The Starlit

Chapters

They Choose You
Fear and the Unknown
Hunters, Hunting and Hunted
Nightmares
The Waking Dawn
Letters (#1)
A Warrior's Respite
Roots
Iron
Break
Twisted Promises
Prologue- A Belated Invitation

They Choose You

Just a black room... Twilight looked around, seeing nothing in every direction. Lifting her hooves, she seemed to be able to see them just fine, though there was no light source. Looking up, the sky suddenly became a night-scape, stars dotting across it. A faint blue light fell upon the black ground, evidently the sky being occupied by a new moon.

“Where am I...?” Twilight looked around as the landscape slowly warped into something else. She heard hooves clopping in the distance– someone else was here! She turned around and saw a stallion walking toward her, far taller than most like it.

“Thank Celestia! I thought I was the only person here. Tell me, where are we?” As it got closer, Twilight saw that its face was totally blank. It then started to convulse and land on the ground, desperately crawling toward her. She gasped as the mass started to disintegrate. Its flesh began melting from its body, becoming a gray puddle on the ground. Twilight stared, her mouth hanging open as her mind screamed for her to run, but her legs refused to obey. While it melted, the skull became visible as it muttered in a breathless, pained whisper.

“Help...”

Twilight shot upward, seeing the familiar trappings of her room. She sighed of relief, crawling out of her bed as she rubbed her forehead with her hoof. She then heard the familiar sound of Spike belching out a new letter. He called out for her.

“Twilight! Twilight! You’ve got a letter from the Princess and it looks really urgent!” The baby Dragon waddled his way up the stairs to Twilight’s bed, holding up the scroll, sealed with the Equestrian Crest, labeled “READ IMMEDIATELY.” Twilight groaned and sat down. If it was from the Princess, it had to be important... She just wished it didn’t have to come after such an intense nightmare.

“Alright, Spike. Let’s hear it.”

The Dragon cleared his throat and read the letter.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle, My Most Faithful Student,

I’m sending you this letter with a great deal of urgency behind it. Enclosed is a ticket for the train ride to Canterlot. Upon request, I can provide transport for your friends as well. Unfortunately, I cannot disclose the nature of this meeting in this correspondence, and can only ask you to trust me and make haste for Canterlot. I hope to see you soon. In advance I send you my thanks and my regrets.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia.”

Twilight furrowed her brow at the letter’s contents, then began to pace back and forth. Spike sighed heavily and put the letter down. “Twilight, what’s wrong?”

“Did you hear the letter, Spike? It was so... Formal, and secretive. The Princess NEVER keeps secrets from me in the mail! And that bit at the end... ‘I send you my thanks and my regrets’? What regrets could she send? What’s going on?” Twilight alternated direction over and over each time she finished a sentence, her head swiveling back and forth as though hoping that looking at another part of the room would somehow help make sense of this.

“Well... While you figure that out, Twilight, do you want me to send for more tickets for everypony else?” Spike’s head followed her movements as he spoke, the young dragon knowing his master’s distress when he saw it... She needed the company of her friends right now, and while he didn’t fully understand what was wrong (He was sure there was a lot Princess Celestia’s never told Twilight), he knew that it was bothering her, and that’s all he needed to know.

“I... I don’t know, Spike... The Princess made it sound like she wanted to tell me this alone.”

“That doesn’t mean everypony else can’t come. I mean, she DID offer to supply five more tickets if you wanted them to come with.”

Twilight sighed and considered the idea. “Well... I suppose it couldn’t hurt. I’ll go tell them that we’re going on a trip to Canterlot. I won’t tell them the nature of this trip... Besides, I can leave them to do whatever they want on their own.”

“Twilight, shouldn’t you tell them that this is... Well... Kind of serious?”

“Spike, I don’t even know what’s going on... And if Celestia isn’t telling me anything, obviously she doesn’t want anyone else to know about it. I’m her star student, and I’m not betraying her trust, even if it’s for the sake of my friends knowing about... Whatever this is.” She trot out the door, her head hung down. She inhaled deeply as she pushed it open, putting on her best smile for her friends that she would be seeing.

* * * *

Not long after, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash took the ride to Canterlot. Everypony on the way there joked and laughed with each other as they talked about past experiences and what they would do once they got there. Twilight couldn’t distinguish any of it... Her mind ran the same sentence in her head over and over again, the last of that letter. “In advance I send my thanks and my regrets.” What did she mean by that? Did something happen to her brother? Was something happening to the Princess? Was something going to happen to Twilight herself? She was too distracted to really think about it.

The train car seemed to be an indistinct blur to her... Her mind was far too occupied to even pay attention to whatever zany antics Pinkie Pie was up to. Applejack laughed for a bit, but stopped after getting a good look at her friend.

“... You alright there, hun?” Applejack’s eyebrows rose up, her face showing clear concern for her friend’s lack of reaction to whatever it was Pinkie Pie did. Twilight tried to put on a smile for her and nodded slowly. Applejack was clearly not convinced, and neither was anyone else.

“You sure? Because you usually react to Pinkie’s crazy... Er... Things that she does,” Rainbow was quick to point out.

“Yes, darling, you at least laugh or roll your eyes... You look distracted,” Rarity decided to pipe in. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie leaned in to her.

“Is something wrong? I mean... If it isn’t any trouble for me to ask... We’re just...” Fluttershy looked away after she asked the question, muttering something indistinct before Pinkie would resume the thought... At least, her version of the thought.

“Yeah! Because usually you’re so excited to go to Canterlot, because there’s always something fun and amazing going on there whenever the Princess calls you!” She counted off each previous time just to make sure she got her facts straight. “The first time she called you back to Canterlot, we saved the world, then we did the Hearth’s Warming Eve Pageant, then it was your Brother’s Wedding-!”

Holding up a hoof, Rarity managed to silence Pinkie Pie just long enough to abridge the collective thoughts of the others. “What she’s trying to say, darling, is that you seem so... Glum. We are your friends, you can tell us anything and we promise we’ll keep it secret.”

Twilight sighed heavily... She knew she could trust them with a secret, and they trusted her with theirs. It’s not like there was much she could tell anyway. “Well girls, to tell you the truth, I don’t know what’s going on in Canterlot... See, the Princess sent me an urgent letter summoning me to the castle. She did offer to let you all come, but... She told me that she couldn’t say what the nature of the meeting was in the letter.”

Rainbow blurted out a “WHAT?!” right after she finished her sentence, hovering above the ground and throwing her fore-hooves about with each syllable. “But she totally trusts you! You’re her star student, she never keeps secrets from you!”

“I know! That’s what’s got me all bothered... She wrote that she couldn’t tell me what was going on. What’s happened, or what’s happening, that could be so bad that she can’t tell me in a letter?”

“Maybe she has a big surprise party planned for you! But your birthday isn’t for a while... Ooh! What if she’s promoting you or something!” Pinkie Pie seemed to be doing her best to cheer up her friend, though Twilight seemed unresponsive.

“I hope it’s just that, Pinkie... I really do...” Twilight leaned back in her chair, looking out the window as she saw the scenery pass by. She knew very well that whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant. “My thanks and my regrets,” the letter said.

Applejack reached over and pat Twilight’s rear leg. “Tell ya what, hun. When you finish whatever your business is with the Princess, we’ll go out for dinner. Hey, Rarity, you’ve been around, know any good places?”

Rarity eagerly nodded. “I’ll be sure to find Fancypants, I’m sure he knows where to find the finest cuisine. We’ll have a ball, darling, even if the news from Celestia is... Less than pleasant.”

Twilight smiled at her friends. She could always count on them to make her smile... At least she had them even for the unknown crisis that lay before her. “Thanks, everypony... I... I feel better already.” She gave her best smile and leaned back in the chair, waiting for time to pass by as the train barreled to its destination.

* * * *

When they left the train, Twilight and her friends headed toward the Princess’ castle, looking between the three of them. Twilight herself gulped and looked back at her friends.

“Thanks, girls, but I need to go this alone,” Twilight managed to breathe out after swallowing the sensation of dread deep down in her belly. The other five seemed reluctant to let her be on her way, but understood that this was something she had to do.

“Alright... I’ll be back for you when you’re done with whatever you’re doing. Next thing you know, you’ll be eating fancy food with everypony else!” Rainbow put forth her most reassuring manner, projecting her voice and holding her head up high with a smile. Twilight cracked a lopsided smile, musing to herself about her friend.

“Glad someone’s this confident, Rainbow...” With great reluctance, she turned her head toward the Castle and took a deep breath, moving her front hoof forward onto the stairwell. She looked back and waved at the others, then continued her ascent. Approaching the door, Twilight’s spirits suddenly rose as she saw a familiar face.

“Sh-Shining Armor! I mean, Captain, sir... I mean...”

“Relax, Twilie! Princess Celestia sent me down here to personally escort you to her chambers... Said she had something important to talk to you about. Am I going to be expecting a graduation party soon?” He smiled lightly as he led her indoors, the nearby guards saluting him. Twilight struck up a conversation with her brother, trying to extend this pleasant moment before it would be broken by whatever it was she was called for, doing everything she could to avoid the topic of why she was actually here.

“Well... That depends, when can I expect to be an auntie? How have you and Cadence been doing?”

Shining Armor smiled and humored his sister. “Well, we haven’t had much of a chance to try, what with the aftermath of the Changeling Invasion and all... Once everything is all settled down, we might give it a few tries... We’ve been doing fine otherwise, though I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had much time to see her lately.”

“How’s she taking it?”

“Well... She says she’s okay, but you know how it goes. She’s still lonely. Don’t worry though, once everything settles down, I’ll be able to get some leave. Between the Princess and my superiors, everypony thinks I deserve it and...” He snickered lightly. “I’m even starting to believe them.”

Suddenly, rapid hoofsteps clopped past Twilight and Shining Armor, shoving Twilight aside. As he ran past, Twilight got a glaring glance at his cutie mark, which looked a bit like a dead tree. “Ow! Jerk! Can you believe that guy? Who is he, anyway?”

Shining Armor fell silent after Twilight asked, then took a deep breath. “He’s... Well... Officially, we’re not supposed to talk about him. I’ll just tell you this... If that guy’s here, there’s something serious going on.” He continued leading her up the stairs. “But... Then again, we never hear about it, so it’s probably nothing you have to worry about.” He gave Twilight a warm smile while he led her up the stairs. It seems the whole world is trying to cheer Twilight up before facing what it is that the Princess has to say to her.

The conversation ran dry. That unicorn that ran past the two of them, Shining Armor saying that whatever reason he was there for was serious... Twilight’s thoughts grew heavy with worry, though her train of thought was interrupted when Shining Armor finally stopped. Before them stood the door to the Princess’ Chambers, the Captain of the Guard turning to Twilight with a smile on his face.

“Here we are, sis.” He rapped his hoof on the door. “Your Highness! Your guest has arrived!”

The door briefly glowed, then slowly creaked open. The Princess lay in front of her balcony, bowing her head when she saw Twilight at the door. “Aah, my prized pupil... Please, come in. Captain, keep an eye on the door, let me know if anyone else is coming.”

Shining Armor bowed deeply. “Of course, your Majesty.” Twilight gingerly moved inside the room, using her own powers to shut the door behind her. She inched toward the reclining Princess nervously, keeping her head low, though it was hard to tell whether it was out of respect or out of dread about what might be said to her.

The Princess rose up and smiled, reaching her hoof over and lifting Twilight’s head up. “My most faithful student... I’m glad you came. There’s a matter of great importance I need to discuss with you, and it was imperative that no one else hear these words.” Twilight’s mouth quivered, trying to form a sentence, though her voice couldn’t make a sound, much less string any words together.

Celestia rose up and turned over to the balcony, heading toward it as she spoke, her voice quivering slightly, almost the way Twilight’s voice would be if she mustered the ability to make a sentence. “I... Know exactly how you feel, Twilight Sparkle. I don’t even know where to start with all of this...” While walking toward the window, she’d suddenly change direction, then did so again and again, as though she couldn’t quite figure out why she even bothered heading toward the window to begin with, trying her best to delay whatever it was she had to say... She didn’t want to talk about it any more than Twilight wanted to hear about it.

Twilight, having become just as nervous as Celestia was, suddenly blurted out as she watched her mentor in such great distress, the kind she hadn’t seen her in since the time she spoke of Discord’s escape. “Princess... Perhaps you should just be brief. I don’t think either of us likes what has to be said, but you wouldn’t have called me here if it didn’t have to be said.”

Celestia stopped and smiled, looking over her star student with a glint of almost motherly pride in her eyes. “You are wise beyond your years, Twilight Sparkle... I knew there was a reason you were my prized pupil.” Celestia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, finally mustering the courage to speak, though her words would occasionally stumble on each other, throwing off the Princess’ normal decorum and grace. “You see, Twilight... As a leader, I’ve done things that I, well, I made mistakes in the past, Twilight. I made all kinds of mistakes... Minor ones, serious ones, and some of them still haunt me today... Never speaking to Luna when she needed me was my worst, but this... This is a close second.”

Celestia walked over to the other end of the room, using her magic to pour herself a glass of water, downing it quickly and releasing a quick breath. She then wandered back toward Twilight again. “Not long after I sealed Nightmare Moon away, I was told a prophecy by a stallion named Burning Eyes. He said he knew something about what went on between my sister and...”

Twilight raised a hoof and spoke timidly, her voice gaining an abnormal squeak. “Princess... Please, brevity.”

“Of course... Burning Eyes had several other followers who seemed to know more about what went on beneath my notice, under the notice of all other ponies who slept during the night... They told me they needed absolute secrecy and permission to pursue their goals however they needed to.”

“Who, Princess?”

“They call themselves ‘The Starlit.’ They operated in absolute secrecy and were charged with ensuring loyalty to me, often by either... Dealing with dissidents and those who would betray me, or by striking against creatures too strange for anyone to think were real and giving me credit for their defeat... And I gave them the ability to do it.”

Twilight considered this for a moment... “Dealing with dissidents... You don’t mean they...”

“To this day, Twilight Sparkle, I’m not sure how many ponies they’ve killed to... ‘Ensure loyalty,’ as they told me...”

Twilight’s eyes widened, her pupils shrinking. Her jaw dropped as cold sweat trickled down her brow and rolled down her face... “How... How could the Princess do such a thing?! How could she approve of something like this?! Oh no... Maybe now that she’s told me, she’ll have to kill me too!”

“I... I see the fear in your eyes, Twilight Sparkle... I understand. Lately, they haven’t done such things, but they’re not above sacrificing the lives of other ponies to achieve their goals, nor are they beyond using dark magic to further their schemes...”

“Why do you make use of them?!” Twilight blurted out, then covered her mouth with her hooves, almost fearing being slaughtered for any stray words that wormed their way out of her throat.

Celestia’s movements stopped as Twilight asked, though instead of flying into a rage as the unicorn expected, the Princess simply looked away, tears welling up in her eyes as the question echoed through the chamber.

“I’ve been asking myself that for a long time, Twilight Sparkle... In fact... You were part of my plan to no longer have to use them. I thought you and your friends wielding the Elements of Harmony would be enough. I was even finishing arrangements to disband the Starlit for good, but then the Changeling War occurred...”

“Oh... Oh no... You don’t mean... I... We... We failed you that time, Princess, but I had no idea that...” Twilight seemed to fit all the pieces together fairly well, or at least, as many of the pieces as she had.

“It wasn’t your fault, Twilight... It was mine. I grew complacent, arrogant. I forgot you were all still young, and that you would have trouble in the face of unexpected danger... I thought I had everything perfectly planned and that I no longer needed the likes of the Starlit. I should have listened to what you said about Cadence- or rather, Chrysalis, and I can’t help but think that if the Starlit were there, they might have listened to you... Actually, it’s why I brought you here.”

“Wha-What do the Starlit have to do with me?” Twilight gulped as her voice shook, her gut wrenching at the idea that she probably already knew what she was going to say.

“They want you to join them... In fact, they wanted you to ever since you joined my school for Gifted Unicorns. Of course, nopony chooses to join the Starlit... The Starlit choose them. You would have been a part of them a long time ago if I hadn’t intervened and told them that I had other plans for you. They’ve insisted that they need you and you need their resources...” Celestia then moved over to the door and knocked on it.

“Captain Shining Armor.” The unicorn guard entered the room and stood at attention.

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“Send him in.”

“Right away, your Majesty.”

In that brief moment, Shining Armor returned with the stallion from earlier, a unicorn with brown, ratty fur, patches of his coat evidently having been burned off, jagged scars running down his face and all over his body. His mane ran long down the sides of his body, a deep black that covered most of his back. His horn seemed to have a chip off the top end of it, his eyes a hazel, almost yellow color, the right eye obscured in a milky white film with a jagged scar running down it. By the look of him, this was a Stallion who had seen more combat than even many of the Royal Guard ever had. Most peculiar, however, was his Cutie Mark; Twilight knew she saw him before, this was the same Stallion who shoved her and Shining Armor out of the way when they were going to the Princess’ chambers, though when she first saw his Cutie Mark, she thought it was a tree. Looking up close, however, she saw that it was actually four worms wriggling next to each other in a way that looked like a tree.

“Twilight Sparkle... This is Underhoof, Leader of the Starlit,” Celestia turned to the side to give the unicorn the floor. He bowed his head toward Twilight respectfully. A scratchy, gruff voice escaped his throat as he spoke to her.

“A pleasure to meet you, Twilight Sparkle. I’m quite pleased to finally be making your acquaintance.”

Celestia looked between the two and nodded after a fashion. “Twilight Sparkle... I’m allowing you to join the Starlit in their operations as my personal agent. You shall follow Underhoof’s orders and accompany the Starlit in their mission, but you shall report back to me as usual. As per the code of the Starlit, you will keep absolute secrecy concerning the activities of the Starlit. You are to make no mention of your actions or the actions of other Starlit Members to those outside of the organization save myself. Twilight Sparkle, do you understand and accept this mission?” Celestia spoke this time with a louder voice, each word clear and heavy with authority.

Twilight didn’t want to disappoint the Princess... She did do something horrid and regrettable, but it’s clear she had a plan. Twilight took some time to think about it... She decided that the Princess had kept her safe for this long, and she could be trusted. Twilight nodded after Celestia asked the question.

“I understand and accept this charge, your Highness.”

Celestia turned to Underhoof and nodded. “There. She is now yours to command. She will report what she finds to me and keep me regularly appraised of your activity as you normally would. All orders from me will go to her. Any requests you have of me, you can make through her and I guarantee that they will come to me. Her service to the Starlit will begin as of tomorrow evening. Is that understood?”

Underhoof grimaced for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Perfectly.”

“Tomorrow evening, you both shall meet here one last time to determine arrangements of travel and your next mission. Underhoof, you are dismissed until further notice.” Celestia bowed her head in salute to the Starlit leader, who returned the gesture and trot out the door.

Twilight almost walked out with him only to be stopped by one of Celestia’s wings. “Twilight... Before you go, I want you to remember something. I realize this is a tall order, considering I’ve hidden quite a bit from you, but... When you’re reporting to me about what you find when you’re dealing with the Starlit... Tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out. If someone does something that makes you uncomfortable, tell me. If someone makes you do something that you’re not comfortable with, tell me. Am I clear?” Celestia had the manner of a worried mother hen about her, staring at Twilight with eyes whose lids were heavy and whose brows desperately curved upward.

“...Yes, Princess. I understand.” Celestia pulled Twilight into a tight hug.

“And... For my sake, and yours... Be careful.”

Twilight only smiled and returned the embrace, leaning into her mentor’s neck and pulling back. She nodded after she did, then slowly walked toward the door. Before she exit with her brother, she turned around and put on her best smile for her teacher.

“I’ll make you proud, Princess. I promise.”

Fear and the Unknown

Silently moving about the suite, Spike took special care to ensure that the entire room was as organized as Twilight would want it to be. He woke up far earlier than she did, and while he attended the dinner the night before with her, his participation in the festivities was peripheral, at most. Twilight had yet to confide in him just what it was she spoke to the Princess about, and it worried him some. After all, when Twilight gets upset at a problem it usually ends in disaster, and besides which, he did genuinely care for her well-being.

He did remember one directive Twilight gave him the night before. When she got back in, she mentioned to him, in between choked sobs, to ensure that she wakes up bright and early to be sure she gets to the Castle on time for another meeting with the Princess. Spike repeated the request again in his head, furrowing his brow and finding something odd about it... Namely that, most of the time, Twilight managed to wake up without being reminded just fine, and of course, the fact that she was sobbing after she had such a good time with her friends gave him everything he needed to know for sure that something was wrong. However, far be it for Spike to question the wishes of Twilight...

Spike approached Twilight’s bed slowly, keeping himself silent so he didn’t wake her up unexpectedly. He then reached a claw, but caught a few murmurs of Twilight’s sleep-talking before he could rouse her from her slumber.

“Nngh... No... I don’t want to go... Mmf... No... Please...”

“Um... Twilight?”

The unicorn suddenly shot up from her bed, panting as she looked behind her on the bed, the mattress soaked with sweat. She looked over Spike for a few moments, then sighed of relief. She then hopped down the bed.

“Thanks for waking me up, Spike... I guess housekeeping is going to need to get me some new sheets...”

“Don’t worry about it, Twilight, it’s no big de- BRAAAAHRP!” Suddenly, a green flare shot out from the young Dragon’s throat, producing a scroll that dropped to the ground. Spike broke the seal on the scroll, unfurling it and reading its contents. “Let’s see... This is a reminder from the Princess to show up for another meeting at the Castle.”

Twilight examined the letter herself, nodding slowly after confirming its contents. She activated her Horn’s magic, levitating a saddlebag over toward her. She folded the flap upward, placing the scroll inside and latching it shut. She turned over to Spike and smiled faintly.

“I’ve got some things to take care of with the Princess... You go hang out with everypony else.” She opened the door, rushing out and closing it before Spike had the time to protest. Twilight’s legs rushed her out of the suite and out into Canterlot, moving with all due speed toward her destination. She was tired of delaying what was to come, and no matter what it was that may lay before her, she’d have to face it eventually.

It might as well be now.

* * * *

After Twilight was escorted into the castle, she found the door to Celestia’s chamber already opened, the guard standing in front of it moving aside for Twilight to enter. Twilight shut and locked the door behind her after she entered, the guard having long since left. When she entered, Celestia and Underhoof were on opposite sides of the room, with the Alicorn Princess standing on the balcony and the leader of the Starlit standing in the dimmest corner of the room, lurking there like some sort of ragged bat. Upon the sound of Twilight’s hoofsteps, Celestia turned and smiled, bowing her head gently.

“Twilight Sparkle... It’s a genuine pleasure to see you again.”

Twilight returned the polite gesture, then turned over to Underhoof. “A pleasure to see you as well, Princess... And... Sir.”

Underhoof stepped out from the shadows, bowing his head. His milky right eye seemed to be looking past her, only his left, good eye meeting her own gaze. Twilight couldn’t help but stare at the Cutie Mark on his flank... What did it even mean? A Tree made of Worms? She couldn’t begin to tell what his talent was supposed to be, just that his Cutie Mark looked different from a distance than it did up close.

Underhoof cleared his throat and assumed a dispassionate, almost regal tone before addressing Twilight. “First of all, we can’t call you ‘Twilight Sparkle’ during business that concerns the Starlit. Our real names are incredibly dangerous in this line of work.”

“So Underhoof isn’t your real name?” Twilight tilted her head in curiosity... She didn’t realize that a pseudonym would be necessary upon working with this group.

“No. While there’s little we can do about your... Celebrity, we can at least avoid having people know who you are if we’re talking about you. Given our foes, hiding our true names is a necessary precaution.” Underhoof looked over her for a few moments. “I shall call you ‘Nightfall’ from now on.”

Twilight raised a brow as he suddenly decided on the name. It seemed to fit in with her actual name, since Twilight DID herald nightfall, though trying to conceal her identity seemed pointless if she were to participate in any of the coming conflicts.

“So what about travel arrangements and training? You said in the letter we’d be going over that, too...”

Celestia stepped forward, her luminescent mane rippling in beat with her hoofsteps. “Due to how things tend to work with the Starlit, we can’t tell you where you’ll be going, but you’ll be taking a carriage ride with Underhoof to where they’re currently located. Once there, they’ll give you a primer on things you’ll need to know to operate among them.” The Princess stood stiff after reaching Twilight, her words becoming stilted and formal, as though giving a military briefing. Twilight, as a dutiful student, could only nod in response. The Princess was usually so cheerful around Twilight, and forgone a great deal of formality when she was around her. Seeing the Princess being so formal, while it was what was usually expected, tied her insides into knots.

