Hoof Steps in the Dark

by Fuzzyfurvert

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Nightmare Moon, Thriller, Horror
Length: 9125

While exploring the ruins of the Castle of the Two Sisters, Twilight finds something dark and not of this world. Some things don't know when to stay dead.

The old castle in the Everfree. Twilight Sparkle knows it's full of secrets that are still waiting to see the light of day. On her most recent exploration of the ruins, however, she finds something that she left there years ago.

Not all things know defeat in death.

Published 2014-11-01 03:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-11-01 03:54:15 UTC

Alone

Chapter 1

“You girls go on ahead, I’ll be fine.”

“If you’re sure, sugarcube.” Applejack tipped her hat back as the others turned back toward the castle’s main entrance and by extension, Ponyville. “I’ll drop off Spike back at the Librar - er, castle, I reckon.”

Applejack blushed and rolled her shoulders where a gently snoring dragon assistant lay. Twilight smiled and waved the mention of her old home away. She was still in mourning, but this wasn’t the time to get misty eyed. The Castle of the Two Sisters still has secrets that it had yet to reveal and she was determined to keep searching until it was too dark to see.

“Thanks, AJ, I appreciate that. I’m going to keep looking around and see what else I can dig up in these old ruins.” Twilight gave Applejack a confident smirk. “If it gets late, I can teleport back.”

“Shoot, sugar! I didn’t think yer ranged improved that much!” Applejack laughed. “Alicorn powers must be something else.”

“You got that right.”

“C’mon Applejack, you’re slowing everypony down!” Rainbow Dash flipped in the air overhead and zipped out the door at the end of hall on the heels of Pinkie Pie and Rarity. Fluttershy waited nearby patiently until the earth pony turned and started trotting to catch up with the others.

Twilight watched them go for a moment and drank in the quiet of the old ruins. She could taste the history on her tongue and smell the memories in each breath. The castle here bounced between idyllic relic of a bygone era and creepy shadow-infested hollow, but right now it felt warm and inviting in the later afternoon sun. Twilight spread her wings and flexed her feathers, letting them collect that light and warmth as she turned and let her hooves take her where they may.

Exploring the castle had become a something of a consuming hobby in the weeks after Tirek’s defeat. She was still feeling out her new duties and the new castle was interesting, but it wasn’t home yet. So in her free time, she explored and studied and learned. Sometimes it was like the adventures of Daring Doo when she found some new trap or hidden passage, other times it was more like traditional ‘boring’ archeology.

Twilight pulled in her wings as she entered one of the branching halls off of the main throne room. She stepped carefully over a marked tile that triggered a trapdoor slide and ducked under a partially fallen arch until she found herself just outside the old library. Twilight breathed in the scent of old books and dust but her hooves didn’t feel drawn to that treasure trove. She’d explored in there earlier and already had a stack of tomes prepared to accompany her back to her own castle for restoration and research.

Instead, her hooves kept going past the library and deeper into what they had dubbed the ‘Control Wing.’ Twilight walked wide around a mechanized suit of armor and hopped over an open pit with the help of a wing flap. She paused at the intersection just beyond the pit and looked into the large room opposite her where the huge pipe organ that was connected to the hydraulic system that controlled many of the castle’s traps and puzzles. To left was a mostly collapsed ballroom where they had come across the remnants of Tirek’s camp from when he was freshly escaped and laying low. To the right was the stairwell that lead up to the tower observatory where the Elements of Harmony had once been stored.

And where she’d faced a goddess of the night and won.

The room was empty now, so there wasn’t any real reason to go there. Perhaps she could find something in the ballroom? Perhaps Tirek had hidden something away in the rubble?

“...”

Twilight stopped at the threshold of the ballroom and looked up, her ears swiveling about. She was certain that she’d heard...something. It wasn’t unusual, the castle was falling apart with animals and plants slowly pulling the place down and the weird Everfree weather demolishing it in slow motion. Whatever it was didn’t repeat and the only thing she could hear was her own breathing and the whisper of a breeze in the hall.

With a flick of her tail, Twilight turned and eased her way into the collapsed ballroom, her horn lighting her way.

Bright magenta colored light illuminated the dark halls of the castle as the sun sank outside, only the tallest of the still standing stones bathed in its golden glow.

Twilight emerged from the ballroom and shook the dust and grit from her mane as she tugged a lumpy, motheaten and filthy tapestry from the room behind her. “Another one for Rarity to restore. Not what I was looking for, but so what?”

“...”

Twilight dropped the cloth and whirled around, her horn glow amplifying to light the shadows around her. The stones glinted in the light but nothing moved or made a sound. That didn’t stop the short hairs that ran down Twilight’s neck and along her spine from standing on end.

“Is somepony there?” Twilight turned slowly and fought to keep her breathing slow. It was probably just the wind or some Everfree creature out on a nightly stroll. She probably had no reason to be scared.

Twilight smirked and giggled to herself, as she recalled the first time she’d been out in the dark in the Everfree. Pinkie’s silly advice to laugh in the face of fear had been effective then. And now she was a full fledged alicorn. What could conceivably harm her?

She picked the tapestry back up with her telekinesis and folded it before letting it drop onto her back. She just needed to teleport back to town and she’d have enough time for a shower before dinner with Spike. Twilight started to charge her horn as she did the calculations in her mind to deposit herself and the cloth in her bathroom.

