Knock, Knock.
The door swung open before Dawn's eyes and the Pegasus that had led her here pointed into the room. She was nervous, if not afraid, about what she thought could be her last hours in Equestria.
Twilight sat at the other end of the room, waiting, no feeling visible on her face. Only a serious look in Dawn's direction.
The door closed silently behind her. She flinched. Her heart was beating strongly, as if it wanted to leave her chest.
Stumbling forwards Dawn sensed Twilight's magic presence in the room. It was filled with her anger, which was not usual for her. Dawn had seen her angry before, but alicorns are as good at using their magic as they are at hiding it. If they make you feel their power it has a reason.
“Dawn”, Twilight said, telling her to come closer.
“Princess”, She replied.
“I have a lot of questions at the moment, but they all seem to come down to this one : What happened in Ponerheim?”, Twilight asked with a tone that actually implied interest in the answer.
“I thought you'd know that by now”, Dawn answered a bit confused.
“I heard many versions of the story, but how could I in This case abandon her principles and not look at at all the angles that are available to me?”, she replied with a look that was a bit different than the controlled stare.
Quickly trying to change the topic Dawn gave back: “Right, So I hope you don't want to hear any other versions soon, because this one will take its time”. She preferred the stare, it was safe.
“You'll get your time, but don't test my patience. It suffered bad lately”,Twilight replied.
Taking a deep breath Dawn opened her mouth and started speaking: “OK, still, I'll better start at the very beginning. The first rumors started two days after Celestia had arrived. At every corner you could hear Ponies whisper, always with one eye to the street, because the guards don't like to hear such topics. Someone had broken into the city hall and had stolen The key to the dungeon. Most ponies put at least a kilometer between themselves and the hill surrounding the dungeon, so it wasn't surprising that no more info had spread in the next days.
Being curious me and Donner went closer and watched over the dungeon entry when ever we had time to.
Than on Tuesday we saw Cora the first time, only she looked different back than. Her fur was an almost white blue, her mane looked like a bunch of spider strings and here eyes gray like ash, and a black feather on her flank. She would have looked like a ghost if it weren't for her dark blue rope.
We reveled ourselves in front of her and held her back. She wanted to storm the dungeon on her
own. We pulled her away and confronted her in the hideout that we had build as we were young.”
“Why didn't she just knock both of you out, instead of wasting her time?”, Twilight interrupted.
“She wanted to play it safe I guess”, Dawn answered ,” Getting two more Unicorns in her way wasn't comfortable for her and getting a few helping hooves would not hurt either, considering that a big part of her power was still waiting for her deep below.
So she showed us the key to the dungeon and told us the story that until now I cant remember why we chose to believe:
Ponerheim was imprisoning ponies, sometimes entire families, for the criminal underground of cities all over Equestria.Her sister was there aswell, but she escaped that day. The ponies in Ponerheim would not ask questions about criminals being imprisoned in the dungeon and the and in the other cites no one would find any evidence.”
“Why haven't you sent me a letter?”, she interrupted me again, this time with a louder voice.
“Ponerheim is in the deep south. Sending letters to Canterlott takes days if not even weeks, we couldn't wait that long”, Dawn replied, trying to sound reasonable.
“And Celestia? She was in the City!”, Twilight now yelled.
Her outburst caught Dawn off guard . Twilight's calm face that she had tried to keep for the longest time, had faded and her anger filled the gap,
”Why would you believe someone so blindly?”
”Because I wanted to!” surprised by her own bravery Dawn dipped her head and took a step backwards. Twilight only stared at her, not moving an inch from her position. Feeling the need to explain herself, Dawn continued, though her voice lost almost all its volume, compared to her last words:
”In Ponerheim money rules, you know that. Ever since I came back from the academy I noticed the corruption more and more. It wasn't the place where I grew up anymore and I was certain that I'd find answers.”
Twilight remained silent, though her face had returned to her serious controlled stare, telling Dawn to continue.
”The next day at sunset we met Cora at the hill next to the dungeon. There were two guards at the entrance Donner took them out. The alarm started howling as soon as the magic barrier was broken by the key. Heading down the corridor we took two out by surprise.
Entering the main room of the dungeon me and Donner stopped, but Cora knew exactly where she was heading. We had trouble following her. A little smile was on her face. Furiously she jumped on the next guard and knocked him out in one blow.
I got nervous. Cora became more and more thrilled as we galloped deeper and deeper into the dungeon and the further we came the more her face differed from the expected relieve of seeing her sister again, but this was not the time for doubting.
Than we entered the prison room of the vessel. Expecting to skip past we both ran into Cora as she stopped right in front of it. I asked her what was going on, but no answer. Her eyes were glowing. She seemed to be in another world, at least her mind was, and she took out the key. It started floating and spark sprinkled all over it. Cora let her hoof sink back to the floor.
I remember the room getting brighter quickly and as my vision was blinded the white, I passed out.
As I woke up me and Donner were back in our hideout and Cora was gone. Donner wasn't moving, but he was alive and as far as I could tell healthy. I went out to find Cora, but she was gone.
Only a black feather remained on the table and wasn't moving even as the breezes were striving by in that cloudless night.”
Author's Note
Read my bio first (it's not long)
Critic is advised.