“Of course, Princess...”

“Underhoof, take her out to the carriage. Twilight, I’ll be sure to tell your friends to head back to Ponyville and provide them with the due transport.”

“Thank you, Princess.” All Twilight could manage were the almost alien formalities between her and the Princess, almost like hearing her own mother giving military orders. She turned away, bowing her head one last time before following the Stallion out the door.

As the two walked down the stairs, Twilight couldn’t help staring at Underhoof. His body was covered in all kinds of marks of injury, not the least of which are scars, burns, patches of fur mysteriously missing, and of course, there was that jagged scar across the right side of his face, and the milky, indistinct iris of the right eye that never seemed to look at her so much as look past her. His entire body raised so many questions, though she couldn’t bring herself to ask any of them as the two finally reached the exterior of the building, a carriage surely enough awaiting their arrival. It was a most curious contraption, little more than a black box with a door on it.

“Our ride is here. Get in.” Underhoof stood in front of her and used his horn to open the door, allowing her in. The gesture would seem courteous if not for his brash and gruff attitude... Twilight simply complied. As she went in, she wondered to herself just what kind of people these Starlit were; everything Princess Celestia said gave her the impression that they were an odd people and weren’t to be trifled with. She contemplated attempts at small-talk, though quickly scrapped each idea knowing that she’d either never get a response to any of her questions, or the responses would be thoroughly unpleasant.

After at least half an hour by carriage ride, Underhoof finally spoke, his voice suddenly scratching across the room. “Scared, Nightfall?”

Twilight furrowed her brow for a moment and tilted her head. It took her a second to remember that Underhoof was talking to her, and that Nightfall was the name he- and everypony in the Starlit- would be referring to her by. “Um... Come again?”

“Are you afraid, Nightfall?”

“Afraid of what?”

“I’m sure Princess Celestia had told you something about us before you decided to come with us... So tell me, are you afraid of what you may have to face?”

Twilight swallowed for a moment. This was a weird way to start a conversation. Of course she was scared! She was stuck in a windowless, black box with a pony who probably has the world record of most scars on a single equine, and perhaps a contender for strangest Cutie Mark in Equestria! However, she was able to maintain her composure, but she believed this situation might call for a degree of careful honesty.

“Well... A little bit, yeah. I’m not sure I might be up to the task.”

“Nonsense,” Underhoof suddenly interrupted. “You wouldn’t have been chosen for this if you weren’t the best of the best. We never select those with no chance of survival.” While his words spoke grand praises, his voice seemed to carry the same tone of a judge passing sentence.

“When you put it that way, I guess I don’t have any reason to be scared.”

Underhoof then did something Twilight didn’t expect from the scarred Stallion. He started laughing in his seat, chuckling loudly for several seconds before quickly returning to his stoic, stalwart gaze at Twilight.

“Don’t be stupid. Of course you should be scared, you just don’t know why yet.”

Twilight was taken aback by this response. Why was the head of the organization devoted to hunting down those who would endanger the Princess and the safety of the nation as a whole telling Twilight that she was supposed to be scared? “Perhaps this is a test of some kind... For now, I guess I’ll play along.”

“Well, Mr. Underhoof-”

“Just Underhoof.”

“Well... Underhoof... Why should I be scared? I mean, shouldn’t I be able to stare danger in the face without flinching? You guys do it all the time, I’m sure you’re not afraid.”

The last bout of chuckling evidently depleted the leader’s reserve of laughter, as he simply stared at Twilight for several moments. He finally managed to respond, “You have a lot to learn, Nightfall. I will teach you the first lesson about survival in the Starlit.”

“Isn’t the training coming up when I get to the destination?”

“This isn’t training. This is a lesson of survival.” The carriage briefly shook as it passed over a rocky path, Underhoof remaining steady even with the wood carriage knocking Twilight about, almost shaking her out of her seat. “When you learn about the creatures we hunt, when you face down those who have the capability to topple the Princess’ power... Be afraid, because you should be.”

Twilight furrowed her brow for a few moments, even more confused now than ever. She assumed that organizations like the Starlit focused on being brave and powerful, facing down the things nopony else can or will. She put on a smile and nodded slowly.

“Well... I guess I’ll just take your word on that...”

“It’ll make more sense when you start actually seeing what we deal with, Nightfall. Don’t worry. It’ll come naturally, and when it does... You’ll know what to do.”

“Not exactly encouraging...” Of course, she thought this, not say it out loud. In actuality, she simply smiled and nodded at Underhoof, just humoring the odd leader of this organization that URGES you to be afraid of everything you have to face. “Yeah... Okay then.”

Underhoof pursed his lips for moment into a sneer, his head leaning in further to get a better look at Twilight. “You seem unconvinced.”

“Oh, no, I just... Have that kind of... Well...”

The carriage suddenly stopped. The driver moved back and knocked on the wood of the carriage twice. Underhoof stood up and moved for the door. Before he left, he made eye contact with Twilight, this time with both eyes, even the milky one seeming to stare straight into her own eyes.

“This is my stop, Nightfall, but we’ll be working together very soon. Until then...” He leaped out of the carriage. Twilight bowed her head and respectfully. and leaned toward the opening.

“Alright, Underhoof, I’ll see you la-”

SLAM. The door shut in her face.

“...Ter.”

Twilight heaved a long, exasperated sigh, leaning back into the back of the carriage. “What is that stallion’s deal...? No, no, keep calm Twilight, given what this group is all about, maybe he had something important to take care of and didn’t have the time to spare.” Of course, saying this out loud didn’t convince her any further. The driver for the carriage started the move again, the wheels turning and rushing over a far smoother path now... Twilight took in the air that came into the chamber when the door opened. As long as she could, with what little was in the carriage, she enjoyed the cool, breezy quality of the air, the hints of grass, and the faint scent of apple blossoms... Her eyes shut, thoughts suddenly taking her back home.

“Wonder how everypony else is doing...” She then considered a moment and opened her eyes, looking at her hooves. She reached them upward, holding her head in them as she continued to think about the situation. “...Wonder what the Princess told them I was doing... That I’m doing extra studies for some kind of prestigious award? That I’m being called back for a family emergency? And what's happening with Spike while I'm gone? I just hope they’re not worried or scared... Scared...”

Underhoof’s words then started popping up in her mind. “Be afraid, because you should be.” A lesson in survival, he called it... Maybe this was just him telling her to be smart about what she would be doing. At any rate, her eyelids were slowly losing the will to maintain their upright position, as did her entire body as it slumped against the carriage seat. She dozed off, letting the rest of the carriage ride handle itself...

* * * *

Twilight was suddenly roused from her nap by four loud, echoing knocks from the roof of the carriage. She was hurtled back to the waking world, screaming in simultaneous fright and confusion as she was so suddenly woken.

“AAHOOWHA-?!” She then realized where she was, looking over to the carriage door. With a degree of caution, she reached to open it when it was suddenly swung open for her. She fell face first off the cart and rubbed her nose after landing. “Ungh... I guess we’re here.”

“You sure are, filly.” The voice of a relatively young mare cut through the air and into Twilight’s now-earthbound face. A mare with a dark blue coat and a sky blue mane approached her, deep green eyes staring straight into Twilight’s. Her rear flanks had a black gemstone on them, which from a distance vaguely resembled an equine skull. The smirk on the mare (who Twilight could now tell was a pegasus) widened into a grin as she kicked Twilight up onto her hooves. She groaned after being smacked in the center of the body. Attempting to maintain an air of good humor, she extended a hoof to be shaken by the pegasus mare.

“Call me Onyx,” the pegasus abruptly said after shaking the hoof in turn. Twilight nodded and placed her hoof down, wobbling back and forth as she tried to reconcile falling on her face because a door opened before she could and being kicked in the ribs.

“Apparently, good social interaction isn’t their strong suit...” She smiled and nodded slowly, her mane tussled, her smile lopsided and one of her eyes refusing to open up. “...Pleasure,” she finally mustered as a breathless response.

“What’d Underhoof call you, kid?”

Twilight coughed several times in a row and finally managed to speak, albeit with a raspy groan lining each word. “Well... He called me Nightfall, but my name-”

“Nightfall it is then. So, you’re here, you’re the new kid, so this leads me to believe you’re here to learn the ropes about being in the Starlit.”

“Well-”

“Now, first my sincerest apologies for the delay. For whatever reason, the Princess saw fit to make us wait several years to even get you with us, so some of our itinerary will have to change a bit, but I think we can salvage you for the most part. Did Underhoof give you the first lesson?”

“Well, sort of, bu-”

“That you should be scared, good, that makes things easier on me.”

“Wish you would make it easier on me by letting me actually SAY SOMETHING!” Twilight’s smile was also playing host to rows of gritted teeth, very steadily grinding together as she was forced to just listen to the mare in front of her, speaking only when asked a question, and even then getting cut off in the middle of the explanation.

“First rule of survival here is to be scared, but the first duty of all Starlit is to the glory of the Princess above all else. None of us take any credit for anything we-”

“Princesses.”

“Sorry?”

“Shouldn’t it be glory to the PrincessES, seeing as there are two now? You know, Celestia AND Luna?”

“...Kid, you’ve got a lot to learn. From now on, you’re not allowed to talk until I ask you to, got it?”

“I-”

“Good! Now, where were we? Ah, yes. Glory to the Princess- Princess CELESTIA- above all else. We take no credit for our actions, no matter how awesome we are when we perform them. Surveillance reports will always, ALWAYS credit the Princess to our accomplishments.”

“Why?”

“What did I say about not talking?” Onyx swung her hoof across the back of Twilight’s head, the young unicorn yelling in pain as the hoof made contact. “How can I teach you anything if you keep interrupting me?!”

“I’m interrupting YOU?! Look who’s talking, you inconsiderate hag!” was what Twilight WANTED to say, though she held herself back with every fiber in her being, as terribly difficult as it was to do so. However, Twilight’s growing frustrations were reflected only by the smile disintegrating into a neutral expression combined with her eyelids drooping to obscure half of her iris.

Onyx, evidently oblivious to the signals being sent her way, continued on. “As I was trying to say, we take no credit for our accomplishments in order to maintain secrecy. We can’t exactly stay under the radar if we announce our grand accomplishments, now can we?”

Twilight remained silent. She already knew what happened the last time she spoke... She got smacked in the back of the head with a ho- “OW!”

After Onyx struck Twilight a second time, she emphasized the last part of her sentence again. “I said, we can’t stay under the radar if we announce our accomplishments, CAN WE, NIGHTFALL?!”

“Ow! Okay! Yes! We can’t!”

“Glad to see we’re on the same page.” Onyx suddenly calmed herself and started walking into a tree-line. “Come along, Nightfall. I ought to show you the ropes.”

Twilight begged to herself that these ropes weren’t literal ones... She pondered to herself further about her predicament as Onyx led her into the patch of forest. Having been struck on the head numerous times, the forest looked a bit familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it... She was too dizzy to really tell what was going on. “‘You should be scared,’ huh? Well, if everypony is THIS crazy, I suppose I should be...”

* * * *

Well into the forest borders, it suddenly became darker and cooler. There was something comforting about the environment, even though everything about it really shouldn’t bring Twilight any sort of comfort. The plants seemed to run rampant, and she could swear she heard the occasionally skitter of something lurking in the bushes, but there was an unusual serenity about being here. In the middle of the forest, she saw some form of shanty-town with a train of Wagons at the center of it. The ponies there seemed to be ragged, grizzled folk, many of their manes unkempt, or at least any attempt to make them seemly was minimal. Their personal hygiene seemed to only go as far as to keep them relatively clean... That is to say, they weren’t covered in mud and didn’t smell like something rotten. They had the looks of wild, uncivilized horses, and the crazed looks in some of their eyes didn’t help things.

Many of the ponies present were moving around the camp, unloading food and supplies, including some esoteric tomes and some of the oddest-looking weapons she’d ever seen. Staves with entire sentences written in runes down the shafts with charms hanging off the ends, swords similarly inscribed upon that also curved at odd angles, and an abundance of hand-cannons with chambers filled with what looked like salt, not too different from Pinkie Pie’s Party Cannon, aside from it being far smaller and containing, well, salt.

Examining each of the ponies she saw there, many of them appeared to be researching something, looking over newspapers, personal diaries (evidently not theirs, since they would transcribe notes onto other books), and some of the unusual tomes that were brought in. “Well, at least I’ll be doing a lot of reading here...” Twilight smiled to herself as she looked at everypony else.

“You’ll be doing a lot of reading in this job, Nightfall, just a word of warning,” Onyx said, as though Twilight couldn’t already figure that out. “Half of what we do is research, finding out everything we can about all the creatures that we may encounter or about the conspirators that may attempt to supplant the Princess’s rule. We find out everything we can about them before we even consider going after them... Well... Usually.”

Twilight didn’t bother to ask why there would be instances that they might not do the extensive amount of research before handling the problem from time to time. It makes sense that for some things they encounter frequently, they may not actually need to research since they already did it. And of course, sometimes there are things that were never mentioned in any tomes that they’d have to find out on their own...

It’s funny, a few years ago, Twilight would’ve never thought any of these things. She thought that anything worth knowing was already known, or at least had an immediately sensible explanation, but after seeing Pinkie’s premonitions and Discord’s massive Chaos Magic and being fooled into thinking her beloved Foalsitter was a heartless monster when she was being impersonated by a changeling, she was far more open to unusual possibilities.

“Well, Nightfall, we understand you’re quite the reader, so go ahead and devour those books. Trust me, you’ll need them. And just one more thing, kid.”

Twilight, finally given permission to speak, tilts her head and responds in kind. “What might that be?”

“When you learn something in those books... Make use of EVERYTHING you learn. And I mean EVERYTHING.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” The request seemed redundant to Twilight. If she was to learn these books, wasn’t the whole purpose of looking through them to learn from them? Seems a bit silly to ask.

“That’s the spirit. Dig in, kiddo.”

Twilight lit up for just a moment, realizing that her scholarly skills would be stretched in this career path. A smile crept along her face as she dove toward one of the bound codices, gently pulling it open and turning a page with her hoof, feeling the sensation of the yellowed parchment across her hooftip. She immediately began reading, smiling to herself as each bit of information soaks into her brain like a sponge. She forgot about everything around her; the crazy ponies, the dark interior of a forest, the wagons containing weapons... It didn’t matter anymore. A whole new world was opening up to her on the pages of a very old book.

“This might not be so bad after all...”

Author's Note: While I'm a bit quick on the updates now, I'm going to be going at a more regular pace of every Wednesday. Depending on how fast I get chapters done, I may post more than one a week, but to keep to a schedule, I'll always post one Chapter every Wednesday.

Hunters, Hunting and Hunted

Knock knock knock.

A pair of blue eyes on a yellow pony slowly fluttered awake, roused from her sleep by the sound of knocking at her door. Fluttershy’s pink hair flopped to one side as always, though it was slightly unkempt, strands curling out of place. She gently beat her wings, hovering above the ground as her blanket dropped onto her bed. She slowly floated toward the door, throwing it open, her eyelids evidently not yet as awake as the rest of her was right then.

Knock knock knock.

She tossed on a robe and continued to hover down the stairs. She remained silent as she surveyed the ground beneath her. The room wriggled with the bodies of numerous little animals, including many of those who wouldn’t normally be inside her cottage (Namely several of the birds, including the chickens). She reached over for a pile of letters she had written, some of them to Twilight Sparkle and some to Celestia. Next to these was a newspaper with the headline “VISITING COMPOSER DISAPPEARS!” The paper was three days old, but she always figured she’d read it later, given that catching up on local news hasn’t been high on the priority list. Having been gone from Ponyville for a while, she had Applebloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looking over the house and her animal friends while she was gone. She got home yesterday, and while none of the animals were dead or eating each other, she had a lot to catch up on with their personal concerns and exhausted herself the day before with a particularly big problem.

Knock knock knock.

Fluttershy finally managed to rasp a response, though her voice was laden with the sleep she had awakened from only moments ago, still hovering above the writing crowd of animals underneath her.

“Just a minute...” Fluttershy finally opened the door and rubbed her eyes, stifling a yawn. When she did, she raised a brow as a complete stranger was standing in her doorway.

“Are you miss... Fluttershy?” the stallion asked. He wore a tan sport coat and shirt underneath, an overcoat over it and draping across his flank, his cutie mark concealed. He held up a clip board in front of a pair of sunglasses and a hat, though the yellow pegasus caught the glimpse of a ragged scar running down the right eye of the Unicorn in front of her. His fur coat was brown and ratty, clearly never kept very well, with a black mane that flopped lifelessly on either side of his body beneath the hat. She’d never seen the stranger before, but at this point, it’d be rude to tell him to leave.

“Um... Well... Yes.”

“I’m from the Department of Sanitation. You registered a complaint with the Mayor, right?”

Fluttershy jumped for a minute, suddenly awake. Complaint? What complaint? She never remembered delivering one, but Rarity did visit her yesterday... Fluttershy did mention a problem that led her to bringing all the animals inside.

“Well... Um... Now that you mention it, I guess I did... Well, my friend Rarity did, but-”

“So there is a problem here.”

“...Yes.”

“Care to show me what it is?”

Fluttershy nodded slowly and flew outside her cottage. “Okay... Thank you so much for coming, I wasn’t sure what to do... The only person I know who’d be able to deal with this is out of town, she’s doing advanced Unicorn studies and she’s been gone for a few days now... I mean, you’ll do a good job too, but...”

The Sanitation Unicorn simply kept quiet as Fluttershy fumbled with her words to try and string the gentlest explanation possible of why she- or rather, why Rarity convinced her that she needed to call him in. In the midst of the conversation, the two ended up at a hollowed-out tree. He knelt down and took a deep breath, coughing as he realized exactly what the problem was as the scent of rotting flesh invaded his mouth and his nostrils.

“Ungh... Well... This is bad.”

“Yes... There’s some weird... Stuff in the tree that’s causing it.” She pointed inside the hollow, the Sanitation Unicorn peering inside. He wrinkled his left nostril as he got a far more powerful whiff of the foul substance, a gray, thick goo that was almost solid. Reaching in a hoof, he touched the surface of the gooey matter, then pulled it away, a long string of the putrid slime following out of the tree hollow. He tapped the tip of his tongue against it and spat it out, whipping his hoof back and forth to rid himself of the wretched ooze.

Fluttershy gasped as she saw him actually taste the monstrous substance. She leaned in expectedly. “Well...? What do you think?”

“It was a wise precaution to keep your animals inside, Miss Fluttershy. Keep them that way, I’ll need to make preparations for clearing out this substance.”

“Is it... Dangerous?”

“Very. I’ll keep you appraised.”

“Well... Alright. Thank you...” The yellow pegasus hovered back inside her house. Once the Unicorn was certain she was inside, he pulled out a parchment and used his horn to write a something down on a piece of paper, using a stick of charcoal he had in one of his pockets.

He then folded the paper and put it in his coat pocket, giving Fluttershy a polite inclination of his head. “Good day to you, Miss Fluttershy.” He immediately walked off toward the river, where a black, windowless carriage was waiting for him, a nondescript Earth Pony Stallion standing in its binds, with a yellow coat and a brown mane, his cutie mark also concealed by a rather massive set of saddlebags draped over his body. He pulled out a the paper he wrote on earlier and used his magic to hand it over to the Stallion.

The brown Unicorn lowered his voice as he spoke to the stallion in front of the black carriage, leaning his mouth toward his ear. “Get this back to base camp and give it to Onyx. Oh, and... Take your time.”

The Earth Pony Stallion nodded in comprehension, confirming his orders before heading across the bridge.

“At once, Underhoof.”

* * * *

4 days was plenty of time for Twilight to have familiarized herself with virtually any set of literature, although this collection puzzled her from time to time. Constantly lost in the books she was reading, she found it difficult to register the time of day, especially so deep in the forest, the passage of time only becoming more indistinct with the strenuous effort she put forth to decipher the information she was being given. She was frequently held up by esoteric symbolism that wasn’t often used in any other tomes she studied before. Half of the time spent was cross-referencing to find other books that would reveal the meaning of a particular use of words or images.

This time, however, Twilight was asked to do a rather straightforward bit of research, namely checking up on folklore about a monster called “The Sleepless Dreamer.” Most of the information was scant and spread out, coming mostly from tales that were over a thousand years old. Any mention of the creature after that occurred in reports of sightings in newsprint of varying types, and even those didn’t provide much information aside from where it was sighted and a basic description of the creature.

Even stranger in her time here was the fact that the only pony that she actually had a sustained conversation with was the Pegasus who led her here. Twilight had attempted to chat it up with some of the other Starlit, but never even got so much as their pseudonym when they were asked questions. Listening in to other conversations, everypony else seeming completely absorbed in their work, stopping only to talk about the progress they’ve made and ask for things they need to keep going with their work. Twilight was tempted to call them standoffish workaholics, but she stopped herself. After all, before Princess Celestia sent her to Ponyville, she wasn’t all that different from anyone there... Well, aside from the fact that they lived in a shantytown in the middle of the forest.

”Come to think of it... A few years ago, I would have fit right in here...” Twilight stared at the book of folklore she was reading blankly, seeming to concentrate on the blank space in between the words rather than the content of the book itself, her mind wandering off for just a moment.

The sound of hoofsteps suddenly broke her train of thought, her head shooting up from her books and turning around to find Onyx standing there. The dark blue Pegasus smirked down at her, Twilight dreading what would happen after the mare’s lips parted and words escaped her mouth.

“Hey kid! How’s your research on the Dreamer going?” Twilight was greeted with a heavy slap to her back with Onyx’s hoof. Being smacked in the back of the head for no reason had become a common occurrence, though Twilight had grown used to Onyx’s physical assaults. She actually reminded Twilight a lot of Rainbow Dash in her brusque, blunt approach to social interaction, though with not nearly as much decorum and a lot more minor personal injury.

After rubbing the back of her head for a few seconds and finally loosing a nervous chuckle, Twilight looked up at the Pegasus and cleared her throat. “Well... There isn’t a lot of concrete information on this thing.”

“Just tell me what you know and what you can deduce from what you found.”

Suddenly, Twilight’s brain went into overdrive after Onyx made that command. It was a test! She knew what to do during a test. Almost as if a lever was pulled in her brain to recall as much relevant information as possible, Twilight snapped into action and started pouring out everything she learned about the Sleepless Dreamer.

“The Sleepless Dreamer was a legend that began to be spread out during the reign of Princesses Celestia and Luna, a superstition about a monster that stalked the night. Origin stories about the creature point to some sort of magical accident that occurred during Discord’s Reign of Chaos that changed a Royal Guard into a creature that can only appear at night. Some legends say that the creature is capable of some illusionary magic, though it’s never stated enough times to be validated by other sources. One universal trait in all stories, however, is that the creature is able to stretch its mouth to ridiculous lengths to devour a pony whole.”

Onyx nodded slowly, smirking as she leaned by the wagon. “Alright, good. What about descriptions of its appearance?”

“Well, apparently it always looks like a gray Earth Pony Stallion with no face on its head. There’s variation on a lot of factors, like some say that it has faces in weird places, not to mention the description of its size ranges from that of a normal Earth Pony to easily larger than a Manticore.”

“Explanations for these variations?”

“Either exaggerated accounts of witnesses, failure to notice certain parts, hallucinations, or the fact that this creature could very well grow over time, especially considering that each successive description of the Sleepless Dreamer makes it bigger.”

Onyx nodded slowly, clapping her hooves together. “Well done, Nightfall. You’re getting the hang of this fast. Any questions?”

“Well... Yes, I do have one. It’s about something mentioned in a few of the origin stories... The Sisterhood of the Night. I was wondering-”

Twilight was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a carriage being pulled into the shanty-town, the same black carriage that Twilight came to the town in. The stallion unhitched himself from the cart, trotting over toward Onyx, reaching into his saddlebag and producing a letter.

“Letter to you from Underhoof,” the stallion declared after Onyx took the paper out of his hands. She nodded and waved her hoof, dismissing the carriage stallion for now. After opening the letter, Onyx scanned it very quickly. A smile suddenly appeared on her face, her body convulsing for a few moments, then falling over while rolling side to side, hysterical laughter bursting out of her throat.

“AHAHAHAHA! I WAS RIGHT! I TOLD THAT OLD BASTARD, I WAS RIGHT!”