*snap!*

Twilight yelped. The arcane energies she’d collected thrashed in her horn, her careful calculations lost, until it burst out in a harmless flash.

*flumph*

She jumped and screeched, her hooves came down on the loose stones and the next thing Twilight knew she met the floor muzzle first.

Her own groaning woke Twilight. She coughed dust and dirt out of her nostrils and immediately regretted the action when she felt suddenly light headed and she could feel blood flowing down her face.

She was sore all over. Twilight grit her teeth and pushed herself to her hooves slowly. Nothing felt broken but she’d be best served if she had a doctor look her over. Assuming whatever had made that noise didn’t stop her.

Twilight snapped her eyes open and lit her horn. The corridors where as dark and empty and silent as they had ever been. Shadows danced whenever she turned her head, but nothing looked out of place. She took a step and turned when something soft and scratchy brushed against her leg. She shrieked and dived away from it, rolling on her shoulder and bringing up her horn primed to blast whatever monster had come to claim her.

In the magenta light of her horn no monster waited to pounce. No beast was primed to strike. The only thing in the hall besides herself and the stone was the old tapestry. It sat in a pile on the floor where she had dropped it and then backed into it blindly.

“Fantastic, I’m just in here scaring myself to death. Not your best moment, Twilight…” Twilight sighed and switched her horn from death-beam mode to illumination mode.

“...”

Twilight tried to swallow but her throat was dry. A soft breeze blew against her mane and she turn, very slowly and looked at the archway that lead to the stairs and beyond the Elements Chamber. The breeze stirred her mane again and for a moment, Twilight couldn’t shake the feeling that somepony had called her name.

Lost

Chapter 2

“Were there this many stairs here last time? This staircase seems unnecessarily long.” Twilight chuckled nervously to herself as she crept up the long spiral stairs to the Elements’ Chamber in the castle of the two sisters. No matter how much giggling she’d done, the feeling of being watched wouldn’t abate and her knees grew increasingly shaky.

Her horn’s glow banished the shadows, but only so far as the eternally receding curve of the crumbling stone wall to her left. The stairs climbed on into a dark inversion of Tartarus as the cool air of the evening gave way to the outright cold of an autumn night. The only sounds were Twilight’s own breathing and the soft clap of her hooves on stone.

The stairs kept going. Twilight’s legs were beginning to protest. Had the stairs been this long before, when she’d ran up them to find the Elements of Harmony all those years ago? Had it only been four years? It felt like forever ago. Was she on the right staircase? This couldn’t be right. There should have been a landing by now.

Twilight slowed and sucked in a deep breath of the chill air. It made her chest burn and took her mind off her legs for a moment. This is wrong. This can’t be right. Did I walk into a trap of some sort that keeps you walking in place forever? What if I can’t get out of it? How long would it take the others to notice I’m gone and then find me?

Twilight felt her breathing quicken in lockstep with her heartrate. She was just slowing to a complete stop when the landing she’d been seeking rounded the corner and teased her with a place to rest her hooves. She let out a sudden laugh, the tension gone for a moment as she spied her destination, and she galloped the remaining steps and leapt on to the landing with all the force and sudden joy of a foal in a field of rain puddles.

“Aha!” Twilight laughed again and dropped into a seated position to catch her breath.

The large chamber beyond the landing stretched away into darkness, swallowed by the night. Twilight knew large bay windows lined the chamber and part of the roof was collapsed and open to the outside, but she saw no stars or the moon. She did feel much more a breeze here and leaves, dry and spread out on the wide floor of the chamber rustled faintly.

“There are...er, where...eight support pillars. The third pillar on the right side is collapsed, broken into seven pieces.” She recited quietly as the memories of that fateful day out in her mind. “There is a dias at the opposite end of the room, raised one step. It takes a full three seconds at full gallop to cover the distance from here to the dias. Call it...thirty yards, which is structurally consistent with the ballroom on the ground floor.”

Her voice sounded flat. Absorbed by the absolute darkness of night as greedily as the futile glow from her horn was. “There is a stand on the dias that rests in a sunken base. It should still be surrounded by the rubble of the false Elements of Harmony that Nightma…” Twilight swallowed dryly. “Nightmare Moon destroyed.”

Twilight picked herself up and pushed more power into her horn to form a glowing orb of light that could be directed independently. Then she created three more and sent all four out into the room to spread her illumination as much as she could. She stood at the door and watched her tiny lights float along like giant fireflies. They drifted past the broken windows and fallen ceiling, their pinpoints of light picking out and casting deeper shadows as they went.

It was filled with more leaves that shivered under the touch of a cold autumn breeze, but the room was as she had left it all those years previous. There was even a hint of dark stain to the stone tile where the manifest power of the Elements had struck Nightmare Moon down. Twilight stayed well away from the spot as she relived the moment of her greatest triumph.

She could remember the voices of her friends, the overwhelming presence of a mad goddess and her own madness as she started to charge that same goddess armed with nothing but her horn and a wild guess at the villainess’ goad-ableness. It paid off in the long run. In a single fell swoop Princess Luna was returned to the world and Twilight and her friends were named heroes. Changelings and Chaos Spirits and power mad Centurians were nothing after that, really.

She sighed and hung her head for a moment before turning around. “I guess it was nothing. I’ve spent the better part of the night just scaring myself. I need to go get that tapestry I left downstairs and get home before they girls come searching.”

