For Twilight Sparkle, every morning at the Golden Oaks Library held promise of a comforting monotony. The gentle touch of Celestia would creep into her bedroom and effortlessly banish the darkness. The birds delivered a symphony of endless chirps to herald the dawn of a new day and at some point in the middle of all this, her alarm clock gave a cry to yank the unicorn from underneath the silky kiss of sleep to prepare her to greet the day.
It was all like clockwork really. A well oiled routine Twilight tried to adhere to on everyday ending with 'Y'. Which is how she knew something was wrong when her consciousness lazily drifted back to her. There were no birds. No cheerful serenade to guide her from dreams of being a well respected professor at Hoofvard to the reality of being a well respected librarian. They had been replaced with a low, steady thrum that buzzed in her ears like an insect charged with irritating her. The alarm clock had been choked into silence- no reassuring 'tick-tick-tick' cast over her prone frame, keeping the silence of the night at bay. Even Celestia's tender light had been vanquished, mimicked by a blasphemous gleam of flickering fluorescent light overhead.
All of it was enough to jolt Twilight from a restless slumber into a slow, hazy state of consciousness. With the electric lights overhead and biting into her eyes, the room took it's sweet time swimming into view. The encouraging scent of old text had been switched out for sterilized bleach and alcohol and even though Twilight had to wait for her focus to return, she knew that this was not her library.
It didn't take terribly long. Slowly, she realized her library, with it's welcome open spaces, miles upon miles of books and large, light giving windows had been erased from the world. Drawn in it's stead was a cylinder with a flat floor and tinted a gentle shade of blue with a single bed jutting out from one of it's curved walls. She could remember her library vibrantly; bright and boisterous and dominating in her mind. Books and tables and nooks and crannies and yet her memories of the events leading up to this room- this place where she now found herself were distorted and murky. She could at best, remember a jarring conversation with somepony. Some distant argument she was having about a theorem or something. That too, however, was all faded and fragmented, as if the last figment of a fleeting dream.
Still, it would do her no good to panic, regardless of how that was the first response to spring to mind upon waking up in an unfamiliar room. No, this was all some terrible misunderstanding that she would laugh about later. She was obviously sitting in a holding cell of some sort, perhaps detained for questioning or wrapped up in some sort of misidentification accident. It really didn't matter. Whatever it was, it would fade into obscurity the moment somepony came to check in on her. At that point, she would simply explain the situation. That she was the personal student of Princess Celestia and getting a message to her and a correspondence would clear up whatever misunderstanding was at play.
That meant all she had to do was wait. A simplistic plan, surely, but a promising one. Any use of magic to aid in her escape could be construed as a hostile action and Twilight didn't want any scenario to arise where it looked like she wasn't trying to cooperate with whatever authority was in charge here. Not that magic was turning out to be much of an option anyway. Try as she might to pepper the room with sparklers and dazzling stars to alleviate her boredom (novice spells learned by foals in kindergarten) she failed to produce even one multicolored spark.
The air in the cell seemed vacant of the tingling sensation of magic. Like every bit of arcane energy had been sucked out of the room, leaving it stale and dry to her mystic palate. Frustrating, yes, but not surprising. Twilight could think of at least six different cities where magic was outright outlawed (backwards little third world countries, if she remembered her mother's opinions about them) and far more places took to using limiters and dampeners in prisons and dungeons.
She gave a morose sigh and twisted her frame around until she was resting on her back staring up at the flickering lights on the ceiling and trying to find comfort on a nigh uncomfortable bed. All she had to do was wait; at yet, with every second that ticked by, the young unicorn grew more and more restless. A strange mix between irritation and curiosity swept through her, questions popping into her mind one after another like a marching band dominating a street. Impossible to look away and loud enough to draw every ounce of your attention.
How did I get here? Where am I? Who's in charge here? Is this still Equestria? I don't recognize the architecture. Am I somehow in Ponyland? I haven't ever visited across the sea, but I've always wanted to. I wonder if I can arrange a tour before I head back? Is Spike okay? Are my friends coming to get me? How would they even know where I am? I wonder how long it will take to get a message to the princess. Will they let me send it using magic? What if they don't believe me?! Of course they'll believe me, but what if the Princess's Message is delayed? What if -
Behind her, the sound of metal colliding against metal lurched her from her thoughts, as the wall slid open near the back of the cylinder. Immediately Twilight was on her hooves and walking towards the doorway.
"Oh, thank goodness, I was starting to think I'd be in here for the rest of the night before somepony came to..." Twilight froze, her tongue turning to sand paper in her mouth and the words died as they tumbled from her lips. In front of her was not a pony dressed in a guard's uniform. It was not a pony dressed in a military outfit, or a wonderbolt, or a stallion, or any such creature Twilight could recognize.
The creature standing at the door was alien to Twilight in it's entirety; it was tall, with long spindly limbs jutting from it's sides with spidery protrusions at the end. Blonde coils of fur jutted out over a flattened 'face' if you could call it that, with beady little eyes and a gaping circle underneath what she could only assume to be it's 'mouth.' It had no fur to speak of (aside from it's head) only tannish flesh that spilled over it's stringy frame and it walked on it's hind legs with an almost super natural balance.
And yet, despite the exotic nature of this creature, there were familiarities Twilight instantly connected with. It was wearing clothing. A lengthy white lab coat that fluttered from it's shoulders to it's lower hooves and a pair of dark rimmed glasses that were wrapped around it's misshapen face. It's muzzle twisted into a deformed smile, and it made a slow gesture towards the stunned unicorn, as if beckoning her forward.
Twilight didn't move. She couldn't move. She'd never seen something like this before and with her magic silenced, a grave sense of apprehension began to burn within her. Waking up in a unfamiliar bed was one thing, but doing so and under the care of some creature never before recorded in the history of Equestria was more than cause for alarm.
When she didn't follow his gesture, the creature at the door way let it's lips further widen into it's unsettling 'smile'. It beckoned yet again and this time filled the room with a low baritone voice. It would have almost been soothing, save the words that it spoke, which forced the unicorn's eyes wide open.
"Come now, Twilight. We've much to discuss. "