Twilight raised a brow and held up a hoof. “What did Underhoof say?”

Onyx stopped laughing abruptly, realizing that Twilight had no idea what she was talking about. She cleared her throat and walked over toward the violet unicorn, holding the letter in her mouth and tossing it her way. “Today’s your lucky day, kid. You’ve got your first mission, and it just so happens to be about the Dreamer.”

Twilight utilized her magic to catch the letter in an ephemeral cloud of magic, pulling it toward her. She examined it herself, quietly reading it to herself...

“Onyx,

You were right about Ponyville lead. Found its hiding spot. Send in Nightfall, it’s about time for her first real mission. Arrive at midnight and no sooner.

-Underhoof”

Twilight widened her eyes in shock as they ran down the very, very brief letter. “Ponyville?! This thing was in PONYVILLE?!”

Onyx remained largely oblivious to Twilight’s staring in shock at the paper, flying about in a circle while babbling to no one in particular. “IknewitIknewitIknewitIknewit!”

Twilight finally tore herself away from her thoughts about the danger her friends were very likely in. She turned her attention to her mentor flying back and forth while gloating over a perceived victory. “Um... Okay, how did you know that this thing was in Ponyville?”

“Remember from your research, Nightfall, that sightings of the Dreamer are almost always accompanied by a mysterious disappearance?”

“Yeah?”

Onyx pulled out a newspaper and tossed it in Twilight’s direction. It was the Ponyville Express, the article itself was three days old. The headline burst out at the Unicorn, “VISITING COMPOSER DISAPPEARS!”, her eyes drawn to the photograph next to it, the grayscale picture showing an Earth Pony stallion with a soft smile on his face wearing a suit. The caption beneath it read, “MELODIOUS SCORE, CANTERLOT COMPOSER.” Twilight figured that this was worth a closer look, especially if she wanted to make any headway on this excursion.

“Mind if I keep this for the trip?”

“That‘s what I gave it to you for. Now, if you’re ready, I’ll get you a carriage for Ponyville.”

Twilight nodded slowly. “Ready when you are.”

Onyx whistled, the Carriage-Stallion from earlier hitching himself up with the black carriage riding over to the two mares and kicking the side of the wagon. The door flung open for Twilight and Onyx to enter. Twilight gulped after Onyx stepped inside, her thoughts weighed down heavily by the thought that her friends might be in danger.

She wouldn’t be taking any chances on this trip. As Celestia is her witness, her first mission will be a success, no matter what it took to get it done.

* * * *

Onyx and Twilight sat together in the carriage ride to Ponyville, the room inside absolutely silent save for the occasional rustling of the newspaper or Onyx adjusting her saddlebags (which were, curiously enough, already in the carriage). Twilight took this time to familiarize herself with the details of what was going on, absorbed so deeply in thought that she forgot there was anyone else in the carriage with her.

“According to the article, Melodious Score was on vacation in Ponyville when he disappeared... Investigation teams lost his trail around the outskirts of the town, near where Fluttershy lives. She wasn't there at the time, though, she had Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Applebloom looking over the house for her, and they said they didn't notice anything. Still, Onyx said that she and Underhoof already have a decent lead.”

Twilight’s train of thought was interrupted by the sudden stop of the cart and the knocking on the top of it. She put the newspaper down and looked up at Onyx. The Pegasus mare simply stood up and pushed the door open.

“We’re here,” Onyx crooned in a sing-song voice that almost made Twilight forget they were chasing a creature out of folklore and instead about to attend a picnic. The two stepped out of the cart. They were quite clearly on the outskirts of town, the night deep and reaching its peak. In front of them stood Underhoof, lowering a hat he had been wearing earlier and revealing his scarred face and black mane, the pale eye staring straight at the two mares who left the carriage. He looked up at the sky to assess the time, then back down at them and nodded.

“Right on time. I’ll get straight to the point and waste no time. The Sleepless Dreamer is here, I found it in the cottage over there in a... Gelatinous state. There’s no mistaking it though, it’s here.”

Onyx, too, didn’t feel like wasting any time when she replied. “Where is it now?”

“It’s close. Take a sniff.”

Twilight decided to obey the order, taking a deep smell of the midnight air. She gagged, smacking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, a putrid taste having tainted her taste buds. “Ugh... Smells like...”

“Rotting flesh,” Onyx added matter-of-factly. Twilight shuddered for a moment, both at the realization of the smell she just took in, and at the fact that Onyx knew exactly what it smelled like right away. “Makes sense. Devours bodies whole and leaves no evidence that it ever took them. The corpses have to deteriorate eventually.”

“Efficient and disgusting. Makes me miss Spike...” Twilight didn’t much relish the thought that she just took in the smell of a corpse, but at least she knew it meant they were on the right track.

“Do you think this means Melodious Score is... Dead?” Twilight asked, her voice shaken a bit toward the end of the sentence.

“Probably. We aren’t sure this thing kills its victims immediately. Nightfall, Onyx, we’ll split up and try to surround the area. The Dreamer probably hid in the forest. I want you both to find it and draw it out, if at all possible.” Underhoof gave shifting glances between Twilight and Onyx, clarifying his point by tilting his head in either direction.

Twilight and Onyx answered almost in unison. “Understood.”

With that, Onyx and Underhoof galloped off into the forest. Twilight, however, stood behind and took another sniff... That awful odor was enough to make her choke, though she did have an idea of how to use it to her advantage. She employed a rather simple spell after concentrating magic from her horn, using the spell to illuminate the trail of the foul stench. A faint, violet haze snaked before her, though didn’t enter the forest. She ran alongside the trail of the luminescent smell, even going so far as to match each of the twists and turns. It was slinking its way around the Ponyville, keeping to the outskirts of town but still remaining relatively close.

Suddenly, while following the trail, she saw the silhouette of a massive Earth Pony Stallion standing by a tree. There was no mistaking it, the stench led straight to the figure in the distance. It seemed only reasonable that this was the Sleepless Dreamer, but what puzzled Twilight was why it was standing out in the open when Underhoof assumed it would have been hiding in the Everfree Forest... Unless...

“It might be trying to lure somepony out!” Twilight immediately concluded. “It’d make sense... Just stay close enough to the town to be seen, but far enough away that it can take somepony who gets too curious out of sight...” The Unicorn shuddered to consider what would immediately happen afterwards, but she steeled her nerves. She was going after the monstrosity and it wasn’t going to eat anyone else, certainly not any of the townsfolk she came to know and love, and none of her friends. She broke into a gallop, though decided now would be a good time to let her comrades know she found something. She released a simple bolt of her magical energy toward the Sleepless Dreamer’s location. As it was, this magic was really just for show, not too different from the fireworks that showhorse Trixie used when she came to town. Twilight loathed the idea of using a trick that such a loudmouth mare employed, but it would get Underhoof and Onyx’s attention.

Unfortunately, it got the attention of the creature, too. It turned to face Twilight, the magic illuminating it. The descriptions she read of it didn’t do the Dreamer any justice; its head was a round, gray shape, devoid of a coat as the light from Twilight’s Magic and the moonlight simply shimmered down its flesh. The only evidence that there were ever eyes on the creature was a slight bump on either side of its head, the rest of it a completely solid mass of the lustrous surface.

It suddenly broke into a gallop, charging at Twilight, absolutely silent as it approached her. Twilight jerked backward, her eyes widening. “It... It can actually see me! Or at least it knows I’m here!” She had to think fast; she didn’t dwell on the fact that it didn't have any eyes, and she didn't plan on being eaten just yet. Concentrating more of her magic, she closed her eyes, a flash of purple light bursting before the creature. The Sleepless Dreamer stopped in its tracks when Twilight reappeared behind it in another flash of light.

“You know... For an ancient, unspeakable horror, you sure are gullible!” Twilight quickly regretted those words as the creature turned around and tilted its head in a slow, fluid motion. As it did so, Twilight took the time to look around the creature. At this time, Twilight could plainly see that, even from a distance, this creature stood as tall as Princess Celestia, maybe even a bit taller. She even noticed some of the more seldom-mentioned features, including seeing a pair of faces on either side of its torso, both of which appeared to be awake with black pits for eyes wide open, small dents for nostrils, a longer, peg-like jaw and smiling mouths with flat-tipped teeth at the forefront. She also caught a glimpse of another face, this one on the back-left flank of the Sleepless Dreamer, where its Cutie Mark would normally be. This face, however, appeared to be sleeping.

The Sleepless Dreamer reared up on its hind legs. Twilight saw one of the two torso-faces suddenly widen its eyes, its mouth opening and releasing a deafening shriek! The scream reached a higher pitch than even Rarity or Fluttershy could ever manage and several times louder, not unlike what would happen if somepony decided to drag a jagged rock across Miss Cheerilee’s Chalkboard. Combined with the fact that there were two voices doing this at once sent Twilight cringing in pain, grunting as the shriek brought her down to her knees.

Once she regained her composure, Twilight darted her head around, though ran to the side as the monster charged at her. She heard more galloping in the distance, though she wasn’t sure if her allies had arrived yet. “They’ll know what to do. It’s already out in the open, so I just need to keep it busy...” Twilight quickly absorbed her surroundings, looking for anything she might be able to use. A tree near the pathway caught her eye, one of the branches loose. She performed a teleportation spell to appear just behind the tree.

“HEY! MR. SLEEPLESS DREAMER THING! OVER HERE!” Twilight shouted at the monster as loudly as possible, waving her hooves up in the air. The Dreamer charged toward her, already at a consistent gallop. As it approached, Twilight charged her magic from her horn, producing only a small amount for the part of the tree branch that already seemed fragile. As the Dreamer closed in on her, she finally ripped the branch off of the tree and released her magical hold on it, causing the branch to slam on top of the dreamer!

Breathing a sigh of relief, Twilight slowly backed off from where the Sleepless Dreamer stood. She finally caught a glimpse of Underhoof and Onyx galloping onward from the Forest. Twilight’s face beamed with a smirk as she realized that she just crushed an ancient evil under a tree branch! She looked down to inspect her handiwork, only to jump back in surprise to see what was happening.

The Dreamer was crawling out of the bottom of the tree, its body flattening and rippling like some sort of living, gray taffy. Its featureless head peeled its way out of the branch, half of its body coming out with it. Twilight stared as the creature seemed to be able to recover so quickly from such a blow.

She stared at the Sleepless Dreamer while backing away slowly, the monster’s forelegs regaining solidity, the rear evidently having remained absolutely stable while the front was crushed, and once it reformed, the tree branch fell off of its back. The creature towered far above Twilight, most of its body completely solid, but its face seemed to be melting still, massive chunks of it oozing slowly downward like clumps of honey revealing a wide, black space underneath. Twilight couldn’t find the words adequate enough to describe what she was saying, her face just wrenching to one side as the smell of rotten flesh overpowered her. When the creature’s “Jaw” dropped completely to the ground, she peered into the cavernous depths, her eyes widened as her pupils shrunk, staring in disbelief at what she saw inside the creature’s “Mouth,” if it could be called that.

“That’s... That’s impossible...” She could vaguely hear Underhoof calling her newly-given name, but paid no heed to him. Staring into the maw of the beast, she saw a golden Tiara with a six-pointed star atop it, a violet color not unlike the one on her Cutie Mark.

“The Element of Magic... But how?” Twilight felt herself pulled toward it, attempting to use her horn to grab it from the creature. As she did though, ambient sounds around her, even the crickets and the wind, became fuzzy and blended in with each other, her surroundings becoming hazy and indistinct, blurring her vision. Her eyelids slowly grew heavier, her body wobbling back and forth as it slowly became numb all over. She couldn’t hold herself up anymore, collapsing onto the ground as everything went black...

Author's Note: Yeah, I lied. Enjoy chapter 3 early!

Nightmares

Onyx charged through the forests... It seemed to make sense that the creature would be in here. It wanted to stay someplace where it won’t be caught out in the open, and chasing it through the forest sure made it hard to follow. Attempting to fly and weave between the trees wasn’t easy for the dark blue Pegasus, especially considering that she was far from a professional flyer. She knew she was hot on the trail of that monstrosity, she could just feel it!

She stopped in her tracks as she looked over toward Ponyville, outside the forest. A massive spark of magical energy arced over from where Twilight was. Guess this was her signal that she found the thing... Weird, why wasn’t it sticking to the forests? Onyx was sure it’d try to avoid open spaces, unless...

No time to think about it now. She darted between the trees, looking for her leader, eventually finding his silhouette running right across her path. She shouted out at him to slow him down.

“OY! UNDERHOOF! You saw that, right?!”

She charged toward the other Unicorn with the ratty, brown coat as she soared between the trees. He nodded quickly with a grunt of affirmation, focusing up ahead.

“Yeah. Airlift me there, we haven’t a moment to lose.” Onyx just nodded, she knew just as well as Underhoof did what happened when this thing finds some pony by themselves. She grabbed the Unicorn under her shoulders, flapping her wings as quickly as she could to lift him in the air, which she managed surprisingly well. Surveying the landscape for a brief moment, she looked for her new unicorn compatriot and the creature. It didn’t take long for her to spot the two of them charging at each other.

“There they are!” Onyx flapped her wings and leaned forward, trying to gain all the strength she possibly could, though carrying Underhoof did slow her down considerably. Watching the confrontation from above, Twilight appeared to have teleported behind the creature and narrowly avoided each strike it made against her.

Underhoof suddenly grit his teeth and creased his brow. “What is that filly doing?! Why’s she trying to fight that thing head-on?!” Underhoof pointed to the scene below, though before he could get the chance to start ranting, an ear-shattering shriek ripped through the air.

Onyx grunted in intense pain as she dropped Underhoof and was sent crashing down to the earth. With a THUD, she slowly pulled herself back up, disoriented by the sound of the scream. Underhoof was already on the ground and pulled himself up well before Onyx did, grunting as he rotated his neck.

“Ugh... That’s new...”

“Yeah, never heard of it doing that before... Guess ponies just assumed it was the victim screaming when they were... Eaten...” Onyx struggled back to her feet, gritting her teeth and powering her way past the ringing in her ears and the pain of the impact. They landed behind Twilight, who was standing behind a tree with a loose branch.

Underhoof galloped as quickly as he could, seeing her drop the branch on the creature, evidently having crushed it temporarily. The older unicorn grimaced, seeing the creature turn into its more liquid, taffy-like state as it would re-form from beneath the tree branch, tossing it off. It stood above Twilight, its face melting to reveal what looked like a mouth.

Onyx saw it and panicked, flying as quickly as she could to try and stop the creature, but unfortunately, given her disorientation and the fact that she just crashed to the ground, she wasn’t exactly breaking any records. Underhoof kept galloping, seeing Twilight stare straight into the abysmal maw of the Sleepless Dreamer.

"Nightfall! Get the hell away from that thing!" Underhoof shouted at Twilight, though she didn't respond. Her body began to lose balance, wobbling back and forth before falling unconscious.

The Dark Blue Pegasus tried to dive-bomb the creature, though it ducked just before she had to pull back up, the Dreamer going on about its business. Underhoof empowered his horn, trying to lift the branch on the creature to bat it away, though as soon as the branch levitated off of it, the Dreamer leaned its head down and engulfed Twilight in the gelatinous, gray ooze and quickly closed off the “Mouth” it formed after it leaned back, gulping down the Unicorn whole.

Underhoof growled under his breath and roared at Onyx, glaring straight at her.

“No holding back! We’re killing this thing and we’re doing it NOW!”

* * * *

Twilight groaned as she slowly wobbled to her hooves, the area around her still hazy. She rubbed her eyes and heard her name being called, though paid no attention to it. When her vision cleared, she found herself sitting in a ridiculously small desk. A familiar voice called out to her again, echoing through the room.

“Twilight Sparkle!” Towering above her what seemed like several feet, Princess Celestia stared down her student in a brightly colored room, an alphabet and number chart placed on each of the walls with pictures of shapes to her sides. It almost looked like the classroom from Magic Kindergarten.

Oh no.

“Twilight Sparkle, are you paying attention? I asked you to list Starswirl the Bearded’s Temporal Paradoxes.”

Twilight was at a loss for words... Deep down, she knew what the answer was, but only nervous stutters answered the Princess. “I... Uh... Well... Er...”

Celestia shook her head, the entire classroom of foals turning to stare right at her. Her Teacher looked down upon the Unicorn who was clearly far too old to be in this class, releasing a heavy sigh. “What am I going to do with you, Twilight Sparkle...? I’m very disappointed. But don’t fret... You won’t be holding any pony back any longer.”

Suddenly, Celestia cast a holding spell on Twilight’s hooves, spreading them out as she was forced to lay on her back on the desk! Celestia turned to the other schoolchildren and put on her cheeriest voice. “Alright, my little ponies! Today we’re going to have a very special lesson about Unicorn Anatomy!” The entire class screamed an ecstatic “YAY!” all at once. Twilight struggled under the grip of the Holding Spell, but the Alicorn’s magic was far too much to fight against. Celestia produced a scalpel and looked to the children, all of whom had monstrous grins on their little faces.

“Now, Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful Student, has volunteered to be our model for today.” Celestia held the scalpel up with her magic, slowly closing it in on Twilight. The violet unicorn struggled as much as she could in the magical fetters, but couldn’t escape from their grip.

“First, we make an incision here, class...” She then held the knife and pressed it just above the ribcage. When the cold metal made contact with her skin, Twilight howled an agonized shriek as tears streamed down her face.

Suddenly, she shot up in a bed and realized that her surroundings have changed dramatically. No longer in a colorful classroom, she sat in the middle of a very small, dark room, with only walls on each of the four sides, lying on a twin-sized bed, which incidentally was the only notable feature this room had. Twilight used some of her magic to illuminate the room around her. The space she was in wasn’t much bigger than a walk-in closet, and from what she could tell, this room had no windows or doors. It wasn’t anything beyond four walls and a bed.

“Where... Am I?” she muttered to herself out loud.

“I’ve asked the same thing when I first came here, Twilight Sparkle,” called a stallion’s voice from the other side of the left wall. She flinched, not anticipating the response from, well, any pony.

“Who else could possibly be in this place, wherever this place was? And how did I get here in the first place?” she once again found herself asking these questions out loud, despite intending to think them to herself. The Stallion’s voice spoke once more from the left side of the room.

“Well, all of these are very familiar questions, Miss Sparkle, seeing as I asked them several times when I ended up here the first time.”

Twilight looked to her left, then knocked on the wall... It sounded solid, that is to say, she didn’t hear an echo when her hoof rapped on it. She addressed the voice directly, speaking into the wall. “Who are you... And how do you know my name?”

“As for who I am, you’ll know in a second... How do I know who you are, well, I wish I could tell you. There’s a lot that goes on here that I can hardly begin to explain.”

True to his word, Twilight a name suddenly popped up in her head. She instantly and inexplicably knew who her, for lack of a better term, fellow prisoner was. “You’re Melodious Score, right?”

“That’s me. Told you that you’d know in a second,” the Stallion pointed out, growing silent. For just a moment, Twilight reflected upon the dream she just woke up from. The other voice called out after the image of the scalpel pierced her skin. “Being dissected by your teacher... That’s a new one. Whatever is doing this to us, it’s getting creative...”

“Whatever is doing this to us?” Twilight's head filled up with a chaotic tempest of ideas of what could be doing such a thing. Discord? No, this didn't seem like his style. Another Unicorn? If it was, then who? Twilight couldn't think of any Unicorns off-hand that had the power or the motivation to do this to her, but joining the Starlit probably gave her a whole host of new enemies...

“Well, it took me a while to figure out that there’s another force in this place. See, it-”

Twilight lost track of the conversation, finding herself stuck in the middle of a large, foggy field. She looked down at the grass beneath her hooves, dewy with the fog, then heard the grass being tread upon by other hooves. She saw five other figures in the fog, calling out to them.

“Who’s there?” The Unicorn swiveled her head around, seeing if any of the silhouettes would respond to her.

“Twilight?! TWILIGHT! HEY EVERYPONY, I FOUND TWILIGHT!” The bouncy, excitable voice of Pinkie Pie filled Twilight with an inner warmth, as her other friends began to come out of the fog, becoming clearer.

“Oh, thank Celestia... You’re all here... I thought I’d never see you again!” The ground beneath the six of them suddenly quaked, the earth splitting open beneath them, the rumbling sound accompanied by the release of putrid, sulfuric gases escaping from the crack in front of them.

Twilight desperately stared across the chasm. Rainbow Dash extended her wings, knowing exactly what to do while the earth beneath her rumbled louder.

“Hold on Twilight, I’ll get you across!” Never one to leave a friend behind, Rainbow Dash then shot across the fault, only to be blasted by a surge of erupting, molten rock from the bottom of the fault. When it cleared, Rainbow Dash was gone.

“RAINBOW!” Twilight stood petrified, tears welling up in her eyes and cascading down her face. She blinked for a moment to clear the tears away, finding herself back in that dark room with the bed. She fell on her back, unable to lift herself back up.

After sobbing and sniffing for several seconds, Twilight looked around. “What... What is going on here...?” She turned to the left and started knocking on the left wall desperately, her tears choking her words. “Melodious... What’s happening here...?” He couldn’t have heard her, the only response she got was his own anguished screams from the other side of the wall...

* * * *

WHUMP.

The tree branch that fell on the Sleepless Dreamer earlier slammed against the ground, enveloped in a yellow glow, Underhoof having taken a swing at the creature. Swooping down from above was Onyx, the dark blue pegasus trying to grab the monstrosity. Its viscous, gelatinous body warped and twisted to evade both blows, its head turning quickly for the Everfree Forest.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Onyx landed in front of the creature, flapping her wings as quickly as possible and leaping into a tackle against the Sleepless Dreamer to push it back. The Pegasus Mare slammed straight into the creature’s chest, though its body simply rippled at the impact, standing tall as its faceless head “Stared” down at the dark blue pegasus at its hooves.

The Dreamer hopped over Onyx and galloped into the forest. Underhoof growled to himself as he prepared to charge into the forest. “Onyx! You take to the skies while I catch up to it in the forest! We’ve got to get this thing back into the open and keep it there!” Onyx shot off into the sky, soaring just above the forest and moving just quickly enough to stay ahead of Underhoof, but not too far ahead that she lost him. Her Saddlebags leaned back slightly from the wind, several strings whipping back from the top of them. It was at that point that she realized how big the Everfree forest was.

This was going to be a long chase.

* * * *

Twilight leaned back on the bed, her chest rapidly rising and falling with each labored breath. Each nightmare she suffered left her drained of energy, and it didn’t help that she’d be suddenly thrown into the next one just when she thought she’d get a rest from it all.

“How... How many was that?” Twilight managed to gasp out in between deep gasps for breath.

“I’d say... That was about nine...” Melodious had evidently went through much of the same ordeals that Twilight did... How she knew this, she wasn’t entirely sure, but she caught glimpses of the nightmares the stallion next door was seeing. An audience suddenly being turned into flesh-eating monsters after hearing a song he wrote, being caught in a fire with all of his original songs being destroyed... It was fairly clear that he took his work seriously. While she was curious as to how she even knew that it happened when she wasn’t there (and how Melodious knew she had the nightmare about being dissected by Princess Celestia, for that matter), but there was a bigger concern.

“And how long have we been here?” Twilight groaned as she rolled over to the left wall. It felt like she’d been here for hours, but it was hard to tell. She didn’t have a timepiece with her, the room had no access to the outside world, and the hallucinatory nightmares seemed to constantly change what time they took place in. One of them would be in the early morning, one would be late at night, one would be indoors and it’d be hard to tell what time it was anyway.

“I think I’ve been here for days, how many, I'm, not sure. You've only been here for a few hours, at least as far as I can tell,” Melodious rasped out, each syllable labored and breathy.

“I suppose this is as good a time as any to ask...” Twilight almost followed up with “How did you get here?”, but she suddenly realized that he didn’t have any more of an idea than she did. She deliberated for a few moments, trying to think of a different response. She just intuitively had the feeling that she might have enough time right now to actually get an adequate answer to a few questions.

“...What was the last thing you saw before you got here?”

Melodious fell silent for several seconds after being asked the question. Twilight was getting flashes of a midnight stroll, then seeing a shadow out of the corner of his eye, though the memories were fuzzy and indistinct. The Stallion next door finally answered, “You know, I didn’t think about it all that much until you mentioned it... Now that you did, though, it was this... Thing. It looked like a gray Earth Pony Stallion from a distance... But then I saw him up close and it-"

“Didn’t have a face.”