Twilight snuffed her witchlights one by one as she headed back toward the entrance, her hoofsteps echoing against the floor. She paused as she released the last light and was plunged once more into total darkness. Leaves rustled as the breeze picked up and the hair on her neck and spine rose to stand on end. Twilight shivered in the cold and then froze.

Her hoof steps were still echoing through the chamber.

The wind turned frigid as swirling dust devils of dead leaves blew past her. When it died down again a moment later, her breath misted into a little puff of condensation. Her heart thudded in her chest and her blood pulsed loudly in her ears as she turned and looked back into the empty room. Her horn light barely illuminated further than her hoof could reach. The night loomed over her like a silent and impenetrable weight, hungry for all the light and sound she could feed it.

“He..hell..o?” Twilight tried to hold the clatter of her teeth back unsuccessfully. “Is somepony there?”

The rustle and crunch of dead leaves was her only answer.

Rarity was just going to have to wait on that musty old tapestry. She fired up her horn and ran the calculations for mass and distance and the rotation speed of the planet. It wasn’t as precise as she liked, but the end point for her teleportation spell was within an acceptable walking distance of her castle in Ponyville. She opened the rift in reality and let herself be pulled through. It took a moment for the world to right itself, but in that moment just as she passed from the logical and measurable plane of existence to the realms of arcane energies, Twilight saw a black blot in the vague shape of a pony there in the room with her.

She saw it and as soon as she crashed into the dumpsters behind Sugar Cube Corner, she knew it had seen her in return.

Scared

Chapter 3

Twilight Sparkle stumbled from the dumpster she had recorporated herself into and shook a banana peel out of her mane. The alley behind Sugarcube Corner was deserted and dark. She pranced away from the deeper darkness and into the starlit gloom of the main road. Ponyville slept peacefully around her, at complete odds with what she had just left behind at the castel of the Two Sisters in the Everfree forest.

“Wait...what was that just now?” Twilight looked around, her eyes searching the night for any sign of a pony-shaped blot of black. “I saw something. I know I did! I did not imagine all that, I just couldn’t have!”

Something had been there with her in the old abandoned ruins. She could feel it watching as she had entered the room where the Elements had been kept. Twilight looked over her shoulder into the alley for a moment and started trotting away.

“I need to get home...do research.”

Her castle - it didn’t even have a proper name yet - loomed in the distance, just beyond the official edge of town. She kept up a pace that was perhaps just a little fast in the dead of night with no moon to add extra light. Now that she was out of the Everfree, the sky was cloudless and a million points of cold light twinkled above her. The moon was in it’s dark phase, as it sailed through the shadow of the planet. Had she the right sort of telescope, she could still pick out its faint outline, but on the ground and unaided, it might as well not exist.

Twilight turned to her left at the next intersection so she could hit the large thoroughfare that cut Ponyville in two. That would take her straight to her castle and would be the brightest lit path. Her heart wasn’t hammering in her chest quite as hard as it had been, but she was working up a sweat that was rapidly cooling. She slowed to a quick walk as she rounded the next corner and shivered.

She threw a look back over her shoulder again. The road was empty as it had been a moment ago. Was it getting colder or was that just her imagination? Twilight gulped down a fresh lungful of air and broke back into a full gallop. She needed a roof over her head, a closed door at her back and a book in her hooves that held all the answers.

The chill grew worse as she ran and it sapped the energy from her muscles. Her gallop slowed to a trot before she’d passed the clock tower in the center of town. The hands read a quarter after midnight. Had she really been out that late? Had no pony noticed her absence?

Twilight came to a halt in the square and coughed hard, her breathing ragged from the exertion and cold. Her breath came out in a cloud of condescension.

“...”

She jumped and kicked her legs hard enough to spill her on the flagstones. Twilight grunted as her knees took the brunt of the fall, but she didn’t look back. She needed to get to the castle before...whatever it was caught up to her. Adrenaline forced her aching muscles to comply to her demands as she ran.

Her knee started to ache immediately and the pain became a pronounced stabbing sensation before she reached the far end of the town square. She knew her hooves wouldn’t be taking her much farther and spread her wings, beating them in time with the last of her momentum. Twilight pulled up sharply as she reached the buildings on the other side and tucked in her hooves to just barely clear their roofs.

She banked to the right as her climb took her over the chimneys of the businesses around town square. Ponyville still had mostly one and two story buildings but she hardly gained any altitude as she pumped her wings. Balconies and raised attics, decorative weathervanes and lightning rods jumped out at her from the darkness as Twilight turned and weaved. She crossed another block before she climbed well enough above the rooftops to even out.

Twilight looked back as Ponyville swept by below her. “Eep!” At the very edge of her sight in the starlit dark, she could see something darker than the surrounding shadows flowing across the ground like mist or smoke. She flapped her wings faster but it matched pace with her and started to close the distance between them.

Twilight focused on reaching her castle and moments later, her horn flashed just before she crashed into an upper level window. She tucked in her wings and sailed through the now open window until she impacted the carpet runner in the hallway and skidded to a halt. Her knee screamed at her and Twilight lifted herself on three legs as she tried to remember the layout of the castle and where she was.

She rarely went upstairs. All the important chambers were on the main floor, except her bedroom, which was just on the second floor. The rest of the castle’s twists and turns were foreign to her. She and the girls had explored it after the castle appeared and all the rooms were properly furnished with furniture and decorations, but without a staff or true purpose, what use was the rest of the place to her beyond extra bedrooms when she had visitors.

