"Thanks Zecora!" Twilight Sparkle said with a large smile, picking up the package of herbal tea in her violet magic and transferring it to her saddlebag, watched as the package slowly descended out of her sight into the cloth bags. Twilight had come on her monthly trip up to Zecora's hut to get her month's supply of herbal tea and to chat with her, always happy to spend a couple hours of her time with an old friend.

Even though Zecora lived in the dangerous Everfree Forest, the wise Zebra was getting more visitors than Twilight and her five best friends now - a constant stream of visitors and customers from Ponyville braving the Everfree forest to come and get her potions or tonics, and a great many fewer just coming to spend time and chat with her.

Long past, the citizens of Ponyville had shaken their fear of Zecora merely because she was of a type of pony they didn't understand - quickly finding that instead of a scary monster, she was instead a great alchemist and an even better friend. Once they got past her constant rhyming and spooky-looking decor, they found Zecora was just as friendly as anypony else in Ponyville - and even more so than many.

Twilight removed a small pouch of Bits from her saddlebags to pay Zecora for the tea, but was stopped by a hoof gently pushing her muzzle away. "It was my delight, Princess Twilight! Please Twilight, keep your Bits and the tea; as payment for your friendship, it is free!" Zecora said as she returned the purple alicorn's smile. Twilight stayed for a while longer, keeping the zebra company and discussing events in Ponyville with her.

A number of minutes later, Twilight again thanked Zecora for the tea and headed to the door, intending on leaving and heading home.

Twilight absently nodded her head to Zecora in farewell as she spread her wings and prepared to take off, her mind now elsewhere. She was thinking of how important the visit from Manehattenite delegates could be, her constant compulsion towards perfection making her mind work overtime as she thought of the intricate details. She knew it wasn't really something to worry about - just a casual visit by the delegates regarding pricing of Manehatten goods in Ponyville. There was nothing wrong with the pricing, the prices set exactly as the sellers wanted them, and it was just a simple check to make sure of such.

Despite that, Twilight felt a pang of nervousness as she realized that this was one her assigned duties as a Princess, and she couldn't let Princess Celestia or Princess Luna down by neglecting her royal duties! Her mind was suddenly set on getting home as soon as possible, Twilight trotting a short distance before flaring her wings and taking off into the evening sky. She then flew at her top speed towards Ponyville, eager to get home and make sure everything for the visit would go as planned - her distracted mind not noticing the dark clouds now looming overhead.

~

As Zecora looked over at her weather totem, she realized something unexpected from it. "Rain? Are you sure my weather-vein?" Zecora asked herself as much as the totem, looking again to the sky and noticed there were now more then a few dark storm-clouds above the forest. Zecora suddenly felt a lump in the pit of her stomach as she watched Twilight flying into the cloudy sky, the feeling of worry only increasing as Twilight left her line of sight - the gnawing feeling of worry growing as she saw Twilight's silhouette blend with that of the canopy of the trees, back-dropped by a clouded sky.

Zecora couldn't call out to her, as she was too far away now and wouldn't be able to hear her. Zecora considered going into the forest and tracking her, but knew that would put herself at unnecessary risk - and quite possibly not even able to help her target. As she sighed in frustration at her helplessness to help her friend, she realized all she could do was offer her best wishes as she watched the storm clouds grew thicker over the Everfree - "Celestia watch thee Twilight; I can only hope you'll be alright."

~

As Twilight was flying, she suddenly heard a crack of thunder, startling her and nearly making her fold her wings in on reflex - which would be a rather bad thing as she was currently flying. She instead resisted this reflex, realizing it was merely a harmless thunderclap. Her eyes widened as she realized what such a loud and close thunderclap meant, her mind starting to panic as she felt a huge gust of wind at her back pushing her forward and into a black nimbostratus cloud.

Twilight quickly passed through the cloud unharmed, but she felt a thin layer of wetness on her coat from the it, also feeling a slight amount of static pulsing through her from its energy. As she quickly looked back at it, she noticed the various spikes that identified it as an Everfree cloud and realized how lucky she was to have avoided hitting any on her way through!