Melodious stopped for a second, his voice quivering as he tried to resume where Twilight picked up from. “Y-Yeah, it didn’t have a face, then it started... Well... Melting. I saw some of my original sheet music in its mouth, wondered how it got there and the next thing I knew... I blacked out.”

Twilight widened her eyes, gasping to herself as the pieces started fitting together slowly... Still, there were a few missing pieces to the puzzle, but comparing notes was definitely a good start, and so far they haven’t been interrupted by strange nightmare imagery, and she didn’t have a second to waste.

“Same thing happened to me... Saw the thing, its mouth opened and I blacked out... Though it did that after I crushed it under a tree branch.”

“You crushed it under a tree branch?” Melodious asked, his voice snickering as he asked the question. Suddenly, as he laughed, the room itself seemed to ripple and quake, the very walls seeming to groan in response... Twilight just stood stiff and spoke aloud exactly what the two of them were thinking.

“W-What was that...?” Twilight shifted around uncomfortably as the room wheezed, straightening itself out after Melodious’ laughter died down.

“I don’t know... That’s never happened be-” Melodious was quickly cut off, falling completely silent for several minutes. Twilight leaned up against the and rapped against it with her right hoof, her voice quivering as her eyes grew heavier, water gathering on the bottom of her eyes.

“Melodious... Are you okay?” Twilight waited a few moments for a response, cringing when she finally received one in the form of her fellow prisoner’s terrified screams.

* * * *

The Everfree Forest was always an obstacle for virtually anypony, but seldom has it ever really been a problem for the Starlit. Most of the time, they’re able to avoid any creatures that they might encounter in it, scare them away or even, on the odd occasion, kill them to get them out of the way. However, there was a different game being played in this forest, especially for Underhoof, since it wasn’t often that something he chased would actually run INTO the forest.

Then again, he hadn’t chased anything near the forest in a long time.

He charged through the trees, keeping his good eye- and his nose- peeled for the creature. It’s been three hours into this chase, Underhoof’s energy being quickly depleted, though thankfully, he hadn’t run into any trouble besides losing his hoofing over the occasional branch or root. It seems the Sleepless Dreamer’s horrid stench must’ve been keeping away most of the predators in the Everfree Forest. That smell would keep most creatures away for a long time.

”Well... Most sane ones, anyway,” Underhoof mused to himself, allowing himself a moment of levity in this forested pursuit. Weaving in between the trees wasn’t his strong suit, the brown, scarred Unicorn stopping suddenly each time to make sure that he could still follow that rank odor, not that it was hard to track, but getting through the bramble and the underbrush was another story.

The stench grew stronger, Underhoof finally seeing the Sleepless Dreamer galloping through the forest, the creature stopping suddenly.

“Gotcha...” The Stallion began concentrating his magic, preparing one of those signal lights to get Onyx’s attention. Underhoof delivered a little surprise to be placed in her saddlebags to help deal with the Sleepless Dreamer; so surprising, in fact, that she doesn’t even know if it would work. Before he could entertain the thought of his success due to his own cleverness, his thoughts were suddenly overpowered by lupine howls in the forest.

”Timberwolves?! Guess the smell warding them off was too good to be true...” Underhoof crouched down by one of the trees, still keeping an eye on the Sleepless Dreamer, which remained completely motionless. Apparently, the Timberwolves were approaching it, and not Underhoof; they must have been tracking its scent too, and since it was the easiest one to follow, they followed the Dreamer. Closing in on what they thought was their prey, they snarled and barked at the creature, though the Dreamer remained still.

The Timberwolves charged at the creature, though when they leaped at the Dreamer to bring it down, they were suddenly stopped in mid-air. Stretching from the Sleepless Dreamer came three rods of the gelatinous substance, sticking to the Timberwolves and holding them mid-air like spears made of tree sap. The rods wriggled and rapidly slammed into the other oncoming wolves, shattering their component branches into several pieces with their now-captive packmates. After the Dreamer tossed the Timberwolves off of it, they briefly looked at the wooden debris around them, turned tail (or twig) and ran, deciding this thing... Whatever it was... Was far too more trouble than it was worth.

Underhoof stared with his mouth slacking open at the handiwork of the monstrosity he had been pursuing for the past three hours.

“... That’s new,” Underhoof said aloud, the concealing calm in his voice keeping the shock at the fact that this creature was capable of this thinly veiled. Now was the time, and it was clear that he couldn’t get close to this thing himself without getting clobbered or eaten. He empowered his horn, an aura of yellow energy bursting and shooting up into the sky. This was just as good a time as any to get Onyx down here. The Dreamer’s head suddenly turned and saw the flare, then looked behind the tree. It was clear it already knew what was going on.

Underhoof pivoted on his hooves, galloping the other way... He may be the prey at the moment, but he smirked lightly as the creature pursued him and had to weave through the trees and bramble, enjoying his brief, petty revenge on the Dreamer for what he had to go through to find it again. Of course, he didn’t intend for this chase to last nearly as long.

* * * *

Twilight stood inside the middle of a blank, dark room... No bed this time. As her head swiveled back and forth, she didn’t see any walls, or a floor or ceiling for that matter. “Great... This is another nightmare, isn’t it?”

“Oh, you have NO idea,” a mirthful, male voice chuckled behind her. The sound of the voice prompted Twilight to clench her teeth, her voice growling out the name attached to the one speaking to her.

“Discord.” The name left a rancid taste in her mouth, recalling the Draconequus warping reality itself and turning all of Twilight’s friends against each other.

“Guilty as charged, Twilight Sparkle! Oh, but don’t worry, your little pickle of a picadillo has very little to do with me, shockingly enough. But enough about me!” The Draconequus raised his paw, pressing two of the digits together and snapping them, a couch and a framed, glass window appearing hovering three feet above and away from it. Discord hopped on the couch and held up his talons, a black board with buttons along its face suddenly appearing. He pat the right side of the couch with his paw. “Come along, Twilight! I’ve got something interesting to show you!”

Twilight gingerly approached the couch, but didn’t sit down, on account of not trusting Discord, given that just a touch of his could warp her mind in numerous ways. “I think I can see just as well from here.”

Discord shrugged lightly and held up the buttoned-board. “Fair enough. You’d be comfier sitting down.” He pressed a button, the window suddenly springing to life. On it, a vision was being shown of Melodious Score being devoured by Musical notes.

“No, that’s not it...” Discord pressed another button, the display on the window shifting to something else, the image of a Mare whose face was half-rotted away, maggots crawling out of the empty eye-sockets. Discord immediately dismissed it, hitting the button after groaning “Boooring.” Another image, this of some sort of hairless ape sitting in front of another of these glowing windows. “OOOGH! Gag! Unspeakably boring!” He hit another button, then grinned as the new image showed itself. “Aaah, here we go...”

Twilight stared into the window as she saw a familiar scene playing out on it... Princess Celestia had been lecturing her, then bound her to a table and pulled out a scalpel...Twilight's face blanched at the sight, falling flat on her rear as her eyes widened at the sight.

“Oh, I see this looks familiar. Well, let’s see what else is on...” Discord hit the same button again, cycling through a few more images, the next of Rainbow Dash being incinerated by the molten rock, another of Fluttershy being torn open by her own, rabid Angel bunny while Twilight was being sat on by a bear, Applejack being buried alive in Sweet Apple Acres while Twilight was tied and gagged to a tree... Twilight quickly realized that, through some cruel joke, this dream was reviewing the previous ones. With the exception of the first nightmare, each of these featured Twilight being present and incapacitated while her friends were all being killed or otherwise maimed. The Draconequus even stopped on a few and made his own commentary, making light of Twilight’s, and by extension her friends’, suffering. Many of his jokes that he made throughout each of the nightmares usually involved a gruesome pun in relation to the manner of the death.

“You just know all of these kids are going to grow up to be doctors.

“Nice work, Rainbow Ash!

“I think this is the first time Fluttershy’s ever opened up like that... And the last.

“Well, at least Applejack will still be taking care of the trees.

“Huh. Pinkie Pie as a homicidal maniac I saw coming, but suicidal? That’s new.

“How is he able to bend Rarity that way? I- OOOH! Oh my, I suppose that’s why they call him Spike! HOOHOOHAHAHA!” Discord was in hysterics after a particularly obscene nightmare, Twilight’s mouth still hanging open at the disregard Discord had for the horror inherent in the images he was commenting on, and of course, she was still recovering from the fact that she actually had that kind of dream.

“Oh, you’re so quiet, Twilight Sparkle! You really should try and have more fun.”

“This... This is horrible!”

“Doesn’t stop me.”

Twilight grimaced and looked away, the sound of snapping fingers suddenly heralding Discord’s appearance right in front of her as she turned around.

“Perhaps this sort of game isn’t your style, mm? Well, let’s try something else... Why don’t we try and find a pattern to these dreams? Puzzles are always fun!” Discord’s serpentine body wrapped itself around Twilight, his head over her left shoulder as he pat her head, Twilight glowering at the Draconequus as he did so. “This is a simple riddle, one I’m sure even your puny brain can unravel... What do all of these nightmares have in common?”

“They’re all horrible.”

“... Well, you’re not wrong. What else?”

The violet Unicorn clenched her eyes shut, putting the images together and attempting to discern some kind of meaning out of them, but doing so also included having to experience each of the stomach-churning sensations of guilt and terror at each of these nightmares. Guilt...

“... They all have to do with failure,” Twilight said at the end of it. Discord began to applaud her in his usual, demeaning manner, but after he did so, another voice echoed in the distance, this one female and reverberating with each syllable, the S’s getting particular emphasis, with a combination of regal manner and smug arrogance lining each word.

“Right you are, Twilight Sparkle... Failure of your Princess, Failure of your Friends... And no matter what you do, you’re never able to save them. Sound familiar?” From the blackness came a pair of green eyes, a mare-like form with fangs, a black “coat”, a saddle-like carapace and insectoid wings along the sides, the hooves, wings and the crooked horn riddled with holes.

If Discord being present left a bad taste in Twilight’s mouth, then the Changeling Queen’s presence made her feel like she just swallowed whatever rancid object entered her mouth in the first place. The unicorn could barely string words together after the very symbol of her greatest defeat just slammed into her the sense of being a total failure. The Changeling Queen flew to Twilight, leaning into her face and staring straight into her eyes.

“You had better get used to failing your friends, Twilight Sparkle, because that’s going to be happening a lot. You’ll run into problems that will threaten everyone you know and love, and you won’t even be able to warn them about what looms over the horizon, much less actually stop it from happening. After all, you couldn’t stop me, and you didn’t even have an oath that forces you to keep secrets...” She giggled at the young Unicorn, turning away and fading, laughing maniacally at Twilight. The unicorn stared with a petrified glance, her mouth hanging open again, a tear welling up in her eyes.

Discord, in that time, had been standing and tapping his feet as the Changeling Queen disappeared. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “I thought she’d never finish. So boringly fatalist, such a meticulous planner... There’s just so little to like about her.”

Twilight shook her head and wiped the tear from her eye. “Discord... What are you still doing here? This is normally when I wake up.”

“And I should start following rules because...?”

Twilight glowered at the Draconequus, clearly not in the mood for the creature’s game. Her petrification from the Changeling Queen’s declaration seemed to quickly pass, though it was replaced with abject rage at Discord’s continued presence.

“Well, I suppose just to mix things up, I’ll give you a little riddle to consider once you get out of here. So far, you don’t stand a chance in here and frankly, this is going to get very boring very fast.”

“You’re... Helping me?”

“Don’t be so base, Twilight Sparkle. I’m just telling you what you already know in an incredibly clever manner. Now, listen carefully...

Even in their Sleep, the Sleepers Sleep

And the Dreamer Dreams their Dreams

As the Sleepers Dream, the Dreamer Seems

To Grow Stronger with every Scene.

Bound to a tiny chamber, on a tiny bed

After a Nightmare devoured them Whole

In a place that thrives on Terror and Dread

However will they get home?”

Several switches went off in the Unicorn's head, seeming to comprehend at least part of the riddle almost immediately. She repeated it over and over under her breath, attempting to memorize the riddle to the best of her ability... She feared that when she awoke, she may not be able to remember it, so she repeated it to herself over and over again. Before she could ask the final question one last time, Discord interrupted her.

“Well, I suppose now is about time you should wake... Although, just to keep up appearances, you should wake up screaming... Oh! I have the perfect idea!” The Draconequus snapped his paw digits, Twilight feeling the floor beneath her disappear, the unicorn screaming as her legs flailed in the air as she fell down the bottomless abyss as her screams pierced the endless black...

Twilight woke up in the bed again, breathing heavily as she rolled over on her left side. She then recited the riddle Discord gave her, hearing the voice of Melodious in the next cell.

“You were out for a while. It put me through nine again by the time you got back up... Are you alright?”

Twilight barely coughed out a “Yes,” turning the riddle over and over in her head, putting the pieces together. She would figure this out, and she sure as hay wasn’t going to fail this time.

“I think I may have our ticket out of here.”

The Waking Dawn

Several minutes after the signal fired up into the air, Onyx soared closer to the treetops, listening in closely to the noises beneath the trees, and of course that trademark smell. She hovered just far enough to see the two figures running, though this time she saw the Dreamer chasing Underhoof. Looks like things were going according to plan. Unfortunately, in an effort to keep himself from being caught by the Dreamer, Underhoof constantly weaved and swerved in between trees, making it difficult to keep up with him. She shouted down into the trees to try and grab Underhoof’s attention.

“HEY! What’s the plan, boss?!” The Dark Blue Pegasus Mare hovered and swerved to try and match Underhoof’s movements, flying upward in an attempt to avoid any stray branches.

“Trying to get it out of the forest!”

“I can see that... What next?”

“Actually, I need you to scout ahead! Find me an open space that I can use!”

Onyx complied immediately, flying as high up and as fast as she could. She took a look across the landscape back to the outskirts of Ponyville. She vaguely caught a glimpse of some figures moving toward the forest, though keeping a cautious distance. Onyx spat a curse under her breath and started flying low again, shouting down to Underhoof.

“Boss! We’ve got civilians where we found the Dreamer! I think all that noise the creature made earlier got some unwanted attention.”

“What? Now?! That was three hours ago! Don’t normal ponies, oh, I don’t know, SLEEP?!”

“I don’t think we’re that lucky here, boss,” Onyx saw an opening and dove down into the forest and started running next to Underhoof. “By the time we get there on hoof, they’ll probably have dispersed. Just in case, though, I know another open space we can use.” She began to run through the woods, leading Underhoof to the location that she mentioned, realizing that she didn’t have to be ordered to do so to realize that it was the best course of action.

* * * *

“I think I may have our ticket out of here.”

It’s been several minutes of dead silence since Twilight told Melodious the good news, having racked her brain together over the riddle posed to her by the dream-image of Discord. Of course, Melodious could hear her thinking as though she was speaking out loud, though said nothing, since it all just ran together as Twilight remained silent. He finally spoke up, calling across the wall.

“What might that be?”

Twilight’s floodgate of thought suddenly broke. “Okay, that thing we saw earlier was a creature called the Sleepless Dreamer. It does devour us whole, yes, but well... Do you remember feeling tired, kind of drained after waking up from one of those nightmares?

"Yeah, I do, now that you mention it."

"I think that was because it was, well, feeding on our Fear, kind of like a Changeling feeds on Love, except instead of shapeshifting into a loved one, it captures us and makes us live out nightmares. It keeps us unconscious in a sort of dream state so we don’t resist it physically. That explains why we can hear each other’s thoughts and know things about each other before we say them, we’re in a sort of collective consciousness... Or unconsciousness.”

Each word zoomed out of Twilight’s mouth like the Wonderbolts racing around a derby, Melodious taking some time to try and make sense of everything she said...

“So you’re saying that even the room here, this is a dream too?”

“Yes. Well, sort of. It’s more like an Unconscious Lobby. We kind of wait in this state before we get thrown into another one of those nightmares.”

“And that makes this... Sleepless Dreamer thing our Bell Colt who takes us into our Nightmare for the moment.”

“Yeah, as far as I can tell, the Nightmares are private until we think about them outside the nightmares themselves.”

Melodious grunted with understanding. “I suppose that makes sense... But you said earlier that you had a way out of here?”

“Well, yes. I remember when I mentioned that I crushed this thing underneath a tree branch, you started laughing and the room started to, well...

“Melt.”

“Yes! Since this thing feeds on fear, by contrast, laughter and happiness would be unpalatable. So if we start thinking really happy thoughts, it might spit us back out!”

Considering the solution, Melodious’ voice replied rather slowly, lined with both hope and apprehension. “Well... I suppose that makes sense. Explains a lot, but happy thoughts in this place, well... They don’t come eas-” Suddenly, he was cut off... Twilight gulped to herself, closing her eyes shut and telling herself to concentrate on something happy before she was whisked away to her own nightmare.

She thought of Pinkie Pie and the parties she’d be throwing at the time, all the silly pranks she’d be pulling on people, all the inane insanity that would just come spewing out of her mouth whenever she opened it. She opened her eyes and before her was the image of Pinkie Pie, the skin on her neck hanging limply open as half-coagulated blood dripped from the wound, her tongue hanging out of her mouth like a bloated, dead fish. Her breaths became labored as she stepped back and realized that Melodious was right...

Trying to find happiness here was going to be very difficult.

* * * *

Another two hours passed, the stars slowly disappearing from the sky as it loses its black hue, and the blue of the heavens becoming more visible to the east, though the light of day remained hidden behind the horizon. The Sleepless Dreamer’s pursuit of Onyx and Underhoof had continued, though the creature began to slow down for just a moment, seeming to be giving up the chase, and so close to the forest’s edge, too. Onyx turned back and cursed under her breath, shouting at her leader.

“Underhoof! It’s slowing down, and we haven’t even made it out of the forest yet!”

The Unicorn slowed down in suit, looking over Onyx for a minute. “I’ve got something that will probably encourage it to keep moving... Check your satchel.”

The pegasus mare reached into her bag and pulled out one of the strings hanging out of her bag with her teeth, pulling out a glass bottle with a foggy, white liquid inside it. She quickly realized what it was and raised a questioning eyebrow at Underhoof.

“A Flashbang? We want it to KEEP chasing us! And I’m not sure if you noticed, but that thing doesn’t have any eyes!”

“Just throw it!”

Onyx grumbled with the string in her teeth, the creature slowly getting closer to them. While she backed away cautiously, she examined her surroundings, looking for something hard to throw the glass bottle at... She settled on a tree next to the creature. Like she said, it didn’t have any eyes, so what difference would it make if it didn’t land in front of it? She spun in a circle, releasing the string as the bottle sailed toward its target, quickly closing her eyes before the bottle smashed against the tree. The liquid, once released and heated by the impact, suddenly burst into a white light with a loud CRACK through the air!

The Sleepless Dreamer released its ear-shattering shriek as its body seemed to lose cohesion, looking less like a pony and more like a melting wax sculpture. It slunk toward the two, not walking so much as sliding across the ground, wheezing out another one of its shrieks, though far less intense after its body had become more like gray spa mud.

Underhoof and Onyx started running again, the unicorn stallion grinning to himself as his white, milky eye and his good, hazel eye both looked straight at Onyx. He nodded in approval. “Good job, kid... Now I know how to kill it.”

* * * *

Twilight screamed in pain as she writhed around in the bed, panting as sharp pains stabbed her straight through her chest. She couldn’t distinctly remember what exactly happened, but she vaguely recalled numerous horrid images, though none of them were remembered very clearly. With her thoughts organized and her heart rate slowing down just a bit, she came to realize that Melodious experienced the same thing. Of course, he was still screaming... Apparently the creature was focusing on him, though for what reason she couldn’t tell. A tear trickled down her eyes down the side of her head.

”I’m going to die... I’m going to die in a pile of goo shaped like a Pony...” Suddenly, with that thought, she started giggling, the room around her rippling, but she barely paid it much mind. She’s staring death in the face, what does it matter if the room wiggles a little?

”Now that I think about it... It is kind of funny... I mean, what are the odds?” Her thoughts turned the snickers into a light chuckle. ”What kind of world is this where somepony can be eaten by a giant pile of shapeshifting slime? Heheh... I mean... Hydras and Dragons are one thing, but living, pony-eating snot? Are all supernatural monstrosities this silly?” Her laughter became far more raucous, the room seeming to lose cohesion in much the same way, the walls melting and the door seeming to flop off of its hinges. Opening her eyes, she saw the room wobble and melt... Sure, it was pretty scary, but Pinkie Pie laughing at her fears suddenly came to mind. She was no longer able to contain her musings in thought, the sentences becoming intertwined with raucous laughter.

“For Celestia’s sa-a-ake... Hehehe... What else is out there? Killer Cookie Dough? A Pudding Poltergeist? Demon Muffin Monkeys?” Twilight’s eyes shut as more tears streamed down her face, her belly rippling with laughter as the room around her seemed to disappear. Twilight didn’t notice, nor did she care... She wasn’t thinking about her situation anymore beyond how unbelievably stupid it was. Each new thought hurtled her into hysterical laughter, when the whole world around her blacked out again, the room liquefying and catching her in a slimy, gooey torrent.

* * * *

“We’re almost out!” Underhoof declared as he and Onyx charged out toward the forest’s edge. The Sleepless Dreamer continued its pursuit, shrieking at them with its full pitch as it regained its previous coherence. Once it got out of the forest, it extended some of its monstrous tendrils to lash out against its attackers, the appendages nearly making contact, but suddenly stopping before Underhoof and Onyx had a chance to jump away.

The creature’s “Mouth” began to form again, the area where its jaw would be melting open while the tendrils dropped lifelessly to the ground, splattering like trails of curdled milk. The body of the Dreamer bulged out toward the middle, its torso undulating in a way that could only be described as “Heaving.” Once its mouth dropped to its maximum, pony-devouring length, a large, purple mass suddenly shot out of the creature, accompanied with a great deal of the gray, rancid ooze that comprised the monstrosity.

Twilight slid along the wretched slime, still giggly from the method she used to get out. She got full whiffs of the stench of rot, her laughter interrupted by several successive chokes and coughs in which she spat out some of the rotten slime. Onyx charged over to her, leaning down and making sure she was still alive.

“Looks like Nightfall’s okay, sir.” She looked down as Twilight kept laughing, barely managing to choke out a strange set of words.

“K-Killer Cookie Dough...” She started laughing uncontrollably, followed by several wet coughs where the gray ooze was sent flying away from her muzzle.

“Well... Relatively okay.”

Underhoof turned over to Onyx and Twilight, breathing a sigh of relief that his newest acquisition didn’t die in her first mission. “Get her out of here as fast as you can! I’m finishing this bastard here and now!”

Twilight groaned, Onyx sliding her forelegs underneath Twilight's as she began to flap her wings. “C’mon, kid, we’re getting you cleaned up...”

Twilight coughed and tried to speak, her mind screaming out the name but her voice only feebly wheezing it out.

“Mel... Melo...” Onyx couldn’t understand what she was saying, too occupied with carrying the slimy, ooze-covered Twilight off the ground. She looked down, seeing Underhoof confronting the creature, a yellow light shining off his horn, and then shimmering around the Sleepless Dreamer that consumed her earlier. Turning over to the east, she saw Celestia’s sun slowly rising, the rays reaching out of the horizon.

Onyx was still fairly low to the ground, allowing Twilight to see the Sleepless Dreamer in a panic, screaming as the sun’s rays began to touch its slick, reflective skin, but it didn’t scream with the same voices it did before; it began screaming with ponies’ voices. The voice changed as the creature melted away, its forelegs desperately reaching out and reforming, feebly slamming against the bounds of the force field created by Underhoof. Twilight drifted off to sleep while being held by the Pegasus mare, though before she did, it used an all-too familiar voice that pierced through the air, and while she fell into unconsciousness, her heart sunk as the sound faded into silence.

* * * *

“Looks like she’s waking up.”

Twilight’s eyes slowly slid open, the blurry images of Underhoof, Onyx, and another of the ragged Starlit ponies who just walked off. Onyx smirked and lightly nudged Twilight completely awake.

“Rise and shine, kid. We got the bastard.”

Twilight groaned, rubbing her hooves over her eyes to wipe the sleep out of them, taking a second to figure out what exactly Onyx meant. “The Dreamer’s gone?”

“Dead as a doornail... Or as a pile of evaporated goo, anyway.”

Twilight heaved a sigh of relief, glad that the nightmare creature was done away with. Her stomach then sank, shooting up from what was apparently a towel on the ground.