Twilight blinked as her memory kicked in. She hobbled down the hall and turned the corner and yanked the door open as she moved and slammed it shut as soon as she was through. Her new home came equipped with several fireplaces and the room she’d chosen had it’s own, already stocked with enough wood to last until dawn. She threw in a log and her horn flashed again as hit the wood with a simple combustion spell. “That’ll kill two birds with one stone. No darkness, no cold, no ghosts.”

The fire crackled to life and the room filled with light. Twilight took a moment to try and slow her heart and steady her breathing before looking over her injured knee. Blood matted her fur there and further down , running in heavy rivulets to her fetlock. It was already dry and crusty and when she tested the joint, it didn’t feel broken. Her fur pulled and the skin underneath burned. “I think I just scraped it. I need to clean it. Spike will know where the antiseptic cream is.”

The fire in the fireplace spat glowing embers into the air and the flames danced wildly as the log Twilight had set ablaze snapped. The sudden noise made her breath catch and all the effort she had put into slowing her heart seemed for naught as it leapt in her chest. “Calm down, Twilight. It was just the log…”

“...”

That non-noise came again. It was like a void, her mind seemed determined to believe there was a voice, speaking to her while her ears reported no incoming signals. Twilight pressed her back against the wall, her eyes fixed on the fireplace. The shadows it cast grew long for a moment as the fire jumped again before it all but snuffed itself. Twilight eased herself sideways, her hoof feeling for the door handle. The log popped and sizzled as embers drifted up the flume like short-lived fireflies.

Twilight felt the handle under her hoof.

“...twilight sparkle…” The light from the embers died and the temperature of the room plummeted. In the sudden darkness, two white blue candle flames appeared. “...you won’t…”

She pushed the door open and ran. Her leg burned but Twilight ignored it. It had followed her home. In her rush to get away, she had endangered her home, Spike and Owlowiscious. She was still no closer to figuring out what it was and now the few books she had wouldn’t be of any help.

Twilight opened the window at the end of the hall and took to the air again. “I’m going to need the Princess’ for this!”

Exhausted

Chapter 4

The cool mid-autumn air cooled the burning sensation on her scraped, bloody knee. That was good. It also sapped her energy, as the eventual adrenaline high from her flight from the Castle of the Two Sisters— and the back alley behind Sugar Cube Corner, and her own library—turned into an adrenaline crash. That was bad. Her wing beats were slowing down, becoming fewer and farther between, her overall speed slipping to a barely maintained glide.

Twilight Sparkle glanced down. In the dark of night, with the moon and stars overhead, the rural fields and pasture land that surrounded Ponyville was surprisingly well detailed. Despite that, she had no idea where she was, or whose farm she was soaring over.

Well, ‘soaring’ is a relative term in this case. Those tree tops are awfully close looking. Keeping her altitude was proving difficult as her flight muscles in her chest and back were starting to burn and her breathing was becoming increasingly ragged. Okay Sparkle...think! Flying to Canterlot is going to be a long shot at this rate. If I wasn’t running on fumes and fear, I could manage it, but this? Not happening.

Twilight looked back behind her at the receding blot that was a peacefully sleeping Ponyville. The darker silhouette of her new castle rose highest of all, standing out against the night sky. She could still make out a tiny sliver of the starlight glimmering off its crystal growths. Dang, I’ve hardly made any progress at all! She gasped when something darker than both the night sky and her castle moved at the very edge of her vision.

It was still following her.

Fear spiked through Twilight, and her body responded, pushing her fight or flight instinct into overdrive again. The burning was momentarily forgotten as she beat her wings hard to catch more air. Her hooves grazed the top of a copse of trees and she started to climb again into the clear sky. All she could think of was how much she must stand out against the rest of the sky, how much of a target she was.

Think smart! Twilight grit her teeth, lowering her head to streamline herself. I can’t run forever, need to hide, catch my breath and use my magic to make some real distance.

“...twilight sparkle…”

The whisper came from right over her shoulder. The chill night air turned suddenly dead-of-winter-cold wind and tore at her mane and coat, making her eyes water.

“...you don’t...have the sixth…”

“What?!” Twilight dared a quick look back, but nothing was there. “I don’t know who or what you are, but you aren’t getting near to my friends!”

“...spark...didn’t...”

“Oh yeah? I’ve trained with the Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in Equestria! Catch me if you can!” Bravado had overridden sense, it seemed, but Twilight knew she was going to need to do more than just run. She tucked her wings in tightly, the way Rainbow did when she performed a powerdive. Below her, the ground started to approach rapidly, the details turning murky. She pointed her nose where she wanted to be, out over a small pond, it’s far bank shrouded in the shadows of tall trees.

The maneuver was risky. She wasn’t anywhere near as skilled as her pegasus friend, but if she pulled it off, she’d have more than enough speed to propel herself at a glide long enough to evade whatever was chasing her, and gather enough magic in her horn to trigger another long range teleport.

At least, that’s what she hoped.

The cold air clawed at Twilight’s face as she approached terminal velocity. The ground below her was a blur of shadows, until it suddenly gave way to the ink-like shimmer of the pond she was angled towards. That was the signal she was at the right height. Twilight tucked her legs in tight and flicked open her wings to grip the wind, angling them to pull herself up and out of the dive. The strain was intense. It felt like she was trying to a wing-up with Rainbow Dash standing on her back along with the rest of her friends.