As she quickly found herself dodging more and more spiked cumulonimbus and nimbostratus clouds, Twilight realized this was getting very dangerous and in her panic slowed down, moving more carefully now. As the wind suddenly changed direction and started buffeting her, she quickly lost control of her flight, nearly crashing into another cloud - missing its spiked surface by mere inches.

As the wind increased in power and she nearly lost control once more, Twilight quickly made a decision to land and plummeted down in a controlled dive towards the tree canopy - seeing an opening in it and deciding landing safely was better then being forced to the ground in a crash-landing. Twilight's wings adjusted reflexively as she started the process of landing, her feathers adjusting ever-so-slightly to make the decent go as smoothly as possible.

Twilight landed safely moments later, thanking her lucky stars and folding her wings to her sides as she heard another loud rumble of thunder right above her, darkness now overcoming the forest as night and the storm descended upon it.

Twilight had landed randomly, no choice in looking for a beaten path to land on. As she looked around, she found she'd landed in a small clearing and immediately started looking for a path follow to Ponyville or back to Zecora's. Unfortunately, Twilight found nothing but a solid wall of tree trunks, branches and foliage surrounding her - leaving her to merely take an educated guess which direction Ponyville was.

"Well, let's see..." Twilight quietly said aloud, not wanting to disturb the local Forest creatures; "...I flew from that way-" she said, pointing behind her, "...so that means Ponyville must be...this way!" She pointed her hoof to what she thought was north, not realizing that instead it was the south - the wind having thrown her off course and skewing her directions. She moved in her chosen direction and pushed past the foliage with her magic, unknowingly heading deeper into the Forest instead of towards safety.

A thick fog quickly formed in the forest as the storm brewed, and Twilight found her visibility reduced to a few feet even with her magic light spell. Then the storm started with a bellow of thunder - thick, heavy droplets of rain buffeting Twilight's mane, the piercing wind chilling her despite the generally warm climate of the forest.

As she started shivering, Twilight realized she needed to find her way out or shelter soon, lest she freeze out here. Twilight traveled unknowingly deeper into the forest, getting more and more lost as she still blindly seeked a path - with detecting one in the fog even less likely. She started to panic as the fog nearly blinded her, her imagination making her perceive every snapping branch or crunching leaf as an Everfree inhabitant after her flesh.

After stumbling around for a while and nearly running into countless trees, Twilight eventually felt the rain stop pelting her coat and mane suddenly, both her relief and befuddlement. Trying to figure out why the rain had suddenly stopped hitting her when she could still hear the sounds of it impacting the ground nearby, Twilight fed more magic to her horn to increase the intensity of her light spell. Before her, Twilight saw the interior of a cave - finding she'd wondered inside of it before she even noticed she stood in its mouth.

As Twilight saw the entrance to the cave, a wave of nervousness overcome her as she stood in the cave's mouth, a strong compulsion to enter to the cave taking her instincts over and making her hooves move before she even chose to.

She felt drawn. She -needed- to go in.

~ ~ ~

The storm kept on its continuous onslaught, and Twilight definitely did not want to go out into it again without good reason. The wind gusting into the cave only made her shivering worse - drying the cold rain on her skin and making her start to nearly convulse now. As if the forest were trying to encourage her decision more, a bolt of lightning shot down to the ground - the following bellow of thunder making Twilight's wings flare straight up as the bolt landed only a few feet from her, turning a nearby gnarled branch into a singed twig.

Twilight knew how dangerous wild Everfree storms could be after reading books on the subject, so she hesitantly entered deeper into the cave, knowing she needed shelter from the violent storm and freezing rain. Twilight weighed her options: she could face whatever -if anything- was in the shelter of the cave, or she keep blindly moving through the Everfree Forest - home to many wild and dangerous creatures- at night and in an intense and dangerous lightning storm, with the ever-present risk of getting electrocuted by a random bolt of lightning or getting eaten or otherwise harmed by an inhabitant of the forest.

Twilight chose the former.

Twilight -was- an alicorn after all - one of the most powerful beings in the world of Equestria. Her special talent -was- magic, with great feats of her arcane power recorded in the annals of Equestria's history and also known to everypony in Equestria. Surely she could protect herself from a simple Everfree creature, right?

Right?