“What about Melodious? Did he make it out?”

Underhoof lifted his head toward Onyx, then nodded. He turned over to Twilight, his eyes narrowing as the white eye looked past her, the hazel eye focusing straight into her. “After the creature died off, the substance that made it up evaporated. A body that matched Melodious Score’s description was found, though his heart stopped. He didn’t make it, he was dead when he got out.”

Twilight’s own eyes widened, her mouth dropping open as she sat up. She breathed heavily, Onyx slapping her on the back in a clumsy attempt to comfort her. “Hey, kid, take it easy... Sure, he’s gone now, but at least the Sleepless Dreamer won’t be hurting anypony else anymore. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Twilight nodded slowly, feigning taking Onyx’s words to heart, though it wasn’t what she was thinking about... All she could remember was a set of words that she didn’t want to repeat in her mind again, but stung her deeply regardless.

“Underhoof, sir... I... I need to file a report for the Princess. Can I... I don’t know... Can I head back to the Library?” Her voice shook with uncertainty and a deep-seated despair, desperately needing to head back somewhere familiar.

“Time off?! Hey, you barely just got here, why can’t you stay with the rest of u-” Onyx’s outburst was interrupted by Underhoof holding his hoof up.

“Onyx, she didn’t come here the same way the rest of us did. She’s not used to this yet.”

“No one else has ever taken leave before, though, sir! Why does she get to?”

“She’s not used to this life. She only just became a part of us, and besides... She’ll be called away often anyway. She is the designated Envoy to the Princess, after all.” Underhoof looked over to Twilight and nodded slowly. “I hereby grant you... Leave, Nightfall. I will tell our Courier to carry you back to Ponyville.”

Twilight simply bowed her head and went out to the edge of the shanty-town, waiting for the carriage to arrive to take her over to Ponyville. Onyx, meanwhile, approached Underhoof, her face twisted in displeasure.

“She’s getting off the hook, just like that? She gets upset over someone dying in a mission and she gets a free pass?”

“She helped us take down the Dreamer.”

“That’s not the problem! She’s not used to people dying, and if she wants to survive, she needs to learn how to deal with it, and that’s something she can only really learn with us!”

“She’s one of us now, whether or not she is always with us. She’ll get used to it... We all do, eventually. You and I, and all of the others... We just got used to it sooner. Besides, she’s got family and friends out there, and we are the only family and friends we’ve got.”

Onyx’s mouth hung open as her brow creased together, as though watching a foal ask a bully to hit him again. “Don’t you still have a fa-”

“Onyx.”

The Pegasus Mare huffed and unfolded her wings after she was interrupted, looking over Underhoof, her eyes narrowing at him. “...Can I at least keep an eye on her just to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid?”

Underhoof nodded slowly, looking out to the edge of the forest. “Just be sure to keep your distance.”

With a nod, Onyx spread her wings and soared out of a clearing between the trees, Underhoof heading toward the wagon at the center of the Shanty-Town, his eyes looking up to see the high noon sun filtered through the tree branches.

* * * *

After leaving the black box of a Carriage, Twilight smiled and released a sigh, a smile creeping on her face for just a moment as she saw the library, the candle on the front door welcoming her home. She pushed the door open, both the bottom and the top halves slowly opening. She poked her head in, catching a glimpse of Spike arranging the bookshelves.

“I’m home,” Twilight declared inn a tired, gravelly sing-song voice. Spike stopped dead in his place, the book he was about to shelf hitting the wooden floor with a thud.

“Twilight?!” The violet baby dragon dropped the rest of the books and slid down the ladder, running over to the door. He threw the rest of it open and hugged her foreleg. After rubbing his face in her leg for a bit, he came to realize that her coat was unusually sticky, then pulled away just long enough to look at her mane.

“... I’ll start a bath for you.” Spike ran down to the basement, the sound of running water already calming Twilight’s nerves as she sat down in front of her bedroom vanity. She snickered at the image she saw in the mirror, her mane sprawling out in several different directions, clumps of it sticking every which way like the back of a porcupine. She giggled to herself... Apparently the remains of the Dreamer were really hard for the Onyx and Underhoof to get out of her mane. Remains...

”No, Twilight... Don’t even think about that. Not now.” She sat down at the vanity and employed some of her magic to lift up some parchment, a quill and an inkwell. She lifted a hoof to hold the inkwell in place, popping off the cork with her teeth and gently setting it to the side. She dipped the quill in the ink, beginning a letter.

“Twilight! Your bath’s ready!” Spike called out from the basement. His tiny figure waddled up the stairs and looked out the doorway. Twilight smiled and put the quill away in the inkwell... She desperately needed the comforts of home, lifting herself up from her seat, her eyelids relaxing at the thought of her troubled mind temporarily put at ease with the filth of the previous day’s work being washed off.

“Be right there, Spike.”

Letters (#1)

Entering her private chamber, Princess Celestia removed a black veil and cloak from her body, setting them aside. Along with the veil was tossed a set of papers, an event program entitled "Melodious Score: In Memoriam." She collapsed onto her bed and heaved a sigh. She closed her eyes for a moment, her legs sprawled out across the bed.

"I hate funerals," her voice groaned, the corners of her lips weighed down. Her eyes opened up, staring at an open letter, a letter from Twilight Sparkle, to be precise. She did enjoy reading the correspondences with her protegé, soaking up all the hope and wonder that her most faithful student poured into that scroll of parchment. She lifted the letter with her magic, unfurling it and reading it over again.

Dear Princess Celestia,

First and foremost, I shall summarize my report on my time with the Starlit. My first mission entailed the pursuit of a mythical creature called the Sleepless Dreamer. The Sleepless Dreamer’s origins are tracked to Discord’s Reign of Chaos, where a magical accident brought on by a group of unicorn magicians (Some sources attribute this to a group called the Sisterhood of the Night) transformed a Royal Guard into a monster that feeds on the fear of ponies, not unlike how a Changeling feeds on love. However, unlike Changelings, the Sleepless Dreamer needs to devour the pony whole, keep them unconscious and is able to use a form of illusionary magic to subject its victim to nightmare imagery to feed it effectively. Amusement and laughter make the captive pony unpalatable, and will thus be ejected from the creature. Underhoof disposed of the Sleepless Dreamer by trapping it in a force-field where it was exposed to the light of your glorious sun, killing it permanently.

Secondly, there is a detail that concerned me, a casualty of our pursuit of this monstrosity. Melodious Score, the composer whose disappearance Onyx, a pegasus mare who apparently has high standing in the Starlit, connected to the Dreamer, suffered a fatal heart attack when Underhoof killed the creature. He was alive when I found him, but apparently when the creature started getting desperate, it tried to siphon off as much fear as it could from Melodious and killed him in the process. Send my deepest, personal condolences to the family, and hope they can forgive me, because I can scarcely forgive myself.

There’s a lesson to be learned here, Princess. Concerning the nature of whether the Starlit are worth the trouble, if monsters like the Sleepless Dreamer do exist, then the Starlit are necessary to keep everypony safe from them. They have a strange, inner culture with equally strange people, but I can’t help but think that I wouldn’t have been too different from them if you had sent me to join them sooner. As for what this experience has taught me about the magic of friendship, it showed me that sometimes, even when your friends aren’t anywhere near you, even when you’re cut off from them, they can often be your greatest source of strength, as a friend of mine once taught me to laugh at my fears. I just never thought it would have such a practical, literal application. I will keep you appraised on future events with the Starlit and continue to evaluate them while on their missions.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle

Nightfall of the Starlit

P.S.: I’ve learned that I’m the only one of the Starlit that has ever received leave. Perhaps we should rectify that.

Celestia bit her bottom lip, her eyelids fluttering open and closed and shedding a single tear. "Poor thing..." She hadn't gotten back to the letter before, occupied with the arrangements for Melodious' funeral. Now, however, she was able to deal with the living. She summoned over an inkwell, a quill and a scroll of parchment, writing down her reply to her student.

Dear Twilight Sparkle, My Most Faithful Student,

Forgive the lateness of this reply, but there has been much to attend to. I thank you for your report on the Starlit and for continuing to look for the magic of friendship even in an environment that may prove less than hospitable for it. I sincerely hope that this will continue to be a trend in the future, even as you discover some of the more unpleasant truths behind the group you work with.

Concerning Melodious Score, you will be pleased to know that, once the body was moved to Canterlot from Ponyville, he was buried in the Royal Cemetery among other notable artists and musicians. He was given a beautiful and respectful funeral that occurred without incident. The Canterlot Symphony Orchestra is even arranging for a tribute to him in the form of a concert of his work, including some of the new songs that he composed while he was on retreat in Ponyville (which the family was eternally grateful that were found). If you are free in the next few months, perhaps you should attend.

Concerning your post-script, while I believe that is an excellent idea, that may be something you'll have to take up with Underhoof, for while the Starlit defer to me as their authority figure, they do not let me in on many of their internal affairs and may consider this an intrusion of their own policies. However, with this in mind, I would also like for you to try and get to know the Starlit themselves a bit better and learn about their own inter-personal relationships. After all, for such a group to work in such a sequestered manner away from all others, they surely have a unique perspective on the magic of friendship. Continue your evaluation of the Starlit as normal and offer to help.

Before I close this letter, I offer some personal advice. I realize that you're hurting from having to see somepony die, and frankly, I would be worried if you weren't. Remember, my beloved student, that it wasn't your fault. You can't save everypony, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Keep me posted, my prized pupil. I know you'll make me proud.

Your Mentor,

Princess Celestia

P.S.: If this letter reaches you before your time off is done with, then enjoy it while you can. If this letter reaches you afterward, then I hope you spent it with your friends. As you said, they are your greatest source of strength.

Levitating the scroll in her blue, magical aura, the Princess wrapped and sealed the letter, giving it a "For Your Eyes Only" label, then sent it through the fireplace where it would reach Twilight via Spike... Despite it being a private letter for Twilight, he'd probably read it. In fact, she hoped he would.

****

Sitting on top of a nearby building, Onyx stared at the tree-library where Twilight stayed the night. A yawn escaped her mouth, watching the sun set a second time since she volunteered to look after the young unicorn. How long had it been? Two days? Three? She wasn't sure anymore. She couldn't bring herself to sleep during a time like this. The fact that no one in the Starlit ever took leave aside, the Starlit weren't going to let their newest acquisition out of their sight for even a second that they might get killed. There are enough things hiding in the dark that would try. Almost in response to that thought, a voice called out from the ground, bellowing at the pegasus mare.

"Onyx, I bring word from Underhoof."

She turned down to the voice, the yellow-coated, brown-maned earth pony courier standing underneath a tree branch, his black box carriage across the river.

"Courier... Nice to see you. Sorry I haven't been around, keeping an eye on Nightfall, you know."

"I do. I bring a summons from Underhoof. All Starlit are being called to the Forward Camp."

"You mean the Shanty Town in the middle of the forest."

"The Forward Camp. You and Nightfall are to report there by tomorrow at midnight and no later."

"Geez, always the direct one, Courier."

"I live to serve, ma'am. When you and Nightfall are ready, meet me at the carriage."

The Courier turned tail and walked to the black box, Onyx leaning back. She stared at the Library, her eyes drooping as a tired smirk stretched across her face.

"Can't wait."

A Warrior's Respite

A large crowd surrounded a round table at the Salt Block, unofficially designated the “Card Table.” Normally, this table would be relatively untouched, with choice ciders and salt cubes, and of course, a game of poker with piles of bits on each end. People there played for serious gain, namely those who didn’t work the Appleloosa orchard. Four stallions sat at each seat, checking their hands and the expressions on the others’ faces. In front of an orange unicorn stallion with a red mane sat a particularly massive pile of bits, the corners of his mouth convulsing every which way in a vain effort to maintain a straight face. He then shoved the pile forward, then leaned back in his chair.

“All in.”

An earth pony stallion with a tan coat, black mane and a well-tended moustache looked at his own meager pile and his hand and scoffed at his partner. “Well, you sure are sure of yourself, Pine. I’m out.” He tossed his hand face-down onto the table.

Another unicorn stallion, dark red coat and white hair smirked looking at his hand and slid his fairly sizable pile into the middle of the table. “Dunno, maybe Pine here grew some wits and learned to bluff. He’s been luckier all day than he’s been in all the days we’ve played at this table, and it’s gotta run out. All in.”

A green-coated and emerald-maned pegasus threw up his hooves, his cards scattering with them. “Yeah, I don’t feel nearly that brave or stupid. I’m out.”

The red-coated Unicorn lays out his hand. “Straight Flush.”

The Pine lay down his cards, a grin spreading wide across his face as, for once, he got to gloat. “Should have done the smart thing, Bones. Royal Flush.”

“That’s his third one today!”

“Yeah, Bones, that grin on his face? Amateur mistake.”

Bones stared at the hand and shoved over his bits, then chuckled lightly as he shoved over his money. “Yeah, that was right stupid of me, huh? Guess we have to watch out for you next time, Piney-Colt.”

Pine pulled up his saddlebag and slides the bits into it, slinging it on his back. “Thank you kindly for your donations, fellas, but now I can get that old bat off my back about the rent and have enough left over to celebrate.” He slid out past the crowd, looking back at the table. “Oh, and save me a seat. I’ll buy a round of cider for all of you poor schmucks.”

Pine left the Salt Block, savoring his victory as he walked past the saloon doors, bumping his rear end up and down and grinning at the resistance that he’s receiving from all the gold bits inside. As he walked out, the wood above him creaked. He looked up, his eyebrows furrowed, though he looked back ahead and shrugged. He nearly left the establishment when the creaking yielded the sound of wood being ripped from nails. The wood above collapsed, the support beams immediately giving way as the canopy was crushed by the sign. It sent splinters and debris flying in every direction, a loud, wet crunch ripping from beneath the wreckage. The patrons of the Salt Block gasped in shock and terror as they looked over at where the stallion was crushed, seeing the splattered blood soak into the dirt road. Bones rushed out and looked around in a panic, staring at the far end of the debris where blood was oozing out into the street.

“Sweet Celestia... Someone get the Sheriff!”

****

Twilight’s eyelids fluttered open, looking out her window at the blue sky of the afternoon. She hadn’t slept in so much before, always waking up right on time, though she didn’t feel like getting up lately, just rolling on her back and staring at the ceiling. Seeing the outside of her house just filled her with the dread of knowing what was out there, what happened out there three days ago.

She turned over to her nightstand, seeing a scroll sitting on it, a letter from the Princess. Spike must have brought it for her while she was asleep. She didn’t bother calling for her draconic assistant, utilizing the magic in her horn to unfurl the scroll, which came remarkably easily, the seal already having been broken. She unfurled it and read over the letter for a few moments, skimming over it sleepily. A letter from the princess, likely acknowledging that she received the letter. A set of knocks rapped at the library door, Twilight trudging her way toward it, not even bothering to brush her mane.

“Just a sec,” her voice barely managed to groan out loud. The sound of her hooves dragging against the wood grain creaked across the room before she got to the door. She used her magic to swing the door open, in front of her standing a grinning Pinkie Pie, almost electrified with energy.

“HI TWILIGHT! I heard you were back in town but you didn’t come see us for a while and I realized that you’re only back for a little bit from your super advanced studies and I realized that we haven’t even had a party for you, so I’m throwing a ‘Welcome Back For A Little Bit From Your Super Advanced Studies Twilight’ party!”

The quick speech of Pinkie Pie just blended together in Twilight’s mind. It seemed to be a continuous stream of her bouncy friend’s normal hyperactivity, the only word that stood out was “Party” at the end.

“I’d love to come, Pinkie, but I’m not feeling too good,” Twilight muttered, though not even attempting a cough or feeling sick.

“But... This is your party, Twilight. I mean, how can it be your party if you don’t show up?”

Twilight was caught in a corner. She couldn’t come up with a feasible excuse for not coming... Suddenly, she jerked to the side, realizing that she had been shoved out of the doorway by Spike.

“Don’t worry, Pinkie Pie! Twilight’s just a little groggy, she had a lot of catching up to do before she could officially enjoy her vacation, you know how she gets.”

“Okie dokie Loki! See you at the party, Twilight! It’ll be at Sugar Cube Corner!” The pink earth pony, satisfied with the response, began humming to herself as she hopped back to town. Twilight glowered at Spike, though didn’t have the energy to roll back on her legs, much less get angry at him. Spike, however, was far more awake than she was.

“Twilight, you’re going to that party,” he said with a combination of authority and concern.

“Since when could you give me orders, Spike...?”

“Since you’ve been locking yourself in the library and moping by yourself more than any pony ever should. You need to get out and see your friends! Even the Princess said so-” Spike then covered his mouth, realizing that he just dug his own grave.

“... Spike, did you read my mail?”

“Well, I was going to read it to you, but you were asleep way earlier than you usually were... In fact, I don’t think you even left the bed yesterday.”

“I didn’t feel like it.”

“That’s exactly the problem! You don’t feel like doing ANYTHING since you got back from... Whatever it is you got back from! And I know that whatever advanced studies these are, they aren’t the ones everypony else thinks they are!”

Twilight shot up, her pupils shrinking while her eyes widened, her breath stolen from the next word that came out of her mouth. “What?”

“Yeah, I said I read the letter, and again, you somehow missed that! I don’t know what’s going on, so I won’t pretend I do... But the Princess told you not to blame yourself for what happened, and that you need to spend time with your friends on your time off.” The violet dragon took a deep breath, evidently having expended much of it. “I’m worried, Twilight, we all are. We get the feeling that there’s something you aren’t telling us, and this letter doesn't help...”

Twilight’s stomach sunk down as the fact that Spike knew too much sunk in. ”What am I supposed to tell them...? ‘Hey everypony, I’ve been working with a secret society that hunts monsters and people who try to overthrow the Princess- Just Princess Celestia, not Luna. Oh, and on my first mission, I let a high-profile composer DIE because I screwed up!’ I can’t tell them the truth... I can’t lie to them either, though. They’re my friends...” She finally got herself onto her feet. “Spike... Start a bath for me. I’ll need to get ready for that party.”

Spike cracked a faint smile, nodding slowly at his friend. “Glad you came to your senses.” He began to walk toward the bathroom, starting the running water in the basement.

****

Twilight and Spike’s trip to Sugar Cube Corner had been mostly uneventful, the only notable event being a Pegasus’ shadow passing over her, though she didn’t get a good look at it. She lifted a hoof and tapped the door a three times. Once she did, the door swung open, a wave of confetti and streamers exploding out of the room, Pinkie Pie standing in the door with a beaming smile on her face and wearing a conical party hat.

“Twilight! I’m sooo glad you could make it!” Twilight smiled in turn, Spike walking ahead of her and looking around at the ensemble of food and decorations, including a banner across the ceiling that read “Welcome Back From Your Advanced Studies Twilight!” The violet Unicorn snickered to herself at how oddly specific the sign was. Frankly, this was hardly surprising to come from Pinkie Pie, but sometimes, thinking about it in more depth gave her the giggles.

“Glad to come, Pinkie. Looks like a great party so far...” Twilight’s eyes wandered across the room, counting the additional figures in the room. Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash were there, along with one other pony that she didn’t recognize. Standing by the punch bowl was a white-coated unicorn, the white tinged with the slightest hint of cyan, and a mane of sky-blue and teal. On her legs, she wore a silver band on the top and the bottom of her legs, pearls inlaid in each of the bands. She carried herself in an elegant, regal manner, and seemed incredibly out of place in the pink room with the streamers and pastries. The unicorn mare smiled and eyed Twilight, those blue eyes making contact with hers immediately. Twilight turned her eyes away immediately, turning over to Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie... Who’s that?”

“Oh! That’s Duchess Serebro Offuscata! I didn’t invite her though, she just showed up and, well, here she is! She said she heard about my parties from Canterlot and said she wanted to check it out!”

Twilight nodded slowly, her brow creased together. Seemed weird to her. No nobles have ever taken an interest in Ponyville before, why did they start now? ”No, don’t think like that, Twilight. That’s just paranoid... Save the paranoia for the Starlit.”

“You should totally go talk to her! She said she’s been dying to meet you, and everypony else already spoke to her!”

Twilight smiled and nodded slowly, silently inching toward the party-going noble. ”This is like seeing Princess Celestia apple-bucking at Sweet Apple Acres... What kind of noble is this?” Each of her hooves gingerly dragged her body closer to the punch bowl, the off-white coated mare smiling at her, pouring herself a glass of punch. The smile she wore on her face was one of meeting a long-expected guest, but her eyes fixed on Twilight in much the same way one of the party guests would be eying a slice of cake. Her deep voice droned out in a gentle yet firm Canterlot accent, her alabaster teeth only vaguely visible behind her lips.

“Twilight Sparkle, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” The Duchess inclined her head, her eyes closing as she announced “I am Duchess Serebro Offuscata. It’s an honor to meet you, Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of the Element of Magic.”

Twilight’s mouth opened into a wide grin, nodding silently at the Duchess who felt the compulsion to give the full noble introduction in the middle of one of Pinkie Pie’s parties. Her stomach wrapped itself into a twist, her mind still puzzling about at what this clearly important pony was doing in Ponyville.

“It’s certainly a pleasure to meet you, Duchess Offuscata, but... If it’s not impolite to ask, I was wondering-”

“What I’m doing in Ponyville?” Serebro held up her hoof before Twilight could speak, another of her gentle smiles and ravenous stares lining her face. “It’s quite alright. Your friends asked me already. The truth is... I like to be in the know about important ponies, and really, the upper crust of Canterlot is quite dull. So stuffy, so formal, so stagnant... Now, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, Heroes of Equestria? You are far more interesting, and besides, I’m amazed nopony’s taken an interest in you or your little town.”

A laugh crept through Twilight’s teeth, though it lacked any enthusiasm. A magenta glow surrounded her horn and one of the cups, dipping the cup into the punch and lifting it to her lips. After gulping it down in one swig, she dropped the cup on the table and finally replied, “Well, we’re certainly honored to have a member of the Noble houses with us here today.”

“The honor is all mine, Twilight Sparkle. There are strange things afoot, and it’s certainly good to know that we have heroes like you and your friends on our side.” The Duchess kept her eyes locked in on Twilight’s, never breaking contact for even a second. Twilight’s own gaze wandered for a few seconds before meeting hers, staring into her deep, blue irises. The noble bearing of this Duchess certainly came to light, her gaze commanded all of the unicorn's attention. Twilight couldn’t look away, and she wouldn’t dare try.

“Strange things like these incidents all over the Kingdom... Melodious Score being found dead, and of course, all of those freak accidents occurring over in Appleloosa... They’re even blaming the Princess for their misfortune there, if you could believe it, though one does wonder if this is truly misfortune or an orchestrated malice.”

“I should probably check it out,” Twilight blurted out as the words left her mouth long before they even formed in her head. She resisted the urge to slam her mouth shut with her hooves, though her pupils shrank back at the realization that she may have very well compromised her secrecy. Why did she just spill this out to a pony who speaks in perpetual purple prose? Twilight feared that she may have further piqued her curiosity, but rather than pry any further, the Duchess simply smiled and nodded.

“Such gallantry is to be expected from the bearers of the Elements. Perhaps you will find a solution. Now...” The noble unicorn held her hoof up and pointed to the others. “Join your friends. This is your party, after all. I’m merely a spectator.”

Twilight simply nodded slowly and smiled, slowly backing away. Largely disconcerted by the fact that her party had a spectator, and of such a high profile. She joined the crowd, trying her hardest to get the thoughts of Appleloosa’s plight out of her mind. She wanted to enjoy herself, even if it was only for a little while.

****

Stepping out of Sugar Cube Corner, it became abundantly clear that the party lasted far longer than she thought it did, the sun setting in the horizon. She and the other girls slowly dispersed, saying their goodbyes in between giggles and compliments to Pinkie Pie for a wonderful party. Twilight lost track of the noble who was stalking the party, though she stopped caring about her halfway through it. The orange light of the sunset slowly faded away, Twilight remaining still as she took in a deep breath through her nostrils with her eyes closed. Suddenly, from behind her, a familiar, rough voice called out to her in a name no one in Ponyville would have used, each of the words gravelly with exhaustion.

“Having fun, Nightfall?”

Twilight jumped in place as she not only heard the voice from behind her, but never heard the source ever moving behind her in the first place. Turning around, she saw Onyx standing behind, her messy, sky-blue hair far more frazzled than usual, tending to wisp back as though she had been flying forward for an extended period of time. She folded her wings in, her eyes giving her a half-lidded glare, her usually smug expression absent.