Twilight pushed, gasping against the pain, her eyes closed to a narrow squint. She could barely see where she was headed, but she put her trust in the laws of aerodynamics and momentum to keep her from hitting the surface of the pond like a falling stone. Her wings felt like they were about to snap when the tremendous pressure shifted along with the wind. She forced her eyes open enough to make out the water a mere hoof-span under her, spray kicking up in her wake.

The last dregs of the bravado came back to her and Twilight let out a whoop. Assuming she made it to the dawn, she was really going to have to thank her friend for the relentless flight drilling. She looked forward and the bottom dropped from her buoyant mood. She’d pulled up in time to avoid a watery crash, but speed was hurling her straight into the trees at the pond’s edge faster than she could pull up. She took a deep breath, threw all of her will into a spherical shield and closed her eyes.

***

When she cracked open her eyes again, her impromptu violet shield was sputtering back into nothingness. Twilight looked up from where she had come to a final rest on her side. Behind her, there was a visible path through the foliage and canopy that her crash had beat, snapping branches and thinner tree trunks that dared get in between her and the loamy soil. She could see the edge of the trees where they sided up the waterline, the starlight making it seem bright comparatively.

Even as she watched, that light dimmed, the already cold leaves under her coat getting colder as a dark mist rolled in.

Twilight sat there, breathing hard, the mist curling in over the surface of the water. It extended thick fingers between the tree trunks, searching the forest floor for its prey. For her. Before her eyes, Twilight’s ragged breathing started to fog in front of her. The woods around her creaked quietly, the tiny sounds of nocturnal wildlife halting. They knew as well as she did that a predator was under the canopy with them.

Twilight clacked her teeth together, clenching her jaw as she struggled to her hooves. Mud, leaves, and sticks rained down from her coat. When the bubble shield failed, she’d only sank in a few inches into the moist forest floor, and even in those few seconds, more than enough of the stuff latched onto her, sapping away her body heat and weighing her down.

Twilight shook herself off like a dog and scrabbled over the log she’d come to rest against. Other other side she found more muddy earth and leaves, but the starless depths of the wood was thankfully clear of mists. Hopefully it was equally clear of whatever was chasing her.

“Just...just got to get to Canterlot.” Twilight took a step, flinching at the loud snap from the litter of branches and twigs. “Just got to...contact the Princesses. Just got to make it...until the dawn.”

“...twilight sparkle…”

“AaaAhh! Get away from me!” Adrenaline hit her system like a sledgehammer, her heart pounding in her ears as Twilight shot off into the woods, too Tartarus whatever lay in the shadows.

Terrified

Chapter 5

The slope away from the lake wasn’t very steep, but no sooner was Twilight under the canopy of the surrounding forest than she was stumbling and tripping with every step. Her weary hooves rebelliously seeking out ever crook of roots, or cleave of rocks to catch and drop into. The branches above her clawed at her mane and the sky equally, the remaining unfallen leaves blocking the light from the moon high overhead.

The mists rolling in from the water passed her, throwing a haze over what she could see, and adding a haunting quality to her panting and the snapping of the dry underbrush. It turned every tree and rock into a phantom that seemed to leap out at her with every move she made. Twilight scrambled deeper into the trees until her lungs ached more than her wings and legs and she collapsed at the base of a towering, mushroom covered stump.

“What have...you done?”

Twilight jumped, the voice came from everywhere around her, bouncing off the ground and trees. It was cold, almost emotionless, as if the question was rhetorical. She squinted, scanning the dark mists for anything to latch onto, but nothing moved. The trees around her aloof sentinels, silent and still. Pressing herself against the wood, Twilight took a deep breath and fired up her horn with a simple light spell. It was the same one she’d used in the ruined Castle of the Sisters earlier, balls of light bright as a lantern forming and floating around her head.

Even with the added light, Twilight could still only make out the first layer of forest around her. “What is this thing? What does it want?” With a mental command she sent the little balls of light out around her darting through the conifers and throwing shadows with each tree and shrub they passed. The mist glittered with each wisp but otherwise ate up all the illumination in just a few yards. Outside her own ragged breathing and hammering heart, nothing moved. The forest was deathly still.

Twilight sat there, ears perked up and twitching back and forth, her eye wide as saucers. She searched. She watched for movement, listened for the snapping of a twig or crunch of leaves that would telegraph her pursuer’s location. Time moved at a crawl while her body continued to add it the growing list of complaints. The ground was wet and cold, soaking through her tail. The mossy stump was rough, jabbing her back and flank in a dozen places. Her wings were on fire from her aerial stunt over the pond and were being crushed between her body and the dead tree she sheltered against. Muscles were numb or aching. She was starting to shiver more than the deepening chill called for.

I can’t stay out here like this. Twilight turned her head slowly, still scanning the area. I’m going to be in real trouble if I go into shock. I need to find shelter...is Zecora’s hut this direction? Twilight shook her head, dismissing the thought. Zecora’s hut was well into the Everfree, back towards the Castle where all of this had started. There was no way she’d make that trip in this condition. Flight felt out of the question. She wasn’t strong enough to manage a teleport of any length. Walking was highly suspect at this point, even if she disregarded the fact that it was dark. Plus I don’t want to lead...whatever this thing is...back to anypony else.

