitted from the hilt of the blade stopped, and the magical energy that once swirled around it disappeared into it's dark frame. She was left in total darkness, the pitch black shadows consumed all but the most reflective surfaces. For a moment she stood there, blind in the black abyss that had become of her home. And a familiar voice spoke out to her from across the void:
"Well done, my child..." The slow and calm voice echoed through her mind, poking at the fabric of her psyche with it's deep resonance.
"...Well done." She closed her eyes and gulped down her fear, allowing her breaths to be the only thing to fill the blackness as she tried to calm herself.
"-...Hopefully.-"