“Leave’s over, kiddo. Something’s come up, and we need all the hooves we can get on this thing.”

“Does it have anything to do with Appleloosa?” Just like at the party when she volunteered to look into it, she just spouted the question concerning the town without even thinking about doing it.

Onyx leaned back a moment, widened her eyes and turned around toward the edge of town. “Yeah, actually. That and many other outlying towns on Equestria’s frontier. How did you-”

“Lucky guess.” Twilight gave yet another apprehensive smile, the expression having gained a great deal of mileage from its use with Duchess Offuscata.

Onyx stared at Twilight blankly for several moments, blinking heavily and shaking her head. “Fine, let’s just go.” She let forth a sharp whistle that pierced through the air, then looking across the river. From the distance across the river came the black box carriage in response, crossing the river with all due haste. He stopped in front of the two mares, bucking the black box, and in so doing throwing the doors open. Onyx stepped in, Twilight following behind and sitting on the other side, the carriage starting off toward the forest.

****

The shanty town bustled with far more activity than usual, pairs of Starlit running to the wagon at the center of town, then leaving a few seconds later. Twilight and Onyx followed suit, moving with the others to the wagon. Standing there over a table with a map on top of it was Underhoof, pointing at teams of two and shouting out instructions, barely giving notice to Onyx and Twilight’s presence.

“And someone contact our Eyes and find out which Scion is in- Onyx, Nightfall, give me a moment...” He looked over at one of the couriers, who nodded in understanding and ran off to carry out his orders. Underhoof turned his attention to Nightfall and Onyx, then pointed to the map. “Alright, I’m going to give you the size of this very quickly- several outlying towns have been forming rebel forces against Princess Celestia. You’re going to find the source of these uprisings and get rid of it as quickly as you can.”

“Is one of those towns Appleloosa?” Again, she found herself saying the name of the town before she even considered asking the question, not even sure herself why she considered it. ”Why do I keep asking about it? Well, I suppose I know now that it does have something to do with this mess, but still...”

“It’s not a full-scale rebellion yet, but we’re starting to see the same signs. Disasters occurring in the town, then an instigator directs their frustrations at the Princess. If it follows the pattern, they’ll form their own rebellion cell, then they’ll start attacking Royal Officials, and then it repeats in another town when an instigator goes there. We’re not sure if it’s several different people, or the same person doing it under different aliases. Just to be safe, we’re sending teams into every town where these insurrections have taken place to make sure.”

Onyx rubbed her hoof down her eyelids, pulling it down and blinking several times. Looking between the map, Underhoof, then Twilight, she groaned out, “Do you have the full investigative report?”

“Yeah. I’ll give you a copy.”

“Good. Nightfall here will have something to do on the train ride... You’ll soak that stuff up like a sponge, won’tcha?” Onyx temporarily dropped her droopy, tired expression to give Twilight a good punch in the shoulder with her forehoof, though the strike landed far weaker than it normally would. A packet of papers was thrown into her face.

“There’s the report. Take the next train to Appleloosa, and ask for tickets under your name, Onyx. Princess Celestia has already taken care of the travel arrangements. Any questions you may have will be answered in the report. Dismissed.”

Onyx and Twilight bowed before Underhoof, turning to the carriage and walking off. The pegasus mare focused her gaze upon Twilight, her drooping eyes gaining a brief glint of resolve. She bent her head downward, grabbing the packet with her teeth, nudging the packet to Twilight.

“It’ll be a while before the next train comes by. We’ll head back to Ponyville so you can get your stuff ready. I'll get you some lore books to look over in case you have off-time. I’ll see you at the station.”

Twilight nodded, jumping into the Black Box carriage to head back to Ponyville. "I really hope this mission isn't anything like the last one..." Of course, a different voice in her head told her that it could only get worse from there.

Roots

The train horn whistled as the cars barreled down the tracks. Inside one of the cars, Twilight sat across from Onyx, her nose buried in the reports she had been given. Sifting through the papers, the unicorn soaked up every iota of information she could as her eyes scanned each page.

”The pattern seems pretty clear. Whoever this instigator- or instigators- are, they come in, blame misfortunes on the Princess, and the residents of each of the towns start attacking royal officials. Although... It is weird that he happens to come in just when all of these accidents are happening. If the instigator- or instigators- wants to start an insurrection, why isn’t he-”

Her train of thought suddenly stopped when a snore ripped through the air. Twilight flung her head upward, looking at the seat across from her. The sleeping form of Onyx lay sprawled across the bench, occupying enough space for three ponies to sit on. Twilight knew firsthand that the train trip to Appleloosa was long, but it was barely ten minutes since she and Onyx boarded and the pegasus mare already collapsed on her seat. Twilight’s eyes turned back to the reports, her mind refocusing on the matter at hand.

”If these are rebellions, what do they want? They haven’t made any demands or have shown any agenda beyond ‘make royal officials leave.’ I’d bet my front right hoof that there’s something else going on here, though we would have to observe the townsfolk of Appleloosa to get a clear idea of what that something else is.” She sifted through each of the reports, placing a hoof on her chin as her eyes scanned each of the pages thoroughly, making sure that her previous assessment didn’t just come from overlooking a detail in one of the reports.

****

A whole day would pass by, and Twilight’s research (interrupted only by a 3-hour nap) revealed that she didn’t miss anything. ”Great... That accomplished nothing. At least I’m right, but that doesn’t explain much...” She looked out the window, dropping the papers. The desert landscape began to yield to an apple orchard out in the distance, though she could see that many of the trees had withered, the leaves having fallen off and not so much as a blossom on any of the branches. Their destination grew nearer, as well as the chance to see just what was the driving force of this insanity.

“Find anything interesting in there, kid?” Onyx had evidently finally awoken from her slumber, though how long ago, Twilight wasn’t sure. She paid no attention to anything around her during her scrutiny to the packet of reports. She finally responded after leaning back in her seat.

“Other than the insurrections don’t make any sense, no.”

“A rebellion against Princess Celestia not making any sense? Stop the presses,” Onyx quipped, a smirk curling on the left side of her face.

The train stopped, the whistle blowing as the conductor announced, “Appleloosa, this stop is Appleloosa!” The pegasus mare immediately stood up from her seat and stretched, grabbing a sizable bag of her belongings, along with a flowing tan cloak. Twilight caught a slight glimpse of something metal sticking out of her saddlebag, though she immediately covered the bag with her cloak as she wrapped it around her neck. Twilight stuffed a saddlebag with her own baggage, which consisted mostly of paper, quills, ink (tightly sealed), the lore books brought with her from the camp, and of course, the reports that Underhoof lent to them.

“Well, don’t just stand there, kid. We’ve got some legwork to do.”

Twilight gathered up all the papers and followed Onyx to the nearest exit on the train, Upon leaving the train, her head swiveled about and took in the surrounding area of Appleloosa. When she first arrived, Applejack’s cousin Braeburn was sure to greet them immediately and tell them all the wonders of the small town.

“Huh... This is weird... Shouldn't Braeburn be out here to greet us by now?”

“Oh, sweet Celestia... You KNOW people here?” Onyx’s voice groaned with both concern and irritation.

“Well... We met briefly a while back when Applejack was-”

“Spare me the details and let’s just hope that the fact that people know who you are won’t become a problem.”

Twilight heaved a lengthy sigh, walking off the train station, her eyes scanning the town. “Let’s just find a hotel to stay in for the night,” she groaned as she walked down the dirt road. Twilight focused on the local watering hole, the Salt Block; a scaffold was set up on either side of the saloon, each side repairing the canopy, the massive sign with the salt shaker on it set to the side, a smaller, paper sign nailed to the saloon doors that read:

“Open During Repairs. Pardon the mess. -The Management”

She then caught a glimpse of a yellow-coated, blonde-haired Stallion wearing a brown vest and a stetson, all of which could only belong to Braeburn, Applejack’s cousin and the head of the Orchard in Appleloosa. His head lifted up, his face softening into a smile as he saw Twilight walking down the road along with a tan-cloaked, blue-coated stranger.

“Hi there, and welcome to Appleloosa. Ya must be one o’ Applejack’s friends,” Braeburn greeted Twilight, though without the normal spirit and vigor with which he greeted visitors the last time Twilight had come there. His face was tired, evidently every ounce of effort being put into keeping that smile upright. He didn’t even bother with the flamboyant introduction of his town of “AAAAAAPPLELOOOSA!”

“Yes, I’m Twilight Sparkle, though we’ve met before.”

“Sorry, name kinda slipped my mind there. Sure is nice meeting ya, Twilight Sparkle, but who’s yer friend there? Don’ think I rightly met her before...”

Onyx quickly filled in before Twilight could speak. “I’m Twilight’s teacher. She’s shown such promise that Princess Celestia has seen fit to allow her to study the cultures of ponies who live outside of the main body of the country!”

”Well... Gotta hand it to Onyx, she’s a talented liar. Not sure whether I should be impressed or scared.” Twilight nodded slowly. “Yeah... Anyway, Appleloosa happened to be our first stop. We'll be studying the settler ponies and how they get along out on the frontier.”

“See how we get along, huh?” Braeburn’s face fell for a moment, his eyes shifting between the ground and the Apple Orchard. “Sadly, we've been having more problems with that than we did when we first got here...” Suddenly, a carriage barreled past the three, being drawn by a pair of rather burly-looking earth ponies. The carriage was painted red and green, blue text written across the sides that read “DESTINY.”

“Speaking of problems...” Braeburn rolled his eyes as another pony, this one with a blonde-tan coat, brown mane and a mustache stepped out of the Sheriff’s office, standing out in front of the carriage as ponies from all over town began to crowd around it. The doors on the garish carriage swung open, a unicorn stallion wearing a stetson stepping down, his coat a light brown with his hair a dark green, tumbling out of his hat. His hazel eyes scanned the crowd that was surrounding him, the ponies in it muttering to themselves, though Twilight couldn’t distinguish anything in particular they were saying.

“That fella’s Caprice... Calls himself a ‘Professional Consultant,’ whatever the hay that means... In fact, I’m pretty convinced it don’t mean anythin’ at all.” Braeburn’s green eyes shot into the middle of the crowd, Onyx and Twilight turning to each other with their eyebrows raised. The pegasus mare leaned over to her unicorn “student’s” ear, glancing quickly at Braeburn to make sure that he wasn’t looking at them. Sure enough, his hateful gaze was still fixed on the crowd surrounding the gaudy “Destiny” carriage.

“He has a massive mob surrounding him and goes by a vague, shady job title? I think this might be our guy,” Onyx whispered into Twilight’s ear. She considered for a moment, then nodded slowly. Twilight couldn’t argue with that logic, it seemed pretty clear that this Caprice guy was who they were looking for.

The pony called Caprice produced a large wooden crate and lay it on the ground, stepping on it as he surveyed the whole crowd. In the distance, the Sheriff watched the crowd, keeping his eyes peeled for any trouble that might arise, whoever it might come from in this massive, street-clogging mob. The unicorn at the center of the mob took a deep breath and projected his voice across the town.

“Citizens of Appleloosa! I come bearing news from the Capital! Your small town is still forgotten by Princess Celestia! Cloudsdale still sends you no clouds to water your crops while your orchards wither away!” The pony on the box turned his attention toward Braeburn. The orchard pony averted his gaze, his green eyes focusing on Twilight.

“But don’t be afraid, Appleloosa, for I, Caprice, come here with the ability to grant you whatever favors you need! Just line up in front of the carriage, and I shall address any need brought to me, great or small! I’ll be here for the next week and no longer, so don’t delay!” The chatter among the ponies of the town grew louder, a line starting to form immediately in front of the carriage, as per its owner’s instructions. Twilight paid special attention to each of the people in the line, seeing each of them with creased brows once they found themselves being pushed forward as people entered the carriage.

“Guess most folks’ll listen to anyone if they’re desperate enough... Can’t say I entirely blame ‘em.” Braeburn looked over to the orchard, then back at Twilight.

“Well, maybe you can tell me what’s been going on here, if it isn’t too much trouble. I haven’t heard anything from Applejack about it, and I thought she’d be in touch with you.”

Braeburn swiveled his head back and forth, then nodded at Twilight, motioning toward him with his right hoof as he weaved past the crowd toward the Salt Block. Twilight looked over at Onyx and nodded.

“I’ll do some of my own digging around here.”

“Alright. I’ve got some preparations of my own to make...” Onyx shifted the saddlebags on her back and moved toward the town inn. “I’ll see you later, kid.”

****

Twilight and Braeburn entered the partially-repaired Salt Block saloon. The two of them seated themselves at one of the tables near the bar, the yellow orchard pony looking around. The saloon was virtually empty, save for the bartender.

“Can I get ya folks somethin’?”

Braeburn looked up at the bartender, nodding slowly. “Two ciders.”

“Hard or soft?”

“Soft for the lady, hard for me.”

“Comin’ up.”

While the bartender dispensed the drinks, Braeburn left some bits on the table for him to take. After the mugs were taken to the table, the bartender immediately took the bits and inclined his head politely, heading back behind the bar while the yellow orchard pony took his first drink of the cider. Lowering the mug, his eyes locked in contact with Twilight’s, the pupils in the center of the green irises zeroing in on her.

“So, how’s AJ been doin’?”

“Well, she was fine last time I was around... Studies have been taking me all over the place. Equinology is one of those things that has to be experienced, you know?” Twilight laughed nervously, realizing that he probably didn’t know and her lie might fall through immediately; she was never particularly good at keeping secrets.

“‘s good to hear.” Braeburn evidently didn’t care to examine it further, nodding slowly as he took another chug of his cider. Twilight shifted uncomfortably in her chair, the whole situation reminiscent of a blind date, complete with awkward small-talk and equally awkward moments of dead silence. A few minutes passed before Twilight finally mustered up the resolve to ask what she intended to.

“Braeburn, when did all of this start? All the weird accidents and this Caprice stallion, I mean.”

“Let’s see...” The yellow orchard pony took a few moments to consider, his eyes drifting off to the side as his hoof held the mug in mid-air, just inches away from his lips. After taking another drink, he gulped down the portion of liquid that entered his mouth, traveling down his throat. “All started when the town started goin’ dry...”

“Going dry? Don’t the pegasi provide regular rainfall?”

“Actually, they don’t, it’s part of what got everyone here so riled up in the first place. Appleloosa is a pretty young outlying town, and is pretty low on their priorities compared to, say, Ponyville or other towns that have had long-established crop export. Most of the time, we have to write letters to get them to even come here in the first place. It’s usually not a big deal; we send the letter, they bring the clouds, it rains for a while, and we have water to last us a good year. Course, ya can probably guess that ain’t how it went...”

“They never brought the rainfall and the orchard died, right?”

“Well... Not quite.” Braeburn gulped down more of his cider before continuing, wiping his mouth. “See, when we sent out the letter, we never got a reply from Cloudsdale about it. They never came by for months, so we sent one of our pegasi to go to Cloudsdale himself to see what was going on, though he didn’ come back either. Before we could really do anything about it, some weird stallion rode into town on the weirdest-lookin’ carriage I ever did see...”

“Caprice.”

“Yep... Caprice rode into town tellin’ everypony that Cloudsdale an’ Canterlot forgot about Appleloosa entirely, sayin’ that we were just gonna be left out to die. Course, no pony took him seriously at first, but then he said he knew where to find water...” He lifted his mug and took another swig of his cider, setting it down before he continued.

“Everypony got excited, though I naturally asked him to show us where it was. He asked for my name, I told him, and then he asked me to tell him what I wanted again. When I told him that I wanted him to show us where to find the water, he wandered around the desert for a few hours until he told us to dig. When we did...”

“You found an underground spring. But I don’t understand, why did your orchard die out if you found water?”

“That’s the weird part... When I found the water, I’ll admit I was plum grateful to Caprice for helping me find it, and for the first few days, the orchard was fine, but then, after a week passed by, half the trees just up and died!”

“Has anything else like this happen? Like, a really weird stroke of bad luck?”

“Well, now that ya mention it... Caprice found us a gold mine, and a few days later, it collapsed for no reason... A young stallion managed to court the mare of his dreams, only for her to fall down the stairs and split her skull when she hit the bottom... And not too long before ya got here, a young colt got crushed by the Salt Block sign after he won a game of Poker.”

Twilight’s brow creased in on itself, her eyes widening while her pupils shrunk in shock. She started running several possibilities through her mind. Just as she was told, strange accidents have been occurring here, and the last one certainly explained the state of the Salt Block. Twilight, however, fixated upon the first problem.

“Getting back to the Orchard... Did someone poison the soil or the water?”

“If they did, I don’t see how. We had some of our resident unicorns check the water and the soil, said they were fine. If there was somethin’ wrong with the water, they said, it’d affect the townsfolk too since they’ve been using it for drinking. As for the soil, they never found anything in there that wasn’t there a week before.”

Twilight’s brow creased as she considered logical explanations, then one crossed her mind that, admittedly, before she was recruited, she wouldn’t have thought of it. Now, it seems to be the only likely conclusion; magical sabotage.

“Braeburn, can you take me to the orchard? I’d like to do some digging around of my own.”

“Well... Sure, I guess. Not sure how ya’d find anything no pony else has found yet, but I suppose ya ain’t the Princess’ personal student fer nothin’.” The yellow orchard pony gulped down the rest of his cider, then walked out toward the doors of the bar. Twilight, having barely touched hers, gulped down several swallows before she got up to follow him.

”I really hope I’m wrong,” she thought to herself.

****

Onyx had already reserved the room at the inn, relaxing on one of the beds. While it was mildly irritating that the filly she was charged with keeping a watch over already knew ponies here, she didn’t care much. Just meant other ponies would look after her. Besides, this town was in the process of an insurrection, and the Starlit have the first and foremost duty of ensuring loyalty to the Princess.

”Let the kid do the detective work... Seems pretty clear to me that this Caprice guy is who we’re looking for. Once the kid gets that fact confirmed... I get to do the fun part.” She set down her saddlebags, the sound of metal jingling with metal crashing as she dropped it on the mattress. A grin spread across her face as she reached into the bag, interrupted suddenly by the sound of hooves slamming on the door.

“HEY, PERDY LADY!” shouted the voice from the other side of the door with a distinctive, raspy slur. Onyx pulled the saddlebags down, pushing them under the bed as she approached the door. After her steady approach, she looked out the peep-hole, her face grimacing at what she saw; a brown-coated earth pony with a graying mane and a lopsided hat wobbled back and forth in front of the door. His face was covered with grains of a white substance, no doubt the source of his inebriated demeanor.

“Hey! C’mon, don’ be like that! Yer the perdiest mare I ever did see-HIC!” Onyx ground her teeth together, turning around and looking at the saddlebags under the bed.

”No one would have to know... It’d be quick and- No. A sudden disappearance like that with no plan would draw attention...” Onyx looked down, ensuring the door was locked, even going so far as to slide the chain into the door. She quickly ran to the windows, opening them up and tossing her cape to the side. Extending her wings, she leapt out the opening to escape her pursuer for some fresh air.

****

Twilight hadn’t fully appreciated just how withered the orchard was when she came on the train ride, but seeing it up close had made the magnitude of this disaster clear. The trees had long since lost all of their leaves, the branches bare and brittle. The ground beneath both her and the orchard pony crunched with both leaves, the dry ground, and apple seeds that never so much as settled in the earth beneath them.

“How did it happen?” Twilight asked Braeburn, bending down to take a closer look at one of the trees. Her hoof swept the leaves to the side, inspecting the roots more closely as the Apple Family pony responded.

“A week after Caprice found the water and I started using it for the orchard, all the trees started to wither away. I tried to keep them alive, though the more I watered them, the worse they got... Eventually, they all just died off.” His voice sank at the end, his eyes turning away from the trees to look at anything else.

Twilight perked her ears as she considered closely what might cause something like that.

”Whatever it is, it’s probably choking the roots and keeping the trees from absorbing the water. It may be some sort of underground creature chewing the roots, but more likely than not, Braeburn would’ve done something about that before it became a problem, and someone would’ve noticed. Magic is the only way something would get under the ground without leaving any evidence, but what would be able to do something like that? Weeds came to mind, but I would’ve seen weeds. I need to see the roots myself to be sure...” Twilight then turned over to the yellow orchard pony, her eyes stern with authority as her investigative instincts kicked into high gear.

“Braeburn, can you dig up the area around the trees?”

“Here I thought ya were gonna do yer own diggin’.” Braeburn snickered, kneeling down in the dirt and digging his hoof into the ground, pulling the soil away from the tree roots as Twilight watched. Braeburn suddenly stopped digging, grunting in pain as blood trickled down his foreleg.

“Ow!”

Twilight’s head shot up as he cried out in pain, looking at the ground where he was digging, looking closely at what he found underneath.

“Thorns...?” She gingerly shifted some of the dirt out of the way, finding branches of thorny bramble that wrapped around the tree root, winding deeper into the ground, evidence of more of the anomalous plants strangling the roots as they went deeper in.

“Well that’s just crazy... How would a plant like that grow underground? Bramble’s green ‘n’ leafy, how would it get by without sunlight?”

“Magical transmogrification, probably using dead plant matter to turn it into the bramble that’s choking the roots of the trees. There are probably thousands of these things underneath the orchard.” Twilight stood still, staring at the thorny vines that burrowed their way into the ground.

“I think I can narrow down who did it. Magic has a resonant frequency that’s left behind as an electromagnetic signature on what they used the magic on-”

“Um, Miss Twilight, I have no idea what ya just said there after ‘Magic.’”

Twilight coughed as she looked to the side, giggling nervously as she realized that she was saying what she was thinking out loud. “Eheh... Sorry. Basically, everypony’s magic leaves traces behind on things they use magic on in the form of a color. I can cast a spell to power up the magic that was last used on the object. It’ll show me of course that magic has actually been used there in the first place, and when it appears...”

“Ya can figure out who magicked up the thing you use that spell on by figuring out their magic color!”

“Now you’re getting it!” Twilight smiled and nodded, taking a brief moment of gratification that not only was she able to explain it clearly, but that she got somepony else to finish her sentence concerning her thought process. “I just need to get the spell started and...” She shut her eyes, her horn glowing a bright magenta and glowing brighter with each passing second. Her teeth clenched together while the light around her horn grew brighter, focused into a beam and fired into the vines. After the magic was released, Twilight released a heavy breath she had been holding as she knelt down, some of the hairs on her coat seeming to stand on end as though getting a sudden chill.

“Alright! That should do it, the spell worked! Braeburn... What color is the vine glowing?” Twilight’s voice was lined with confidence, believing that she was now one step closer to solving this mystery, though Braeburn hardly shared the same optimism.

“Uh... Ya sure the spell worked?”

“Of course I am! I can feel the magic being radiated off the vines!”

“Well, I’m only askin’ ‘cause I don’t see anythin’.”

“What?!” Twilight finally looked at the bramble and, sure enough, it wasn’t even glowing a color. Her jaw dropped in shock as her spell seemed only partially successful in revealing to her that there was, in fact, magic present, but for one reason or another, she couldn’t see the color.

“I dunno what to tell ya, Miss Sparkle... I know it can’t be much else other than magic, but ya did say that all unicorn magic has a color, and either yer spell didn’t work-” Twilight glared at Braeburn for just a moment, forcing him to avert his eyes and complete his thought. “...Or there’s somethin’ about this magic that makes it so ya can’t see a color.”

Twilight’s brow creased together while the words that the orchard pony spoke echoed in her head. ”All unicorn magic has a color... All UNICORN magic has a color...” Her eyes drifted back to the bramble in the ground, still feeling the magic that pervades the vines emanating off it. ”...Not a color, an electromagnetic frequency, which means that there’s a chance there’s magic that has a signature outside the visible electromagnetic spectrum that-” Twilight’s eyes widened as her mouth opened up, her voice whispering her thought out loud.

“That wouldn't come from a pony.” Twilight stood absolutely still, staring straight forward at nothing. She finally gathers her composure and stands up tall, turning back to Appleloosa and walking toward it. Braeburn calls out to her as she moves past.

“Where’re ya goin’?”

“Back to town. You get together an effort to clear out the bramble underneath the trees. That should solve the orchard problem.”

“What’re ya gonna do?”

Twilight stopped for a moment before turning her head back to Braeburn. Her eyes fixed on him with an unwavering gaze that pierced straight into his own eyes.

“I'm going to find the source.”