The forest remained still.

Twilight took a deep breath and held it for a second, willing her pulse to slow. She pushed off the stump with one hoof, the effort to lift herself back to a standing position forcing all the air out of her in a pained grunt. She teetered there in place, finding her balance and calling back her conjured points of light to hover around her in a loose halo. “P-please...let there be a cabin or shack nearby.” She took a shaky step forward, a rueful grin splitting her muzzle. “This...this would be the part...of the movie where Applejack would start ranting about dumb mares in horror stories. Sorry to...disappoint, AJ, but I need a place to rest. It’s not like I’m being chased by the Headless Horse.”

The next step was shaky, but the one that followed was a bit more firm. Every plod of hoof on the bed of leaves and forest floor helped steady her. Her heartbeat was still going like a jackhammer and everything ached, but she had a goal. She had a mental checklist and every step was one more box ticked off. First was getting herself moving, but carefully this time. Next was finding shelter and seeing to aches that felt worst. Then figure out what was chasing her. The defeat it, probably. Twilight shook her head. Thinking that far ahead was making her feel fuzzy and lightheaded. She didn’t much favor her chances of fighting either. It would be better, she reasoned, to simply last out until daylight. Then she could find her way to either her friends or the princesses. Something to give her a leg up on something shadowy and ethereal.

Twilight stopped, or at least stumbled to a halt in the forest undergrowth. A break in the canopy above allowed moonlight in to light her way, but it also allowed her to see gathering clouds that were threatening to steal what little additional illumination the moon provided. As she watched the slow moving clouds, mesmerized but the slow undulating mass, something fell from the sky and hit her right in the eye, forcing her to blink away sudden tears.

“Wh-what the?” Twilight sputtered, taking a half step back, but when she looked again, it became clear. “Snow? Snow? It’s not even winter yet! What in Celestia’s name is going on here?”

There was a sharp crack off to the left in the fog shrouded undergrowth. A branch snapped like some heavy hoof had come down and Twilight jumped, kicking uncoordinatedly. She hit the forest floor in an ungraceful gallop, diving out of the silvery cold moonlight and snow into the darker bush. The wane light from her wisps did nothing to show her anything resembling a path and she dodged—poorly—around each tree as it came up, scraping bark and moss off with each pass.

“What have you done?”

The voice was right behind her ear, the breath colder than the surrounding air. Twilight yelped and moved faster, banking off an oak tree like a pony shaped billiard ball. “What? What are you talking about?!”

“This is all your fault, Twilight Sparkle!”

“No it isn’t! I don’t know what you mean!” Another tree loomed out of the mists, larger than the others with low hanging branches. Twilight ducked, prancing to the side but she took a slap to the face as she ran head first into a clump of leaves still holding on. Roots, thicker than the branches reached up and hit her in the ankle and sent her flying in an uncontrolled tumble. She croaked, choking on the clingy leaf fibers and came to a bone crunching halt several yards later in a ravine carved in the forest where some other massive tree had once stood.

Twilight spat out the leaves in her mouth and looked back over her shoulder. Above her the tree she’d tripped over hung dangerously out over the ravine blotting out even the cloudy sky. Her wisp lights, reaching the end of the mana her spell held were starting to sputter like candles at the end of the wick. As she watched, hoarfrost formed on the exposed roots like some twinkling crystalline wood rot, and right in the middle of one massive root a hoof print appeared. Then another on the root below it. Then another. One by one the hoof prints appeared with the casual pace of a predator combined with the grace of a princess descending stairs at one of Canterlot’s galas.

“You did this. Cast me...into deeper darkness than even I knew. You did it all without a thought to how I might feel about that...didn’t you?” The voice followed the encroaching frost and was colder still. It sounded hollow and broken, far away and muted, as if it came from some other place than the forest around them. “I wonder...do you even think of that moment? Is it a memory that keeps you up at night? Does it...infect your dreams? Or is it swept...away under the rug like unwanted filth? Is it a non-entity in your life? Something nopony remembers...but the history books?”

Twilight didn’t answer. She kicked, twisting back around to dig her hooves into the dirt and loamy earth of her little ravine and pull herself away from that approaching darkness. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” The leaves and brush parted, leading her deeper into the furrow past more grasping roots and stones. As the last of her light died, but not before it revealed a void, a hole in the walls of soil piling up on either side of her. Twilight didn’t care what could be lurking there, she dove in head first, the hiss of frost and ethereal words behind her.

...

***

Twilight jerked awake.

She gasped. Breathing in and out rapidly, she turned her ears to point forward and back. Back and forth, over and over. Did something make a noise? Did something move? Did something touch her?

Nothing. Darkness. Silence and her own breathing.

When did she fall asleep?

How long had she been under the ground?

Would she ever be free? Was she still being chased?

Twilight crawled forward another inch. All she had to do was make it to Canterlot.

Make it to the princesses. She could do it.

***

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***

Twilight jerked awake.

She gasped. Breathing in and out rapidly, she turned her ears to point forward and back. Back and forth, over and over. Did something make a noise? Did something move? Did something touch her?

Nothing. Darkness. Silence and her own breathing.

When did she fall asleep? Again?

Something touched her. She screamed and it came out a weak hiss. It was her own mane, ticking at her neck in the breeze. The scream made her chest ache, but she turned her muzzle toward the wind and sucked in the cold dampness. It smelled like leaves and dirt.