Twilight had her doubts as she continued trembling slightly both in fear and from the cold - cursing her stupidity for leaving her lost in the Everfree and alone in a dark cave, her inattention to the weather the cause for her current plight. If only she'd payed more attention to details...

Deciding to verify her safety, Twilight lit her horn with a dim glow - casting a simple light spell as her magenta-colored magic bounced off the light-brown rock walls of the cave. She increased her spell's power when she realized she was unable to see but a few feet with the spell's current intensity, pumping more magic to her horn to increase the light's luminosity.

As the glow from her horn increased, Twilight was then able to see more of the cave - thoroughly scanning each inch of the cavern she was in to detect any threats, but detected none and decided to move on. As she traveled further, she realized she didn't really need to stay too far in the cave after all - just far enough to avoid getting wet and freezing from the now-bone-chilling winds from outside.

Twilight -did- however want to make sure nothing dangerous was living deeper into the cave that would do her harm as she slept, her studies telling her that at least Ursa Majors and Minors, and even dragons lived in Everfree caves...and who knew what else did too? Surely nothing a pony would want to wake up to in the middle of the night...

As Twilight traveled deeper still into the cave she found her thoughts brought to her home, and then it hit her - she could simply teleport home. Of course, why hadn't she though of it earlier! Twilight immediately brought again to mind the mental image of her new home's foyer - the 6 large (and one small for Spike) chairs engraved with her and her friends' cutie marks, the large table in the center surrounded by the chairs, the shiny purple crystalline walls...

Instead of feeling the warmth of her home as she entered the final stage of casting the spell, Twilight felt an intense pain inside her head as she started to cast the teleportation spell - scrambling her concentration and forcing her to stop casting, making her kill the stream of magic to her horn.

"What in the name of Celestia's royal flank was that all about?" Twilight huffed to the darkness of the cave, more then slightly annoyed at not only not being home now, but also at the slight headache that had now formed from her botched spell.

Surely that was just a fluke, right? Twilight thought, I just need to try again!

Preparing herself again, Twilight repeated her attempt to cast the teleportation spell - this time bringing a mental image of her bedroom to mind, focusing her magic on herself as she felt the familiar lightness in her body start. As she again started the final part of the spell that would blink her there, Twilight felt an even more intense flash of pain before immediately killing the spell again - this time seeing white for a moment, gripping her head with her hooves as she moaned in pain and collapsed to the cave's floor.

After rolling on the ground in agony for a second before the pain quickly fizzled away, Twilight found her minor headache had intensified into a moderate one - her temples now throbbing along with her horn. Twilight debated on using the spell again, desperately wanting to get home as memories of tomorrow's meeting suddenly came to mind - but decided against it as her head still throbbed to remind her of her previous attempts.

Twilight deduced that this cave seemed to contain some sort of counter-spell magic, but judging by the light-spell still actively lighting her surroundings, the counter-spell must be only effective against certain types of spells. Twilight pondered this, knowing that such specific magic was beyond Ponies - only knowing of a blanket-spell that prevented all types of magic in a very small area. She thought maybe the Everfree storm was causing it - considering how little was actually known about what the storms actually caused, with so few willing to study them - and deduced that this was a possible cause. "Well I'm not trying that spell again anyhow." Twilight assured the shadows, knowing to try again would likely only hurt her more.

Twilight didn't notice the subtle movements in the shadows that seemingly responded to her voice, nor did she notice the slithering things that receded back into the shadows as she approached them. She didn't realize that, possibly, a creature was planning on what it was to do with this sentient being in its cave...

~

Twilight thought to herself that she just had to get through the night, wait for the storm to clear enough - if that was indeed the cause of the anti-magic spell - for her to either blink or fly home. Then she'd be fine, right? She'd be able to get back to the safety of Ponyville, the safety of her home, and she'd be able to forget this had happened. All she had to do was make sure she was safe right now.

As she looked into the third cavern of the cave, Twilight realized that if there was nothing this far into the cave that would harm her, it would probably just be safe to sleep just near the entrance. That was only logical.

Twilight then proceeded back to the cave's entrance, reaching her magic out of the cave and snapping a number of branches off a nearby tree - intending to start a fire with her magic alongside some wood, then wait out the night near the mouth of the cave. She knew Everfree creatures, the chief threat among them Timber-wolves, despised fire and avoided it at all costs - so a big, roaring fire would surely keep her safe.