Iron

The navy blue figure of Onyx sailing through the sky shot straight out of Appleloosa from the inn’s second story window. She didn’t bother looking back, trying to get as far away from civilization as possible, in particular the inevitable element of civilization known as the town drunk. Having endured his flirtations far past the breaking point, she fled the city if only to prevent herself from succumbing to her urge to slaughter the idiot then and there.

Her flight from the town brought her to Appleloosa’s outskirts, the stretch of desert that was technically their territory, though nothing was really done with it other than to serve as a cushion between the town, the Buffalo lands and anyone else. Onyx slowed down her movement, her wings beating at a far more steady pace while her body gradually reached the ground. She blew a jet of air out of the left side of her mouth, her eyelids sinking halfway in exasperation as she took a moment to enjoy the peace and quiet. She flared her nostrils and took in a deep breath, though stops her inhalation when her nose was invaded with a rancid, familiar stench.

“The hell...?” Onyx turned to her right, finding four warped masses of flesh and bone being encircled by flies. She gingerly inched closer to the carcasses, finding on closer inspection that they were all pegasi. It was difficult to really distinguish who they were, seeing as much of their bodies have been consumed by the desert’s plethora of carrion feeders. The rest of the fetid flesh was being slowly eaten away by smaller organisms, though beneath each of the bodies were dried saddlebags. Reaching her hoof over, Onyx pulled away one of the bags and lifted the flap. Inside were several letters, addressed to Cloudsdale and Canterlot, each from the office of the mayor of Appleloosa.

”They’re all mail-mares...” Onyx sifted through all of the bags of the dead ponies in front of her, grabbing each of their letters that they were delivering and holding them in her mouth. Clenching them firmly in her teeth, she turned over to Appleloosa and stretched out her wings. She broke into a gallop and leapt into flight to head back to town.

****

Twilight walked up the stairs of the inn after being given a key at the front desk. On her way up, she saw a stallion whose mouth was encrusted with salt unconscious near the door to the room. She furrowed her brow for just a moment, inserting the key into the lock and turning it, pushing the door open. On the bed was Onyx, looking up from her resting place as she looked through these letters.

“Hey. Back from your hoofwork?”

“Yeah, just finished taking a look at the orchard.”

“Oh?” Onyx opened up another one of the letters and started to scan through it. “Do tell.”

“Apparently, all of this trouble started when Appleloosa kept sending in requests for rainwater to Cloudsdale, but never got a response to their letters. When the ponies started getting restless, the Caprice guy showed up and started to rile them up, telling them that Canterlot has forgotten them. He then started doing them favors, then-”

“That’s when things started getting weird.”

“Yeah. He seems to be miraculously able to grant these favors, but after he does it, something goes horribly wrong.”

“How many times did this happen?”

“Well... Braeburn told me about four of them, including him getting the water for his orchard, then the whole orchard withering away.”

Onyx furrowed her brow, muttering to herself as she considered different possibilities. “Some kind of wish-granter... Djinn? No, not Djinn, too many favors... This place would be a smoldering hole in the ground by now... That just leaves...”

“Leaves what?”

The navy blue pegasus furrowed her brow as she bit the bottom of her lip. “Hold that thought. You said that the letters to Cloudsdale never got to their destination, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I found these out on the desert... Along with the mail mares that were supposed to be carrying them.” She shoved the letters over to Twilight. Upon receiving them, Twilight sifted through each of the letters and examined them.

“... These are all the requests.”

“Yep.”

“Well... Given the fact that Caprice started granting these favors right after the town dried up and communications with the town stopped... I think it's safe to assume he has something to do with it. What about all the other stuff? Whether or not it's him, what can cause all of that to happen?”

“If it’s Caprice, then he could just be a really bad apple of a unicorn mage.”

“No, I ruled that out. When I checked the orchard, I checked for a residual magic signature, and there was magic present, but it had no visible resonant frequency, which means that-”

“Right, there’s magic involved and it isn’t unicorn magic. And before you ask, it was one of the things the Starlit taught us to look for when it came to supernatural phenomena in training.” Onyx huffed in frustration, blowing a stray hair from her mane away from her eye. “Now we’re back to square one.”

Twilight flopped onto the bed beside Onyx’s, staring up at the ceiling. She tried to wrap her brain around the whole situation, though nothing seemed to make sense. "Maybe I should start digging through the lore books we brought... Wait, what am I saying? Onyx is here with me! She probably knows something from practical experience. She did mention another sort of creature it could possibly be...”

“Hey, Onyx, you mentioned some other kind of Wish-Granting creature that might be responsible?”

“A Djinn? Already ruled that out. More than three miraculous events occurred, and they don’t go out of their way for anypony. After the three wishes, they would have burned the town to a cinder.”

“You were going to mention something else.”

Onyx shut her lips tight, her eyes shifting to the side. She took several deep breaths while Twilight continued to push the question.

“What was it?”

Onyx hissed through her breath, her voice faint with exasperation. “Alright... This thing is able to perform enormous magical feats related to luck and fate, leaves behind no visible magic resonant frequency, and from what I can tell, it requires a verbal contract. This sounds a lot like...” She muttered just barely under her breath. “... A Fae.”

“A what?”

“A Faerie.”

A silence hung over the room for a brief moment. The silence broke when Twilight burst into laughter, rolling straight off the bed as soon as Onyx finished the sentence. The pegasus mare shot her companion the kind of glare one gives somepony when they laugh at a child suffering a fatal injury. When Twilight finally regained her composure and rose up from the bed, she giggled slightly, though suddenly stopped when she finally saw Onyx’s face.

“... Something tells me Faeries aren’t anything like they are in old Pony Tales.”

“Let me put it this way; you wouldn’t be laughing if you’ve seen one. The Starlit have dealt with those monsters for centuries, and we've gone so far as to give out an order to kill any Fae that are spotted immediately. These things are trouble, and it's starting to look like there's one here."

"Wait, if you had a directive to kill every Fae you've ever spotted, and that order was given centuries ago, how's one still alive?"

"They're crafty little bastards. They're good at hiding until they decide to have a little fun, or at least, what they call fun. The Fae and Discord have pretty similar taste in entertainment, and frankly, it's pretty damn scary."

Twilight considered the gravity of the statement; this was coming from a pony who's seen the likes of the Sleepless Dreamer and other sorts of monsters that she only heard of in story books. “Looks like I’ve got some studying to do. Do any of the Lore Books we brought with us have any information on the Fae?”

Onyx rummaged through the saddlebags, looking through each of the tomes and flipping through them. Holding out one, she tosses it over to Twilight’s bed. “One of the old research journals. This one just has one page about the Fae, but it’s better than nothing.” The book was leather-bound, tied together with frayed, dry chords. Twilight gingerly opened the book, Onyx stepping toward the door.

“Oh, and to save you some time, kid, the Fae are weak against iron. We’re not sure if steel works, but we know for sure that if they touch pure iron, they’re pretty much dead.”

Twilight’s head shot up at Onyx before she opened the door. “If you knew that, why can’t you tell me what the contents of the book are?”

“I only retained two lessons from reading that excerpt about the Fae, and they're the only ones I’ll ever need.”

“And that is?” Twilight asked as the pegasus mare opened the door and stepped out. Onyx looked back in the room for a moment with a wicked grin on her face.

“1. Iron kills Fae. 2. Don't ever make deals with the Fae. Ever.” She bucked the door shut behind her, Twilight cringing at the sound of the door’s impact. She turned her attention back to the book, concentrating her magic on flipping each individual page until she found what she was looking for. The top of the page had the words “ON THE FAE” scrawled on it. She peered down and immediately soaked in the contents of the page.

Given our recent discovery that the Sisterhood of the Night used Fae Contracts to obtain strange, otherworldly power, I put together everything I could about Fae contracts based both on legends and on previous Starlit encounters with these unholy monstrosities.

Twilight gulped for a second at the “unholy monstrosities” part of the page.

The Fae have a perplexing power to change fate in such a way to do unbelievable feats of magic, among them being shapeshifting (which leads me to believe they may be related to Changelings, perhaps their ancestors), but they also have the ability to warp reality itself. However, this power has limits: in order to act upon something, the Fae had to have made a contract that had to do with that specific subject. To affect ponies, they need the pony’s true name before they can do anything for them or to them. These contracts are made when a normal pony gives the Fae their name and makes a request. Once a Faerie makes a contract, it has power over anything mentioned in it. Even the casual mention of a place or an object in the pact gives the creature dominion over it.

“So basically, you have to be very careful about what you say when you make a deal with them. Braeburn must have mentioned the orchard when asking about the water, and the pony who was crushed by the sign probably mentioned that he wanted to win the poker game at the Salt Block specifically.” Twilight pursed her lips while she continued to read down the page. “Also explains why the Starlit are careful about names... One of these things hears your name in conversation, they can kill you if they wanted to.” She gulped, realizing just how deep in trouble she was in. She wasn’t just known, she was famous... Then again, if the creature here was a Faerie, why hadn’t it attacked her sooner? It would have known her name already. She kept reading...

The Fae are compelled to obey the terms of a contract in the same way any normal pony is compelled to eat and breathe, but once the contract’s terms are fulfilled, the creature will almost immediately turn on the pony who it made the pact with. Fae Contracts always end in outrageous tragedy, so my advice to all Starlit who encounter these creatures (which given that the Sisterhood is making contracts with them, they certainly will) is this: do not make any deals with them if you value your life. The Fae will make fools of all of you, if you live to tell of it.

Iron is the bane of all Fae, and they can’t survive its touch. It must be pure iron, however. Anything else, anything mixed into it will render the weapon useless.

Twilight slowly closed the book, sliding it off to the side. She leapt off the bed and looked out the window, scanning the town for a moment. “Well, Twilight, I think now’s a good time for your very first trip to the blacksmith...”

****

Walking in front of the town’s smithy, Twilight took a quick glance, specifically at the walls; countless tools were hanging off the walls, including hammers, tongs, molds, and many other items that she couldn’t readily identify. The sound of metal pounding on metal rang throughout the interior of the shop, her attention turning to the back of the room. There she saw an earth pony, orange mane and yellow coat pounding away at a glowing, super-heated piece of metal on an anvil. She stood outside for a few moments, not sure whether or not to go in.

"Iron is the bane of all Fae... Its touch is deadly to them. That's what the book said. I guess it's good to have a weapon but... Do I really have to kill it? I suppose it isn't really a pony and it's hurting ponies, but..." Twilight gulped and shook her head. "Do I really have a choice? This thing is a monster. It's already killed other ponies before, and nothing is stopping it from killing more. I'm doing the right thing... Aren't I?" She took a deep breath and slowly trot into the blacksmith. She cleared her throat, trying to grab his attention.

“Excuse me, sir?”

He kept pounding away, clearly not hearing her the first time.

“Excuse me... HEY!”

The blacksmith stopped for a moment, turning around to face Twilight. A pair of tired, brown eyes examined Twilight for a few seconds, sweat pouring off the stallion’s brow before he reached down and dabbed his head dry.

“Somethin’ I can help ya with, ma’am?”

“Hi there, I’m just looking for some tools, preferably something in iron?”

The blacksmith grunted and turned back to his work. “Fresh outta luck there, kiddo. Ever since the drought, I had to sell all o’ my iron ore.”

“And who bought it?”

“Don’ rightly know. I mentioned to Caprice that I was low on bits and it’d be nice if I could sell somethin’, even my ore. Caprice said he had a buyer, he brought me bits, so I sent it off where he told me.”

Twilight kept her smile up, though cursed to herself. “Should’ve known he would’ve done something like this... Way to get your hopes up, since, you know, the creature you were hunting would definitely keep the components to something that could kill him instantly within hoof’s reach.”

“Where did you get the iron in the first place? Not much gets shipped to Appleloosa.”

“The gold mine we found a while back. When we got done prospectin’ it, we found out that there was some iron ore in it. Only got a little bit before-”

“Before the mine collapsed, right?”

The blacksmith’s eyes fixed on Twilight for just a second before he nodded. “That’s right.”

The pieces fit together all too perfectly in Twilight’s head. Caprice seems to be covering his bases fairly well, doing a good job of hiding a weakness that nopony, save for those that might be hunting him, would be looking for.

“Could you tell me where the old mine is?”

“It ain’t safe there, miss.”

“Just so I know.”

The blacksmith released a breath from flared nostrils, looking at his handiwork before setting his hammer on the anvil, then sticking his current project into the forge, walking to the bellows and working them in to fan the flames inside. He turned over to Twilight, then looked out the door.

“The mine’s southwest of town, buried under a pile o’ rubble. Can’t miss it.” He went straight back to his work, Twilight bowing her head toward him.

“Thank you, sir.” She turned and walked away. The blacksmith pony’s work suddenly stopped when a hammer from the wall-rack fell off of its place and struck him across the leg, causing him to fall on top of the bellows and give it far more pressure than it needed. Twilight quickly turned around and cast a protective spell around the forge, seeing chunks of superheated coal nearly fly out toward a can of oil, though when they hit the magic forcefield, they bounced back inside the forge. The blacksmith stallion picked himself back up, his jaw hanging limp when he finally processed what he just saw.

“Ma’am... Sure was lucky you were here. Thanks.”

Twilight’s eyes widened halfway through the sentence. She smiled and nodded slowly. “Yeah... Lucky... You’re welcome, sir, and try to be more careful.” She bowed quickly before running to the door, though she stopped for a second, then turned around.

“Sir... If I were to bring you some iron ore, would you be able to make something out of it?”

“I could. It’d cost you a few bits and time that it’d take to melt down the ore and meld it with some coal to make ste-”

“I want to keep it pure iron, and I’d prefer it cold-worked.”

The blacksmith raised a brow, his next sentence lined with apprehension, as though he was speaking to someone who didn’t know that sticking your hoof in a fire was a bad idea. “Miss... Do you realize that if iron is just cold-worked and pure, it’s going to be brittle, right?”

Twilight’s head grew hot as her eyebrows creased together, her teeth gritting at the sound of being talked down to. She avoided making eye contact with the smith though, trying not to give him the impression that he made her angry. She asked quickly in turn, “Can you do it or not?”

“... Yes, ma’am. Don’t expect a masterpiece from me though, a blacksmith is only as good as his tools.”

“Speaking of which... I’ll be off to get your ore.” Twilight walked out the door, looking to the southwest before the blacksmith called out to her.

“Ma’am, that mine’s collapsed. You’re going to need help clearing it away.”

Twilight stopped for a second, then turned back to the blacksmith with a smirk spread across her face. Her horn began to shimmer with energy as she gave one final response.

“Oh, I think I can handle it.” A flash of light burst before the blacksmith’s eyes once the magic around Twilight’s horn reached its zenith, sending her to her destination.

Break

Onyx lay on her belly atop the roof of the inn, having gone there after leaving Twilight to her studies. She made sure to remain toward the center of the roof, lowering her saddlebags and rifling through them. She produced a rather large, indigo cloak with a black, circular brooch and a hooded cowl. Clipping it on as the sun set, she reached into the bag with her mouth, gripping onto a metallic object and pulling it out.

“Hello there, beautiful,” she cooed at the object. Her thoughts suddenly began to wander, turning over to the street side while she shut her eyes in a meditative trance...

****

“We were lucky to get out of there alive!” Onyx moved through the trees of the Everfree Forest, running and weaving between each of them, stopping only for a moment to look behind her. She was far younger, her build more lithe, though less defined, her sky-blue mane shorter and far less wild than it would later be. Lagging behind was the exhausted figure of a brown unicorn stallion, his hazel eyes sagging as his black mane swung side to side, stringy from the sweat pouring from his body.

“Would it... Have killed you... To wait... After we-” the voice was interrupted by several coughs. He was having enough trouble speaking when every few words required that he take another breath. He knelt down by a tree, taking in several quick, deep breaths and resisting every urge his body had to just fall onto the ground and give in to his fatigue.

“Whoa, you’re really out of shape. And you’re supposed to be looking out for me.” Onyx smirked at the brown unicorn. Before the other could protest, she looked beyond the trees, seeing several tents pitched up in the middle of a clearing in the forest with a wagon in the center. Her eyes lit up, her sore legs the only things preventing her from breaking into a sprint to get to the middle of the camp. She grinned to herself and pat the brown unicorn on the back, inadvertently knocking him into the ground.

“Well now, Underhoof, looks like your exhausting task of keeping an eye on me is finally over.” After Underhoof picked himself back up, the two approached the camp, heading straight for the wagon in the center of the clearing. As they moved, they passed by several ragged, unkempt ponies pouring through tomes of occult lore, maintaining weapons, and a few of them training for combat. The brown unicorn stayed back, then gestured over to the wagon, his current attempts to speak constricted by his exhaustion. Onyx, however, comprehended immediately, heading inside the wagon.

Sitting in the wagon was an earth pony with a creme-colored coat and a flowing mane of fiery red hair. A mare well into her late 30s, age only beginning to chip away at her features, but not at her resolve, since as soon as Onyx stepped inside the wagon, her eyes went straight for hers. The pupils at the center of those orange irises fixed themselves on the young pegasus filly’s green eyes. The silence in the wagon was broken by the older mare’s stern yet restrained voice.

“Where’s Underhoof?”

“He’s resting outside.”

“Resting?”

“Well, yes. The last half of the mission involved a lot of running.”

Brazier’s eyes finally shifted their gaze, but only to examine the filly in front of her more thoroughly, her eyes turning their attention to the saddlebag on her flank, noting a bulge on the bottom of the sack. She then leaned back in the chair and resumed eye contact.

“A lot of running after mapping the forest... I assume you ran into some kind of creature on your way back.”

“Uh... Yeah. Manticore. Big one.”

“Interesting... It must have been quite the generous manticore.”

Onyx tilted her head.

“Miss Brazier?”

“It must have been a generous manticore if it left something in your saddlebags to come home with.” The mare held out her hoof, jerking it toward herself. Onyx rolled her eyes and pulled the bag off, setting it on the ground. Out from the opening rolled a silver leg bracelet, exquisitely crafted with an inlaid pearl on what could only be assumed to be the front. The mare called Brazier picked it up and examined the jewelry closely.

“Inlaid pearl, silver bracer...” She held it above her head to look on the inside. “Runic engraving in its middle, likely magically charged... I daresay, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you stole this from some powerful ponies.” She dropped it back in front of Onyx. The pegasus filly sighed, resigned to her fate.

“I’m guessing you’ve found something while you were out there... Something, no doubt, that the bracelet there belonged to.”

“Yes. I found the bracelet.”

“Very funny.” Brazier’s eyes narrowed with the comment. Her eyes turned back out the door. “If you won’t tell me...” She kicked the door open and yelled out into the camp. “UNDERHOOF! GET IN HERE!”

A slow, cautious set of hoofsteps approached the doorway, the brown figure of Underhoof poking in slowly.

“Underhoof, I did charge you with keeping an eye on Onyx, didn’t I?”

“You did, ma’am.” He stood, his head held up, the rest of his body remaining stiff and rigid. His voice trembled slightly, seeming to have only just caught his breath again.

“Then tell me what you found on your cartography mission. Onyx went out to map the forest and she came back here faster than most new Starlit.”

“Yes ma’am. We were searching through the forest when we found an encampment in another clearing in the forest. We saw several unicorns there, all of them infusing their magic into a large, white orb in the center.”

“Did they have any markings on them, unusual features that you recognized?”

“A sliver of all of their horns were painted black, the rest of it white.”

“That’s enough to tell me exactly who you encountered, Underhoof. What happened?”

Underhoof remained silent for several seconds. “I got too close and they spotted me. They were getting ready to pursue, then Onyx flew in and stole one of their relics. They chased her instead until we lost them,” he thought to himself, playing out the conversation in his head before actually beginning it. He knew there was no way this would end well, but it didn't matter. He took a deep breath.

“I-”

“They had this little bracelet. Looked enchanted, so I decided to take it. Besides... I think I look good in silver.” Onyx turned to the unicorn stallion and winked with a smirk on her face.

The older mare examined the two of them closely, her attention fixing on the pegasus filly’s face, then turning back to the older unicorn stallion. Brazier turned away and reached toward the back of the wagon, pushing a chest over toward the pegasus filly. She kicked it open to reveal a steel bracelet, a slot on the other side with an empty hole and a peg. Beneath it were three blades, each of them the length of an adult pony’s foreleg, a hole on the blunt end, and next to each hole the following labels engraved into each of them: “Chalybs,” “Ferrum,” and “Argentum.” Onyx looked between the box’s contents, then up to Brazier, then back at the box.

“Isn’t this a Loyalty’s Blade?”

“That it is.”

“Don’t you normally give those to Starlit pegasi that are ready for combat?”

“And you aren’t?”

Onyx’s confused look was plastered to her face at this point. Brazier turned over to Underhoof, then back at the pegasus filly.

“You just spied on, stole from, and alerted our most dangerous enemies to our presence. You’ve made quite the mess, so I have to ask... Are you ready to clean it up?”

****

Onyx pulled out the steel ring for the Blade. She opened it, then clamped it snugly just below the middle joint of her right foreleg. With her other leg, she searched the bottom of the saddle bag, bending her hoof so her skin touched the bottom. She felt the cold touch of metal, then slid her skin down the surface. “Which one’s this... F-E- Ah, perfect.” She produced a blade from the bag, a hole notched in the top with the word “Ferrum” engraved on the blade’s surface.

“Pure iron, though it has spent a lot of time in a forge. The effect is diminished a little bit, but that just means it won’t kill him as quickly. It should work fine against our target.” She slide the hole of the blade into the slot on the ring, sliding the peg into place, a click locking the blade into the ring’s slot. Onyx held the weapon aloft, the blade half a foot beyond her hoof. The sun had dissolved into the horizon, and the pegasus mare pulled the hood of her cloak over her head. She stared intently at the Destiny Carriage, waiting for Caprice to leave it for just a moment.

Several hours passed by, and through each of them Onyx maintained her rooftop vigil. A loud THUD sounded in the distance, briefly grabbing the pegasus’ attention, turning toward the remnants of the Salt Block, seeing the same intoxicated imbecile being kicked out. She rolled her eyes at the display.

“Figures.” She attempted to return to her watch over the carriage, but immediately noticed the drunkard shambling his way toward the dwelling of the creature she’d been waiting for. She grimaced for a moment and crouched down. “On one hand, he’ll most certainly draw him out into the open for just a moment... On the other, the stupid bastard’s about to cut a deal with a Fae. This isn’t going to end well... Wonder what he’s going to ask fo-”

“HEY! MIS’ER CAPRICE! MAKE THE PERDY PEGASUSUSESS LIKE ME!” The salt-cached drunkard slammed his hooves against the doorway of the carriage repeatedly while leaning on it for support. During this egregious display of desperation, Onyx’s hoof made contact with her face and slid down the center.

“...That didn’t take long.”

The door to the carriage opened outward, knocking the drunkard off balance, then immediately onto his rear. The tan-coated and green-maned Caprice walked down the carriage and looked down upon the drunkard.

“You called upon me?”

Onyx saw her chance. He was right where she needed him to be. She crouched back, readying herself to dive off the rooftop. The two continued their dialogue, apparently ignorant of her presence above.

“I wan’ you t’ make the perdy pegasusessess t' like me.”

“What is your name?”

Panic suddenly gripped Onyx’s body as soon as Caprice said those four words. No time was to be wasted anymore. She heard the voice of the drunkard speaking, though it immediately became indistinct in the rush of adrenaline. She launched herself from the eaves toward her target. Caprice turned and smiled at her. In the nanoseconds between the impact of Onyx’s blade and the Fae, the drunkard stood, his body rising up in the path between the pegasus and her target. Onyx slammed into the drunkard and crashed into the ground.

“That couldn’t have happened at a worse time...” She quickly got back up on her hooves, taking another swing of her blade at Caprice, his unicorn face grinning widely as the drunkard wobbled for a few seconds, then fell on top of her just as she swung. Onyx growled to herself in frustration.

“Okay, now it’s painfully clear that Caprice has the idiot’s name... He’s fighting me with flukes and coincidences.” She tossed the drunkard’s body to the side, holding her blade and standing still. “He’s going to keep doing that... Every time I go for him, he’ll use this imbecile to block me off.”

“You know, Starlit assassin, I’ll give you some free advice: quit now. You’re not just trying to stab my throat from above anymore, now you’re fighting Fate itself. And don’t bother asking how I know you’re Starlit, only two kinds of ponies use pure iron weapons: Idiots and Starlit, and frankly, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Onyx grit her teeth for a second, then her lips twisted up into a wicked smile. “You may be wrong about the idiot part...”

“Oh? How so?”