It smelled like salvation.

***

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***

Twilight jerked awake.

She gasped. She’d fallen asleep again. She grit her teeth and forced herself to hold her breath. To hold still. To feel. There is was again. The tickle at her neck. The barest hint of moving air in this lightless tunnel.

There was an exit.

Twilight let her held breath out slowly and gripped the cave floor with her hooves and roughed up knees. There was an exit. She was getting out of this. One hoof forward. One haunch back. Inch by inch, no matter how long it took.

Ten or so agonizing, cramped lurches later, Twilight was starting to wonder if she could risk a breather. Her level of exhaustion was off any sort of scale she could imagine. Everything in her body was either screaming in sharp pain or troublingly numb. Time had effectively ceased to have meaning in the dark. She couldn’t tell if she’d been in the narrow tunnel for a few minutes or a day. She needed rest and water, medical grade magic was going to be required to get back up to any real speed, but right now, she’d settle for just laying still and playing dead.

She kept one ear tilted back, turned back behind her and listening for anything. Anything other than sounds she made herself. Her labored breathing, her undercarriage rubbing raw on the floor, her fluttering heartbeat. The underground air lay heavy with silence otherwise, like a cold blanket that cut her off from the rest of the world and refused to get warm or comfortable. She wanted to scream. To call out. But what would be the point? Nopony would hear her. Nopony would find her.

She was alone.

She was so very tired.

One hoof forward.

***

Twilight jerked awake.

She gasped, only to cough violently a second later through chattering teeth. She’d passed out again. She was on her side, pressed into the wall as tight as could be, shivering her body over. The chill was intense and felt bone-deep in her. Twilight coughed again, forcing herself out of the shallow hollow that she was cradled in. She lifted her head carefully, mindful of the low clearance and the hanging roots. Sitting up cleared her thoughts. Whimpering, her adjusted her wings, spreading her feathers out over her flanks and back. Then Twilight started to bring in her legs, one by one, until she was sitting properly. All the little bumps and bruises woke up to complain anew, but she ignored them with tears dripping from her muzzle.

“You will...sit still, Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight growled. “Y-you will warm yourself. Ignore...ignore the pain. It’s just...it is just your body telling you...it’s still alive.” She spread her wings a bit more, letting them drape around her to the dirt. Slowly, the air on her skin, mixed in her coat and feathers, warmed. The shivering started to ease.

Twilight opened her eyes and immediately wanted to go back to the warmer darkness behind her eyelids. This black void looked even colder to her somehow. She blinked away the tears that still clung to her lashes. “What’s the point? Am I just going to die down here?”

Twilight groaned, wishing again that she had better knowledge of healing magics. Not that she had the mana left to use any, but if she could get real rest instead of passing out and waking up again after some indeterminable time, it’d really help.

***

Returned

***

Twilight jerked awake.

“I...I am really starting to get tired of this.”

“Now you know something of how I feel.”

The voice was soft, echoing far beyond what the acoustics of the tunnel should have allowed for. There was a softness in its hollowness. A wistful tone under the bitterness.

It came from right behind Twilight’s head.

Twilight shot forward, corkscrewing around as she did to stare wide-eyed back into the complete darkness that surrounded her. The air was cold, her body stiff and sore, but a fresh dose of adrenaline shot through her veins and kicked muscles into gear. She landed hard on the stone floor, coughing out everything in her lungs and flailing helplessly. “Sta..! Stay away from me!” Twilight sucked in breath and started swinging her hooves. She was no melee fighter, but she knew well what a wide haymaker could do to a pony. So fail away she did, connecting with nothing but more chill air. Wriggling back, she felt something recoil from her wild swings and put all her remaining strength into a final buck.

The old root never saw it coming. Twilight hit it, desperation and Earth Pony magic via alicorn nature added to her strike, ripping the root and a considerable amount of earth from the ceiling to come crashing down on her. The wind knocked from her lungs, Twilight pulled her head down and threw up her legs and wings to protect herself long enough to cast a simple sp...

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pale

round

up

above

thing

Thought?

Breathe.

dirt

Do it anyway.

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coughing

pain

Space?

Do it again.

More coughing. Less dirt.

Again.

Even less dirt. Less pain. Same amount of coughing though.

Pale? What?

Blink.

See? Light?

Blink. Breathe. Cough.

More space to breathe, less dirt in her face and nose.

Move? No. Stuck.

Move anyway.

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More coughing. More space. Blink again. Turn head. Upward.

Twilight gasped, forcing more of the frigid air into her chest. Forcing the dirt and rocks around her core to pack and move, give her more space for the next breath and more space for the breath after that. She struggled, fighting fatigue and pain and press of who know how many kilos of dirt, but after an eternity, she moved her head a little further into the clear. Above her, the moon hung like a pale orb in a completely featureless sky. It was the only thing she could see. After being in the dark for...she wasn’t sure how long...seeing anything was like a dream.

I can just make out the Sea of Meghan and the edge of the Mare’s Crater. Twilight sighed, twisting microscopically from one side to the next. When I get to Canterlot...after I inform the princesses of the thing coming after me...I am going to lock myself in the observatory and not come out for a week. The weight around one of her hooves loosened up and she wiggled it out into the open air. She couldn’t see it in the moonlight.