Then Twilight heard the crying - a mournful wail of what sounded like a mare in distress coming from deeper in the cave.

~ ~ ~

Twilight shivered as she heard the wail of the mare again, this time the mournful rattle sounding more pained and distressed than with its first cry. Twilight quickly got to her hooves and left the budding fire behind as she instead ran into the cave, channeling a little extra magic in her horn so she could cast offensive spells as well as her basic lighting spell if she needed to.

"Hello, where are you?" Twilight called as she passed the fourth chamber, traveling deeper into the cave then she ever had before in her sudden need to help that poor, fellow lost soul in the cave.

As soon as Twilight spoke, the crying suddenly stopped.

Twilight went deep into the cave as she sharply took corner after corner into similar brown caverns, following where the cries of the pony who surely needed her help had come from. She felt determined -compelled even- to find the source of the noises, and to save the one who issued it!

When she finally came to her senses and stopped simply following the path the wails of the other had come from, Twilight realized she was totally lost. Remaining uncharacteristically calm, she decided the best way back to the entrance was to go where she came from. She simply turned around and tried heading directly backwards, soon finding it only led to another new cavern she'd not seen before.

Twilight mentally slapped herself for being so foalish as to not mark her path, having read a number of books about cave spelunking multiple times. Deciding better late then never, Twilight marked the entrance to the left path with a brightly-glowing spot of magic, now knowing how important it was to keep her bearings in the dark cave.

A few minutes of wondering later, Twilight came across a large chamber - seeing as a large hole in the ceiling allowed moonlight to come in and dimly illuminate the cavern. When she saw the moonlight reflect off a gem-studded stalagmite, she realized that was not the right place! She used her magic to place a glowing 'X' onto the entrance - placing it so she'd know this was the wrong way if she returned to it later - then turned to leave.

Twilight did not see the quick slithering movement behind her as she turned around to leave the cavern, whatever had made it lone gone by the time turned around again seconds later.

~

Twilight heard a slithering sound, but chalked it up to the running water she'd heard earlier rebounding off the cave walls. Getting an idea, Twilight dug into her saddlebag with her magic and pulled an empty scroll and a quill from her saddlebags. She always kept at least one each of scroll and quill in her bags at any given time, never knowing when she may need to jot down a letter to somepony or write a note down after all. After drawing and marking the cavern with the gems as a dead end, she decided she should try to draw a map of the caverns as she tried to find her way back so she wouldn't get turned around again.

When Twilight heard the wail coming again, she felt a pang of regret as she tried her hardest to ignore it, continuing to try and find her way back to the cave's entrance. As she took another unmarked path, the wailing grew louder and more desperate, piercing into her very soul it was so mournful. That compulsion overtook her again as she stamped her hoof, placing her partial map and quill back in her saddle bag. She started galloping towards the direction she'd heard the wail come from, almost instinctively compelled to follow its call.

She had to help whatever was making that sound.

She had to.

~

After about half an hour had passed, Twilight had finally closed in on the cavern with the wailing, the sound of running water much louder now but subservient to the other louder, more miserable sound. She had again pulled out her map along the way and had drawn the paths and caverns she'd taken to get there, then marked the cavern she was currently in as another wrong path. She'd kept magically marking her path however, a steady glowing coming from the path behind her as the radiant magic emitted its light.

From the sound of the wails so close to her now, only one small passage separated her from the source of that depressing sound. Bracing herself, she she charged forward, horn ablaze with her magic as she prepared to fight -or fight for- whatever was making that sound, her pulse racing as she charged in and found-

-that the next cavern was empty. Twilight kicked the ground in frustration but moved back when she remembered she had discovered another path during her searching.

Twilight stepped inside the other path moments later and traveled for a short while, marking the wall again... before somepony -or something- bumped into her. Twilight fell on her flank from the force of the impact, the collision causing her concentration on her light spell to be broken by the sudden jarring. As the final scraps of magic faded from her horn and left her in pitch darkness, Twilight fell to the ground from the impact and heard the same slithering sound from before start from her left, then moving to her right. Before Twilight knew it, the sound was all around her - surrounding her completely.

Author's Note

WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN?!