“Because I’m not fighting my fate...” She held out the blade, the drunkard stumbling toward her. Onyx charged toward Caprice, the Fae grinning as he made the brown pony stumble into the pegasus’ way. However, she quickly crouched down, spun, and held the blade-hoof aloft, the iron piercing through the drunkard’s chest. He looked up at Onyx and barely sputtered out “Why” before blood dribbled down his lips. Caprice stared blankly at Onyx for several seconds, then his blank expression broke out into a chuckle.

“Ohohoho... How predictably cold of you.”

Onyx remained stone-faced and silent, twisting the blade in the chest of the stallion who was the Fae’s instrument earlier.

“You really don’t appreciate the intimacy and the beauty of taking a life like we do... See, the fates of ponies are a lot like vines in bramble,” Caprice jeered at Onyx. She tried to pull her weapon out of the body, though the blade refused to budge.

“Horseapples... It’s stuck in the moron’s sternum... I won’t even ask how that happened.” She felt something around her foreleg, a prickling, stinging sensation poking in a spiral all the way down its length.

“And when one individual takes the life of another, the two fates intertwine in the moments before one of them just stops...” Onyx seized up, parts of her foreleg suddenly bleeding while it seized up. She was unable to move while some unseen force gripped her tightly and pierced her flesh.

“Now hold still...” Caprice’s grin extended, revealing rows of dagger-sharp teeth. His eyes briefly flashed into a strange collection of numerous yellow irises looking straight at her. “This might hurt... A lot.”

The unseen force suddenly hurled Onyx and the dead body her blade was lodged in straight into a nearby building. She crashed through one of the wooden pillars, shattering it into pieces. The pegasus mare grunted in pain, though wasn’t given enough time to even finish it before she was thrown into Caprice’s Destiny Carriage, then slammed into the ground over and over. Her coat was soaked in her own blood by this point, the holes that tore into her skin getting larger with each successive blow into the ground that would follow. Caprice’s face twisted into a demented grin, his head moving in time with each time Onyx slammed into the ground, a cloud of dust being kicked up and obscuring the landscape.

The final blow made was accompanied with a crack, along with the wounds on Onyx’s foreleg sputtering out blood that soaked into the sand underneath her. Onyx’s vision dulled as she attempted to pull herself up from the blows. The constriction around her foreleg that she experienced earlier had disappeared, but every attempt to move her body was met only with an intense pain, each of her breaths short and labored. Caprice approached her slowly, snickering to himself as he saw the broken pegasus’ titanic endeavor of moving her right foreleg away from the corpse. Her face fell as she saw that all that remained of the iron blade in her weapon was nub barely longer than a thimble, the rest of it broken off and lodged into the cadaver she was stuck on.

“It seems only fair. You break my weapon, and I break yours.” Caprice bent down to Onyx, making eye contact with her barely mobile form. He opened his mouth wide, his dagger teeth bared at her while he spoke. “Normally I wouldn’t resort to anything so crude, but since I don’t know your name, my solution to this problem will have to be most... Inelegant. Goodbye, Starli-” Suddenly, he was cut off mid-sentence by a large object that flew past his face. A blunt, heavy object coated in a magenta light slammed past his horn, breaking half of it off of his head, the hat he wore being sent flying off in the distance. Caprice fell over on the ground, screaming in pain as the piece of his horn that ripped off suddenly disintegrated into a pile of ash.

The mask of a normal unicorn had flickered and finally disappeared, revealing a dark green chitin that divided into armor-like sections across his face, and a set of thorny vines, not unlike a rosebush branch, that wrapped its way from where the horn was down the creature’s neck chitinous neck. The jaw remained open, no lips above the pointed teeth as the pained screams escaped his throat. When he finally silenced himself, Caprice scrambled onto his feet. His eyes, appearing to have countless tiny, yellow irises that moved independently of one another, turned over to the direction the object came from.

The magenta-lit object flew back in the direction it came from, the glow fading away as it dropped to the ground, revealing it to be a “Hammer,” that is to say, it looked like a handle that had been jammed into a faintly lustrous rock. Given the fact that it actually hurt Caprice, it was safe to assume that the rock was made of pure iron. Peering into the distance, he saw the figure of a unicorn, her coat a lavender and her violet hair cut in a straight line.

“Twilight Sparkle... I should have suspected as much.”

Twilight stopped in place as she made eye contact with the creature, standing her ground despite the Fae showing his true visage.

“Don’t get any bright ideas about turning my luck sour... It doesn’t take much to launch this hunk of metal at you.” She began her approach as she spoke to the creature once more. “You already know my name, so it seems there’s something we need to discuss.”

"Stare into the Face of Fate."
(Picture drawn and colored by Tzelael)

Twisted Promises

Twilight had just left the blacksmith shop after having brought iron ore to be crafted. She left with a crude, barely crafted weapon that cost her three bits: a hammer, though that was a generous term for it, since it was really more of a steel pike jammed into one of the iron ore chunks. Still, the Fae were weak against iron, and the purer it was, the better. This was about as pure as it got, as much as it was just a rock on a stick. She held up her hooves, seeing Braeburn on the street.

“Miss Sparkle! Is something the matter?”

“Braeburn! You should get everypony out of the town now!”

“Er, why?”

“Just take my word for it, as an Element of Harmony?”

“Um...”

“As Applejack’s friend?”

Braeburn stared for a few moments at the unicorn magician in front of him. In the next second, screams rang out from the Salt Block as it suddenly caught fire. Braeburn simply nodded slowly, complying to her wishes. He rushed toward the buildings and shouted to everyone in town.

“Come on, everypony! We’ve got to get out of the town! A few of us will stay back to put out the fire!”

Twilight spotted the inn and the salt-cached drunkard pounding on the carriage that Caprice rode in on. The ponies that pulled it were gone, as were most ponies from the square in front of the inn. While the drunkard pounded the door and screamed indistinctly, Twilight hid behind a crate, peeking over it every so often. Caprice stepped out, and in the split seconds after they started talking, a dark figure shot from the rooftop, though tumbling across the ground when it hit the drunkard.

“Onyx?” Catching a glimpse beneath the hood as she swung about, bumping into the drunkard again in an attempt to strike at Caprice, she saw the navy blue coat and bits of the sky-blue hair. “Definitely her... But what’s she doing out-” Suddenly, she saw the pegasus charge at the Fae in disguise, duck, spin, then impale the drunkard instead. Twilight’s eyes widened, her jaw slacking and hanging limp as Caprice seemed to turn to her and grin... Though she was too far away to see, right?

“Did Onyx just stab somepony in the chest...? I mean, I think it was that same stallion who was flirting with her, but she wouldn’t just kill somepony because he was annoying her.” Truth of the matter was that Twilight wasn’t sure what to think, though the Princess’ apprehension about the actions of the Starlit certainly came to mind while watching this. Her musings on the fact that she just watched somepony get brutally murdered in front of her were interrupted by a loud CRASH as both Onyx and the dead body her blade was attached to flew into a wooden pillar holding up the inn, then flew into the carriage, then slammed into the ground over and over.

Twilight saw a moment in which she had to act. She shut her eyes and concentrated heavily, her horn shining with a bright magenta light, and from her bag rose the iron hammer. She opened her eyes and stared right where she wanted the hammer to fly- right through Caprice’s horn. The hammer ripped through the air, smashing through the Fae’s horn, knocking it down while shrieks of agony howled from his mouth. Twilight took a deep breath and began to walk toward the creature. When it rose up, its appearance changed to its insectoid visage, its yellow eyes within its eyes locking on Twilight herself.

“That thing... Is a Faerie?” Twilight gulped, choking back her disgust. She took a deep breath before approaching the creature, hardening her stare, trying to keep her composure. Her violet eyes stared straight ahead, breathing in and out through her nose. The creature’s eye contact- or numerous eye contacts- pierced into her while the creature spoke, a rustle in the back of his voice that scratched the air that it traveled through to get to her.

“Twilight Sparkle... I should have suspected as much.”

“Don’t get any bright ideas about turning my luck sour... It doesn’t take much to launch this hunk of metal at you.” With her back left leg, she roughly drew an “X” on the ground near the hammer. When she finished, she started walking toward the creature again, keeping her eye contact locked with her adversary.

“You already know my name, so it seems there’s something we need to discuss.”

The Faerie’s disguise fell apart, its true form completely exposed. It seemed to walk on bladed spikes rather than hooves, its body covered in a dark green, armor-like carapace and wrapped around by thorny rosebush bramble, though with none of the flowers that would be included. The speculation of this creature’s relationship with Changelings seemed to be justified then and there, since while Changelings were vaguely insect-like, this creature was far more so, taking on an appearance not unlike a Praying Mantis and only vaguely equine.

“I’m assuming this discussion is going to involve determining which part of my body that hammer is going to smash through?”

“I haven’t decided on that yet,” Twilight remarked simply, stopping her approach just a few feet in front of Caprice. Onyx groaned as she tried to turn up to her compatriot before she started speaking again. “Actually, I wanted to cut a deal.”

Even with her dark blue coat, Twilight could clearly see Onyx’s skin blanche at the very idea of her making a contract with the treacherous Faerie, gasping out a “WHAT?!” as soon as the previous sentence was finished. Twilight ignored her comrade, maintaining eye contact with Caprice, who, despite the nature of his appearance, she could almost see his face light up at the prospect of making a contract with her.

“Is that so...? Well, I trust you already know procedure for a Fae Contract.”

“Yes. I must state exactly what I want out of the contract in as precise terms as possible.”

“Correction: You must first tell me your name, THEN state exactly what it is that you want in as precise terms as possible.”

She took a deep breath. Twilight had spent a great deal of time considering the exact terms of the contract that she would make with this creature, going through it over and over in her head to make sure she didn’t miss anything and covered all of her bases. Onyx, however, did not see the situation in that way and berated her comrade in a raspy, labored voice.

“Are you crazy?! You know what happens to ponies who make contracts with Fae! He’s going to-” Onyx was silenced when the creature slammed its back left leg into her face, a hiss rattling in the back of his throat as he turned to her.

“Shut it, little foal. Can’t you see the grown-ups are talking?” Caprice turned back to Twilight, his tone of voice suddenly calming down, the creature taking on the voice of a seasoned businesspony. “Now... What are your terms?”

“I, Twilight Sparkle, submit to you the terms of this Contract: You are to walk with me for 30 minutes, never to exceed more than six feet away from me and to follow my movements exactly. In that time, you are not to act upon other contracts that you have made except the one you’re in with me, whether it’s completing another contract or causing one on another pony to backfire. In the 30 minutes that you are with me, you will answer every question I ask of you honestly and completely to the absolute best of your knowledge. When I ask for you to abbreviate your answer or summarize it, you are to do so in a clear, concise fashion that includes relevant, important details in a similarly abridged manner.” Twilight closed the contract there, Onyx’s eyes widening as she heard the terms just stop. The broken pegasus mare desperately tried to rasp out the word “Price,” though was interrupted by sputtering coughs that sent drops of blood splattering into the sand only to be soaked into it.

“Agreed,” Caprice replied, suddenly adjusting his position to be exactly six feet away from Twilight’s body. “Admittedly, this has to be one of the most specific contracts I’ve had in a long, long time... I daresay you play this like a professional.”

Twilight said nothing, turning around and walking away from Onyx. When she did, Caprice shifted slightly, facing the exact direction that Twilight did, and when she walked, he did so at precisely the same pace.

“Seems to be working so far. He’s following the directions of the contract to the letter.” Twilight took a deep breath and took full charge of the contract, beginning with her first question.

“Are you the only Fae left?”

“No. There are others who are in hiding, as I was along with them until recently,” Caprice responded with such immediacy as though the reply was reflexive, rather than considered at any time.

“What brought you out of hiding?”

“A contract was made with me by the descendant of some very old clients of mine.”

“Does this contract have anything to do with the insurrections that have been caused throughout the Equestrian border?”

“It is the very reason they occurred.”

“Tell me the exact wording of this contract.”

Suddenly, Caprice spoke in a female voice, one with a dignified, regal melody. The voice he borrowed was clearly already familiar with the decorum and formality associated with a Fae Contract and spoke as though she knew exactly what she was getting into.

“I, Argent Terne, submit to you the terms of this contract: You are to cut off communication to the outside world to all outlying small towns on the border of Equestria, then cause enough unrest for them to attack Royal Officials. Do so in a pattern that would gain the attention of the Starlit.”

Twilight was taken aback by the rapid change in the creature’s speech, not only by the fact that it so perfectly imitated a female voice, but the voice sounded strangely familiar. “Who is Argent Terne?”

Caprice quickly switched back to his male voice, the rustling hiss behind his throat ripping with his speech. “Current leader of the Sisterhood of the Night, the Scion of the Gibbous Moon. I’m surprised your Starlit Masters have yet to tell you anything about her or the Sisterhood of the Night.” His voice dripped with condescension in the sense that, if he had lips, they'd be twisting into a smirk by now. Twilight's brow furrowed momentarily, but she immediately took her mind off of the fact that the Starlit didn't tell her anything and focused on the task at hand.

“Why do they want you to keep our attention?”

“They’re looking for something and wished to buy time in order to find it.”

“What is it that they’re looking for?”

“They did not tell me.”

Twilight furrowed her brow, breathing quickly through her nose as she kept walking, keeping an eye out for the “X” she drew on the ground earlier. In the meantime, she ran her thoughts through the answers she was given.

“I should probably just end the interrogation here and now. It’s clear now that he was only here to keep us distracted, and all the insurrections everywhere else are just the symptom of something worse... Whatever that is.” The creature began to speak again while he followed Twilight, his pace slowing along with hers as she got lost in thought.

“If it isn’t out of place for me to say so, perhaps there are some seedier secrets you’d like to know. I am Fae, and I am several thousand years old... I possess knowledge and secrets that you couldn’t hope to discover anywhere else.” The numerous eyes within its eyes quivered for just a second, then each of the pupils dilated at different intervals while the lids steadily narrowed around them. Twilight cringed at the sight, though looked straight into each of the little eyes and stood her ground, stopping the pace.

“The knowledge of a supernatural being that’s lived for thousands of years...? And the contract makes it clear that it’s all there for the asking... Oh, what do I want to know? So hard to-” Suddenly, a bolt of rationality and logic strikes her from the blue. “NO! This is exactly the kind of trick he was sent here to do! He’s deliberately trying to waste your time so the Contract runs out before you realize it...

“Still, this is a good opportunity to gather intelligence, and as long as I manage my time wisely, I should be able to get enough relevant information that the others can use. I’d need to be sure to ask things that wouldn’t be simpler for the Starlit to answer, though. I still need to take advantage of the ‘Hidden Knowledge’ part of his offer.” She carefully thought of the sort of information concerning a Faerie that would be useful and that she didn’t already know. Well, a Faerie that had connections to a group of people that evidently had a history with the Starlit.

“Can a Fae Contract be broken?” Twilight finally asked, a grin on her face as the words left her mouth.

“To this day, there are none who ever did. However, I would not discount the possibility of the Fae Contract being broken, but it would take a magical force too great for any one pony to harness.”

“Great. Apparently, anyone who gets enhancements from these contracts had a pretty secure source of power. Wait...” She was hit with another stroke of inspiration, asking a different question. She gulped for a moment before she finally formed the words in her mouth, realizing that this is exactly the kind of question that would take too long to answer in a reasonable amount of time and would likely eat up the rest of the time on the contract, but it was something she had to know.

“How exactly does a Fae Contract work after it’s made? I mean, how is it accomplished?” She braced herself for a very long explanation, trotting along while swerving her head back and forth. The creature’s voice scratched through the air, something almost involuntary about the way the words poured out of his mouth in response.

“To properly explain how a Fae Contract works, you must understand the nature of the flow of time. All of-”

“Summarize.”

Caprice suddenly stopped, the torrent of his speech held back only temporarily before it came out as something else, bursting out with all of the volume of an old dam breaching.

“Think of all of Time, Space and the Fate of sentient life forms as an enormous Bramble, with infinite vines and branches twisting, turning and wrapping around others, all the while continually growing and moving forward until they are either cut off or simply stop growing.”

“So the universe is just a big rosebush.”

“It is how all Fae conceptualize the universe. When a Fae is performing the terms of a contract that requires alterations to their circumstances, we reach into lower parts of the Bramble and shift the vines and branches in such a way that produces the desired result.”

“Wait... Are you saying you reach back in time and change the past?”

“Correct.”

“But... Changing the past is impossible! Even if you did go back in time and try to change something, everything would end up going the same way it did before, creating a causality loop! That’s why time spells have a limit as to how long one can travel back, so you’re not stuck IN the loop!”

“You’re half right. For a pony, changing the past is impossible. A Faerie, like myself, however, knows exactly what changes that we make to the past will result in. Ponies will fumble around and either get caught in those... ‘Causailty loops’ as you call them, or change nothing at all.”

“Then how do Fae manage to do it?” Twilight stopped, staring at Caprice straight in the eyes with her hooves planted firmly in the ground. The creature stopped in suit, the thorny vines slowly uncoiling themselves from his body.

“We reach back into the past and change small aspects of circumstances leading up to the current situation. Our magic allows us to change these small things, such as the arrangement of certain objects, the intensity of sunlight, where the clouds are in the sky, even the sturdiness of certain building materials.” Caprice’s vines slither downward, sprawling out on the ground beneath Twilight’s hooves.

“Of course, these are such small changes that no pony would ever notice them. Once the changes are made, they’re ingrained into the Bramble, treated by the rest of the universe as if they were meant to be.” The vines suddenly lashed at Twilight, wrapping around her body while the thorns punctured her flesh. She widened her eyes in shock as she’s lifted off the ground, one of the branches sliding up her torso and wrapping around her neck.

“And you, too shall meet your fate, Twilight Sparkle...” Caprice remained still, though the vines tightened around her while blood dripped from her body, soaking into the sand below.

“Great... I didn’t know about the vines until now.” Twilight groaned in pain, though she stared at the creature straight on as she simply allowed herself to be held in place. “He still needs to mimic my movements perfectly, so as long as I stand still, he’s not going anywhere.” Caprice, meanwhile, maintained eye contact with the unicorn before him.

“Come now, you’re not even making this fun for me. Go on, struggle, beg for your miserable life, say that this wasn’t part of the deal!”

“I... I...” Twilight barely managed to gasp out the word with the thorny branches tightening around her neck.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you, could you try that again?” The Fae’s bramble loosened its grip on her throat, Twilight staring at the creature straight in the eyes.

“I said... I warned you about getting any bright ideas about turning my luck sour.” Her horn shimmered with a violet light, Caprice’s pupils shrinking. In the distance, the air was torn asunder by the rapid approach of an object from behind the creature. The Faerie turned around to catch a glimpse of the object approaching him, seeing the very same iron hammer that tore his horn off heading straight for his head.

The iron hammer rammed into Caprice’s head, a loud sizzling noise accompanying his shrieks of agony. The area of impact cracked, extending black tears across the green carapace while the hammer ran its way through the Faerie’s head. A trail of ash blew behind the hammer from each part of the creature that it touched, finally bursting out the other end of Caprice’s face. The magenta glow faded around both it and Twilight’s horn, the hammer falling to the ground.

Caprice’s body quickly blackened, the cracks from the area of impact spreading outward while the carapace withered away. The vines that held Twilight aloft simply snapped, the unicorn crashing to the ground. She lifted herself up and watched the creature’s body dry up. Its limbs cracked and curled into themselves, each snap of the blackening chitin sending shivers up the unicorn’s spine.

She stared at the withered husk- the most appropriate term she could think of for it- for several moments. She had little time to linger as she heard hoofsteps in the distance, then dashed back toward the inn, finding the bloodied mess of Onyx crawling about on the ground. She grinned despite her injuries, giving dry heaves of coughs.

“What took you?” she wheezed as she rolled on her side. Twilight didn’t bother to answer, reaching her hoof to touch the wounded pegasus’ shoulder. Closing her eyes, she focused her magic, her horn glowing a bright magenta before the two were engulfed in a flash of light, appearing in their room at the inn the very next moment.

****

Looking outside, Twilight saw the crowd of ponies gathering around the town square, finding their town drunk stabbed through the chest, a withered bundle of bramble down the road, and the stallion with the destiny carriage nowhere to be found. It wouldn’t be long before the town grew suspicious and attempted an investigation.

“Hold still.” Twilight pulled off Onyx’s cloak, tearing it into strips and using her magic to wrap it around the pegasus’ numerous wounds while levitating her above the bed. Twilight set her down, the pegasus holding up her hoof after she was set down.

“Kid... That was some really stupid horse shit you pulled back there.” Onyx coughed out something that almost sounded like a giggle. “At least you got the creep. Speaking of which... Did you get anything good from him?” Twilight stared at Onyx with unease, the image of her stabbing the drunkard flashing back to her immediately. She swallowed for a moment and shut her eyes, trying to shut out both the image of what her cohort did, and the crackling noise of Caprice shriveling up in front of her that echoed in the back of her mind. She took a deep breath and turned back to Onyx, making eye contact as she replied.

“Yeah... I’ll tell you what I found out.”

Prologue- A Belated Invitation

The city of Canterlot puffed out clouds of smoke, many of the buildings damaged or even destroyed. Around each of the holes were workhorses on scaffolds repairing the damage from a battle that had occurred earlier with a massive army that was, thankfully, driven away by an event that was nothing short of miraculous. From a balcony on the palace, Princess Celestia surveyed her fair capital city, musing to herself over the ruined buildings and all the ponies laboring to put them back in working order. She sighed and shook her head, her luminescent hair rippling behind her as her eyes closed.

“What a mess...” She heaved a sigh from her chest as she turned around. She then stopped abruptly when a voice spoke to her from the end of the room.

“Yes, Princess... A mess that could have been avoided.”

Celestia narrowed her eyes at the voice’s source, a stallion standing behind the door in the shadows, grimacing at the familiarity of the smug tone that accompanied the declaration. She slowly trotted toward the figure, raising her head to be sure she was looking down upon him. She swallowed as she approached the stallion by the door, as though choking down the dread of this eventual meeting.

“I had a feeling you’d stop by to gloat,” Celestia said with a distaste that was seldom heard from her when she addressed anyone. “I hope that’s not the only reason you’re here, or else I might have to alert-”

“The guards? You know they wouldn’t catch me.”

“... The cleaning staff. There’d be quite a mess in here if you only came to brag.”

The stallion grunted at the comment, lifting a hoof and waving it defensively in front of him. “Fair enough, Princess... But no, I didn’t just come here to remind you that you need us and our services, or that sending us away was a stupid i-”

Celestia grit her teeth and spoke in the middle of his sentence, an uncharacteristic snapping quality to her voice as she spoke. “Get to the point.”

The stallion stopped when she spoke, clearing his throat and leaning back into the shadows as he started to speak again. “Ahem... This is about the recruit.”

“And how many times have I told you ‘No’...?”

“I think you know that things are different now.” He then pulled out an apple and took a loud CRUNCH out of it, chewing it for a few moments, then swallowing. “You saw what happened when you told her to use the Elements of Harmony. She was stopped by a crowd of giant shape-shifting flies, for goodness’ sake... Good thing that her brother and Princess Cadence actually loved each other, or we’d be in trouble.”

Celestia looked down and away, her stomach seeming to climb to the top of her throat. She knew he was right. The corners of her lips sank downward as her eyes closed, considering what he said for a moment.

“Even you have to admit now that she’s going to need more than the Elements of Harmony to deal with what’s to come... She’s going to need proper training, proper teaching, the kind that she can’t get at magic schools... The kind she’ll get with us.” The stallion continued driving his point home, irritation lining his voice as though having said the same thing over and over again, not to mention the slightest exhaustion of having to speak in such extensive sentences. Celestia sighed heavily, her eyes running up and down the stallion.

“Very well... I shall... Make her aware of your offer.”

“Good. You wo-”

“BUT. It will be with a few conditions attached to it.”

The stallion dropped the apple and stared at Celestia for a moment or two. “What?! What conditions are those?!”

Celestia walked toward the balcony. “You’ll know when she gets to you. I believe that concludes our meeting... You can go now.”

The stallion silenced himself... He picked up the apple and bowed before the Princess, concealing a grimace on his face, as though having to settle for a snack when he was looking for a feast. He turned for the door and slammed it behind him.

In the meantime, Celestia used her magic to bring a quill and parchment over to her, dipping the quill in Ink and writing across it...

“Dear Twilight Sparkle, My Most Faithful Student...”