I’m not coming out until I have mapped the face of the moon all by myself and I’ve named every rock and pothole I can make out. Twilight worked out a wing and groaned at the feeling of cold air shifting over her feathers. I’m also not coming out until I’ve preened myself raw. She couldn’t see her wing either.

The moonlight wasn’t illuminating the surroundings either.

Twilight looked back up at the moon. Now that she thought about it, wasn’t the Mare’s Crater on the other side of the facing hemisphere? When she squinted, the surface looked textured in a way that was faintly familiar and haunting. The more she looked, the more she was filled with a sense of growing dread. More dirt crumbled down from above making her cough and blink the grit out of her eyes. When she could see again, the moon was fuller and paler, the face rotated to reveal the dark recesses of more craters. A mirror of the Mare’s Crater and two others capping an impossibly tall mountain edges with regular spaced walls.

Walls that were teeth.

A mountain that was the ruin of a muzzle.

Twin craters that were the empty eye sockets of a pony skull.

Twilight clenched, her recoil halted by the rock that still held most of her in place. Above her, in the darkness of those eyeless voids, two points of cold blue flames sparked, and the frost once again hung in the air around her.

“Twilight Sparkle.” The skull spoke, lower jaw be damned. “I will have my Night.”

“Wha...what are yo..u?” Twilight shivered, her breathing speeding up, but the urge to run was burnt out of her. “What do you want?”

“Revenge.” The skull seemed to answer both questions at once, the voice growing closer, the glowing blue flames brighter. “You stole from me. Stole my right. Stole my world from me. Tonight, I make things right.”

“I don’t understand.” Twilight blinked, tears welling in her eyes. “Who are you? What have I ever done to you?”

“FOOL!” More dirt rained down on Twilight. “I am the one called the Nightmare! You stole everything from me on the eve of my ultimate victory! You killed me, Twilight Sparkle.”

“No! I didn’t! Luna...you…she’s alive!” Twilight’s shivering started to shake her entire body, shifting the coating of soil on top of her to free another leg. “I didn’t kill you! The Elements, they pur—!”

“Do not finish that sentence!” The voice was as loud as Twilight’s own now, bouncing off the walls of the collapsed tunnel. “You know what your precious Elements of Harmony did! My body might have walked off back to Celestia’s embrace, but I died that night and you are responsible!”

“No!”

The skull cracked, the flames blazing out of the eye sockets and ice forming across the surface as the voice rose into a wordless cacophonous scream. More dirt fell and there was a rush of air as the ceiling gave way to leaves and roots, grass, ground and the stars in the sky. Twilight strained, pushing with her last bit of strength, her horn flaring to life to free herself from the rubble. The sound of the scream got louder and louder, drowning out everything else as she freed her last leg.

The ice and blue fire swept up, out of the open chimney and into the sky, curling around into the shape of a face Twilight only remembered from her own nightmares. Giant slit eyes roared at her as she pulled her body up toward freedom. The blue light lit the cave and forest alike, getting brighter and brighter. The wind wouldn’t stop either. Wet leaves slapped at her face and roots tore at her mane as Twilight climbed. She was almost to the top when the swirling mass of the Nightmare came crashing down.

“I will have what is rightfully mine!”

Twilight grabbed the lip of the chimney and gave it her all to haul herself out. She looked up and the blue light covered the entire world. It filled her field of view, changing down at her like a raging storm given unnatural life. She dived forward, sparks flying from her horn as she cast a shield around herself.

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She could feel the moon on the horizon when she opened her eyes.

Dew lay heavy on the leaves around her, the eternal cold seeming gone. In fact, she felt warmer than she had in what seemed like a long time. She took a deep breath, savoring the taste of the damp forest air on her tongue.

“I’m...I’m alive?” Twilight sat up slowly, the sheer surprise and elation she was feeling tempering the aches and pains of all the damage she’d taken. She turned her head gingerly, licking her canines and testing to make sure nothing vital was broken beyond repair. Her spine popped, but otherwise seemed intact.

Twilight then began the arduous task of repeating her experiments, one limb at at a time. The discomfort she was in was indescribable, but the fact that she felt anything at all was a miracle. She knew she just had to beat the dawn, and as dark as the forest was around her meant she’d indeed done so.

Once she was back on her hooves, Twilight’s slit pupils widened until her surroundings were merely shaded, instead of lost to shadow. Only then did she start her next series of tests and take a step toward her goal, Canterlot and the throne room.

“I can’t wait to tell the Princess about this. We have so much catching up to do!”

...

***

Maybe it was a natural cave, carved by water and time through the bedrock. Maybe it was a tatzul worm burrow. Maybe it was a diamond dog tunnel. It might be something worth investigation at some point, but right now, Twilight let the curiosities of the cave bounce off her mind and back into the netherspace with ideas came from and focused on crawling. The ceiling was uneven and low, forcing her to her belly. The surface was rough and the occasional hair-like root hung down to brush her scalp.

Or maybe it was spider webs?

She couldn’t tell in the dark.

She couldn’t see her own hooves in front of her face.

Maybe it was a tomb.

Maybe it was her tomb.

Twilight let that thought bounce off too. She had to stay positive. She had to remain hopeful. Hopeful that there was an exit back to the surface. Hopeful that she’d escape whatever was chasing her. Hopeful that she’d see the dawn and the Princesses and her friends again. So she kept moving. Kept putting one hoof forward and dragging herself along. Kept hoping those were just roots touching her in the dark.

***